"Then yer determined to go?" Tobias ran fingers through his sparse gray hair.
Zach nodded. "I've sent word ahead to Sydney. TheRevengewill be ready to sail when we arrive. We'll escort the other two ships to Lisbon and then continue to London."
"We?" Tobias stared, trying to focus his eyes.
"Of course." Zach rose from his chair, a gleam sparkling in his gray eyes. "I've never been to London. I'll need someone to show me about if I'm to learn about my father's life there. You must still have friends in England."
"I was exiled, banished from England forever! I'll be sent to Newgate if I return!" Tobias exclaimed.
"Only, if you get caught." The smile deepened, glowing in Zach's eyes. Then he sobered. "I have to go, Tobias, with or without you."
"It's because of that bloody journal, isn't it!?"
"Partly," Zach admitted. "But it's more than the journal." He reached inside the small carved case on the corner of the desk, his fingers closing over the pearl and diamond pendant. It wasn't the most expensive piece of jewelry he'd ever seen, although obviously quite valuable, but it was by far the most fascinating. Intricately designed and of great beauty, the pendant intrigued him, its diamonds winking at him, its pearls glowing.
"My father had another life, one we never knew about. I have so many questions and I want answers," he admitted, his voice filled with an emotion unusual to him, as his hand rested on the journal. He cleared his throat.
"I never knew him. It seems no one knew him completely, not even you. I have to go. Besides," Zach's mood suddenly lightened, "I think it would be great sport to tweak the nose of the English lion in its own lair. Don't you?"
It would take another day before theRevengeand the other two clippers were ready to sail. He hoped in that time, with Alice's usual passionate attentiveness, he might purge his soul of the restlessness that had possessed him since he'd first read Nicholas Tennant's journal.
A shadowy image had emerged from the pages, telling of a man neither his mother nor Tobias Gentry had ever spoken of. Perhaps more revealing were the events of this man's life that remained untold.
He dropped the pendant into a soft leather pouch. "And I need to pay a visit to someone."
* * *
Zach stirred beside Alice. She was a comely creature, enough to satisfy any man, her legs twined wantonly around his waist. She fastened him with a long gaze.
"Didn't I please you, luv?" Her pleasure had come easily, as it always did with Zachary Tennant. But it didn't take an expert to realize that it hadn't been the same for him.
Zach threw back the covers and slipped from the bed. Dousing water on his face and shoulders, he gave her a long look.
"It's not you," he told her, running a hand across the stubble of beard on his chin. He turned back to the mirror over the dressing table.
He was a fool, and he knew it. Any number of men in Sydney would like to fill her life as well as her bed, yet over the last two years, she'd contented herself with the rare visits he made to town. He knew she saw others when he was away. It didn't matter. In fact, he encouraged her to do so.
He caught the reflection of Alice's sad expression in the mirror. She slipped from the bed, draped in pink satin. Her covering slipped as she came up behind him to wrap her arms around his waist and press her bare breasts against his back.
"Why do I always feel as if there's someone else in that bed besides you and me?" she whispered, for the first time voicing the doubts that had haunted her for the last two years.
It hadn't been easy loving a man like Zach Tennant, having to content herself with the three or four days each month that he spent with her. And then, there were times when he was gone for months at a time.
Zach turned, wrapping his arms loosely around her, regretting that he hadn't been more attentive to her. He liked Alice, she was a beautiful, exciting woman. Any man would give his right arm just to be with her, but he wasn't in love with Alice Mulroney, or any woman. He pressed a kiss against her forehead.
"And just who might be in that bed with us? There wasn't room for anyone else last night," he teased, trying to bring a smile back to her face.
She pulled back, her gaze somber as she studied him, looking for the truth behind the casual conversation.
"I don't know. I wish to God that I did." She tightened her arms around him, laying her cheek against his chest.
"It's not just last night," she continued. "It's happened before. You're here, with me, and then somehow... "she paused, closing her eyes, almost afraid to go on. "It's as if you've left me. You're still here, you seem to go away somewhere. There are times when I look in your eyes, like last night and now, and you're not really here, you're someplace else." She placed her hands at each side of his face and shook her head.
"You've gone away from me again, Zach. Even now, you want to be away from here. What are you searching for?"
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and they stood silently for the longest time, both gazing out the window.
Alice's small house was on a hill, looking out across the harbor, and Zach's gaze fastened on the expanse of restless ocean that waited.
