by L. A. Banks
Ian, resplendent as a lost prince in his finery, struck a bold pose at the top of the ladder. Wind billowed his frock coat and feathered the lace at his throat, and his hair spilled out like a silk flag. Very romantic.
He didn't offer to help her up.
She climbed fast, trying to keep her skirts as tight around her legs as possible. She settled herself breathlessly, and Ian moved away after a perfunctory peck on the cheek.
A hand closed over hers as she lurched for balance. Not Ian's big, strong hand—this one was darker, sinewy, rougher, and had never seen a manicure in its entire existence. She looked up into Captain Lockhart's face, and for a second she saw something odd there. A kind of searching regret, something that brought him into real focus for the first time not as a parody or an archetype in tattered clothing but a man. He placed her hand over his arm, in an old-world gentlemanly way, and walked her to her husband-to-be.
The comparison was inevitable. Ian had a carefully sculpted body, courtesy of personal trainers. A tan delivered weekly at the best salon in the city. Fine, gorgeous hair that required more maintenance than Cecilia's entire (mostly nonexistent) beauty regimen. He was polished and buffed and engineered into every woman's fantasy, and as he smiled at Cecilia she felt the doubts that had been growing in her mind spread like an oil slick to her heart.
Lockhart placed her chilled fingers in Ian's and then held out his right hand. Argyle hastily stepped forward and put his small book into it. Lockhart opened it, squinted at the pages, turned it around, and made a show of flipping until he found the appropriate passage.
"Right," he said, and cleared his throat. "Ian Taylor, do you take this woman as your lawfully wedded wife, et cetera?"
" 'Et cetera'?" Ian repeated blankly, and then, "Er, yes. Sure. I do."
Lockhart was already moving on before the last syllable was out of Ian's mouth. "Right. Cecilia Welles, think you carefully: Do you take this man, Ian Taylor, as your lawfully wedded husband, giving him power and authority over your worldly goods as well as your earthly body, until death do you part?"
She was no expert, but she was pretty sure that most marriage ceremonies weren't that sinister. Lockhart's dark eyes seemed to see everything—all the doubt, the fear, the horrible lack of self-confidence that had led her to this terrible, unhappy moment.
I hate oceans. I hate boats. I hate pirates.
I hate Ian.
I hate myself. That's the real problem.
"I do," she heard herself whisper.
Lockhart's eyes widened just a fraction, but then his face went entirely still. "Ah. Then ye be a wedded woman, Mistress Taylor," he said, and tossed the book over his shoulder at Mr. Argyle. "God preserve you."
Argyle fumbled the book out of the air, tsked over a bent page, and carefully stowed the book in a pocket of his coat. Lockhart threw his arms wide for a metaphorical embrace of his crew watching below. "That's it! Finished! Back to work, you scurvy dogs!"
The sailors muttered. She found herself clinging to Ian's warm hand for more than just moral support. The sails creaked, banners cracked in the fresh, cool wind, and the moon seemed eerie now, not beautiful. The constant hissing rush of the sea made her feel faint.
"He didn't say, 'You may kiss the bride,' but I'll take the liberty anyway," Ian said, and grabbed her in a bruising embrace and kissed her, all wet lips and slick teeth, and she tried to struggle away, but he seemed to think that was funny, somehow. Even when he pulled back, he held on to her with her feet flailing uselessly for the deck. "Captain Lockhart!"
Lockhart turned, hands clasped behind his back. The momentary humanity Cecilia had seen was gone like a pebble dropped in the ocean. "Your servant."
"I'll need the paperwork you promised. With witness signatures."
"Yes, of course." His lips parted in that surprisingly white smile. "Witnesses. Aye, Mr. Argyle, you'd swear these two were wed, wouldn't you?"
"Completely legal," Argyle said.
"Completely," Lockhart agreed. "All that remains is for you to consummate your sacred union as you see fit."
"Absolutely," Ian said. He moved to the railing and sat Cecilia roughly on the thin wooden support. She grabbed for his broad shoulders, then his lapels, as the ship heaved again. He gave her a slow, entirely unpleasant smile. "You never got it, did you?"
"What?"
He pulled a letter out of his pocket. "One thing about working at the post office, you come across all kinds of great stuff. For instance, this one—from Mr. Tom Carruthers, Attorney-at-Law." He unfolded it. " 'To Miss Cecilia Welles, I regret to inform you of the recent passing of your aunt Nancy Welles Paulson, who died after a short illness . . .' yadda yadda . . . ah! Here's the good part. 'Please call me to discuss the details of your estate.' Estate, Cess. Two-point-four million, and as your widower, I'm entitled to the whole thing. Tragic honeymoon accident. I'll bet I end up getting so much sympathy tail after the funeral."
And he pitched her over the railing.
She screamed on the way down—all the way—and hit the water with a breath-stealing smack. Cold. She flailed, was slapped in the face by a wave, and then another, before she could suck in a gasp. Salt water burned in her throat and eyes. She choked, coughed, and got a cold mouthful of sea spray. It felt like there were hands on her ankles, hands dragging her down, and she couldn't feel anything below her neck but pressure and cold. . . .
Her head slid under the next wave. When she fought back to the surface, there was someone standing up on the top deck of the passing ship, looking down at her. Tricorn hat. A mass of dark hair. A tattered antique coat.
She didn't even know why she did it, but she lifted a hand to him.
Please.
The next wave buried her. The pressure of air in her lungs turned stale and useless, and she let it dribble out in pretty silver bubbles, a part of her escaping even though the rest was sinking into the dark. ...
And then there was a viselike grip on her arm, and she was hauled to the surface. Moonlight exploded pale in her eyes. Captain Lockhart, seal-sleek, hatless and coatless, turned her on her back. "Stay still," he ordered her. "Don't fight me!''
He clapped an arm as unyielding as an iron bar under her breasts and swam like a dolphin—but it wasn't going to be enough. The ship was pulling away, leaving them in its wide, silvery wake.
He couldn't swim forever, could he?
He didn't need to. The sails suddenly luffed, flapped, and slumped into pools of canvas on the yardarms. Shouts echoed over the water, and a rope ladder hit the water with a smack nearby and clattered against the black-painted hull.
Ian was now at the tall railing, leaning over. She couldn't really make out his face, only the broad details, but he didn't look happy. "You were supposed to let her drown!" he yelled down at Lockhart. "I paid you, you bastard! I paid you good hard cash—"
Lockhart waved a hand and shouted. "Mr. Argyle!"
"Aye, sir!" floated back the reply.
"Belay that noise!"
"Aye-aye, sir!"
Argyle bashed Ian smartly over the head and hauled him away. Cecilia screamed, not so much in fright as in surprise at the efficient way it was done.
"Best thing for it, really," Lockhart said, and bared his teeth in a broad white grin. "No refunds. Now climb, lass. It's too dark for me to look up your skirts."
Screaming wasn't doing her any good.
Cecilia shouted and battered at the bolted door, to absolutely no avail. If she'd thought being rescued meant that she had some kind of status, she'd been dead wrong. As soon as Lockhart had set foot on deck, he'd had her tossed into a lightless black hold. It smelled of rotten fish and moldy bread, and didn't even have the meager creature comfort of a hammock like her guest quarters. And to add insult to injury, a few minutes later another limp body was tossed inside, groaning. Ian. Oh, joy. They might not let her drown, but they probably wouldn't care if Ian finished the job for them.
The ocean's bounce seemed to be
getting worse. She clutched her head as the ship leaped weightless, then crashed down into a trough . . . then rose . . . and fell. . . .
Ian groaned feebly, and she heard him scrabbling around as the door was bolted shut again behind him. No light, so she couldn't see him, but she could imagine how miserable he looked. "Oh God," he moaned. "I think I have a skull fracture."
"Then die already," she said. "I wish they'd shot you. With . . . with great big musket balls."
"Cess—"
"Don't call me Cess!" she yelled furiously. It was easier when she couldn't see him. "This is all your fault! I can't believe you tried to kill me!"
"Now, um, Cecilia—" More fumbling noises. Oh God, he was coming her way. "It was a mistake, that's all. You're just. . . confused, and—"
"I'm not the one with a skull fracture, Fabio. Now, let me see if I got this straight: You found the letter while you were working at the post office, and you intercepted it and decided to what? Seduce me? Marry me and then do away with me?"
"Um—"
"On a pirate ship? What are you, crazy? What kind of plan is that?"
"It's not a real pirate ship! It's . . . just an act."
"Who told you that?" she demanded furiously.
"Well... a guy at the docks—"
"Let me guess: some shifty-looking guy at the docks? Were you looking for a honeymoon cruise or body disposal?" She was screaming at him now, and she didn't care. She felt around and found something rolling on the floor. A filthy, ancient potato, it felt like. She hefted it in her right hand.
"It's not like that; it's just—um—look, I can explain."
She pelted the potato at the sound of his voice and sidestepped his lunge. She tripped over a box, went sprawling in a tangle of wet skirts, and his weight landed awkwardly on top of her.
Oh, damn.
"Oh, Cess . . . ilia, I just don't know what I—it was just temporary insanity, I swear; I don't know what happened. ... I lost my grip on you. ... It was an accident!"
She slapped him. He pinned her hands to the deck. "I want a divorce!" she shouted.
"Fine! We split the money fifty-fifty!"
"I don't have any money, you idiot!" she shouted, right in his face. "And I don't have an aunt Nancy!"
There was a long, ringing silence.
"You don't have an Aunt Nancy?"
"No."
"Then you didn't inherit two million dollars?"
"Not a chance."
"But it was addressed to—"
"The wrong Cecilia."
A long pause. "Oh."
"I can't believe I ever thought that somebody like you would— could—did you ever like me at all?"
"Well," he said judiciously, "I'd have probably taken you to bed at least once, you know. Things just got. . . out of hand."
She was hunting around for something hard enough to give him a real skull fracture but froze at the metallic clatter of latches. The door—hatch?—swung open and she was blinded with a lantern's glare.
"You," said a male voice. "Lass. Out with you."
She swallowed hard and started to get up, but suddenly Ian was there between her and the light. "Wait! You can't leave me here!"
Her eyes were adjusting to the dazzle, and she picked out the gleam of fussy spectacles perched on a narrow nose, short graying hair, and a deadly-looking pistol being pressed to Ian's temple. Mr. Argyle, her hero.
"Can and will. Come on, me laddie, you're too pretty to die. Fetch a good price at some of our less savory ports of call, I expect." He nodded toward Cecilia. "Let's go, then."
Cecilia edged around Ian to step out into the larger darkened cabin. Even short as she was, she had to duck to pass under the low beams. The main crew quarters were partly filled with men sitting at trestle tables, knotting ropes, mending shirts, drinking. They eyed her as she passed, with varying degrees of sinister leering.
"Up," Argyle said, and prodded her with his pistol. She climbed.
Outside, it was dark and breathtakingly clear. Argyle hustled her through the now-familiar black door and down the corridor. Instead of taking the left-hand door, he opened the right, and ushered her through.
She blinked and paused a couple of steps in, because it looked as if she'd stepped off of the ship and into an elaborate manor house. Fine tables, linens, candles, hung from clever brackets that tilted with the motion of the ship. Thick carpet underfoot.
There were seven men seated at the table. Dinner, it seemed, had just ended. Plates were empty, serving dishes ravaged, and the only things filled were crystal glasses. Filled, emptied, and filled again before she'd managed to cross the long room with Mr. Argyle at her side.
"The wee lass," Argyle said, unnecessarily. They'd already looked up, and she was the focus of seven sets of assessing male eyes. The most disconcerting were Captain Lockhart's, because he seemed to see nothing in particular that appealed. "Or shall we say, the soon-to-be widow?"
"Sit," the captain said, and kicked out a chair. Or tried. His boot missed it by an inch. He aimed with great concentration and succeeded in thumping it ass-over-cushion to the carpet. "Damn."
"I've seen this movie," Cecilia blurted. "This is where you leer at me and tell me that food doesn't satisfy you, and you turn into zombies in the moonlight. Right?"
There was a long, surprised silence, and then they roared drunkenly with laughter. Argyle—sober, monkish Mr. Argyle—laughed so hard he reeled into the paneled wall. "Now, lassie," Argyle gasped, "does it look to you as if food doesn't satisfy this lot? They've done their level best to lick the shine from the plates! The best part of our cargo's food and drink!"
"Zombies in the moonlight!" roared a lop-eared fellow near Lockhart's left elbow. "Zounds, that's rich. . . . What the devil is a zombie?"
"From the Caribbean," Lockhart said contemplatively. He was decidedly not laughing. "Means the walking dead."
The laughter cut off abruptly. In the odd silence, Cecilia clumsily bent down and set the chair upright again and let herself sink into it, because she wasn't sure her trembling knees would hold her. It had been a long, long day.
"Zombies," Argyle repeated blankly. "Well. I do stand corrected."
After a cutting glance around the table, Lockhart reached for the bottle and poured the crystal glass in front of Cecilia's empty plate to the brim.
"Drink up," he said.
"No, thank you."
"You need it. Not every day you get married and murdered," he said, and leaned his chair back precariously on two legs. She waited for him to tip straight over backward. It wasn't possible to keep a chair balanced with the constant gyrations of the damn ship, especially as drunk as he was. "Excuse me. Nearly murdered."
She waited, breathless. He stared back, the chair gently moving back and forth, never quite off center, never quite still.
She slowly reached for the glass and sipped, then coughed. Good British rum, burning a wide path down her throat. Argyle rapped the table and nodded his appreciation. "Braw lass," he said. "Fill her glass, Jacks."
Lockhart's neighbor cheerfully obliged, his face mottled red as he chuckled. Someone started up a drinking song, and Argyle took it up with a startlingly clear tenor voice; at the chorus, everyone lifted a glass, even Lockhart. She hastily followed suit.
There were several refrains and quite a lot of choruses. Lockhart, she noticed, only raised his glass and touched it to his lips. She tried, but the ship kept deceiving her with its dips and swirls, and the liquor spilled either over her or into her mouth, and one way or another, she was getting mightily drunk. Not to mention sticky.
"A bit of business," Argyle said once the song was over and glasses were being refilled. "What about the lad, Cap'n?"
Lockhart shrugged. "Over the side, I suppose. No great loss to anyone."
Argyle looked sad. "Could've fetched a pretty penny for him, back in the good times. Sold him in Tortuga—"
"Tortuga's gone soft," Lockhart said. "So's every damn po
rt in the world, even Singapore. We'll never get a profit out of his pretty hide. Might as well save ourselves the bread and aggravation."
"Wait!" Cecilia blurted, alarmed. "You're . . . you're talking about—"
"Pitching your would-be killer over the side," Argyle said. "You don't have to thank us."
"No!"
"No?" He looked momentarily nonplussed, and then downed his rum and slapped the table in comprehension. "Ah! You want to put a musket ball through his black heart first! Done, lassie! A fine piece of vengeance!"
"No! No, of course I don't! I want—"
Lockhart raised one ironic eyebrow. "Drink first," he said. "I never negotiate with a dry throat."
She got most of it down in long gulps, choked, and swayed. She was getting used to the up-and-down lurch of the ship, she decided. Like riding a horse. Or a cowboy. Oh, dear. The pirates howled their approval and downed their own rum. "Another round!" Argyle shouted.
Lockhart, who hadn't taken a single drink, suddenly crashed all four legs of his chair to the deck, causing an instant and precariously sober silence. "Everybody out," he said. He didn't raise his voice, but all of the other men shoved their chairs back and took their leave. Cecilia tried, but Lockhart reached out to place two long fingers on her wrist to press it to the table. She froze. "Not you." He exerted no pressure, but she couldn't find the strength to get up.
In seconds, the cabin was empty except for the two of them. Lockhart let go of her wrist and rested his elbow on the table.
"Well," he said. "You're set on mercy for your would-be killer?"
"Yes," she said. The room lurched, and she swayed with it. Well, this wasn't so difficult after all, now, was it? She was on a pirate ship, aye, avast, and all that crap. "Yes, I'd like you to ... to ... let him go."
"That's what we're going to do, Mistress Taylor. Let him go. If he sinks, well, that's purely a flaw of character."
"Hey! I'm not married!" She got her thoughts back on track with an effort. "And no fair dumping him in the middle of the osh . . . osh—"