The Pirate Lord (25 page)

Taking a seat at the scarred table, she folded her hands in front of her and looked at him expectantly.

“His mother,” he said. “That’s who hurt him.”

She looked at him blankly. “I don’t understand.”

“Gideon’s mother was a duke’s daughter. A very wealthy lady from a very powerful English family.”

An awful feeling crept over her. Gideon was English? His mother had been a noblewoman?
Gideon’s
mother?

“You look surprised.” Taking up his pipe, Silas filled it with tobacco from a pouch in his vest pocket. “Is’pose that’s to be expected. Pirates aren’t known for their fine bloodlines.”

“But how? Who?”

Silas stuck a straw in the stove fire, then used it to light his pipe. “I can tell you the how. The who ain’t so clear, least of all to him.” He tossed the straw in the fire and puffed hard on his pipe. “He told me most of the story when he was drunk one night. We’d seized a ship that day, with an old woman on it named Eustacia. Hearin’ her say her name rattled him bad enough to send him to the bottle. Mebbe you noticed as how Gideon don’t drink much. I think he fears endin’ up like his father. Anyway, that night, he said his mother’s name was Eustacia, or so his father’d said when
he
was drunk.”

“Gideon told me a little about his father. The man sounded like an awful person.”

“Aye, he was. Gideon hates him. But he hates his
mother more. He blames her for leavin’ him to the care of his bastard father.”

“I don’t understand. How does a duke’s daughter meet a man like Gideon’s father? Wasn’t his father American?”

“Nay. His father was as English as you. Apparently, he was Eustacia’s tutor. He must’ve been a charmer, seein’ as how he got her to run off with him.” Silas’s expression grew grim. “But after she bore Gideon, she got tired of the poor life she led with Elias Horn. She asked her family to take her back, and they agreed.” He stared at her from above his pipe. “But they made her leave her son behind.”

Sara gasped aloud. “They didn’t!” When he nodded, she said, “But why?”

He shrugged. “I dunno. Mebbe to hush up the scandal. Mebbe they hoped that if Elias and Gideon wasn’t around, they could keep it all quiet more easy-like. Who knows how an English noble thinks?”

She flinched. She knew he didn’t mean it as a criticism of her, but it demonstrated how suspiciously the entire crew of the
Satyr
regarded her countrymen. And her class. No doubt their hatred had been nurtured during the American Revolution, which had probably just ended around the time Gideon was born.

But for Gideon, there was more to it even than that. Remembering how bitterly Gideon had spoken of his mother, she felt heartsick. No wonder he hated her “kind.” No wonder he’d been so reluctant to trust her.

Still, his distrust wasn’t quite fair. She would never leave her own child behind, no matter what her family asked of her. She couldn’t understand how Eustacia could have done it.

“Did he ever go looking for her, ever try to hear her side of the story?” she asked.

“If he did, he never told me. Would’ve been near to impossible, anyhow. His father took him off to America when he was just a wee thing. Said he wanted a new
life for them. But his wife still tormented his mind, and he drowned his sorrows in drink many a night. Gideon once told me they lived in fifteen different towns when he was growin’ up. His father couldn’t keep a position as a teacher on account of his drinkin’.”

That explained why Gideon wanted Atlantis so badly. He’d never had a home, and he was determined to make Atlantis into one. He wanted a home and someone to care for him, though he would never admit it aloud.

“What made him run away to sea? His father’s beatings?”

Silas shook his head. “He didn’t have no choice. His father drank himself to death when Gideon wasn’t even thirteen, so Gideon went to sea to keep from starvin’.”

“At thirteen? He was only thirteen when he went to sea?” A crushing pain built in her chest. At thirteen, she’d been coddled by a doting mother and a kindly stepfather and given everything she wanted, while Gideon had been huddled in the cold rain on a ship’s deck, running errands and shining a man’s boots.

Her feelings must have shown in her face, for Silas’s voice was gentle when he answered her. “It weren’t so bad as all that, lass. Bein’ a cabin boy made a man out o’ him, and that was a good thing, don’t you think?”

Tears sprang to her eyes unbidden, and she turned her face away to hide them. All the times she’d unfairly accused Gideon of cruelty came back to haunt her. If anyone had known cruelty, it was Gideon.

Yet he wasn’t cruel. Far from it. Yes, he’d taken them against their will, and she still thought him wrong for that. But he’d done it thinking he was doing something good. He’d done it for the sake of his precious colony, a place where he could put an end to cruelty.

Indeed, she’d seen how well he governed. He always listened to both sides of a dispute and settled them fairly. He’d kept to his promise that the women would be treated with respect, enforcing that rule with an iron hand. When she’d wanted to begin teaching the women
again, he’d shocked her by agreeing. He’d even taken to sleeping in his half-finished house, so his cabin and comfortable bed could be used by Molly, the pregnant woman whose time was nearly come, and her daughter Jane.

He wasn’t at all the dreadful, wicked man she’d first taken him to be. And that made him far more dangerous to her than before.

“You care for the lad, don’t you, Sara?” Silas said, breaking in to her thoughts.

Wiping her tears away, she slowly nodded. “But he hates me for being an English noblewoman like his mother.”

“Nay.” His voice was kindly. “Gideon may be bitter, but he ain’t no fool. He knows a good woman when he gets his hands on one. I think he cares for you somethin’ fierce.”

“Then why didn’t he tell me about her?” she blurted out. It wounded her to think he hadn’t trusted her enough for that. “He told me about his father, but he refused to tell me about his mother, even after we—” She broke off with a blush. “It’s because he thinks I’m…I’m like her, isn’t it? He thinks I only care about my family and the privileges I enjoyed in London. That’s why he won’t tell me things.”

“That ain’t true. Mebbe he thought you were like his mother at the first, but he don’t think that now. I’m sure of it. He sees you for what you are.”

“And what is that?”

“The kind of woman he needs…someone who’ll soften the hardness his mother put there.”

I can’t do that
, she wanted to cry.
Even if he would let me, I won’t be staying here long enough to be what he needs. I’m going to abandon him, just like his mother did. I’m going to leave when Jordan comes
.

But she didn’t want to leave, didn’t want to abandon him. For the first time since Petey had left, she recognized the truth. She didn’t want to return to the grime
and sorrow of London. She wanted to stay here to teach the women, to watch the colony grow, and yes, to be with Gideon. She wanted to soothe his hurts and heal his heart.

And she could tell Silas none of that.

“If he ain’t talkin’ to you ‘bout things, you got to be talkin’ to him,” Silas said.

“Talk to him? And say what?”

“How you feel. What you want. It took a mighty lot of my courage to speak to Louisa about…well, about things. But thank the good Lord I did, else I wouldn’t be havin’ her for a wife now.”

“I can’t talk to Gideon.” How could she tell him what she wanted when she wasn’t even sure of it herself? And how could she tell him how she felt when she might be abandoning him any day?

Quickly she rose from her chair and headed toward the entrance. “I’m sorry, Silas, I have to go.”

“Wait!” When she paused and turned toward him, he picked up a bucket and held it out to her. “If you don’t mind doin’ an errand for me, I need this taken to Gideon’s new house. He was askin’ for it this mornin’, said he needed it to haul away wood shavings.”

“I told you, Silas, I can’t talk to Gideon now.”

“Oh, it’s all right. No need to talk to him. He ain’t at his house. He’s helpin’ Barnaby catch fish at t’other end of the island.” When she hesitated, eyeing him suspiciously, he pointed down to his wooden leg. “It’s a far piece for me with me leg an’ all, and Gideon’ll be wantin’ it later.”

“Very well.” She took the bucket. Anything to appease Silas, she thought, so she could get out of here. She had to get away before she poured all her heart out to him and told him the full extent of her dilemma.

Silas meant well, but he couldn’t help her decide what to do about Gideon. She was the only one who could do that.

G
ideon sat on a bench in his half-finished house, sanding the edges of a plank that he meant to use as a shelf in the small kitchen he was building for Sara. When he’d begun the kitchen, he’d thought she might like to have her own, instead of sharing the communal one.

He’d meant it to be a surprise, but now he was having doubts about it. Three weeks had gone by, and his goal of winning Sara was not as near as he’d hoped. It wasn’t that she hadn’t softened toward him. Sometimes she behaved almost like a wife. Two nights ago, he’d returned to the cottage to find all his clothes cleaned and repaired. He knew she’d done it, because Barnaby had seen her enter his cottage that morning.

If she saw him laboring in the hot sun, she brought him a bucket of cold water when she thought he wasn’t
looking, and Silas had revealed that she was always requesting that Louisa prepare Gideon’s favorite foods. He’d never experienced the kind of feminine attentions that most lads got from their mothers and then their wives. It was a novel experience to have someone care that much about his welfare. He liked it. He liked it a lot.

The trouble was, she wouldn’t talk about his intention to marry her, even when he pointedly raised the subject. Obviously, his fumbling attempts at courtship had left her unmoved. But what did he know of courting a woman? He’d never even had a sweetheart, just the occasional brief acquaintance with a ladybird or two that left him feeling unfulfilled and morose.

Still, he’d had hopes for him and Sara. This morning when she’d come upon him bathing, he’d been sure that he’d finally broken through her maidenly qualms. But no, she’d fled his presence and avoided him all day after that.

His right hand suddenly slipped, scraping the knuckles of his left hand with the holystone. Muttering a curse, he tossed the board and holystone aside. Confound the woman and all her hesitation. Cold baths were becoming standard with him. He went to bed hard and woke up harder.

It wasn’t supposed to be this difficult. He’d spent months at sea without a woman and not felt as much frustration as he’d felt in the last three weeks. But it was one thing to be stuck at sea, and quite another to be constantly in the presence of the only woman he wanted without being allowed to touch her. It was all he could do to keep from grabbing her and kissing her senseless when he left her at the door to her cabin at night.

But he knew better than to try seduction. It hadn’t worked before, so there was no reason to believe it would work now. No, he must stick to his plan and pray that she relented before the month was up.

He stood up and stretched, then turned to pick up the
board again. That’s when he saw her standing in the doorway to his cabin, a startled look on her face and an empty bucket in her hand.

“What are you doing here?” she blurted out.

Her confusion brought a smile to his lips. “It’s my house, remember?”

“Yes, but Silas said—” She broke off. Dropping her gaze to the bucket, she mumbled, “A curse on that meddling man!”

“What meddling man?”

“Silas, that wretched liar. He told me you needed this bucket. He begged me to come over here and give it to you, and said you were out catching fish with Barnaby. Obviously he was lying about it just to throw us together.”

Thank you
,
Silas
, he thought. He took a step toward her, pleased that she didn’t break and run as she had this morning, and struggled to find something to say that would keep her there. “Why would Silas try to throw us together now? He hasn’t tried it before.”

That didn’t get the reaction he’d expected. She colored to the roots of her hair. “Because he and I were…talking about you.” Her head came up and her eyes locked with his. “He told me about your mother.”

Gideon went still. All his pleasure at having her there abruptly vanished. His mother? Silas had told her about his mother? That blasted old fool. When Gideon got his hands on him, he’d yank his beard out. How dared Silas tell her? Whirling away, he picked up the holystone and the pitcher of sand and strode into the other room, his bedchamber. She’d never dared to enter it before, and he prayed she wouldn’t now. The last thing he wanted to discuss with Sara was his treacherous mother.

But Sara followed him, apparently without any qualm. “He didn’t lie about that, did he? Your mother really is an English noblewoman? A duke’s daughter?”

“Yes.” He stalked to the window, staring blindly out at nothing. “What of it?”

“Did she really abandon you and your father?”

A groan escaped his lips. Blast. He gripped the holystone until his knuckles whitened. He could feel her pity without even looking at her. That’s why he hadn’t told her in the first place. He hadn’t wanted her to know his secret shame, to pity him when he wanted her to feel something else entirely.

“Did she?” Sara repeated.

The holystone thudded on the floor as he faced her. “Yes.”

Just as he’d expected, she looked stricken. And her eyes most definitely showed pity. He flinched at the sight of it.

“Did you ever look for her?” she asked. “Perhaps she regretted it later. Perhaps—”

“Trust me, she didn’t regret it.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.”

She got a stubborn look on her face. “Oh, because she left you once, you decided to cut her off and never—”

“She sent a letter, all right?” The pain lashed him all over again. By now, he ought to be immune to it. Why did it still hurt so much? He went on, knowing Sara would plague him until he told her. “I asked about her at the British consulate when I was ten. I only had her first name, so they thought I was lying…or that my father had lied when he told me about her. They made it quite clear that no English
lady
would run off with her tutor.”

He’d gotten a harsher beating than usual from his father for going to the consulate. The consul had apparently told Elias Horn about Gideon’s secret visit, assuming Elias had put Gideon up to it for some nefarious purpose, and had warned the man to keep his “ragamuffin” son away from the consulate.

“A letter came for my father at the consulate a few months later,” he went on coldly. “I don’t know, maybe the consul actually took the trouble to hunt her down.
It was from my mother. She said she wanted nothing…to do with me.” He could hardly speak the words. “A few years after that, my father received word that…that she was dead and the family wanted no further ties to either of us. And then my father proceeded to drink himself to death.”

By then, Gideon had already buried his childish hopes of finding his mother and convincing her to take him back. He’d endured his father’s drunken thrashings in silence, knowing that Elias only beat him because Gideon was
her
son, as he so often liked to say. That’s when Gideon had begun swearing that one day he would pay the English back…all of them…for their superior airs and their lack of morals, for thinking they could do as they pleased with impunity.

And he’d kept his oath, hadn’t he? He’d made fools of every nobleman he’d ever met, praying that one of them might be his mother’s kin. He’d exulted every time he’d snatched the jewels from the neck of some haughty English bitch.

Until Sara. Sara had changed everything.

“But didn’t she leave you anything?” Sara persisted. “A will? Some…some sign that she regretted her actions?”

It irritated him that she refused to believe an Englishwoman capable of such abominable behavior. With jerky movements, he removed his belt, then tossed it at her feet. “That belt buckle is the only thing she left me, and I’m sure she didn’t intend to leave that. It was her brooch before I had it made into a buckle.”

Sara bent to pick it up. Slowly, she turned it over and over in her hands. He watched as she traced the ring of diamonds and the massive onyx center carved in the shape of a stallion’s head.

“No doubt you’ve seen plenty of brooches as expensive as that in your life,” he said, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice even now. “You probably owned several.”

“Yes, I did. I didn’t ask for them, though. I didn’t expect them. They just…came along with being an earl’s stepdaughter.” She lifted mournful eyes to his. “Why did you keep it if you hate her so much?”

He tried to shrug, but her questions were like a knife probing at an old sore, and it was hard to be nonchalant. “When I was five, I kept asking why I had no mother, so Father showed me that and told me the whole story. A few days later, I stole it from him and kept it with me. You see, I never wanted to believe that—” He broke off. He’d never wanted to believe that his mother had purposely left him behind. It had been too painful for a child of five to consider. “Years later, after I learned he was telling the truth, I kept it to remind me of what she’d done and what kind of woman she was.”

“I don’t understand. How could any woman abandon her son?” There was so much sadness in her voice that he could hardly stand it.

He spoke more harshly than he intended. “I don’t know. I guess she missed having servants cater to her every whim. She missed expensive gowns and champagne and well-sprung carriages. She missed the jewels she wore dripping from her fingers at evening parties—”

He broke off before the bile could choke him. Turning away from her, he looked out at the island. His island. He took several deep breaths, letting Atlantis’s sweet air calm him. Only Atlantis had the power to purge the pain of his mother’s treachery from him.

When he went on, he was thankful he sounded calmer. “My father didn’t have much to give her, I warrant you. He made a decent living, but nothing approaching the level she was used to. When she knew him, he wasn’t a drunk, or so he told me. He only started drinking after she deserted him.” Anger crept into his voice once more. “Apparently, he had trouble understanding why a husband and a son didn’t compare to a huge house with fifty servants and diamond
brooches the size of her delicate, noble-born fist.”

She was quiet a long time. When at last she spoke, her voice was a ragged whisper. “I’m not like her, Gideon. I know you think I am, but—”

“Don’t put words in my mouth, Sara!” He whirled on her, his fists clenched. “Confound it, I know you’re not like her! You’re nothing like her,
nothing
! Trust me, my mother would never have traveled with a crowd of convict women. She wouldn’t have quoted Aristophanes to a pirate. She would’ve fainted at the sight of that snake, and she would certainly never have helped put out a fire!”

He dragged in a heavy breath as his gaze locked with hers. “But then, no other English noblewoman I’ve ever seen would have done those things, either. Most of the earl’s wives and daughters who traveled on the ships I attacked showed little backbone and less intelligence.”

“Can you blame them? They were probably all terrified.”

She said the words a little defensively, bringing a half-smile to his lips. That was just like Sara, to take up for a group of women she didn’t even know. “Perhaps. But
you
weren’t. You shook your fist at me and spoke your mind. Face it, Sara, you’re not the average English noblewoman.”

“But if you don’t…hate me for being what I am, why haven’t you…I mean…” She broke off, her cheeks glowing crimson.

He stared at her. Surely she wasn’t trying to say what he thought. “Why haven’t I
what
, Sara?” he said in a carefully modulated voice.

“Nothing.”

A keen disappointment lashed at him. “Why can’t you admit it? Why do you pretend you don’t want me, and put us both through this torture?”

“Because it’s wrong for me to want you!” She cast him a look of sheer desperation. “I shouldn’t want you! It’s not right!”

“Why? Because you’re an earl’s daughter and I’m just some dirty pirate?” He felt as if she’d just reached in and dug out his insides with dainty fingers. Turning back to the window, he braced his hands on the sill. “Maybe I was wrong about you, after all. With the women, you can forget they’re criminals and beneath your station. But with me—”

“That’s not what I meant! It’s just that…”

When she floundered, he ached worse than before. He felt her approach. She laid her hand on his arm, and he flinched. “Don’t,” he said in a harsh whisper. “If you can’t come to my bed, then don’t touch me.”

“But Gideon—”

Grabbing her hand, he turned and twisted it behind her back, jerking her up against his body. “Do you remember what you saw this morning, Sara? What I was doing by the stream? That’s what a man does when he’s got a need so deep he can’t satisfy it, when he wants a woman who doesn’t want him.”

“I
do
want you,” she whispered earnestly, the color high in her cheeks. “Truly, I do. You’re right. I want you so much I can hardly bear it.”

“But you wish you didn’t,” he bit out.

“Yes. I can’t deny it. I despise what you’ve done in your life, the ships you’ve taken by force and yes, the way you’ve kidnapped all of us. I can’t help that. I was brought up to believe that such things are wrong.”

He stared at her, unable to say anything. For the first time in his life he felt guilt over the life he’d led. He’d had reasons for leading such a life, true, and for most of his career his government had sanctioned his actions. But that didn’t make them any less wrong in her eyes. And suddenly he wished very much he could wipe those years away, if only for her.

“But no matter how much I tell myself that it’s wrong to want you,” she went on softly, “I can’t stop myself. It’s as natural to me as…as…” A faint smile touched her lips. “As lecturing people about their sins. I want
you, Gideon, more than anything. And I’m willing to forgive the rest because I do.”

Though his heart leapt at the words, he dared not believe them. “You say that only because you pity me for what my mother did. You’ve made it quite clear you don’t want a criminal in your bed, a man who had to kidnap women just to find a wife, a man who delights in stealing the jewels off—”

She cut off his bitter words with a kiss, pressing her sweet, lithe body against him as she caught him by the shoulders. He went still, his pulse thundering in his ears.