Page 36 of The Pirate Lord
Releasing his arm, she stalked away to stand by the brass rail. She could feel him behind her, a large, disturbing presence. “I’ve been a reformer all my life, as was my mother before me. Her motto was ‘It only takes one caring soul to make things right,’ and I’ve lived by that as best I could.”
She curled her fingers about her locket. Her earliest memories were of taking baskets of food to the prisoners and learning to sew by making patchwork quilts for the poor.
“And your father?” Gideon asked.
“My real father died in debtor’s prison when I was two.”
There was a long, shocked silence behind her. When Gideon spoke, his voice was laced with genuine compassion. “I’m sorry.”
She sucked in an uneven breath. “I never knew him, but my mother loved him very much. His death changed her. After that, all she wanted was to find some way to better the lives of those who suffered. Despite having little money and even less possibility for a future, she interceded for prisoners with the authorities and appealed to the House of Lords to change the unfair laws. That’s how she met and married my stepfather, Lord Blackmore.”
He came up to stand beside her, leaning on the rail with folded arms. “I’m sure he put a stop to all her good works.”
She glanced at him, but he was staring across the sparkling waters of the ocean with eyes that were bitter, unforgiving.
“Actually, he didn’t. He supported Mama’s reform efforts until the day she died.” She ran her fingers idly over the rail. “She took me everywhere she went and instilled in me a belief that people could rid the world of injustice if they made the effort. I guess I just followed in her footsteps.” She ventured asmile. “Now that she and my stepfather have passed away, I feel a responsibility to carry on the family business, so to speak.”
“The family business? Sending a young woman of quality off with a lot of thieves and murderers?”
Angling her body toward him, she met his dark gaze steadily. “You called them ‘poor unfortunates’ before.”
A small smile crossed his lips, muting the harsh planes of his face. “Aye, I did, didn’t I? Still, I can’t believe your stepbrother approved of such a dangerous project, even if it was for a worthy purpose.”
“No, he didn’t.” Clouds scudded by, casting a fleeting shadow along the ship. “He tried to stop me. It was futile, of course. I’m old enough to go where I want with or without his permission, and he finally had to accept that I would do as I pleased.”
Gideon’s smile vanished as quickly as the sun had vanished behind the clouds. “You make a habit of that, don’t you?” He propped one elbow on the rail and set his other hand on his hip as he faced her. “But let me warn you. Your family might indulge your willfulness and your schemes, but I won’t. Your whims won’t be tolerated on my ship. Or my island.”
“Yourisland? I thought it was a classless utopia that didn’t belong to anyone.”
A scowl darkened his features. “Still, someone has to make the rules and enforce them, and my men have elected me to do it. That means we followmyrules onmyisland.” He paused. “I know that’s hard for your kind to accept. You’re used to getting what you want as the Earl of Blackmore’s daughter. But you’ll adjust to it eventually or learn the hard way what it means to flout authority.”
She ignored his threat, but the way he’d said “the Earl of Blackmore’s daughter” with such contempt roused her curiosity. He seemed to have an unreasonable hatred of nobility, and she suspected it didn’t stem simply from being an American.
“I wonder,” she said, her tone even, “who taughtyou‘what it means to flout authority.’ What terrible English nobleman taught you to hate ‘my kind’ so bitterly?”
His eyes blazed as he pushed away from the rail. Every muscle in his lean torso tensed, like that of a beast preparing to pounce, and she stepped back instinctively, her hand going to her throat.
“Trust me,” he finally said in a voice edged with anger, “you don’t want to know.”
Then turning on his heel, he stalked off to the foc’sle, leaving her to stand there shaking.
With a cursory glance at the compass, Gideon turned the wheel a quarter-turn. The rays of the afternoon sun slanted across the ship’s stern, warming his head and back. Unfortunately, he was already too warm, thanks to Sara Willis.
He’d avoided her the whole day by giving Barnaby charge of her, but it hadn’t stopped him from thinking about her. That business about her mother had taken him by surprise. A reforming woman married to an earl. Amazing.
Of course, it probably hadn’t been as dramatic as Sara had implied. Her mother’s reform efforts, and Sara’s, too, must have been limited to protected situations. Gideon had held enough English earls at sword point to know they were a cautious, haughty lot who didn’t allow their female relatives to travel about getting their hands dirty with the concerns of the poor.
Still, Sarahadtaken passage aboard theChastity. Shehadargued for the convict women without concern for herself. Now that he thought about it, the only reason she’d told him herstepbrother was the earl was to try to convince him not to take theChastity. That wasn’t the act of a timid woman.
He smiled. Sara was about as timid as a warship. A very pretty warship, with sleek lines from stem to stern, but still a warship intended for battle. When it came to the women and their well-being, she fought like any well-gunned brig. Her courage was both daunting and sobering. In his more frustrated moments, she even had him questioning his decision to seize the convict ship.
Then again, that confounded soldier in skirts would make any man question his actions. God help the man who married her. She’d hound him night and day and never give him a moment’s peace.
Except when he was making love to her. He groaned. Why was it every time he thought of Sara, he imagined her in bed, her slender arms outstretched, her eyes shrouded in mystery as she beckoned to him like a siren calling a sailor?
Not to him. Some other man must wreck himself on that shore.
But then some other man would have the delightful experience of kissing her, of touching her silken hair, of stroking her naked body?—
