“Well, he does it so well, don’t you think?”
Anthony grinned and then chuckled. “All right, so the whys and wherefores no longer matter. You’ve been accepted back into the fold, forgiven all, as it were. But you still haven’t answered my question about the thrashing you took.”
That golden brow arched again. “Haven’t I? Must be because I keep getting interrupted.”
“So I’ll shut my trap.”
“An impossibility.”
“James…”
“Come now, Tony, just put yourself in my place and you’ll have your answer. It’s not so very complicated, after all. I wanted my equal time with our darling niece, Regan. I thought she’d enjoy seeing a bit of the world, which she did, by the way. But much as I loved having her with me, I realized the folly of what I’d done before I brought her back. Not that I was an active pirate while I had her. But the sea offers no guarantees. Storms, other pirates, enemies I’ve made, anything is possible. The risk to her was minimal, but it was still there. And had anything happened to Regan…”
“Good God, the unconscionable James Malory plagued by guilt? No wonder I could never figure it out.”
“I do have my moments, it would seem,” James said dryly, giving Anthony a disgusted look for sitting there laughing.
“What did I say?” Anthony asked innocently. “Never mind. Here, have another drink.” And the bottle was tipped again. “You know,” he added thoughtfully with a grin. “Between me exposing the dear girl to my jaded friends when I had her to myself each year—all on their best behavior, mind you—and you exposing her to a crew of cutthroats—”
“Who all adored her and were very polite cutthroats while she was on board.”
“Yes, well, she certainly had a well-rounded education with our help.”
“Hadn’t she though? So how is it she ended up married to a bounder like Eden?”
“The puss loves him, more’s the pity.”
“I figuredthatmuch out for myself.”
“Come now, James, you just don’t like him because he’s too much like us, and anyone like us isn’t good enough for our Reggie.”
“Beg to differ, dear boy, but that’s whyyoudon’t like him.Itook exception to the bloody insults he threw in my face as he sailed away from the encounter I had with him all those years ago at sea, insults that cameafterhe’d already disabled my ship.”
“But you attacked him,” Anthony pointed out, having heard most of the details of that sea battle already, including the fact that James’s son was injured in it, which was why James had given up pirating altogether.
“Beside the point,” James insisted. “And anyhow, he added insult to injury when he landed me in gaol last year.”
“Afteryou’d thrashed the daylights out of him. And didn’t you say Nicholas had also put up the blunt for your escape before he took off for the West Indies? Because of a guilty conscience, wasn’t it?”
“To hear him tell it, it was because he would have missed the hanging.”
Anthony hooted. “That sounds like him, the arrogant puppy. But give credit where it’s due, brother. If you hadn’t been arrested, courtesy of our nephew-by-marriage, you wouldn’t have been able to arrange Hawke’s supposed demise so neatly, thereby getting the price off your head and burning your bridges behind you. You can now walk the streets of London again without looking over your shoulder.”
That deserved the draining of another glassful. “When did you start defending that young cockerel?”
“Good God, is that what I was doing?” Anthony looked utterly horrified. “Beg your pardon, old boy. It won’t happen again, you may depend upon it. He’s a blighter through and through.”
“But Regan makes him pay for it,” James said with a gloating smile.
“How’s that?”
“He ends up sleeping on the sofa each time he crosses words with one of us and she happens to overhear it.”
“The devil you say.”
“It’s true. Told me himself. You’ll really have to visit those two more often while I’m gone.”
“I’ll drink to that.” Anthony laughed. “Eden on the sofa. Gad, that’s rich.”
