by T. S. Joyce
“I’m sorry, sir, but you have me mistaken for someone else.” Where was Gable? The masses roiled around us and faces blurred together in my panic. Mrs. Tabernathy caught up and hugged me until I thought my bindings would burst.
“We have to tell everyone back in London you’re still alive. Ho!” she hailed to a passing man in a uniform.
“No! No, no, we don’t. I don’t know of whom you’re speaking ma’am, but I’m not who you think I am.”
I yanked but Mr. Tabernathy’s grip into my collar bone was like steel. He was spry for an old man.
“Ralston will be so relieved to hear you are alive, Lucianna,” he said through a steely gaze as he helped his wife hail the officer. “It’s unkind of you to let your fiancé mourn you like this.”
“Please, sir. I’m begging you to unhand me. You’re hurting me.”
The officer had found a uniformed friend and they weaved through the crowd toward us.
“Let me go!” I shoved Mr. Tabernathy as hard as I could and hobbled through a hole in the passersby. I didn’t look back or hesitate, I just ran for my life.
Frantically searching for a familiar face, movement caught my attention from a brick shingled roof. How in creation had Gable managed to get up there? He waved me toward an ally and I bolted for it as fast as my cane would allow. Pain screeched through me but I couldn’t slow down now. Whistles trilled out around me and terror snaked down my spine as I gasped for air. Gable was close. He hung from a roof with his hand outstretched. It was my salvation if only I could get there in time. I pushed my legs faster as the sound of men’s voices entered the ally.
“Miss! Stop right there! Stop!”
I didn’t stop until I heard the crack of a pistol being cocked. I skidded to a stop and threw my hands up. The cane clattered to the muddy street. “Please don’t shoot me,” I stammered. I couldn’t feel that kind of pain again.
Gable’s face was frozen in some unreadable expression and I closed my eyes against his disappointment. I was a coward. I turned to find twenty men, both uniformed and not, in the mouth of the ally. The man with the gun approached and ripped my bonnet off to expose my unusual hair.
“I’ll be damned,” he said through a foul, yellow smile. “It’s her. Somebody let Mr. Bastrop know we got her.”
Chapter Seven
Lucianna
What was I going to do? Bars covered the window of my tiny prison cell which, as it happened, was my only way to tell how late in the day it was becoming. I’d paced frantically for hours but it hadn’t slowed time. Shadows had lengthened and the sun had disappeared over the horizon and left the deep blue of evening in its absence. I was going to miss the boat. I would miss my chance at freedom—at survival.
There was no doubt Ralston was on his way this very moment. If he were in London, it would buy a little time but not much. He wouldn’t leave my death in the hands of others the second time around. I’d led him on a delightful chase. One a hunter waits a lifetime for. He’d make sure I was thoroughly dead this time.
I wrung my hands and stood on my tiptoes to see through the bars again. The side of a red brick building gaped back at me. In the sky, a star had popped up since my last lap around the cage the British officers had hurried me to. I’d grossly underestimated Ralston’s reach.
Three of my jailers sat around a small table playing cards by candle light. They laughed and joked about the handsome reward they’d get when Mr. Bastrop arrived. It made me sick to my stomach. They didn’t know it yet, but they were selling their souls for a few pounds.
The front door creaked open and in stepped a finely dressed man in a powdered wig. The officers stopped their game and stood to greet him.
“I have it under good authority you have my client detained without any formal charges being brought.” The man smiled patiently. “I’m her lawyer, you see.”
“We don’t need charges on this one, sir,” one of the officers answered. “She’s a suspect in the murder of her family.”
“Oh, I see. And there’s evidence enough to bring charges?”
“Well, no.”
I pressed my face against the bars and squinted. My so-called lawyer looked vaguely familiar. He gave me a dark eyed wink as the officers quibbled. The intricate patterns of his beard had been shaved into smoothness and he’d powdered his eyebrows into a grayish and dull color. He’d found a fine silk suit somewhere, but under that pompous powdered wig was the dark hair of Captain Kelley. I would’ve laughed if my situation weren’t so dire. His accent had been lost somewhere along the way and he now held an impressive English one, if I did say so myself. He carried an air of authority right down to his pointed leather shoes.
“Luc,” Gable whispered from the window.
“What are you—”
“Shhh. I’m getting you out of here. This is going to make some noise. Look bored.”
I draped my arms across the bars of my iron cage and kept my eyes carefully forward on the argument Captain Kelley had started between the officers. He stood there with dancing eyes that said he was thoroughly enjoying himself.
At the sound of metal on brick, the officers turned as one. They couldn’t see the window from their vantage point but the scraping of my escape was noisy enough. I shifted my weight and scuffed the toe of my boot soundly against the bar. “Are you going to let me out sometime tonight or do my lawyer and I really have to listen to you figure out how many laws you’re breaking?”
“I’m not leaving without my client, gentlemen!” Captain Kelley yelled, and as the officers turned back to argue with him I slipped to the window and Gable pulled me out like he was lifting a hat box. His strength and speed were stunning, but there was no time to overanalyze it.
“Hurry,” he urged me.
My hair was loose and flowing down my back in gnarled tendrils and he clapped a wide brimmed hat over my head in an instant. My cane was probably still in a mud puddle in the ally I’d been arrested, but apparently I didn’t need it. Gable scooped me up and ran like I was weightless.
Down narrow side streets and lanternless ally’s he ran. All I could do was clutch my hat and cover my face from the surprised passersby who jumped out of our way. We ran for hours, or what seemed like, and when the brine filled every inch of the air once again, I peeked out. We weren’t at the port like I’d thought but at a small pebbled beach. Two ratty row boats and three men talking quietly were the only things to grace the edge of the lapping waves. A large wooden crate sat beside the far boat and without stopping, Gable set me in the first skiff.
Despite the run that would’ve brought other men to their knees, his breathing was barely even accelerated. “Over there is the Anna Gale.”
Two of the men pulled out oars and began to push off.
“Wait, don’t I need to sign a roster or something?”
The moonlight shimmered off the shock in his expression. “Yes, if you want Bastrop to know exactly where you’ve gone. Besides, this ain’t one of those big merchant ships. This one is better at staying out of sight.”
“Sounds illegal.”
Captain Kelley came crashing through the brush with the biggest grin plastered on his gasping mouth. He hunched over and sucked air like a landed fish and laughed. His wig and clothes had disappeared along with his English accent. “We sure got those pot gutted land lubbers, didn’t we?”
Gable clapped him on the back and smirked despite the worry on his face. “They’ll be searching every inch of port and sea for her. You’d better push off soon.”
“Boys, take her to the Anna Gale. I’ll follow shortly with our final cargo.”
“Aye, Captain,” the one in the front of my oar boat said.
Gable knelt beside me and searched my eyes for a moment before his lips crashed down against mine. I was shocked into stillness. His hand found my jaw and his thumb rubbed a lazy circle against my cheek as I softened against him. His mouth turned to silk and he sucked gently on my bottom lip, as if he were drinking a fine wine
. My chest heaved against his and as the seconds stretched on, I prayed he’d never leave my lips to the chill of night air. I’d never kissed a man before and I certainly hadn’t ever imagined doing so in front of a rowdy group of likely pirates, but Gable was consuming. His jaw worked as his teeth grazed the closed seam of my lips, and I wanted more. Wantonly, I angled my head and opened for him, then clutched his shirt helplessly as his tongue brushed mine with languid strokes. The warmth inside of me spread until surely I’d burn up with the wanting.
He pulled away with a pained sound and rested his forehead against mine. “Remember, go straight to the address I gave you when you get to Boston Harbor. I’ll find you there.”
I unclenched my fists from his shirt and breathlessly, I said, “Promise?”
He leaned forward on the balls of his feet on the pebbled shore, holding my hand as the row boat pulled away. At the moment our fingers parted, he said, “I promise.”
He stood on the beach beside the captain until the darkness swallowed them up. My heart lurched with every row of the oars that placed waves in between him and me. I wasn’t entirely sure I’d ever see him again and the fear broke apart something in me that I’d managed to keep whole until now. Silent tears streaked down my cheeks as we drew up beside the Anna Gale. One of the men hauled my two small bags Gable must’ve stowed in the row boat, and the other helped me climb the treacherous rope ladder that scaled the side of the ship.
My arms shook with the effort of hauling myself upward on that flimsy rope, and my lungs burned as I gasped the briny air.
The deck was amiss with the chaos of sailors readying for sea. Ropes were tied and pulled, knotted and thrown. A man sat comfortably on a rafter high above, readying a sail. The murmured chatter of the workmen ceased when I fumbled on board.
“Oy,” the seaman beside me yelled out. “Just a stowaway, boys. Get back to work then!” He was a short man with a slight build and when he smiled, half of his teeth were missing. “Name’s Cyrus Dreck. The hands just call me Dreck. I’m Captain Kelley’s first mate, so’s if you need anything and he’s busy, you come to me.”
“Thank you, Dreck.”
“This way, milady. I’ll show you to your quarters and then I must get back to the men. A little birdie told me you’re being chased by something fearsome. Best we get out of port the second the Captain boards, yes? Now, I don’t know what Captain Kelley’s told you, but the Anna Gale isn’t equipped for passengers, and especially the kind of your…” He looked me up and down. “Merit,” he finished with a snaggle-toothed smile. “Living arrangements won’t be up to snuff, but that ain’t the point far as I hear it. The point’s to get you to the Americas safely, am I right?”
“You’re correct, Sir. Whatever living arrangements you have will be fine, I’m sure.”
He puffed out his chest and said, “Smashing,” in a hoity-toity tone.
He led me to a steep stairwell and I clung to the rope handrail for balance on my pained hip. The boat rocked to and fro and as I sank deeper into the belly of the ship, panic washed over me like the drizzle of rain. Dreck lit a lantern and hung it from a rope tied to the ceiling. It swayed gently with the rocking of the waves. “Careful with these, milady,” he warned. “Don’t want to be lighting the ship on fire out in the middle of the sea.”
Note to self: I’d need to learn to see in the dark.
The rolling lantern light washed over row after row of wooden casks. “Is this what you’re shipping?”
“The best whiskey money can buy. We’ve boxes of fine French wine in the back over there as well.” He pointed to a hammock attached to the ceiling. “That’s where you’ll sleep. You’ll get used to the motion of the ocean eventually, and hanging in the air will keep you from rolling out of bed. We sleep in ones similar but all the boys sleep in the same room like a barrel of packed fish. Captain thought you’d be more comfortable with a space of your own. He’ll put down strict orders for the men not to mess with you, so if they get too handsy, you come to him or me. We’ll throw them overboard.” He dropped my bags under the hammock and shimmied back up the ladder.
The boat rocked and lurched and the wood of the hull creaked rhythmically. Outside the waves splashed against the bottom and created a sea song that would be the new rhythm to my life for the next several weeks. Above me, men yelled and clomped against the deck and as I sat to take in the very real path my life had taken, a shadow covered the moonlight from above.
“Easy,” a man said. He grunted under the weight of the huge wooden crate that had decorated the shore.
A snarl that lifted the hairs all over my body filled the small storage room, and as two burly men descended the stairs with a caged animal, I scurried farther away from the metal cage they dragged it to. Iron bars, much like my recent prison, ran the length of one of the walls. The door screeched and clanged as one of the men kicked it open and slid the crate inside.
“Back,” the bearded giant bellowed to the other. He kicked a latch on the wooden crate and backed out of the cage. He jammed the iron bar into place over the door and turned to leave.
“Excuse me?” I asked in a voice no louder than a mouse’s.
“What?” he demanded.
I poked a finger at the cage and squeaked, “What’s that?”
“That, milady, is a very good reason not to go putting your fingers through the iron bars if you value them. Happy sleeping.”
The chains of the anchor rubbed against the ship as it was hoisted away from its bed in the sand but it still wasn’t enough to drown out the animal’s snarling. The wooden door of the crate fell down with a muted thud and out slunk a huge, white wolf.
“Oh, dear,” I breathed as I crept back against the wall. “This can’t be happening.”
Why on earth would anyone want to ship a wolf across the ocean? Maybe if I closed my eyes and opened them again, he’d be gone. Nope, still here and staring at me like I’d probably taste delicious. He was lanky with paws so huge, the black claws that clicked across the wooden floor boards had to be the width of my little finger. There was no color variation to his coat. Just a gray so light it looked white. His nose was black to match his eyelids, and his eyes were the most unsettling color of icy blue. When he pulled his lips back from glistening white teeth to growl at me, his ears laid back and his face morphed into a ferocious snarl. I blinked hard again with the same result. Closing my eyes wasn’t going to banish the animal from my life.
The boat rocked and made a slow, wide turn and I pressed my hand against the wall to steady my land legs not used to the embrace of the waves. The wolf splayed his feet and lost his snarling focus on me. Pacing the cage and pressing his nose through the bars as far as he could manage took his attention away from delectable looking me. Maybe he’d get used to my presence.
I moved away from the wall and he gnashed his teeth at me.
Or maybe not.
Sleeping in here would probably be a delightful experience riddled with fear and night terrors. What had Gable been thinking when he planned for the safest place for me? It couldn’t be in the hull of a pirate’s ship within feet of a wild wolf, surely.
I was tired, and utterly alone, and my stitches hurt in thirty different ways and now I was having a staring contest with a feral animal. And sadly, this wasn’t even the worst day of my life. A pathetic whimper escaped me as I slumped onto a box of pilfered French wine. I picked up one of the bags Gable packed and pulled it to my chest with the intentions of cradling it like the stuffed lamb I had as a child. The odd shape of the canvas sack, however, prevented my affection.
I frowned and pulled the drawstrings open. Inside sat a loose leaf drawing journal and a bundle of feathered pens of various sizes. The weight of a vial of ink and small box of charcoal clung to the bottom. I drew back the thin, wooden cover and writing was sprawled across the first page in heavy, hurried hand.
Luc,
I’m sorry I wasn’t there in time today. I wanted to surprise you with this but whe
n I looked up, you were gone. I found the drawings you did of your brother in Doc’s house and thought you could use something to take up time while you’re on the ship.
Gable
He’d seen the drawings I’d done of Bryant? When? Had he looked at them while I was sleeping in Doc’s cottage? I wanted to feel violated, but he’d given me a gift as a direct result of his findings. I reread the letter. That’s where he’d gone off to earlier. Gable hadn’t abandoned me. He was purchasing a meaningful gift and everything went wrong in a bout of impeccably bad timing. I touched my lips with the tips of bare fingers. He’d kissed me because he cared about me. Not because of what I looked like or how prominent my name. The wolf sat down and cocked its head to the side.
“What’re you looking at?” I grumbled, turning away until my back was to him.
The cool wood of the ship pressed against my cheek and I hugged the little book to me. His thoughtful note and gift would get me through the trials to come. I wished I’d given him a token of my affection back, but something told me he didn’t need it. He’d unwaveringly called me his woman since the day he met me. I didn’t have a clue what that meant, but he felt strongly enough about me that he’d risked everything to save my miserable life, to break me out of that jail, and get me aboard a boat safely.
I wasn’t alone anymore thanks to his letter.
I had a piece of my stranger.
Chapter Eight
Lucianna
Every time the boat rocked, my hammock would come terrifyingly close to the wolf’s cage. He waited with his muzzle through the bars like I was a pig in a blanket dangled temptingly above him. The sleep I did manage involved dreams of him gnawing off my arm while I slumbered. All in all, it was a relaxing first night on the Anna Gale. Was it too soon to start marking off my days with white chalk against the wall of the hull?