Beautiful Tempest(26)

"If you did, I wasn't listening."

"You listened, you just chose not to believe anything I said. But Catherine isn't here now watching my every move, so perhaps we-"

Jacqueline cut in sharply, "I don't believe she pulled your strings, and I certainly don't believe you would have tossed her overboard if she were here, though I would have liked to see what would happen to you if you told her father you abandoned her in London."

He shrugged. "I doubt it would matter to him. He didn't strike me as a loving parent. But she seemed desperate for his love, would do anything to get it. Stealing those jewels from you and your relatives was just for him, to prove that she could be useful to him so he wouldn't send her away when she'd only just found him."

"So that part of her tale was true, that she was searching, or had searched, for her long-lost father?"

"It's probably easier to make a tale believable if some parts of it are true."

Jack made a sound of ridicule. "I'm sure you would know from experience."

"I don't recall lying to you, Jack. If I did, it was only to protect your health, which you were determined to wither away."

"I was too angry to eat back then!" she snarled. "I would have puked it all up."

"I'll agree you were angry without respite. Your starving yourself kept you from sleeping. It made you weak. Your attacks became pitiful. And I was infuriated every time I heard your belly growl, since it was never my intention to harm you-physically. Can you at least agree that starving yourself wasn't a well-thought-out plan?"

"And miss another opportunity to infuriate you?" she shot back. "I still need your dagger. Toss it over."

He crossed his arms over his chest, a clear no. She growled low in her throat and sat down on the cot behind her to test the thin rope around her ankles. It had been looped four or five times before it was tied off. She tried sliding one foot out, but it had been wrapped too tight.

With another glance at Bastard first to make sure he was still standing behind his desk, she bent forward over her knees to find the knot and work it loose with her fingers. It wasn't working, not when she could only use one hand because her pistol was in the other.

She was about to take out her dagger to cut the rope when she saw the top of his head in front of her and gasped. Good God, he was too quick. She'd only been distracted for a moment!


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"Be easy, Jack. I'm just helping."

He didn't look up as he spoke, and she felt the rope fall away. Then he looked up at her smiling, even though her pistol was aimed at his face only inches away. Those eyes, such a starkly bright turquoise with that dark ring circling the outer edge of the irises, were mesmerizing, but especially so with that face.

A villain such as him shouldn't have eyes like that. Or smiles that were genuinely amused rather than sneering or mocking. Too many times she'd gotten distracted by his face and how handsome he was. Such as now. In that brief, arrested moment, he could have grabbed the pistol from her hand and she wouldn't even have noticed!

He didn't even try. "I've risked a bullet to show you that you can trust me."

She leaned back to put some distance between them and slow her heartbeat. He stood up, towering over her, and simply offered her his hand.

"Shall we?"

Thoughts, where did they go!? She stared at the hand and leaned back even more until she was touching the bulkhead behind her. Shall we what?

She meant to say that aloud. He shook his head, probably because she was ignoring his proffered hand. "I could have reached for your weapon instead of the ropes and easily taken it from you. Does that tell you nothing?"

"That you missed your chance?"

"That this voyage will be different."

He started to walk away, back toward his desk. She shot off the cot and jammed the pistol against his back. "We're going this way, out the door. Make that happen."

"And if I don't?"

She glanced up at the back of his head, so far above her. Hitting him with the pistol might do what she hoped if they were the same height, but they weren't. If she tried it now, it might not knock him out or even daze him.

Why the devil wasn't he more concerned about being shot? And why hadn't he taken her pistol when he'd had the chance?

The man wasn't taking her at all seriously!

He only sighed as he turned carefully and slowly walked to the door, giving her time to maintain her position behind him. Still, she bumped into his arse when he bent over from the waist to pick up the key from the floor. She hissed through her teeth and was surprised he didn't laugh about it.