She gave him a suspicious look. “If this is some convoluted plan you dreamed up just to get me to smack my lips to yours, that’s not happening, either.”
He grinned. “If I thought that would work, I would have tried it long before now. So, no kiss?”
“Not one.”
A much louder feigned sigh. “How disappointing.”
Turning the conversation to a safer topic, she asked, “Why don’t you train some of your normal crew to man the wheel?”
His answer was surprising. “That my only helmsman is Mr. Thomson, who takes over for me at night, is all that’s keeping the pirates from mutiny. They can do most of the work on the ship as they did on the way to London, but they became suspicious when I hired a new crew there, so they don’t even bother to help now. But none of them knows how to chart the course or man the wheel, so for now, they think they still need me.”
“That’s why you won’t let me steer? You don’t want them to know I can?”
He grinned. “I’m actually looking forward to the day you can prove it, but yes, if you can, I don’t want them to know it.”
“Mutiny? Really?”
“It’s possible sooner or later. They’re eager to get home, but they’re more eager to get their hands on you. They could just keep Thomson alive to steer for them and tie the wheel down while the wind is steady from one direction or drop the sails when it’s not. Poor Thomson won’t get much sleep in either case.”
“That’s sooner. What’s later?”
“Once we reach the Caribbean and they start recognizing islands, they’ll figure out they can finish the trip without me.”
“Then shouldn’t we get rid of them before then?”
“Funny you should mention that. . . .”
He didn’t elaborate, only laughed. She gritted her teeth. Sometimes he was forthcoming; other times, too damned tight-lipped. But she hated it when she amused him like this without knowing why.
“Seriously, Jack, the best way for you to stay safe is to pretend that you are sharing my bed.”
She could indeed, and all sorts of things popped into her head about what he was suggesting. Touching him intimately, under duress, of course, but she still got a little excited over the carte blanche he was giving her.
“Are the pirates on the deck watching us now?” she whispered.
“A handful are.”
With no hesitation at all, she moved a little closer to him and raised a hand to his shoulder, slowly moved it up his neck and into his hair. It was softer than she’d imagined. She ran strands of it through her fingers several times before she caressed him behind one ear.
Damon made a sound that told her he liked what she was doing. “If I were steering a carriage instead of a ship, I would have wrecked it by now. You’re a wicked woman, Jack.”
She threw back her head and laughed.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
JUDITH RAN INTO THE house on Berkeley Square, not waiting for Nathan to help her out of the coach. Henry was in the hall and immediately nodded toward the parlor because that was where Georgina was.
Amy and Katey were on the sofa with her. Amy stood when she saw Judith, saying, “Katey and I moved in with Aunt George to keep her company, since our husbands are both with Uncle James. Welcome back!”
Judith smiled slightly at her cousin and her half sister, but she moved to kneel on the floor in front of Georgina and took the hand that wasn’t holding a brandy snifter. She noticed that all three women had snifters. Was this how they were getting through this nightmare?
“You’re back from your wedding trip early,” Georgina noted in a lackluster tone.
“Mother wasn’t going to tell me any of this,” Judith replied, guessing Georgina might be a little foxed. “But I suspect she’s been as frantic as you are, so she gave in and sent word to me a few days ago. Nathan and I came straight here.”
Nathan appeared in the doorway just then, but seeing the room filled only with women, he told Judith, “I’ll collect your mother. She’ll be annoyed that we’re here and she’s not.”
Judith glanced back to say, “Thank you,” and mouthed a kiss for him, then asked Georgina carefully, “How are you faring, Aunt George?”
“Stop looking at my glass,” George scolded. “It keeps the tears away.”
Judith sighed. Of course Georgina would be as upset as her mother was, if not more so. After all, it was her daughter who had been abducted—again. Judith had just never seen her aunt drinking brandy before.
“Have you heard anything a’tall?” Judith questioned. “Mother didn’t tell me much in her note, only that Jack has been kidnapped again and my father sailed off to catch up with Uncle James to tell him.”
“Tony should have been back by now,” Georgina complained.
“You don’t think he would have continued on with Uncle James after he found him?” Amy asked.
“I suppose he might have, but he still would have sent word back with that captain Jason hired for him. Instead they are leaving me in this horrid position of not knowing!”
Judith hesitated before saying, “I hate to mention it, but it’s possible they haven’t found the fleet yet. If Uncle James followed the sea currents to get to the Caribbean faster, it’s unfortunately a very wide lane. Jack taught me that.”
“Jack knows too much about sailing,” Georgina said with disapproval. “But are you suggesting Tony might not have even found James yet?”
“No, well, yes. I don’t want to lie to you. It’s such a wide shipping lane that he could have passed Uncle James’s ship without spotting it, though I’m sure his captain is familiar with the lane and is doing diagonal searches.”
“Which still could miss the fleet?”
Judith winced with a nod. “My father knows where Uncle James was heading, doesn’t he? He can wait for him if he gets there first.”
“So I’m to know nothing about what’s happening for two to three bloody months?!” Georgina cried. “I’m going to the Caribbean.”
“Now, George, you really don’t want to do that,” Katey said. “By the time you get there, they’ll already be on the way home.”
“But what’s that got to do with Jack?” Judith asked.
“Your mother didn’t tell you?” Amy said. “Jack was taken out to sea. Uncle Tony might even come across the ship that has her.”
Judith frowned. “No, she didn’t mention that part. How did you find out?”
Amy explained, “The night Jack went missing, Percy’s mother showed up just before your father left for the ship Jason obtained for him. The old dame told us that her son, who mucks up everything except letting her know where he’s going, told her he was heading for some excitement near the docks. But then his driver returned home without him and told Lady Alden about a terrible fight by the water on Wapping Street. He ran away from it just as it started, but he hid behind a tree and watched the mayhem play out to its conclusion, then came straight home to inform her.”
“What was the conclusion?”
“The ruffians won. Percy, as well as Jack and Jeremy, were rowed out to a ship in the Thames that then sailed down the river.”