Beware of Virtuous Women (32 page)

Jack looked at his companion as they walked along through the early evening in silence for nearly a full minute before Chance said, "We're speaking now of Lieutenant Richard Diamond."

Jack stopped walking, peered at Chance with some intensity. "Yes. Diamond. And you know what happened to him. You knew him personally?"

Chance had also stopped a few paces along the flag-way, and now he made his way back to Jack, not stopping until he stood directly in front of him. "I knew him. And, I'm sorry to say, since even the worst of us is often loved by a mother, your cousin is most definitely dead."

At last, an answer. At least part of an answer. "How do you know that?"

"Because I was there, Jack. Because I watched him die," Chance Becket said flatly, looking straight into Jack's eyes.

"You watched him die?" Jack took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "Enough. I've heard enough. And you picked this moment to tell me?"

"I'll tell you the rest if and when you ever want to hear it. But we knew it was more than time you heard the truth from me, especially once Treacle saw which way the wind was blowing between you and Elly."

Jack stepped back against a brick storefront and laughed out loud; a release of tension, he supposed. "Treacle, too? My own butler?" Then he just as quickly sobered. "Does Eleanor know about Treacle?"

"No. He was installed long before Elly bullied Ains-ley into letting her come to London. I would have loved to have been there for that, you know. Jack, I'd be as angry as you must be, but we felt Treacle necessary. We're very used to protecting ourselves."

"Fine. I understand," Jack said soberly, pushing himself away from the wall. "But it ends now. Treacle, and anyone else you've got spying on me. Either I'm trusted or I'm not."

"I agree. Ainsley agrees, which is why I'm here, and why I'm going to tell you about your cousin's death, both the why and the how of it. There's a coffeehouse just down this street. Confessions are thirsty work, on both ends. Shall we?"

By the time another hour had passed, Jack and Chance had come to terms with each other, and with the unhappy coincidence of their shared association with Lieutenant Richard Diamond.

They had, in fact, come along far enough in their association to begin to form a tentative friendship. This in no small part had to do with the fact that both men loved Eleanor Becket.

And, because speaking of Eleanor could only lead to why she was in London, at last Chance asked Jack if, loving Eleanor as he said he did, he was aware that the Earl of Chelfham was her uncle.

"Not her uncle, Chance. Her natural father," Jack said quietly. "She told me that no one else knows, so I'm aware I'm breaking a confidence. But I think you need to know this one, most especially if we decide to remove Chelfham from the playing board. Eleanor's mother cuckolded her husband with his own brother. Imagine the burden of carrying that knowledge with you for at least the last few years, since her memory began returning to her."

"Her father?"
Chance put down his mug and leaned in closer over the tabletop. "That's not possible. Is it?" He held up one hand. "No, I didn't mean that. Any-thing's possible, especially, God knows, here in London. And Ainsley doesn't know?"

Jack shook his head. "Eleanor was afraid if Ainsley knew everything he'd come to London to ask the earl some very pointed questions, and she wasn't willing to risk that."

"Yes, that sounds like our Elly. She's protective to a fault. Damn, you're right. She shouldn't be here. Not if we're going to be eliminating the earl in some way. Bad enough when we thought he was her uncle. What else have you discovered? How deeply is he involved with the Red Men Gang?"

Once again Jack found himself handing information over to Chance Becket, but he no longer had any reservations in doing so. Besides, he could use the man's help.

"Set herself up as a target?" Chance said when Jack finished his explanation. "No. That's not going to happen. Not with Elly. I don't want her to so much as see that bastard again, let alone talk to him. The whole thing is too...hell, I'll say it—too sordid for her. She's got such a pure heart. She won't be able to handle anything like that. She'll take it all on her own shoulders, even if the man isn't worth a single worry."

"I agree, although I think she can handle a lot more than you give her credit for. A spine of Toledo steel, that's what Jacko said. I didn't believe him then, but I believe him now," Jack told him, happy to have an ally. 'That said, which one of us is going to tell her she's already seen the last of Chelfham? She's determined, Chance."

"She can be as determined as she wants to be, it's bloody not happening. You're in love, Jack, which makes you vulnerable to her pleadings, but I'm the brother, and I can be more forceful with her. We'll put our heads together, think of something else. Especially now that you've got your man safely stowed away. You're certain he's going to live?"

"Cluny thinks so, although when I left him the poor bastard looked three-parts dead, nearly as dead as the other one. If we have to, we'll prop him up in front of Chelfham, I suppose."

"Yes," Chance said slowly, rubbing at his chin. "We'll both think about this some more, but first I'd like you to tell me what Elly has told you she remembers about her. ..well, the events of her rescue. I know her, and she would never tell you more than her own story. There might be something the man who loves her still needs to know."

Jack was more than willing to do just that. "You're right. She's holding something back, Chance, saying it's not her secret, which makes me believe she's protecting Ainsley in some way. But she keeps getting tangled up in her own lies and evasions, and I know she wants to tell me. It could wait until I see Ainsley, speak to him directly, but I won't say I'm not willing to hear what you have to say if you think it's important."

Chance held his mug with both hands. "She never told us what you've just told me, so I honestly don't know how much she actually remembers. God, I hope she never remembers the worst of it. That's always been Jacko's greatest fear, and I don't think he'll appreciate me telling you about it. But, in a way, this does concern you, as some of it concerns our friend Chelf-ham. We never had a name, you understand, until Elly's memory started to return, but it wasn't until you brought up the same name in connection to the Red Men Gang that we began to consider the impossible. And it does seem impossible, even now, with your mention of the man you saw entering the black coach. I don't know how I'm going to tell Ainsley this one, frankly. I damn well know I don't want to tell him."

"You're a fine fellow, Chance," Jack said with a wry smile, "and I'm happy to know you. But if you don't get to the point soon I may have to reach across this table and choke it out of you."

Chance returned Jack's smile, his just as wry. "Sorry. I'm trying to sort out what you need to know from what we only suppose, what I sincerely hope isn't true."

"Let me see if I can help," Jack offered. "Ainsley, your entire family, were privateers. I guessed as much, and Eleanor finally confirmed that for me. Privateering is allowable under English law. You did have a Letter of Marque from the Crown, didn't you?"

"We did," Chance answered, then smiled in remembered amusement. "We also had Letters of Marque from Spain, one from America, and another from France—although that last was a clever forgery, I will admit. And
that,
my friend, was not
allowable.
Some might say that wasn't
sporting,
and others, probably with good reason, could even have called us next door to pirates. However, we considered ourselves English at the bottom of it, and never attacked an English ship. Never, Jack."

Suddenly Jack understood. "Until you attacked the ship Eleanor and her family were traveling on from Jamaica to England?"

Chance nodded. "We were misled, betrayed by Ains-ley's partner—in more ways than you can imagine. And yes, a part of that betrayal ended with us mistakenly attacking an English ship. From that moment on we were finished, we couldn't stay where we were, even if we wished to, and God knows we had no reason to remain. Ainsley had been about to move us to Becket Hall in any case. We no longer needed adventuring to survive and, besides, it was time to get the girls to civilization. Morgan, Fanny. Cassandra, who was just an infant."

His hands closed into fists on the tabletop. "But we were talked into one more adventure, and a bounty that would make us all wealthy beyond our dreams. Four merchant ships traveling together, each of them loaded to the gunwales with treasures and heading for Spain, and with only two slow-moving escort ships we could outmaneuver with half our sails gone. Too much to resist, you understand, the way our
partner
laid it all out to us. Besides, Ainsley was ending the partnership by retiring to England, and his partner argued that he deserved one last large haul. Ainsley decided we'd do it. One final hurrah, as it were."

"And all hell came crashing down around you," Jack said quietly, the sudden bleak look in Chance's eyes more than enough for him. He didn't need to hear any more, except as it affected Eleanor. "Eleanor said you sank the ship she was sailing on, and I wondered about that. As privateers, you were allowed to take the ship, sell it. You sank it to hide what had happened, didn't you?"

Chance seemed to be having difficulty bringing himself back from a most unpleasant memory. "Yes, we sank the ship with a broadside right at the waterline. We came out of the fog bank at midmorning, believing our
partner
and his ships to still be with us, to find him gone and ourselves surrounded by a damn armada. It was chaos, Jack. We had been thoroughly betrayed. Outflanked, outgunned, outmanned. And damned desperate."

"He left you all out there to die?
Bastard.
Where was he?"

A small tic began to work in Chance's left cheek. "Elsewhere. Let's just say he was busy elsewhere." He shook off the memory and leaned his elbows on the tabletop. "But here is what you need to know. Eleanor and her mother were still on the ship, hiding. Nobody realized that until we'd hit her with the broadside. But Jacko was still onboard, the last man to swing over to the Black Ghost—he had a flair for the dramatic back then—and he heard the woman cry out. He yelled to us what he was doing, and then disappeared below decks."

"That took some courage."

Chance smiled. "Jacko is invincible, or so he believes, and he was a lot younger then. If you think he's formidable now, you should have known him then. But to get on with this, and get it said as quickly as possible. I swung over to help Jacko and found him belowdecks. Eleanor and her mother had hidden themselves in a deep cupboard in the captain's quarters, probably placed there by the captain himself. He's also the one who most likely armed the mother and told her what she had to do if the battle was lost."

Jack felt suddenly cold in the pit of his stomach. "Kill the child. Kill herself. Anything's better than two women, even a female child, in the hands of pirates."

"Yes, I'm sure that's what he told her. I want you to understand this, Jack. There was fire everywhere by now. We knew the ship was going down. The woman had poor little Elly in a death grip at the very back of the cupboard, and she was holding a pistol to her head, screaming for us to leave, that she'd kill the child before allowing us to ravish her. She already had the damn thing cocked. There was another pistol beside her, obviously for herself."

"You couldn't reach her?"

Chance shook his head. "Each time I tried, she turned the pistol on me. She didn't believe the ship was sinking. Nothing we said could convince her to let go of Elly, drop the damn pistol. Jesus," he said quietly. "I've lived the moment over and over in my head, trying to remind myself that I was only seventeen, that there wasn't all that much I could do. But I should have done more, I should have done
something."

"Yes, but what? And all while the ship was sinking? You had to get them out of there, or leave them there to save yourselves."

"Exactly. And Jacko was not going to leave a child to drown. He...uh...he told the woman as much, over and over, even as the ship began yawing badly and we knew we only had another few minutes before the damn thing was going to roll. But the woman wouldn't listen. She just wouldn't...listen." Chance hesitated a moment, sighed. "Jacko shot her very cleanly between the eyes, so that she'd immediately drop the pistol."

Jack sat back against his chair as if a bullet had just slammed into his own body, staring at Chance. "He
shot
her?"

"He warned her. If she wanted to die she could, but he was by damn getting the child to safety." Chance put a hand to his forehead. "I was half in the cupboard, and Jacko had the pistol directly next to my ear when he fired. Jesus, the sound of that pistol going off...the sound of Elly's screams. I'll never forget either one. At any rate, I was able to get inside the cupboard now, and I grabbed Elly up, raced her up on deck, where she got away from me, began running across the deck. That's when a piece of falling rigging got her and her leg was injured."

"I've seen her ankle, Chance. Seen where a piece of iron burned into her skin, seen the mess that was made of her bones."

"We were lucky Odette was able to save her foot, lucky that she ever walked again. But she doesn't remember any of that, Jack. She has, as you already know, remembered other things in the last few years. Her name, vague memories of her home. Obviously she also remembers what happened to her father the day before the attack—the man she believed to be her father. But not the attack itself. Thank God, not that. We lived in a terrible world, Jack, and I don't think it's gotten any saner in the past fifteen years."

Both men sat quietly, Chance Becket undoubtedly reliving yet again a scene that no one should have witnessed let alone been a part of, and Jack mentally going over past conversations with Eleanor.

She had quoted something to him in Latin.
Actus non facit reum, nisi mens sit rea.
The act is not criminal unless the intent is criminal. She'd said Ainsley used those words to help ease his soul, but that Jacko
lived
by the maxim, that he was a man who thought simply and acted impassively... "And he sleeps very well."