by Eris Adderly
Hannah found herself wanting to sidestep this question and not give him too much information about her, but there was no time to concoct a believable lie. She decided, in the end, that it would make no difference now if he knew why she sailed for the Colonies, seeing how at this point she was likely never to make it there.
That last thought fell like a weight on her, but she pushed on to her answer, uninterested in bitter realities for the moment. “My uncle is in Boston. I was to go there and be of assistance to him. He’s had an injury and now he has a bit of trouble managing by himself. My father thought this could be a way for me to forget about my husband and begin a new life.”
There. She’d revealed what she would. The only worse thing she could give up to him would be to tell him now how pleased she was with the way his breeches were pulled taut over his thighs.
You’re impossible, Hannah Collingwood.
She watched him process what she’d said, but to her surprise, he went back to his questions about her studies. “You say you’ve read classical works?” he asked her. “Which ones?”
“Well,” she said, faltering when put on the spot, “I suppose any number of authors come to mind. Horace, Ovid, Vergil …” Hannah wondered how any of this was relevant.
Blackburn’s feet came down from the edge of the table in a swift motion at her answer, and he scooted his chair forward in interest. “Those are in Latin. You read Latin?” She did not care for the tense way he held his body now as he awaited her response.
“I do, Captain,” she said, taking a step back from him now, unsure as to where this was all going, “but I don’t see why that would be so important for me here.” She made a gesture to indicate the ship.
He rose to his feet, shoving the chair back several inches with the vigour of his movement. Striding to the same wall that held the bookshelf, he moved to unlock a tiny cabinet door from which he produced a flattish wooden case about the length of his forearm and a hand span wide. Unlatching the case, he brought out several folded leaves of parchment and thrust them at her.
Hannah started back at his forceful brandishing of the papers, but he pressed her, his voice insistent.
“Can you tell me what’s written in these?”
Her hand moved to take the papers from him, hesitant and all the while keeping her eyes focused on his face with a sceptical lowering of her brows. Perhaps this might give her a way to bargain with him? Likely not; the man did hold power over her very life. Still, she decided to take the chance.
“I will if you leave off your scandalous treatment of me, Captain Blackburn.”
Her sudden boldness brought a bark of laughter from the man, diffusing the tension that had built in him during his urgent desire for her to translate whatever missives the parchments contained.
“You can have two days, Mrs Collingwood. I’ll give you that long, my dear, but you can only expect a man to steel himself against a tempting beauty such as yourself for so long.” His wide smile at these words made her cheeks colour. And he’d referred to her as a beauty.
Suppressing her inappropriate flush, she took his bargain as the best she could probably expect to receive. She’d known he wouldn’t give up on his advances, and two days were better than no days, which is what she’d likely had before.
“Accepted.” She nodded, clearing her throat. “Well. Then. Let us see what we can make of these.”
Hannah thumbed open the topmost folded piece of paper and began to read, mumbling to herself as she did her best to translate the compact hand cramping the page.
“… my friend … last several years … daily into town … a seller of books …”
None of this seemed important or weighty in any way, and she couldn’t imagine what interest it held for the captain of a pirate vessel. Still, she read on.
“… the monastery … word of God … slaves coming to … worried … plans to …”
Hanna’s fingers tightened on the parchment and the pace of her heartbeat quickened as her eyes skipped the rest of the translation and went straight to the bottom.
What in God’s name is afoot here?
The letter bore a simple signature of initials: B.S.
As she’d been turning the Latin sentences into English in her head, preparing to give Blackburn a summary of the letter’s contents, a nagging idea had tugged at her mind. The hand had looked distractingly familiar, especially the excessive flourishes on the ascenders, those letters like ‘h’ and ‘d’ that rose above the rest of the line. She’d just seen this same hand not very long ago, on the letter to her father from Boston.
B.S. was Bertrand Symes, her uncle. She was sure of it.
“Captain,” she said in a clipped tone, folding the paper closed again, “what are these letters doing in your possession?” A part of her cringed at the demanding note in her voice, but urgency and suspicion drove the words out of her before she could temper them.
He’d been leaning forward on the balls of his feet, anxious to hear her translation, but at this question from her, his brows raised in a way that made his expression dangerous.
“I beg your pardon?”
“What are you doing,” she said, her words low and distinct, “with these letters?”
In a breath, he was in her space, grabbing up the wrist that held the papers, his face inches from hers, eyes glinting down in a pointed reminder of which of them had the power in this situation.
“I believe I asked you to translate, Mrs Collingwood,” he said, quiet and chilling, “not ask questions. Now why is it you suddenly wish to know these things?”
This close to him again, and with his fingers gripping her wrist, Hannah found herself almost unable to breathe. It was not unlike what she’d felt in that tense moment with Mr Till at the mast.
His eyes flicked down to her parted lips and then back up to meet hers again. The only point of contact between them was his firm hand, but that gaze of his seemed to touch her in several other places at once.
“Why.” This time it was not a question.
“Because …” Those eyes were doing horrible things to her. She caved. “Because I believe them to be from my uncle. It is his writing. His initials.”
The grip on her wrist fell away at this as the captain’s eyes grew round and he snatched the papers back from her hand.
Hannah only had a moment to witness this change in his expression, however, as he schooled himself back to his usual calm within an eye blink. Shoving the letters back in their wood case, he deposited the lot into the small cabinet he’d pulled them from and locked its door again with the tiny key.
“There’s no need for translation, Mrs Collingwood. These aren’t what I thought they were. You’ll still have your two days, you have my word.”
She didn’t like at all the abrupt way he’d taken back the papers. Something was amiss. “But how did you come to have correspondence from my uncle in your possession?” she pressed him.
“The letters were among the effects of a man I knew in Kingston. I’ve never met your uncle,” he said, brushing her off. “It’s no longer relevant, Mrs Collingwood, now that I see they aren’t what I was hoping for. You’ve no need to worry.” His reassurances were flimsy, at best.
“May I have them, then, since they’re of no use to you?” Oh, she was bold in her requests. Hannah needed a careful tread upon an edge such as this.
Blackburn crooked a brow at her, considering. “Perhaps,” he said, a measure of his prior devilry returning to his eyes. “Let me see just how pleasant you can be after your two days are up, my dear, and maybe we can speak then of an exchange of gifts.”
The captain turned from her then to saunter from the room, shutting the door behind him. Once again, he’d left her with her thoughts and body aflutter at the mere suggestion of an ‘exchange of gifts’. That bloody man. How could she be expected to go on in this manner? Two days would never be enough time to calm her mind or cool her flesh, Latin and secrets be damned.
* * *
*
Edmund broke into a stride to moment he closed his stateroom doors behind him. His mind raced with the discovery he’d just made, thanks to his unexpectedly educated passenger. He needed to tell Benjamin and relieve himself of the burden of the secret he bore before he split at the seams.
He found his quartermaster on the lower gun deck, leaning against the wheel of a cannon, massive arms crossed over his chest, listening with mirth to one of the raucous stories never in short supply from the ship’s Master Gunner, Mr Simon Grey.
For a short and trim man, Grey was a proud little peacock who more than made up for his stature with a carrying voice that was only drowned out by the bright colours of his clothing. He was eminently likable, though, and knew his way around ball and powder, which was all that really mattered to the captain of The Devil’s Luck.
Edmund slowed his gait as he approached the two men, his mouth turning up as he took in the last of Grey’s bawdy words.
“… and then I said to her, ‘My dear, it would be better if you kept your eyes closed and your mouth open!’ ”
Grey roared at his own wit, and Benjamin chuckled along, the corners of his eyes wrinkling in merry fellowship. Edmund shook his head as he took in the gunner in all of his garish glory. He’d been lucky to find a dress suitable for Mrs Collingwood at all in the slops—any garment as brightly coloured as the one he’d given her tended to fall prey to the needle and thread of Simon Grey, the choicest remnants to adorn the sleeves of the man’s already outlandish coat.
“Mr Till, Mr Grey.”
“Ho, Captain!” The little rooster of a man waved at him.
“Spreading tales down here under my decks, Grey?” Edmund gave the man a jovial slap on the shoulder.
“Spreading tails, more like, Captain!” The gunner snorted a laugh at his own clever word play.
“Just keep my cannons ready, Grey, and you can spread whatever you like. Mr Till”—he turned to his friend—“might I have a word with you above decks?”
“Aye, Sir.” Benjamin pushed away from the wheel and made his goodbyes to the man standing next to him. “You’ll have to tell me about that wench with the missing ear the next time you amuse me with your stories, Grey.”
“Oh, indeed I will, Sir!” he called after Benjamin and Edmund as they moved away to mount the stairs. “A fit lass that one was! Never could hear me coming!” Grey’s crowing laughter followed them as they ascended into the sun.
Edmund led his quartermaster to the man’s own modest cabin in the forecastle and, once they were inside, he drew the door shut and spoke to his friend in a rush.
“Benjamin. Mrs Collingwood has given me the impossible today!”
“I thought you took that from her yesterday, old friend,” the man said with a grin.
“No, this is something far more important. I found out today that our lovely widow was meant to travel to Boston to take care of her uncle.”
Till shook his head, giving a subtle shrug of his shoulders indicating he didn’t know what Edmund was on about, and would not make an effort to guess. It was time to lay all the cards on the table.
“Her uncle is Bertrand Symes,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper, though they stood in the cabin alone. “He’s bloody Prometheus, Benjamin.”
Now his friend reacted. The tattooed man’s arms fell in shock and his green eyes widened at this revelation, just the way Edmund knew they would.
“Are you certain?” Benjamin asked, his features still pushed together in disbelief.
“Oh yes, my friend. I had it from her own mouth. It seems our fair passenger can read Latin. I gave her those papers to translate and she demanded to know how I’d come by her uncle’s letters.”
“You certainly do seem to have the Devil’s own luck,” Till said, “and not just for a name on your ship. What does this mean for us now, Edmund?”
“It means we make for Boston. After we take on supplies at Nassau, as planned, of course.”
“But don’t you think this will upset the Widow Collingwood even further when she learns of your plans?” An unhelpful look of concern played over Benjamin’s features when he made this point.
“And you’ll be telling her then?” Edmund asked, incredulous. “Trust me, she’ll be far more tractable if she doesn’t know, and I must admit she’s much more pleasant to handle once you get her to purr.”
“Edmund,” his friend argued further, “do you truly think your father will honour his word after so many years have passed? What if you deliver Prometheus and he laughs in your face? Then you’ll have neither his end of the bargain nor that pretty bird in your cabin.”
“You worry enough for the both of us, Benjamin.” He brushed off the man’s words, not wanting to consider complications. “She’s only a passing fancy. I’ve been after Prometheus for years. And my father must honour his word. He must.”
“Boston, then.” The bald man nodded his head in agreement.
Edmund returned the gesture, settling the matter for now, and squashing down the doubts his oldest friend had just planted in his head. He’d have plenty of time with Hannah Collingwood before they arrived in Boston, and there he would trade her in for a greater prize, or at least that was what he kept assuring himself.
* * * *
Chapter Four
The Storm
“It is a revenge the Devil sometimes takes upon the virtuous, that he entraps them by the force of the very passion they have suppressed and think themselves superior to.”
– George Santayana
“On second glance I found beyond the wall of your treasures a heart trembling in its solitude and seclusion like the trembling of a thirsty man within a cage of gold and jewels, but without water.”
– Kahlil Gibran, Mirrors of the Soul
* * * *
Hannah paced about the cabin, her nose in a tattered twelve year old copy of The Storm, by the upstart pamphleteer Defoe, which she’d pulled from the captain’s shelf. The author had a way with words, she allowed him that, but there was no way to convey on paper the true reality of that disaster.
She’d seen fifteen years of age by the fall of 1703 when the storm had devastated England with its terrible fury. Aside from the destruction of buildings, farms, and ships, the extent of the flooding in Bristol had been unbelievable. What a person does not realise about a flood in a crowded city is that following the receding of waters, a body has no way at all to escape from the smell. Hannah wrinkled her nose even now at the memory.
Unpleasant odours had been the least of the problems for the port, however. The wreckage of ships and ruined structures had clogged the Avon, littered its shores, and even washed up an astonishing way inland. So much had been lost in goods and livestock, not to mention the deaths among the population.
Hannah did not express her religious opinions aloud, as she didn’t wish to listen to the inevitable words of censure they would bring, but she wondered to herself about what reason Providence could have in causing an event such as that. Fate seemed more than happy to upend lives, but to what purpose?
Her philosophical musings crumbled around her, dashed apart by the sound of the door opening and the subsequent appearance of Mr Till, bearing a plate and a pitcher.
“Afternoon, Mrs Collingwood.” He greeted her in congenial tones, as if she were something more than a glorified prisoner.
Upendings of Fate, indeed.
The Quartermaster set his handful down on the cabin’s table and rummaged about in one of the room’s cabinets until he came out with a tin cup for whatever was in the pitcher. He poured a measure of its contents into the small container and handed it over to Hannah.
“Beer,” he said as she gave the cup a suspicious sniff. “We can’t be wasting our fresh water on meals, Madam. It’s beer or wine, and the Captain’s got the latter locked up for now.” Till tried his best to be disarming in his expression.
She sipped at the beer, thankful at least for something to drink. It would have to do. Glan
cing down at the dish of food, she saw what most likely was salt pork and an accompanying portion of ship’s biscuit. Well there will be no fine meals here, you silly woman. Be lucky they’re feeding you at all.
“And where is our Captain today? Does he know you’ve brought me food?” she asked him, her tongue regaining some of its former edge now that she’d become more accustomed to the presence of the men. “He might not be pleased if he catches you doing something courteous for me.”
He caught the teasing note in her voice and chuckled as he brought out the tall stool from the opposite side of the table. “The Captain is with Mr Grey at the moment, having a debate about the merits of adding a second Gunner’s Mate. And no, Mrs Collingwood, I don’t think he’ll mind if I’ve kept you from starving in his absence.” Sea green eyes twinkled at her from across the table, and Hannah found herself returning his wry grin.
She pulled over the one other chair in the room and sat down to eat. Till hadn’t brought her anything in the way of a fork or knife, so she was forced to tear off pieces of the dry meat with her fingers. Hannah tried her best to make do while the quartermaster gazed at her over his massive folded arms. At least today, he’d done her the courtesy of wearing a shirt, cropped of sleeves though it was. There would be no way for her to focus on her meal otherwise.
The two of them sat there in a not totally uncomfortable silence as Hannah picked her way through the meat and tack, flicking dark spots out of the latter that were probably weevils at one time. She didn’t want to turn her nose up at the sight, though, for fear she might receive even worse to eat if she appeared to complain.
The work of her jaws to chew the tough biscuit, the sips of beer at regular intervals, set up a physical rhythm, a drone that lulled her out of her tense thoughts and let her drift. Her guard thus lowered, Hannah fell prey to the second thing after opening her mouth that got her into the most trouble. She thought.