Chapter Forty-Three
IF YOU DON’T STOP laughing, Tony—”
“Yes, yes, you’ll toss me over the side.” Anthony tried to whistle instead, but it wouldn’t get past his curled lips.
Jacqueline was avidly listening to her father and uncle’s conversation as she finished off a breakfast pastry and tapped her foot impatiently under the dining table. She was torn between wanting to check on Damon’s condition after his second “talk” with her father, and not wanting to miss a single word her father said about him. She had arrived at her father’s cabin directly behind Tony, so she didn’t think she’d missed anything pertinent, even though Jeremy had already been there.
At least now they knew why Damon had gotten involved with Lacross and that he wasn’t a criminal. But why the deuce couldn’t he have told her and Jeremy? Perhaps because he didn’t want them to know that he hated their father, believing what he did? If he’d told them any of that, Jeremy wouldn’t have agreed to an alliance. He would have helped to get rid of the pirates for her sake, but he wouldn’t have agreed to a truce with Damon afterward.
Anthony was still smiling when he added, “But you have to admit, old boy, that your helping a damsel in distress just isn’t—you. You bloody well wouldn’t do it.”
“She cried.”
“Yes, so you said. Don’t like that watery display m’self, but I didn’t think you shared my aversion.”
“She wanted to leave her husband. By all accounts Cyril Ross was a good father, but he was still something of a wastrel and far too fond of gambling. I believe Sarah had her own money, which gave him leave to gamble even more. Even if she wasn’t unhappy with him, it was a situation bound for ruination. So she was right to leave Cyril when she still had money to do so, before he got tossed in prison and she and the boy ended up penniless on the streets.”
“It’s hard to imagine that kidnapper as a boy,” Anthony remarked.
“Well, even as a boy he had quite an aversion to me,” James said in disgust. “Used to bloody well throw rocks at my house as if that might chase me away.”
Anthony started laughing again. Jacqueline couldn’t help grinning, picturing the child throwing stones at a pirate’s house. How brave he’d been!
Jeremy said, “I remember him as a boy, but I remember his mother more. I was utterly infatuated with her, she was such a beauty, but a very sad woman.”
“You were infatuated with anything in skirts back then,” James said with a grin.
“True,” Jeremy allowed, then told Anthony, “But Damon was no more’n six or seven at the time. Of course, Father and I were rarely in residence. Father bought that place to give me some stability after he found me, but we were still more often at sea. And the Rosses were already living there when we moved in. I found Damon on the beach one day and tried to talk to him, but he backed away from me and asked, ‘Are you a pirate, too?’—then ran off before I could answer. Obviously he thought Father was a pirate and objected to one living so close to his family.”
James snorted. “Sarah Ross tried to take the boy with her the day they were supposed to leave with me, but the boy ran off and she started crying, refusing to leave without him. But she was afraid that he was running straight to his father. Apparently, she was desperate enough to try to escape while Cyril was somewhere on their property.”
Jacqueline felt a pang of sadness for the child getting left behind. She remembered Damon’s anger when he’d told her about his mother. She’d assumed he hated her for leaving him, but it had been James he’d hated for taking his mother away.
“Why didn’t you just hide her in your house and deny him entrance?” Anthony asked.
“Did you miss the part about my sailing that day? Jeremy was already on the ship. And I solved her dilemma by insisting she come with me to Port Antonio on the other side of the island, and promising that when I returned, I’d help her fetch the boy. But that was the year I returned to England to even the score with Nicholas Eden by capturing his wife.”
Anthony grinned. “I would have given anything to see your face when you found out the wife you kidnapped was our dearest niece Regina.”
“Not one of my finer moments,” James said sourly.
“But ultimately, it got you back in the fold . . . well, after you let our brothers beat on you some, just retribution, et cetera.”
“You were in that fight, as I recall, and didn’t pull any punches.”
“Of course I didn’t, at least until I realized you weren’t even trying to defend yourself. Good job on that, old man, to appease the elders that way.”
“They were too angry to notice.”
“Well, all under the bridge, as they say. But Jeremy was the clincher. The elders’ finding out you had a son nearly full grown—if they could have gotten him into the family without you, you might not have been forgiven so easily.”
“I don’t need that reminder,” James replied. “But speaking of that eventful year, I had intended to fulfill my promise to Sarah Ross when I went back to Jamaica to sell my plantation.”
“Did you?”
“I never actually got there. As you know, I had a delightfully beautiful cabin boy on that return to the Caribbean.”
Jacqueline smiled at the mention of her parents’ unusual courtship. They still teased each other about it to this day.
Anthony rolled his eyes. “I suppose that’s one way to describe George.”
“But as you know, she spotted one of her brother’s ships when we docked and snuck off on me. So I merely found an agent to sell the plantation for me so I could chase after my future bride instead.”
“Did you actually know you wanted to marry her at that point?”
“Not quite. I was too bloody annoyed by her defection to wonder why it bothered me quite as much as it did. And then George and I returned to England after her brothers dragged me to the altar.”
“So you left your amazing attempt at heroics vis-à-vis Mrs. Ross half undone?”
James gave his brother a dark look. “It’s one of my few regrets. But I’ve assumed all these years that when she gave up waiting for me, she paid someone else to fetch the boy for her so they could sail to England together, or she went home to get her family to help. Neither of which apparently happened.”
“If she left to protect the boy’s future, it seems odd that she never went back for him,” Anthony remarked.
“I agree, and unfortunately, it likely means she died before she could. I know she loved her son. I can think of no other reason she wouldn’t have returned for him. So for his mother’s sake, I’m going to help him get his father back.”
Thrilled to hear those words, Jacqueline got up and headed to the door until her father queried, “And where do you think you’re going, Jack?”
She turned about. “I want to see how much damage Damon sustained during your talk.”
“A few paltry bruises.”
“I still want to see—”
“Jeremy, go with your sister.”
She stiffened. “You won’t let me talk to him alone?”
“That, poppet, isn’t going to happen—ever.”
Jacqueline flounced out of the room. Unfortunately, Jeremy stayed right on her heels. But after what her father had just said, she accused her brother, “You told him about Damon and me, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t.”
“Did Percy?”
“Percy was on deck a lot after the pirates were captured. He might have seen you and Damon with your arms around each other at the wheel. But he’s not good at guessing, Jack. If he let anything slip to Father, I’m sure it was just that you and Damon got quite chummy. Course, Father is good at guessing.”
She groaned. “Is Damon still locked up?”
“Why wouldn’t he be? Father’s help doesn’t mean make the man comfy.”
“I merely thought—damnit, Jeremy, we’re his allies! And he had good reasons for doing what he did. He shouldn’t have to remain in that tiny little cell any longer!”
Jeremy shrugged. “I’ll mention it to Father later. You shouldn’t, or Damon won’t get released until we reach St. Kitts.”
On the lower deck, she stopped at her cabin first without telling Jeremy why. She grabbed a jar of ointment to use on Damon’s new bruises, which her father no doubt gave him. Jeremy just rolled his eyes at her when he saw it.
When they reached the cell, Damon immediately came to the bars. Jeremy at least turned his back on them, but he still didn’t leave her side. Jack barely noticed, her eyes looking worriedly for injuries on Damon, but he had moved normally, quickly, and she saw only a slight bruise forming on his chin. Still, she opened the jar and reached through the bars to apply the ointment to his wound.
“You can’t seem to stop taking care of me, Jack.” Damon grinned.
“You can’t seem to stop getting in the way of a Malory.”
He caressed her cheek through the bars and said softly, “I’m sorry for abducting you—twice. I intend to make it up to you one day.”
“Better not try it, mate,” Jeremy warned without turning around.
“I was sorry to hear about your father—and what you thought about mine.”
Damon sighed. “I don’t know why my mother left, and I may never know. But I could have prevented what happened to my father if he’d just let me know he was in trouble. His letters never gave a clue, even came from Jamaica, as if he still lived there. I can only assume he asked one of his old friends to send his letters and intercept mine, so I wouldn’t know what had befallen him. I’d even told him about receiving an inheritance while in England, but he still didn’t ask for my help.”
“Pride?” she guessed.
“Enough to keep him rotting in prison until I got home,” Damon replied in disgust. “I don’t understand that sort of pride.”
She couldn’t begin to imagine the shock he’d had, coming home to that. “Why would he even send you to England if he couldn’t really afford it?”
“But he could. The crops were very lucrative, weather permitting, and he’d even purchased a ship to double his profits. I liked that ship. I learned to sail on it. But England was what my mother wanted for me. She often said to Father and me when I was a child that it was expected of a Reeves to have an extensive education. Despite her leaving us, he still loved her and wanted to honor that wish. What I didn’t know was that he liked to gamble.”
“Ah, that fondness causes more ruination than it does riches.”
Jeremy turned about. “Time’s up, Jack. You got your assurance that he doesn’t need a sickbed.”
As Jeremy pulled her away, she sighed, and glanced back for another look at Damon. It had better not be the last time she saw him, and she was encouraged when Damon called out, “This isn’t the end, Jack.” She just wasn’t sure what he meant by that.