Page 13 of Good Duke Gone Wild

“Safe travels,” Agatha wiggled her fingers at him as though she couldn’t care less if he left. But as he turned toward the door, she felt a yank on her heart. Almost as if a thick corded rope was tied around her chest and he was the anchor attached to the other end. Foolishness, that.

She was not the type to swoon over a man. Yes, she had been placed in awkward situations before; namely when her mother forced her to wear a certain color of gown to attract attention from a duke because it had been his favorite color. Obviously everyone knew how that had turned out. She had looked the fool, and he had found true love. In someone not so foolish as to believe that the color of her gown could sway a man’s heart. Good for him. One day it would be her turn. Thatday was not today. Even if she had just experienced her first kiss, and it had been slightly more earth-shattering than she expected, she knew it meant nothing to him.

Besides, he was drunk. How earth-shattering could a drunken kiss really be?

“What the devil is going on in here?” a deep voice bellowed.

Drat!

Her Uncle Bernard blew into the room.

“Nothing,” Clara and Agatha both squeaked out.

“I demand an explanation, Cap–”

“Nothing is going on here,” Jude interrupted.

“What are you doing in here with two impressionable young women?”

Jude scoffed, assumedly at the word impressionable given what just happened.

“Don’t you dare give me that attitude. I asked a question. And I require an answer.”

Agatha had never seen her uncle’s ire, had never seen less than a neutral expression on his face. He wasn’t over jolly per se, but he was always in a good mood. Obviously seeing his two nieces with a gentleman would prompt questions, but at least the two of them were together. He shouldn’t be so upset.

“Don’t worry, Bernard. I was just leaving. I’ll be on my way. For the last time.” He cast a withering glance at her uncle, but he didn’t so much as blink. “And then you’ll never have to see me again.”

Uncle Bernard grunted a semblance of a response, and then Jude made his escape.

Without so much as a goodbye.

Agatha’s heart flipped and dropped to the ground with a thud. She shouldn’t feel that way. What did she expect though, a goodbye kiss?

“Once he sets sail, he’ll be gone. And I don’t want to see you in the company of that man again.”

“Sets sail?”

“He’s a bloody privateer.”

“A…a what?” Thrown by her uncle’s expletive, she wasn’t sure she heard him correctly. Jude was a privateer? That couldn’t be right. He would have told her. Or corrected her at least one of the times she insisted he was a pirate. God, she felt like a ninny.

“Damn it, Agatha. If you ever chose to heed some advice from me, let it be this. Do not see that man again.”

“He’s a real pirate?” Her mouth was fumbling around the words. And the concept.

“He’s a privateer. Didn’t I just say that?” Uncle Bernard gripped his jacket too tightly.

“Why are you so upset, Uncle?”

At that, he moved toward her and placed his hands on her shoulder. “Just please promise me that you will stay away from him.”

“But—”

“Don’t make me involve your mother, Agatha.”

Her spine stiffened. Uncle Bernard had always been the reasonable one. Had always been someone she could trust, count on, and confide in. And she had always felt that way because he had taken her side against her mother, his own sister. But this was new territory. And if only he had been willing to explain it, she might not have made the decision she made next.

But he hadn’t explained it at all. Not all of it, not a portion of it, not even a smidgeon of it. He had just warned her off of him.

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