“Once we have an actual plan, yes. I see no reason why it wouldn’t work, but there is one problem,” he said as he leaned his elbows on the table and peeled a banana. “These routes are out of my realm of navigation, lass. We’ll need to find us a navigator first.”
“Oh my goodness, Razz. Where on Earth can we find someone on such short notice?” I moaned and sat back.
“Now hold on there, woman. Ye don’t know everything, and it’s high time ye let me do my own job as yer captain,” he said, staring at me with those icy blue eyes and shaking his dagger at me.
“What do you mean?” I sat up.
“We, meaning Willy and me, are working on a deal with a young fella named Robertson. He’s barely twenty, but the lad comes from a long line of mappers and navigators. From what we heard, he’s been drawing maps and navigating since he could hold a quill.”
“Well, what are you waiting for then?”
Rasmus lowered his head and burst into one of his hearty chuckles. I crossed my arms and frowned at him with my eyebrows pressed down tightly, until he peeked up at me and that one corner of his mouth curled up. “Yer gonna be the death of me aren’t ye, lass?”
“If you don’t answer my question, that will be sooner than you think,” I said leaning further forward.
“Robertson has been working for the merchant ship, Delia Elaine, for two years. She sails from England to the colonies, and then on to the West Indies three times a year. That’s six voyages a year in the same channels we’ll be hunting in, and add to that, the young man can swing a sword, so’s I’m told.”
“He’s not a pirate, then, but at least he can fight.”
“Now, lass, ye don’t want yer navigator to be getting killed, or else you’ll end up bottoms up. That’s a job a man can spend a lot of years in, unlike a captain,” he said with a smile as he finished off another banana and a tankard of water. “Eat up, lass. I don’t plan on climbing in that dinghy without at least one more roll with ye in them feathers in there. I have a feeling it’ll be a while before I have ye all to myself again.” He winked and filled my cup, then pushed a plate full of fruit at me.
“My big red Viking husband, you’re more than one woman can take,” I told him smartly and winked back.
Rasmus insisted I return to the Chandler’s and spend some time with the girls while he met with Willy and Green to discuss the meeting with James Robertson. As much experience as Robertson had, Rasmus was still skeptical of his abilities and wanted to meet with him and go over his charts before making the commitment to sign him on to the crew of the Jade.
By the time we were setting the table for dinner, Rasmus hadn’t returned for me, and I grew angrier by the second. The days of worrying about his safety ended the night he rescued me from Rip and his band of rapist monsters. Now, my worries were that decisions were still being made about my life that I had no part in. I couldn’t eat a thing and excused myself before the meal was half-over. Cass followed me to the bedroom we’d shared, and her patience was, as always, admirable where I was concerned.
“Ivory, we haven’t even had a moment alone to talk,” she said as she closed the door.
“Can you help me get ready?” I asked her, not even acknowledging her statement.
“Ivory, please sit down and talk to me. I’ve missed you these past few days. To be honest, I didn’t think you’d be back so soon.” Cass sat on the bed and held her hands out to me. She knew there was something pressing on me, and the way she looked at me with so much concern there was no way I could deny her.
“I’m sorry, Cass. I suppose I’ve been so wound up inside about getting out to sea after those beasts, I’ve been neglecting those I love.” I laid down my sailing clothes and my binding on a chair and sat next to her. “I also can’t believe I’m married. What does it all mean, really? I feel as if it means nothing except I followed the rules laid forth by men in order to be with the man I love; but I don’t know how to be a wife. I don’t want to sound like a horrible person…but Cass, I hope I…” I ran my hands back and forth over the inch or so of white hair on my head and stopped and took a deep breath.
“You hope you don’t have any children is what you were going to say, am I right?” she asked, resting her hand on my forearm.
“I’ve probably cursed myself for even thinking it. What woman doesn’t want any children? And it isn’t as if for the past five days I haven’t been playing at making one.”
“Five days? But you were only married four days ago…oh! So that’s where you were when we all returned to the deck Saturday evening after our tour? Now I understand why Alphonse avoided the Captain’s quarters!” She covered her smile with her hand and laughed softly.
“That’s not why we rushed and got married the next day, though. It was because Rasmus insisted that he valued me too much to have me for a lover and not his wife. I’m satisfied either way, although I have to admit, the lover part is by far my favorite.” I was at last relaxed and able to take my full focus off of my mission long enough to beguile Cass with a few details of my adoring man’s charms in the bedroom. When her cheeks flushed red, I believed I was making her uncomfortable, and I stopped, finally asking her about her own distractions and interests.
“Well…” she said, drawing out the word which told me there was something hiding beneath her cool and concerned façade that she wanted to say. I also believed she hadn’t followed me up here for the sole purpose of hearing about my wedding bed.
“Mister Green let me take his arm on the ship Saturday evening and also saw all of us home. We lingered a bit, and he told me about his hopes to be able to assist Captain Bergman in stopping these smugglers.”
“I was watching when you took his arm. Cass, do you know what love is, or how it feels to be in love?” I asked, now motioning for her to help me into my binding.
“I must confess that I do not, but I can say that when Alphonse took my hand, as hard and rough as his palms were against mine, there was a gentleness and affection I’ve never felt before.”
“Ugh, I can’t wait until the day I don’t have to wear this bloody thing,” I grumbled. “By the way, the color of his skin doesn’t worry you, does it?”
“There, that should hold you well enough,” she said as she finished flattening my breasts. Then she helped me on with my shirt. “I understand there are those who would not bless a love between us. I have been able to think of nothing else since Saturday, but we came here to be free, did we not?” she asked and her eyes widened as she handed me my head scarf.
“That’s my girl. Please, if marriage comes up at some point, don’t do it unless it’s what you really want. I’m already regretting the decision, and not because I don’t love Razz.” I threw up my palms at her, and my voice inched above the normal level of conversation. “Now that I know what love is, I believe I’d die for him—or kill— but I am not a wife. I’m too stubborn, and I have none of the skills of a wife. I just want to be able to make love to the man who leaves me feeling as if there isn’t another alive who could please me. I never imagined there could be such a man that could drain the life from my body and then pour it back in, renewed and churning like a maelstrom.”
Cass took my hands and cupped them between hers, and her green eyes slowly closed as if she were dreaming. “Oh Ivory, is that really what love feels like?”
“Actually, I was speaking more of the way in which he loves my body, and even more so when he holds me after and speaks sweetly from his heart. That is when I can breathe again, and I’m reborn. I don’t need bible verses and a signature from a pastor to tell me that Rasmus is mine.”
“Be kind to him, Ivory,” Cass said as we walked to the bedroom door.
“Why do you say that?” I stopped and turned to her with a raised brow as I buckled my belt.
“It’s obvious how much he loves you, and I’m afraid, knowing you as I have all of these years…”
“You’re afraid I’ll push him away if he gets too close, am I righ
t?” I interrupted her and held the door closed until we finished our conversation. She lowered her head and lifted my hat from the chair by the door.
“You’re a good person, Ivory, and I love you with all my heart, but I fear that if Rasmus pushes you too hard or tries to hold you back in any way, it may cause resentment.” Cass lifted her eyes to meet mine and placed my hat in my hands as she spoke.
“I appreciate your honesty with me, and if I, too, may be truthful with you, I don’t know why he’s put up with me this long, or why he loves me at all. Oddly enough, he’s told me it’s those parts of me that most people find intolerable that he embraces. Please believe me when I tell you I know how awful I can be and how brash and foolish I’ve been, but I’m trying, Cass. I’m really trying to let my guard down. The trouble is, the longer you carry a shield, the more accustomed you become to the weight, and the lighter it gets. Mine has lightened so that I hardly know I’m still carrying it until someone runs into it, and I’m left feeling terrible for knocking them down.”
“We all carry a shield, Ivory, but perhaps if you could more carefully choose who you were defending yourself from and stop knocking down those who love you, especially Rasmus, they might pick up that shield and carry it for you sometimes.”
Cassandra’s eyes were glistening, and as always, she spoke so eloquently to my heart that I knew she was right. I removed the hat from my head and lumbered to my bed and sat down. Since I’d met Rasmus, I’d been a bear, and as much as I loved him and needed him, I wondered if he really knew it. The full head of angry steam I’d carried with me upstairs had been turned down to a simmer, and I undressed, put on my night clothes, and climbed into bed. Sleep did not come easily, but it did come. I clutched my pillow closely and longed for my husband’s big, strong arms.
Five
JUST BREATHE
Somewhere in the darkest hour of the night, I was awakened by Keara lightly shaking me. “What is it, Ke? Is everything all right?” I asked as I sat up and reached for my blade.
“Yes, but you have a visitor. I can’t believe you didn’t hear the pecking of the pebbles,” she whispered and tossed her head toward the open window.
I rushed from the bed and leaned out to find my love standing below me in the half moonlight. His hands rested on his hips, and his head tilted back as his smile beamed up at me. I’d missed him so much I thought my heart would rupture at the sight of him standing there at what felt like a million miles away. I had to touch him and hold him in my arms that very instant.
“Don’t you move!” I shouted down to him in a whisper and flew from the room, down the stairs, and out the back door so fast I tripped over my nightgown and stumbled down the back porch steps. He caught me just before I landed flat on my face in the grass.
“Now don’t ye be mad at me, little Razor,” he said as he lifted me to my feet.
I gazed upon him dressed all in black but for his white shirt sleeves, which billowed out from the shoulders of his waistcoat. His silver buttons and trim shined, and as always, his brown leather belt and baldric were heavy with weapons. He wore a large, black cavalier upon his head with one white plume tucked in the band that fluttered lightly in the breeze as he swept it from his head.
I found no words. All I could do was stare at this marvel of a man who’d had the crazy notion to call me his wife. He still held my hands as I stood like a sapling tree gazing up at a mighty oak. My heart pounded in my chest, and I could barely breathe. I didn’t know what had come over me, but I knew I wasn’t letting him get away. “I…I,” I stuttered.
“Are ye walking in yer sleep, love?” he asked me as he let go of my hands and removed his baldric and laid it over the saddle of his horse.
I’d been afraid to throw myself on him at the risk of injury on his weapons, but with them now out of the way, I rushed him and pressed my face to his chest. His arms pulled me into him until I felt completely enveloped by his embrace. Again, his scent, mixed with the bergamot essence, filled my senses with desire for him, but for this moment, his big body draped tightly around me was all my heart needed or wanted.
“I’ve come to tell ye about Robertson,” he leaned to my ear and said, low and soft.
“I don’t want to talk about that tonight. I don’t want to talk at all, if we don’t have to,” I turned my face up at him and whispered.
He stroked my scruffy hair and pressed his lips against my forehead. Then, he reached down, slid his arm behind my knees, and lifted me. “Where are we going?” I asked him as I tied my hands around his neck.
“You’re going back to bed, lass,” he said as he carried me onto the porch.
“No, please! Please don’t leave me, Rasmus. I missed you terribly. I don’t think I could stand a night without you ever again,” I pleaded with him as he set me to my feet on the porch.
“Hush now, lass. You’ll wake the whole house. What’s come over ye?”
“I know you didn’t come here and toss pebbles at my window to just send me back off to bed like a child and…you haven’t even kissed me yet,” I whimpered as I wrapped my arms around his waist and held on.
“Wait, now,” he said. He leaned back and lifted my face by the chin and examined it closely. “I know it’s dark out here, but is this my wife? The wild and feisty woman who scarred my back with her passion and bosses me ‘round like a cabin boy?” He gave me that half-smile and wink that drove me over the edge of self-control. I leapt at him, pulling that sweet smile into my mouth until he snatched me around the waist and lifted me off my bare feet.
When our lips parted, I whispered, “I love you, and I hope I haven’t been a ridiculous fool.” I hung from his neck as if I were dangling overboard and he was my lifeline. “Honest, I don’t mean to be; I just am sometimes.”
“Ye worry too much. I’m here, aren’t I? I’m not going anywhere…as if I could,” he said over a weighty sigh and put me down on the porch. “Get in there and get dressed. Yer my wife, and I’ll not sleep a wink without ye curled up against me.”
“But where are we going?” I asked as I hung from him with my hands clasped tightly beneath his ponytail.
“I told ye. You’re going back to bed,” he whispered and slid my arms from around his neck. “Seems crazy to have built ye a nice place like the one at the cove and rent a room in town, but that’s just what I’ve done. I figure we’ll need a place nearby to rest our heads and be together when we can’t get over to the house. Now, go and get dressed. Me and Esmerelda here will be waiting.” As I turned to run inside, Rasmus snatched me by my hand, pulled me back, and swept me into his arms again. His hands cupped the sides of my head, and he crashed his mouth onto mine, instantly stealing what breath I had left.
His kiss never failed to leave me light-headed and weak, and this time, I didn’t fight it. I welcomed that molten response within me that started in my head and poured down through my body like a waterfall of fire. “Razz, let me go. Every moment we spend here is a moment I’m not lying next to you in your arms.”
I pushed off from him, nearly stumbling over my trembling legs, and raced inside the house. When I returned, he was already waiting in his saddle. I ran to him, and he snatched me by the arm and pulled me into his lap. I leaned back into him and let out a swooning sigh as Esmerelda trotted off into the night.
“How is it that I’ve hardly slept at all, and yet I feel so relaxed?” I asked as I stretched and squirmed beneath the deep-red silk sheets of our beautiful room at the Maison de Fleur. Rasmus was naked to his waist and standing between two open French doors, as a breeze filled with warm sea air blew past him and flowed over the bed until it brushed against my bare shoulders.
“I can see the Jade from here,” he said. “Come take a look.”
I slid my legs over the side of the bed and pulled the sheet around me as I stood and held it closed at my breasts. As I stepped behind him, I kissed him lightly on his shoulder, and he wrapped one big arm around my waist.
“I’ve ordered our break
fast to be brought up. Are ye ready to talk now?” he asked, sweeping my bangs across my forehead.
“I certainly am, and I’m hungry too,” I said, rising onto my toes for a kiss.
Once our food arrived, I poured us a cup of tea and even filled his plate for him before sitting down to my own. Oddly, it felt completely natural, all of the sudden, to do little things like this for him. I loved the look in his eyes as he watched me. They were filled with pleasant surprise, and dare I say, what appeared to be pride that I’d extended the notion to please him beyond our bed.
“Robertson has accepted our offer, and we’ll be ready to sail by tomorrow. The provisions will be brought aboard today, and I’ll be meeting with him this afternoon aboard the Jade to plot our course for the Virginia Belle.”
“Oh, Razz!” I shouted. “You’ve done it. You’ve done it all.” I dropped my fork and leapt from my seat with joy and then flew to him and embraced him tightly.
He pulled me into his lap and said, “It’s a bittersweet bit of news, but yes, we are as ready as we’ll ever be. This is all for ye, little Razor. We still need to go over the plans, so finish your breakfast, and I’ll fill ye in on how we’re planning to run this hunt. And for God’s sake, put on your robe, or my breakfast will spoil before I get around to eating it.” He winked.
Once we’d bathed and dressed, Rasmus told me that, along with the ship’s new name, came new articles of agreement, new crew positions, and the need for several votes we still hadn’t taken yet. Although after the commandeering and subsequent sinking of Thunder Cay, the crew had unanimously voted him as Captain, as well as accepted the articles, there was the matter of the mission being transparent; but not without the inclusion of a more tangible reward for their duties.
“We’ll be hunting these ships as pirates, lass. We’ll be running these missions as hunts and as such, we’ll be conducting them in the same fashion as any pirate ship.”
Jaded Tides (The Razor's Adventures Pirate Tales) Page 4
