Demons & Pearls (The Razor's Adventures Book 1)

by P. S. Bartlett

  “Are you alright?” Cass asked.

  “Has Lady Millie or the Captain mentioned anything about how long we’ll be allowed to stay here?” I asked her.

  “Not a word, why?”

  “Just something I heard last night. You’re sure they haven’t mentioned anything about us?”

  “I don’t know what they discussed behind closed doors…besides their foul grunts and moans, that is. But no, I have not heard anything.”

  “How much money do we have?”

  “We, as yet, have twenty pounds and our valuables. Why?”

  “I’ll be taking another stroll this evening, but I’m going to need a bit of help.”

  “What sort of help?”

  “Apparently, Watts and Townsend are watching us—well, me. They followed me last night down to the wharf,” I said, dragging the wash cloth over my face.

  “They’re staying in the small cottage behind the house. I saw them leaving together about an hour ago,” Cass offered.

  “Tonight, after dark, they’ll be watching for me again. Give me five shillings, Cass, so that I may find us a room or some other place to live.”

  “I doubt you’ll find us anything anywhere near as posh as this, Ivory. We have food, warm beds, and we’re safe,” Cass said. She flopped down on the bed and crossed her arms tightly. Her eyes stared dead ahead and her lips flattened in anger.

  “Can you hear yourself? Do you know what you’re saying? I’ll tell you, just in case you don’t,” I shouted at her in a whisper. I knew what was going to happen to us, and if not today, then soon.

  “All I’m saying is; why shouldn’t we enjoy the hospitality of the McCormack’s, even if it is only for a short while?” she asked as her eyes shot up at me.

  I laid down the washcloth and sat next to her. I took her by the shoulders and told her what Watts had told me in secret the night before. “Until I find us our own place, regardless of whether or not it compares to this, we are in danger of being shipped home. Unless you want to spend another three weeks on a ship, not knowing who you’re sailing with or what could happen. Wouldn’t you rather take your chances here? With me?”

  After a moment, Cass’s face softened. “What do you want us to do?” she asked with a sigh.

  “Distract them. Keep their attention focused elsewhere so that I may slip out again tonight. Cass, last night I was mistaken for a man, and I nearly got away with it until those two showed up. I’ll need your help to fully disguise myself tonight so that I may test the disguise further. I need that five shillings and to not be followed.” My excitement was building, and my head began to clear with the ideas and schemes that swept away the fog.

  I believed she could see the desperation in my eyes, and she took my face in her hands and kissed my cheek. “I’ll help you. We’ll all help you. I just pray when the Captain returns that it won’t be too late.”

  “Alright, then. I’ll be downstairs soon.”

  xxx

  Following my afternoon in the passing rain clearing weeds and chopping as much wood as Lady Millie tossed at me, I devoured my supper. Then, the girls and I made our way upstairs to our room. Miranda held her ear to the door while Cassandra bound my breasts and Keara pinned my hair up tightly. Again, I wrapped my head in the scarf and put on my hat.

  Cassandra then produced a few articles of clothing she’d managed to “borrow” from the good Captain. He was a bit stout, and the clothes hung loosely from my body, but all the better as a disguise. Thankfully, he was but a few inches taller than me, so his long, midnight blue coat barely reached the top of my boots. Soot from the stove to dull my complexion and a red sash about my waist were the final touches. When my ensemble was complete, I stepped to the mirror. In an attempt to lift the air of apprehension in the room, I assumed the exaggerated pose of a ship’s captain about to set sail.

  “Oh, Ivory! If I didn’t know it was you, I would pass you on the street without so much as a glance,” Cassandra said.

  “You cut quite the figure of a young man.” Miranda giggled and gave me her hand for a kiss.

  Keara stood back and studied me for a moment and then walked to our trunk and lifted from it something wrapped in one of her old stockings. “I’m still worried, Ivory. Here, I took this dagger, too.”

  Cassandra dug into the trunk as well and handed me the five shillings. “This seems like quite a bit of money, but I’m sure you know what you’re doing. Here are a few pennies, if you find yourself in need of a drink.”

  “Now, you all know what you need to do?”

  “I’m looking forward to it, actually,” Miranda sighed. She walked to the window and brushed the curtain aside.

  “What are you doing, girl?” Keara asked. Then, she followed Miranda’s eyes down into the yard. “You hussy, you.”

  “I don’t see them down there anyway, you shrew,” Miranda shot back.

  “That’s enough. This could mean either life here or death on some merchant ship back to Charles Towne. We’re just fortunate there’s no moon tonight,” I sniped, and I waved them all to the bedroom door so they could begin their diversion.

  Once the girls were down the stairs and I could hear them chatting with Lady Millie in the parlor, I moved as quietly as a cat and equally as swift until I was out the front door and into the night. I knew Townsend and River would be watching the bedroom window, so although this was a risk, I had to take it. I followed my same course. Only now, instead of winding down, the evening was just beginning to spin. As I strolled through the street, I watched every male I encountered, from gentleman to scallywag. I spied them as they walked. I imitated their gaits and even tipped my hat and bowed to anyone who crossed my path. My confidence grew, and by the time I reached the Golden Gull Tavern, the same one as the night before, I strolled straight through the door and found a small table off in a corner.

  It didn’t take long for a mysterious gentleman such as I to attract the attention of a bare-shouldered, brown-haired tavern wench with a swing in her hips to rival a tickled pup. “What be yer pleasure?” she asked with her over-exposed bosom about to shut off my breathing.

  “Rum,” was my answer, complete with all five pennies, which she wasted not a moment snatching from my ruddy palm.

  I thought perhaps flashing money around this dreadful place wasn’t such a good idea, but I was bound to make a mistake or two in this first attempt as a man. My brunette strumpet returned in a blink, sat a tankard twice the size of my fist in front of me, and said, “There’s two more in them pennies, love, unless ye can think of somethin’ else ye’d rather spend ‘em on.” She flicked my chin with her index finger and spun away, waving back at me over her shoulder and wiggling her fingers.

  I had no intention of attracting anyone, least of all her, so I tipped my cavalier down over my eyes and lifted the rum to my lips. Within the hour, every empty seat was filled and an accordion and fiddle duet was livening things up. A staircase rose from a landing to the left of the bar, and I turned to find six women of low morals and twelve bare breasts. They were dancing and singing and, dare I say, bouncing, as they leaned over the banister to incite the men from their chairs and cups to come and play.

  As I glanced around, I noticed an elderly man already way into his cups and slumped over asleep, and a large man I’d kept an eye on since he came in. I named him Big Red due to his bounty of thick, red hair. We were the only men—real or not— who did not find this show at all enticing.

  Big Red was a giant. He was as big and thick as Master Green, and his full cheeks were flushed with rose from days spent under the sun. His blue eyes emitted a quiet warmth, twinkling in the flame of the small lantern in the center of his table every time he raised them from his glass. Even with his hat on—a leather cavalier much like mine but not nearly as old and worn — I could see his mane of fiery red, wavy hair that was but a shade away from that of his well-kempt beard. I could hardly keep my eyes from it as he stroked it every few minutes.

  From the corne
r of my eye, the simple motion of his meaty left hand lifting, smoothing, and then gliding down his mustache and over the two or so inches of coarse amber beard intrigued me. Was he doing it because he was nervous? Was this some tick or habit? Who was he? Where did he come from? Was he a pirate, or just a merchant ship captain who stopped over for the evening before heading out again in the morning? The biggest question of all, however, was why couldn’t I stop looking at him…and why were those sparkling eyes talking to me?

  I blinked and even turned my seat in order to cut him out of my view, but for some reason I simply could not discern or control, I caught myself turning back. Unfortunately, he spotted me. I felt the rum burning as it rose back into my throat, and my eyes darted to the bouncing breasts on the stairs. Involuntarily, I caught myself bobbing my now nearly weightless head to the buoyant music. Had I known I was smiling and tapping my foot as well, I’d have slapped my own self in the face.

  “Are ye ready?” the brown-haired woman asked as she pressed my face into her breasts and giggled, which practically wrapped themselves around my ears. My reflex reaction rescued me from her plump, fleshy vice, and I pushed her away. I suppose the look of complete disgust on my face didn’t deter her either, since she came at me again with that giggle. I shoved her off a second time.

  “What’s this? Aye, ye like it rough, do ye?” she said with a haughty snarl. “Ye wanna spank me arse, too? Yer a salty, one ain’t ye?” When I failed to reply, she stowed herself away in her blouse, picked up my mug, and then slammed it back down in front of me as she dug her knuckles into her hips. “What’s the trouble? Ain’t I bonny enough fer the likes a’ you?”

  I held my eyes low and made every effort to choose my words wisely. “Madame, I’m simply not in the spirit for the company of a lady this evening.” Regardless of my well-chosen words, she had already reached a level of anger at my rejection that was beyond my ability to soothe.

  “Ah, I see it now, plain as day. Ye don’t like tits. Yer in the spirit fer somethin’ a little harder, aye?” She laughed. This wasn’t a pleasant, playful laugh. This was an insulting, degrading, man-crushing cackle that, although not a man, offended me on a level I didn’t even know I had.

  “Walk away, Madame.”

  “Excuse me?” she said in an upturned shrill.

  “I said, walk away…and don’t come back.”

  Little did I know that this lovely, well-rounded creature who surely meant me no real harm, was about to return the favor I’d given Rip Townsend less than a day ago. Only I wasn’t about to be as forgiving. When the rum hit me in the face, my masculine façade caved like a sandcastle under a wave. Then, when she topped it off with a slap in the face, she took my last remnant of control, and I leapt from my seat and punched her hard in the right side of her jaw. Before I knew what had happened, this saucy trollop was on me. I’d mixed it up quite a few times in my day with men, but this crazy tart fought like two men, and she used every natural weapon she had. She clawed my cheek with her long fingernails and tried to bite me, while I did my level best to fend her off. The worst of it all was her howling and screeching and screaming of obscenities and accusations of whom, and what, I might wish to bed that nearly burst my eardrums.

  After several intolerable moments of this, I decided enough was enough. I tossed her off, spun her around, and put my boot square in her arse, which sent her sailing across the floor. I’d lost my hat in the scuffle, and when I swung around to find it, I also found who I believed to be the tavern owner about to bash in my head with a plank of wood. I ducked his first swing and recovered my hat, but he came at me again. Just as my head was inches from being splattered amongst the gathering mob, I was scooped up and tossed over the shoulder of none other than Big Red.

  He flung me up there like a sack of sugar and ran out of there before the tavern owner could even raise the plank again, but I was full of steam and still had a barrel of fight left in me. I kicked and screamed and beat on that broad back of his until I thought my hands were broken, but he didn’t stop. Every step he took was like two of any normal man, and my thumps and blows were no more painful to him than the rain drops that started to beat down on us were to me.

  “Put me down!” I shouted over and over, while those we passed in the street cheered and laughed. The further he strode, the darker it got. Suddenly, I felt dizzy with fear. The idea that he could kill me, or worse, struck me so hard in the head that I froze. Visions of his meaty hand I’d watched over and over again stroking that red beard transformed into two giant paws wrapped around my scrawny neck until I was dead. What terrorized me the most was that he didn’t utter a sound—not even a grunt or a heavy breath escaped him.

  I was so paralyzed with fear that I hadn’t even noticed we were now completely alone in the dark. I finally awoke from my nightmare when he lifted me from his shoulder and launched me like a rag doll off a pier, where I landed like a bag of rocks in the harbor.

  Chapter Eight

  ~A Man Among Men~

  The Captain’s coat already weighed me down bone-dry, but when I hit the water, it pulled me like an anchor beneath the surface and beyond to the depths below. Just as my lungs were about to burst, I felt a hard tug on my arm and a few seconds later, Big Red and I broke the surface.

  I gagged and barfed as I was, yet again, pulled over his shoulder. But this time, with the added weight of the harbor water, the big man struggled a bit. I even heard that grunt I was waiting for as he hurled me onto the pier and then pulled himself up. I was lying on my stomach where he tossed me, still gasping for air, when I felt him turn me over. He began pushing down on my sternum until the final burst of rum and sea water spewed forth from my mouth. Then, he tipped me onto my side and slapped me hard on the back.

  I wanted to scream, but all I could do was cough and suck in the damp night air. I opened my eyes and watched as he fished something from the water, shook it, and then dropped it on the pier next to my head. “Yer hat, young man.” Were the first words he muttered.

  My chest heaved, and out of nowhere, I began to laugh. I laughed so hard my body shook as I hacked and coughed in between. “What are you, some hell-hound…come to do me in and lost your nerve?” I struggled to get the words out but they found the way.

  “Hell-hound, aye? Naw, just a sailor doin’ his best to help a man in need.”

  I pushed myself onto my elbow and slammed my hat on my head and said, “A man in need? In need of what, a trip to the locker?”

  “Ye didn’t make it all the way to the locker, now did ye? I just figured a nice swim would cool ye off. It was getting a little too hot in the Gull, and since I’ve seen young fellas like yourself done in over some tavern whore, I wasn’t of a mind to see blood tonight.”

  He crouched down and took me under the arms to pull me to my feet, but I shoved him off. Since I’d not only managed to fool that trollop and everyone else in that tavern, I wasn’t about to ruin my good disguise by having Big Red catch a handful of tits. “I can do it myself…when I’m ready.”

  “Have it your way, lad,” he said. He tipped his hat to me as he took it off and removed his saturated vest. He drew his once billowy white shirt out from his breeches as if pulling a sail and shook it out. The rain shower was brief, and the thick, hot air had now been soothed to a warm and tender breeze. I sat there and watched in what little light the stars provided with their reflection on the water as he peeled that big ole shirt away from the peaks and valleys of his flesh. Then, he crossed his arms, grabbed the material from the bottom, and whipped it up and over his head.

  “What are you doing now?” I asked from below him.

  “I don’t much like the feeling of my clothes wet and stuck to my skin, but I do enjoy a midnight swim.” He winked.

  Looking up from where I sat stood a man—calm, secure and now removing his belt and boots. I slammed my lower jaw shut just as he leaned forward to undo his breeches when, like in the tavern, he caught me looking.

  “See something
ye like, laddie?” he asked. He raised one of his wide red eyebrows at me and stopped before letting his breeches drop.

  I covered my awe of his form with a shake of my head and a grunt—his form which nearly glowed in the low light in those concealed corners of skin that never see the sun. “No…no, sir.”

  “I was startin’ to wonder if ole Lilly girl was right about ye.” He laughed a soft and rolling chuckle. “Don’t pay that girl any mind, lad,” he said, and he waved his hand at me. “She’s a pushy one that one is. I don’t like ‘em shoved down my throat, either.” On that word, he let go, and I instinctively covered my eyes and turned away. “Am I that ugly?” He continued to laugh as he released that wet, wavy red mane of hair from a leather tie and deftly sorted it out with his fingers. “Well, I suppose you could be right about that,” he said with a sigh.

  Nothing could have been farther from the truth. He took the wind out of me again for a moment, until I took my first deep breath since before I’d gone into the drink. Then, I blew it out slowly to relieve the pressure of my fluttering heart so he wouldn’t hear it. I drew in another, as he laid his clothes out on a piling to dry. From the corner of my eye I was watching him again. But this time, I watched his naked body shift and curve from every angle, committing it to memory. I was no longer conducting research of men to impersonate. I was admiring the finest damn man I’d ever laid eyes on and wishing I wasn’t playing at being one.

  “You swim?”

  “I was making a joke there, lad—apparently not a very good one,” he said as he walked the ten feet or so to the end of the pier and sat down with his toes dipping into the water. Looking at him from the back was almost as good as looking at the front. From behind, his arms appeared thicker than my thighs, and beneath the skin of his pale back, I could see the faint muscular definition of years of hard work. As he leaned his upper body weight back on his hands, the swells and prominences of his arm muscles moved like waves beneath the starlight, and that magnificent head of hair lay in damp swirls between his mountainous, broad shoulders.