by Andrea Jones
Even through her sorrow, she brightened as she anticipated her return to Hook’s pavilion. Growing eager to reunite with him, she murmured, to Nibs, “Our time for parley must have run out by now.” He nodded, and, still leaning on him, she looked up to his face with the beginnings of a smile. “I am ready to—”
Farther up the beach, the bo’sun’s whistle shrieked to call the next watch. Jill’s heart screamed with it. Her eyes opened wide with disbelief. The man in whose arms she had taken refuge wore Nibs’ vest. He had tied Nibs’ orange kerchief about his hair. He was dark and tall and lean, like Nibs. But, to her amazement, Jill saw that her consoler was not her son.
Immediately, the Indian covered her face with his hand. Jill couldn’t breathe, much less call for help. As she struggled, he increased his hold, restraining her arms and pressing her body to his. His large hand stopped her intake of air altogether, tightly covering her mouth, her chin, and her nose. Now she recognized the source of the rusty odor she’d perceived. This man was a hunter. His skin smelled of blood.
The more Jill resisted, the dizzier she became. Even if she hadn’t left her knife in the pavilion, she couldn’t have reached for it. She was unable to move her head to strike at her captor’s nose, as Hook had taught her to do, nor might she move her jaw to bite his palm. Colored spots of light danced in her brain. Vaguely, the bo’sun’s call came to her, tweedling its last, long notes. Half a minute later, with her lungs hungry for air, her senses went black, and she swooned.
She didn’t feel the hunter’s fingers unclasp her necklace. She lay insensible as he draped the chain of opals and diamonds in Flambard’s hand. He dressed Nibs’ limp form in the vest again, hauled him over his shoulder, and left him stretched out next to Flambard’s bleeding body. He obliterated his footprints, stepping only on stones to disguise his movements. Then the brave gathered Jill up, and, with the strength of his arms, he carried her through the forest, leaving no trail on the path he’d mapped yesterday. Jill didn’t sense how lovingly he cradled her, as he jogged toward the cage he had made for his pretty yellow bird.
By the seashore, the cushions on the rock lay vacant. After so such upheaval, peace was restored to this spot, where Signore and Signora Cecco, with their matching golden rings, had come together.
CHAPTER 21
Scenes of Dream and Nightmare
Feeling keenly the loss of Mr. Smee, Hook occupied himself in Jill’s absence. With one hand, one hook, and the grip of his knees, he cleaned his pistol, then polished it, then loaded it. He glanced at the hourglass, pleased for once that this task took so long to perform.
Looking down at the gun’s honey-colored handle, he angled it in the lamplight to watch the mother-of-pearl of his initials shift and shine. With his finger he traced their inlay, smooth and cool, J.H., embedded with a flowing script.
Its partner lay on the table, the pistol with which he’d armed Wendy, hinting to her of her identity as Jill Red-Hand. While pursuing her, he marked her own initials on the stock, a simple addition of one letter imposed upon his: J.H. in mother-of-pearl; R. burned in black, between and over the first two letters. He had branded her symbol into existence with his own red-hot hook. It was his love letter, written to her in flame. He remembered the odor of char in his lungs, and the smoke curling dark. He remembered those days, darker still, before she was his— a time when hope hung like smoke, insubstantial but tantalizing. Now he set both guns on the table, their muzzles facing one another. Dangerous and dedicated, they were two halves of a perfectly matched set.
Nothing could change that reality. Both Hook and Jill were free to choose any path that offered; but, always, their story started, and ended, together.
Hook sat back and, with a creak of wicker, laid his head against Jill’s rocker. He’d had the chair brought into the pavilion, to await its mistress. In the vial by the bed, a glimmer of gold caught his eye, and for some moments he contemplated calling Jewel to his side. His fairy always proved useful, and often amusing. But the hourglass, busily tumbling its grains, finally came to a halt. Glad that his impatience was at an end, Hook stood to grasp the timepiece, leaving the rocking chair tottering. He bore the hourglass to the post outside his tent.
“Mr. Tootles,” he called. “Change the watch.”
“Aye, aye, Sir.” Tom poised the whistle at his lips.
Before Tom drew breath to blow, Hook stood suddenly rigid. He turned toward the boats, scanning the darkness where he’d sent Jill and Cecco. The bo’sun’s call shrilled out. For one brief moment, Hook construed the piping as a scream, a pang of panic quickly echoed by the woods. A fugue of confusion followed, then, abruptly, Hook sensed no more. He felt drained, as if the flow of sensitivity between him and his counterpart had been dammed. Where before, even as he slept, he’d sensed Jill in every hollow, he now perceived nothing. No emotion at all.
Tom’s signal faded. Its echo died away. The men were rousing for the change of shifts. Hook darted into the pavilion, and, seconds later, he emerged with the lantern on his claw and the matched set of pistols in his belt. With his blue headscarf flailing, he hurried toward the beach, ordering Tom over his shoulder, “Bring that torch!”
He didn’t hear Tom’s response, but soon his own shadow stretched before him on the sand, moving erratically as Tom followed, jogging with the flambeau. Jukes and Mullins, the two seamen assigned the next watch by the boats, fell in. All four men sped to the western shore, prepared to find a disconsolate captain.
The sailors weren’t surprised at Hook’s hurry. They supposed that, under Cecco’s disheartened gaze, they’d watch the commodore escort the lady back to his pavilion. But when they arrived, the place appeared vacant. The boats were present, waiting and silent, but nothing else was there to be seen. No couple sat upon the cushions, and no sentries guarded a parley. Hook’s haste now acquired a more ominous implication.
“Where is everyone?” Tom asked, staring toward the woods, stepping toward the cushions.
By intuition, Hook was pulled elsewhere. He strode right up to the shore and waded into the bay. He still sensed no sentiment from Jill, no trepidation, no joy; but his own heart was pierced— sharp and hot— as if he’d fallen on his claw. As the cold from the water penetrated his boots, he sighted the skiff. Halfway to the ships, leaving a wake in the bay water, the boat moved away.
The moonlight was merciless. It showed Captain Cecco rowing. It revealed Jill perched in the stern, her topaz tunic pale in the moonbeams, her hair swept up, her figure leaning hungrily toward her husband. No constraint held her there. She had closed her mind to Hook, but his eyes still read her body. In the posture of her form, in the inclination of her head, her compliance was obvious. She didn’t call out. She didn’t look back. The moon flaunted the fact that this woman had chosen this course.
She had chosen Cecco.
Hook stood watching the boat. As his men followed his gaze, they lined the beach behind him. They gaped as the scene bared its secrets. Hook heard their exclamations, then their whispered, half-expressed guesses. Had his sailors looked, they’d have seen by the glow of the lantern in his claw the disbelief that marked their commodore’s face. Stunned, Hook stood like a figurehead, staring, until the skiff rounded the Roger. Disappearing behind Hook’s ship, it could only be rowing for home— for Jill’s husband’s home, aboard the Red Lady.
Without a word of farewell, Jill had forsaken him.
With one hand, one hook, and the grip of his knees, Hook held himself upright. As always, adversity summoned his strength. Standing tall, he ordered his thoughts.
Tom stood goggling, then shook himself, recalling his responsibility. His voice broke the quiet as he spun. “But where are the others?” Casting his light in a circle to search the vicinity, he bellowed, “Nibs, where are you? Flambard?”
Jukes and Mullins hustled to the boats and muscled them up, peering under each vessel. “Nothing here; and just the one boat gone.” They hurried back up the slope of sand, to join Tom at th
e end of the area, a discreet distance beyond the cushioned seat of the parley point. Tom huffed in surprise as his torch illuminated Nibs and Flambard, prostrate.
“Commodore! Over here, Sir!”
The commodore’s jaw had set while he glowered at the bay. When Tom called to him, Hook’s habit of authority took precedence. Whatever else he lost, Hook would never lose command.
He turned and stalked from the sea, scarcely feeling the drag of the water. He determined to comprehend this incident. Under no circumstances did he shrink from learning the truth, however undesirable. And he trusted at his most instinctive level: his Jill, his storyteller, had left him a message.
“Sir,” Tom was kneeling at Nibs’ side. He felt for a pulse at his brother’s neck, and relief eased his features. “Nibs is out cold, but he’s still breathing.” A glance showed no hope for the Frenchman. “But Commodore…Flambard’s dead.” Tom handed the torch to Jukes, then scuttled to a tide pool to soak his kerchief, hurrying back to daub his brother’s head wound. Only vaguely did he register that Nibs wasn’t wearing his own favored kerchief.
Mullins shook his head. “We’ll have to tell Red Fawn gently. She was smitten with this Frenchman.” He spotted a glitter in Flambard’s hand. Disentangling a chain from the sailor’s grip, he held it up to dangle in the torchlight. Shards of color flashed, brilliant, from the diamonds and the opals. Astonished, Mullins said, “Here be the lady’s necklet, in the Frenchy’s fingers!”
“What?” Tom cried. “Is the chain broken?” Mullins handed the necklace to him. Examining it, Tom answered his own question. “No. It isn’t broken, and the clasp’s intact. It wasn’t yanked off Jill’s neck.”
Jukes plucked up the knife at Flambard’s side, rolling it in his tattooed fingers. “This belongs to Nibs, doesn’t it, lad?”
Tom looked, then nodded, gravely. “Aye, it’s Nibs’.” He dropped his voice. “And the blood is Flambard’s.”
Mullins raised his gaze to the commodore’s icy blue stare. “Nibs killed him, Sir, but it looks like Flambard knocked Nibs on the pate before he died. Seems like they were brawling over the baubles.”
Hook viewed the insensible Nibs, tended by his brother, and then Flambard, with a slit severing his throat. The French blue jacket was stained purple, and blood oozed into the sand. A red-speckled stone lay near Nibs. “Where is Flambard’s blade? Surely, to end with his gullet cut, he employed something more deadly than rocks.”
Mullins rolled the body. Grunting, he swore, “By the Powers, this Frenchy’s built as solid as his captain….Here, Sir.” A dagger lay beneath Flambard.
“And their cutlasses?”
“There, by that boulder. They must have agreed upon weapons.”
Lifting his lantern, Hook searched the sand all around for signs, but found nothing to refute Mullins’ supposition. The situation appeared to be as his second officer surmised: a knife fight between sailors, and a severe breach of discipline.
Hook’s face grew sterner. “Whatever else happened here, the beach was left unguarded. Mr. Smee shall discipline Mr. Nibs when he recovers.”
Jukes kept mum, but Mullins dared to speak for the young bo’sun’s mate. “We know our Nibs well enough to judge he was doing his job.” The other sailors nodded agreement, and Mullins continued, “Seems he was preventing a theft, of your own belongings, Commodore.”
In Hook’s mind, no doubt existed as to the circumstances, and it wasn’t Nibs whom he faulted. He desired to entertain other explanations. “Say on.”
“Well, now,” Mullins proceeded, but guardedly, “from the looks of things, I’m guessing the jewelry was…given up, so to speak. Given up to you, Sir. Else, how could the lady come to lose it, and how could Flambard get his chance to filch it?”
Mystified, Tom said, “I know for a fact that this piece is Jill’s favorite, by reason that the commodore gave it to her at the start. With Nibs and Captain Cecco to shield her, there’s no way Flambard could have forced her to give it up.”
Mullins suggested, with reluctance, “Mayhap the lady was encouraged to cast it off…” He cleared his throat, “when she, well…when she made her decision.” He cocked his head, indicating the Red Lady.
Better than anyone, Hook understood Jill’s attachment to the precious piece with which he had gifted her. This necklace was his earliest offering of jewels— her first pirate treasure. It once symbolized their joining. Now, Hook knew, it meant something else.
He crooked his fingers, and Tom handed him the chain. Its metal felt cool, as he had anticipated it would feel, yet he was disappointed that it no longer registered the temperature of Jill’s throat. He scrutinized it, asserting, at last, “Jill herself removed my necklace. Or caused it to be removed.”
At the note in his voice, the three kneeling sailors leaned back. They exchanged uneasy glances.
Yet Tom’s anxiety could not stay silenced by the warning. “But why would Jill leave her jewelry on the beach?” He leaned over his brother again, and tamped the gash with his kerchief. “Nibs’ll explain everything, once he comes round.” He jostled his brother, trying to wake him. “Nibs?”
Mullins tucked his husky thumbs in his belt, still cogitating. He and Cecco had been mates for years, serving Hook. It was Cecco who promoted Mullins to his present position. Mullins felt it his duty to his comrade to put the best face on a bad situation. He ventured, “Flambard dove deep in the merrymaking tonight. He got drunk. After Red-Handed Jill shed the necklet, he started a ruckus with Nibs over it.” He reasoned, “When the fight got mean, Captain Cecco led the lady away— for her safety.”
Tom gazed at his foster father. Some presentiment prickled his skin with apprehension. Hook’s tanned face looked more tawny, and his eyes, so akin to Jill’s moments ago, now appeared bestial. Tom puffed out his barrel chest and bluffed, trying to settle his own disquiet along with the commodore’s. “We mustn’t worry, Sir, I’m sure the captain’s just protecting the lady.”
“Aye, Sir,” Mullins agreed.
“Aye, that’s the way of it,” echoed Jukes. “Cecco’s keeping her safe.”
“Indeed, Mr. Jukes. I am certain her husband is…keeping her.”
To these men, who plumbed the level of Jill’s betrayal, Hook’s voice sounded strangely civil. They remembered, then, that Hook waxed most dangerous when most polite.
He took a final survey of the area. His lip curled in a snarl, and he commanded, “Carry Nibs to Lelaneh. Tell Mr. Yulunga that I require two Frenchmen to guard this point. Two more to tend to Flambard.” At his orders, Tom, Mullins, and Jukes stood immediately to obey. They each felt the lionlike stare of their commodore, and hastened away from his claw.
The matched set of pistols weighted Hook’s belt. Jill’s absence brought his spirit to ground. The truth had, however, become clear to him.
Jill was free to choose any path that offered. The tale she told, the story of Hook and Jill, had started together. Nothing could change that reality. Hook mused, toying with the necklace in his only hand, deciphering the message she’d sent by rejecting it.
Their story had started together. The end of that story might prove— altogether— different.
✽ ✽ ✽
Approaching Red Lady, Cecco slowed his rowing. “Yulunga sent you,” he scoffed. “Are you so much like my wife that you, too, tell stories?”
In answer, Mrs. Hanover dragged her fingertips over Cecco’s thigh. She felt sick with fear, and with wanting, but she forced herself to smile.
“Who do you think you are, girl, to tempt me?”
“Tonight, I am whoever you want.”
The lookout’s hail rang across the water, “The boat ahoy!”
Relieved at the interruption, Cecco called over his shoulder, “Red Lady. Her captain.”
“Oui, Monsieur,” answered the sailor, de Lerroné. “Welcome aboard.” Then his voice snapped to attention, with a note of surprise, “And welcome to Red-Handed Jill, too, Madame.” Hastily, Monsieur de Lerroné ret
reated from the rail to resume his watch-post high on the quarterdeck.
Angry as he felt, Cecco was a seaman, and he steered his craft with expertise. In a hiss of foam, the skiff came kissing up to the Red Lady’s side. Cecco shipped his oars and hooked the boat on to the mainchains. This business done, he considered Yulunga’s offering where she sat straight and bold on the bench.
One hand rested on her breast, her chin coyly angled. In the shadow of the ship, Cecco couldn’t see her eyes, but he felt her avid gaze. Distaste twisted his face, wasted no doubt, for he presumed she couldn’t discern his expression either. She simply waited for his decision.
The boat rocked in the bay water, and their bodies leaned in tandem to compensate. As much as Cecco hated to admit it, Mrs. Hanover’s audacity reminded him of Jill’s. He cursed the nighttime, wanting to view the face of the woman he hated. Instead, he saw Jill— her clothing, her posture, her coiffure…her smile. Her smile, that couched both truth and deception. His heart fell even lower.
How many times, he wondered, had Jill lied to him?
This virago might be no worse than the woman he’d espoused. Why should he detest one of these females any more than the other? Both were liars and connivers.
“To my quarters,” he ordered, finally. “Only two sentries are aboard. I will lock you in where I can watch you, to keep you from straying to the brig. For this night, poor Pierre-Jean, at least, is safe from you.”
Mrs. Hanover accepted his hold to be helped up the side. His bangles sang, and the tightness of his grip sent a quiver through her system. As they found footing on the ship’s deck, Cecco did not release her. His fingers pressed her flesh.
