Suddenly Jeremy looked quite angry. Jacqueline chuckled. “Course they have—well, course they’ve tried—but I’m not interested in kissing yet. Even had to sock Lord Giles to get that point across a few weeks ago. Blackened his eye and didn’t feel the least sorry for it, though I did accept his apology the next day. But when I’m ready for kissing, I’ll likely be the one stealing them, so you needn’t worry about that.”

“That’s supposed to put my mind at ease?” Jeremy snorted with a roll of his eyes, but said no more about it.

Chapter Nine

THE DOCKS BUILT AT Wapping were well protected with high walls surrounding them. Ships had to pass through basins to get from the Thames River to the dock’s fancy warehouses, which housed only luxury goods. But to find the old stairs that accessed the river at high tide, Jeremy and Jack’s guards had to follow the winding road outside the large enclosed docks to get to Wapping Street, which ran along the riverbank. The street was high enough above the tidewater mark to offer extensive views of the ships on the water, some already sailing toward the Channel. Even this far from the dock entrance a few vehicles were going in both directions.

“Are you still hoping this is legit, Jack?” Jeremy asked.

“Oh, no, I’m hoping it’s not.”

To come face-to-face with Bastard again, to finally have her revenge, that was going to be a sweet dream come true. She would never have guessed that he was behind this new plot if she hadn’t finally recognized his handwriting in that longer note he sent today. At her insistence, her father had showed her the ransom note that the Andersons retrieved from the post office the night she was abducted in Bridgeport. She didn’t have that ransom note so she couldn’t compare it to the one that had been delivered today, but she was almost positive the writing was the same. And “almost” was enough to convince her to come prepared to this meeting and turn the tables on Bastard—if it was him.

She was still fuming over his success at tricking her by wearing that blond wig and a mask that covered his face and muffled his voice. And he’d obviously studied his betters because his gentlemanly manners had deceived her.

If it was him, Jack would prefer to just shoot him, but Jeremy had convinced her that Bastard might have valuable information about his boss and where he was located, information that could help their father. They could send it to him and Drew posthaste in the Caribbean. So Jeremy had persuaded her that the best course of action would be interrogation first—brutal she hoped—then a quick ride to prison, where Bastard would await trial and the gallows.

But if it wasn’t him—damnit, she really did hope her mystery man wasn’t a legitimate suitor despite how much he’d intrigued her. She’d rather have revenge tonight.

They passed a set of stairs where two women and a child had just been rowed ashore from a passenger ship and were waiting for their baggage and probably hoping to hail a passing hackney carriage as well. But with the enclosed docks, it was not an ideal place to come ashore. Most passenger ships that were going to unload prior to getting cleared for a berth did so near wharves where vehicles for hire were more easily obtained. But the river was extremely congested, and captains couldn’t always anchor in ideal spots.

The next set of stairs was quite a distance farther up the street, but as they approached, they could see a man standing at the top of them. If there was a plaque on the wall next to the stairs naming them, they couldn’t yet see it. The vehicle behind them was following closely and had only just cut in front of Jack’s mounted guards and would probably have passed Jeremy’s chaise if a coach up ahead weren’t blocking the other side of the road, making it too dangerous to attempt. But Jeremy waved at it to pass them when he began to slow his chaise.

“At least Percy came through,” he said with a grin, seeing the coach that had stopped a little ways beyond where the lone man was standing, his back turned toward them.

“You had doubts?”

“Well, we put this scheme together at the last minute. And Percy has been known to muck things up.”

“Known? It used to be guaranteed!” Jack said. “But that hasn’t happened in years, correct? Or you wouldn’t have enlisted his help.”

“Indeed, Percy can be depended on these days to follow instructions to the letter. He even writes them down!”

Percy had been sent to Knighton’s Hall to hire every brawny fighter he could find and to go elsewhere if there weren’t enough there, until he couldn’t fit any more in his large coach. The lone fellow stood gazing in the opposite direction, not even glancing back their way. He appeared to be watching Percy and his driver, who were bent over, pretending to inspect one of the coach’s wheels.

“The moment of truth has arrived,” Jeremy said.

“He’s tall enough to be the mysterious chap,” Jacqueline told her brother. “And has the same color hair, though I didn’t think it was that long.” The blond queue fell halfway down the man’s back. “But Bastard has black hair, so if that was him at the ball, he was wearing a wig then and is now.”

“So you think it’s Bastard?”

“I’m not absolutely sure, but I’ll know as soon as he turns around. I’ll never forget that face.”

Jeremy jumped out of the chaise, looking up at her to say, “Wait—”

She jumped down beside him before he could finish, eliciting a distinct sound of annoyance from her brother. But they approached the man together. And the man must have finally heard them because he turned. He was wearing the damned mask from the ball? A suitor wouldn’t at this point—would he? But Bastard certainly would, because he knew she wouldn’t go near him if she saw that he was the man who had abducted her in Bridgeport.

She was incredulous that he would still pretend to be her mystery man. Jeremy put his arm out to stop her from getting any closer.

“That’s not going to do, mate,” Jeremy said in one of his more unfriendly tones. “Take off the mask or my sister gets back in the carriage.”

“I will,” her mystery man said.

But he made no move to do that—and that’s when men charged out of the coach behind them, which hadn’t gone around them after all, and more men were hopping over the low wall by the riverbank beside them. Percy and his men, some twenty feet away, were running forward to help, but they weren’t close enough yet. And despite the extra thugs who had jumped over the wall to surround Jeremy, someone still tried to disable her brother with a board to his head. At the horrible-sounding crack Jack turned with a gasp to see her brother stagger, but he had a hard head. He shot that fellow, then dropped another with the butt of his spent pistol and took his fists to a third. And where the devil was her escort?