"With a handsome fellow like Mick it is hard to resist," she said, smiling up at the former highwayman. He looked startled by her smile, then suspicious, but then his own face relaxed a bit.
"Yes, Mick has all the makings of a real heartbreaker. I knew his father well, and the blarney rolled off Michael's Irish tongue."
"Is his father dead? Mick mentioned his mother sending him to sea to earn money for the family."
Burrell's face took on a shuttered look.
"Yes. Mick O'Shea was one of ray best gunners. He was killed in an action with you English during the war. Time to go below, Miss Deford. Supper awaits."
Sophia suddenly felt unaccountably nervous, but she did her best to hide it.
"Are we dining alone, Captain?"
"And let you slip poison into my food when I'm not looking? Not hardly, Miss Deford. Mr. Rice and Mick will join us."
Sophia felt some of the tension ease out of her neck.
"I am hungry, Captain. This day has been more eventful than I anticipated it would be."
Burrell said nothing to this, but motioned for Sophia to follow him. He went down first and waited for her.
"In case you slip, Miss Deford," he said when she reached the deck. "Looking up your skirts never crossed my mind." He favored her with a bland smile, then motioned toward his cabin.
Inside, the table had been set and a flat-bottomed decanter of red wine sat at the head of the table. Mick, freshly scrubbed with his hair still wet and slicked back, and Mr. Rice, now dressed in a coat and neckerchief, waited for them.
Another sailor, one she'd seen earlier boarding the Primrose, brought their supper to them, chickens which she suspected had also been purloined from the British ship, mangoes and guavas from the islands, and a rice dish dressed with onions and peppers. It was a simple supper, but delightful after weeks aboard the Primrose. When she remarked on this, Mr. Rice smiled at her.
"That's the best part about sailing these waters, Miss Deford. We're never too far from fresh food and fresh water, and we eat better than those poor sods on the North Atlantic run."
Captain Burrell didn't have much to say during supper, and Mick and Mr. Rice carried most of the conversation with Sophia. Jack lowered the amount of wine in the decanter substantially, but did not appear to be affected by it, save for a slight shine to his eyes. Sophia had taken one sip of her wine, and set it aside, drinking instead the tea that was offered.
"You don't like the wine?" Lucky Jack asked abruptly.
"No, the wine is quite good, Captain." But she didn't add more. And when Mr. Rice and Mick asked her about her life, she only spoke of the bookstore, and living in Portsmouth.
The evening was finished with cheese and nuts, and the two older gentlemen shared some port while Mick and Sophia chatted.
Mr. Rice rose, a bit unsteadily, and raised his glass.
"Gentlemen...and lady...I feel I must offer a toast."
"'Confusion to the enemy'?" Jack murmured, looking at Sophia.
"No, you rascal, a toast to absent friends. It was Erasmus Tanner who brought us here tonight, and we should offer a toast in his memory."
Jack almost looked inclined to argue the merits of Erasmus Tanner's actions that brought them together, but he dutifully raised his glass when Rice offered, "To absent friends!"
"To absent friends," Sophia said, and felt a suspicious prickling in her eyes. She hadn't realized how much she would miss the old seadog. She took a swallow of her wine, setting the glass back down before she gave in to the temptation to finish it. It was an excellent vintage, and she wished she could enjoy more of it.
As the night wound down, Sophia's tension ramped up. She suggested a hand of whist, but Mr. Rice and Mick declined, saying they'd be up at four bells for the morning watch. They helped clear the cabin, but after the door closed behind them it was quiet. Too quiet. Sophia could hear the rigging creaking above them, and the muffled sounds of the night crew while Jack Burrell watched her, rolling his glass of port between his fingers. He abruptly stopped, rummaged in his pocket, and pulled out his black eyepatch, putting it over his left eye.
"What is wrong with your eye?"
"Nothing is wrong with my eye, Miss Deford. Do not worry about it." He tightened the knot holding the patch in place. "And so, alone at last," he said softly.
Sophia squared her shoulders and looked at him, knowing her own mask was firmly in place. He would not succeed in intimidating her. No matter what provocation he offered, no matter how piratical he looked, she could weather it. The prize awaiting them in Florida guaranteed that.
"Indeed we are, Captain. And what arrangements have you made for my sleeping tonight?"
He rose to his full height, and said nothing, but started to take off his jacket. Sophia swallowed, her mouth gone dry, but she held her ground, only raising one eyebrow at this new development.
After removing his jacket, Jack walked over to his wardrobe and rummaged around until he brought out what appeared to be a length of
cloth and rope.
"Here is your bed, Miss Deford, unless you have changed your mind about sharing my bunk."
He took the cloth over to bolts attached to the bulkhead and tied it at each end.
A hammock.
"You expect me to sleep in that?”
He shrugged. "I really don't care where you sleep, Miss Deford, as long as you stay in this cabin. You have a choice of the hammock, my bunk, or the deck."
"Fine!" she snapped. "I will sleep in the hammock. It looks comfortable."
He just smiled and said, "Oh, it is comfortable. After you get used to it."
He took a blanket and a pillow from his chest, and handed it to her, then resumed removing his clothes.
"Are you going to remove everything?"
Her voice was higher pitched than she would have liked, but she still thought she was showing him her best bland demeanor. Even if she did clutch the musty bedding to her a little bit harder as he unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it over his head.
"I am accustomed to sleeping bare, Miss Deford. And after all, there is nothing of me you haven't seen before."
There was a distinct bite to that last sentence, but Sophia stood her ground.
"Quite true, Captain Burrell. I, however, prefer to sleep in a nightrail."
"As you wish." He shrugged, and continued taking off his clothes. Sophia watched, convinced she could deal with this without losing her composure. When he got to his trousers and started loosening the buttons, a smile played around his mouth.
"I don't want to shock you, Miss Deford, but I think it only fair to warn you, I am not in the habit of wearing smallclothes in the tropics."
Sophia was tempted to call his bluff and see the rest of the performance, but instead turned her back on him and arranged the bedding in the hammock. When she turned back, he was in his bunk, watching her, and she could only stare at the picture he presented.
Lucky Jack had pulled the covers up to his waist, but was sitting up, leaning against the bulkhead, his arms crossed over his chest. It was a chest browned by hours aboard ship, lean but sleekly muscled, with a scattering of hair that caught the lamplight and gleamed golden, arrowing down into territory now covered up.
Sophia swallowed. As pleasurable as it had been to look upon him naked and unconscious, it was different to look at the bronzed and very much awake and aware privateer sitting across from her.
"My offer still stands," he said, breaking the spell.
Sophia sniffed dismissively. It was a good act.
"If you have seen one naked highwayman—or privateer—you have seen them all. No thank you, Captain Burrell."
"As you wish, Miss Deford." He raised his arms and placed his hands behind his head, bringing more muscles into play and causing problems with her breathing. "Aren't you going to get undressed for bed now?"
"With you watching?"
He shrugged. That didn't help her respiration either.
"I can't very well
leave, since I'm undressed and ready for bed. But if you like, I'll blow out the lamp."
"Thank you," Sophia said, hanging on to the shreds of her dignity.
* * *
Putting the eyepatch back on had been one of the smarter things Jack had done that day, and he congratulated himself as he lifted the patch to take in the delectable sight of Miss Sophia Deford removing her clothes in the dark. The smallest glimmer of moonlight peeking in through the cabin window gave him the outlines of a slim torso, revealing now a snug little corset and once that was untied and removed...
Jack took a deep breath. Miss Deford might have fooled him once into believing her a child, but there was nothing childish about the pert breasts rising above her chemise. She had a sylph-like silhouette, and while there wasn't much of her, it was delightfully packaged. A pocket Venus indeed!
He shifted uncomfortably in his bunk, which seemed too confining, wide as it was. She stopped unrolling her stockings and looked over at him, and he knew she was straining to see him in the dark, trying to determine if he could see her.
"Are you still awake, Captain Burrell?" she whispered.
He faked a small snore, and after a moment she went back to unrolling stockings down legs he knew weren't long, but now appeared
more than long enough to wrap around his waist.
This kind of thinking was not healthy. He suspected he would have a better life expectancy if he took an alligator to his bed than if he placed Miss Deford beneath him, but he was only a man, and it had been a long time since he'd sought recreation in port.
Now she was pulling her chemise over her head and he swallowed. No, this wasn't wise, but he hadn't earned the nickname Lucky Jack by leading a life of prudence. She pulled her nightrail over her head, and climbed into the hammock.
At least, that was her intention, and the show she was putting on brought a grin to Jack's face and helped make up for some of his frustration.
Miss Deford pulled down the edge of the hammock, and tried to sit on it, but Jack had tied it too high. It would be mean-spirited to say he tied it too high on purpose. Once Miss Deford realized she couldn't sit on the edge, she made a brave leap at jumping in, and managed to dump the hammock over and herself out onto her rounded little bottom.
"Wha—Why, Miss Deford, are you injured?" Jack said, pretending to come awake.
Miss Deford said an oath no proper young lady should know, then said, "No, Captain, I am well. Go back to sleep!"
Jack settled himself a little further into his bunk and watched her next attempt, which involved throwing herself across the hammock and hanging there, arms and legs dangling over the side.
Oh, this was bad. The image of Miss Deford's bottom, up in the air, swaying in the hammock, was not healthy for his frazzled nerves and frustrated evenings. It was giving him all sorts of ideas of what one could do with a partner in that vulnerable position, suspended in midair.
But those thoughts were set aside by the sight of Miss Deford falling out again as she tried to slip into place, this time landing on her feet.
No sense pretending to be asleep now.
"The offer to share my bunk is still open," Jack said helpfully.
She consigned him, his bunk, and all sailing vessels to perdition.
"Tsk! Miss Deford, really!"
"I will master this, Captain Burrell! I do not need your assistance!"
"As you wish," Jack murmured. He wasn't about to cut this entertainment short if he wasn't getting a bunkmate.
This time Miss Deford was more or less diagonally across the hammock, and grabbed onto the top ropes, holding on for dear life until the swaying stopped. Then she slowly, and to Jack's eyes, delightfully, humped her hips around until she was on her back inside the still moving hammock—but it didn't dump her out.
"I did it!" she said in a breathless voice. "I am in the hammock. Good night to you, Captain Burrell!"
He had to give her points for pluck. She was indeed in the hammock. However...
"Captain Burrell?"
"Yes, Miss Deford?"
She hesitated.
"I was not able to get the covers and pillows into the hammock with me. Would you give them to me? Please?"
Jack ran various responses through his mind, but it was getting late.
"Since you said please..."
He got up and picked up her pillow and cover, brought them over to her. Her eyes were tightly shut, and when they popped open she carefully kept them on his face, not his nude body.
"Here you are, Miss Deford. Unless you would like me to tuck you in?"
"No!" She carefully reached out one slender arm to take the bundle from him, the other holding tight to the side of the hammock.
"Thank you, Captain." She peered at him more closely. "What happened to your eyepatch?"
"Stop worrying about my eye, Miss Deford. Goodnight."
"Goodnight, Captain Burrell."
CHAPTER 7"Captain, what is that land ahead of us? It does not look like there is a town or port there."
"There isn't a town or port. It's Key Marquez, and we will stop there overnight to replenish our water."
"No town?"
"You were warned, Miss Deford. There are few towns in the Floridas. Pensacola to the west, St. Augustine and Fernandina to the east, a squalid little hamlet at the tip of the keys down south, and that is all there is to speak of, save for scattered farms and plantations along the rivers and coasts. Indians and insects own the interior, with the occasional fort or Spanish mission. For civilization you have to go north to Savannah or south to Havana."
Sophia chewed her lip at her first glimpse of Florida. She wanted to think Captain Burrell was exaggerating to scare her, but she feared he was telling the truth. Key Marquez looked like it had never hosted a human footprint, a wild tangle of sand, scrubby shrubs, and occasional trees towering over the greenery below. No smoke rose into the air showing the cheery comfort of a hearth or cookstove. Flocks of terns and gulls soared at the approach of the ship, but settled back into their places on the sand.
Mr. Rice called for the sails to be hauled in and the anchor let out, and the Jade came to rest off the coast of Key Marquez while the crew made ready for their foray ashore. They were in good spirits, but in addition to their water casks they carried small arms.
"Why are the men armed?" Sophia asked Mick, who'd brought her
breakfast from below. Mick looked at her like she was sun touched.
"Why, you always go 'round armed in these waters, miss. You never know who else you might meet—Indians, the guardacosta, and there are pirates here, too! Plenty of men who'll rob you for the clothes on your back or the boat you arrived in."
Sophia took a bite of her morning biscuit as she thought about her situation. Her mood wasn't helped by the galley's questionable offerings.
"Mick, would it be possible for me to get some tea instead of coffee?"
"I dunno, miss. See, the cap'n likes to drink coffee in the morning, and cook makes what the cap'n likes. But maybe if you asked Cap'n Burrell, he might tell cook to make you tea."
"No, if coffee is what the ship subsists on, then I, too, will drink coffee," Sophia said firmly. She was not going to give Captain Burrell any cause to say she was complaining about her situation.
She thought instead about the lovely silver tea service she would buy with her fifty thousand pounds, the butler who would carry it into her graciously appointed sun room, the head of Jack Burrell mounted on the wall. Her backside was still aching from her fall out of the hammock, and she had barely slept a wink, flinching awake every time the hammock shifted. And the hammock shifted every time she took a deep breath.
But when Captain Burrell asked after her rest in the morning, she'd responded with a chipper reply she'd slept like a baby in a cradle.
"You keep lying, Miss Deford, and your tongue will freeze. Or so my nanny used to tell me."
"I am quite satisfied with my hammock, Captain Burrell. I am looking forward to
sleeping in it again tonight!"
She'd kept her eyes shut, pretending to be asleep while he dressed in the morning. Mostly shut. It was hard to resist looking at him through her lashes. She was honest enough with herself to acknowledge there was nothing painful about looking at a nude, or nearly nude, Lucky Jack Burrell. She was no blushing schoolgirl and he wasn't the first naked man she'd ever gazed on, but clearly he was a cut above the rest.
Despite his lewd innuendoes and suggestions, she had no intention of following through on any baser thoughts her body might prompt. Those stirrings deep in her belly would be suppressed, the shortness of breath overcome, because to follow through on those urges courted
disaster.
That was a lesson she had learned the hard way, and she had no intention of repeating it.
Now though, she was more intrigued by the sight of the Florida coast. Mick was back at her side, working at some complicated arrangement of string and knots, but he was keeping her company. She wondered if he'd been assigned to shadow her.
"Aye, miss," he said cheerfully. "The cap'n said there's too much chance you would get into trouble on your own, and he told me to stay with you like a limpet."
"You are not disappointed to be my nursemaid, Mick?"
"This morning is when I would be studying mathematics with Mr. Rice, and I would do anything to get out of that, miss, even spend the morning with a lady."
"It is good to know where I stand in your estimation, Mick." Sophia smiled to herself, "You know, there are some good sides to mathematics. Really," she added at his skeptical look. "Do you play cards? No? Wait here then, and I will teach you how numbers can make a difference."
Sophia rose from where she'd been sitting tailor fashion on a pile of canvas awaiting mending and went down to the captain's cabin, returning with a deck of playing cards and a handful of small coins and buttons.
"There is a game called vingt-et-un where counting is the key to success, Mick. Other games also rely on luck and your ability to remember the numbers of cards in play. But we will start with something fairly basic."
The Bride and the Buccaneer Page 6