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  He didn’t, but he laughed at the suggestion. “You’re going to slide your weapon across the floor instead.”

  “Not bloody likely. Show yourself, coward. They won’t kill James Malory’s son—not if you still want our father as a willing sacrifice.”

  “We only need one hostage. I appreciate your giving us three.”

  He sounded far too confident, as if he weren’t still cautiously hiding behind that desk. Maybe she could hop his way without falling, at least get to the desk so she could crawl on top of it and . . . He stood up, presenting her with a big target she couldn’t miss. If she were in a rage, she would have thoughtlessly pulled the trigger. But then she’d be without a decent weapon to use in dealing with his crew after she killed him, and they’d all come charging into the room when they heard the shot. The dagger strapped to her thigh wouldn’t be much help against the lot of them. Then again, Bastard could be her weapon and her shield to get herself, Jeremy, and Percy off that ship. His crew would do nothing if they saw she had a pistol pressed to his back.

  He must have noticed the calculating look on her face because he said, “You care so little for your brother?”

  Having Jeremy here was obviously going to be a distinct disadvantage—for her. Bastard would hold Jeremy’s welfare over her head every time she did something he didn’t like. He wouldn’t need ropes to keep her hands tied. She had to get them off this ship now, while England was still a short swim away.

  “On the contrary, I love my brothers, but they’re not here. I lied to protect the fellow who was with me, since if your crew thinks he’s a Malory, he’ll be safe from harm.”

  “Then who is he?”

  “No one of import, just a penniless lord who resembles my older brother. Which is why I occasionally hire him to pretend to be Jeremy, and that was necessary tonight since you wanted to meet in such an unsavory part of town.”

  “And the other gent?”

  She shrugged. “Those two chum about together, so he was invited along. Besides, d’you really think anyone in my family would have allowed me to meet anyone in this part of town? My older brother would have locked me in my bedroom if I had even dared to mention it to him.”

  Bastard sighed. “Too bad.”

  “Too bad?”

  “That I don’t believe you. But your claim about your family’s not allowing you to go to the docks does beg the question, why did you come?”

  “Because I suspected it might be you and wanted to make sure you hang!”

  He was smiling again. “No, you didn’t. You were caught up in the romance of having a secret admirer. It warms my heart to know how eager you were to see me again, that you, the most sought-after debutante in London, came to the docks for our rendezvous.”

  “I was eager to see him, the puppet you hired, not you. You I want to see dangling from a rope, or lying in a pool of blood, which is still an option.” She waggled the hand that was holding the pistol. “So you’re going to slide one of your daggers over here, and I know you have at least one on you, so I can cut my feet loose.” She wasn’t about to let him know she still had one of her own. “Then you’re going to walk me out of here and off your ship.”

  “Am I?”

  She gritted her teeth. “Now, Bastard, the dagger.”

  He leaned down to extract one from his boot and placed it on the desk in front of him, within his reach, but nowhere near hers. She sighed. “Can you even imagine how much willpower it’s taking for me not to pull this trigger? Did I ever give you the idea that I might not enjoy killing you?”

  “No, you made that abundantly clear. But did I ever give you the idea that I wanted to harm you in return?”

  The absurdity of his question boggled her mind, making her snarl, “The very nature of your mission was the worst harm I could imagine!”

  “Are we really going to do this again? Rehash the same arguments? Yes, you love your father so much you’ll kill anyone who wants to harm him. Yes, I had no choice in the matter. But that was then, when I had a shrew on my back pulling the strings.”

  He was talking about Catherine Meyer, and the very mention of her made Jack growl, “Is she here again?”

  “No, thank God, her father didn’t let her come along this time. If he did, I don’t doubt I would have just tossed her over the side as we got under way. It would have been too much of a temptation to resist.”

  He was grinning as he said it. Jack wasn’t. Much as she would have liked to do the same thing to that lying jewel thief, Catherine had been his mistress, too, which Catherine had crowed about during Jack’s previous kidnapping. And Catherine was his boss’s daughter, no matter what name she went by, no matter if his boss was Lacross or some other nasty villain, so Bastard wouldn’t dare harm her.

  Jack didn’t believe he would have thrown Catherine overboard. Actually, Jack wouldn’t believe anything he said.

  But she was running out of time! She didn’t need to be told they were under way, she could feel the ship moving. And she didn’t doubt everything he’d been saying was meant to distract her until it was too late to extricate herself from this second kidnapping. And he was too late anyway! Her father had already sailed, wouldn’t even know that Bastard had her again.

  She’d been insane to think she could capture this wily bastard herself. But she smiled to herself that he’d failed his mission. By the time he got her to the Caribbean, his boss would already be dead and her father would be on his way back to England. Whatever ransom note Bastard left this time would—terrify her mother. Damnit!

  “Are you cannoned up, or fast?”

  He raised a black brow at her. “If I wasn’t in command of a ship, that would make no sense to me, and why do you want to know?”

  “Could you just answer a question for once without asking another?”

  “I won’t be participating in any sea battles, if that has you concerned. This ship used to be a trading vessel. It’s never been fitted with cannons.” But then he chuckled. “Other than fake ones that Mort assembled for us.”

  Her shoulders drooped. He could easily overtake her father’s fleet, which was fully cannoned for the battle they expected. That would allow Bastard to get her to his boss first. So she couldn’t admit to him that his ransom note wouldn’t reach his target this time or he would make sure his ship got in the lead. It probably would anyway, even if he didn’t know he was going to be in a race. And she would be in the hands of Bastard’s boss before her father found the pirate to dispose of him. And that would mean her father would be walking into a trap again. . . .

  She pushed that thought away and said, “I think I need to shoot you anyway and take my chances with your crew.”

  Chapter Eleven

  THE SHARP RAP ON the door startled Jacqueline, but she didn’t turn her pistol in that direction, keeping it steady on Bastard, and said softly, “Whoever that is, tell them to go away.”

  “Enter,” he called out. He didn’t even take a moment to consider doing that!

  He’d never done that before, either. Anytime his crew needed him on that previous voyage, they’d knocked and he’d left the cabin to talk to them instead of allowing them access. Always locking the door behind him, too. She’d assumed he’d been protecting his crew, making sure she wouldn’t be able to recognize any faces other than his. She wondered why he was behaving differently on this second kidnapping.

  A frightening thought struck her. She wasn’t going to survive this time.

  The crewman who stepped inside the captain’s cabin was nearly as tall as Bastard. He wore his blond hair queued back and had a pleasant visage—well, he was actually handsome. And he didn’t exactly look like a sailor in that billowing lawn shirt open at the neck, tight britches, tall boots, a fancy gold chain around his neck. It was uncannily similar to how her father dressed aboard ship! The only thing missing was the single gold earring James often sported at sea and even occasionally in London. And then it hit her. The man was blond and the right height, an
d just as strapping as her mystery man.

  “You’re the masked man I danced with at the ball!” she accused.

  The blond man had the audacity to grin at her before saying, “No, ma’am, I’m not. Wouldn’t be caught dead in one of those torture chambers.” But then he glanced at his captain. “Do you need help?”

  “No, she’s only got a single bullet. She’s not going to waste it.” Bastard tossed a key to the crewman, though it didn’t quite reach him and slid across the floor to stop near his feet. “But you can lock the door on your way out.”

  Jacqueline’s eyes flared. Get locked in the room with Bastard? He’d take cover again, forcing her to get closer to him, and she knew exactly how that would play out. So she pointed her pistol at the blond.

  “I’ll waste this bullet if you reach for that key, I promise you I will. Kick it over toward me.”

  The man didn’t do that; instead he looked at his captain to tell him how to proceed.

  Bastard sighed. “Let it go. She’s angry enough to do something rash. Your business was . . . ?”

  “You wanted to know when her brother woke up.”

  Bastard smiled at Jacqueline as he replied, “She wants me to think they aren’t related.”

  “Get rid of him then?”

  “No, we’re well stocked. At least we don’t need to fish for our dinner this time, so another few mouths to feed doesn’t matter. Both those gents might still come in useful.”

  “He won’t be a bargaining chip,” Jacqueline warned. “You might as well let him go while you still can.”

  Bastard raised a brow at her. “You don’t think we’d kill him before tossing him off the ship when you have frequently called us a murdering lot? We can’t let him go alive. Dead men tell no tales, you know. So which is it: Do you care about this fellow or do you not?”

  She wasn’t going to answer that and said instead, “I recall hearing you assure me you weren’t a murderer. Of course, I didn’t believe you at the time and never will, so it’s moot. But the fate of my hirelings isn’t going to be decided by either of you.” She waved the pistol at the crewman again. “Close the door, then walk over to Bastard so he can tie you up. You’re not letting his crew know that I have the upper hand.”

  The blond man laughed at the absurd order.

  Bastard said laconically, “I think she’s serious.”

  Amusement gone, the crewman, or whoever he was, said, “The devil I will. Take your best shot, Jack Malory, if you’re going to. Otherwise, I’m getting back to work.”

  She was angry enough to shoot the man, and she wanted to! But she couldn’t waste her only chance of getting off that ship by using the captain as her shield. So she watched the door close behind the man before glancing at Bastard again.

  “He’s not a sailor,” she said, pointing out the obvious in a contemptuous tone.

  “Neither was I, but my friend and I have adapted fairly well.”

  “Your friend? You consider your crew to be friends? Yes, of course you do,” she sneered. “Pirates are all for one and one for all.”

  He chuckled. “I wouldn’t know. I did tell you before that we weren’t pirates, didn’t I?”

  “If you did, I wasn’t listening.”

  “You listened, you just chose not to believe anything I said. But Catherine isn’t here now watching my every move, so perhaps we—”

  Jacqueline cut in sharply, “I don’t believe she pulled your strings, and I certainly don’t believe you would have tossed her overboard if she were here, though I would have liked to see what would happen to you if you told her father you abandoned her in London.”

  He shrugged. “I doubt it would matter to him. He didn’t strike me as a loving parent. But she seemed desperate for his love, would do anything to get it. Stealing those jewels from you and your relatives was just for him, to prove that she could be useful to him so he wouldn’t send her away when she’d only just found him.”

  “So that part of her tale was true, that she was searching, or had searched, for her long-lost father?”

  “It’s probably easier to make a tale believable if some parts of it are true.”

  Jack made a sound of ridicule. “I’m sure you would know from experience.”

  “I don’t recall lying to you, Jack. If I did, it was only to protect your health, which you were determined to wither away.”

  “I was too angry to eat back then!” she snarled. “I would have puked it all up.”

  “I’ll agree you were angry without respite. Your starving yourself kept you from sleeping. It made you weak. Your attacks became pitiful. And I was infuriated every time I heard your belly growl, since it was never my intention to harm you—physically. Can you at least agree that starving yourself wasn’t a well-thought-out plan?”

  “And miss another opportunity to infuriate you?” she shot back. “I still need your dagger. Toss it over.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest, a clear no. She growled low in her throat and sat down on the cot behind her to test the thin rope around her ankles. It had been looped four or five times before it was tied off. She tried sliding one foot out, but it had been wrapped too tight.

  With another glance at Bastard first to make sure he was still standing behind his desk, she bent forward over her knees to find the knot and work it loose with her fingers. It wasn’t working, not when she could only use one hand because her pistol was in the other.

  She was about to take out her dagger to cut the rope when she saw the top of his head in front of her and gasped. Good God, he was too quick. She’d only been distracted for a moment!

  “Be easy, Jack. I’m just helping.”

  He didn’t look up as he spoke, and she felt the rope fall away. Then he looked up at her smiling, even though her pistol was aimed at his face only inches away. Those eyes, such a starkly bright turquoise with that dark ring circling the outer edge of the irises, were mesmerizing, but especially so with that face.

  A villain such as him shouldn’t have eyes like that. Or smiles that were genuinely amused rather than sneering or mocking. Too many times she’d gotten distracted by his face and how handsome he was. Such as now. In that brief, arrested moment, he could have grabbed the pistol from her hand and she wouldn’t even have noticed!

  He didn’t even try. “I’ve risked a bullet to show you that you can trust me.”

  She leaned back to put some distance between them and slow her heartbeat. He stood up, towering over her, and simply offered her his hand.

  “Shall we?”

  Thoughts, where did they go!? She stared at the hand and leaned back even more until she was touching the bulkhead behind her. Shall we what?

  She meant to say that aloud. He shook his head, probably because she was ignoring his proffered hand. “I could have reached for your weapon instead of the ropes and easily taken it from you. Does that tell you nothing?”

  “That you missed your chance?”

  “That this voyage will be different.”

  He started to walk away, back toward his desk. She shot off the cot and jammed the pistol against his back. “We’re going this way, out the door. Make that happen.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  She glanced up at the back of his head, so far above her. Hitting him with the pistol might do what she hoped if they were the same height, but they weren’t. If she tried it now, it might not knock him out or even daze him.

  Why the devil wasn’t he more concerned about being shot? And why hadn’t he taken her pistol when he’d had the chance?

  The man wasn’t taking her at all seriously!

  He only sighed as he turned carefully and slowly walked to the door, giving her time to maintain her position behind him. Still, she bumped into his arse when he bent over from the waist to pick up the key from the floor. She hissed through her teeth and was surprised he didn’t laugh about it.

  But he opened the door and walked up the few steps that led to the quarterdeck. It was dark,
except for the light from the two lanterns on either side of his cabin door. Bastard didn’t move any farther. It wasn’t difficult to see why. She might not be able to see over his shoulders, but she could see on either side of him that his men stood in a tight half circle at the top of the steps, forming a solid barrier, undoubtedly put in place by the blond crewman.

  She pressed her pistol harder into Bastard’s back. “Tell them to back off.”

  “No. This is what can loosely be termed a standoff. You might as well give up graciously, Jack.”

  Her mind churned frantically. Among the mostly brawny men who formed that blockade, she saw only one skinny fellow to her right and a nervous-looking boy next to him. She would have given anything right then for her rapier instead of a damned one-shot pistol. With two arm’s lengths of sharp metal in hand, she could have slashed an opening to get past them.

  She leapt toward the boy, but socked the man next to him first before pushing the boy out of the way, clearing a path to the railing. She almost made it, was only three feet from it, about to leap into the water, when an arm went about her waist, lifting her off her feet, and the pistol was yanked out of her hand. She should never have turned her back on Bastard! She screamed in fury, but she was facing nothing but an empty deck now, his men having scattered to get out of the way of any gunshots.

  She was let go inside the cabin and then pushed forward into the room, just far enough for Bastard to close the door and lock it—with him on the other side of it before she could even turn around. But she didn’t pause to bemoan what had just happened. She ran straight for the long row of drapes covering the bank of windows she’d escaped from once before.

  Chapter Twelve

  DAMON REEVES GRIPPED THE rail, trying to calm his breathing. That had been too close, she’d almost made it over the side. He would have jumped in after her, of course, but the Thames definitely wasn’t the clear aqua waters of the Caribbean. If she’d dived into its murky depths, he might not have found her. And if she’d drowned, her father would have been after him before the night was done, instead of a week from now per Damon’s plan, which was to make sure Malory didn’t follow too quickly this time.