Page 102 of The Pirate Lord
Gideon was still reeling from the knowledge that Elias had lied to him when her last words arrested him. “Did you say, ‘my father’?” His gaze returned to the couple standing behind Barnaby, and this time he surveyed the man who stood there, soproud and unflinching . . . the tall, gray-headed man with blue eyes . . . and Gideon’s own face.
Gideon’s heart pounded as he clutched Sara’s arm with painful tightness.
“Good morning, son,” the man said in a strained voice, his eyes bright with unshed tears.
Shaking his head, Gideon staggered back from Sara. “There must be a mistake. My father is dead. My mother is dead.”
“Your mother is standing right here,” Sara said firmly. “After she met Lord Dryden, she realized that Elias Horn wasn’t the man for her. She’d already noticed his propensity for drink, so she told him as gently as she could that she didn’t wish to marry him.”
Sara’s voice hardened. “Apparently that didn’t satisfy Elias. After she married Lord Dryden, he sent her notes, trying to get her to meet him. And when Lord Dryden put an end to that, he struck back at them both by stealing you away shortly after your birth. One day when the wet nurse brought you to the park, he waited till she turned aside for a moment, then he snatched you.”
“No, it can’t be,” Gideon said hoarsely. “Elias was unfeeling sometimes, but he wouldn’t have . . . he couldn’t have . . ..” His mind raced through a thousand memories, trying to reorient them according to this new information. To be told that he had both a mother and a father, that Elias had lied— “But what about the brooch she left behind?” he said as he touched his fingers to his belt.
“I had pinned it to the inside of the basket you lay in on the day you were taken,” said the woman who claimed to be his mother. “It sparkled so much that you used to love to look at it.”
There was so much sincerity in her voice that he could almost believe her. “No, I saw the letter from you to my . . . to Elias. What about the letter?”
“Letter?” Lord Dryden’s gaze flitted to Sara. “What is he talking about?”
But Sara seemed not to hear him. “You were ten years old, Gideon. Did you think to look for a postmark? Identifying marks? Of course not. Elias wrote a fake letter and showed it to you, because you were making trouble for him by asking questions at the consulate.”
“Oh, my God,” Gideon choked out. He felt like a boat turned topsy-turvy by a tempest. If this was true, then everything he’d believed about Elias and his mother was wrong. “This is impossible.”
“Think, Gideon,” Sara said, her face full of sympathy. “If Elias had truly been your father, why would he have tortured you by reading you a letter that was calculated to wound? No caring father would willingly tell his son that his mother didn’t want him, that his mother’s family thought he was dirt beneath their shoes. He did that becausehefelt like dirt beneath their shoes, and he wanted to put you down there with him. No doubt he thought to taint Lady Dryden’s marriage by stealing her son. Only he didn’t know what to do with you once he had you.”
Gideon’s hands formed fists as he thought of all the times Elias had cursed him for being as proud and haughty as his mother. He thought of all the beatings he’d suffered, the lack of familial affection he’d sensed in Elias even from the beginning. Rage boiled up in him, a wild rage that needed an outlet.
He turned to his parents. “If you knew Elias had taken me, why didn’t you look for me? Why did you leave me to that . . . that monster?”
“Oh, my dear boy, we did look for you!” Lady Dryden cried. “But we never dreamed he’d take you to America. We didn’t think he had the money. Besides, the war with America was still going on.”
Lord Dryden stepped forward, his eyes stark with pain. “We searched through Ireland, England, and Scotland. We even searched the Continent. Every time there was a report of an abandoned baby boy matching your description, we traveled wherever he was to determine if it was you. We never believed Elias would keep you. Why should he? He knew nothing about babies.”
“He certainly didn’t,” Gideon said bitterly. He looked at his mother. “I think he kept me only because I was a link to you. He always loved you, you know. And maybe part of him came to believe he reallywasmy father.” His tone grew harsh. “Knowing Elias, it’s more likely he thought to punish you by punishing me. He always said I was like you, every time he?—”
“Gideon, no,” Sara said in an undertone as she came up beside him. “You mustn’t tell them all that. They’ve suffered endless tortures wondering how you were being treated, and it’s not fair to heap more upon them now.”
He looked at Lord and Lady Dryden and realized she was right. Never had he seen two people look more anxious. They weren’t to blame for the actions of a man who’d never completely been right in his mind. And to tell them the full extent of Elias’s perfidy would probably destroy them.
His parents. Confound it, they werehisparents. How would he ever get used to the idea of having real parents?
“Son,” his mother said in an aching voice as she approached him. “I’ve been . . . waiting thirty years to hold you in my arms. Do you think . . . you could . . . indulge an old woman?”
Tears misted his eyes as he gazed into the face of the woman he hardly knew, the woman he’d hated all his life with no reason. And suddenly, he wanted desperately to know her. “Mother,” was all he said through a voice choked with emotion.
Then somehow they were embracing.
Sara watched them together, her heart near to bursting. She couldn’t be angry at Jordan now for forcing her to return to England, not when it had come out like this.
Next it was Lord Dryden’s turn to hold his son, his eyes red with unshed tears as he clutched the younger man to him. When after several moments his parents released him, Gideon had the look of a boy who’d just been given the key to a sweets shop. “A motheranda father. I can hardly believe it.” Pulling away from his parents, he turned to Sara. “And it’s all thanks to you. You found them, didn’t you? You did that for me.”
She ducked her head shyly. “I . . . I just never could quite believe that Elias’s tale was true. It didn’t make sense that a woman could abandon her child with so little thought.”
Clasping her about the waist, he drew her close. “You always did have a better opinion of people than I did. And it seems you were right this time. Think of all the years I might have had with them if I hadn’t been so ready to believe Elias.” He tipped her chin up with one finger. “Maybe I would have met you sooner.”
Her eyes glowed as she looked up at him and touched her hand to his cheek. “Those years are past. What matters is that we have each other now.”
“And do I have you?” he whispered. “You’ll marry me? You’ll come back with me to Atlantis?”
