Eli blinked, the strangeness of this question disrupting his habitual good cheer. “I…try not to describe it as anything, I suppose,” he finally answered. “No good can come of dwelling on bad memories.”
“But how did you escape?” Captain Powlett pressed.
“They kept me in irons at first.” Eli’s speech was almost stilted, each word deliberate. It reminded Jane of something, but she couldn’t quite decide what. “But after a time they let their guard down. They made me work the ship, but sometimes the watch was lax in his duties. Eventually, there came a night when we anchored near Corinth and I had an opportunity to jump overboard and swimfor my life. I found passage on a merchant ship bound for France, and from there it wasn’t difficult to get back to Devon.”
It’s the same tone he uses when he’s trying to get his parents to stop arguing, Jane finally realized. He had a certain way of speaking when he wanted them to forget whatever subject had disrupted the peace of the house. She’d heard him use it a dozen times. A practiced nonchalance, as though their quarrel didn’t truly bother him. And then he would usually make some lighthearted remark to—
“I suppose I should count myself lucky there were no sharks about.”
There it was. There was a rehearsed quality to all of it, a falseness that rubbed Jane the wrong way. This wasn’t how he spoke when he let his true thoughts show.
“Incredible.” Captain Powlett ran a thumb over the tip of his mustache. “You’ve the devil’s own luck, to survive that.”
Incredible, indeed.
Jane knew she should keep her suspicions to herself. After all, what reason would Eli have to lie about such a thing? She was probably mistaking a perfectly natural hesitation to revisit bad memories for something more.
But sometimes her mouth seemed to open of its own accord and words fell out. Usually awkward ones. This was one of those times.
“It’s a bit odd that they wouldn’t try to ransom you, though, isn’t it?” She heard herself say. “Why do you suppose they didn’t?”
Everyone turned to stare at her. As if she’d started listing a man’s faults at his funeral.Oh goodness, why did I do that?
Eli clearly had to search for a moment before he could summon a reply. “I’m afraid I didn’t ask them. On account of my not speaking Greek.”
“Honestly, Jane,” Cecily intervened. “Poor Eli can’t be expected to know what the pirates were thinking. They’recriminals.Who can imagine what goes on in their minds?”
There, she knew she should’ve kept her mouth shut. Now she looked horrid for asking, and in front of Lady Eleanor too.
Cecily pressed on over Jane’s faux pas.
“What has it been like, returning to British soil after such an absence? Has it been very difficult for you?” She leaned a bit closer in her sympathy, though her eyes slid toward Jane.
Is she trying to make me jealous of her flirtation?What a tired, old trick. If Cecily thought she had any interest in reigniting their competition for Eli’s regard, she was sorely mistaken. Jane never repeated the same mistake twice.
“The greatest difficulty at present is the fact that the General Register Office still considers me dead, and the navy doesn’t know what to do about me until that’s resolved. I’m working on annulling the death certificate.”
“Oh, but I’m sure that Sir Thomas and I could help you with that,” Cecily proclaimed. “We’re very well connected, you know.”
“Er…thank you, Lady Kerr, but I’m sure that won’t be necessary. It’s a simple enough matter. I just need to provide some letters of support, attesting that I’m myself and not an impostor, and the registrar will take care of the rest.” He turned to Captain Powlett. “Could I trouble you for it, sir? You can speak to the circumstances of the shipwreck.”
“Of course, of course,” he said readily.
“We could write one too,” Cecily insisted. “Sir Thomas is a knight, you know. That’s sure to carry some weight.”
“Oh, is he a knight?” Jane murmured. She immediately regretted it when Eli suppressed a smile, his eyes sparkling with mirth even as his jaw held firm. It almost felt natural, him laughing at her jokes again.
“Us as well,” Uncle Bertie offered. This was turning into quite the fashionable thing. “I was nearly your father-in-law, and Jane has known you for—what is it, now? Six years? Seven?”
She could just imagine it. She would spend an hour searching for the right words to set out her knowledge of Eli’s good character and convince the registrar that there was nothing suspicious about his return when she wasn’t convinced of either point herself. No, thank you.
“I simply couldn’t write one, Uncle,” Jane said coolly. “It’s been so long since we’ve had any word from him, I wouldn’t know what to say.”
Eli was in too foul a mood by the end of the evening to provide good company to his parents and Hannah on the coach ride home. He fixed his gaze out the window and watched the familiar sights of London roll by, noting the changes of the last five years while they discussed which guest had been the most fashionably dressed and who might make a favorable match this season.
When they arrived at the town house, he excused himself to his room and dismissed his valet for the evening, unwilling to inflict his ill humor on anyone else.
Five years since he’d last laid eyes on Jane. Nearly two years since theLibertashad been wrecked and marked him for drowned. He’d thought of her constantly since then. Particularly those first few months of his capture, when he’d been in irons and had no way of knowing if he would ever come home.
