Page 100 of The Pirate Lord
“No!” she protested. “You’ll shoot him, Jordan, and I won’t have that!”
“Sara, I’ve agreed to all your terms until now. You owe me a chance to determine if your pirate captain’s intentions are honorable. This attack on my ship doesn’t give me confidence in his supposed willingness to ‘retire.’ And I won’t simply hand you over to him unless I’m sure he’ll treat you well.”
“But Jordan?—”
“He’s right,” Lord Dryden interrupted. “I think we should all stay below until we’re sure there’s no danger.”
Sara might like Lord Dryden, but she certainly didn’t appreciate his interference just now.
Apparently, neither did his wife. “That is mysonout there, Marcus, and I shan’t sit in here twiddling my thumbs when I finally have the chance to hold him in my arms again!”
“I share your feelings completely, my dear. But no matter what we feel, we don’t yet know this man. He’s unpredictable, and according to Miss Willis, very bitter. I think it’s best to test the waters, so to speak, before we reveal ourselves.”
“Then we’re in agreement,” Jordan told the marquess. He meant, of course, that themenwere in agreement, which was all that mattered to him. “You’ll stay here with the ladies? Look out for them if anything goes wrong?”
“Nothing will go wrong unless youmakeit go wrong!” Sara protested, but both Jordan and Lord Dryden ignored her words. When Lord Dryden gave his agreement, Jordan walked out the door.
“Jordan!” she shouted after him. “Don’t you dare hurt him!”
Coming up beside her, Lord Dryden patted her shoulder. “There now, Miss Willis, it will be all right. Your brother may be hot-tempered, but he does care about you.”
“If he lays one hand on Gideon, I’ll strangle him,” she said fervently.
“Don’t worry,” his lordship interrupted with a faint smile. “If he lays one hand on Gideon, my wife and I will hold your brother down while you do.”
Gideon stepped warily aboard theDefiantwith several men. This had been too simple. The ship had heaved to with nary a protest. He motioned to Barnaby, who boarded the ship out of sight of its captain, accompanied by fifteen of Gideon’s best men.
Then he gripped the hilt of his saber as he faced the ship’s captain, a sea-roughened raisin of a man who stood beside the main mast.
The man looked oddly unafraid. “We carry no cargo of use to you and your villains, sir.”
“I’m not here for cargo. I seek the Earl of Blackmore. Is he aboard?”
“He’s aboard,” came another voice from beyond the main mast. A man stepped forward, a pistol in his hand. “I’m the Earl of Blackmore.”
Gideon scanned his enemy with cold eyes, looking for signs of the weak coward he’d expected to find. But though the man was finely dressed and younger than Gideon had expected, he looked nothing like the noblemen Gideon had dealt with in previous captures. There was a hardness about him, an edge of stubborn pride, that Gideon couldn’t help but admire.
And he was leveling the pistol on Gideon as if he itched to fire it. “What do you want with me? Is it gold you want?”
“I want Sara,” Gideon said bluntly, ignoring the pistol. “I want my fiancée. Either you take me to her, or I hold you and your ship captive until you do.”
“Or I could shoot you and your cursed pirates. Even now my men have yours under their guns and can pick them off at will if I command it.”
Gideon sneered at him. “Barnaby! How fare the earl’s men and their guns?”
Barnaby and the fifteen other men emerged from behind the forward house, pushing a group of disarmed and disgruntled sailors ahead of them. “Oh, they fare quite well, Captain. As for their guns, let’s just say we’ve added to our arsenal substantially this day.”
The earl scowled as Gideon faced him with a thinly veiled smile. “I’ve been a pirate too many years to fall for such paltry tricks.”
“I still have you under my own gun,” the earl retorted.
“Aye. And my men have you under theirs. Now, about your sister?—”
“Jordan, you fool, put that gun down at once!” shouted a familiar feminine voice. Sara ran out from beneath the quarterdeck to stand in front of Gideon, facing the earl. “Don’t you dare shoot him!”
Gideon’s breath stopped in his throat. “Sara!”
She turned to him, her face glowing. “I told you I would return.”
