Hobson lowered Daniella to her feet and waited, hesitation written all over his face and body.
Daniella swiped the hair from her face and stared hard into James’s gaze. “You will pay for this.”
“I certainly hope so,” he replied before gesturing for her to climb over the threshold. “And don’t think about starting a fire or any other nonsense because it won’t help your cause. In a moment, Mrs McDougal will be along with refreshments and in an hour I’ll let you out. Do you understand?”
She huffed but then strangely did his bidding. He’d expected a lot more fight from the daughter of the notorious pirate captain. All she did was square her shoulders and plop down on a stool, her back poker straight against the timber-panelled wall.
His conscience complained when he closed the door and threw the bolt but he pushed the unfamiliar niggling aside. Without a backwards glance to either McDougal or Hobson, standing in the hall with their mouths open, he charged into the study and headed straight for the liquor cabinet.
“That was a little harsh, was it not?” Hobson commented as he sank into a chair in front of an ancient carved mahogany desk.
“Not harsh enough for that wench. Do you have any idea at all what she just did?”
Hobson shook his head.
James sloshed whiskey into two glasses. “First she illegally purchased the filthiest virgins I have ever laid eyes upon.” He contemplated the glasses, one for him and one for Hobson, and then with both hands and two smooth movements, drained them both. “She then put her own virtue up for the bidding.”
“She did not.”
“She did so. Leicestershire almost had her for the paltry sum of three hundred pounds.”
“What did you do?”
“I purchased her myself. What else could I have done?”
“You could have let the old earl have her. Odds are her father would have been a mite more upset about him locking her up than you.”
James raised his brow because he rather doubted that. “She could—no, would—have been harmed and I could not let that happen.”
Hobson took a moment to think before replying and it grated on James’s nerves in the most dangerous way. Whenever his man thought, dire consequences and a bucketful of reason ensued.
“You must know this plan of yours isn’t going to work.”
“It most certainly will—though I admit she is correct: her father likely won’t come to us here. By the time anyone knows she is missing, we’ll be well on the road north and I expect the good captain will meet us somewhere along the way.”
“What will you do when all of these forces come together? How will you escape his vengeance?”
“He won’t get close enough for the chance.”
Hobson shook his head but asked, “What exactly are you going to do?”
“I’m going to swap his daughter for my mother and my sister.”
“That easily? What of their reputations?”
“My mother and my sister will survive. We are the only ones who know they are even missing.”
“I was also referring to Miss Germaine’s.”
He knew that. James rolled his eyes. “Hers will also be intact, if not perfectly—whether or not she wishes to return. She seems to have some notion of staying with Germaine. Either way I’ll put it out that she was assisting me in some way or another, chaperoned of course, romanticize the whole fiasco.”
“She’s not going to appreciate that one little bit.”
James leaned forwards and picked up a worn piece of paper from the top of his neatly ordered desk. He unfolded the note and stared at his mother’s handwriting. Her words were curt, concise and to the point. Exactly three things his mother was not.
“What if they are no longer…alive?” Hobson asked.
He refused to think on it. If it had been any other pirate to snatch them from a passenger ship headed for the Americas, he would be searching for bodies, not living family members. Anyway, the letter attested to the fact they were hale and happy. Right before the do not look for us part. “They are alive.”
“But taking Miss Germaine—you are playing with fire.”
“Her father and his crew are holding my mother and Amelia against their will and it is up to me to get them back. Fire or no.”
Thinking of his timid sister made his chest ache. He had been almost ten when she’d come wailing into the world. He and his brother John had been fighting the constraints of the new nursery for over a year, their obligations all changed now their family was titled and respectable. His bedroom had been situated right next to his enchanting little sister’s. What no one knew was that he had lain awake at night, waited for her to stir. Then he would sneak into her room and play with her or keep her company until she was tired enough to fall back to sleep.
He’d loved her from the moment he’d laid eyes on her tiny red face screwed up and ready to let loose yet another cry. He’d wrapped his hand around her little fist and hummed to her and she’d quieted. Instantly. It wasn’t long before she smiled for him. Laughed for him. Had his very being held tight and precarious in that fist of hers.
“And what of your name?” Hobson said, his loud voice banishing the happy memories. “What if these deeds get out and paint you in a worse light? You are finally starting to banish your past and move into your future.”
James snorted. “That sounded alarmingly as though you care, Lieutenant.”
Hobson drew himself up, his chest puffed out, and replied, “Only for the women. One such as you, Butcher of the Battle, can look after himself.”
“I wish you wouldn’t call me that. I would be happy to never hear it again as long as I live.” He’d thought of little else but both his names since he received the note from his mother saying that
