As Rasmus approached the threshold, he said, “Valentina, I need to have a word with Razor. Set my usual seat, and load up my plate, lass. I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Hmph,” she huffed at me, giving me her turned-up nose as she swept her skirt aside to avoid me and stepped in the house.
Rasmus motioned to me with his hand to step over to the porch railing as far from the windows as possible. Once we’d reached his desired distance, he leaned forward and rested his forearms on the rail as he turned to speak to me. “I should have filled in all of the missing pieces for you before I brought you here.”
“Yes, you should have,” I answered in a curt burst.
“I apologize, Ivory.” He hadn’t called me Ivory since that day in his cabin when he tore my breeches down. I didn’t even realize how much I missed it and needed to hear it, until I felt my body soften like butter in the sun. “Valentina,” he said over a heavy sigh. “Where do I begin about her?” As quickly as I melted, hearing him say her name that way hardened me like cold steel.
“She’s waiting for us, Captain,” I snapped at him. I turned and walked to the door so fast the breeze I created nearly blew the hat off my head. I pushed it open and waved my hand at him to enter. His body rolled slowly up and away from the railing, and he removed his big black hat with the white plume. “Well?” I asked.
“I suppose this means you won’t be returning to town with me later for our night alone?”
I pulled the door closed quietly and walked directly up to him. “How can I spend one more night with you knowing nothing of all of these missing pieces you speak of? You know everything about me, Rasmus Bergman—if that is, in fact, your real name. There isn’t a stone of my life I haven’t overturned for you. Now, if I am to return to town with you tonight, I’ll do it as Ivan, unless those big strong arms of yours can finally bear to lift a few rocks.”
I knew I’d touched a place inside of him with my angry words that he hadn’t seen coming. After all, this was supposed to be a day of celebration and success. This was the day we’d longed for and one of many similar days we’d hoped to share. I asked for this. I wanted to be a part of this rescue and every one thereafter, and bit by bit, I was marring our joy with unsubstantiated envy and childish insecurities, and I had to stop it…now.
Once inside the front door, the house was much as I’d expected it to be, although the details were filled in with my roving eyes. I took in warm, rose-colored draperies, trimmed in lace. Dark, sanded wooden floors were covered in large multicolored rugs with fringed edges. I saw, of all things, cream lampshades, with fringe as well, that sat atop tall brass lamps adorned with carvings of beautiful Spanish women dancing. The way in which the whole place reflected her made me feel suffocated by her perfect charm.
I strolled around the perimeter of the spacious parlor, picking up small sculptures and porcelain figurines of animals and more Spanish ladies, occasionally glancing up and listening to their chatter and small talk. “Are all of these things from Spain?” I finally asked.
“Yes. I have collected them over the past few years since I have lived here. Please be careful with them, as they are all my treasures,” Valentina answered, looking up at me from where she sat on one of her fancy burgundy velvet sofas.
“May I?” I asked her, when I spied a sideboard containing a decanter of wine and several glasses and lifted the stopper from the bottle. She turned to her left and eyed Rasmus as he sat in the large matching wing-backed chair. He smiled the smallest bit it appeared he could muster and nodded, before continuing with his tale of how we’d managed to achieve our rescue.
“So, you simply ran them aground, you say?” Valentina asked him, sitting up and straightening her back, as well as thrusting her unsecured bosom at him as if she were offering him two ripe melons to choose from. I poured my glass and drank, leaning back against the wall next to the sideboard and then poured myself another.
“It wasn’t quite as simple as all that, Valentina,” Rasmus quipped over a soft chuckle. “It was quite a feat, if I may say so. My navigator, James Robertson, has proven to be a great asset to my crew, as well as Razor there,” he added, pointing nonchalantly in my direction.
“That one? You are telling me that boy is an asset to you?” she asked in an upturned and sarcastic tone, followed by a chuckle of her own.
“You’d be surprised at what that lad is capable of.” Rasmus looked uncomfortable in that fancy-ass chair of hers and leaned back as far as he could, situating his big body and digging his fingers into the soft cushion of the armrests.
“I’ve seen what he is capable of,” she mumbled, turning her body farther in her seat to face my husband.
“Mister Razor is a doctor,” Irvette said, throwing me a wide smile. “He saved my sister’s life. Had it not been for him, she most certainly wouldn’t be sitting here right now.”
“It’s true, he made me a special broth and mixed citrus juices to bring me back,” Edwina said, soft and low.
“Doctor? What sort of doctor could such a young boy be?” Valentina asked, looking left to right as if she were attempting to search everyone in the room for an answer she could rebuke.
“I’ll be nineteen in a few months, and I’d not think it far-fetched for me to say I’ve lived twice those years…senorita,” I answered on my own behalf and raised my glass to her with a bow.
“Our food is ready by now, I’m sure. I apologize in advance if it is not what your stomachs are accustomed to. I have recently acquired a new cook, thanks to you, my darling,” she said over a giggle to Rasmus. “The recipes are mine, but alas, the girl is still learning. Come everyone, let us dine and celebrate your valorous rescue at the hands of this brave and wonderful big, red Captain.” She stood and clapped her hands three times, and everyone rose and followed behind her swaying skirt into the dining room.
Being the gentleman he was, Rasmus stood and waited for the girls to pass by and enter before him. I refilled my glass again and carried it with me. When I approached him, he lifted it from my hand and set it down on the end table near where he had sat. “Under the circumstances, I believe you’ve had enough.”
I felt relaxed and took a deep breath. When I looked up at him, that concerned and worried look covered his face again. Instead of filling me with compassionate concern, I was anxious and reached for the wine on the table, but he cut me off and swept my hand away. “You’re beginning to bore me. Pull yourself together, and I swear to God, we’ll be out of here after dinner, and I’ll turn over every rock you can find, if it’ll put an end to this childish behavior.”
“We’re pirates, remember? I’ll do what you tell me to do, but I’ll never be a gentleman. And until I know every last detail of your attachment to Val-an-tin-a, I won’t promise that won’t be a problem.” I walked around him and picked up my glass and carried it into the dining room.
“I’m sorry ladies, and apologies to you, senorita, most of all. I admit my first impression was quite colorful, even offensive to you. Unfortunately, living the life of a pirate can leave a young man lacking in the ways of finer folks such as yourselves.” I felt light-headed and spoke with lofty inflections, waving my hand about until my glass came to rest in front of the table setting to Valentina’s right, where she sat at the head of the table. “May I please have the honor of dining next to you, senorita?”
Valentina’s eyes rolled up at me and then around at the stunned expressions aimed my way from every seat. “You can sit next to me, Doctor Razor, if you like,” Francis said, pulling back the empty chair where the ever-silent Mick was about to sit. I was quietly grateful that when I looked at Francis she bore no lasting marks or bruises where I had struck her.
“No, the young doctor shall sit next to me. Perhaps we may be able to set aside the unpleasantness of earlier and enjoy this fine meal as civilized people,” Valentina said pulling a linen napkin across her lap and nodding to Rasmus, as he took his seat at the other end of the table.
�
�Gracias, senorita,” I said, taking my seat.
EIGHTEEN
LANDSLIDE
I was as well behaved as I had ever been. The conversation tilted back and forth across the table between the girls and Valentina, from topics of cooking and baking to dressmaking. Knowing little to nothing of any of those subjects, I sat quietly sipping my wine and shoveling that damned delicious plate of perfectly seasoned chicken and rice into my mouth. The longer I sat between their banter, the farther from them I became. Ivan stuffed in mouthful after mouthful of food and alternated between a goblet of water and glass of wine as Ivory hid behind him, feeling completely disconnected. She sewed sails and tarred decks. The only action close to anything domestic she was proficient at was giving a close shave.
What stood out to me above all the foreign accents and even more unfamiliar topics was the laughter. Valentina had a way of making these girls forget what they’d been through. She engaged them so easily and so proficiently I could scarcely believe these were the same girls I’d led from a dank dungeon—for lack of a better word—only days before. Although still a bit disheveled, they were no longer frightened and clinging to each other. It was as if I had sat and watched a field of flowers unfold beneath the sun after a cold, dark night. I had to blink my eyes repeatedly when I believed I’d witnessed the color rise back into their cheeks and the true shades of blues, greens, and browns saturate the irises of their eyes. By that time, a young cocoa-skinned girl brought a tray of coffee and cake to the table.
“Enjoy my darlings. After dinner, you shall all have a warm bath, clean nightgowns, and a soft pillow to rest your heads upon. Tomorrow, there will be lovely dresses for you to pick from, and Marina will come by to visit and do your hair for you.” The words rolled from Valentina’s tongue as if they were played on a mandolin—sweet, and yet self-assured and uncompromising. “I must admit, Doctor Razor, a hairdresser I am not, as you can see.” She leaned to my side and purred soft and low, flipping her loose locks back over her shoulder.
I smiled at her. “Please, call me Ivan.”
“Well, it seems Valentina has you girls all squared away, so Ivan and I will get ourselves back to the ship. I’ll leave Mick here and, well, that sorry fella out there in the barn; I suppose we should drag his pitiful arse with us. I still don’t know what to do about him.” Rasmus shook his head.
“No, no, no, Red. You shall all stay here as my guests tonight. I have my own men to watch over things, as you well know, and I’ve already prepared your room for you.” Valentina insisted.
“You’ve five girls to manage. That’s more than any one woman needs on her hands,” Rasmus said over a laugh as he stood.
“I won’t hear of it. You have that big Jamaican man to take care of the ship. Ivan, please, tell that big, hard-headed sailor. You may all stay. I am certain you would not have brought these men with you if you did not feel you could trust them under my roof with so much beauty and charm,” Valentina went on insisting.
Rasmus looked over at me. I knew his thoughts immediately, and the burden of breaking his promise to me weighed heavy on his brow. “Will I sleep in the barn as well?” I turned and asked Valentina.
“Unless you have not noticed, Rasmus has provided us with a very large home. There are five bedrooms, not counting mine. We shall give the girls two, and…”
“Captain, if you no mind, I sleep in the barn with Fin. That way, I may keep eyes on him for you until you decide what is best.” Since Mick rarely spoke unless he was spoken to, I had forgotten how broken his English was.
“That leaves you and Ivan to your own rooms. Of course, Rasmus, you know which room is yours.” She was purring again and approaching Rasmus, sashaying and floating at the same time.
“Ivan?” Rasmus said. “How’s about a mug of ale before we turn in? Valentina, you wouldn’t mind if Ivan and I stepped outside for a bit would you?”
“Pft! Men. Go, go, go… before I join you.” She laughed, taking him by his big right arm and wrapping herself around it. “LeAnna,” she called to the young cocoa girl, “Bring two mugs of ale to the gentlemen, and then boil enough water to bathe these lovely girls. I will have Philippe take you home once you are finished.”
Rasmus and I lifted our mugs from LeAnna’s hands, and he led me out through the back door of the house that led to a rose garden. I was beginning to understand there was much more to the lovely Valentina than I had wanted, or planned, to find. The path between her Spanish roses wound at least thirty feet from the back porch until it ended at a white gazebo, much like the one at the Chandler’s estate in Port Royal. In the darkness, I had no idea what colors they were. They all appeared as shades of gray, and yet they still smelled as sweet as when the sun was shining. At the sight of the gazebo and the fragrance of the flowers, I was instantly taken back to the day we were wed. The roses faded to black and the porch light withered, the closer we drew to the ghostly white structure.
As we stood there in the darkness, I could barely see his face at first, but the sounds of his weary breathing were evident before he spoke. “I was a captain in the Royal Navy aboard a ship named the Majesty’s Venture.” He blew out a sigh, and I heard him take a drink—something I’d rarely heard or seen.
“Do you want me to ask you questions, or would you just prefer to go on?” I asked him, placing my untouched mug on the ground in front of me. Then, the half-moon appeared from behind a curtain of clouds, my eyes adjusted in the darkness, and his beautiful, but woeful, face at last came into view.
“Please, let me get through this, and when I’m finished, if ye have any questions, then ask.”
We sat down opposite one another, and he cleared his throat several times and took another drink. This time, I could see him when he raised the mug to his lips, and he held it there until I was sure it was empty. “I had the life I was born to live, or so I thought. I had a trusted friend in my first mate, a loyal crew, and a fine home in London. We were in port, and Miles, my best mate, and I decided to go for a drink at a pub one night. Of course at the time, we had no idea that drink would lead us both down a path of betrayal.”
I listened intently. I’m not even sure I breathed at all during his pauses, but between the fragrant roses and the warm breeze that carried it, I was lulled into a dream-like mood, imagining his former life.
“An admiral was murdered before my eyes. I pulled the knife from his chest with my own hand, and he died, right there in front of me. He’d come to find his wayward young wife who’d been cavorting in one of the upstairs rooms with a young and dashing fella. Throughout my trial…”
“Your trial? But you didn’t…” I gasped.
“No, I did not kill the man, except when I removed the blade and released the river of blood from his chest. I was accused of restraining the admiral, rendering him unable to defend himself. I was sentenced to be stripped of my rank and honors and removed from the Royal Navy. Only that wasn’t enough for those no-good bastards. They planned to completely destroy my reputation as well, and relieve me of my fortune.”
“Fortune? You had a fortune?”
“Family money, lass. Unfortunately for them, I’d secured it long before any of this ever happened. Thanks to Miles and that handsome young philanderer, I ended up back aboard the Majesty’s Venture, still as the captain; only this time, she wasn’t sailing under the flag of the realm. She took to the sea a free woman, and I, and every man aboard who maintained their loyalty to me, did as well.”
“They all stood by you, then.” I finally took a deep breath and released it, in awe of the level of man my husband was. I swallowed hard and took a drink from my mug and then handed it to him. I believed he needed another to keep going. When he gladly took it from my hand and swallowed it down, I knew I was right.
“Not all, but most. We had one hell of a time getting her away from the harbor and out to sea and beyond to ports throughout the New World, but by God,” he said over a light chuckle, “I couldn’t have asked for better men to s
erve with.”
“We, of course, had no income and had to turn to thieving to keep going. My thirst for revenge made the solution to our plight an easy find; I chose to go after the scum-sucking bastards who ruined my life. They, and their false honor, were mine now for the taking, and take it we did, until I’d ruined most of them, simply by stealing every last piece of gold or cargo their merchant ships carried. The best part of this was that I was more alive in my skin then I’d ever been. I was free. No more patrolling and harassing other merchant ships that weren’t on their bloody books so’s to keep them living their fat, stuffy lives as they pleased.”
“It sounds as if you had an adventure.”
“Aye, lass, we sure did,” he said, and his eyes at last lifted to meet mine. I leaned forward and stroked his beard and rested my hand on his cheek. “You weren’t meant to be tied down like some fancy show pony. You were born to be exactly who you are, and I love everything about you.”
“Well, don’t go falling over me yet, lass. I’m not finished.” His hand slid over mine where it sat, and he pulled it away and squeezed it gently, holding it for a few moments, and then he stood. He turned and leaned on the rail, facing away from me as he continued. “The first girl I ever loved was a bonny little thing—a lot like you, she was; feisty, unconventional, and as free-spirited as a child. I courted her while I was in training with the Navy and stationed at home in London. I don’t know… maybe her family thought me not good enough and wanted her to marry a gentleman, but hard as they tried, they had no reign over her. One night, I spied her in her red cape on the dock, from the deck of the Venture as we were changing the guard, and I was shocked to see her out so late in the evening. I rushed down the gangplank and ran to where I’d seen her standing in wait, hopefully for me, but she was gone.”
Jaded Tides (The Razor's Adventures Pirate Tales) Page 14
