“What?”
“He had the audacity to laugh at me. Asked me what kind of business did I have to conduct by way of his new ship. He called it the Lark.”
I let my hand fall over his.
“Since a challenge didn’t work, and threats didn’t work, I decided to try something even more insane.”
I was powerless to stem my curiosity. “What’s that?”
“The truth.” Jack chuckled at the memory. “I told him I was the bastard son of Vladimir Nemirovsky, the Russian pirate who probably looted this rig. My whore mother was dead and it was high time I found Vladimir and called him out. Either make him respect me as a father respects his son—”
“Or?”
“Or kill him. For breaking my mother’s heart.”
I studied the blanket, suddenly shy and at a loss for words. Is it possible to love this man even more?
“Vane took me at my word. He promised to teach me what I needed to know, so that when we met Vladimir on the high seas, not only would my presence be humiliating to him, but I would have the skill to back up my mouth. And he did.”
“Vane was my mentor, and soon became my friend. He helped me perfect my fencing technique, my fighting, and everything else. And any time we passed a ship, I learned on my feet how to relieve a ship of their goods. Much like you are.”
“The day finally came, we spotted Vladimir’s ship once we reached Caribbean waters. We sailed alongside, and they allowed this, thinking we were an English trading vessel, ripe for the plundering. Once we pulled down the English flag and ran up a black flag, they realized this wasn’t the case.”
Suddenly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear more. Jack’s voice was coming quicker and with fire behind his words. No, not fire. Venom. Deadly venom. “Does it bother you to speak of this, Jack?” I shifted on the bed and briefly considered slipping my shirt on. “Because if it’s painful to recall—”
Jack didn’t hear me, or if he did, he didn’t let on. “I boarded first, sword outstretched. The same sword I gifted to you when we married.”
My blood turned icy and I shivered a bit, though there was no reason at all why I should be cold.
“I told them, I am Mikhail Nemirovsky, and I was in search of Vladimir. He appeared, of course. It was like looking in my own eyes, a few men aboard gasped. There was no denying I was his son. I told him, just as Vane and I rehearsed, that I was there to sail the seas and plunder their riches as his son.”
I wanted to reach out to Jack, to hold him as he told this horrible tale. He’d begun to shake a bit, and something in my gut told me to stay put and keep my hands to myself for the time being.
“The lot of them laughed so hard, tears streamed down leathery faces. One pirate, closest to me and wearing a tall, fur cap—”
I glanced about until I set eyes on his iconic headpiece that consumed an entire corner of our cabin.
“Not one to enjoy being laughed at, especially at such a pivotal moment in my young life, I swung my blade and sliced off his ear.”
I was incredulous. “Your father’s?”
“No. The pirate with the tall, fur cap,” Jack smiled. “So not only did they stop laughing at me, but I earned my cap which I still wear to this day.”
“What did your father do?’
Jack’s head drooped a bit. “He said the day he took a whore’s son aboard his ship as anything but a slave would be the day he met his Maker. I told him that could be arranged.”
“We drew our swords, him smiling all the while. I know he was toying with me to gauge my abilities and to see if I was a worthy opponent. He even instructed his crew to stand down, no matter the outcome. Vane and the men who sailed with us stood down, too.”
Someone banged on our door and made me jump. Tommy’s voice rang out from the other side as my heart thumped in my chest. “Are ye alive in there, Cap? Ye and th’ missus?”
“Yes, Tommy. We’ll be up in a moment.” Jack stood and plucked a fresh shirt from the chest of drawers in the corner. He slapped his arms into the sleeves and began buttoning furiously. “Our duel ranged all over. From helm to helm, bow to stern and back again. On top of boxes, through the rigging. I was ready. I was young and full of fire. His smug smile melted from his face the longer we dueled, and he began to tire. The longer we dueled, the angrier I became. Every smack of every john who bought my mother spurred me on, every time I heard her cry when she thought I wasn’t listening, or cry his name in her sleep.”
Jack’s fingers shook as he spoke. “I thought I had him. I flipped his blade from his hand and fed it to the waves below and held my own steel to his neck. I looked into his face, up close, and forgave him for almost two decades of hurt and abandonment. So I lowered my blade, having won the fight, and turned to walk off his ship and leave him be, safe in the knowledge that his bastard son could have relieved him of his head. As I walked toward Vane, I saw something flicker in my mentor’s eye, and realized that in that instant I forgot the first rule of being a sea gypsy.”
“Never trust a rival pirate,” we said in tandem.
No wonder that’s the first rule of the sea you made me memorize.
Jack nodded. “One of his men tossed him a blade. If I hadn’t moved when I did, he would have driven it deep into my back. But I side-stepped his death blow, which made him even madder. He was no longer smiling and his eyes were black—”
“Your eyes get black when you’re killing mad.” My voice was a whisper. Immediately, I regretted saying anything. Jack, thankfully, ignored me. It seemed the more he talked, the more he wanted—no needed—to finish this story.
“I knew this was the end. One of us would leave, the other would be buried at sea, the loser of this familial duel. I stabbed my blade into his dueling arm and asked him the question I had been dying to know the answer to. Why, Father? Why?”
“Why?” I leaned forward. “Why what?”
“Why all of it. Why did he leave me mother, why did he leave me. Why did he make promises and not follow through, why weren’t we good enough for even a letter.” Jack picked up his black britches and held them there. “Why did my mother die loving a good for nothing son-of-a-bitch like him.”
He gave his britches a shake. “He knew what I was asking. And he answered me, too. Why, he said, would I want to recognize a whelp like you, a son of a good for nothing whore.”
The pain in Jack’s words was almost tangible and his voice had started to shake. Still, he continued, his words coming faster and louder. “I made those promises to a dumb whore, he said, and he smiled as it said it. If they think you love them, they don’t mind fucking you for free.”
I exhaled the breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.
Jack exhaled, too. “When he said that, I knew he was no man. Certainly not my father. Not worth killing, not even worth a second look. But, I knew he wouldn’t let me live. So, I said, for my mother’s honor, and plunged my steel through his heart. Or, where his heart would have been, had he had one.” Jack slid his legs into his britches and pulled them up, but didn’t button them. “He work a look of surprise, as he bled out his lifeblood all over my boots. It took him a moment to die, so I asked him one last question. One he could carry with him into eternity. ‘Who is the dumb whore now?’”
I stood, still stark naked, and went to my husband. I wrapped my arms around his middle and pressed my head to his chest. “Jacky, I—”
