She stopped and turned to him, propping her fist on her waist. "Exactly what are you implying?"

"Ha! Cap'n thinks ye wanted to get to England, see, but I think it was him ye wanted all along."

Her jaw dropped. "Mr. Brody. If you are actually suggesting that I did all this for the express purpose of trying to snare Lord Jack in matrimony, then I fear you are going quite senile and should not be handling weapons." She turned away in cold fury, her pride stung. "Forgive my intrusion. I don't wish to trouble you further. If you'll pardon me, I will seek out Mr. Trahern."

"Bah." A low, gruff cackle rose behind her as she pivoted and began marching away. "Go have yourself a fine sulk, la.s.sie. No matter. You ain't the first to try to catch him in your noose, and I sincerely doubt you'll be the last."

"I don't sulk," she said crisply, turning around with a warning glare.

But he wasn't through with her yet, taking her measure with a canny stare. "All you wicked women just want to get your claws in the lad, on account of his gold."

Eden narrowed her eyes. A hundred stinging retorts shot into her mind, but suddenly, through her outrage at his baiting insults, Eden realized Mr. Brody was merely trying in his own, hardheaded way, to protect Jack.

Loyalty was behind all this.

It dawned on her then that the old cudgel was testing her-trying to see, perhaps, if she was good enough for the captain.

Aha.

Though still offended, she decided to hold her ground. Retreat was surely the fastest way to fail in Mr. Brody's estimation. And for whatever reason, the old man obviously mattered to Jack.

She took a step toward him, refusing to be chased off. "He's a good fighter," she remarked, then tossed him a challenging look. "I suppose you're going to say you taught him everything he knows?"

Brody's leathery face cracked at last in a wary grimace of a smile, as though she had finally won a glimmer of approval from the old cuss by standing up to him. "Nay, Miss," he said. "I only train the lad. The natural talent he gets from his sire."

Well, this was much more like it.

"You knew his father, Mr. Brody?" she inquired in a civil tone.

"Knew him?" He snorted. "Went twenty-five rounds in the ring with him at the Oxfordshire matches of seventy-eight. Can't say I remember it much, though, on account o' the blows to the head." He let out a low chortle. "After that, though, the Killarney Crusher and I were the best o' mates."

"The Killarney Crusher?" Eden tilted her head and furrowed her brow in total confusion. Wasn't that the t.i.tle of the boxing champion whose name was engraved on the trophy cup hidden away in Jack's sea chest? "I thought his father was the Duke of Hawkscliffe."

Brody's deep-set eyes widened. He suddenly turned away with a stricken look. "Oh, b.l.o.o.d.y 'ell!" he muttered under his breath. "I've gone and done it now."

The next day, after yet another torturous night's denial in their shared bunk, Jack sauntered out onto the stern gallery in search of Eden. A part of him felt a bit silly seeking her out-wasn't he the man who claimed the favors of the women he wanted, then sailed on without a backward glance?

Ah, well. He was past trying to rationalize this to himself. He simply liked being near her, aye, and it made him feel all warm and peculiar inside to gather that she also liked being near him. Certainly, her innocence was new to him. All l.u.s.t aside, it made a man feel whole and clean.

Some dark, guarded region of his innermost self was opening ever so slowly, like a clenched fist gradually being relaxed. He wasn't sure how it all worked, but he knew it was all her doing: the stowaway who had become his fair companion.

In truth, the strangeness of the changes she had wrought in him felt a bit shaky, but Jack had an instinct for survival, and he sensed that this was good for him.

She was good for him.

Stepping into the doorway that led out onto the shady gallery, he spotted her giving the Nipper a reading lesson.

Eden was seated on one of the outdoor chairs with the boy nestled close beside her, her arm around his skinny shoulders. They were using the Bible for their text. Jack realized abruptly it had never occurred to him to put any children's books on his shelves.

Charmed by the scene before him, Jack paused to lean in the doorway and watched for a moment, un.o.bserved. A wry smile softened the lines of his face as he listened in on their lesson.

The teacher was a lovely thing in her new walking dress. It was long-sleeved and demure, made from the good sprigged muslin he had intended to bring to his sister. Her auburn hair was pinned up in a loose chignon with an array of little tendrils escaping around her face and her nape. It was very pretty, indeed, Jack thought. He had only seen her hair long and flowing until now; the coif made her look more mature and not so wild.

As for the Nipper, Jack noticed the kid looked tidier than normal. His hair was combed. His face was clean. He was actually wearing shoes. Why, he had never seen the little rapscallion behaving himself with such docile sweetness.

The wee pupil was trying very hard to please "Miss Edie" with his efforts; never having had a mother of his own, Jack could well imagine that the child was in raptures just to have her attention. Perhaps sensing this need in him, Eden praised him lavishly for every word he got right, doling out encouragement in equally generous doses.

Jack stared at them intensely, his arms folded across his chest.

"Reev... rev... ell..."

"That's good. You can do it. Sound it out."

"Revel... ations," the Nipper said slowly, then looked up at her with a grin.

"Excellent, Phinney!" She tousled his hair and gave him a little congratulatory hug. "My goodness, you learn fast!"

Her praise fired his enthusiasm to take on the next paragraph. Jack watched her watching Phineas and listening to his efforts with a fond, tender smile, stroking his hair now and then and murmuring to him to take it slowly, concentrate; the boy struggled along as best he could, following the lines of text with his grubby finger.

The whole of this scene turned Jack's reflections inevitably back to his longstanding need for an heir.

He had always wanted sons, but as he watched Eden and recalled her devotion to her father, he thought it would be a fine thing to have daughters, too. Sons could run his company, keep it solid, expand it to the ends of the earth, ah, but daughters would take care of him when he was weak and forgetful in his dotage.

Truly, watching the woman and child now, Jack had to admit that maybe his separate way of life for all these years was not for the best. He could look in through the window, as it were, and see there was a warmth in being a.s.sociated with others in a deeper way. But a lifetime of wary isolation could not be undone in a day.

On the other hand, he thought slowly, these children of his were not simply going to appear out of thin air.

His l.u.s.t for Eden returned all of a sudden with shocking ferocity.

Just marry the chit and get her with child. You can worry about the rest later.

She glanced over at that moment, as though she felt his predatory stare; she looked into his eyes and sent him an intimate smile.

The boy now noticed him standing there, leaped up from his seat, and ran to him. "Cap'n Jack!"

"Fair weather, Mr. Moynahan. I see you're getting practice with your reading."

"I better go check on Rudy!" the Nipper blurted out, as though suddenly struck shy.

Eden peered after her pupil in amus.e.m.e.nt as he went tearing off through the day cabin in search of his canine playmate.

Jack looked at her and smiled. "Lesson's over?"

"It appears so." She chuckled, closing the Good Book and setting it on the low table. Then she rose and walked toward him. "Frankly, I'm surprised he lasted as long as he did. It's not easy for a little fellow his age to pay attention."

Jack gazed into her eyes as she came and leaned in the doorway opposite him. "It's kind of you to look after him."

"Pish. One's got to pa.s.s the time somehow."

"What do you make of his abilities?" he inquired. "Stockwell tutors the boy from time to time, but on the whole, his education is sadly neglected."

She shrugged. "He seems very clever to me. You do realize, by the way, that this child idolizes you?"

"Well, everyone does, hadn't you noticed?"

She laughed at his droll remark.

Jack smiled, scoring himself one point for the old Irish charm. "I try to be a good example for him," he admitted in a more serious tone. "Give a little guidance now and then. Teach him how to be a man."

"Where's his real father?"

"n.o.body knows, poor little mite. He was abandoned as an infant. Left on the front steps of a church with nothing but the blanket he was wrapped in. Not even a name. An older lady I employ, the housekeeper at my property in Ireland, Mrs. Moynahan, she took him in," he explained. "But the boy's rambunctious, as you've no doubt noticed, and as he got bigger, he became too much for her. The lady likes things orderly."

"Ah. So, you took him next?"

He nodded. "At least he knew who I was from my occasional visits to the property. I made him my cabin boy so I could keep an eye on him and make sure he was learning a trade. He'll make a fine sailor one day. Still, it's a d.a.m.ned hard thing for a helpless youngster, being abandoned like that. Not wanted." Jack frowned in the direction the Nipper had gone. "Honestly, in your... feminine opinion, do you think he's all right?"

A softness crept into her green eyes, a tender smile for his worry. "I think he's just fine. But-a little lonely, perhaps. Contact with other children would do the boy a world of good."

"Yes, but-" He looked out to sea in vague distress. "Don't you think they'd be cruel to him, push him away, on account of his having no father? No name?"

She stared at him for a long moment with a compa.s.sionate gaze that seemed to see right into his soul. "I suppose a few might. But why would he want to be friends with those children anyway, when others will be happy to accept him for exactly who he is? It isn't as though his origins are the boy's fault," she added. "He has nothing to be ashamed of."

"No." Jack fell silent, lowering his gaze. "What about you, Miss Farraday?" he murmured after a moment. "Do you want to have children?"

"What, with you?"

He looked at her in surprise and found a teasing twinkle in her eyes and a saucy smile on her lips.

He arched an eyebrow, shooting her a droll look. "Yes, actually. Right now. Shall we get started?"

"Jack!" she scolded, blushing crimson.

"I'm jesting," he lied in a husky murmur, gazing at her with a heated glow in his eyes and a pulsing in his groin. "You are good with him, though."

"So are you," she said softly.

"You didn't answer my question. Do you ever intend to have children someday?"

"Oh, loads!" she exclaimed, lightening the mood again with her airy manner. "A dozen, at least."

"Really? A litter?"

"My aunt Cecily has eleven. One of her friends has got sixteen."

He let out a low whistle.

"The more the merrier, I say."

"Sounds painful for the ladies."

"Not if you're healthy. Besides, it's what my mother would have wanted. A brood of grandchildren. She was always so disappointed she could have only one child-me-though she swore on her life that I was so wonderful in every imaginable way that no other child in the world could ever have compared, so it was just as well, or she'd have forgotten to feed it."

He grinned, wondering what it was like to be adored like that by one's parents.

"For all that," she added, "I can't help but feel that if Papa had a few grandchildren, it might draw him back out into the world again instead of hiding away like a hermit."

"Or he might try to drag the lot of you into the jungle. Ever think of that?"

"Won't work. I survived, and it wasn't all bad, but I would never allow my child to be raised the way I was."

"Nor would I," he agreed quietly. As her probing gaze homed in on him much too shrewdly, Jack felt the sudden need for a change of subject. "You look very pretty today, Miss Farraday." He lifted her hands to his lips and kissed them both.

"You like my new gown?"

"Indeed, I'm entirely pleased with my investment. However-" Still holding her hands, he tugged her toward him gently. "I should like to collect my dividends, if you don't mind. Whatever small sum you see fit to return to me at this time."

"Hmm," she purred as he took her gently into his arms. "I suppose the board could agree to a modest dispensation." She slid her hands up his chest and clasped them behind his neck with an arch and slightly flirtatious smile.

"Ah, Eden," he murmured as she tilted her head back, offering her lips. "You captivate me." The words escaped him before he could stop them.

"Why, Jack!" she whispered in a breathy tone full of pleasure. "For that, I shall pay you back with interest."

And she did, cupping the back of his head as she kissed him for all she was worth. Her artless pa.s.sion took his breath away. It was a kiss that a fortune in gold could not buy, a kiss like those in the fairy stories with the power to break curses. Jack did not think he had ever been kissed like this before, with her whole heart in it. All the women before her faded into mere phantoms, so many dissolving wisps of smoke.

Ah, heaven. Gathering her closer, it would have been absurd to deny that this girl was already connected to him more deeply than any previous involvement-even Maura, in the farthest reaches of his past.

The first love who had sold him down the river. No, this was nothing like that. And Eden was nothing like her.

On a sudden wild impulse, he was teetering-actually teetering on the verge of asking Eden to marry him-but ending her earth-shaking kiss, she spoke first.

"Jack?"

"Mmm?" he murmured, a little drunk from her sweetness.

She took his hands in hers and held them as she retreated a step and leaned back against the doorframe, mirroring his stance.

Gazing at her, he was amused to see her cheeks flushed and rosy, her moist, shiny lips still aglow. She spoke slowly, dreamily. "When we get to London..."

"Yes?" Her words jarred him a bit out of desire's haze with the guilty reminder that she still did not suspect his true plans for her.

"Do you expect to visit your family during your stay?"

"My family?" Ah, his favorite subject. His faint smile tensed.

"You do have family, don't you?"

"What makes you think that they'd like to see me?" He slipped his hands out of hers and put them in his pockets. "Did I mention I've got that ache in my knee that always means bad weather's on the way?"