The Dreamer (19 page)

Determined to accomplish this endeavor with appropriateness, I took his face in my hands and objectively viewed the region for the best destination.

My lips touched his cheek. And then with an impulse I cannot explain, I bent my head and kissed his open palm. Feeling breathless, I turned my back to him, shifting onto my side as though adjusting for sleep, even though sleep was the furthest thing from my mind. I couldn’t look at him.

Suddenly, there was a knock, and without waiting for permission, the door was opened. I turned to find a man had entered. He was middle aged and dressed flamboyantly in red breeches and a jacket of deep purple, carrying a walking stick in one hand and a hat with a red feather attached to it in the other. His face was not overtly handsome, his nose and mouth rather too wide to really be considered attractive.

“There is no sign of the blaggards,” he said, raising his feathered hat with a flourish.

I was silent. But soon the captain leaned back in his chair and drew a breath and let it out. I saw some more tension leave him.

But evidently the stranger thought this news ought to have prompted a stronger reaction from us, because he said, looking from one of us to the other, “My dear children, I realize that the mundane news that we may actually escape with our lives is nothing to your lover’s reunion, but can you manage to be pleased for those of us without lovers on board? Living through the night might be interesting to the rest of us.”

Lovers? Evidently, the captain saw fit to perpetuate our fictitious relationship. I approved. It was wise of him.

The stranger looked at me and I smiled, quite unable to help myself.

“The unparalleled maneuvering of the Nine Sisters and the daring, nay, audacious rescue mission, has proven unerring. You do not know this yet, my dear, but your captain is the best mariner the world has ever seen.”

“Oh, yes. I know that. The captain is the best of men.” I turned and smiled at him, still unmoving.

A ringed hand was raised along with a set of finely tweezed eye brows. “You think I meant Mallory here? Exactly who do you think is Captain of the Nine Sisters? It isn’t that impertinent whelp, I assure you.”

“It’s you?” I returned.

“Captain Fredrick,” he said with a low bow, sweeping the hat across his middle. “Pirate, thief and irrepressible fortune-hunter at your service. The enterprising spirit is not dead, as you see.”

Understanding dawned. “Oh, you’re the one.” I looked eagerly from Mallory to Frederick. “It was you who saved him …. It was you who raised him.”

Frederick’s hands clenched. “Thief! Then my introduction has been stolen from me.” Addressing Mallory he continued, “But I cannot be surprised, can I, youth? A specimen of my caliber must have a far reaching reputation, spanning across oceans. It is the cross I bear.”

Delight bubbled through me and I laughed. “It’s an honor to meet you.”

“Yes it is,” he assured me as he approached. “Now let me get a look at you.” He withdrew his monocle and held it before him, peering at me with a now enormous eye.

Now I knew what specimens under a microscope felt like.

“The lass responsible for these new, disfiguring creases on our Mallory’s brow, and I suspect a few of his current contemptible gray hairs belong to you as well. You have managed to mangle what meager allure God saw fit to give him. You are to be congratulated.”

Under his scrutiny, I instinctively pulled the covers further under my chin. “Hmm,” he drawled. “The face that launched … well, two ships anyway. Not the finest specimen, but better than I feared.” He put away his monocle. “Bookish women leave me cold and shuttering in the usual way.”

He dropped into the chair next to the bed and swung one leg over the other. “How do you like my feather?” He held up the hat and stroked the large, red feather with his fingers. “Cost me four pieces of Spanish gold. Exorbitant, but I could not do without it. Go ahead. You may touch it.”

I stroked it with my finger. “I’ve never met anyone like you before.”

He made a sound through his nose as he put on his flamboyant hat. “You think I am not well aware of that, child? Give it time. You will learn to function through the wonderment.”

“The Nine Sisters?” I asked. “That’s an unusual name for a vessel.”

“Digging, child?” He smiled slightly. “My dear girl, I may be an abandoned fornicator, but I do not kiss and tell.”

I looked at him wryly. “You just paint it across your ship?”

He laughed out-rightly at this. “Parry, thrust and score. Well done. None of the usual feminine pretense of shock and abhorrence. No wonder I detest bookish women.”

I laughed. “Were you one of the men who rescued me?” I asked, trying to remember. “I can’t imagine I would forget you.”

“I share your disbelief. But you may forgive yourself. You hardly took your eyes off Mallory the entire duration.”

“I was very glad to see him.”

For the first time since he’d entered the room, Captain Fredrick’s eyes softened as he watched me.

And suddenly a cloud descended on my light mood as I thought of that dark, wretched room. My eyes went to him. “Do you have a place like that on your ship?” I inquired.

“We all have holding cells. Even those abhorrent lawful vessels.”

“And so you use them for … women?” I whispered.

He looked shocked, and even offended. “My dear child, do you think in the furthest reaches of your imagination it has ever been necessary for me to use force on any woman?” He uncrossed his legs and touched his clothing. “Force is for the supine and impotent. What do you think of this jacket? Does it work with the breeches, do you think?”

And though the words were facetious, I could hear the underlining gentleness in them, as though he were nudging me with his elbow to make me laugh. And I did laugh.

“What happened after I fell off the ship?” I asked him.

“True to form, Mallory promptly abandoned his criminal comrades, heaved his appallingly colossal contender into the frigid ocean and jumped in after you. Duncan, our number three and apprentice in training, lost the battle with his competitor. And, as I was the only man with sense and skill enough to salvage the situation, I deftly defeated my opponent, and swiftly disarmed the other vermin as well. The infant shimmied down the ropes, and I, in my wisdom, disengaged the hooks and let the ropes fall before diving into the ocean with unerring grace and agility that would astonish you, had you been so fortunate as to witness it.”

“Why did you do that? Couldn’t you have used the ropes, too?”

“Because Captain Fredrick has a flair for the dramatic.” This wry comment came from Mallory, speaking for the first time since the captain arrived.

“Because, my dear child, with the enemy bound and gagged and below deck, as much time as possible was needed to make our escape. When the rest of the swine returned to their ship, those ropes would most certainly have given us away immediately. And it worked. As I said. There is no sign of them pursuing us now.”

“You think they won’t come after us? Mallory says we cannot outrun them, and that we are outnumbered.”

“My, aren’t we conceited? Just how valuable a baggage do you believe yourself to be? Pursued across oceans!”

“I wasn’t thinking of me. I was thinking of —.” I stopped at a movement from Mallory. He wordlessly shook his head, warning me to keep silent. Evidently these pirates were as yet unaware of the hidden treasure.

“Are you putting your ship and your men in peril for no payment?” I asked in surprise.

“There is a payment of sorts.” He looked at Mallory, and Mallory met his eyes unwaveringly. He turned back to me and leaned forward. “I have my eye on a certain cargo of jewels. Exquisite emeralds and rubies intermingled with just the right amount of plain, unadorned Spanish gold. Mmm. Beautiful sight. And Mallory has agreed — .”

“Not to give it to you!” I cried.

“No, no, my moral child. Simply, not to carry it himself. Unaccountable, I’m sure, for I cannot think why it is so, but I cannot bring myself to molest the Resolution, no matter how tempting the reward. He simply has agreed to forgo the job.”

“And his agreement to forgo a job is enough to put your vessel and your crew in harm’s way for a woman you’ve never met?”

He looked at me, vaguely abashed. “Well, as I said, I have an unaccountable affection for Mallory, despite the fact he abandoned us for the sordidness of legitimacy. And well, he’s never asked me for anything before. I was intrigued.”

“You could have been legitimate,” I told him earnestly. “You could have ended up on the records, in history books and essays, and scholars could have read about you hundreds of years in the future, gotten to know you, appreciated you.”

“I would have been a wild success in any venture and overshadowed and shamed my peers, make no mistake. In fact, now that I think of it, it is extraordinarily selfless of me to pursue a life of crime. It creates the necessity of a certain covertness that prevents me from shining my light too brightly.”

“I cannot believe I never knew of you, after all my study. Is Fredrick your surname or Christian name?”

He looked at Mallory. “You have a gem here, Mallory. A woman who is fascinated by something other than herself. There are so many more worthy topics.”

I smiled. “You, for instance?”

“Now you’re making me blush.”

“I’m merely striving for accuracy in my records,” I explained. “Your full name?”

He pursed his lips wryly. “My parents saw fit to dub me Fred Fredrick.” He looked at me. “Now really, my ethical one, even you must agree that a career in piracy and sin was my only option. They gave me no choice.”

“Did you come from a broken home? Was your childhood unhappy?”

“Dreadfully. My worthy father was churchgoing and stalwart. And my beautiful mother never said a cross word in her life. At sixteen I could bear their cruelly ordinary philosophies no longer, and I escaped to a liberating life of crime and degradation. To their everlasting shame. But, it’s all for the best,” he said after a pause, fingering his ruffled cuff. “Just look at me. Piracy is the only means available to provide the common man the ability to look so extraordinarily fine. And with my flair and natural taste … well, to deprive the world of this,” he said with a sweeping gesture, “would have been the real crime. We still write to one another. My sister’s baby has a dreadful case of colic it seems.”

I couldn’t get enough of this interview, the subject never so cooperative and open, Captain Fredrick delighting in talking about himself as much as I was fascinated in listening. The captain … I mean, Mallory, was always so reticent.

“What happened after you dove off Marshall Looper’s ship?”

“I heaved myself aboard the longboat with natural grace and ease. Mallory had already pulled your insensible self on board. If I had anticipated that recovering you would improve his disposition, I was doomed to disappointment. He fairly growled at the men rowing that if they didn’t hurry it up, they’d be thrown overboard.”

“He gets curt when he’s concerned.”

“Curt?” Fredrick raised his brows at me. “Is that what you call it?”

“Well, cross.”

“And they call me the barbarian. In any case, don’t blame me for his vile disposition. After my invaluable education, he’s the one who insisted on earning an honest wage. That would ruin anyone’s temperament.” He glanced at Mallory, and Mallory looked back at him wryly. I had the feeling they were sharing an old joke.

“And then we reached the Nine Sisters and you were pulled on board, soggy and senseless. Thinking only of your safety, I volunteered to remove your clothing, as Mallory seemed momentarily at a loss. He flew into a rage without delay, and thus entered our unassuming friend, John Finley, who accepted the alluring duty with characteristic meekness and lack of enthusiasm.”

I opened my eyes wide. “John’s here?”

“Even now he hovers by the door.”

Mallory went to the door and opened it. He stepped out, spoke a few words, and then returned, followed by a timid John Finley whose face was as gray and melancholy as ever, that mocking cross still around his neck.

I leaned back against my pillows, quite literally bowled with revulsion at the sight of him, his shrinking form, his stooping back. He wasn’t good for anything but saving his own neck. Twice he had willingly given me up to villains.

He stood hesitant and uncertain for a moment, hardly able to meet my eye as I stared at him mutely. Then he went to the cabinet and opened it. “I put all your notes in here, Miss Madera. I know how you value them. I laid them all out carefully so that they’d dry with the least amount of damage.”

“How could you!” My voice shook.

“I’m sorry,” he exclaimed without turning. “I’ve never done a brave thing in my life.”

Mallory said nothing. Captain Fredrick rolled his eyes heavenward, uncrossed and re-crossed his legs. I could almost hear his smug thoughts: Humph. I’ve never done a cowardly thing in mine.

John turned. “But I went to the captain immediately.”

“Do you have any idea what I’ve been through?”

“But you said you were unharmed.”

My eyes widened in disbelief. Then I slammed my hand next to me on the bed and bit through my teeth, “You listened again, didn’t you. You eavesdropped through the door. After all the trouble it caused. Do you know what it was like for me? All those hours in that awful cell, with the smell and the mold and that heavy, suffocating atmosphere, waiting for a pair of heavy boots to stomp their way down the ladder any moment to …. And all because of you. Oh, you … I hate you!”