Page 94 of The Pirate Lord
For the first time, he understood what Sara had been trying to make him see. Not all the women were happy to be here. They weren’t all delighted to be given new husbands without having any say in it. Some weren’t at all happy. Some were having to face the fact that they were to lose their loved ones in England forever.
And it was all thanks to him and his grand plans for utopia. Utopia? When he’d called Atlantis “utopia” in front of Sara long ago, she’d called ita utopia where men have all the choices and women have none.That’s exactly what it was. He had created it to be so. But he was fast discovering that a utopia where only half the people have choices wasn’t much of one.
“Mama says I hafta be a big girl,” Jane went on, tears forming in her green eyes. “She says I got to learn to like my new papa.” She looked up at him, and his heart twisted inside him. “But I miss my own papa. I don’twanta new papa.”
Quickly setting the bottle of rum down on the desk, he moved to sit beside Jane on the bed. He laid his arm around her small shoulders and pulled her close. “Don’t worry, sweetie. You don’t have to have a new papa if you don’t want one. I’ll see to that myself.”
She snuggled against his shoulder with a little sniff. “I wouldn’t mindtoomuch if you were my new papa. But you’re gonna marry Miss Sara, aren’t you? When she gets back.”
She said it with such assurance it nearly broke his heart. “Yes, when she gets back,” he repeated hollowly.
Suddenly, Barnaby burst into the cabin. “Cap’n, you’d better come quick. Molly’s having her baby.” He glanced at the child, then motioned Gideon to come to the door. As Gideon stood up to join him, Barnaby added in a low whisper, “And she’s notdoing too well either. It looks like she’s not going to make it. She’s asking for the child, so you’d better bring her along.”
In that moment, Gideon forgot about the bottle of rum he’d come to get. He forgot about Sara’s betrayal and his own hurt. With a sickening lurch in his stomach, he scooped little Jane up in his arms and followed Barnaby out the door.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The prevailing manners of an age depend more than we are aware, or are willing to allow, on the conduct of the women; this is one of the principal hinges on which the great machine of human society turns.
— HANNAH MORE, “ESSAYS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS . . . FOR YOUNG LADIES”
Sara looked through the crowded rooms of the Merrington’s luxurious mansion. Jordan had been right. Finding Lady Dryden in this crush was impossible. Sara had spent the last two hours searching for the woman with no success. Since Lady Dryden wasn’t often in society, few people knew her. The lady was as elusive as a breath of wind in the calms.
Frustrated, she headed for the balcony to gain a moment of quiet. Unfortunately, a woman emerged on the balcony to join her only a few moments later. They acknowledged each other with polite nods, but respected one another’s privacy by standing in silence for several moments more. The other woman had turned to go back into the ballroom when the pendant around her neck caught the torchlight, garnering Sara’s attention.
It was an onyx horse’s head, ringed round with diamonds. Though smaller than Gideon’s, it was a veritable copy of the one he wore as a belt buckle.
Sara’s blood pounded in her ears. “Lady Dryden?”
The woman halted, casting her a startled look. “Yes? I’m sorry, do I know you?”
Sara surveyed the woman with building excitement. It was her. It had to be. She had the same jewelry, and even her coloring was right. With midnight hair threaded with gray and eyes the color of bluebells, Lady Dryden certainlycouldbe Gideon’s mother.
But how to begin? Sara had rehearsed this meeting a hundred times, yet now that it was here, she was at a loss. She mustn’t let the woman leave, that was for certain.
“My name is Sara Willis. I’m the Earl of Blackmore’s stepsister.” Sara swallowed. “I-I was just admiring your pendant.” Nothing like getting right to the point, she always said. “I saw a brooch very like it recently.”
The woman stiffened. “Did you? Where?” Her voice was far from nonchalant. Indeed, she seemed suddenly very interested in what Sara had to say.
“This is going to sound strange, I know, but it was worn by a pirate. He’d had it made into a belt buckle.”
“A pirate? Do you mean that to be a joke?” Lady Dryden asked, clearly disappointed. Before Sara could protest, Lady Dryden’s expression altered and she added, “Wait, you must be the young lady who traveled aboard theChastity. My friend in the Ladies Committee told me about you. The ship was accosted by pirates and you narrowly escaped capture.”
“Yes, that was me,” she said dryly. Jordan’s story had certainly spread widely. But perhaps it was time that someone knew the truth, especially this someone. “Actually, I didn’t escape capture at all. I spent a month with the pirates on anisland in the Atlantic. I got to know them very well, especially their captain.”
Lady Dryden looked shocked at the way a complete stranger was taking her into her confidence. “The Pirate Lord? You spent a month with the Pirate Lord himself?”
“Yes. Have you never heard his real name?”
Lady Dryden shook her head, clearly confused to have Sara ask her such a thing.
“It’s Gideon Horn.”
The blood drained from Lady Dryden’s face. She looked as if she might faint, and Sara rushed to her side. “I’m so sorry, I’ve upset you. Are you all right?”
“Did . . . did you say ‘Horn’? The man’s name was Horn? You’re certain?”
“Yes. I came to know Captain Horn quite well during my stay on his island.” She hesitated to continue, given Lady Dryden’s obvious distress. But the woman had abandoned her son, after all, and she deserved to be upset. Sara’s voice hardened. “Indeed, I was surprised to learn he wasn’t an American at all. He was born English, the son of a duke’s daughter. Apparently, his mother had run off with her tutor, an Englishman named Elias Horn, then had abandoned her child after her family asked her to return.”
