It was nice of him to be polite, but Charlotte knew differently. "Then why?"
"I have my reasons. You will have to believe that. Finding you was unexpected. Frankly, I am not sure what to do with you."
"Can I have a nicer room?"
"Aye. We use the bigger cabins for storerooms most of the time. I was having one readied for you this afternoon when we found the French ship adrift."
Charlotte's heart did a little flip. "You were?"
"I was. My men put Marie in there without asking me. Another room should be about ready for you now."
"Oh." That pretty well took the wind out of her sails. "Can I have my clothes, too?"
"Of course. You do not see your trunk here, do you? Where do you think it is?"
It felt better and better to snuggle with him. "In my new room?"
"Aye." There was a pause while he petted her hair, now all disheveled from her struggles. "Done crying?"
She nodded. "I am sorry I threw the glass at you."
"I know. Please curb your temper in the future, sweetheart. This is my ship and I cannot have a raging madwoman wreaking havoc." His voice said he was teasing, though, of course it was his ship, and Charlotte realized that he was the authority onboard. Her behavior couldn't be tolerated or the crew would be uneasy.
"I shall behave better."
"Promise?"
"Aye. I promise."
"Very well. I shall have my man take you to your cabin." He helped her up and kissed her hand. Did he linger just a bit?
A few minutes later, she was in her stateroom. It was clean and pretty, like Marie's, and moonlight streamed into the porthole, giving the room a silvery glow where the candlelight couldn't quite reach.
As she climbed into her nice, soft bed, Charlotte realized that she hadn't even felt for her scar since dressing that morning. She'd been so distracted that she'd forgotten it. Quickly, she tested the place with her fingers, but the scar was still there, laughing at her, making fun of her being so abused in order to be rid of it. It seemed a miserable failure, but Charlotte wasn't ready to give up yet.
Chapter 3
The next day after closing her eyes for the requisite five minutes, Charlotte opened them to the sunshine streaming in through the porthole. It was so much more pleasant than the previous day's awakening, she smiled. Before she could rise, however, there was a knock on her door. She got out of the bed, grabbed her voluminous skirt off the floor where she'd tossed it the night before, holding it in front of her for modesty, and then bid the knocker to enter.
It was the steward. "Mistress, I been asked by the other lady to bring ye to her cabin. She won't let me do her laces. Says she wants ye to do 'em fer her." He seemed sheepish, as though it was his fault Marie was being demanding.
"Oh! Well, that is not much of a problem. You can help me with my clothes and, when we are done, I shall go to Mademoiselle Marie's. Do not worry about this problem. It is easily solved, right?"
He gave her a gap-toothed grin and nodded.
Within half an hour, Charlotte had dressed behind a screen and had her laces done up. Her hair remained a riot of waves, but only in comparison to Marie's high and theatrical wigs. Looking in the mirror had never been Charlotte's wont, so she avoided the glass in the corner and satisfied herself with a nod of approval from the steward.
Marie's cabin was across the hall, and Charlotte found it easily, knocking on the door when she got there. Marie answered, and Charlotte went in.
The room was a shambles. Clothing was strewn everywhere. There was a wide, deep dusting of white powder around a wig set on a stand on the table. Marie seemed near panic.
"I have no idea what to wear," she said, her voice warbling with unspent tears. "You must help me, Charlotte."
"Do you not usually pick out your clothes?"
"No! My maid does it. What do you think goes together? Does this pink skirt go with this yellow bodice? Or are the flowers on the blue a better match for the yellow? And would I wear yellow slippers, or blue?"
Charlotte sighed. This was a new experience. She waded in and looked over the choices, picking out a few things that appeared to match and offering them to Marie. Grateful, Marie accepted Charlotte's help dressing, and they chatted amicably over tea brought by the steward. Breakfast was to be in less than an hour, but there was time for companionship.
"Cherie, if I remember correctly, there is a port between here and Jamaica. It is on an island called Nassau. There is an English settlement there, and, since the Stealthy Dog was heading toward South Carolina, perhaps we might convince him to veer south from his course and leave us on Nassau. It is not Jamaica, of course, but it would get us off this ship sooner and allow us to make our way in the world without harassment."
The thought had some positives and some negatives. On the positive side, it would give Charlotte some freedom, but on the negative side, that freedom would take her away from Rex Masters, and despite his high and heavy-handed ways, he was growing on her. His kind treatment over the cabin made him that much more appealing, and, in a way, so did the spankings, simply because Charlotte knew she'd been wrong to throw the water glass. She couldn't help herself. Maybe a little outside influence could calm her temper. She was defensive and sometimes shrewish, which could all be attributed to the scar, of course. Had that never happened to her, she would have been sweet and easy to get along with, just as her mother had been. Charlotte didn't like those traits in herself; she wanted to be as gentle with potential friends as she was with her patients, but she was so afraid of painful rejection that she was always ready to snap at a possible antagonist.
But Rex Masters was out of her league. Ugly as she was, she knew that all he was doing was exerting reasonable authority over her in order to keep things on his ship moving smoothly. Charlotte was nothing but a distraction from his goal of getting to South Carolina. The same could be said for Marie.
"Marie, what about your father? The ransom? You could go back home."
Marie's cheeks got pink. "Non, I cannot, in truth. My father and I do not agree on what should be done with me. I think my best option is to find an independent life in the west. Jamaica, Nassau, it does not matter. But not France."
"I see. What do you propose?"
"I hoped you would have an idea, cherie. I am not clever in this way."
"Hmm." Charlotte gave it some thought. "We could gang up on Captain Masters. We could take one of his pistols and make him do as we said."
Marie laughed. "Oh, petite, you are so very fierce! But I do not think that would work."
No, probably not. There were all his men to deal with, and Charlotte seriously doubted she'd be able to figure out his old-fashioned pistol. "Maybe we can…I don't know."
"It is too much to ask. I am sorry."
"No! I think I have an idea. He is a man, right? Why not band together and seduce him? He will be much easier to convince if we can pillow-talk him into it."
Marie gave her an odd look. "I thought you were… I mean… Cherie, seducing a man would not be my forte."
"Oh, come on. You are pretty, you have great manners, you laugh sweetly. It is not like me, with my ugly face and clumsy manners. And we do not really have to actually do anything. We could just let him think we would do something. His ego will feel so puffed up, he will agree to anything. He will not even care when nothing does happen."
"Charlotte," Marie said, touching her hand softly, "you are not ugly; anything but. I think you are very attractive." She hesitated, tiptoeing her fingers up Charlotte's arm. "In fact, I would kiss you myself." After a moment, she smiled and said, "Ooo, la la! The look on your face, ma cherie. You look like you ate a raw egg." Her smile never left her, and it occurred to Charlotte that Marie was being a good sport in the face of Charlotte's shock at the revelation. No wonder Marie didn't want to go forward with the seduction ploy—she was a lesbian!
"Well…I…"
"Do not fret," Marie said, sitting back more deeply in her chair. "I am not offended. I th
ought perhaps fate had put you here for me, but that does not appear to be the case. Quelle dommage."
Charlotte thought about the dream and wondered what Romantek was up to. Surely they knew she was not gay, and yet, they might very well have paired her up with someone who was. Of course, Marie might be a real person, making her own assumptions and playing her own game.
In any case, Charlotte wanted to focus on getting rid of the scar, and she couldn't do that while distracted by the dangerous Rex Masters. She needed to get off the ship, get to someplace calm. A tropical port seemed like exactly what she needed to achieve her goals.
"Marie…I am really sorry I cannot be what you want. It is simply not who I am. But together, we can achieve our goal to get off this ship and start something better."
"And avoid being spanked by le Capitaine again, hm?"
Charlotte's face flamed. "Aye. I would like to avoid that."
"You are inclined to…um…inspire him."
"I suppose I am. He makes me… Oh, never mind." She took Marie's hand and gave it a squeeze. "Please. Together we can convince him. We need to work our feminine wiles on him. I know you don't want to seduce him exactly, and certainly he won't go for me, but maybe if he thinks two women are falling all over him, he will be convinced to give us what we want."
Marie looked skeptical. "I do not know, Charlotte. He is no fool."
"All men think with their cocks, Marie. Rex Masters would be no different."
Laughing lightly, Marie nodded her agreement. "I do not hold much hope with this plan, but we can try."
"Excellent! We shall aim for suppertime. He should be mellow after a few glasses of wine." Charlotte was quite excited, and she spent the last ten minutes before they were called to breakfast talking it over with Marie, plotting and planning.
* * * * *
Rex paced his cabin, though it was but a few strides across for his long legs. Romantek was in constant contact with him through his optical implant, and they'd confirmed that the cyber-terrorist had been behind Marie Carthage's sinking ship. As they'd suspected when they realized that someone was trying to break into the Romantek operations servers, the criminal was out to hijack a prominent patron and screw with her dream. Rex was their inside operative, hopefully helping to figure out who this criminal was and how to catch him. Thus far, all he'd done was rescue Marie from an uncomfortable situation and plunge her into another one. She didn't even realize she was in danger, and he fully planned on keeping it from her. It wouldn't do to have her telling people about a harrowing experience. Rex had no idea what he was going to do with her, except keep her safe.
But safe from whom? For all he knew, the terrorist could be a mole right on the Stealthy Dog. While the entire Romantek cyber security staff was working on the problem, no one had yet discovered if the terrorist was indeed a dreamer on board the ship, or was simply someone guiding things from the periphery. As far as Rex was concerned, everyone but Marie and him was a suspect.
Which left Charlotte to consider. She was the odd joker in this deck of cards. The fellow who had set up her dream was out on sick leave having some medical procedure, and no one else seemed to be able to figure out how she'd gotten into this dream or why. Rex was strongly suspicious of her, but as he had nothing to accuse her of, and no evidence which pointed to her, he let her presence slide. She was likely a tourist, like Marie, but with far less prominence in the real world.
Marie had set herself up for cyber-kidnapping by making Romantek RAVES her obsession. Thus far, she'd had three in the past year, and was scheduled for another after Dream Pirate was over. It was a new phenomenon among RAVE participants, a kind of addiction to fantasy. Marie must be an unhappy person in her normal life, or she'd spend much less time gadding about all over time and space, dreaming her life away.
Rex needed to have more information. He wished he could be in the Romantek operations center, coordinating the work. He was their cyber-terrorism expert, and took that work very seriously.
He'd worked out some calculations using the tools in his implant, and it seemed like the terrorist was going to have to come back for more. If Charlotte was the one, Rex was on top of that. But if one of the computer-generated avatars on board the ship was re-directed, all sorts of trouble could ensue.
The day passed, Rex spending most of it in his head, communicating with his people at the operations center, and trying to ferret out who exactly could have breached security.
Eventually, though, he had to come up for air, and as the day drew toward night, Rex looked forward to sharing another meal with Marie and Charlotte, although he hoped Charlotte was better behaved this time.
Charlotte was a mystery; he didn't want her to be the terrorist. She was too attractive in so many ways. Her spirit fired Rex up and kept him on the edge, and her looks appealed to him in more affective ways. Sure, she had that nasty scar, but some people wore their scars on the inside instead. Those were the truly sad people. Charlotte might think she was ugly—she'd said as much—but she was not. Inside, where it counted, she had a spark for life that wouldn't be denied. Rex wanted to help her see her true worth, beyond the mark on her face. Those thoughts conflicted with his duty. His desire to get closer to the woman, even to have her in his arms, was uncharacteristic of his usual calm and professional demeanor. But something about her simply spoke to him in sensuous whispers. Whispers that were hard to deny. And that urge would trip him up if she was one of the bad guys in this plot.
He had to remain vigilant, and keeping her where he could watch her was key.
* * * * *
After greeting the women and seating them properly at the dining table in his cabin, Rex's first remark to Charlotte was about her hair.
"You powdered it," he said, his expression suggesting that he wasn't too thrilled with the results.
"No, it is a wig," she told him. "I borrowed it from Marie. You do not like it?"
"It is…different. I confess, I was enjoying your blonde tresses very well."
Her game of seduction hadn't started off the way she'd planned, and Charlotte wondered exactly what she ought to do about it. It seemed hardly proper to remove a wig and finger comb out her messy hair right there at the table. But if he liked her regular hair more… She looked at Marie, and got a subtle shrug in return.
Charlotte kept the wig on, though it was a little itchy, and she found she had to hold her neck very rigid in order to keep it balanced on her head. It was a wedding cake-like confection, full of silk flowers, white curls, and a high bouffant crown. It must have weighed four kilos. But, she kept it upright, the tension in her neck and shoulders building up to an ache as they ate their meal. Once again, the food was delicious, but on this occasion, Charlotte was too wound up over their plan to really enjoy it.
At a signal from her, Marie began the ploy. "Have another glass of wine, Monsieur le Capitaine. It is a delightful vintage, do you not agree?" Marie signaled the steward who came forward and poured more wine for everyone.
Rex chuckled and accepted the wine, gesturing for the steward to leave the bottle on the table. "You may go."
Bowing respectfully, the steward said, "Aye, aye, Cap'n," and left the three of them alone.
So far, things were going well, so Charlotte slipped off her shoe and touched her toes to Rex's stockinged leg. He shot her a quick look, but she smiled what she hoped was a playful smile, and continued rubbing his leg with her toes.
"So tell us more about you," Marie said, according to plan.
"What do you wish to know?"
"Where are you from? Is mastering a ship your family occupation?"
He hesitated and squirmed in his chair, moving his legs away from Charlotte's feet. "I'm from the colonies. Virginia, to be specific."
"And you are so far from home out here in the Atlantic."
Rex shrugged. "As are we all."
Marie sipped her wine and smiled seductively. "Are you married?"
"No. I am married to my career, you mig
ht say."
Charlotte breached the pause in the conversation. "Is it hot in here? I am roasting. You must be about burning up in that coat, Captain Masters." She rose and approached him from behind, slipping her hands inside his coat. "Here, I shall help you take it off."
"Well…I…."
"You are not drinking your wine," Marie interjected while Charlotte coaxed him out of his coat. "You do not want it to go to waste, mon chere."
Rex looked decidedly uncomfortable without his coat on, but discomfort did nothing to minimize his broad shoulders and muscular arms. So much had been hidden under that coat. Although Charlotte wasn't supposed to let it get that far, she had to wonder what the rest of him would be like.
She had to focus, focus on the plan.
While Charlotte folded the coat and put it on a chest, Marie came up behind him and began massaging his shoulders.
"Ah, so tense. You work too hard, Capitaine."
Rex put a hand up on Marie's to halt her. "Do not tire yourself, Mademoiselle."
"Please, I insist that you call me Marie." He nodded his agreement. "And I shall call you Rex." She went back to work kneading his shoulders. "Such a bold name. It means king; did you know that?"
"Aye, I did."
Charlotte picked up his wine glass, took a sip and then gave the lip a lick with as much sex kitten as she could put into it. His eyes went a bit narrow, but when she offered him the glass at the same point she'd caressed it, he showed he was getting her meaning by taking a long, slow draught from that same spot. His eyes never left hers.
It made her toes curl and her middle tingle. Charlotte got up, ostensibly to move from one chair to another, then artfully "tripped" and landed smack in Rex's lap.
"Oh! I am sorry. I must have had too much wine. What a silly girl I am!"
His arms had gone around her to steady her in place. "Are you alright?"
"Of course. But I would rather not get up, if you do not mind. I might become dizzy." She wriggled her bottom and felt him stirring beneath her seat.
Charlotte didn't miss the twinkle in his eyes when he said, "We do not want you to faint, Mistress."
Charlotte & the Pirate Page 4