He must have noticed the calculating look on her face because he said, “You care so little for your brother?”

Having Jeremy here was obviously going to be a distinct disadvantage—for her. Bastard would hold Jeremy’s welfare over her head every time she did something he didn’t like. He wouldn’t need ropes to keep her hands tied. She had to get them off this ship now, while England was still a short swim away.

“On the contrary, I love my brothers, but they’re not here. I lied to protect the fellow who was with me, since if your crew thinks he’s a Malory, he’ll be safe from harm.”

“Then who is he?”

“No one of import, just a penniless lord who resembles my older brother. Which is why I occasionally hire him to pretend to be Jeremy, and that was necessary tonight since you wanted to meet in such an unsavory part of town.”

“And the other gent?”

She shrugged. “Those two chum about together, so he was invited along. Besides, d’you really think anyone in my family would have allowed me to meet anyone in this part of town? My older brother would have locked me in my bedroom if I had even dared to mention it to him.”

Bastard sighed. “Too bad.”

“Too bad?”

“That I don’t believe you. But your claim about your family’s not allowing you to go to the docks does beg the question, why did you come?”

“Because I suspected it might be you and wanted to make sure you hang!”

He was smiling again. “No, you didn’t. You were caught up in the romance of having a secret admirer. It warms my heart to know how eager you were to see me again, that you, the most sought-after debutante in London, came to the docks for our rendezvous.”

“I was eager to see him, the puppet you hired, not you. You I want to see dangling from a rope, or lying in a pool of blood, which is still an option.” She waggled the hand that was holding the pistol. “So you’re going to slide one of your daggers over here, and I know you have at least one on you, so I can cut my feet loose.” She wasn’t about to let him know she still had one of her own. “Then you’re going to walk me out of here and off your ship.”

“Am I?”

She gritted her teeth. “Now, Bastard, the dagger.”

He leaned down to extract one from his boot and placed it on the desk in front of him, within his reach, but nowhere near hers. She sighed. “Can you even imagine how much willpower it’s taking for me not to pull this trigger? Did I ever give you the idea that I might not enjoy killing you?”

“No, you made that abundantly clear. But did I ever give you the idea that I wanted to harm you in return?”

The absurdity of his question boggled her mind, making her snarl, “The very nature of your mission was the worst harm I could imagine!”

“Are we really going to do this again? Rehash the same arguments? Yes, you love your father so much you’ll kill anyone who wants to harm him. Yes, I had no choice in the matter. But that was then, when I had a shrew on my back pulling the strings.”

He was talking about Catherine Meyer, and the very mention of her made Jack growl, “Is she here again?”

“No, thank God, her father didn’t let her come along this time. If he did, I don’t doubt I would have just tossed her over the side as we got under way. It would have been too much of a temptation to resist.”

He was grinning as he said it. Jack wasn’t. Much as she would have liked to do the same thing to that lying jewel thief, Catherine had been his mistress, too, which Catherine had crowed about during Jack’s previous kidnapping. And Catherine was his boss’s daughter, no matter what name she went by, no matter if his boss was Lacross or some other nasty villain, so Bastard wouldn’t dare harm her.

Jack didn’t believe he would have thrown Catherine overboard. Actually, Jack wouldn’t believe anything he said.

But she was running out of time! She didn’t need to be told they were under way, she could feel the ship moving. And she didn’t doubt everything he’d been saying was meant to distract her until it was too late to extricate herself from this second kidnapping. And he was too late anyway! Her father had already sailed, wouldn’t even know that Bastard had her again.

She’d been insane to think she could capture this wily bastard herself. But she smiled to herself that he’d failed his mission. By the time he got her to the Caribbean, his boss would already be dead and her father would be on his way back to England. Whatever ransom note Bastard left this time would—terrify her mother. Damnit!

“Are you cannoned up, or fast?”

He raised a black brow at her. “If I wasn’t in command of a ship, that would make no sense to me, and why do you want to know?”

“Could you just answer a question for once without asking another?”

“I won’t be participating in any sea battles, if that has you concerned. This ship used to be a trading vessel. It’s never been fitted with cannons.” But then he chuckled. “Other than fake ones that Mort assembled for us.”

Her shoulders drooped. He could easily overtake her father’s fleet, which was fully cannoned for the battle they expected. That would allow Bastard to get her to his boss first. So she couldn’t admit to him that his ransom note wouldn’t reach his target this time or he would make sure his ship got in the lead. It probably would anyway, even if he didn’t know he was going to be in a race. And she would be in the hands of Bastard’s boss before her father found the pirate to dispose of him. And that would mean her father would be walking into a trap again. . . .

She pushed that thought away and said, “I think I need to shoot you anyway and take my chances with your crew.”

Chapter Eleven

THE SHARP RAP ON the door startled Jacqueline, but she didn’t turn her pistol in that direction, keeping it steady on Bastard, and said softly, “Whoever that is, tell them to go away.”

“Enter,” he called out. He didn’t even take a moment to consider doing that!

He’d never done that before, either. Anytime his crew needed him on that previous voyage, they’d knocked and he’d left the cabin to talk to them instead of allowing them access. Always locking the door behind him, too. She’d assumed he’d been protecting his crew, making sure she wouldn’t be able to recognize any faces other than his. She wondered why he was behaving differently on this second kidnapping.