Under Her Brass Corset (13 page)

“Love surely must be an illusion, to rip my heart asunder

Thoughts mired by confusion, so loud it drowns out the thunder

Eternity comes with no solution. My soul lacks joy and wonder

Without a glimmer of resolution, there’s no hope to plunder.

Life is not worth—”

The unfinished poem saddened her.

“Did Jasper write this?” She glanced at Merlin. “If only
you
could talk. I bet you’d have a lot to say about your master.”

The cat snorted with a strange hiss and strutted out of the cabin. Abigail tucked the paper down behind the crate and followed Merlin back up to the deck. She watched him stroll to the far end of the ship where Jasper stood to the left of another of his machines. This one creaked while he turned a large wheel that pulled a heavy chain. She assumed he was hoisting the anchor.

Without knowing she was there, Jasper spoke to the cat. “Your assistance would have been appreciated in convincing Abby I’m immortal and that you can do magic.”

For the first time, she heard him call her the nickname her father always used. It sounded strange, and yet, like many things she experienced with Jasper, it felt familiar and comforting. She wanted to stay angry with him. It seemed the best thing to do under the circumstances. And still, how could she ignore the way his apparent pain had once spilled into heartrending poetry? How did she overlook the fact he had come to her rescue? Whatever game he played, he clearly didn’t want any harm to come to her.

Abigail stepped forward. “How much farther do we have to go?” she asked, making her presence known.

“Winds are good, shouldn’t take more than an hour.” Jasper glanced back, a smile faintly tugging at the corners of his mouth.

He showed good sense in not grinning, and that was one of the problems with their relationship. Jasper Blackthorn knew precisely how to fuel her infatuation for him.

“Your friend, he’ll not mind you bringing me without any forewarning, will he?”

“He’ll be delighted. He enjoys visitors. Especially pretty ones.” His happy tone and his adorable dimples rejuvenated her waning spirit.

She pondered the stories he told, against his actions. Was he slightly off in the head? He hadn’t known she was there when he’d talked to the cat. Had he spend so many years alone at sea that he no longer knew the difference between imagination and reality?

She suddenly took notice of the colorful creatures below the water’s surface and pushed away her problematic thought.

“Look at the fish,” she exclaimed, excited by the sight that brought back childhood memories of visiting the London Aquarium with her father. England’s waters were so murky. Nothing showed beyond the sludge skimming the surface. “I’m going below to look through the glass. I want to see them up close.”

“Wait.” Jasper grabbed her hand, stopping her. “We’re here.”

“We are?” She hadn’t realized an hour had passed and she scanned her surroundings.

The island looked small and flat. She wondered about the high tides and the threat from storms. Monstrous waves had crashed over the ship and yet they endured because the ship rose with the water. What of the land?

“I’ll go drop anchor and we’ll go ashore.” He let go of her and proceeded to the end of the ship.

She watched him crank the handle that lowered the huge steel anchor into the water. While he worked on that task, she turned back to studying the clear rippling water sparkling from the sun.

“Are you ready to go ashore?” He leaned on the rail and smiled at her.

“You haven’t lowered the boat.” She noted it still hanging over the deck.

“I thought we’d swim.”

“Swim?”

He had to be joking. Some of the fish she saw were enormous. They’d gobble her up easily. Then there was the idea of encountering another octopus. She shivered, chilled her to the bone by legitimate concerns.

“Unless you can’t,” Jasper added.

“I can.” She stared at the shimmering surface of crystal water and decided on an easy excuse. “However, I don’t relish freezing to death.”

“The water is warm here, Abigail. It’s nothing like the North Atlantic.”

“Then I’ll sink.” She ran her hand over the brass corset, hoping he’d give up the notion of them diving in.

“Leave it behind. We’ll go in the bare minimum.”

“What will we do for clothes?” She forged ahead with practicality.

“Never mind about that.”

He left her to go below before she could argue further. Her fears weren’t silly, even though she hated to admit to them. He’d have to listen to reason when she reminded him about the octopus. While she waited for him to return, she took in the spectacular beauty of the exotic setting of smooth beaches and tall palms. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity to see a world she’d probably never see again. Except the experience wasn’t enough to keep from remembering her house and life in England. Home still held tight to her heartstrings.

Lost in thought, she jumped when Jasper startled her with a touch to her arm.

“You can wear this,” he said, handing her a light blue garment.

She held it up and looked at the short-skirted dress with no sleeves. “This isn’t supposed to be a bathing dress, is it? Where are the bloomers?”

“No bloomers—couldn’t find them. The dress part is enough. You’ll find islanders less concerned about covering up all their extremities.”

She examined the indecent garment. The last time she wore one, not of inch of her showed. She had gone to the beach with neighbors. They had all changed their clothing in a bathing cart, and then the cart was rolled into the water. The men and boys stayed a good distance down the shore from the women and girls. After enjoying a swim, they each returned to the enclosed bathing cart where they changed into their dry clothing and were rolled back up onto the sand by the harnessed horses.

Jasper meant for her to not only dress in half an outfit, but get in the water with him. While polite society would gasp at the thought, she was intrigued—by both the impropriety and the man that suggested it. After all, they had already been intimate.

“Well, will you swim with me?”

“It’ll not be said I’m not adventurous,” she answered. “Who is this friend who won’t mind us dropping by in our undergarments?”

Abigail held the bather against herself to determine its length.

“Remember how I said I was immortal?”

She took a deep breath and let it out with her words. “How could I forget?”

“Juan is also immortal.”

“Who isn’t?”

“You’d know him from history as Juan Ponce de León.”

“He’s the explorer that went looking for the Fountain of Youth, isn’t he? So now you’re going to tell me you are almost four hundred years old? Is that how you
think
you became immortal, by drinking some magical water?

“So you do believe me,” he said cockily.

“I don’t, but you’ve worn me down to the point I don’t want to argue why it’s not possible. So go ahead, tell me whatever it is you want to tell me. Your stories are quite fanciful and they do capture my curiosity as to how they will conclude.”

“Abigail,” he said with an exasperated tone. “If you’d like proof, I—”

He stopped short his sentence, showing he had the good sense not to torture her again by bringing up the idea of killing himself.

Distraught enough by the thought her father suffered an agonizing death, she hated any reminders. The police had said her father had been stabbed several times. It broke her heart to think of him lying on the ground, gasping for another breath as his attacker walked away. She didn’t want to relive it even by something as unrelated as the fabricated lies Jasper tried to make her believe.

“I’m sorry.” He stepped toward her, his arms rising to hold her.

“Don’t.” She backed away. “I don’t need your pity. Just go on telling me your outlandish tales.”

“I traveled for some time with Juan on his explorations.”

“But you’re not Spanish. Don’t you think you should be of Spanish descent to make up a story that you were with him?” She smirked.

“My mother was Spanish, my father English. I was raised in England. My father died when I was fourteen. My mother returned to her family in Spain with me. By then, English schooling and my environment had made me more English than Spanish. I got a job at the docks and signed on to a ship when I was eighteen to explore the world. Eventually, I ended up on a ship with Juan Ponce de León headed for the New World. And it wasn’t until almost two hundred years later that I met your grandfather, Edward Teach.”

She gave up on making corrections to the real name of her great-grandfather. After all, Jasper’s story was just as unreal.

“So you went from explorer to pirate?”

“Aye, me beauty.” He grinned with that devilishly handsome boyish expression.

The insides of her belly fluttered. She stared at him, feeling the familiar urge of desire buffeting her long-standing grievances with his deceptive nature. Lust made her want him in a way sane reasoning had no chance against.

“And how is it you became immortal?” she asked, biting the inside of her lip to quell the rippling effect of her emotions attempting to thrust her at Jasper for something more than talk.

“It was late in Juan’s career when he finally decided to form an expedition to colonize Florida. We landed on the southwest shore with over two hundred men, dozens of horses, and enough farm implements and animals to get started.”

“Uh-huh, and then what?” she asked, glancing at Jasper’s mouth when he licked his tounge over his lips to moisten them from the dry heat.

“We were scouting the area—”

“You and him?”

“Yes, and we found a small spring. Not much more than the size of my hands cupped together.” He showed her what he meant.

She glanced at his palms, at the thoroughfare of light creases in his skin, and noted the lifeline that had no end. One end disappeared into other lines in his forefinger, while the other faded into the crisscross lines in his wrist. Was it a sign that his longevity really was forever?

“Juan was thirsty, so he took a drink,” he said.

“And that made you think he was immortal so you took a drink too?”

“Not quite. We went on our way and found the spot to form our colony. On one of our hunting trips for wild game, we were attacked by Calusa Indians. Juan was injured in the thigh by an arrow poisoned with the sap of the manchineel tree. He should have died. All the other men struck by the poisoned arrows did. The wound from the arrowhead mended too quickly for belief. We discussed how it could be and then he brought up the old legend about the Fountain of Youth. He figured we stumbled onto it. I didn’t believe it, but I wasn’t going to argue the idea until I drank the water myself. We searched all night and found the small spring. I took a drink, and then I took my knife from the sheath on my leg and cut a gash in my forearm. Within minutes, the wound healed.”

“So now you want me to believe you are almost four hundred years old.” She laughed with complete skepticism. “You look pretty youthful to me. And this friend of yours—um—Juan. He’s young too?”

“The waters are ancient and give us immortality. That means we stay the age we are when we drink the water. Your grandfather was about forty so he’ll not get younger, nor grow older in appearance.”

“My grandfather? Are you trying to tell me that Blackbeard is still alive?”

“That he is.”

“Say I was to believe you. If he’s immortal why have I never met him?”

“I daresay many of his grandchildren have never met him. Like I said before, he had a way with the ladies. I’ve heard he had over a dozen wives.”

“And you don’t know?” she asked, feeling this was where she made him admit to the lies.

“I tend to stay out of his business when it comes to his private affairs.”

“Why? Are you afraid he’d kill you?” It was a valid consideration since she’d heard stories of Blackbeard being a brutal killer.

“Edward never killed anyone unless in the defense of his own life,” Jasper answered adamantly.

“Then why wouldn’t you know how many wives he had? You said you visited my father. Why not any of his other children?”

“This is going to be a long conversation, isn’t it?” An amused expression dimpled his cheeks.

“You started it.” She let out a hiss, annoyed that she had let him suck her into playing along with his make-believe game. Then a new thought struck her when the sun glinted off his gold earring. “Have you been married, have children?”

“Me? No, I’ve never been married.” His quick answer suggested an untruth.

“So, no children?”

Jasper hesitated before replying with a quiet, “No.”

It sounded a lie, or a part lie. Had he had a child who had died or something? For a few seconds she felt an overwhelming sadness for him. The kind that made her want to hold him and tell him everything would be all right. The sort of hug she had longed to feel herself whenever she thought about her mother and father. And then she reminded herself that all he said might still be part of his ploy to deceive her.

“How did the Crystal Compass get in the trunk in my attic?”

“It was in a trunk? Huh, originally I had sneaked it into the attic, pried a floorboard up and hid it between the joists. I just assumed you had found it there.”

“I found it in the trunk with the map and other papers that appeared to be my grandfather’s.” It didn’t take much thought to remember one terrifying incident. “Though we had a fire in the kitchen when I was young. Maybe in the repairs to the walls and ceiling, my father discovered it.”

“Sounds logical.”

“What is the Crystal Compass for exactly?” She had no intention in letting Jasper off easy. If he was going to tell lies, then he better damn well be prepared to have details.

“It’s a directional instrument to find the closest location of one of the Springs of Avalon,” he answered.

Now she knew he had to be spinning a yarn of the grandest proportions. “Avalon isn’t real.”

“It is very much real.”

“And you used the Crystal Compass to find this water for my grandfather.”

“No. For him, I had a vial of the water that I’d drunk. That’s your grandfather’s buried treasure, what’s left of the water.”

“He buried water?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, I suppose if any of this were true, I can see someone not wanting to let out the secret. Why did he drink it?”

“To live.”

When Jasper leaned on the rail and stared out at the sea, he put her at ease to stare at his profile. She marveled at the darkness of his skin. His sun-kissed features made her feel unnaturally pale. Then she remembered he said his mother was Spanish. That had to partially account for his bronzed body. She looked at the back of her hand. Her father once said a woman’s milky complexion attracted men. Was he right? Without gloves and more clothing covering her in the daylight, the sun had started to tint her flesh pink. Would Jasper’s attention lessen?

“I hired onto a ship that was taken by pirates. They threatened to kill me if I didn’t join them. What they didn’t know was that wouldn’t be an easy task.”

“Because you’re immortal?” She stretched open her fingers and studied them, distracted by her concern that she didn’t have perfect skin.

“Yes.” His sideways glance and sly smile made her distrust him. “Anyway, I thought what the hell, let’s give pirating a try. I like the sea, and felt no danger in doing what I love to do.”

“Pirates are criminals.”

“So are the men who run the countries that commission privateers.”

“I suppose.” She didn’t have much knowledge about pirates, even though she was descended from one. “I just can’t believe you can’t die.”