by C. K. Brooke
A dash of amusement teased his hard features. “And I much prefer you without the shawl,” he returned.
She pouted, pulling the garment more tautly across her chest.
He then raised a hand to his head. Briefly, Captain Morrow glanced over his shoulder and out to the horizon, almost as though ensuring no other ships were nearby. With needless caution, he removed the hat. He set it over the back of the chair and took his seat across from her.
Abi stared as the candlelight played over his face, illuminating faint lines and angles she hadn’t noticed before. She was unable to look away. He was uniquely, formidably fetching. And it seemed her brain was stuck on the fact, unable to move past it.
“Care to know tonight’s menu?” he asked lightly.
A small smile slipped through her lips. “Let me guess. Fish, or perhaps fish?” It had been mackerel for both breakfast and the noontime meal that day.
They were interrupted by the portly cook who, as usual, said not a word as he poured two bowls of a tomato bisque before them. He quitted their table as soundlessly as he’d come.
On the opposite end of the forecastle, one of the sailors began to play his fiddle. The chipper strains sifted through the air in their direction as Abi spooned the creamy bisque into her mouth. Captain Morrow, having finished with his ritual grace-saying, began to eat as well. Abi eyed him, wondering if he might ask her to dance.
She’d danced plenty a jig with her father—especially when he’d been at the rum. But there was another kind of dancing she had only witnessed from afar, in foreign taverns on rare visits to port, when one of the crew had found a lady companion for the evening. Abi had overheard the sailors’ bawdy stories, recalling how they’d danced with maidens back home and held them close, hands at their waists, heads on their shoulders…
Despite the hot soup, a shiver passed through Abi at the thought of being held that way, by a man like James Morrow, moving with her, his hands on her back. She steadied herself, inhaling. She didn’t know where the thoughts were coming from.
All the same, she longed for her supper companion to invite her for a spin. But, although the fiddler played—and soon, the crewmen’s voices joined in, singing along to his tunes—the captain never asked her.
Eventually, Cook returned to collect their bowls. He replaced them with platters of seabass and boiled greens. Abi thanked him as he left. She looked back to Captain Morrow, only to find him bowing his head over his plate again.
“Have you ever eaten a meal you didn’t mumble over?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. She lifted her fork and flaked off an edge of bass. She wouldn’t be surprised if the superstitious habit had been with him since his earliest years at sea. Most mariners had their pet good-luck charms.
“Plenty.” He drew a sip from his glass. “But I’ve been…” he cleared his throat, “tryin’ to change me ways.”
Abi chewed thoughtfully. Him, change? “How so?” she inquired.
He loosened his collar, looking uneasy, and cleared his throat again, more loudly. Abi understood it to mean that her question would not be answered. And she was correct, for they resumed the main course in silence after that.
When she’d swallowed the last of her vegetables, leaving naught but a puddle of oil on her plate where the seabass had been, Morrow reached into his breast pocket. He extracted a leather-bound book, the same from which he’d been reading earlier that morning. Catching Abi watching, he offered her a grin. “Told you I’d read to ye a bit more, if you wanted.”
Abi nodded enthusiastically.
“Let’s see,” he muttered to himself, thumbing through the pages. “What passage is worthy of ye tonight, Abigail Clear?”
She waited with bated breath. She loved stories—all nautical folk did. And books were rare on her home ship, perhaps even rarer than a pirate who could read one.
“Aha.” He stopped well into the pages. Abi didn’t remove her eyes from him, his parted mouth, the way in which the words rolled smoothly from his tongue: “Behold, thou art fair, my love…thou hast doves’ eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from Mount Gilead.”
She held onto the sweet words, captivated.
A chord of sensuality arose in his voice. “Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet…thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate…Thy neck is like the tower of David builded for an armory.” He opened his mouth to continue, but abruptly closed it. No more flattering prose emerged from his lips.
“Go on,” whispered Abi. She hadn’t realized it, but she was clenching the seat of her chair.
Morrow lifted his eyes from the pages. “Miss Clear,” his expression was placid, “would you care to read?”
Abi released her chair. “Oh. I, er…don’t read very good.”
“You don’t read very well,” Morrow corrected her.
Abi gnawed the inside of her cheek.
“Then it will do you good to practice.” He reached out, handing the book across the table. Hesitantly, Abi took it. She cast him an uncertain glance, but he nodded encouragingly. “From the top,” he instructed her.
Abi studied the page. And then, she began to read, slowly. “Let him kiss me,” she paused, “w-with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than…w-wine.” She completed the sentence, proud of herself, but her brow furled. What, exactly, was she reading?
“Skip ahead a little,” Morrow purred, his voice silkier than she’d have guessed it capable of. “Go to the fifth canticle.”
Though wary, Abi turned the page. She skimmed down until finding the fifth section. “…It is the voice of my b-beloved…saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night.” Morrow watched her with anticipation. Her eyes shifted between him and the text. “My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the…the door, and my—bowels?—were moved for him.”
Her breathing quickened, and she found herself gazing at the man’s throat. She refocused on the print. “I rose up to open to my beloved; and my hands dropped with m-myrrh, and my fingers with s-sweet smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the lock. I opened to my beloved…”
She had read enough. Abi closed the tome, feeling a gleam of perspiration at her brow. “This is tawdry.” She glared at the man, her face reddening with each passing second. “Why do you carry around such perversion?”
The captain laughed heartily. “’Tis the Song of Songs, Abigail. From the Holy Book!”
“That can’t be in the Holy Book.”
“Why, look at it,” he cried, more laughter frothing forth. “It’s in your hands!”
She squinted down at the gilt lettering on the cover. The Holy Bible, it read simply. She thrust it back at him. “What’s that sort of poetry doing in the Bible?” she grumbled. This only seemed to amuse the captain further, which added to her embarrassment. “I thought you promised to keep tonight civil.”
His eyes glinted playfully. “You don’t find our supper to have been civil thus far?”
“Not if you’re tricking me into reading scum,” said Abi, although she revealed a tiny smile of her own.
Cook finally returned to collect their plates. “Dessert last,” he announced simply.
The ship bobbed as they awaited the final course, the candle burning down in its old jar and giving way to the light of the moon and stars. “To where are we sailing, Captain?” Abi asked him, her voice soft as she studied the heavens.
He issued a noncommittal noise. “Depends.”
“On what?”
Captain Morrow matched her gaze into the dark horizon. “The ship will wander aimlessly for weeks, months, possibly years, wasting leagues and all our time, until someone comes forth with the knowledge to recapture Mr. Clear.”
“Captain Clear,” Abi corrected, a bite piercing her tone. Inwardly, she chided herself for so quickly losing her cool. But didn’t Morrow know well enough that she wasn’t going to tell him anything? Why, if that wa
s all the evening had been about, then she was through.
Abi didn’t bother excusing herself as she slid her chair back and got to her feet.
Morrow glanced up. “We’ve not been served dessert yet.”
“I don’t want dessert,” she mumbled, stalking off. She should’ve known better—the entire evening, she’d been had. The captain only wanted information, still. That was all she was good for. And the longer he held onto the absurd notion that she would give in, the angrier it made her.
Captain Morrow remained in his seat, watching the stars by himself. And in spite of everything, Abi discovered she was strangely disappointed when he did not come after her.
***
Cook offered no reaction to Abigail’s fresh absence, for which Morrow was grateful. The captain accepted his dish of cake and fruit, though without much appetite for it. Assuring Cook he’d see to the table and his own plates, he dismissed the man from his duties for the night.
Morrow had thought if he’d fed her well, brought her into good spirits, and gently warned her of the time and distance they’d be wasting without her help, Abigail would open up a tad, become more sympathetic. Yet all he’d done was irk her. He knew of myriad ways to force her to speak…but he wouldn’t be a savage.
Not to mention, the vulnerability with which she’d just read to him from the Song, the fragile edge to her voice as she sounded out the provocative prose…something about it yanked at him, deep within, though he couldn’t name what. He brushed the unwanted sensation aside. He’d drunk too much wine. He glanced over at her abandoned glass, and saw that she’d barely touched it. No wonder she’d gotten so uptight.
The man shoveled a forkful of cake into his mouth for the hell of it. It would just take longer than he’d anticipated. But it would happen. He would coax her to lark, if it was the last thing he did.
Chapter 7
“Up!” Someone was pounding on her door. “Up and arise!”
Abi sat bolt upright in her mat. Was it a raid? A storm? Was an enemy invading? She hastened to light the candle on the shelf at her bedside.
“Get up,” the austere voice commanded again.
Abi scrambled out of bed. “Captain Morrow?” She pulled open the door, recognizing the voice as his. “Is everything all right?”
The man stood in the doorway, fully dressed and prepared to take on the day, although dawn had hardly broken. “Here.” He shoved a stack of folded garments into Abi’s arms. “Ye’ll wish to wear these. You’ve exactly five minutes to join the others upstairs. Chop, chop.” With that, he retreated, the heels of his boots clacking up the hall.
Still fuzzy from sleep, Abi looked down at the stack in her arms. She placed it onto her mat and began to unfold the articles. A bloke’s blouse, a vest, and…trousers! She beamed, peeking outside the open door in case the captain might have lingered to hear her thanks. But he was gone.
Thrilled, she secured the door and slipped out of the dreaded, low-busted gown. She heaved a breath of relief as she pulled the trousers up each of her legs. This was so much better. She draped the shirt overhead—it was enormous on her—and slid her arms through the vest. It fit her more closely, pronouncing her shape.
How long had Morrow said she had? Time was dwindling as she groomed herself, combing the tangles from her hair. Abi had never cared so much about looking presentable before, and wondered vaguely at the change. She didn’t have time to muse, however. She was due above decks, for whatever purpose, imminently.
Her boots found her feet. She snuffed the candle, and out she trotted. As she marched upstairs, the sun ascended alongside her. She came upon the rest of the crew scattered among the top decks, all sporting rolled-up sleeves, some with their britches folded to the knees, kerchiefs round their necks. Already, they were stooping over tin buckets, soaking sponges and scrub brushes in lye water. A frown pressed its way down Abi’s lips.
“Miss Clear,” boomed Captain Morrow, drawing the others’ attention to her. His eyes scanned her from head to boots, as if deciding whether he found her new appearance suitable. “You decided to show up, after all.” She recognized the greeting she’d given him the night before.
“I’m not late,” she argued.
“You’re the last one here. See anyone else arrivin’ after you?”
Abi glimpsed over her shoulder. Indeed, no one followed her. All of the crew was present and already hard at work beneath the lifting sun.
“Well, don’t just stand there, gaping like a codfish,” snapped the captain, the corner of his mouth twitching. “I want my decks shining by noon.”
If Abi had been gaping before, now her jaw truly dropped. “You want me to wash your decks?”
Morrow stepped in. Nearby, more sailors looked up from their labor to watch. “Scrub it spotless,” he growled.
Abi rested her hands on her hips. “I’m no one’s swabber. I did no such task on my father’s ship, and I sure as hell ain’t doing it on yours.” She shook her head. “Clean an enemy vessel,” she scoffed, turning back.
A large, cool hand gripped her arm, just above her elbow. Abi had to stop. “Excuse me.” The captain reeled her in, speaking under his breath. “But do ye notice anyone absent here? None of my crew is above maintaining the cleanliness and orderliness I expect. Least of all, you. Pirate.”
Abi knew he must have meant it as an insult, the way he spat the last word. And yet, her pride couldn’t help but inflate. “You’re right.” She looked him square in the eye. “I am a pirate. Which means I’m not part of your crew.” She whipped her arm out of his hold. “And I don’t have to answer to you.”
Morrow leaned in, not breaking their gaze. His stare was flinty. “You will clean my deck,” he rumbled, “or else I will clean you.”
A current like lightning shot up her legs.
“Believe me, I’ve no qualms with lifting you over me shoulder this moment,” he warned, “stripping that unsightly bloke’s garb straight from yer flesh, and setting you in my personal washtub, where I’ll proceed to give you a thorough—and I mean thorough—wash-down, Miss Clear.”
Abi stood, stunned, as the gawking crew’s sniggers met her ears. The flash of desire in his eyes and the heated delivery of his words made it seem as though he savored the images he invoked, the very thought of performing such a task. Abi suddenly feared she would melt in the kiln of her own forbidden yearning.
But reality caught her in its stronghold again. Mortified, she fired back, “It’s your mouth that needs scrubbing, Captain.” She bent over, grabbing a sopping sponge from the nearest bucket. “Aren’t you supposed to be a fancy privateer? Your mind is fouler than any pirate I’ve met.”
She gasped as the captain seized a handful of her hip, just above her backside. Her body blazed at the touch. “Your words to me last night were just as brazen,” Morrow murmured, and she could hear a smile in his voice. He dared to smile?
Abi swiveled around in indignation, knocking his hand from her hip. “I was only reading what you told me to!”
He cackled, his tall shadow overtaking her. “I may have told you to read from the Song,” he smirked, “but I never told you to pin me with that fawning gaze, flames alight in those sea-green eyes.”
They were causing a spectacle as the crew’s grinning faces jerked back and forth between them. Abi raised the dripping sponge threateningly, heat creeping up her neck. “If you care for that fine, woven waistcoat of yours, Captain,” she said through gritted teeth, “and do not wish to have it soaked, then I suggest you leave me to my chore.”
Morrow granted the crew a pleasant flourish of his hand, as though having won his battle at last. “Men,” he chirped. “Carry on.” As he retreated to the helm, the sailors burst into hoots and guffaws behind him. Abi was certain the captain laughed too.
Someone whistled at her, and she shot the fellow a rude gesture. Shellig and a man called Hilaire chortled at her side, joining her as she knelt and began the tedious work of scrubbing the deck. “I daresay i
t, Miss Clear, but you’re the only one what’s had the gumption t’ speak to him that way.” Hilaire elbowed her.
This satisfied her somewhat, and she looked over at Hilaire. She couldn’t help but notice, as his angular arms were prominently exposed, that he sported a tattoo, similar to Mr. DuPont’s.
Covertly, Abi glanced around. Kneeling among the others, whose sleeves remained upturned, she saw that most of them had stamped their skin with some marking or another, and a few even wore gold earrings. That was a practice she’d seen only amongst pirates, who wore gold at their ears in case they should be killed, for the sum would afford their funerals. Why, was Morrow’s crew all made up of captured—or converted—pirates?
And would Abi be next?
She was moving too slowly. Working her arms to match her companions’ vigor, she set to her task, keeping her head down. She had questions. But they would have to wait.
***
All day and afternoon, the crew toiled, scrubbing and polishing and waxing and mending. In the evening, they enjoyed a right feast of fresh-caught crab. There was beer, wine, and plenty of rum left over from a previous voyage to the Caribbean. The men drank to their hearts’ content. Meanwhile, Abi imbibed her fill of red wine and retreated to her tiny cabin early, exhausted.
There was no rude awakening the following morning. She was permitted to sleep as late as she wished, which wasn’t very late at all, as the remnants of a headache interrupted the remainder of her rest. She watched the sunrise out on the deck, making small-talk with passing crewmembers, who seemed to be treating her with more familiarity since she’d spent a day working at their sides.
When the sun was high, she recognized a definite curve of green in their midst. Abi squeezed the rail. “Land ahoy,” she called to whomever might hear.
“Very good, Abigail.”
She jumped at the low voice that had issued just by her ear, and spun around. She hadn’t realized Captain Morrow was standing behind her. How long had he been there?