“How dare you,” Josie’s mother screamed. “How dare you call my daughter a liar?”
Josie swung around to face her mother. “Then you believe me, Mother? You believe us about One-Eyed Jack?”
Her mother looked uncertain. “Well, I don’t know about that. A pirate chased you? Sweetheart, you have always been one for exaggeration.”
“Lies, you mean!” Westman’s mother yelled, and then the whole room erupted into shouts and curses and hurled threats.
Stephen grabbed Josie and began to propel her out of the mob, pulling her to safety, but they’d only taken two steps when they heard the thumping.
They paused, looked around, heard it again. Thump. Thump. Thump.
A few others heard it as well, and the screaming began to die down.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Josie looked around, her gaze falling on the figure of a small, elderly woman with white hair and gnarled hands. She was standing on a chair, banging her long ebony cane on a table.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
“Grandmother,” Stephen said aloud.
“That’s your grandmother?” Josie asked. “That’s Maggie from the journals?”
The room had quieted, and her voice carried. The old woman smiled at her. “Now, that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.” Her voice wavered and rasped, but it carried. “That’s a woman I haven’t been in a long time.
“Margaret,” Stephen’s mother called. “What are you doing? You should get down at once.”
“Oh, stubble it, Beatrice. You talk too much and listen too little.”
Stephen’s mother dropped her mouth open but remained silent.
“And it’s my fault this has gone on so long,” Margaret Doubleday said, looking at Josie and Stephen. “I should have spoken up earlier. I should have stepped in and mended this feud. You have my highest regard, Lady Westman, for trying to do so now.”
“I only wanted to clear my grandfather’s name,” Josie said. “I’ve been trying to do so all my life.”
Margaret looked sad. “That’s my fault, too. I’m a coward, you see, only speaking up now when I know it’s safe.”
“Grandmother, what are you talking about?” Stephen asked, going to her, helping her off the chair. “What do you know?”
She looked at Josie. “I knew your grandfather was innocent. That’s why, despite the pressure from my family, I never accused him, and I never attempted to have him arrested. At the time that’s what I thought I could do. I thought that was enough, but now I see it was not.”
She looked at Josie and Stephen, then at the families crowded behind them. “You see, I was in the room when this One-Eyed Jack killed James. I was hiding behind a curtain, concealed, but in a position with a view. I saw what happened. I saw this pirate kill my husband, and Nathan Hale was nowhere near.”
Josie blinked, too stunned to speak. Here was a woman who had known the truth all along. A woman who could have spared her and her family so much shame these years.
Stephen spoke her thoughts. “But why didn’t you say something before? Why did you allow us to believe the rumors and lies? To go on hating each other for decades.”
Margaret looked down at her small feet, and Josie could see the pink of her scalp through thin white hair. “Because I’m a coward. I saw this One-Eyed Jack, and I was afraid if I told, then he would come for me. I was afraid, you see. Some pirate’s wife I was. I hid instead of fought. If James could have seen me, he would have turned in his grave.”
Josie shook her head. As angry as she was at the elderly woman, she could understand her, too. “You weren’t a coward,” she said quietly, and she felt all eyes turn to her. “You had a son to raise, a little boy to protect. You had to think of him first, and you did what you could. A man like my grandfather could protect himself from scandal and men like One-Eyed Jack, but you were alone.” She looked at Stephen and remembered him lying on the beach, his blood leaking from the wound in his shoulder. “I don’t know what it’s like to lose someone you love, but I can imagine. I can understand the fear and the panic.” She reached out and took Margaret’s withered hands in hers. “And you told us now. You spoke up when we needed you. Thank you.”
The old woman smiled and squeezed her hands. “I don’t think I can ever make this up to you, child. But I will do anything you ask.”
Josie raised a brow. “Really? In that case, I’d love for you to tell us of your life on The Good Groom. I’d love to hear stories of my grandfather and James Doubleday. I want to hear about their friendship and their adventures.”
AN HOUR LATER, STEPHEN drew Josie away. Quietly and unobtrusively, he pulled her out of the drawing room and downstairs to his library, the room where they’d first met. “What are you doing?” she demanded when he’d closed the door. “I wanted to hear that story about the battle at Corfu.”
He smiled at her, cupped her face. “You’re amazing, do you know that?”
