Page 93 of The Worst of Them

When she looked up, his face was inches from hers, those fake scars interrupting the openness of his features to make him look sterner than he was.

She drew away. “I would love any of those jewels. Were they mine, I’d do anything to keep them.”

“If you like them,” he said, “take them.”

She shook her head. “I couldn’t,” she said. Then, from across the room, she noted a door. She started for it, and when she reached it, she eased through.

The golden glow of candlelight revealed a dressing room filled with silk gowns. She paused, gazing in awe at the wealth, at the beauty, and then she crept inside, mindful of the flame in her hand.

This was the kind of life she might have had if she’d married Oliver. Jewels, gowns, silk…it had all been so close. Growing up, she’d seen Lady Stinton sparkle and float, and Cecily had never stopped dreaming of herself in similar silks and laden with jewelry. Even now.

Jack paused in the dressing room’s doorway as Cecily moved among the shoes and accessories. A low pedestal and mirror stood in the middle, waiting for someone far richer than herself.

“You call yourself a pirate,” he mused, “yet you don’t want the jewels we came for.”

“It’s not that I don’t want them,” she said, skimming her fingers over a jeweled buckle. “I’d just rather not steal them. I’m a pirate, but that doesn’t mean I have to be a thief.”

His brow furrowed in bemusement. “Then what does it mean?”

Cecily gently pinched the sleeve of a deep purple gown. How lovely she’d look in such a color. “I’m still finding out, I think.”

“That’s hardly an answer,” Jack said. “How can you declare something so confidently without knowing for sure?”

She smoothed her thumb over the silk, rolling an idea over in her head. “This past year has changed a great many things,” she told him. “Murder and prison will always be a stain on my life, whether I want it that way or not. I suppose it’s why I made light of it, or why you saying I was enough actually convinced me I was.”

She glanced over her shoulder to find him watching her with a thoughtful expression. “But I don’t have to be defined by what I’ve done or what others have done to me,” she said. “I meant what I said earlier about being a pirate. I can make peace with it or fight it, and I choose peace. It’s on my terms, though—I’ll define my life in piracy. I don’t have to steal the jewels, even if I like them, nor do I have to be a murderous beast to live well with my friends. I’m still deciding what that looks like, but for now, at least, I know I can be a pirate when it suits me, and I can be a lady when I like.”

Quietly, he asked, “Do you want to be a lady?” His eyes were deep with sadness or trepidation or something else she couldn’t read. Perhaps he, too, thought of what she’d told him about Oliver and the life she would have had.

“I wanted to,” she said. “Even when I signed the articles, I planned to leave with enough money to buy myself a life close to what might’ve been.”

“But?”

“But what?” She moved to the next dress, then the next, doing little more than browsing as she held the candle aloft. Jack was merely a shadow in its light. “No matter how much I earned or stole, I wouldn’t be assured anything. Besides, my name is ruined—no one will care for me as a Shoard, which would have killed my father.” She shook her head. “And what would I do? Find a husband and keep my secrets from him forever?”

“You’d make a fine lady, I think.”

“It would never be as easy as choosing that life, as much as I might have hoped otherwise. Getting that life, buying it…it was only ever just wishes and hopes. It never would have been real without some miracle or marriage.” She ran her fingers over a bit of lace, then looked at Jack. “What are you trying to convince me of?”

There was no doubt he was looking for something. Perhaps Fay had rigged the room they drew for the heist, but it was in service of whatever answer Jack sought. He’d brought her here on purpose—but for what, she only hoped he would tell her.

He was quiet for some time. She’d nearly made her way around the entire room and stood only a few paces away when he spoke again.

“My mother…” He hesitated, chewing the inside of his cheek. “My mother took issue with my father being a pirate.”

Cecily’s head cocked. “Did she not know?”

Jack stared into the depths of the dressing room. “He wasn’t a pirate when they married. He wasn’t even a pirate for most of my childhood. He had little to do with any of that until my grandfather’s death, but my family needed money, so he decided to take up the mantle.” He ducked his head. “She, uh…her objections destroyed my father when she found out, as he felt he had no choice but to take the captaincy. She said she would rather be dead than be a pirate’s wife, so he stopped for a while, even as our money dwindled. But it wasn’t enough. Her despair and horror made her sick, and for two years we watched her waste away. The doctors tried, my father tried, but when she passed…”

Grief passed over his face, so much like her own.

“She got her wish,” he said reservedly. “I was eight.” He shifted on his feet and cleared his throat. “I respect my father for all he’s done and how hard he works. But he has expectations, most of which I can meet, though when it comes to spending my life with someone…” He scrubbed a hand over his face, but the drawn scars didn’t budge. “You heard him—sometimes he makes it hard to make any kind of choice. I want to make him happy, and you, and I want to be happy too, but someone’s going to lose… I just want to make sure it won’t be you. I want to know I can make you happy. That you won’t come to resent me for being what I am.”

Forgetting the dresses and finery, she drifted closer, noting the fear in his eyes that she’d never seen before. She couldn’t resent him for the very thing he’d accepted in her. Despicable as she could be, she couldn’t bear to do that.

“I meant it when I said you could have more than this,” he told her, eyes boring into hers. “Would you really give it up for me? A thieving, murdering Copson with a bloody legacy for my inheritance?”

She stood in front of him now, the candle burning between them. She thought of the life her father had wanted for her, and she hoped he would at least be pleased to know that she had found someone who cared for her and would give her the best he could—even if he was a pirate.