Chapter Fourteen
HOW DARE YOU KISS me?” Jack snarled. “If you do that again, I’ll do more than try to bloody your nose.” She pulled away from him, able to do so because he’d loosened his grip on her hands.
But all he said was “If you keep hurting yourself on me, I’m going to have to restrain you again.”
“It’s the only way you’re going to be safe. Go ahead and tie me up. It’s no more’n I expect from a bloody pirate.” She quickly turned her back on him because she didn’t want him to see her rubbing her hand. Her knuckles were red, but no bones were broken.
He laughed. “I’m not worried about myself. Give it up, Jack. I’ve seen you soft and flirtatious. You liked me.”
That ridiculous remark made her swing about. He was standing behind his desk.
“Not you, fool! The mystery was all I liked that night. It’s what I expected from a masked ball and was disappointed that my beaus ruined that for me.”
“You mentioned that.”
“Yes, I did, so you should know that you merely supplied the mystery that was missing. I appreciated that. If you mistook that for ‘liking’ you, you’re dead wrong.”
“Yet you showed up at the park to meet me the next day. It’s too bad you didn’t come alone.” Then he sounded a little more than curious, almost indignant on her behalf, when he asked, “What could your father have been thinking, letting bruisers like that escort you? A dozen footmen wouldn’t have drawn as much notice as those four and would have been just as protective.”
“It worked to frighten you off, didn’t it?” she shot back with a smirk.
“I wasn’t frightened, Jack. I do lean on the side of caution though, and I like my face the way it is. It would have been quite a fight and would have served no purpose other than to let you ride off without me.”
She snorted. “You wouldn’t have won. Those four are longtime sparring partners of my father’s—when his brother Tony isn’t around to accommodate him in the ring. And answer me. Did you have my guards killed?”
“No, but detained, yes. All of the men you brought along tonight will be released after my . . . suggestion is delivered to your father. I’m not taking chances this time. I’m letting a full week pass before your father is informed that I have you and he comes after us.”
“Not if you left it to the posts again.”
“I didn’t,” he said a little smugly. “I left a trusted man behind to see to it.”
A full week? Her mother was going to be out of her mind by then!
“I hate you!”
“I’m aware of that.”
“You have no idea what you’ve—I should have shot you while I had the chance!”
“I agree, though it might not have accomplished all that you hoped for.”
“But your blood all over the room would most certainly have been a pretty sight.”
“Or no blood at all depending on what you aimed at.” He began to remove metal plates from inside his shirt.
She stared at him incredulously. It was laughable, that he’d taken a precaution like that. No wonder her hand hurt so much!
“This was an all-or-nothing plan, wasn’t it?” she demanded. “Telling me you were sailing tonight. Would you have sailed if I didn’t show up?”
“No.”
“But you played your final card in that last note, implying that you wouldn’t return to England if I didn’t see you off. What would you have done next? Wait a few days and then say you returned to England anyway?”
“I would have thought of something.”
“Playing it by ear instead of plotting far in advance? Doesn’t sound very piratelike.”
“And you didn’t come for a romantic rendezvous. How did you guess?”
She clamped her mouth shut. He sat down and crossed his arms. “You want answers, you have to give some in return, Jack.”
“What makes you think I play by the rules?”
“You don’t? Then I guess you have no more questions for me.”
She did. Before she turned the tables on him, she’d like to know where his boss was hanging his hat these days. Her father had suggested that if it did turn out to be Lacross, the pirate might have set this plan in motion right from his prison cell, but she couldn’t believe a man that evil had ever won any type of loyalty from the few men who might have escaped capture the night his fortress got raided, at least, not enough loyalty to do the bidding of a man already behind bars. Besides, that particular pirate didn’t win loyalty, he coerced it.
Which brought an incredible thought: “Is Lacross holding family of yours hostage to get you to do his bidding?”
“No.”
Completely wrong about everything? Or he was lying. “If you don’t work for him, then who?”
“First, please answer one of my—”
“Yes, yes,” she cut in angrily. “I didn’t know for sure it would be you at the docks, but I thought it was a likely possibility because your handwriting is so similar to the writing in that more polite ransom note you told me you wrote and posted in Bridgeport.”
“You weren’t there to see that note.”
“Because of you!” she snarled, but after a moment added, “My father kept it and I bedeviled him into showing it to me on the trip home.”
He chuckled. “My, what sharp, beautiful eyes you have.”
She scowled at him. “It could have been a minuscule chance and I still would have come prepared for a fight if it meant capturing you!”
“I’d hoped you’d bring your father.”
She choked back a derisive laugh. “You should pray you never do come face-to-face with him. He has splendid plans for you, Bastard—in my opinion, that is. You will find them so painful you will beg for a quick end. But it won’t be quick, and you won’t walk away from it.”
He shrugged. “Sounds like the same thing you predicted previously, torn limb from limb, et cetera. Nonetheless, I hoped he would escort you, which is why I hired so many men. Even the mightiest can fall to overwhelming numbers.”
“Then why didn’t you do that before, instead of following us to America?!”
“Because he didn’t go slumming, and you can’t take an army of riffraff into the upper-crust end of town without raising a hue and cry. But we did try unsuccessfully a couple times with a few of my crew.”
She shook her head at him, pointing out, “He would have mentioned it.”
“Does he tell you every time he’s accosted by men he believes are thieves?”
No, he actually wouldn’t. He’d just deal with it and go on his way as if nothing had happened.
She raised a brow. “How many died?”
He choked back a laugh this time. But a knock at the door drew him to open it, and a moment later he set the tray of food on the table. She moved over to the table to see if he’d lied about having a real cook this time. Apparently, he’d told the truth. The food on the two plates looked appetizing: fresh peas, roasted chicken with a caramelized sauce that smelled divine, rolls still steaming, even dessert.
She sat down and reached for a plate, the aromas reminding her that she was hungry. But when he started to do the same, she said adamantly, “I won’t dine with you as if I’m not your prisoner and you’re not a bloody pirate.” She pointed at his desk. “You eat over there if you want me to eat.”
“For now,” he allowed, and took one of the plates with him back to his desk. “But we will dine together, perhaps do much more than that, before this voyage ends, Jack. I may even invite your brother or rather the man who looks like your brother up here for a meal if you ask me nicely.”
Bloody smiling liar, she thought. He wouldn’t. He just liked to dangle carrots.
But as Jack took a bite of the roasted chicken, she thought about what Bastard had told her about his attempts to capture her father. Was that a lie, too? Or was he crazy and desperate enough to think he could take down James Malory? Her nemesis was more dangerous than she’d thought.