“I agree, though it might not have accomplished all that you hoped for.”
“But your blood all over the room would most certainly have been a pretty sight.”
“Or no blood at all depending on what you aimed at.” He began to remove metal plates from inside his shirt.
She stared at him incredulously. It was laughable, that he’d taken a precaution like that. No wonder her hand hurt so much!
“This was an all-or-nothing plan, wasn’t it?” she demanded. “Telling me you were sailing tonight. Would you have sailed if I didn’t show up?”
“No.”
“But you played your final card in that last note, implying that you wouldn’t return to England if I didn’t see you off. What would you have done next? Wait a few days and then say you returned to England anyway?”
“I would have thought of something.”
“Playing it by ear instead of plotting far in advance? Doesn’t sound very piratelike.”
“And you didn’t come for a romantic rendezvous. How did you guess?”
She clamped her mouth shut. He sat down and crossed his arms. “You want answers, you have to give some in return, Jack.”
“What makes you think I play by the rules?”
“You don’t? Then I guess you have no more questions for me.”
She did. Before she turned the tables on him, she’d like to know where his boss was hanging his hat these days. Her father had suggested that if it did turn out to be Lacross, the pirate might have set this plan in motion right from his prison cell, but she couldn’t believe a man that evil had ever won any type of loyalty from the few men who might have escaped capture the night his fortress got raided, at least, not enough loyalty to do the bidding of a man already behind bars. Besides, that particular pirate didn’t win loyalty, he coerced it.
Which brought an incredible thought: “Is Lacross holding family of yours hostage to get you to do his bidding?”
“No.”
Completely wrong about everything? Or he was lying. “If you don’t work for him, then who?”
“First, please answer one of my—”
“Yes, yes,” she cut in angrily. “I didn’t know for sure it would be you at the docks, but I thought it was a likely possibility because your handwriting is so similar to the writing in that more polite ransom note you told me you wrote and posted in Bridgeport.”
“You weren’t there to see that note.”
“Because of you!” she snarled, but after a moment added, “My father kept it and I bedeviled him into showing it to me on the trip home.”
He chuckled. “My, what sharp, beautiful eyes you have.”
She scowled at him. “It could have been a minuscule chance and I still would have come prepared for a fight if it meant capturing you!”
“I’d hoped you’d bring your father.”
She choked back a derisive laugh. “You should pray you never do come face-to-face with him. He has splendid plans for you, Bastard—in my opinion, that is. You will find them so painful you will beg for a quick end. But it won’t be quick, and you won’t walk away from it.”
He shrugged. “Sounds like the same thing you predicted previously, torn limb from limb, et cetera. Nonetheless, I hoped he would escort you, which is why I hired so many men. Even the mightiest can fall to overwhelming numbers.”
“Then why didn’t you do that before, instead of following us to America?!”
“Because he didn’t go slumming, and you can’t take an army of riffraff into the upper-crust end of town without raising a hue and cry. But we did try unsuccessfully a couple times with a few of my crew.”
She shook her head at him, pointing out, “He would have mentioned it.”
“Does he tell you every time he’s accosted by men he believes are thieves?”
