He threw the bag of gifts into the surf with an oath. “To think I believed that she really liked it here, that she really wanted to make something of Atlantis. What a fool I was! What a stupid, besotted fool!”
“Now, Gideon,” Silas said, worry in his tone, “you know quite well that girl weren’t lyin’ about wantin’ to make somethin’ of Atlantis. Anybody could see she loves the place almost as much as you.”
He whirled on Silas. “Then why did she sail off with her brother the first chance she got?”
“You can’t blame that on her!” Hargraves protested. “She didn’t want to leave. He made her.”
Gideon stared at Hargraves. “What do you mean, he made her? By God, if he took her from here by force, I’ll follow him and make sure he never takes anything of mine again!”
Ann stepped between Gideon and Hargraves, her face pale. “Petey didn’t mean that exactly, Captain Horn. Miss Willis left of her own free will, she did.” When Gideon scowled darkly at her, she hastened to add, “But she weren’t leavin’ for good. She said to tell you she’d be back as soon as possible. Oh, and she asked me to give you this.” Ann fumbled in her apron pocket before producing a small silver object. She held it out to him. “She said it was her assurance to you that she’d return.”
He took the object, recognizing Sara’s silver locket. For a moment, hope swelled in him. She’d always worn that locket. He knew how much it meant to her. Surely she wouldn’t have left it behind if she hadn’t intended to return.
Then again, his mother had left a valuable brooch behind when she’d abandoned him and his father.
Closing his fingers around the locket, he looked at Hargraves. “If that blasted earl didn’t force her to leave, then why did she go at all? There was no reason to leave with him. We were to be married. She said she wanted to stay with me.”
Hargraves and Ann exchanged glances. “I dunno, Cap’n,” Hargraves answered nervously. “Um…maybe she had matters to take care of in England before she could settle here?”
But the hesitant look on Hargraves’s face made it clear that even he didn’t believe that. Suddenly, another interpretation of her leaving the locket behind occurred to him, an interpretation so painful he could hardly stand to think of it. “Or maybe,” he said coldly, “she never intends to return at all. Maybe this locket is just a ruse to keep me from going after her and taking her brother’s ship.”
Alarm flickered in Ann’s face. “Nay, you mustn’t believe that, captain. Her brother brought plenty of men and arms with him. If he’d wanted to destroy you and your men, he could have. But he didn’t. She wouldn’t let him. She begged him not to fight with you, and he agreed.”
“Aye, he agreed because he knew he and his merchant seamen would be no match for me! The coward! To creep onto Atlantis and steal away my intended wife without even attempting to take up arms against me! If I’d been in his place, I wouldn’t have given in to Sara’s pleas so easily! I’d have willingly fought any man who dared to—”
He broke off, remembering suddenly what he’d said to Sara only two nights ago. I wouldn’t let him take you from me, if that’s what you mean. I’ll fight any man who tries to take you away. Obviously she’d remembered them as well. She’d taken them quite to heart and had made sure that Gideon never got the chance to hurt her brother.
Rage surged up in him, a rage as mighty as any tempest the sea could produce. That’s all she’d cared about—protecting her brother, who was probably some fop with a lame sword hand and a fear of pistols!
No matter how Ann or Hargraves tried to defend her, the truth was, when given the choice between him and her family, Sara had chosen her family. She might talk of reforming the world and making Atlantis into a colony they could be proud of, but it was just talk. Otherwise, she would never have left him for her brother.
Clutching her locket tightly, he scanned the faces of the people standing around the fire. What about them? What about the other inhabitants of Atlantis, the ones she’d claimed to care about? She’d fought for the women and offered to teach the men. They’d all trusted her. But when her chance for freedom had come, she’d seized it without looking back, without even staying long enough to say good-bye.
She’d talked of giving the women a choice, but she hadn’t taken any of them with her. Instead, she’d sneaked off the island with her coward of a brother, leaving the rest of them behind. A curse upon the woman! He’d been wrong about her from the very beginning!
These noblewomen were all of the same cloth—deceitful, weak, and determined to do whatever they must to return to the arms of their rich and powerful families. How could he have ever believed differently?
“Please, Captain Horn,” Ann’s gentle voice broke into his thoughts, “you must believe that she intends to return. You know Miss Willis would never promise such a thing if she didn’t mean it.”
He faced Ann with a grim expression. “You may believe that if it gives you comfort, but I know better. She left without a care for any of you, and certainly without a care for me. She won’t be back. And Atlantis is better off without her.”
“But it wasn’t like that—” Hargraves began to protest.
Gideon silenced him with a dark scowl. “As for you, Mr. Hargraves, I don’t want to hear another word out of you. I gave you more gold than you’d ever seen in your life to get you away from here, and you repaid me by bringing the wolves to my door.” An awful possibility occurred to him. Striding up to Hargraves, he took hold of him by the shirt. “And now they all know where this island lies, don’t they? I suppose the earl was just waiting until he got his sister safely off the island before he sent in His Majesty’s Navy to rout all of us. We are as good as dead now, thanks to you!”
Hargraves shook his head furiously. “His lordship kept the Navy out of it to save Miss Willis’s reputation. I swear it. He told his men naught about who lived on this island for fear they’d jump ship in Santiago at the sound of your name. And the little miss refused to leave unless he promised to continue keepin’ his silence about Atlantis.”
Gideon stared hard at the monkey of a man who’d nonetheless always managed to stand up to him. “And why should I believe you?”
“If I thought the island was to be taken by the Navy boys any minute, Cap’n, why would I have stayed? I could’ve left on the Defiant and taken my lady with me.”
The man had a point. Gideon was still rational enough to realize that.
His gaze flitted from Hargraves to Ann, whose face showed every bit of the fear that Hargraves tried so bravely to mask. “Please, sir,” she said, in a voice wrung tight as a spring. “Don’t hurt Petey. He stayed here for my sake. He believes in Atlantis as much as I do. I couldn’t bear it if…if somethin’ happened to him.”
“Don’t you worry, Miss Ann,” Silas put in. “The cap’n ain’t gonna hurt Mr. Hargraves none. Not as long as your man intends to behave himself on the island.”
“Stay out of this, Silas,” Gideon warned. He stared at Hargraves another long moment and fleetingly thought of what pleasure it would give him to see the man flogged for having a hand in Sara’s leaving.
But he’d never approved of flogging, and he certainly couldn’t do it while sweet little Ann stood there, her heart in her hands, begging for mercy. Besides, Hargraves had only done what he saw as his duty. It was Sara who had betrayed them all, Sara who’d abandoned him.
With an oath, he thrust Hargraves away from him. “Fine. You and Ann do as you wish. But you’ll stay out of my sight if you know what’s good for you.”
He’d turned toward his cottage, his bleak, empty cottage, when another voice stopped him.
“What about the weddings?” Queenie asked. “Do we still have to choose a husband in two days time?”
He leveled Queenie with a cold stare. He wanted so badly to tell her she’d have to choose a husband in two days. It would serve the impudent tart right to be forced to the yoke of one of his men.
But even before Sara
had left, he’d seen the foolishness of trying to dictate who married whom, especially if he wanted the men and the women to have genuine affection for each other. That was one thing Sara had taught him. Not even desire could replace respect and affection in a marriage, and those could never exist when people were forced into the union. He’d forced her into being with him, and now he was paying dearly for it.
“There will be no weddings except for those of you who wish to marry.”
As astonishment struck the women, Louisa stepped forward. “Thank you, Captain. That’s good of you. And may I speak for the women in saying that we appreciate your kindness.”
“Kindness? I don’t do it out of kindness! I do it because it’s what Atlantis needs. That’s all I’ve ever cared about. That won’t change just because Sara is gone. She may have left all of us, but this place will go on…we will go on.”
They would make Atlantis a place to be envied, by God, with or without Sara. Then one day he’d find her and throw it up in her face, show her what she had left behind. Because this time he wasn’t a little boy who had no say in what happened after a woman abandoned him. This time he had all the say in the world.
Chapter 24
She said, “I’ll never forsake my dear,
Although we’re parted this many a year.”
—ANONYMOUS
“THE SAILOR AND HIS LOVE”
Nearly a week had passed since Jordan and Sara had arrived in England, after a month at sea. It was evening, and Jordan stood at the bottom of the stairs in his London town house, pacing and glancing at the hall clock every five seconds. Sara was late. She’d agreed to attend the Merringtons’ ball with him tonight, and now she was half an hour late at least.
He wasn’t sure how he’d persuaded her to go. This morning she’d said a horrified no, acting as if he were asking her to run naked through the streets. Then this afternoon when he’d arrived home from a day at Parliament, she’d changed her mind.
Thank God. It was time she went out into society and put that deuced pirate out of her mind. A few dances with men of her own station, and she’d realize how foolish she’d been to fall for a pirate captain. Besides, people needed to see her so he could put an end to any breath of scandal that might remain. God knows he’d gone to enough trouble to protect her reputation.
He’d covered up her experiences with the pirates by paying the owners of the Chastity a huge sum to claim she’d been sent back unscathed with the ship’s crew after the pirate attack. He’d let it be widely known that she’d been recovering from the trauma of her experience in the weeks since then. So far, everyone seemed to believe the tale.
Thomas Hargraves entered and cleared his throat loudly just as Jordan made his fifteenth circuit of the hall. Though Jordan wasn’t in the mood just now to be accosted by his butler, he hid his irritation. After all, Hargraves had lost his brother forever, thanks to Jordan, and some sort of amends for that had to be made.
“What is it, Hargraves?” He cast another glance up the staircase.
“It’s about Miss Sara, my lord. You told me to report on her comings and goings while you’re at Parliament during the day, and I thought I would do that before you leave for the evening.”
Jordan looked at the hall clock, then sighed. “Why the devil not? I’ve got nothing better to do at the moment.”
“Yes, my lord.” Hargraves took out a sheet of paper and bent his head to read it, his balding pate shining under the light of the candles. “At 9:11 this morning, after breakfasting with you, Miss Sara took a bath, attended by Peggy. Peggy helped her to dress—in the pink cambric walking gown, I believe—and Miss Sara came downstairs at 10:05.”
There was a slight rustling of paper before he continued. “Then she played the pianoforte in the drawing room. I believe the first tune was ‘Down by the Banks of Claudy.’” He tapped his chin. “Or was it ‘Down by the Sally Gar—’”
“I don’t care what she wore or what she played, Hargraves!” he burst out impatiently. “I just want to know what she did.”
“Yes, my lord,” Hargraves said, sounding a bit miffed. “She played the pianoforte until 10:32, at which time she asked me for a copy of Debrett’s Peerage. She read that until 12:19. I must say it engrossed her rather much. For luncheon, I brought her a tray upon which Cook had placed a chicken pie—Miss Sara’s favorite, you know—a salad with six walnuts, two slices of—”
“Hargraves—” he warned.
“I wanted to make you aware of exactly what was given to her, because she didn’t touch any of it. And as you know, Miss Sara never does without luncheon—especially when it’s chicken pie.”
Jordan scowled as he began to pace again. “You can save the commentaries. I know she hasn’t been eating well since our return.” She hadn’t eaten much aboard the ship either. And this morning, he’d watched her butter a slice of toast with listless movements, then set it aside and never touch it again.
Nor was that the worst of it. She slept only a few hours every night and spent the rest of it wandering the halls like a ghost. She avoided any contact with him, and when forced into it, she answered his questions in monosyllables.
Except when they concerned that devil of a pirate, that is. Then she told Jordan more than he wanted to hear, all about the man’s dreams for a utopia and his kindness to children and a whole host of other “wonderful” qualities, until he was sick of hearing the name Gideon Horn.
But all that was over now. She’d agreed to go with him to this ball. Surely that was a sign she was getting over her infatuation for Captain Horn. And it couldn’t happen too soon, if you asked him.
“After luncheon, Miss Sara went out,” Hargraves continued.
Jordan whirled on him. “Went out? I told you she wasn’t to go anywhere without me!” Ever since their return, he’d lived in constant fear that she’d charter a ship on her own to return to that deuced island.
Hargraves colored. “She…er…sneaked out without anyone seeing her.” When Jordan began to glower, the servant added hastily, “But she came back only two hours later. She said she’d been to visit one of her friends in the Ladies’ Committee. She looked quite well, and she asked for you immediately.”
That must have been when she’d entered the library to tell him she’d be attending the ball. What had happened in those two hours to change her mind?
It didn’t matter. She was coming around, and that was all he cared about.
A door opened upstairs, signaling that she was finally ready, and he gestured to Hargraves to be quiet. “You can tell me the rest in the morning,” he said in an undertone as he turned toward the stairs. “Go fetch Sara’s—”
He broke off as he caught sight of his sister standing at the top of the stairs. His mouth gaped open. Oh, my God-what insanity had brought this on? She was wearing an appalling gown. Cut low enough to reveal most of her breasts, it skimmed her figure, molding every curve. What’s more, it was made of gold gauze and thin as paper, the kind of gown only French women—or one of his mistresses—dared to wear. He could almost see her navel beneath it, for God’s sake.
Had she gone mad? Sara had never worn a gown like that! Even a married Englishwoman would refuse to go out in public so scandalously dressed, and certainly no respectable unmarried woman dared it.
“Where in the devil did you get that gown?” he growled as he approached the stairs. “Go back upstairs and change it this instant! You’re not going to Merrington’s in that!”
She flashed him a cool glance. “Whyever not? The whole purpose of your taking me to the ball is to find me a substitute for Gideon, isn’t it? I’m merely cooperating with your scheme. In this gown, I should be able to entice some poor man to take me, don’t you think?” She glided down another step or two. “But after I catch him, you’ll have to find a way to deceive him about my ruination. Then again, he might not care. I do have a fortune, after all. That should buy me a presentable husband if the dress doesn’t do the trick.”
&nbs
p; “Fortune hunters? Lechers?” he shouted as he stalked up the stairs. “Is that who you want for a husband?”
She shrugged, pulling at her neckline to make it even lower, if that were possible. “What does it matter? One man’s as good as another, don’t you agree? You must, or you wouldn’t have taken me from the one I loved in hopes that I’d find someone better.”
He halted on the stairs, eyes narrowing. “What is this, Sara, some trick to make me feel guilty for what I did?”
“Trick?” she said innocently. “Not at all. I’m merely trying to help you. Since you’ve appointed yourself to decide who I should or shouldn’t marry, I’m doing my part to catch the man. What do you think?” She smoothed the impossibly thin material against her skin. “Will Lord Manfred like this dress? He’s looking for a wife, I hear.”
Jordan gritted his teeth. Lord Manfred was sixty years old and both a lecher and a fortune hunter. The bastard had been sniffing after Sara for years. Sara loathed him almost as much as Jordan did. “You’ve made your point,” he ground out. “Now go up and change into a decent gown.”
“Oh, but Jordan, I have nothing better for snagging—”
“This instant, Sara Willis! Or I swear I’ll change it for you!”
“Well,” she said offhandedly, “if you insist. But don’t blame me if I can’t catch a suitable husband right off.” With a sniff she turned and walked back up the stairs.
“And don’t think this excuses you from going to the ball with me,” Jordan called after her. “I expect you down here in no more than half an hour!”
“Yes, Jordan,” she said in entirely too smug a voice.
As soon as Sara got inside her room, she smiled to herself. Take that, brother mine, she thought as she hurried to where Peggy held the gown she’d actually intended to wear. The servant made no comment as she helped Sara out of the scandalous French gown Sara had borrowed from her friend in the Ladies’ Committee. Good heavens, Sara had never felt so naked in all her life, and before Jordan, no less. But maybe now he understood how she felt about his insufferably arrogant behavior.
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