Chapter 24 #3
With a scowl, he strode across the deck and through the entranceway into the saloon, headed for his cabin.
Molly and her children still slept there at night, but he used it during the day.
And just now, he had a very specific purpose in going there.
He wanted his bottle of rum. He didn’t often indulge, but today he wanted to drink himself into oblivion.
For once, he wanted not to be plagued by thoughts of Sara.
Throwing open the door, he entered his cabin, only to hear a squeal and see a blond head disappear under the bed covers.
“Come out, damn you, whoever you are!” he shouted.
“What in blue blazes are you doing in here?” He’d dismissed his cabin boy from his duties the day they’d settled on Atlantis, so it couldn’t be him, and he’d seen Molly talking earnestly to Louisa not long ago, so it couldn’t be her.
It had better not be one of the other women either. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with any of them just now. So help him, if it was that blasted Queenie, he’d throw her out on her ass.
Then he realized that the shaking lump under the bed covers was decidedly smaller than any of the women. He groaned. Jane, Molly’s five-year-old. It had to be.
He forced some gentleness into his voice. “Jane, is that you, girl? Come out. It’s all right. I won’t hurt you.”
A blond head emerged slowly from beneath the satin, red eyes and nose first, followed by a pouting mouth. “You yelled at me! You said bad words, and you yelled at me!”
With a sigh, he moved to sit on the bed. “I know, sweetie. I shouldn’t have done that. It’s just that I’ve been grouchy lately.”
More of her emerged from under the covers. She laid two chubby arms on top and stared at him with solemn eyes. “Because Miss Sara went away, huh?”
He stiffened. “Miss Sara’s got nothing to do with it.”
“Oh. I thought Miss Sara was gonna marry you.”
“Where’s your mother?” he asked, eager to change the subject. He’d come in here to drown out all thoughts of Sara, not be reminded of her by a child. “Why did Molly leave you in here all by herself?”
“She said she had to talk to Miss Louisa. She told me to take a nap.” Again, she pouted. “I don’t like to take naps.”
Suppressing a smile, he ruffled her hair. “Yes, but naps are good for little girls. Why don’t you just lie down, and I’ll leave you alone to sleep. All right?”
She lay back obediently against the pillows, but he could feel her eyes follow him as he rose and walked to the desk. Opening the drawer, he took out the bottle of rum, wishing he had some way to hide it from her sight.
“Is that gin?” she asked in a querulous voice.
“No. Now go to sleep.”
“My papa used to drink gin sometimes when he was sad. Then he would sing funny songs and make me laugh.”
Gideon stared at her. Though Sara had told him some of the women had husbands back in England, he’d never thought much about it. After all, if they’d had decent husbands, they wouldn’t have gotten involved in criminal acts in the first place, would they?
“I miss my papa,” she said with a child’s candor. “I miss him lots.”
He felt a twinge of conscience. “Why didn’t you stay with him in England?”
“He and Mama said I had to go with her. He said the men over the sea wouldn’t bother her none if they saw she had me.
” Her eyes lit up. “Papa said he would come be with us soon’s he got the money.
” Then her face fell again. “Only . . . only Mama says he can’t come be with us now that we live on the island.
Mama says I gots to have a new papa now. ”
A bitter lump of guilt caught in his throat. He tried to ignore it. Molly’s husband would most likely never have made it to New South Wales, and she might have been forced to take a new husband there anyway, if only to provide for her children.
But telling himself that didn’t lessen his guilt. Little Jane didn’t understand those nuances, did she? She only knew there’d been hope of regaining her father before, and now there was none.
For the first time, he understood what Sara had been trying to make him see.
Not all the women were happy to be here.
They weren’t all delighted to be given new husbands without having any say in it.
Some weren’t at all happy. Some were having to face the fact that they were to lose their loved ones in England forever.
And it was all thanks to him and his grand plans for utopia.
Utopia? When he’d called Atlantis “utopia” in front of Sara long ago, she’d called it a utopia where men have all the choices and women have none.
That’s exactly what it was. He had created it to be so.
But he was fast discovering that a utopia where only half the people have choices wasn’t much of one.
“Mama says I hafta be a big girl,” Jane went on, tears forming in her green eyes. “She says I got to learn to like my new papa.” She looked up at him, and his heart twisted inside him. “But I miss my own papa. I don’t want a new papa.”
Quickly setting the bottle of rum down on the desk, he moved to sit beside Jane on the bed. He laid his arm around her small shoulders and pulled her close. “Don’t worry, sweetie. You don’t have to have a new papa if you don’t want one. I’ll see to that myself.”
She snuggled against his shoulder with a little sniff. “I wouldn’t mind too much if you were my new papa. But you’re gonna marry Miss Sara, aren’t you? When she gets back.”
She said it with such assurance it nearly broke his heart. “Yes, when she gets back,” he repeated hollowly.
Suddenly, Barnaby burst into the cabin. “Cap’n, you’d better come quick.
Molly’s having her baby.” He glanced at the child, then motioned Gideon to come to the door.
As Gideon stood up to join him, Barnaby added in a low whisper, “And she’s not doing too well either.
It looks like she’s not going to make it.
She’s asking for the child, so you’d better bring her along. ”
In that moment, Gideon forgot about the bottle of rum he’d come to get. He forgot about Sara’s betrayal and his own hurt. With a sickening lurch in his stomach, he scooped little Jane up in his arms and followed Barnaby out the door.