Her escorts were indeed waiting for her, one of them dismounting to help her onto her sorrel mare. She imagined she was still early for her meeting with her mystery man, so she rode slowly on the way to the park. She couldn’t really call it a rendezvous with the man with her bodyguards tagging along. But the two of them could ride side by side while they got better acquainted. And she’d find out who he really was!
Chapter Seven
JACQUELINE FOUND THE SINGLEred rose with the small sealed envelope attached lying on the side table with a new stack of party invitations next to it. She picked up everything and took it to her bedroom, tossing it onto her vanity before she flounced on her bed with a forlorn sigh. She wasn’t angry, though she was definitely vexed and keenly disappointed, and the combination wasn’t pleasant. Anger was preferable and easily dealt with. She could yell and scowl, then put it aside, but this crushing combination of feelings would linger until some other emotion took its place.
She finally sat up with another sigh to remove her hat and shrug out of her riding jacket. And stared at the single red rose across the room. If it was fromhim, she’d shred every petal, but she didn’t think it was. Her many beaus were in the habit of sending her flowers. They filled every room of the house, and before those withered and died, they were replaced with new flowers that were even more extravagant. But none had ever sent her just one rose.
She didn’t exactly rush back to the vanity, but she was a little breathless when she opened the envelope and held the note in her hand:A thousand apologies. I was unavoidably detained.And signed,Yours truly.He even underlined thetruly.But she wasn’t the least bit mollified after she’d stayed in the park for hours, traversing the riding path back and forth a dozen times. He could have sent someone else to tell her they wouldn’t be riding today.
Then her maid arrived to prepare her for the soirée she was to attend tonight, another reminder that the hour had grown late because she’d wasted far too much time in the park. But she was excited again by the time she was dressed in a new evening gown of the palest aqua and hurried downstairs. Only a little of that excitement was due to her expectation of seeing the stranger tonight. Most of it was because her brother Jeremy would be escorting her, with his wife, Danny, to give Georgina a respite from the round of parties. And aside from Judy’s wedding, Jack had seen far too little of her older brother since spring when she and Judy had sailed to her American debut.
She grinned at her brother’s wife, who had snow-white hair and looked stunningly beautiful as usual. Danny had never let her hair grow out, despite not needing to disguise herself as a boy anymore. Having been separated from her parents when she was a child, she’d grown up in one of the worst sections of London with a pack of orphaned thieves, and the short-cropped hair had been to pass herself off as a boy to avoid trouble of the salacious sort. Jeremy would never have met her if he hadn’t needed to hire a thief to help his friend Percival Alden with a personal matter. It had been amusing when Danny had met Nathan Tremayne for the first time and he’d asked if they were related by blood, since his hair was as light a shade of blond as hers.
“Tell me who I need to scowl at and who gets a friendly pat on the back tonight,” Jeremy said as he put her arm through his to lead her outside to his coach.
“You don’t need to scowl at anyone. They’re all nice enough chaps. Besides, you really can’t pull it off the way our father does. You’re too handsome, Brother. It quite keeps you from being intimidating. Why don’t you tell me instead why you didn’t show up this morning to bid our father good-bye?”
“I was too angry,” Jeremy mumbled, then added in a growl, “I hope he thought I stowed away onThe Maiden Georgeand he wasted time searching for me before he sailed.”
Jack burst out laughing. “No, you don’t.” Jeremy helped Jack into the coach and, once inside, sat near to his wife, across from Jack.
“I don’t doubt he did,” Danny put in. “I’ve never seen him this angry.”
Jacqueline raised a brow. “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised when I feel the same way.”
Jeremy suddenly unrolled a map, put it on Jack’s lap, and pointed at an island. “That’s where Father’s fleet is going. And this is where he captured Pierre Lacross all those years ago.”
She stared at the spot Jeremy was pointing to. “But there’s nothing there.”
“Because that island is unnamed and too small to appear on this map. There are many tiny islands in the Caribbean where criminals of one sort or another can hide. Like I told you before, I know those islands well.”
Danny leaned back with a sigh. “He’s obsessed with this mission, if that’s not clear to you yet, Jack. I’m having a hard time talking him out of catching the next ship that’s heading that way.”
Jacqueline debated for a moment whether to say she’d go with him, then said instead, “For what purpose, Jeremy? To catch up with Father so he can lock you in a cabin for the duration of the voyage—and be furious that you didn’t obey him and stay out of it?”
“See?” Danny said, gloating only a little. “I said nearly the same thing, didn’t I, Jer?”
“You two do know that I’m not still the teenager he found in that tavern all those years ago, don’t you?”
Danny suddenly chuckled. “I do wish I could have seen James’s face that day when you told him you were his son, yet you stood there the spitting image of his brother Anthony when Tony was that age.”
Jeremy still looked uncannily like their uncle Anthony, but then Anthony and Jeremy shared the black hair and cobalt eyes of their Gypsy ancestors, while James didn’t. Tony’s wife had actually accused Tony of lying about Jeremy’s parentage. Even James found that to be amusing—mostly.
“So he didn’t believe me at first, at least, not until I told him who my mother was,” Jeremy said. “All beside the point, which is he still treats me like that child.”
“It couldn’t have been pleasant, growing up in taverns,” Jacqueline remarked. “At least, until he found you.”
“It wasn’t that bad, though I would have much preferred taking to the seas with him. And I got to for a while, until that sea battle with Nick. Father bought that plantation in Jamaica so he could have a place to park me after I nearly got injured in that battle. But at least he took me with him when he went back to England to get even with Nick, and you know what a surprise that turned out to be, with Nick having married our cousin Regina. Then Father left me with Uncle Tony while he went back to the Caribbean to dispose of that plantation. Of course, you never would have been born, Jack, if things hadn’t played out that way.”
“I still find it amazing that your father was actually a pirate,” Danny said.
“Gentleman pirate,” Jeremy and Jack said at the same time, then laughed because they’d both corrected Danny.
But Jeremy continued, “It was just a game to him, bedeviling any ship that appeared to offer a challenge so he could test his skills. And I had it straight from his first mate, Connie, that the only reason he went to sea was because he’d gotten so jaded being one of London’s most notorious rakes that nothing stirred his emotions anymore, not even duels.”
“So it took a full decade for him to start feeling again?” Danny asked.
“No, he was gone that long because his brothers ended up disowning him. But his time on the high seas was his salvation, too. He enjoyed it and might never have returned to the fold if he hadn’t found me.”
