She cut in, "I might as well not have been here, Father, for all the awareness I've had lately. Do you know, I don't even know what detained you from returning home when you were supposed to. Each time it has occurred to me to ask you, we haven't been in the same room, and then I as quickly forgot about it again. But I'm sure Thomas and everyone else knows by now. I'm sure you've mentioned it to me as well ..."

"Three times, actually." He chuckled, then surprised her by saying, "d.a.m.n me, never thought I'd reach the point where I could laugh about any part of that ill-fated trip."

"Ill-fated?"

"From the moment we entered the warmer waters of the West Indies. The island we came to first wasn't a major one, though we were so happy to see land of any sort, we stopped there anyway. But as soon as we docked, we were met by the local magistrate and a full troop of guards, and charged with attacking one of the local plantation owners. The man was there to support the charge, and quite a gruesome account he gave of it, that his plantation house burned to the ground, including his barns, that our ship just sat offsh.o.r.e and continued to rain fire down upon his property for no apparent reason."

"Someone actually did that to him?"

"As it turns out, no. But at the time, Peter Heston was an old and well-respected member of the community whom not a single person on that island would even think of doubting, while I and my crew had never been there before and could have been pirates for all they knew. We were found guilty before there was a trial. The actual trial was a mockery where Heston repeated his ghastly tale. No other witnesses were necessary for us to be sentenced to prison."

"Prison!" she gasped, incredulous. "You were actually put in prison?"

"Yes," he replied. "And with absolutely no hope of getting out of it, when we knew that the entire island thought us guilty."

He shuddered unconsciously. She couldn't even begin to imagine how horrible that experience must have been for him and his crew. He'd never been in jail before, never suffered any real physical hardship that she was aware of. Nor should he ever have experienced anything like that, when he was a good, honest man who would never do anything that might get him arrested, much less sent to prison.

Which was what she couldn't help but point out. "But you didn't do anything!"

"No, and our ship's guns were quite cold to prove it," he agreed.

She frowned, getting a bit confused now. "Then why were you even arrested, much less put to trial?"

"Because our proof of innocence required immediate clarification, which didn't occur."

"For someone to examine the guns?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't they?"

He chuckled again. She was surprised herself now that he could, especially after he replied, "Probably because we were about to be lynched on the spot. This was midmorning, you see. And quite a few people had noticed the town guard heading for the docks and followed them. There was a huge crowd by the time we docked, and everyone there was able to hear Heston's accusations. Understandably, the magistrate wanted to break that up quickly, and could only do so by getting us off the dock and into his jail."

"When it would only have taken a moment or two for verification?"

"It was a very tense situation, Rissa. There were other plantation owners in that crowd who were no doubt thinking it could have been their houses that we might have destroyed. And when an issue becomes personal like that, emotions can be quite heated. We really were in danger of that mob of angry islanders taking the law into their own hands. Frankly, we were rather glad to be put behind bars until the matter could be straightened out. Knowing ourselves innocent, we didn't really doubt at the time that it would be straightened out, so we were more concerned with the angry crowd than with the charges being filed against us."

"Yes, I suppose the immediate threat would have been of more concern," she agreed. "But you said the man's house hadn't really burned down. Why weren't you released after that was discovered. "

"No, I said no one else had done it to him," he corrected her.

She blinked. "He burned down his own house?"

George nodded. "But that didn't come to light soon enough to keep us out of prison. And at the time, the magistrate had two completely conflicting accounts on the matter, so whom do you think he would be inclined to believe?"

"Heston, of course."

"Exactly. The man's plantation really had burned to the ground. Our ship's guns hadn't been fired. These were facts that we were a.s.sured were both going to be investigated right after we were all secured in the jail. But too much time had pa.s.sed, on getting us secured and getting the crowd to finally disperse. And since it wasn't immediately proven that the guns weren't heated the least bit from use, it couldn't be proven at all. Yet there was a burned down plantation, proof for the other side, and the word of one of their own well-known and respected citizens."

Larissa shook her head. "How did the truth finally get discovered?"

"When Peter Heston's wife finally returned to the island. She had been there that day when Heston went completely mad. She had known his mind wasn't quite right for a long time, but she had never warned anyone, since his increasingly strange behavior had seemed harmless. But early that morning she came upon him starting the fires. He was raving that there were pirates hiding on the property and the only way to flush them out was to give them no place to hide by burning everything to the ground."

"There weren't any, though?"

"No, it was all in his mind. She tried to stop him, of course. But he didn't recognize her. He thought her one of the pirates and tried to kill her as well."

"How horrible for her."

"Yes, though she did manage to escape, and by the quickest means possible. Unfortunately, that was by boat. They lived on the coast, had their own small dock where Heston kept a fishing vessel. She used that, leaving the island completely rather than going to town to get help."

"I think I would have rather been out in the water where he couldn't reach me than still on the island where he might catch up to me, if I were her."

"Yes, I suppose you're right. Never looked at it from her perspective, merely from my own, which included her long delay in returning. I would have preferred she come straight to town to report what had happened, thus leaving my crew and me out of the incident completely, but she was so frightened by having her own husband not recognize her, call her a pirate and try to kill her, that she wanted only to get as far from him as possible."

"Where did she go?"

"She had a daughter by her first marriage, who lived on a nearby island. Unfortunately the daughter wasn't home, was on a shopping trip to the mainland."

"Unfortunately?"

"It was the daughter who convinced her that she had to return to get help for Heston, who was obviously quite crazy now, before someone did get hurt by him. Heston's wife had been thinking only of her own safety, which included never returning to her own home. Which was why so much time pa.s.sed before she did return and the truth was learned."

"Why was there no one else around to witness the fire and how it started? Had they no servants at all?"

"That was one of my own questions, answered by one of the jailers. It was common knowledge that Heston had had bad crops for three out of the last four years. Other plantation owners in the area had suffered from the same bad weather, but it wasn't all a weather problem, not for all three of the bad years. Most of it was likely part of his decline; he simply wasn't attending to his crops properly. But the Hestons were barely making a living by then, because of so many failed crops. The plantation workers were seasonal, so none were around this time of the year. But the house servants had been let go a few years ago. And they lived on the far east end of the island, with no other neighbors close by."

"It is amazing indeed that you can laugh about any of that misadventure."

He grinned at her. "It really wasn't that much of a hardship, their prison. What I find amusing myself is there was no one else in it. The place had been closed up for years. They had to open it and clean it up just for our benefit. There was even a debate to just keep us in the jail instead, though it was finally decided the accommodations there just weren't big enough to contain an entire ship's crew."

"The island was that small?"

"Compare it to one of our country villages and you can imagine the size, and how everyone would know everyone else, which tends to keep down crime. The only reason they even had a prison on the island was it had many years ago been converted from an old fort, which was no longer in use. But we were well fed for our brief sojourn, and not mistreated. The worst part of it all was our boredom-they had yet to decide how to put us to work-and our outrage and sense of hopelessness. In fact, we spent all our time there plotting escape, which we probably would have succeeded at eventually had we been forced to stay there much longer."

"What happened to Peter Heston?"

"Considering he went berserk in town when he saw his wife there, and tried once again to kill her, proving to everyone just how crazy he is now, he's been moved to another island that has a religious order which runs a house to care for the aged and mentally imbalanced. He'll live out his days under the supervision of the nuns there."

"And the townspeople who convicted you out of hand, based on one man's word?"

"Oh, they were duly repentant, so much so that we have been given exclusive shipping rights to all their crops for the next five years."

Larissa raised a brow at her father's new grin. "You find that adequate recompense?"

"Hardly." He chuckled. "Particularly after it came to light that the island was dying due to being so far off the normal shipping lines that they couldn't get ships to come their way."

She huffed indignantly. "So you will be a benefit to them if you agree to contract their crops."

"Certainly, but it satisfied my own goals," he replied. "I will in fact probably have to buy another ship or two to accommodate an entire island- now that I know my old markets are available again."

She could have wished that the conversation had not turned indirectly to the Everetts. But the fact was inescapable that had Albert Everett not forced her father to seek new markets in the West Indies because he stole his old ones, he wouldn't have spent time in prison, would never have had to leave England, so they wouldn't have lost their house-and she wouldn't have met Vincent.

"I am glad you can find something amusing about all this," she said bitterly. "I can't. I thought you were dead. I thought nothing else could have kept you away from home for so long. I imagined shipwrecks, horrible storms, yes, even pirates. Never would I have imagined you detained in a prison, because I know you would never do anything that might break any laws."

He put his arms around her, advising, "Let it go, Rissa. It's all over now. I'm home, safe, in good health, and have even benefited from the mishaps of the journey. Don't be angry on my account."

"I'm not, I'm furious that the Everetts have done us such an injustice and yet won't pay for it."

"We know how pointless revenge is."

"I know." She sighed.

"And you don't mean the Everetts, you mean Vincent Everett in particular. His brother apparently met justice at his own hand."

CHAPTER 23.

Albert wasn't dead.

It took a while for Vincent to a.s.similate that fact. He thought hoax. He thought cruel joke. He even thought of George Ascot. After all, how better for Ascot to completely absolve himself of any wrongdoing than by imparting the information contained in the letter that was delivered to Vincent, which painted Ascot as innocent? And it was hand-delivered by a sailor. There was no proof that Albert had written the letter; even his signature could have been a copy.

That thought didn't last long. The letter was from Albert. The tone in it was his, impossible to duplicate without knowing him well. And references were made that Ascot couldn't have been aware of, without seeing the first letter.

Albert wasn't dead.

It should have been elating news and just that, instead of the incredible shock it was. But then it came with a confession that just about everything in Albert's first letter had been lies and excuses. He placed all blame now where it belonged, on himself. No apologies, not even for giving the wrong impression about his death. Albert hadn't realized he had done so, so he had no idea that Vincent might have picked up the gauntlet for him.

I know you were probably expecting to never hear from me again. I was rather foxed when I wrote you that farewell letter, but I do vaguely recall saying I would never be back. That hasn't changed. I have no desire to ever return to England, where I feel so inadequate to my peers. Where I live now, everything is on an equal footing. Even a beggar can pick himself up by his bootstraps and start over. Which is what I've done.

I did think you might like to hear of my progress, in getting my life in order. And perhaps a better explanation is due, at least a sober one this time, of what brought me to complete failure.

It was so hard to compete with you, brother. You were such a b.l.o.o.d.y success. Everything you touched turned to gold. I know I shouldn't have felt a need to compete with that, but I did, and that was where I went wrong. Success didn't come to me quick enough, so I tried to rush it. And when that didn't work, I turned more and more to drink, which was truly my downfall.

It got to where I didn't know what I was doing half the time. I hired captains who were less than honest. One was rumored to have been a pirate in his younger years, but since he promised to make me rich, I ignored the rumors. I let them advise me. Everything they told me sounded reasonable; at least when I was foxed it did. But they were under the mistaken impression, which I gave them, of course, that I had an endless supply of blunt backing me. Well you might imagine how some business strategies might work in that case, where they wouldn't otherwise.

I'm not making excuses. I've done that all my life, but no more. My failure was the culmination of a lot of bad decisions, all of them mine. I never should have started something that I had no experience in, and when it began to turn sour, I wallowed in self-pity and drink instead of seeking proper help. I was blaming everyone else at the time, including other shippers, because I simply couldn't own up to the fact that I didn't know what I was doing. So someone else had to be the culprit, not I. Childish, I know, but at least I can recognize that now.

I left England in a panic, of course. My letter to you then might have indicated that, though I confess I don't recall everything I said to you in it. Ironic that neither of my two ships was in port at this moment of desertion, so I stowed away on another ship-and was discovered the first day out to sea and put to work scrubbing decks. At least they didn't boot me off the ship in the middle of the ocean, I haven't had a drink since I left England, nor do I want one. Being completely broke on my arrival in America, I had the choice of begging or getting a job. Pride notwithstanding-that had been completely crushed when I was on my knees swabbing decks-I found a job as a baker's helper. Really nice chap, the baker. He's taken me under his wing, teaching me his craft, and is even talking about expanding, now that I've become so adept with the ovens. I don't mind saying my m.u.f.fins are good enough to drool over.

I don't expect to become rich here. I no longer have a burning desire to do so. I find satisfaction now in a simple day's work and wage. Even my pride has returned, due to the praise of our customers.

I hope this letter reaches you before Christmas, and leaves you with a smile and the a.s.surance that you no longer need to worry on my account. My gift to you is that baby brother has finally grown up. Do keep in touch, Vince. The only thing that I miss about England is you.

The letter was a nice gift, would have been even nicer if it had arrived before Christmas as intended, before Vincent confronted George Ascot with what he had thought to be the truth. He wasn't going to make excuses for himself either.

He'd been wrong in his beliefs, and wrong to seek revenge of any sort, particularly when, as Ascot had said, a little investigation would have pointed out some of the discrepancies in his brother's false accusations.

Once more he was mired in guilt, and not just for failing his brother. Albert had managed to land on his feet and was getting on admirably with his life, while Vincent now had to deal with his own shortcomings. He had wronged an innocent family, severely wronged them, and he wasn't sure how to make amends for that, if he even could. Returning what he had taken from them wouldn't be enough, not to satisfy him. Nothing was going to help there, when in his rash undertaking he had ended up hurting the woman he had come to love.

CHAPTER 24.

George Ascot was finally found. Two days before the New Year arrived, he showed up at his company office in London. He even spent the night there, giving Vincent ample time to arrange around the clock surveillance so that he could be followed when he left. It also gave him the opportunity to speak privately with Ascot himself.

Apologies were owed, whether they would be accepted or not. He at least wanted to a.s.sure the man that the vendetta was over. He didn't expect the visit to a.s.suage his guilt. Not even complete forgiveness or understanding would do that, when he couldn't manage to forgive himself.

The office was locked when he arrived. He chose the earliest hour possible just after dawn, well before Ascot's clerk was due. He was aware he might catch Ascot still sleeping, but they would at least be a.s.sured of privacy at that hour.

George hadn't been sleeping. But he certainly wasn't receptive to his visitor either. Having opened the door, he took one look at Vincent and began to close it again.

'A moment is all I ask," Vincent said.

"When it's all I can do to keep from b.l.o.o.d.ying your face, a moment is too long."

George's expression said he wasn't exaggerating. He looked absolutely furious. And he was a big man. He might well be able to do considerable "b.l.o.o.d.ying" even if Vincent defended himself. Of course, Vincent's guilt wouldn't let him defend himself, but neither would a beating help him to get rid of it, so he would prefer discourse to violence.

"I am here to offer apologies and an explanation, though the latter is more for my benefit than yours."

"An apology when you think me guilty? Or have you found out that I'm not the villain you took me for?"

"I set out to ruin you. An eye for a eye. I make no excuses for that, other than I really did think you indirectly responsible in contributing to my brother's death. But you were correct that I was lax in not verifying the facts. I have since learned the truth."

"Not from me, you didn't," George said bitterly. "You refused to believe me."

"Would you have taken the word of a stranger over that of your brother?"

"If I had such a weak-kneed brother, I just might," George said.

It was the contempt in the tone, rather than the actual words, that caused Vincent to flush with embarra.s.sment. "He was weak, yes, but he wasn't known to lie. However, he was also foxed when he wrote his parting letter, doesn't even recall much of what he said in it, and to give him his due, he didn't suspect that I might mistake his intentions and seek revenge on his behalf."

"Doesn't recall? Are you saying he didn't kill himself after all?"

"I have only just received another letter from him, a sober one this time. He has settled in America. He now takes all blame onto himself for his failure here."

"Which leaves you having pursued vengeance against an innocent party."

"Given the information I had, in my mind, it wasn't fair that you would escape without any consequences at all, when you had set out to ruin a compet.i.tor and had succeeded, perhaps more than you had planned, but succeeded nonetheless. But my original information was wrong, so yes, I have myself become the villain in this whole debacle, due to my mistaken beliefs. For this I do humbly apologize and will make amends as you see fit. I begin with these."