“Don’t tell me. You’re rather good at that, too?”
James actually laughed at Drew’s dry tone. “Better than good, dear boy. And in all fairness, I was merely going to arm you with the same knowledge that the young cockerels at home are aware of, that I have fourteen wins to my credit, no losses. In fact, the only battles I’ve ever lost have been at sea.”
“That’s all right then. I’ll take the advantage that you must be tiring.”
“Oh, hell, I don’t believe it!” Boyd suddenly exclaimed, to Drew’s annoyance.
“Stay out of this, baby brother,” Drew told him. “You had your turn.”
“No, you dolt, I’ve just remembered where I’ve seen him before. Don’t you recognize him, Thomas? Imagine him with a beard—”
“My God,” Thomas said incredulously. “He’s that damned pirate, Hawke, who had me limping into port.”
“Aye, and he walked off with my entire cargo, and on my first voyage on theOceanusas sole owner, too.”
“Are you certain?” Clinton demanded.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Clinton,” Georgina scoffed at this point. “You can’t take them seriously. A pirate? He’s a damned English lord, a viscount something-or-other—”
“Of Ryding,” James supplied.
“Thank you,” she replied automatically, but went right on as if there’d been no interruption. “To accuse him of being a blasted pirate is so ludicrous, it—”
“That’s gentleman pirate, love, if you don’t mind,” James interrupted her once again in his drollest tone of voice. “And retired, not that it matters.”
She didn’t thank him this time. The man was positively insane. There was no other excuse for what he’d just admitted. And that admission was all her brothers had needed to converge on him in force.
She watched for a moment, until they all crashed onto the floor, a small mountain of sprawled legs and swinging arms. She finally turned to Thomas, who still had his arm firmly about her shoulder, as if he thought her stupid enough to get in the middle ofthat.
“You have to stop them, Thomas!”
She didn’t know how urgent she sounded. And Thomas wasn’t dense. Unlike his brothers, he’d been watching the two principals involved in this distasteful affair rather closely. The Englishman’s baleful stares lasted only as long as Georgina was looking at him. When she wasn’t, there was something else entirely in his eyes. And Georgina’s emotions were even more revealing.
“He’s the one you’ve been crying over, isn’t he, Georgie?” he asked her very gently. “The one you—”
“He was, but he’s not anymore,” she replied emphatically.
“Then why should I try to interfere?”
“Because they’re going tohurthim!”
“I see. And here I thought that was the idea.”
“Thomas! They’re just using that piracy nonsense as an excuse to stop being fair about this, because they weren’t getting anywhere fighting him individually.”
“That’s possible, but this piracy business isn’t nonsense, Georgie. Heisa pirate.”
“Was,” she staunchly maintained. “You heard him say he’s retired.”
“Sweetheart, that doesn’t alter the fact that during his unsavory career, the man crippled two of our ships and stole a valuable cargo.”
“He can make reparations.”
The argument lost its point just then as the combatants began rising from the floor. All but James Malory. Brick walls weren’t invincible after all.
Chapter Thirty-three
James managed to keep the groan from escaping his swollen lips as he regained consciousness. He took a quick mental inventory, but didn’t think his ribs were more than badly bruised. His jaw he wasn’t so sure about.
