Page 138 of The Worst of Them

Cecily spun. She had been so concerned with the sword that she’d missed his approach. Jack only stared down at the creature, his expression drawn.

“The waters grow restless with his fury,” the creature said, holding the first mate’s gaze while drifting away from the ship. “Appease him, if it is possible. And do it quickly.” Then with a flash of black fins, he dove and was gone.

Quiet settled, broken only by a passing breeze.

Jack stared at the water while she waited for his expression to crack into something other than cold aloofness. Last night hung over them like a gavel, and her gaze trailed to where his coat sleeves hid his bandaged arms.

Uncomfortable in the lingering silence, she knelt and reached for the sword to untie it—then paused.

Dried blood stained her fingers, turning her skin reddish-brown as though it had been there for hours. She studied the back of her unbandaged hand, then her palm, remembering how Jack had cleaned away the blood last night. But it had been late and dark, and perhaps both of them had simply failed to notice she still wore his blood.

She grabbed the sword, hoping the wet rope would scrub away the remnants of what she’d done to him as she pulled the weapon free and laid it over her lap. The sun had risen a little more and, like the day before, its light was too dim for summer.

“How long have you known?” Jack asked quietly.

“About what?” she asked, keeping her eyes on the sword.

He drew in a quiet breath, steeling himself. He lowered himself before her and met her gaze for only a second before looking elsewhere—her cheek, her chin, her ear.

“Was it the night we met?” he asked. “When you said I spoke like a gentleman and asked if it was because I was in hiding or because I didn’t want a more…decent life?” With his head slightly bowed, his eyes flicked back to hers. “Was I so obvious?”

She held his gaze, remembering what he’d told her about her own words the night before, the awful things she’d said. If anything, she thought he might be upset over her cruel accusations—not this.

She said softly, “You mean to ask how long I’ve known you’re both a pirate and a gentleman.” It was so vague a word, but they both knew what it meant. What Jack was reached beyond manners and diction—he was a man of privilege.

Slowly, he nodded.

“You weren’t obvious,” she assured him. “It was the night we married, after you asked me so many questions in the governor’s house. Then on the beach, when we drank and you made promises—I knew then.”

His eyes tightened. “Yet you said nothing. You asked no further questions and simply kept my secret as your own?”

“I had assumed…” Her words trailed off. She mulled them over, trying to determine how best to say them. She settled on the bald truth. “All you told me made so much sense that I didn’t think it was such an important matter. It was a secret, yes, but one I’d eventually see for myself. You implied as much.”

His brows pulled upward. “You say it’s not important?” A shocked laugh. “It seemed pretty damn important to you last night.”

The blood drained from her face, leaving her skin uncomfortably cold and clammy. Here it was, the real pain she’d caused. It wasn’t that she merely knew he was a gentleman—after all, Jack wasn’t an idiot, and he’d certainly considered how much to tell her with full understanding that she might guess it. Rather, his issue laid in what she’d said about it. And from what she’d wanted to say before she succumbed to her sickness, he had good reason to look so scared.

“Tell me what happened,” she bade him. “Everything, Jack.”

His lips rolled between his teeth, his eyes sharpening. After a breath, he told her quietly, “First I must tell you I am bound to silence about certain…aspects of my life. My father has laws beyond the articles that forbid we speak about it. I have always honored those laws, though in loving you I have bent them. I was eager to bring you home to England where I could finally tell you all my secrets. I happily anticipated it, as I knew it would please you to see I could provide the charmed, beautiful life you dream of. The one you should have had. We married sooner than I intended, but even then, I was sure of you and knew you would not mind the truth.”

Was. Her grip tightened on the sword in her lap. “Are you no longer so sure of me?” After all she’d put him through, she braced herself to hear it, telling herself that they could overcome this, just as they’d overcome so much already.

His gaze was intent, searching but still apprehensive. “Last night, you threw this truth at me as though you knew everything about it. You made me into a villain solely for the fact that I am a gentleman with wealth that gives me power.”

He’d said as much last night, but there was more. She drew in a deep breath, steeling herself to hear it.

“The screaming I could handle,” he told her, “when you shouted about how much you despised me. But for the worst of what you said to me, you whispered. Those were the moments when you sounded like yourself, when I thought that maybe you had come back. Then you’d tell me what I was, what you’d deduced, and you swore you could never love me. You couldn’t even like me. You said I’d ruined you, and that I’d lied and coerced you.”

He swallowed hard, his voice thickening. “And sick as you were, I understood your reasoning. So I told you everything. Every dangerous truth about myself that I should have told you before we married, before I took you to bed and tied you to myself so thoroughly. I had thought we had time and that you would be pleased, but I see…I see how I might have misjudged.”

His cheeks began reddening as the confession spilled from him—the second time for him, and yet it was the first for her. “I told you that I am a pirate, but there are times when I am not, and I belong to a way of life and a society that demands certain breeding and propriety. Piracy is the secret of our wealth, which isn’t without reason, and it’s a way can I hide from obligations I was born into. Doing this, being a pirate…is an obligation, I suppose, in service to our life on land. I told you about my two worlds, only one of which you knowingly agreed to while the other was vilified and condemned so thoroughly that I… I laid everything at your feet and you…” He scrubbed a hand down his face, looking lost. “You destroyed me.”

She tried not to look at his arms where the evidence of that destruction lay. Tears pressed to the backs of her eyes, but she wouldn’t let them run free while Jack still had more to say. There was so much hurt in his words, and anxiety, and yet he continued to tell her everything in a way that was so careful to spare her any wounds.

Still, his voice trembled. “You told me I was the worst thing that could have happened to you, if only for the fact that I would drag you into a world that rejoiced in your suffering. That I wanted to torture you too. You told me to let you go if I hated you so much. When I refused, the screaming would begin again. You’d declare your hatred and attack me—” His voice broke and he looked away for a moment. He took a breath, then another. When he faced her again, his eyes were lined with silver. “I laid awake long into the night wondering if what you said was true, and if that was what truly lay within your heart. You swore I was despicable, and suddenly I couldn’t help but agree with you. I still do, and I am rotting with it.”

It sounded so similar to what she’d said about herself the night he chased her in Tortuga. And that she’d made him think that… She couldn’t stop the tears, but scrubbed them away before they could fall.