A Right to Love: Romantic Spinoff From The Adventures of Xavier & Vic Book 2.5

by Liza O'Connor

  Jacko leaned his head back. “Either lock the door and join me, or take a seat and talk to me. Your silent desire is driving me mad.”

  She took a seat by the fire. “While the first option sounds most delightful, I fear it would shock poor Thomas and make him sorry he woke me at all.”

  Jacko nodded. “It would be poor payment for his great kindness.”

  She leaned forward. “I am glad to see you are not hurt. Did you save your friend?”

  “Victor and I were successful, but it was right down to the line. An hour later and Xavier wouldn’t have lived.”

  Shocked to discover the missing friend was Xavier Thorn, she pressed her hands to her chest. She recalled how she had pleaded with Jacko to stay. “I will never question your need to leave again. If you say you must go, I will accept it as fact.”

  “I don’t recall you trying to persuade me to stay after I told you I had a friend to rescue.”

  Abandoning her chair, she knelt at the edge of his tub. “Perhaps not, but I am certain I did ask you to stay.”

  He stroked her cheek with wet fingertips. “Alice, I loved that you wanted me to remain with you. Please don’t change, thinking I wish something else. I find you perfect as you are.”

  She pulled back and returned to her seat. “You don’t really know me, yet. When I share my life, you will find me less than pristine. In fact, most men would not have me.” She looked into his dark eyes. “I hope you will. But if my past is more than even you can bear, then you must tell me this night. Then, I can have some hope of recovering from my heartbreak.”

  Jacko’s face darkened. “I cannot imagine any confession of yours will change my heart, but I do understand your fear, because it is mine, as well. You may wish to withdraw your feelings for me when you learn about the man I was, and sometimes still am. But you have a right to know now, before your heart is fixed.”

  A seed of fear took root. “And what about your heart?”

  Jacko leaned back and closed his eyes. “There is no hope for me. My heart is already certain and fixed.”

  Alice would have been happier if he hadn’t spoken this in a voice of doom. Did he really have so little confidence in her?

  After a quick knock on the door, Thomas entered with towels and clothes. He frowned at Alice sitting by the fire. He set the clothes on a small table and left the room.

  Why was he glaring at her? He knew she planned to come in here. She walked over to the suit and examined the fine wool. She realized she had not entered her father’s bedroom since she had returned to the estate. It had remained locked and inviolate since the day he died. She suddenly had a great desire to see it.

  Thomas returned with a screen, which he sat up between her chair and Jacko’s bath. Now she understood why he had frowned. He knew she was in the library. He had just not planned for her to get such a delicious eyeful of Jacko’s manliness.

  She dutifully remained behind the screen as Thomas assisted Jacko in drying off and dressing. She laughed at the struggle they were having. Poor Jacko was not used to someone assisting him.

  “Allow me to do that, sir,” Thomas insisted.

  “I can do it.”

  “Yes, I’m sure you can, but allow me to do it all the same.”

  She could hear Jacko’s heavy sighs, but by Thomas’ silence, her beloved must have relinquished control to her butler.

  Finally, Thomas folded the screen and carried it from the room. She gasped with pleasure and approached her handsome love, pressing her face into his vest. She breathed in and swore she could smell her father’s scent still in the wool, except now it blended with the wonderful musky scent of Jacko.

  His arms circled around her. “We must talk before this goes further, Alice. For your sake, we must talk at once.”

  She nodded in agreement. She took his hand and led him outside to the swinging chair for two. She thought the darkness and solitude would make her confessions easier to tell.

  They sat down, a few inches apart, but she now sensed a breach a mile wide between them. This was not right. “I’ve changed my mind. This is not the place for our confessions.”

  She returned inside and led him upstairs to the end of the hall. She tried the door and softly cursed. “I’ll have to get the key from Thomas.” She turned to leave, but Jacko snared her hand.

  He pulled a skeleton key from his vest pocket and tried it in the lock. A second later, he swung the door open.

  The lock giving way to Jacko’s key proved fate meant her father’s room to be their place of confessions. She breathed in deeply. She sensed her father everywhere in the room. Here she felt strong and secure enough to confess the truth of her life.

  Alice led Jacko to the bed and climbed upon it. Sitting at the headboard, she pointed for him to sit upon the foot of the bed. He sat with legs crossed. She wanted to go first, but Jacko refused.

  He stared at her with intense dark eyes. “I know this is hard for you. So allow me to speak first. You may well decide no future is possible before I finish.”

  She scowled. “If you insist, but I am not happy you have so little faith in me.”

  He did not defend his statement. He took a deep breath and spoke of his extreme poverty as a gypsy child. He smiled during his recollections. “While we were always hungry, often cold, and consistently hated and despised by others, within our camp, laughter and love abounded.” He told her of his mother and her fine skill at fortune telling. “She was the best seer I have ever known. She could read cards with amazing precision.” He frowned. “Too much so.” He breathed in and out several times before continuing. “She foresaw the slaughter of our camp and sent me away so I would survive.”

  Tears glistened in his pained eyes. “I was only ten, but I am certain I could have saved her had she only let me stay.”

  Alice reached out to comfort him, but he pulled away. “Not yet. Let me finish my life and then touch me if you can bear it.”

  She wrapped her arms around her chest and nodded for him to continue.

  “My mother placed me with a tavern owner, but upon learning of her death, he sold me to a captain as a ship boy. I begged the captain to let me go home so I could kill the men who had murdered my mother and family, but he insisted I was better off at sea.”

  Jacko’s face darkened into a frightening visage of cold hate. “He was wrong. Pirates attacked us in the West Indies. The pirate captain liked my looks and made me his toy. My former captain and the rest of the crew were murdered, even though they had surrendered.”

  She could tell the memory still enraged him. When he spoke again, his voice sounded dull and lifeless. “I did all that I could to please my new master, because when faced with certain death, I discovered I didn’t want to die. And while our captain had a beastly temper and would shoot a man for nothing, I managed to stay mostly on his good side. Once I reached my full height at seventeen, he made me his first mate.”

  Jacko’s dark glare focused Alice. “We followed no codes of the sea. We left no survivors when we boarded a ship. We were the worst of pirates and men. We were nothing more than murdering thieves.”

  Alice flinched, not from the horror of his admission, but from the self-loathing she heard in his voice.

  “Once I knew the other men would follow my command, I killed my captain. I could have taken his place. The men would have served me. But I was sick of the life, sick of what I was. So I returned the ship to England.”

  He laughed with misery and stared at the ceiling. “Hadn’t been on solid ground for more than an hour when I killed a man for trying to rob me.” Jacko closed his eyes and rubbed his face as if to wash away the memories. Finally, he spoke. “Over the next years, I picked up plenty of new skills: lock picking, climbing stone walls, cutting glass without a sound. I suppose in headcounts I killed less than when on the seas, and the men I killed now were far more likely to deserve it. Still, I was sick of it all.”

  Jacko studied his hands as his fingers curled in and out. “
I did love a good stealing...still do.” He laughed. “Probably from my gypsy blood.” He looked at her again, his face not so dark now. “I have yet to find anything I cannot steal.”

  Alice could hear the pride in his voice. Jacko felt the same for his gift as she felt about running her estate. He could no more give it up than she could her life. She would just have to trust him to steal only for good, as he had with her mother.

  “A powerful and very evil man hired me to retrieve a satchel from the First Minister.” Jacko’s eyebrows rose with humor. “Tricky, but I did it. However, when I climbed into my carriage to get away, I discovered I had company. I pulled a knife only to see my uninvited companion held a gun.”

  Jack laughed softly. “He introduced himself as Xavier Thorn and complimented me on my fine ‘extraction’.”

  A low chuckle rumbled within him. “Extraction. I’d never heard the word before. I just thought it a fancy way to say theft.” Jacko rubbed the fabric of the pants with his fingertips. “He told me what was in the satchel and explained the harm that would occur to Britain if it were not returned.

  “When I told him I didn’t care, he went into a lengthy explanation as to why I should.” Jacko faced Alice. “To be honest, I didn’t understand most of what he said that night, but what I did know was that I liked him. I liked that he wished to negotiate when he could have easily shot me and taken the satchel. I liked the respect he showed me. And I liked him. He was the first man since I left my family who pulled from me any emotion other than hatred.

  “So when he asked me to give him the briefcase, I did—not because he had the gun and not because I loved Britain, but because he cared.”

  Jacko’s eyes glistened in the dim light. “Xavier Thorn became my friend, my mentor, and my moral compass.” A faint smile crossed his face. “And my life vastly improved. I still stole and murdered, but when I did so for Xavier, I felt it was for a greater cause.”

  Tension tightened his jaw. “Then one night he asked me to steal twenty very fine horses from a country estate and move them to France. While doing so, I met the owner of those horses, Lady Anne.” Jacko stared at his hands and smiled. “She was livid in rage at us for stealing her horses, yet most reasonable when Xavier’s friend, Thornton, explained why they had to be moved.”

  Alice didn’t like the way he smiled at the recollection of this Anne. Anger, not towards Jacko, but this woman churned within her.

  Jacko’s thumb rubbed his bottom lip. “I made the terrible mistake of stealing a kiss, and lost my heart in the bargain.”

  His words sliced into her like a rough knife. Her worst fear was true. He loved another woman.

  He must have noticed her pain, for his voice softened. “While the tarot cards showed a grand lady in my future, I knew Lady Anne was not the one. But my heart didn’t care what the cards said. So when her destined soulmate asked me to accompany them to America, I did. I knew nothing good would come of it. Xavier begged me not to go, but Anne needed me so I went.”

  Alice hated this story more than the murders. They were of his past, but the tenderness in his voice proved he still loved this woman.

  “She finally stopped being so impossibly stubborn and fell in love with her husband.” He sighed heavily. “I had never seen her so happy. However, I never felt more miserable. Unrequited love is the cruelest of all pains.”

  He breathed in deep. “I couldn’t bear watching her adore another man, so I asked the foreman to send me to the farthest outpost on the ranch. Away from her, I resolved to leave come spring. Yet spring came and I could not make myself go. Fortunately, I was thrown off by Anne’s husband.”

  Alice cringed as she asked, “Why?” She wasn’t certain she wanted to know.

  Jacko ran his hand through his hair. “Anne thought I believed she had used me and then tossed me aside when I was no longer needed. So she found my cabin and came to explain she had truly loved me, but her feelings for Aaron were much deeper. He was the love of her life.”

  Alice snorted. “And that was supposed to make you feel better?”

  “Oddly, she thought so. I lied and told her I was fine. Relieved of her guilt, she hugged me. Unfortunately, her husband rode up and saw her in my arms. I guess I’m lucky he didn’t shoot me. Probably didn’t because he loved her too much to cause her distress.”

  Alice feared she would never be able to compete with Jacko’s memory of Lady Anne. She bit her lower lip. “Was she really that lovable?”

  Jacko met her worried eyes. “At the time, I thought a woman could not be more so. Xavier told me I was wrong. He said I’d be better off following the tarot cards than my heart. And he has no respect for gypsy beliefs.” Jacko grinned. “But the cards said the love of my life had yet to come.”

  Alice was glad the cards were against Anne, but she worried she might fare the same fate. “When did they say she would come?”

  Jacko’s eyes sparkled. “After I came into a great fortune, which I figured would happen soon after hell froze over.”

  More than willing to give him a fortune, if that was all that prevented her from being his true love, Alice leaned forward. “How much do you require?”

  “I have it already. I won’t go into the details, but I was well paid for stealing a great deal of evidence from a mass murderer who kept himself untouchable through blackmail.” He met her eyes. “It is not my lack of money that should concern you.”

  A knife drove through her heart. “You still love Lady Anne…”

  “No. Since I’ve met you, I realized Anne was right. Our feelings for one another were love, but only a little one, not the love of a lifetime.”

  She breathed out in relief. “Then what do you fear?”

  “Your contempt.”

  His words made no sense to her. “That is not possible. Why would you fear such an inconceivable thing?”

  “Your heart is full of sweet honey. How can you love a murderer?”

  Shaking her head, she reached out and grabbed his hand. “That is not the man you are now. I am not mistaken about your character, Jacko. You are the finest man I have ever met.”

  He pulled from her grip. “The man I was, I still am. I still kill men. I killed one this night.”

  His declaration shocked her, but she refused to believe her perception of him so wrong. “Did you enjoy killing him?”

  He glared at her in outrage. “Never.”

  “Then why did you?”

  “He was trying to kill me. He had shot at me twice. I saw no way to escape, so I returned fire.”

  Her hands raised and then lowered in frustration. “Jacko, in no rational world is self-defense called murder. I thank God you shot the man. Why do you distort the facts to make your deeds look black when they are not?”

  “You don’t care that I murder men?”

  “Not if you have good reason! In a perfect world, we could wait for Scotland Yard to handle these matters. However, we do not live in such. If I had waited for Scotland Yard to save my mother, she would be dead. And when I then shot Mr. Carson, I would no doubt be hung. I am only thankful that you are adept enough not to be caught when taking care of matters that Scotland Yard either will not or cannot handle.”

  Jacko’s beautiful smile lightened his face as he held out his hands. Alice leaned forward and tugged him towards her. He joined her at the headboard, wrapped his arms around her, and studied her face. “You still love me.”

  He didn’t ask it as a question, but said it as a fact that thrilled him to the bone.

  She placed her hands on each side of his face. “Yes, I do.”

  Jacko laughed with joy and started to kiss her, but pulled back at the last minute. He sobered. “Will you now trust me with your past?

  She nodded. “I will, but I need you to hold me while I do. I cannot go back there alone.”

  Chapter 13

  Alice curled against Jacko’s chest. She felt so happy. If only she didn’t have to bring up her ugly past. She took in a deep breath, but
still could not gather the strength to begin.

  “I can’t…”

  He kissed the top of her head. “Then tell me about the man whose clothes I wear.”

  She shared her one memory of sitting upon her father’s lap and then what Thomas had told her. “Thomas was wrong about one thing. Mother loved Father greatly or she would not understand our love so well.” She looked up at Jacko and he kissed her lips.

  Her body ached for his touch and she shifted in his arms so she faced him.

  He pulled back and smiled. “So you were a happy child?”

  She knew what he was about. He’d go no further until she disclosed her past and he was trying to gently lead her into it.

  Leaning against his chest, she sighed. “Sometimes. My father died when I was four and then Mother disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?”

  “That’s what it felt like at the time. I now realize she was mourning the loss of her true love, but children…they think life revolves around them, or at least I did.”

  His lips pressed to her temple. “Until they discover differently, they all do.”

  “I spent my time with Miss Sally, my first governess. She was very kind and affectionate. I loved her dearly. She and Thomas were my only solace when Mother married that monster.”

  She bit her lower lip as she remembered her thirteenth birthday when Mr. Carson told her she was too big for a nanny, and he had sent the girl away. She had thought that the worst day of her life. Only later would she learn she had yet to suffer her worst day. That would come when Mr. Carson decided to get her with child to force a marriage with the toad of his choice.

  A buried memory unearthed itself. The night before her thirteenth birthday she lay of beneath her blankets, trembling in fear as she listened to Mr. Carson speaking overhead. “Be still damn you or I’ll wring your neck.”

  As if sensing trouble, Jacko tightened his arms about her. “What happened to your governess?”

  Guilt overwhelmed her. “I don’t know, but I should. If not when I was thirteen, then when I was older. Certainly, I should have sought the truth by now. I should not have just blocked this from my mind.”