My Clarity

Chapter thirty-two

"Is marrying the girl really necessary, Jackie?" Charlie muttered from where he sat slumped in a leather chair near the hearth in Jack's library. A glass of brandy dangled negligently from his long fingers, and the firelight played sinister games with his features. ''I mean you seem awfully eager to especially when you say she isn't expecting.''

Jack placed the stopper back in the bottle with a clink after pouring a glass of his own, then walked back to the fireplace to stand with an elbow propped on the mantel. "I thought we had talked about this. Time doesn't matter; we wish to marry as quickly and possibly discreetly as we can."

Charlie waved his free hand in the air as though to sweep aside Jack's statement. "I know what you said. It's just ... she is a pistol. From what I hear even Hockley couldn't handle her. Are you sure this is what she wants?" Jack frowned. He did not like Charlie echoing his own doubts; but when they were together, all of them were erased because it was just the two of them. It wasn't that he wasn't sure that he was what she truly wanted, it was perhaps, further down the line when she could potentially regret something, even remotely about their nuptials. But for now, he saw the determination spring to life within her eyes each time they had spoken of the vows.

He refused to respond directly to the question. "She will be well cared for. As my wife, she will enjoy every comfort. We are alike, Charlies, we are almost like two halves which fit. She doesn't fit into this world. Neither do I.''

A look of scepticism came over his friend's face. "All right, well, I will bless you with whatever you wish to do. God knows how you deserve happiness, whether you find that here.''

''Well, thank you.'' It meant a lot. Truly it did.

Charlie sighed and took a drink. "If only Hockley had called you out over the Titanic incident. You could have shot him, and the scales would have been balanced."

Shaking his head, Jack moved to sit in the chair opposite Charlie, sinking down into its well-worn comfort and draining the last of his brandy in a quick motion. He felt its mild sting as it slid down his throat and settled warmly in his stomach. He had never been much for drink, but right now, he was willing to try many uncharacteristic things to dampen the rage that had burned inside for the better part of a year toward Hockley. It had dampened after the sinking, despite everything, but he believed it to be because he and Rose had been thrust into their own world where she had tenderly taken care of him like a child and he had allowed it. Now though, he was feeling better.

''No. However much I felt like it at the times, I never could. When I saw his manservant standing over Rose on that deck, I had my knife ready to kill him. I don't know what crossed my mind. How I wasn't put inside cell I will never know.''

''Because perhaps they know who was in the wrong.''

"No, they never did. Hockley was too much of a coward to stay and face it and Lovejoy was carted away by the master at arms. I was shipped onto a lifeboat to deal with the extent of my injuries."

"Perhaps your heroism saved you," Charlie laughed, raising a brow.

"It wasn't anything another man wouldn't have done."

"I hardly would have done the same. Perhaps your heart is a lot bigger than mine. But you have seen a lot of people die."

Inside of a blink, his mind flashed back nearly five years. He stood at the graves of his mother and father on a sodden, strangely chilled August morning, wondering how it could have happened, how they could have both died within days of one another. He recalled glancing over to where his grandparents were buried and thinking he was cursed to survive while all those around him died. The stark truth of it was an endless black pit. No air, no light, no escape.