“An excellent—” After a glance at James, Anthony amended, “Actually, if you don’t mind, I’ll wait until you stop looking like you need to murder someone.”
James sighed. “All right, but only because Ros expects me to bring you home.”
Chapter Thirty-One
YOU DIDN’T NEED TOmanhandle me,” Jacqueline growled as soon as Mortimer released her. “A simple explanation would have sufficed.”
“That was a really risky thing for him to do, taking you down there with most of the pirates on that lower deck. And look where that’s got us, me punished and you—whatever you are.”
“How are you punished?”
“Getting stuck with you for the rest of the day, that’s how.”
She snorted. The man truly didn’t like her. As if she cared. But she was back inside Damon’s cabin, back behind a locked door, and that was intolerable, especially since the danger was already over. Or was it?
“What the devil is the plan you mentioned?”
He didn’t answer. He’d gone over to Damon’s desk to open the locked drawer and pulled four pistols from it. He sat down at the desk to check that they were loaded.
She waited for him to get around to answering when he was done, but when he didn’t, she demanded, “Take me to Damon so I can ask him.”
“You bedevil him enough.”
“I want to know—!”
“Good God, woman, shut up. You are the most stubborn, ill-tempered she-devil I’ve ever—”
“You’re too kind,” she cut in sweetly as she moved to a chair at the table and sat down facing him.
He was giving her a fierce look. “I’m only going to tell you this once. Behave, be very quiet, and you can probably go back on deck tomorrow—if we survive the day.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Again he was ignoring her, which made her yell, “I want to know why we’re being punished!”
“Damnit, lower your voice! And stop asking questions. You aren’t even being punished. You’ve got things to do in here now. I know, because I helped find some of those bloody books he wanted for you.”
“How would you like it if you were buried in a black hole?”
“Eh? There’s nothing dark about these quarters.”
“I meant the hole you’ll be in after I kill you,” she said nastily.
“Save your threats for someone who cares. If you make me shut you up, no one’s going to like that, least of all me, so for the last time, be quiet.”
“For the last time, tell me why I need to be or get Damon in here to tell me!”
He got up to do as she asked. Finally! But he didn’t cross the room to leave to get Damon. He took her by surprise instead, yanking her out of her chair and setting off all sorts of warning bells in her mind so her reaction was normal—for her. And the punch caught him nicely near his eye before she dodged out of the way of any retaliation. But his arms were just as long as Damon’s. He got a handful of her hair and pulled her over to her cot and shoved her facedown on it.
“You couldn’t make this easy, eh?” Mortimer growled as he put a knee in the center of her back. “How in hell he puts up with you is a bloody mystery. I wouldn’t. I’d chain you to the damn bulkhead!”
“And that surprises me?” she hissed, then louder when he got her hands together and started wrapping a rope around them, “What are you doing?!”
“Following orders,” he smirked.
“Liar! He wouldn’t tell you to do this to me!”
She would have railed more at him, but he stuck a wadded cloth in her mouth. She started to push it out with her tongue, but he finished off the gag with another strip of cloth, tying it behind her head, catching enough of her hair in it to bring tears to her eyes.
When he was done, he leaned down near her head to say angrily, “No, he wouldn’t, but I had orders to keep you quiet, even warned you to shut up, twice, but you just wouldn’t listen, would you? Count yourself lucky I didn’t return the black eye you just gave me.”
