Shock spread over Sara’s face. “You…you what?”
“You were right about so many things,” he said solemnly, “but especially about the women. I finally learned that. What kind of a paradise is there where people are not free?”
“Oh, Gideon,” she said, her voice choked.
He went on haltingly. “So I…decided to take the women back to England, those who wished to go.” His voice grew earnest. “And once I was there, I intended to find you and beg you to return. That’s why Ann told me the truth about why you left. She was trying to keep me from coming after you. She said if I got caught, all your sacrifice would’ve been for nothing.”
“You should have listened to her,” Sara protested. “Didn’t you believe I would return? You should have, especially after she told you the truth.”
“It wasn’t you I was worried about.” He looked beyond her to where her brother stood. The earl no longer had his pistol trained on Gideon, but he was scowling at him darkly enough to kill. Gideon’s voice hardened. “I feared that your bastard of a brother would never let you go.”
The earl crossed his arms over his chest, an impudent glare on his face. “The thought did cross my mind, Horn.”
“Hush, Jordan,” Sara said when Gideon stiffened. She lifted her face to Gideon. “What he did was awful, I know, but you must forgive him. He is my brother, after all.”
“Not by blood,” Gideon growled, his gaze still fixed on the earl. “And the man certainly doesn’t deserve to call you his relation.”
“I’ve known her longer than you have and taken care of her much better,” the earl snapped. He stepped forward, his fists clenched, only to find Barnaby’s pistol aimed at him.
Sara glared at Barnaby. “Put that thing down now, Barnaby Kent, or I shall never speak to you again!”
Barnaby glanced at Gideon, waiting for confirmation of her words. When Gideon hesitated, Sara faced him once more with a scowl. “You are not going to have my brother shot, Gideon, much as you may wish to. I know he behaved badly, but so did you. I wouldn’t let him shoot you for kidnapping me, so I’m certainly not going to let you shoot him for the same thing. Do you hear me?”
Gideon suppressed a smile as she stuck her chin out at him. She was as stubborn and demanding and loyal as he remembered. Thank God some things never changed. “All right, sweetheart. I won’t let Barnaby shoot your stepbrother. Besides, it wouldn’t do to kill an earl just when I’ve decided to retire from piracy, would it?”
When she beamed at him, then reached up to brush her lips against his, he caught her to him and kissed her long and deep, despite the strangled sounds coming from her brother. When at last he managed to tear himself away from her mouth, Barnaby still held the pistol on his lordship, though a grin split the first mate’s face from one end to the other. “Put the gun down, Barnaby,” Gideon said jovially. “It appears that Sara has come back to me despite Lord Blackmore’s machinations. So there’s not much point in shooting him now, is there?”
“I suppose not.” Barnaby stuck the pistol in his waistband.
“I take it that all the talk of shooting is over now?” a new voice asked.
Whirling around, Barnaby exclaimed, “Who the bloody hell are you two?”
Gideon looked to where an older couple had emerged from the doorway beneath the quarterdeck and now stood at Barnaby’s back. Their eyes, oddly enough, were on Gideon, although there was no hint of fear in them.
Twisting her head to one side, Sara looked at them, then at Gideon. A sudden uncertainty seemed to cross her face. “Um…Gideon, I’ve brought some people with me whom I think…I hope…you’d like to meet.”
The well-dressed couple were surveying him in a way that made him uncomfortable. “Oh?”
Stepping back from him, Sara swept her hand in the direction of the older couple. “Gideon, may I present Lady Dryden, Eustacia Worley. Your mother.”
Thunderstruck, Gideon looked beyond Sara to the slight, dark-haired woman standing there. “My mother is dead, Sara.”
The woman flinched and started forward, but the tall man beside her held her back.
“She’s not dead,” Sara said gently, forcing Gideon’s attention back to her. “She’s very much alive.” Sara drew in a ragged breath. “Elias Horn lied to you all those years ago. The only true thing he ever told you was that he was your mother’s tutor and that she was briefly infatuated with him. But everything else he said was a lie. When he pressed her to run off with him, she refused. She never eloped with Elias Horn. She married your father instead.”
Gideon was still reeling from the knowledge that Elias had lied to him, when her last words arrested him. “Did you say my father?” His gaze returned to the couple standing behind Barnaby, and this time he surveyed the man who stood there, so proud and unflinching…the tall, gray-headed man with blue eyes…and Gideon’s own face.
Gideon’s heart began to pound as he clutched Sara’s arm with painful tightness.
“Hello, son,” the man said in a strained voice, his eyes bright with unshed tears.
Shaking his head, Gideon staggered back from Sara. “There must be a mistake. My father is dead. My mother is dead.”
“Your mother is standing right here,” Sara said firmly. “After she met Lord Dryden, she realized that Elias Horn wasn’t the man for her. She’d already noticed his propensity for drink, so she told him as gently as she could that she didn’t wish to marry him.” Sara’s voice hardened. “Apparently that didn’t satisfy Elias. After she married Lord Dryden, he sent her notes, trying to get her to meet him. And when Lord Dryden put an end to that, he struck back at them both by stealing you away shortly after your birth. One day when the wet nurse brought you to the park, he waited till she turned aside for a moment, then he snatched you.”
“No, it can’t be,” Gideon said hoarsely. “Elias was an unfeeling man sometimes, but he wouldn’t have…he couldn’t have…” His mind raced through a thousand memories, trying to reorient them according to this new information, yet failing. To be told that he had both a mother and a father, that Elias had lied—” But what about the brooch she left behind?” he said as he touched his fingers to his belt.
“I had pinned it to the inside of the basket you lay in, the day you were taken,” said the woman who claimed to be his mother. “It sparkled so much that you used to love to look at it.”
There was so much sincerity in her voice that he could almost believe her. Almost. “No, I saw the letter from you to my…to Elias. What about the letter?”
“Letter?” Lord Dryden echoed, his gaze flitting to Sara. “What is he talking about?”
But Sara seemed not to hear him. “You were ten years old, Gideon. Did you think to look for a postmark? Any identifying marks? Of course not. Elias wrote a fake letter and showed it to you, because you were making trouble for him by asking questions at the consulate.”
“Oh, my God,” Gideon choked out. He felt like a boat turned topsy-turvy by a tempest. If this was the truth, then everything he had thought, everything he’d believed about Elias and his mother, was totally wrong. “This is impossible.”
“Think, Gideon,” Sara said, her face full of sympathy. “If Elias had truly been your father, why would he have tortured you by reading you a letter that was calculated to wound? No caring father would willingly tell his son that his mother didn’t want him, that his mother’s family thought he was dirt beneath their shoes. He did that because he felt like dirt beneath their shoes, and he wanted to put you down there with him. No doubt he thought to taint Lady Dryden’s marriage by stealing her son. Only he didn’t know what to do with you once he had you.”
Gideon’s hands formed fists as he thought of all the times Elias had cursed him for being as proud and haughty as his mother. He thought of all the beatings he’d suffered, the lack of familial affection he’d sensed in Elias even from the beginning. Rage boiled up in him, a wild rage that needed an outlet.
He turned to his parents. “
If you knew Elias had taken me, why didn’t you look for me? Why did you leave me to that…that monster?”
“Oh, my dear boy, we did look for you!” Lady Dryden cried. “But we never dreamed he’d taken you to America. We didn’t think he had the money. Besides, the war with America was still going on, so we assumed he would never take you there.”
Lord Dryden stepped forward, his eyes stark with pain. “We searched through Ireland and England and Scotland. We even searched the Continent. Every time there was a report of an abandoned baby that matched your description, we traveled wherever it was to determine if it was you. We never believed he would keep you. Why should he? He knew nothing about babies.”
“He certainly didn’t,” Gideon said bitterly. He looked at his mother. “I think he kept me only because I was a link to you. He always loved you, you know. And maybe some part of him came to believe that he really was my father.” His tone grew harsh. “Knowing Elias, it’s more likely he thought to punish you by punishing me. He always said I was like you, every time he—”
“Gideon, no,” Sara said in an undertone as she came up beside him. “You mustn’t tell them all that. They’ve suffered endless tortures wondering how you were being treated, and it’s not fair to heap more upon them now.”
He looked at Lord and Lady Dryden and realized she was right. Never had he seen two people look more anxious. They weren’t to blame for the actions of a man who’d never completely been right in his mind. And to tell them the full extent of Elias’s perfidy would probably destroy them.
His parents. Confound it, they were his parents. How would he ever get used to the idea of having real parents?
“Son,” his mother said in an aching voice as she came nearer. “I’ve been…waiting thirty years to hold you in my arms. Do you think…you could…indulge an old woman?”
Tears misted his eyes as he looked down into the face of the woman he hardly knew, the woman he had hated all his life with no reason. And suddenly, he wanted desperately to know her. “Mother,” was all he said through a voice choked with emotion.
Then somehow they were embracing.
Sara watched them together, her heart near to bursting. She couldn’t be angry at Jordan now for forcing her to return to England, not when it had come out like this.
Next it was Lord Dryden’s turn to hold his son, his eyes red with unshed tears as he clutched the younger man to him. When after several moments his parents released him, Gideon had the look of a boy who’d just been given the key to a sweets shop. “A mother and a father. I can hardly believe it.” Pulling away from his parents, he turned to Sara. “And it’s all thanks to you. You found them, didn’t you? You did that for me.”
She ducked her head shyly. “I…I just never could quite believe that Elias’s tale was true. It didn’t make sense that a woman could abandon her child with so little thought.”
Clasping her about the waist, he drew her close. “You always did have a better opinion of people than I did. It seems you were right this time. Think of all the years I might have had with them, if I hadn’t been so ready to believe Elias.” He tipped her chin up with one finger. “Maybe I would have met you sooner.”
Her eyes glowed as she looked up at him and touched her hand to his cheek. “Those years are past. What matters is that we have each other now.”
“And do I have you?” he whispered. “You’ll marry me? You’ll come back with me to Atlantis?”
“To Atlantis?” Lord Dryden broke in. “But son, you’re my heir. You belong in England.”
When Gideon looked taken aback, Sara added mischievously, “Yes, Gideon. It seems the Pirate Lord actually is a lord, one of those awful noblemen he always delighted in tormenting. You’re the Earl of Worthing. You have a title and great lands in England.”
His face clouded over as he looked at her. “I don’t care about all that, Sara. It means nothing to me.” His voice grew strained. “But I know it…counts for something with you. If you don’t wish to live on Atlantis—”
She touched her finger to his lips to silence him. “Don’t be foolish. Atlantis is the only place where I truly belong. How could I live anywhere but there?”
With eyes glittering, he murmured, “I love you, Sara. I love you so much that I’ll willingly go to England and be the…the…”
“The Earl of Worthing.”
“Yes, the Earl of Worthing, if that’s what you want. If that’s what it takes.”
Her heart swelled to hear him offer to make such a precious sacrifice for love of her. “And I love you, Gideon. Which is why we will not go to England until you’re ready…if ever.”
“Am I to lose my son so soon then?” Lady Dryden asked in a plaintive voice. “Just when I have found him?”
Tucking his arm around Sara, Gideon turned toward his mother. “You won’t lose me, Mother. I swear it.” He smiled. “I’m a ship’s captain, after all. I imagine Sara and I will be making a great many trips to England in the future.”
“They’ll hang you if they catch you,” Barnaby put in sourly.
“Not my son,” Lord Dryden retorted. “I assure you that between Lord Blackmore’s influence and mine, we can ensure a pardon for the Earl of Worthing.”
When Jordan snorted loudly, everyone broke into laughter.
“Do you hear that?” Gideon told Barnaby. “I’m to be pardoned and set up as an earl. Quite a fitting end for the Pirate Lord, don’t you think?”
“Brought down by a woman,” Barnaby grumbled. “They’ll never believe it when we tell the tale on Atlantis.”
“Oh, they’ll believe it,” Sara said as she stared up at her husband-to-be, her joy so intense she felt lightheaded. “After all, every one of those pirates has been brought down by a woman of his own.”
“Aye, they have at that,” Gideon murmured as he pulled her close for another kiss. “And if you ask me, it’s not a bad comeuppance for a bunch of scurvy American privateers. Not a bad comeuppance at all.”
Epilogue
March 1819
The ballroom at the Dryden estate in Derbyshire was crammed with people curious to glimpse the marquess’s long-lost heir. His lordship had thrown a lavish costume ball to welcome his son, and now Sara and Gideon strolled about the room, having already been introduced to what seemed like every inhabitant of the county.
Thank heavens they were in costume, for it gave them something to talk about with people whom Gideon barely knew. Thinking it would be a grand jest, Sara and Lady Dryden had coaxed Gideon into dressing as Sir Walter Raleigh to match Sara’s Queen Elizabeth costume. They’d even let him wear his earring. As Lady Dryden had said, “He looks like a pirate even in civilized clothing, so he might as well dress the part.” With his black mask, tanned skin, and newly cropped dark hair, Sara thought he was by far the handsomest man at the ball, and she’d noticed more than one woman eyeing him with interest.
He was completely unaware of it, however. Never had she seen him look so uneasy, not even when he’d first set foot in England two weeks ago. Then he’d merely been curious and somewhat amused to find himself now a respected member of the very nobility he’d plagued for so many years.
Tonight, however, he seemed very conscious of what was expected of him as heir to the Marquess of Dryden. “Must the women keep curtsying to me as if I were some deity?” he grumbled.
“Yes. It’s due you because of your rank.” An impish smile crossed her face. “You didn’t even have to brandish your saber in front of them to get it. Fancy that. It must be a new experience for you.”
He cast her a sidelong glance. “If you don’t show me some respect, my dear wife, I’ll have to brandish my…er…saber in front of you later when we’re alone.”
“Oh, you will, will you? And you think that’ll gain you some respect?”
He grinned. “It’s been effective in the past.”
She struck him playfully with her fan. “You are entirely too naughty for polite society, my lord.”
“Stop calling me that,” he said with a scowl. “The words still leave a bad taste in my mouth.”
“Well, you’d better get used to them if you’re planning to spend any time in England.”
“We wouldn’t even be here if you weren’t expecting our child.” He glanced down at her rounded belly, only barely hidden by the fullness of her costume, and his expression softened. “After watching Molly give birth, I refuse to take any chances with our firstborn.”
“That’s not the only reason we came for a visit, and you know it,” she said quietly. “You also wished to see what your life might have been like if not for Elias Horn, didn’t you?”
He shrugged, gazing out over the crowd. “Perhaps.”
She opened her mouth to say something else, but before she could speak, her stepbrother came to her side. He’d also been invited to the house party at the Derbyshire estate by the marquess and his wife, much to Gideon’s chagrin.
As was typical of Jordan, he hadn’t taken the time to find a costume, but like many of the men, merely wore a mask with his usual evening attire. “And how is the expectant mother? You mustn’t tax yourself, you know. I don’t want my nephew born early enough to raise eyebrows.”
Gideon laid his hand in the small of her back in a protective gesture she knew all too well. “Are you implying that I’m the kind of man who’d allow his wife to tax herself?”
“If the shoe fits—”
“Behave, both of you,” she admonished as Gideon bristled and Jordan glared. “I swear, when you two get near each other, you act like school boys fighting over a half-pence.”
“Oh, you’re much more valuable than a half-pence,” Jordan retorted. Before Gideon could say anything to that, he added, “And in any case, I didn’t come over here to anger you, moppet. I merely wanted to let you know I’m leaving.”
“Good,” Gideon mumbled under his breath.
She swatted him with her fan before turning back to her brother. “What do you mean, leaving? I thought you came up for the entire week!”
The Pirate Lord Page 35
