by Eris Adderly
“It’s done,” she said to the prone man, and he favoured her with a ghost of a nod and a murmur of thanks from behind closed eyes. His body relaxed now. He would need to rest.
The captain let out a rush of air from where he stood, as though he’d held his breath the whole time, and Hannah looked up to find his eyes moving from her to Till in a look of reappraisal.
Let him look, she thought. She was reappraising herself. Years of study had made themselves useful just now, in a significant way. And her father had thought he was merely indulging her curiosities. But here she’d put the knowledge to use. There were other matters to be discussed this evening, surely, but at the moment, Hannah’s thoughts were humming with possibility. Perhaps she’d found a new use for herself?
“Pass me those strips of Mr Till’s shirt, Captain, and we’ll get him bandaged,” she said, holding out her hand. “And then I’m finding somewhere to go for a change of clothes. We’ll see if I can’t avoid any more blood for the rest of this evening.”
* * * *
Benjamin heard the door latch and shut as Edmund trailed out of his cabin after Hannah.
He’d wanted to stop his friend, to catch him by the sleeve and extract a promise that the captain would do nothing else to irritate her. To represent the both of them well. Convince her to stay. But he couldn’t get his throat to work, exhausted and weak as he was. He could only lie there and hope.
Fucking Graves, he swore to himself in the fog. Did she say she’d … killed him? The lovely widow, with her touch like silk? Perhaps he’d grown delirious. That couldn’t have been what he heard.
And yet why had she come back? In the haze of pain, Benjamin thought he’d heard her call someone Uncle. Had Symes been in here? Wasn’t Edmund supposed to have the man in the brig?
Nothing made sense, and he gave up trying to force it. He wouldn’t be able to affect a damned thing from here on his bunk, and so gave up trying to worry. Answers would come when he woke.
For now, he hoped somehow that the widow’s appearance on the ship meant Fate was affording them another chance. And that, for both their sakes, his oldest friend was demonstrating better judgement this time.
The wounded quartermaster drifted, memories of blue eyes and that oddly proud smile carrying him off to sleep.
* * * *
It was only the second time she’d seen the surgeon’s tiny cabin, if Hannah counted the brief time she’d spent there with Brigit her first day aboard the ship. She’d chosen it now because it was the one unoccupied room where she might find enough privacy to shed one set of garments for another.
The captain had followed at her heels out of Till’s cabin, leaving the man to recover his wits in peace for the time being. He hadn’t bothered her with questions about her impending decision on the way to the lower deck, but once she’d entered the room he moved in right behind her and shut the door.
In a heartbeat, he had her pressed flush against a wall of cabinets, hands against wooden doors on either side of her. Before she could ask what he was about his mouth was covering hers in a fervent, long-restrained kiss, his tongue sliding between her lips as they came open in a mew of surprise. By the time she managed to untangle herself, an effort requiring a forceful shove at his chest with her palms, the captain was already grinding his hips into hers.
“Edmund!” She was out of breath now. “Have taken leave of your senses?”
He hadn’t let her away from the wall yet, and his face was still very close. The back of his hand slid over her cheek.
“Perhaps I have,” he said, dark eyes raking over her in the lamplight. “I’ve never wanted you more than I do right now, after seeing you today. Where did you learn such things?”
Hannah relaxed a measure at his words. He didn’t seem about to force her, but he was … very aroused. She was surprised to find herself enjoying him where he was for the time being, and refrained from pushing him away for the moment. It had been so long since she’d felt a pleasant touch.
“You know I studied, Edmund.” Her voice was low, intimate, and she indulged herself in his name at last, permitting a cautious taste of their former familiarity.
“Yes, but”—he tilted his face down to her neck and inhaled, his lips brushing her skin in the barest whisper of contact—“I thought it was all literature, languages. Medical matters? Mending flesh?” His questions were academic, but the hot breath at her throat was not.
“You never asked,” she said, clenching her fists to keep her own hands to herself. “Besides, we were usually … distracted … at the time …”
Hannah needed to end this now, before it went much further. She could feel the captain boiling and still needed to make decisions about her plans for the near future without this man clouding her mind with lust.
One of his hands slid to her waist and he was moving small kisses onto her collar bone. “Would you like some help out of your dress, Mrs Collingwood?” The suggestion was very clear in his words. She fairly bubbled in private amusement. He’d provided her with the perfect opportunity for escape.
“Yes.”
She heard his intake of air and the accompanying groan as he thought he was about to get what he wanted.
Not just yet, Captain. We’ve a ways to go before we come to that crossroads again.
“Send for Brigit, if you please,” she told him in crisp tones, all desire gone from her words. “I’d prefer the help of another woman. She already knows what she’s about—I’ll be changed more quickly that way.”
“What?” He pulled away from her then, blindsided by the turn she’d taken.
“The maid? Whom you’ve sent to work for the cook? She’s the only other woman aboard who can help me with the dress.” Hannah was more entertained than she should have been at the man’s dismay at being sent away just then.
“Hannah,” he said as he stepped away, trying to be discreet about the adjustment he made to his breeches, “are you sure?”
Indeed, she was enjoying his torment far too much.
“Of course I’m sure. Send me Brigit so I can do what I intended when I came to this cabin: change clothes. We can continue this ‘discussion’ at a later time.”
Yes, much later. Maybe Benjamin will be healed up by then …
“I … well … ugh.” The captain made a noise of frustration when he saw she was entirely serious, and ran a hand over the top of his head as though it might soothe the heat simmering elsewhere.
“I’ll have her sent ‘round,” he said, resigned. “Will there be anything else, Mrs Collingwood?”
“No, Captain Blackburn, I believe that will be all.”
She smirked to herself as she watched him leave the narrow cabin to go hunt for the maid.
* * * *
“Just there, Brigit.”
The stays had reached the limit she would tolerate in their re-lacing, and Hannah’s former maid tied them off at her word. With a rustle of new, crisp taffeta, the other woman began helping Hannah into the clothes she’d purchased in that bizarre transaction at the dressmaker’s.
“Are you sure you want to stay here, Brigit?” she asked while the woman pulled skirts over her hips. “If you wish to leave, I’m certain I could convince the captain.”
“Oh no, Mrs Collingwood, there’ll be no need for that.” Her former maid presented sleeves for Hannah’s arms. “I believe I’ve found a place for myself here. Grown quite fond of Mr Bone, if you will.” Hannah could hear the warmth in the woman’s words at that last bit.
At least one of us seems to know what she wants.
“Besides, I had no idea what I would have done once we reached Boston,” she continued, working at buttons now. “I’d have to either earn my passage back home or find work in some strange place. I like the galley well enough for now.” Hannah knew it was the cook that held all her interest, but that went without saying.
She let the woman’s words settle in as the final tugs on the gown made it fall into place. It seemed that Brigit�
��s lack of status offered her an enviable amount of freedom to come and go and she pleased. She wouldn’t have needed letters of introduction in Boston, or a chaperone everywhere she went. Brigit wanted to stay aboard and take up with the cook? She could do it and no one would bat an eye.
“There,” she said. “All finished. That does look right lovely on you, Mrs Collingwood. You say it was meant for someone else? She must’ve been very close to your build, if a bit wider through the hips.”
The blessedly clean fabric smoothed under her fingers as Hannah turned around to face Brigit in the small space they’d shared for a brief time, weeks ago.
Favouring the other woman with a smile she said, “Yes, it seems luck was with me, for that bit of the day, at least. I don’t know where I would’ve found something else to wear if not for this. And it is a relief to be out of the other.” She gestured to the stained gown on the floor.
The two of them stood for a moment, glancing down and around the room, neither sure of what to say.
What now? How can I go up there and deal with all his bloody questions? I don’t see Brigit having all these problems.
Indeed. She grasped at any line that might help her decide, blurting her worries aloud.
“Brigit,” she said, and the woman’s eyes snapped back up to hers, “Did Mr Bone … that is, did you … know right away? That you wanted to stay aboard? With him?”
Dimples were back on Brigit’s cheeks. “Oh …” She looked at the ceiling, as though that was where answers were. “I think I knew something the first afternoon. Just what I couldn’t have told you. No, I think it might have been three or four days before I’d made up my mind.”
Three or four days?
Hannah had been aboard for over two months and couldn’t make a decision. Her desires were plain, but they were irrational. She needed to consider the practicality of the life she might choose to lead. Every part of her old life would end. Could she see her father again? And successful as Blackburn had been so far at evading the navy, there was always a noose waiting for a crew like the one aboard The Devil’s Luck to make a mistake. Staying would make her a criminal with them.
There was no easy path, but she was tired of staring at the fork in the road. Hannah decided it was time to stop delaying the inevitable.
“Thank you, Brigit,” she said, sincere and pleased the other woman had found something far better than hardship in the galley. “I’m sure you’d like to return to Mr Bone, now.”
Brigit’s scarred face turned up in a mischievous grin as she made to leave the room. “He does keep me busy, that one.”
With a whine of hinges, the cabin door shut behind the only female crew member aboard The Devil’s Luck, and Hannah was left again with the buzz of impending decisions humming in her ears.
And the consequences of such decisions.
She’d spent the most wonderful and miserable days of her life aboard this ship, and now she had to choose. There would be no way to know the future, other than that it would be like nothing she could imagine.
If you’d known the future while you were still in Bristol, would you have boarded the ship anyway, Hannah?
It was an ugly question, and uglier still, for her reaction to the acceptable answer.
The captain wanted her to stay, and with her uncle no longer threatened, as the case appeared to be, she found herself finally free to consider such a choice. Her face burned even now at the way she’d fought the urge to put her hands on him only a while ago. To accept his kisses and forget all else.
And she wanted to see Benjamin healed, as well. Those green eyes not in pain, muscle knitted back together well enough so she could hear his laugh while he hoisted her up on to his bunk.
Heaven help you, woman, you need to make this decision on something other than the way these men dampen your seat.
She shook her head, clearing the fog, and reached for the handle on the door. Being out of this cabin and among other people—many other people, not just the captain and the quartermaster—would help her face realities with less distraction.
Her feet carried her along narrow corridors and up wooden steps as she tried to settle her thoughts about the day. She’d taken a life this afternoon, and then possibly saved one soon after. Should she not feel something more, though, for having cleaved a man’s flesh with steel, having watched as his lifeblood poured out over her hand? In truth, she felt very little, save relief to have rid herself of a problem. She would have to consider this lack of remorse. Perhaps her unwomanly quest for knowledge was not the only sign that she had never been quite suited to polite society.
Hannah moved upward through the ship in search of sanity, answers.
* * * *
Edmund turned from his discussion with Symes and Henry Adams just in time to see the widow emerge from below decks. He heard no more of barrels or preserving their contents for a time.
It was full dark by now, but there were plenty of lanterns hanging about the deck. He had a worthy view of the woman he was so desperate to have, and she was revealed to him at last: dazzling plumage beneath the wings of an otherwise unassuming bird. He’d seen her in her traveling clothes when she’d first been discovered aboard the ship, and of course in the revealing grown he’d given her after destroying her first one. But one of those had been a poor frame for her beauty, and the second, though its neckline did make his breeches tight, was too crass for her character, he admitted now.
The unexpected spine and authority she’d grown since he’d found her standing, bloody, over the surgeon’s body, was now given expression in her appearance as well. He wanted to rush to her then, to claim her on the spot, and was prepared to go quite mad if she were to decide to stay in Boston with her uncle.
Symes had proven rather entertaining, once he wasn’t a prisoner, and he could see why she might want to remain with her uncle, but … Surely she’d continue on with them now.
She must! After what I’ve chosen to give up?
He was in no mood at all to slink back to Benjamin’s cabin and inform him her short visit to run a needle through his flesh had been her last.
She approached him now, and it was all he could do to keep himself from touching her in some way, embracing her in front of her uncle. Especially after the way she’d teased him in the surgeon’s cabin. He suppressed a groan.
“Captain,” she said in polite greeting. “Uncle, Mr Adams.”
“Mrs Collingwood,” and, “Niece,” the three of them responded in unison.
“Uncle, if I might have a word with you. In private.”
She’s going to delay speaking to me again?
Edmund’s frustration was about to erupt, when another commotion broke out on deck, near the gang plank. One of the sailors, Reeve again, was hustling in their direction, elbowing other men out of his way as he went, and earning their grunts and curses for it.
“Captain!” He strode to a halt. “We’ve a considerable problem.”
How many times today will I be interrupted this way? Graves’s escape, Benjamin’s injury …
“What now, sailor?” His hands came to his waist in irritation.
“The harbourmaster’s on his way. There’s a lieutenant with him. Royal Navy.”
“WHAT?” His response was loud and vehement enough that now a number of the crew turned toward them. The widow gasped off to his left and Adams swore under his breath.
“Sir, the Persephone and the Ormonde have us blocked in. They look about fifty guns apiece.”
This was the first time in many years he’d seen one of his crew with a face full of so much worry. A worry they’d been caught in a net from which their captain couldn’t wriggle them away in time.
He snapped his gaze to look over his shoulder and, sure as day, the two ships of the line were staggered across his ship’s path out of the harbour.
Fuck. FUCK!
The blue coat and white breeches that meant Navy bobbed toward them in the wharf’s lantern light, accompanied b
y another man, not so attired, who must be the harbourmaster. But that was not all. There were two rows of outfitted sailors marching along behind.
This was bloody impossible. Hadn’t he posted men on watch for navy sails for this very reason? And this would all happen now, once he’d been so close to gaining what he wanted, at long, merciless last? He stole a glance at Hannah in desperation.
No!
He wanted to tear at his hair
Bloody, cursed, Navy! Of all the days!
Edmund moved to the gunwale, preparing for what, he didn’t know. They were outgunned at the very least. He was surprised to notice the widow trailing him.
“Ahoy, Devil’s Luck!” the harbourmaster called out, cupping a hand to his mouth. “We’ll speak to your captain! Send him ashore!” The man sounded inescapably serious.
He glanced behind him now at his crew. Most of them had gone still on the deck, and were staring at him, waiting to see what he’d do. There would be nowhere for them to go; no path to retreat, and the lieutenant would stand his ground until someone descended from the ship.
His men looked to him to keep them out of scrapes like this, and he could see no way clear this time. There was nothing he could do. Nothing! Edmund was almost glad Benjamin was laid up in his bunk at the moment, so he wouldn’t have to suffer the humiliation in front of his friend. The man would know soon enough, though, if the Navy had its way.
Jaw clenched tight, he mounted the gang plank. It would be the gallows for the lot of them, but perhaps if he surrendered himself, some measure of leniency might be granted? Unlikely. The Royal Navy was not in the business of granting mercy to pirates. It was more like Edmund to have plans for everything, but this …? His steps carried him down to the wharf, guts knotting tighter the whole way.