by Regina Darcy
The sailors placed her barrel in the corner of the deck. The ship became crowded as the crewmembers rushed back, preparing to set sail.
The Golden Griffin was in the employ of Armistead. If she revealed herself to these men, she would risk being given straight back to him upon their return to Newhart. She realised that her best course of action was to simply lay low and disembark the ship at the next stop.
With that in mind, Lucy curled up in her barrel and drifted off into a deep, dreamless sleep.
***
Lucy sat shivering in the barrel with her chin resting on her knees and her arms wrapped around her legs. Fortunately, the rocking of the waves had not rendered her seasick, but she was frozen and very hungry.
She had never taken a risk like this before in her life. Lucy had always been a good, quiet girl. Her mother had once told her that, even as a baby, she had never made much of a fuss.
And yet, here she was, freezing to death in a barrel on some ship, on the run from a potentially murderous fiancé.
She rubbed her icy fingers, to try to restore some feeling.
“So, how long is it again before we reach the Azores?” A raspy voice was speaking right beside the barrel. The Azores? Portugal! Lucy felt her heart sink.
This was no expedition to Plymouth or Edinburgh. This trip would take over a month, at least. What was more, it was not as if Lucy could simply hide out in the Azores, of all places. She would have to reveal her crime and throw herself on the mercy of the ship’s captain, after all.
“The Azores?” The first speaker’s companion gave a dark chuckle. “As if we are ever going to make it as far as the Azores.”
“Fair enough,” his companion said. Lucy frowned. What on Earth did the sailors mean by that? They were probably the crew’s two resident pessimists.
Suddenly, Lucy felt her nose twitch. She covered her nose and mouth with her hand, desperate to stifle a particularly outrageous sneeze, but to no avail.
“Did that barrel just sneeze?” one of the sailors asked.
“Sounds like it.”
Lucy cried out as the barrel was tipped over. The lid burst open, sending her tumbling onto the damp deck.
“I…” Nearly blinded by the grey daylight, she squinted up at the two grimy, leering sailors and tried to smile. “Oh, dear! I must have…fallen asleep in this barrel…My apologies. May I speak to the captain?”
It was a terrible excuse, but Lucy reckoned that her mind was fogged from the travel.
“Well, then.” The thinner, ginger-haired sailor tilted his head. “We seem to have a rather interesting piece of cargo here, don’t we?” Lucy noticed the pistol tucked into his waistband.
“Better take her to the captain, I suppose,” the larger sailor said.
“The captain is just going to blame us,” the ginger-haired sailor retorted. He looked down at Lucy with a nasty smile.
“I say we pitch her overboard. That saves us quite a lot of hassle.”
“Now, please wait a moment,” Lucy said, as the two sailors grabbed her arms and hoisted her to her feet. “There is absolutely no reason for this…please!” Not paying her any heed, they dragged her over to the railing of the ship. A crowd of sailors began to gather around her, staring at her with glazed, bored expressions. Lucy turned her head to look at the sea below—it was grey, cold, and choppy.
“Please. Let us have a reasonable discussion about this.”
“What on Earth is going on here?” a loud voice bellowed. The two sailors shared a glance and stepped away. The mob parted to reveal someone who was clearly a senior member of the crew, based on his coat. He was a young man, a lean figure draped in a long navy coloured coat. Dark chestnut hair peaked out from underneath his hat. However it was his eyes that stole Lucy’s breath away. They were the colour of emeralds, compelling her attention.
He walked up to her, lifted one of her locks that had tumbled down from her bun and asked the men, “What are you doing to her?” He received no reply, just mutterings.
“They were about to throw me overboard,” Lucy said, breathless. She shot a glare at the sailors. “Thank you, sir. You have saved my life.”
But the man did not smile. He did not even reach down to help Lucy struggle to her feet. He stared at her with tired green eyes and tilted his head. “And who the hell are you, miss?”
Lucy flinched at this profanity. “My name, sir, is Miss Lucy Madison. And you are…?”
As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted the somewhat defensive, accusatory pitch of her voice. She was a stowaway on this man’s ship, after all. What was more, her tone seemed to have set the fellow off. He laughed and threw his hands in the air like a madman.
“Who am I? Christ Almighty. Dear Miss Madison, I am the captain of this ship. Captain Gabriel Preston.” He made an exaggerated sweeping gesture with his hand. “Now, would the kind lady be so good as to accompany me below deck?”
Pressing her lips into a thin line, Lucy, gulped, and then nodded her head. Inside she trembled. Had she gone from the frying pan into the fire?
***
Lucy watched the ship’s captain pace around the cramped cabin. He was so tall that, whenever he straightened up, the sagging ceiling knocked his hat straight off his head. However, she could not judge the man for walking about so. She was sitting in the only chair in the room, after all.
Dark shadows stretched beneath his bloodshot eyes. His mouth seemed to be forever curled into a sour scowl. He came across as shorter than he really was, thanks to his rather stooped posture.
Lucy blinked and caught herself. Why on earth was she scrutinising the man so?
She was reluctant to admit it, even to herself, but she supposed that part of her thought he was quite handsome. With his sea-green eyes, lean but strong figure, and mane of reddish hair, the captain might have cut a rather dashing figure—if he hadn’t looked and acted the part of a drunken sea captain.
“How rude of me,” he murmured, after a moment. Shaking his head, the captain picked up a jug (of dubious cleanliness) and a murky bottle from the corner of the room. He uncorked the latter and used it to fill the jug. “Here you are.” He held out the jug. “Some wine. You must be thirsty.”
“Thank you.” Not wanting to seem rude, Lucy accepted the jug and sipped some of its brutally sour contents. She had to pinch her nose to keep from grimacing at the terrible taste.
“Your name is Lucy Madison,” the captain said finally.
“Is that right?”
“That is correct.” Lucy nodded.
“Miss Madison—what are you doing on my ship?”
She sighed and looked about. “Well, Captain Preston… I am afraid that this was simply one unfortunate mistake.”
“A mistake?” His thick eyebrows shot up, and he grinned, as if he had just heard a rather amusing joke. “Pray tell, Miss Madison, how did this unfortunate mistake come about?”
She hooked a strand of blond hair around her finger. “It is quite a complicated story…” It was bound to be complicated. She had never been good at making up lies. But she would need to. Otherwise, the captain might feel compelled to return her to Armistead at the end of all of this. Come to think of it, she was a fool for giving him her full name.
“Quite a long and convoluted tale.”
“Well, I have some time today,” Preston said, giving her a reassuring, if somewhat ironic smile. “I am certain that the crew is competent enough to operate without my guidance for a few minutes.”
Lucy sipped the wine again to buy herself more time.
“Of course. Well…you have to understand…I sometimes walk about in my sleep.”
“You walk about in your sleep?”
“Yes! Like Lady Macbeth.”
“Like Lady Macbeth.” Captain Preston took a swig of the wine, drinking straight from the bottle. Then he leaned closer to Lucy. She swallowed. His green eyes were quite startling up close.
“So, do you also go about encouraging your
poor husband to commit murder in order to secure power?”
“Well…no.” Lucy laughed nervously. “Nothing as bloodthirsty as that. I just walk about in my sleep sometimes. I live not too far away from the docks. I can only assume I took a trip and ended up in the barrel somehow.” She tried to give her brightest, most innocent smile. “I do apologise, Captain Preston.”
“Yes. I am sure you do.” He shook his head. “You picked quite a barrel to crawl into.”
“What do you mean by that, Captain Preston?”
“Never you mind.” With those final words the Captain walked off to the corner of the room. “Miss Madison, I assume you do know how to sew?”
“Yes!” the words left her mouth hesitantly. Where was he going with this? “I have been embroidering since I was small.”
“That is excellent.” He reached out his arm, and a piece of cloth fluttered over Lucy’s head. She removed the fabric and found that it was a ripped shirt. “You will find needle and thread…somewhere around here. Probably in one of the chests.”
“I…I do not understand…”
“You are our new mender on deck, Miss Madison.” The captain winked one of his green eyes at her. “Stowaways must earn their keep, too.”
THREE
Sewing had never been one of Lucy’s strong suits. So you can imagine her dismay as she found herself trapped inside a cold, cramped room for days on end, forced to mend everything from frayed trousers to old coats.
Captain Preston was the person behind her imprisonment. As much as she feared Armistead, Lucy could certainly see why he had assaulted the man on the docks of Newhart a few days ago. Preston was infuriating. He would not listen to her when she begged him to let her get some fresh air up on deck once in a while. She pleaded and pleaded, to no avail. He was, quite simply, a tyrant aboard the Golden Griffin. He had confined Lucy to his cabin. She spent her days and nights there, largely alone. (Who even knew where Preston himself slept?)
As she struggled to thread the needle despite her shaking fingers, she found herself thinking quite a lot about home. On the one hand, she did not regret fleeing England, Mr Armistead, and her impending marriage. She was still firmly convinced that remaining in Newhart and marrying the man would have ultimately resulted in her untimely demise.
On the other hand, she missed her family terribly. She thought about her siblings, Lionel, Lila, and Leonora, constantly. She even missed her father and mother. She knew that they were only concerned with the welfare of the entire family when they insisted that she marry Mr Armistead. None of it was out of malice.
She wondered what they were thinking now that she had been away for week and forever ruined her reputation. Were they furious? Worried? If she ever returned, would they shun her, or welcome her back with open arms?
Without warning, Lucy felt her eyes begin to well with tears. She blinked them back, determined not to cry. Once she started crying over her homesickness, she was very certain that she would never be able to stop! She did her best to push the sad thoughts to the back of her mind.
Lucy set down her work and moved to the door of the cabin. Sometimes, when she was especially bored, she liked to lean down and stare out through the space between the floor of the cabin and the bottom of the door. The devilish Captain Preston always locked the door, so this was really her only view to what was happening on board the ship.
As usual, she saw a flurry of sailors darting this way and that. She also heard snippets of their various conversations as they passed close by the door.
“The captain does not at all suspect—”
“He’s been keeping that girl in there—”
“Soon we will not have to keep this up—”
Lucy frowned. Based upon their whispers, one might conclude that a mutiny was afoot. Still, this confused her. She had heard from her father about other mutinies, but those all seemed to occur aboard Naval ships, which were often manned by men forcibly conscripted by press gangs. This was an Azores-bound merchant vessel. These men were seemingly all here of their own free will. What reason did they have to revolt?
She wondered if it had to do with the miserable personality of that devil, Captain Gabriel Preston. She could understand wanting to throw that horrific man overboard. She certainly did. What sort of sinister person kept someone locked up like this? Lucy clenched her jaw. In fact, if the sailors were planning to throw him into the sea, she would much like to see that happen.
Suddenly, she saw a pair of black boots stepping toward the door. She moved away from the entrance to the cabin, scrambling back to her seat and her mending just as the door swung open.
“How are you today, Miss Madison?” Captain Preston asked. He looked rather fatigued, even more so than usual. Lucy attributed this to his excessive drinking.
“I am the same as I was yesterday. Still objecting to being treated like a prisoner.”
“That is very impertinent, not to mention ungracious, Miss Madison. Most of the time, I would confine a stowaway to the brig of the ship. Instead, I provide you with my own cabin, my own bed, and my own food. And you find fault with my hospitality?”
Lucy bit her lower lip. Put like that, she did sound awfully ungrateful.
“I thank you for those considerations, Captain Preston, but I find myself wondering why I am kept confined to this cabin?”
He smiled at her. “You feel trapped. Is that what you are saying?”
“Yes! That is what I am saying.” Lucy began to sew faster and faster, swiping the needle through the ripped fabric of some sailor’s salt-stained shirt. “In fact, it is actually what I have been saying for days.”
“I understand how you feel, Miss Madison.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I feel trapped on this ship, as well.”
Before she could fashion a biting retort or even question the logic behind his declaration of powerlessness, Lucy gasped. A sharp pain shot through her finger. She had just pricked her skin with the needle, and it was still embedded in the pad of her finger.
“Are you all right, Miss Madison?” Preston asked frowning.
She nodded. “I just…stabbed myself with the needle.” She saw the sharp needle sticking out of her flesh and watched as a small dot of dark-red blood began to bubble up on her forefinger. She felt as if she were about to faint.
“May I take a look?” he pressed. She nodded, holding out her hand. The captain took it between his rough palms and held it tightly. Then, he swiftly plucked the needle from her skin. The relief was instant.
“Thank you,” she breathed. He nodded, but did not let go of her hand. A warm sensation began to form deep within her chest. Confused by her reaction she realised she wished that she could freeze time, that he would never let go, no matter what happened. What, was wrong with her?
“I am always at your service,” he said, releasing her hand. Then, without even looking back at her, Preston hurried out of the room.
Lucy took a breath. She was just confused and in pain, that was all. She did not crave the touch of a man like Captain Preston; of that there could be no doubt. She was merely in a difficult situation at the moment.
She stood up and walked to the cabin door. The captain had left it unlocked! Her pulse began to beat rapidly. Now she could finally get some air. If she saw another ship in the area, she might even strive to attract its attention and signal for help. Surely, most sea captains were not as dictatorial as this brute. Even as the thought crossed her mind, the secret part of her heart who knew the truth, bucked at the thought of leaving.
Lucy strode across the deck along the railing. She glanced up at the bright blue sky and shivered in the cold wind. She drank in the salty smell of the sea. She smiled.
Then, most unexpectedly, she caught a grin from the ginger-haired sailor she had met on her first day on-board. Suddenly an elbow knock into her side, Lucy began to tumble, and pitched straight over the side of the ship.
She crashed through the waves, headfirst. Lucy managed to flip herself over and gul
p a few last breaths of air, but quickly began to sink once more. She raised her hands, but it was useless. She had never learned how to swim. She might have hopped around the shallows of the pond near the Madison manor as a young girl, but that was it. Lucy watched a stream of silver bubbles rise from her mouth to the surface of the sea. She was going to sink and drown. And her family would likely never even know what had happened to her.
With that horrifying thought breaking over her like a tremendous wave, Lucy closed her eyes and resigned herself to the dark depths. Her lungs began to burn and she knew any minute now she would have to inhale. Overwhelmed by sadness her last though was “He won’t ever know.”
But then, she felt something loop around her waist. She shuddered, desperately trying not to gasp. Could it be one of those legendary Leviathan that explorers of old mentioned in their writings? A sea-monster set to drag her to her death?
She opened her eyes, but beheld no dead-eyed, slinking creature from the deep. Instead, she saw Captain Preston. His brow was furrowed with concentration. He held her around the waist with one arm and began to kick up toward the light and air.
They burst through the surface of the water at once, coughing and gasping for air. The Golden Griffin had not stopped, but Captain Preston managed to grab onto a rope trailing behind the ship.
“Hoist us back up!” he cried, holding Lucy with one arm and the cord with the other. Lucy felt as if her lungs might burst. She could scarcely catch her breath, she had inhaled so much sea water during her few moments underwater. After a moment, the rope began to grow taut. Slowly, the pair was pulled closer to the ship, and then up its side.
“Hold on,” Preston whispered to Lucy as they hovered in the air. He swung her over the railing first, and then climbed back onto the ship himself.
Lucy lay there on the deck of the ship, soaking-wet and struggling to breathe. Her chest burned as she turned over on her side and coughed out a lungful of water onto the deck. Much of the crew seemed to be gathered around them, but they quickly vanished once both lost parties were back on board.