Josie bit her lip. “How about forgiveness? Forgiveness and love.” She took his hand in hers. “Our love.”
His gaze softened, and the hard set of his mouth relaxed into a smile. “If that’s what you want.”
“Just try it. No matter what, it’s time I told everyone the truth about One-Eyed Jack. Even if they don’t believe it, I will have tried.”
Reluctantly, he raised his glass and motioned for silence. Josie held her breath as he began. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming here this morning. Thank you for supporting Lady Westman and I in our union. We had hoped that our marriage might unite more than simply the two of us. We hoped that it might unite our families as well. Unite them and reconcile them after too many years of senseless fighting.”
He took a breath and glanced at her. She nodded encouragement, though their guests remained stone-faced.
“Today is about forgiveness. Forgiveness of past wrongs or perceived wrongs. We ask you to put all that aside, to embrace each other, even as Lady Westman and I have embraced each other.”
He pulled her into his arms and held her at his side to demonstrate. Josie smiled up at him. He was wonderful. No man would ever do so much for her.
“Finally, I ask you to raise your glasses and—”
“I think you’ve asked quite enough of us already,” someone called from the back. Josie wasn’t certain, but she thought it might be her mean uncle Edmund, Catie’s father.
“That’s right,” Stephen’s mother piped up. “How can you ask us to forgive them? Murderers and thieves, that’s all they are.”
“Mother,” Stephen began.
“Liars and philanderers!” Josie’s mother interrupted.
Josie closed her eyes, and her stomach clenched. Oh, why had she ever thought this would work? It was hopeless.
“You slander our good name and teach your sons to defile good young women,” Josie’s mother yelled. The Hale side moved menacingly closer to the Doubleday side.
“Good? Josephine Hale, good? Ha!” Stephen’s mother rose and took her own steps to close the gap between the families. How Josie wished that gap would return.
“She’s nothing but another little trollop. She—”
Stephen was in front of his mother before Josie even knew what had happened. He glared down at her. “That’s enough, Mother,” he growled, sending several of the young women from his side skittering back in fear. “Talk about me how you like, but don’t you ever impugn my wife.”
Far from contrite, his mother looked ready to fight back. Suddenly, Ashley was beside Josie. “Do something,” she whispered. “Distract them!”
Josie slid into the angry mob, forcing a path to her husband. “Wait! No! There’s no reason for all this.” She looked at her mother’s angry face, then Stephen’s mother’s pinched lips. “There’s something none of you know or understand. We are not enemies, and never have been. It’s all been a horrible misunderstanding,” she said.
Skeptical looks surrounded her. Even her Uncle William, who had always been her supporter, looked doubtful.
“You see,” Josie began, “when Stephen and I recovered the treasure, we met up with a man who was on the original Good Groom. You might not be familiar with the crew or the story of the treasure, but this man was. He was on the ship when the Spanish treasure was taken. His name was One-Eyed Jack.”
She waited for someone to say something or for someone to nod their head in understanding, but she was met with blank looks. She looked at Stephen. His expression was kind and supportive, and he reached out and took her hand.
She found, if she held on to him tightly, she could continue. “One-Eyed Jack was a pirate. He’d been searching all these years for the treasure, and he didn’t intend to let Stephen and I take it from him. He tried to kill us.”
At that revelation, she heard whispers go through the crowd, and she hurried before talk could break out. “His partner shot Stephen.” She touched her husband’s shoulder gingerly. “And then One-Eyed Jack tried to kill me with his sword. Stephen saved me, but not before One-Eyed Jack said something all of you should know.”
She paused, gave the crowd time to take it all in.
“One-Eyed Jack told me that he killed James Doubleday. He said he ‘did away with him’ and that by killing me, he’d have his revenge on my grandfather, too. So, you see, it wasn’t my grandfather that killed James Doubleday after all. It was One-Eyed Jack.”
She smiled, triumphant in her revelation. And she waited, waited for the sighs and the tears. Was it too much to expect the families to clap and cheer?
What she heard instead was silence.
And then Westman’s mother sniggered. “See?” she said, turning to look at her relatives. “I told you she was a liar. I told you she couldn’t be trusted. One-Eyed Jack? What nonsense is this?”
“Mother, I warned you—” Westman said, stepping forward.
