Luc’s turbulence was caused by the woman on the quarterdeck staring down at him, reigniting his lustful thoughts. His nights were filled with dreams of her in his arms, her soft skin pressed against him. His days were spent longing for a glimpse of her, even though he continuously told himself he wasn’t infatuated with the woman.
"Fair wind and following seas, Captain."
In his peripheral vision, Luc had seen the old sailor approaching. He had not been exactly friendly since Luc had come on board but nor had he been as antagonistic as the rest of the crew.
"To an old salt, it's a sign of a safe voyage and favorable luck."
Luc glanced at the old sailor then returned his attention to the sea. Like most sailors, the man was sun bronzed and heavily wrinkled, with a stature that was short and wiry. A full gray beard and shoulder length hair suggested he was well up in age. However, Luc had seen the old man scampering up the shrouds and across the riggings as agile as a man in his prime. He was not, therefore, going to make a guess on his age. What he could speculate on was his reason for approaching.
Glancing over his shoulder and up at the quarterdeck, Luc spotted the first mate predictably glaring down at him. He had not been able to discern the entire conversation between captain and first mate, but the general gist had been obvious. His punishment was at an end, and his training would finally begin in earnest.
"Short straw or just pissed off the first mate?" Luc asked.
The man chortled beside him. "Neither, boee. I reckon I got the pleasure as I'm the only one onboard that ain't lookin' to dump you over the side at the first opportunity."
Luc glanced at the man for a second and then returned his attention outward. He was surprised to see the amusement in the other fellow’s face. "Why's that, old man?"
The old sailor chortled good-naturedly again. When he wound down he said, "I've been sailing under the Peri captains for more than ten years now, young'un." He nodded his head towards the companionway that led to the captain's cabin. "And I've been sailing with the Princess for more than ten years now. You ain't the first man to lose your head around the gal. Nor the first to be punished for doing so by the first mate."
Out of the corner of his eye, Luc saw the man scratch his chin through his grisly beard. "But you're the first to survive with no holes in ye."
The man fell silent with the wind echoing around them as Luc waited for him to continue. When it became obvious that he had no intentions of continuing, Luc turned and waited. After a full minute had passed the grisly old man turned to him. He didn't need to ask what he was waiting to hear.
"I went lookin’ for food on my first night on board," Luc said. "I found some outside the captain’s door."
"And?" The sailor demanded.
He turned to face the man head-on. "The captain found me and we were having a conversation when my . . . absence from sick bay was discovered. The captain told me to wait in her. . .” Luc hesitated as he didn’t know how this man would respond, then brazened it out, “in her cabin while she informed her . . . the first mate I’d been found.”
He had been about to say guardian but suddenly wondered if the rest of the crew was aware of the relationship between the first mate and the captain. He thought better of exposing that little tidbit until he was more aware of what the rest of the crew actually knew.
The man gazed up at him for several long minutes as he seemed to take Luc's measure. Finally, the man visibly relaxed and cackled. "Then I guess you haven't heard about Mr. Gustav Demont.”
"Gustav?" Luc asked.
The man paused and then shook his head sadly. "That's for another day, boee. For now I've got to be teaching you to be a proper sailor. So we best be about it or you won't be knowing a halyard from the yardarm by the time we reach Tripoli."
Chapter 16
Mainmast, foremast and mizzen;
Bowline, buntlines, and leuchlines;
Jeers and sheets and sails, good God!
And let us not forget the ever-important yardarms galore. Luc had tried to turn his lessons into a little ditty so he could remember all the names. But it wasn’t working. Not really.
His brain was about to explode from all the names and things Edgar Morton had been pounding into his head for the last three days. And at the moment the only thing he was sure of was the difference between a halyard and a yardarm.
“Get out of the way, dog,” one of the seamen said as he tried to push past Luc.
Luc dodged to the side as the man’s fist flew passed his head. He grabbed the man’s arm and flicked the sailor around, nearly sending him over the railing. Which he knew had been the man’s intent for him.
“Luther, there ain’t no call for that,” Edgar snapped at the sailor.
The seaman smiled in a way Luc had seen hundreds of times. Luther wasn’t as tall as Luc, but he was just as broad and probably just as strong. And as a pirate, he was probably good with his fist and the dagger on his belt.
Oh, I think there is,” Luther said as he squared off against Luc.
“Luther, ye don’t want to be a doin’ this. Cap won’t like it none,” Edgar warned.
“This don’t concern the captain, old man. And ye need to keep yer nose out of me business,” Luther said.
The sailor shoved the old seaman toward the railing and then threw a punch at Luc’s head to the cheers of those watching. Luc blocked the blow, and slammed his fist into the man’s nose. Bone cracked and blood splattered as Luther went down like a rock. Those that had gathered gazed on with open mouths and wide eyes.
Edgar clicked his tongue and shook his head. “I told ye, ye didn’t want to be a doin’ that,” he told the semiconscious man sprawled on the deck.
The rest of the crew quickly returned to their work, and Luc glanced up at the quarterdeck. Both the captain and first mate were standing there, staring down at him. The lady nodded her head ever so slightly, and Luc felt a tightening in his groin. Luckily, he was now wearing the more comfortable and loose-fitting sailors’ pants which would help hide his reaction to finding Peggy watching him.
Turning around, he found the old salt grinning like a proud papa. Edgar Morton was the seaman Captain Peri had charged with teaching Luc the basics of being a sailor. But Edgar wasn’t satisfied with teaching Luc just the basics, he was trying to turn him into a real seaman. Luc hadn’t decided if he was grateful for Edgar’s tutelage or not. The man was unrelenting, explaining some aspect of the ship to Luc and then quizzing him on it for hours. And since Edgars was now attached to Luc at the hip, the lessons went on day and night. As did the quizzes.
The two of them watched as two of the crew helped Luther to his feet and then partly carried him toward the fo’c’sle. “That mon has a chip on his shoulder,” Luc said.
Edgar chuckled. “Ain’t no chip, cap, that man plum hates ye.”
“Why?” Luc asked.
“Yer English. Yer a nob. Yer a gov’ment mon. Take ye pick, son,” Edgar replied.
Luc shook his head. There was nothing he could do about that kind of hatred. “And the rest of the crew? They feel the same way about me?”
Edgar scrunched up his face. “Some. But most are jist a might protective about the captain. Leastwise, they are since her pappy up and kilt our last captain.”
Startled, Luc asked, “Her father killed her uncle Edward?” His gaze flew back up to where the lady and her first mate were standing. This did not bode well for his mission. He had already learned that her father had killed her fiancé. And now it seemed that he had also killed her uncle, and that didn’t make any sense at all. Why would her father kill his own brother?
Edgar didn’t answer, just gave him a searching look, then returned to securing the last of the lines Luc had been practicing on before the fight. “I figure it’s ‘bout time ye went aloft, my boee,” Edgar said. “Ye ain’t afeared of high places, are ye?”
Maybe he had misunderstood the old sailor. Edgar was hard to understand sometimes. Banking his growing
uneasiness, he said, “No, old man, I ain’t afraid of high places,” Luc replied, realizing he wasn’t going to get an answer to his question.
For the next four hours Luc endured taunts from the other sailors working below the two of them. But for the first time since coming on board the Coral Sea, the taunts felt more good-natured than vindictive.
On towards evening, Edgar left him to splicing lines together, something Luc had become good at. But he worked with only half his mind on his job. The other half was on what Edgar had let slip about the murder of Edward Hennessey.
Sir Walter’s report said that the old earl had been murdered by a rival pirate. If what Edgar had said was true, then the report had been wrong. And it raised the question of why Lady Margaret and her first mate were undertaking the rescue of the man.
His sense of approaching danger grew as they sailed closer and closer to the Strait of Gibraltar. Up until today, there had been a hidden piece of the puzzle that had eluded him. Edgar’s slip might have just filled in the missing piece. It would certainly explain why the captain and first mate hated Marcus Hennessey. And that raised all kinds of other questions Luc needed to answer before they reached Tripoli.
He stowed away the foreboding mystery for the time being. He glanced out over the blue-green sea and was once again captivated by the roiling waves. Drawing in a deep breath, he looked up at the white and gray clouds gathering on the horizon.
A storm was brewing. And from the looks of the angry clouds, a very bad one. The thought had barely materialized in his mind when a gust of wind hit his face and a bolt of lightning exploded near the ship.
Luc didn’t need to be an experienced sailor to know how dangerous it was for a ship on the high seas in the middle of a storm like the one that was quickly approaching. He remembered being caught in the middle of the English Channel in a storm like the one coming up. The ship had floundered and nearly sunk. As it was, three of the crew had gone overboard and been lost to the rough seas. So had five of the soldiers the barge had been transporting.
Now that he had been startled out of his musing, Luc noticed all the activities going on around him. Men were scurrying up the shrouds amidst bellows from the deck to stow the sheets. Even Malveaux was in the ropes, working to secure the ship before the storm hit them.
He wanted to help, but had no idea what to do. Then as he was about to ask, Edgar hollered at him from the mainmast.
“Boee, get yer arse below. Help the men on deck secure the ship, afore that thing hits us.”
He didn’t need to be told twice. Grabbing one of the lines, he swung over to the shrouds and scampered down as fast as he could. Luc hit the deck running. He could see Peggy at the helm, looking toward the approaching storm. And then she would turn and watch the men securing the sails.
Within minutes they had tied down the hatches and were beginning to check the cannons when an ear-shattering clap of thunder shook the ship from stem to stern. An unholy scream rent the air as white light blinded Luc. He felt the ship lurch to the side as if it had been hit by a broadside.
Overhead, he heard a horrible explosion and splintering of wood. When he could see again, he jerked around and stared up at the crow’s nest. Smoke was billowing up from it, and the man that had been up there was nowhere to be seen.
Fire and light danced in the rigging, and raced along the highest two yardarms. The mainmast was smoldering and split down the middle to the main top.
Three men hung limply in the shrouds and were obviously unconscious. Without thinking what he was doing, Luc ran to the lines and began racing back up to the men. He reached the first one just as others reached him.
He watched helplessly as the sailors quickly wrapped ropes around the man’s waist and began lowering him the deck. Luc nodded toward them and climbed to the next unconscious man. Pulling a rope free, he copied what he had seen the sailors do, then began lowering his victim to the deck as well.
Once the man was down, he looked around and saw Malveaux doing the same thing with the last of the injured men. Then just as Malveaux laxed his hold on the rope, a burst of wind hit the ship and nearly capsized it. Or so it felt to Luc as he hung on for dear life. And even as the ship righted itself, Luc heard more wood cracking and then men shouting to watch out.
As if in slow motion Luc watched the falling yardarm cleave the side of Malveaux’s head. The man's body went limp and dropped downward, his foot caught in the rigging, suspending him in the air like a ragdoll hung on a line.
Once again Luc didn't think. He didn't stop to consider what he was about to do.
With men screaming at him from below, he worked his way over to the first mate. After wrapping another rope around the man, he used his marlinspike to free the man's foot from the rigging. Then as quickly as he could, he lowered the first mate to the deck below and the waiting arms of the frantic crew and captain.
Chapter 17
It was times like this that Peggy hated the most. More than anything in the world, she wanted to curl up beside Joc and just hold on to him. But she didn’t have that luxury. Not now.
“How many?” she asked Thibeau. With both Joc and Ensign Jenkins injured, the bosun was the only other officer left on the ship.
“Three, Captain. Burkly, Franks, and Owens,” Thibeau replied.
Three dead. Burkly had been in the crow’s nest when the lighting struck. Several of the crew saw him blown overboard. And he had been the lucky one as the other two had been badly burned by the lighting.
“Injured?” she asked.
“Four. Jenkins, Milfort, Yielding, and Bird. Mr. Grimes says they’ll be up and about in a day or two.”
Seven out of fifteen men down or dead. The Coral Sea could be manned by seven men. Five in an emergency. But they couldn’t even get underway the way things set right now. The storm had lasted only an hour. But the damage it had done had all but crippled the ship, shearing off the topgallant and top mast on the mainmast. The fire the lighting caused had been contained to the upper sections. But they were essentially without their mainmast now.
"We're dead in the water, Mr. Thibeau. Until the carpenter can jury-rig the mast, we're a sitting duck for anyone that comes along. Have the watch beat to quarters and have the cannons readied. Set watch for any sails on the horizon. I want half the crew at the ready at all times and half working on the repairs. Until we're underway again, every able-bodied man on board will stay at the ready for an attack at any moment. Is that understood?"
"Aye, aye, Captain," he replied.
Peggy watched as the bosun turned smartly and quickly exited the cabin. He passed by the man who had saved her papa’s life, and who had worked right alongside the rest of the crew until the danger was over. He might not be a sailor, but he had proven himself an invaluable member of their crew today. And as worried as she was about Joc, Peggy couldn’t help admiring the rippling muscles in Luc’s chest and arms.
Pulling her eyes away from the Englishman, she reached down and squeezed Joc’s limp hand with all her might, willing her strength and life into him. She then straightened up and affixed her eyes on the cook and the three sailors that had helped carry Joc to his cabin.
"Attend to your duties, gentleman," she ordered.
Peggy waited until the four men had filed out of Joc’s cabin. She then strolled past Stoughton without a glance or word and softly closed the door. She continued to face away from the man for several heart beats and then allowed her chin to drop to her chest as she contemplated what she needed to say.
“Thank you,” Peggy whispered. It was so inadequate. But it was all she could think of.
He grunted in that annoying way men the world over did when they were uncomfortable with a compliment or gratitude.
“Not just for saving my papa’s life. But also for what you did to keep my ship afloat during the storm.”
“No problem, Captain. I’m not a very good swimmer, so it seemed like the best thing to do at the time,” he replied.
She smiled and turned toward him. “Neither am I,” she replied.
Feeling more uncomfortable by the second, she turned back to her papa, still prostrate and unconscious on his bed. An angry gash and egg-size bump adorned the side of his head. At first there had been so much blood that Peggy had believed her papa dead. Even now the cook - and sometime surgeon - could not assure her that Joc would awaken. Or if he did, if his mind would be whole.
The fear that had enveloped her when the yardarm struck his head boiled and mixed precipitously with the simmering rage that had been with her since Uncle Edward's murder.
Her eyes locked with the Englishman’s and a now familiar shiver wafted through her. “Captain. . .”
He held up his hand and she stopped. “Captain Peri, it’s a bit silly for the two of us to be captaining each other. Do you think you can call me Lucien? Or Luc, as most people do?”
She rolled his name around in her mind a few times and then nodded. “In private, that would be fine. And most of my friends call me Peggy,” she said, then grimaced. “But you knew that, didn’t you?” She remembered telling him her nickname back in Rochester a life time ago.
His mouth twitched then he asked, “Are we friends?”
Peggy thought about it, then came to a decision. “We’re allies of a sort, Lord Lucien. At least for the time being.”
He nodded, then took a step toward her then stopped abruptly. “I can be of assistance, Peggy.”
“I appreciate the offer, but. . .” she said and trailed off.
He laughed sarcastically. “But I’m a useless landlubber, who’s more trouble than I’m worth.”
Her lips wobbled, grateful for the levity his self-disparaging injected into the situation.
To Save a Fallen Angel (The Fallen Angels series Book 2) Page 11