Never Trust a Pirate by Anne Stuart

“Only if you paid me.”
    “I thought you said you’d given that up. How about I pay you not to?”
    Wart laughed. “I miss the old days, I do. We were a devilish pair around here, weren’t we? No pocket was safe. Too bad you couldn’t run as fast you could talk.”
    Luca shrugged. “It all worked out for the best. We both know it’s a waste of time to think about ‘what ifs.’ Do you want to hear about this woman or are we going to keep talking about the good old days of sodomy for hire?”
    Wart grinned at him. He still looked like a boy in the dim light of the Dials, a very bad boy. “You think I’m going to weep over it? We did what we had to do to survive, neither of us are squeamish, and we don’t complain. Unless you developed a taste for it?”
    “Sod off,” Luca said amiably.
    “Tell me about the woman then. What do you need from me? I can always kidnap and tie her down for you, but if I remember rightly you were never much for rape.”
    “No,” he said shortly. Not when he’d had to endure it himself. He’d take no one by force. Of course, despite Wart’s jibes he had little doubt he could talk anyone he wanted into his bed, including his lying maidservant.
    And that was definitely where he wanted her. Soft and naked beneath him. Though she wouldn’t be a sweet, gentle fuck. There was something about her, something beneath her meek exterior that was so fiery that he expected she’d almost be able to keep up with his unexpectedly fierce hunger for her.
    “There’s a young woman who’s just come to work for me down in Devonport,” he said, leaning against the broken wagon with a complete disregard for the state of his clothes. “She calls herself Mary Greaves, and she’s been hired as a maidservant. Recommended by one of my solicitors, Matthew Fulton. But she’s not who she says she is. She tries for a Northern accent but half the time she sounds like Mayfair.”
    “That’s what comes from soft living, me boy,” Wart said with a contemptuous sniff that was only half playful. “Maidservants and solicitors! Next thing we know you’ll be getting leg shackled to some virgin and making up to the bloody queen.”
    “Victoria’s not my type,” he said, deliberately not mentioning Gwendolyn. Indeed, he was beginning to wonder why’d he’d thought respectability had been such a good idea.
    “Maybe the girl saw you on the street and followed you home for your beautiful eyes?”
    “And who could blame her?” Luca retorted. “But no, it’s something else. I need to find out who she is and what she’s doing in my house. She’s not trying to seduce me, more’s the pity, so we can rule that out.”
    “Might be part of a gang of thieves. We’ve done that in our time—gone in as climbing boys, checked out the lay of the land, so to speak, and passed along the information for a cut of the proceeds. She might be running the same game.”
    “It’s possible. But then, why would she have a more cultured voice than she’s showing? And it would take an educated eye to find the things of value in my house. They’re not your ordinary booty—not much silver or fancy china. It’s in books and artifacts from distant countries that most people wouldn’t even recognize.”
    “But you said she sounds like she’s from the upper classes. She’s the type most likely to recognize rare things.”
    “Maybe,” he said doubtfully. “But I don’t think that’s it. I’ve seen her before, I know it. I just can’t place her.”
    “Never tell me you’ve been pining after some unattainable goddess all these years!” Wart begged.
    “Hardly. She’s not a goddess, though I admit she’s beautiful. But then, beauty’s an easy commodity. And no one is unattainable.”
    Wart laughed. “Tell me what she looks like. Mebbe that will jog your memory.”
    “Brown hair. Very dark, long and curling.”
    “Every woman has long hair,” Wart scoffed. “Tell me something I wouldn’t know. And when did