“Missing the rum keg already?” Damon said sarcastically, and waved his arm to the stairs behind him. “By all means, get off my deck.”

A couple of them backed off with feigned laughs, but one pirate took the offer and walked past them to get to the stairs. Jacqueline squeezed around Damon’s other side, putting herself between him and Mortimer, so the pirate couldn’t try to grab her and drag her down the stairs with him.

Ironically, two weeks ago she would have cheered on the pirates if they’d tried to get rid of Damon. But that was before she’d been told they saw her as a prize for themselves. Before she knew Damon was protecting her. Before—fine, she could admit it—before she stopped wanting him dead.

She needed her own weapons, damnit. Living each day with the threat of mutiny hanging over them was starting to wear on her nerves. She’d accepted his story readily because she was so delighted to be out in the sun again. But she was beginning to hope it was all a lie, a staged ploy to make her behave. Damon was a pirate, the thugs were pirates, it was logical to assume they were his crew, but he’d said they weren’t. Then why were they with him? And more to the point, why wouldn’t he explain to her why they were part of his crew?

She leaned up on tiptoe to see over Damon’s and Mort’s shoulders why they weren’t moving on yet. Ah, Four Pistols was still standing there. Murderous Lust. Bart Satin. Any of those names suited him, but Damon had another when he said, “Once more the instigator, eh?”

“Ye’ve no right keepin’ her to yerself—Cap’n.”

Bart said the word “captain” as if it were a slur. And he wasn’t moving out of the way. Didn’t he know he was standing there alone now?

“If one of your fingers so much as twitches toward your weapons, I will shoot mine,” Damon warned. “Please put it to the test. One less of you is fine with me, but having you gone will be even better. Do you think anyone will care, Mort?”

“Bullies only think they’re leading the pack,” Mortimer replied. “No one will miss this one.”

Bart had turned slightly toward the first mate as Mort was speaking, but it was enough for Damon to slam his pistol against Bart’s head before the pirate saw it coming. He collapsed at their feet.

Mortimer said drily, “He would have backed down. A bully, yes, but a coward without the pack at his back.”

“Don’t begrudge me.” Damon kicked the man down the stairs. “That was so long overdue, it should have been done before we even reached London. We both knew he was going to be nothing but trouble—and he wasn’t backing down soon enough.” Then Damon glanced at the other two pirates who were still slowly moving away from him and told them, “He’s not dead, more’s the pity, but next time he will be. Please relay that to him later.”

They said nothing in return and their faces revealed nothing. They could be furious under those blank looks.

But then Mortimer groaned. “I suppose this calls for plan B?”

“For the time being,” Damon replied.

Jacqueline merely raised a brow, waiting for an explanation, but when Mortimer said, “Bloody hell,” and grabbed her arm, she dug in her heels. She was about to yell at Damon’s back as he walked away, but Mortimer put his hand over her mouth so she couldn’t!

Chapter Thirty

WE’RE BEING HAILED,” CONRAD said, interrupting James’s lunch.

James snorted. “Ignore them and have a seat. Your food is getting cold.”

“You might want—”

“And don’t steer any closer to them. I’m still hoarse from that shouted conversation I had with the barbarians yesterday. I’m not having another this soon.”

“It’s not your brothers-in-law hailing us.”

James raised a brow. “Then who?”

“Come have a look.” Conrad headed back out of the cabin.

James pushed his plate aside, grabbed his spyglass, and went out on the deck. He looked to starboard first, where the rest of his fleet were keeping up with him. The Amphitrite, Georgina’s ship, was the only one within hailing distance. He’d made sure her captain kept abreast of him. It kept Warren and Boyd from trying to converse with him in shouts across the water, but they’d managed it yesterday anyway.

James joined Conrad at the rail on the port side and spotted the ship that had come into view behind them. “How do you know they’re hailing?”

“They were flashing mirrors at us until they got our attention.”

James trained his spyglass on the ship, which was still some distance away, but he could see there was no name, just an English flag flying from the topmast. No cannon, so it was probably a trader.

“Nothing droll to say?” Conrad asked.

James lowered the spyglass to the other ship’s deck and after a moment burst out laughing. “I suppose we can drop the sea anchor and turn about to let him reach us. You could have just told me, Connie, instead of letting me think the Americans were pestering me again.”

“I could have.” Conrad grinned and sauntered off, whistling a jaunty tune.

JAMES WAITED IMPATIENTLY BESIDE the ladder that was lowered. A good twenty minutes later, the new ship was beside his, a rowboat had been lowered from it, and he was helping his brother aboard. “So you changed your mind after all, Tony?” James was smiling.

Anthony wasn’t. “No. Jack’s gone, Jeremy’s gone, even that dunderhead Percy is gone.”

A thunderous expression replaced James’s smile. “You thought I had them? I don’t. Jack was standing on the wharf with George when I sailed.” Then in a growl: “Come with me.”

James returned to his cabin and headed straight for the brandy decanter to pour two glasses. He handed Anthony one. “What happened?”

“You left,” Anthony said accusingly. “Everything goes to hell when you leave.”

“The devil it does.”

“It does and only a day after you sailed, too.”

“Tony, if you don’t spit it out immediately—”

“They were taken out to sea, James, all three of them kidnapped. We suspect it’s the same men who took Jack before—”

“What did the ransom note say?”