Damon and Mortimer were quietly but quickly disabling pirates on the edge of the crowd. Percy wasn’t. He’d stuck his pistol in the back of one pirate and had given him a warning that was keeping him quiet. One was better than none for old Percy. The three armed sailors who’d been guarding Jeremy earlier had also taken out three pirates. When one of the pirates noticed what was happening, he shouted a warning, which set off the mayhem.
Jeremy got swarmed for a moment when his four contenders converged on him, but he was able to knock one out and push the other three back so they fell over their mate. Then he quickly went after the pirates who still had weapons. But for a moment during the brawl he came face-to-face with Damon and could have knocked him out as well. She saw her brother pause, seeming to consider it! She was about to yell something nasty at him when a pirate stuck a pistol in his back. Damon saw it and tackled that one away from Jeremy. Jack smirked, but her brother would still get an earful from her later about not honoring deals.
That’s when an arm went about her neck, half choking her, and the tip of a dagger pricked the skin below her ear. Filthy black silk covered the elbow under her chin. She knew only one of the pirates wore that dark color. An icy chill ran down her spine, but then she got angry at herself. They’d been so close to winning and it was her fault that they wouldn’t! She had to fix this.
“How’d you get up here?” she asked Dr. Death. “I would have seen—”
Foul breath crossed her cheek when he said, “Was already up here, pretty. Snuck up as soon as ye ran back to the cap’n to get him to leave his post, and I hid on the other side of his cabin. Fights are boring. If ye’ve seen one, ye’ve seen them all. But ye ain’t boring, wench, and there’s a nice bed only feet from here where we’re gonna do a little bouncing.”
“Take a look below. Your friends are done for.”
“Then I guess they need to be helped up and given back their weapons, eh? And what do ye think will make the cap’n do that?”
He started to laugh, and of course he would, he was holding a knife near her throat—exactly what she’d been warned couldn’t happen if Damon’s side was to win. But she’d slowly been pulling the pistol out of her pocket so Dr. Death wouldn’t notice, horribly aware that shooting someone behind her whom she couldn’t see wasn’t guaranteed to be successful. She had to turn her head enough to see some part of him she could hit because she didn’t dare miss when she had only one shot. So she leaned into his elbow even though it cut off her breath for a moment and shot him where it would hurt him enough to let her go.
He didn’t. He cackled like an old hen instead. “Oh, yer funny, girl. The reason I’m a sawbones is I had to cut off my own foot when I was a youngun. Ye just shot an empty boot.”
The firing of the weapon drew a lot of attention her way, though, and just that momentary distraction provided enough of an advantage for Jeremy, Damon, and the others to beat down the last of the pirates who were still standing. But that wasn’t helping her situation, which could give the upper hand back to the pirates, and she wasn’t about to let that happen if she could help it.
“I think I set your boot on fire though.”
“Nice try, girly.”
“You can’t smell it burning?”
That got him to lift his leg so he could at least see the empty boot, which loosened his hold on her a little, and that’s when Damon dove at him. She grunted as she got knocked aside, but the pirate went down with Damon, and a furious punch knocked the pirate out. She almost laughed when she saw that Death’s boot really was smoldering.
But Damon was already pulling her to her feet. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“Just a scratch.”
Of course Damon had to see for himself, but then he was hugging her fiercely. “Next time, can you do what I ask?”
“I could—maybe.” She grinned. “But if there isn’t a next time, then we don’t need to find out if I will or won’t.”
“Not a good answer, Jack.”
She laughed. “For me it was.”
Chapter Forty
JACK AND DAMON WENT for a stroll around the deck after dinner to watch the sunset. Such brilliant orange and gold reflected so perfectly on the water of a becalmed sea was a magnificent sight. It was a pleasure to be on the ship now that the pirates were locked in the hold. The winners had had quite a celebration the day they’d won. Damon had even had the pirates’ hoarded rum brought topside. But then the wind had died that night and no one had been happy about that—except Jacqueline. And six days later, she was still enjoying the calm because it gave her more time to spend with Damon. Now if her brother would stop being so annoying and find somewhere else to sleep . . .
She remarked, “I know all sailors hate a becalmed sea, and I thought that’s why you’ve been so vexed, but—is it my brother instead?”
Damon gave her a wry look. “A little of both.”
He directed her to the quarterdeck stairs since neither of them was in a hurry to return to his cabin, where Jeremy and Percy were playing chess. When the game was over, Percy would leave, but Jeremy wouldn’t. He’d come into the cabin with a hammock after the pirates had all been tied in the hold and had warned Damon that was the only way he wouldn’t beat him senseless for ruining his sister. Jack didn’t get a chance to offer her opinion—well, she did later when she was alone with Jeremy, but nothing she said would change his mind about the sleeping arrangements.
She sat on the step below Damon, cocooned between his thighs, using him as a nice backrest as she gazed up at the sails, which were still flat and motionless. His hands circled her neck gently, his thumbs rubbing the skin below her ears. She was going to get frustrated again!
“We were so close to the islands.” Damon sighed. “Now this.”
She stretched her legs out in front of her and crossed her ankles, trying to ignore his caresses, which was nearly impossible, so she distracted them both with “So? There’s really no reason to worry until we’re out of fruit. But your supplies aren’t running low so we’re not at risk of getting scurvy, and your men have even been fishing, though I wish they wouldn’t,” she added in a mumble.
“Unless this calm stretches for leagues in all directions, your father will be disposing of Lacross without me and—”
“Wait, what?”
She turned about to face him, but remembered that the first night of the calm he’d asked them where James was sailing to. Jeremy, still not on friendly terms with him, had goaded, “Exactly where you thought he wouldn’t go.” But she hadn’t realized that Damon had been left thinking that James was ahead of them simply because he’d left London two days before Damon had.
She didn’t laugh at what had him so concerned, but she did confess, “You can’t imagine how hard it was not to gloat over your failing on this second mission before you even got started because Father sailed before you did. But that was before we knew you wanted his help. I still don’t understand why you didn’t just present your story to my father when you were in London before your first mission.”
“I considered it, but I wanted to do it on my terms, which is why I tried to capture him instead of you, not to deliver him to Lacross, but to get him to hear me out and agree to deal with Lacross with my help.”
She sighed. “That is not the way to get on my father’s good side.”
“He has one?”
She snorted. “I meant an actual sit-down civilized talk.”
“For reasons better left buried, I don’t like your father. I was afraid that would get in the way of convincing him to listen to my explanation, and any number of things could have gone wrong because of it.”
“Don’t you think it’s time you explained that?” When he didn’t answer, she tsked. “What you don’t know is that he sailed fully laden with cannons this time, so you probably took the lead less than a week out of London.”
“Really?” He looked relieved until he added,
“He still won’t know where to find us.”
She grinned. “But we know where to find him. We can wait for him on St. Kitts, where he’s going to meet up with my uncle Drew, or on Anguilla.”
“Anguilla? Why the devil would he go there?” An uncharacteristic sharpness was in Damon’s tone.
Apparently, she hadn’t reassured him enough yet. “Because we could only assume Pierre was behind this. He seemed the most likely culprit, but Father wanted to confirm absolutely that he wasn’t still in prison. However, my uncle Drew Anderson has had ample time to find that out, so Father will want to confer with him first. So you needn’t worry that you’ll miss the big fight, if that was your concern. We’ll get there first and we can tell Drew what’s happened. And you might want to let him warn my father first, or my brother can, so he doesn’t try to kill you on sight.”
“Not your brother. He still wants a piece of me for ruining you.”
She rolled her eyes and got comfortable again, leaning against his chest, using his two legs stretched out on either side of her as armrests. “I walked right into that ruination. You were just an innocent bystander.”
“The men in your family won’t take that view—unless we marry. As I’m stronger than you, you know very well I could have stopped you instead of letting you have your way with me.”
She chuckled at his phrasing, delighted that they could joke about this. “It’s silly of you to feel guilty—if you are feeling guilty—because I’m not the least bit ruined. So don’t worry, you won’t have to make the ultimate sacrifice. I never intended to be a virginal bride, or d’you really think I’d commit myself to a lifelong union without finding out first that I and my intended will be compatible in all ways?”
“That sounds like something a ‘ruined’ lady might say—after the fact.”
She burst out laughing. “What a polite way of calling me a liar. But I’m not your everyday lady, Damon, and I’m pretty sure you can agree with that.”
“Indeed, a beautiful tempest, outrageously bold and opinionated, dangerously daring, willfully—”
“Okay! So I’m a hoyden. But I know love can make people do stupid things and ignore what’s sensible. I don’t intend to let that happen to me because love won’t matter a’tall if a man isn’t a good lover, isn’t fun in and out of bed, ends up being a prude who wants to make love with his clothes on. The bedroom is a big part of marriage, and I refuse to get stuck with only half of the good part.”
“And yet, an annulment can fix the unhappy-bed part if it came to that.”
“Not in my family! We make sure first, then get the happy ever after.”
“So—we aren’t going to marry?”
She sat up and turned around, her brows snapped together. “This sort of teasing is no longer funny, so stop it. I still need the love part of the equation, which you and I don’t have, so don’t try to turn this ridiculous guilt you’re feeling into something it’s not.”
“You want me.”
She blinked at the reminder. “What has that got to do with anything? I’m attracted more’n I ought to be, which is why we had a delightful time in bed. It was fun and we could have had more fun if my brother didn’t turn into a bloody guard dog. I’m the first to admit how frustrating that is because, yes, I do want you again before we run out of time. None of which negates what happened before this unexpected alliance, Damon. You hurt my family and I wanted you dead for it, for God’s sake! That doesn’t just go—”
He kissed her hard to shut her up. She stood up to kiss him back even harder, nearly knocking him back on the deck. Six days of abstinence when she wanted him this much . . .
He stood and picked her up. She loved being in his arms, pressed against his chest, having her arm around his neck. She couldn’t resist kissing him again even though they were in full view of anyone walking out his cabin door. She wished he would take her somewhere private where she could do so much more, but they both knew Jeremy would find them all too quickly if they did because he never left them alone for long. But Damon quickly moved away from the lantern light to the shadowed side of his cabin, toward the back of the ship. For the moment, no one would see them there, but they had to be quiet with Jeremy on the other side of the wall.
When Damon put her on her feet, she stopped caring if anyone saw them because he started kissing her and soon whispered, “I know you’re comfortable on a ship. I’ve seen you take the wheel, climb the mast. So you might enjoy this.” He turned her around before he added, “Brace yourself, Jack.”
She put her hands against the wall without asking why, but gasped when she felt him raise her shirt and pull down her britches and drawers. But she really sucked in her breath when she felt him kissing what he’d exposed, including her derriere. She peeked over her shoulder and saw him kneeling, his mouth moving over her tender flesh. He didn’t stop kissing her and caressing her with one hand when he moved his other hand between her legs and slipped his finger inside her. Moving it slowly and then more quickly, he was driving her wild. She gasped as her body trembled, delicious sensations overwhelming her. This is what she’d wanted, needed, for too long! She slapped a hand over her mouth to stanch her cry of pleasure.
Damon patted her derriere and stood up to whisper in her ear, “I was right.”
God, yes, he was. She turned around, reached for him, and got in one good kiss before they both heard the cabin door open and Jeremy calling her name. Damon quickly helped her straighten her clothes and led her back to where Jeremy could see them in the light from the lantern by the cabin door.
“We thought we heard a whale splash and tried to spot it,” she told her brother.
He’d come to the top of the steps outside the cabin and gave her a doubtful look, then grumbled, “No touching, and stay out of the shadows,” before he went back in the cabin.
Jacqueline growled under her breath. Her brother had become a mind reader, so uncannily on the mark with his timing. Every single time she and Damon had found an empty spot for some privacy this week, Jeremy would either show up or start shouting her name and looking for her until she showed up. He’d even climbed up to the crow’s nest the night she and Damon had snuck out of the cabin, thinking Jeremy was asleep when he wasn’t. Quite embarrassing, that, how quickly she’d had to fix her clothing before her brother peered over the side. But mostly, he just didn’t leave them alone together. As chaperones went, he was the worst ever. But tonight they’d managed a few private moments. It just wasn’t enough!
Damon was softly chuckling beside her. “I’m beginning to regret giving him his freedom.”
“It was a wise decision and it worked out beautifully. Even though he is being aggravating now.”
“Yes, he was the perfect foil to win the day with only bruises instead of bloodshed.” Then Damon took her hand and brought it to his lips before he gave her his form of an apology for his mention of marriage earlier. “I’m still getting to know you, Jack. So some teasing you enjoy, and apparently, some you don’t. Can we go back to enjoying the evening now that the stars are out?”
Mollified, she smiled and reached up to touch his face. “Thank you for what you did for me. I wish we could have more fun together.”
The sky was pretty, black and star filled—and cloudless. Just one cloud would herald some wind returning, but the calm continued unabated.
“I could just take the beating your brother promised.”
“Don’t you dare. That won’t get him to vacate the cabin.”
He took her hand. “One more circuit of the deck before—?”
He didn’t finish. The horribly loud sound of a cannon being fired drew them immediately to the back railing on the helm’s side. But they hadn’t been fired upon. It had just been a warning shot to get their attention. Jack saw a dozen longboats heading their way. They would already have seen them if they had really been looking for a whale behind the ship!
“It looks like our father is paying us a visit,” Jeremy smirked, comi
ng up behind them.
“You failed to mention he sailed with a bloody fleet,” Damon said accusingly.
“Anderson ships and a few extra Father brought as well. He has no intention of letting Lacross escape justice this time. But what difference does it make that we didn’t mention it when you intend to parley with him?”
“He’s right, Damon,” Jack said. “Father’s coming with more help than you expected should please you.”
“He’s rowing over with an army, which means only one thing. He intends to take my ship. There won’t be any incentive for him to parley after that.”
He was right—unless Damon held them at gunpoint again. But he wouldn’t do that. She was sure he was going to put his trust in her and Jeremy to keep their father from killing him. Jack bit her lip. That wasn’t the best plan of action considering Jeremy still had an ax to grind.
Chapter Forty-One
JAMES STOOD ON THE main deck of Damon’s ship, not far from the ladder he’d climbed up. His men were searching the rest of the ship and had already told him prisoners who appeared to be pirates were in the hold. Jacqueline was clinging to his side, where she’d launched herself the moment he’d stepped aboard, she was so happy to see him!
She hugged him again before saying, “We stowed away.”
“We did nothing of the sort,” Jeremy corrected.
James leaned down and kissed the top of Jacqueline’s head and clasped Jeremy’s shoulder. “I’ll have an accounting from you two later. Which of those two do I need to have a talk with?”
James was staring at Damon and Mortimer, the two taller, better-dressed men among the sailors forming a line for inspection across the length of the deck. Although her father cut a forbidding figure, wearing the ship garb he preferred—billowing white shirt open at the neck, tall Hessian boots over black pants—he didn’t seem angry. Maybe he was a little annoyed because he’d come over for a fight but didn’t get one since Damon had directed Mort to hoist a white flag and James and his men had climbed aboard without hindrance.