“My God, but you make me want you so completely.” Gayle kicked her boots off.
Celia pulled Gayle’s breeches down and slowly kissed her breasts and stomach. “Tell me how much.”
“What?” Gayle was too enraptured to fully comprehend the request.
Celia sat back again, her smoldering gaze making Gayle’s body ache for her touch. “I want to hear how much you want me. I just shared how very much I want you, after all.”
“But—”
“Tell me,” she whispered, kissing Gayle with renewed fervor, then cruelly pulling back again.
This was driving her absolutely mad, Gayle thought, and she loved every damned minute of it. “I want you absolutely and utterly,” she professed with some difficulty in concentration. “I want nothing more than the touch, taste, and scent of you. I need you to possess me, to take me, beloved. If you want to know how much I desire you, give me your hand.”
Celia’s eyes darkened further with passion, and she did as she was told. With great care, Gayle pulled Celia’s fingers along her silky wetness.
“This is how much I desire you,” she whispered. “You leave me with a want of nothing and no one else.” As Celia’s hand began to move, Gayle gasped and closed her eyes at the sensation. “I need nothing but the release you can bring me.”
Celia leaned in closely, her lips only a breath away from Gayle’s. “And if I tell you that you must beg?”
Gayle groaned in frustration as Celia’s hand stopped moving. “Then I shall supplicate most humbly.”
Celia grinned mischievously then, and kissed Gayle fully and powerfully. “You need not. You have suffered my torment long enough. Give me your mouth, love.”
*
Just after dawn the cabin boy ran up from the hold, past the orlop, past the gun deck, and to Captain Fuk’s quarters. He beat on the door frantically. “Captain! Cruz…está muerto.”
In a matter of seconds, several crewmen had gathered and Fuks had opened his door. “What is it, lad?” he asked groggily.
“Cruz is dead,” he answered, his Spanish accent thick. “He is in the cargo hold, Captain. The prisoner…she is gone.”
“What?” Fuks stormed out to the main deck, practically sprinted down to the cargo hold to verify this report, and confronted the brutal truth. At least a dozen crewmen rapidly fell in behind him, and they too beheld the sight with exclamations of amazement. “So, somehow, I am to believe that this tiny slip of a woman overpowered Cruz, viciously killed him, and freed herself from her chains.”
“Captain,” a crewman shouted from above. “The starboard skiff is gone.”
Fuks felt as though he was straddling the fine line between openly weeping and decapitating everyone on board.
“So somehow…” his voice cracked with rage, “this dark-haired pygmy not only freed herself and killed Cruz without anyone hearing so much as a bloody whisper, but she also rowed away in my skiff without any crewman noticing? How the fuck does that happen?” He could feel the arteries of his neck bulge and pulsate. “The gold,” he suddenly gasped, darting back up to his quarters to see if somehow, though it had been beside him while he slept, she had miraculously taken the treasure with her.
He arrived, out of breath, to see that both trunks were still exactly where he had left them. The treasure remained his. Fuks sighed in relief.
He cursed that he had not ordered her brought to him the night before. He had not really been very interested in her sexually, as he preferred conquests under the age of eight. Though, he reasoned, she was of small stature, and he would more than likely have been able to convince himself that she was a poor, hapless orphan that he had caught panhandling in the street. Damn his exacting tastes.
Well, he thought angrily, at least she had left him with his wealth—the filthy whore.
*
Below deck in a hammock, Molly rocked peacefully. She hoped that jettisoning one of the ship’s two skiffs would convince the crew of the Belladonna that she had slipped away overnight. True, she had needed to send a couple of troublesome crewmen overboard with it, but her scheme had luckily gone quietly, and no one else had awakened.
Besides, she had played this game before. Posing as a young lad shouldn’t be too difficult with this many men at sea. She merely needed to pull her weight and stay out of sight—whatever it took to call as little attention to herself as possible.
Molly sadly contemplated the fate of Captain Malvern. She doubted that she had survived the gunshot wound the other night on the beach. And she felt fairly certain that the other members of the party had shared her fate, leaving her more than likely as the only survivor. She wondered if Original Sin had been attacked as well, and what had befallen the rest of the crew.
No, she decided, there were far too many unknown factors to proceed any other way. And based on what she had overheard from the crew regarding their current course, had she actually set out overnight in the skiff, she would have been rowing for weeks before she hit land, leaving her fate to the whim of the weather—or worse, to be happened upon by another ship and taken aboard, more than likely as cargo. Her best course was to sail aboard the Belladonna to the next port and slip away there.
She contemplated the vast treasure brought on board along with her, dismayed that her heroic captain would now never be able to deliver it to her father as promised. The thought of leaving all that wealth with that whoreson Fuks filled her with contempt.
Perhaps Gayle wouldn’t be able to return it to Madman Malvern, but that didn’t mean someone else couldn’t. If the loot was to slip away with her—to be returned to its rightful owner—then all the better, she reasoned.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“You need to be more fluid,” Gayle said, slowly swinging her cutlass to illustrate her point. “When you halt your blade’s progression like that, you betray your next action.”
“So your blade moves constantly?” Celia held a cutlass before her defensively as they faced off on the main deck.
“Not constantly, but nearly. Here, advance toward me offensively. Come swinging, as we practiced.”
As Celia’s blade slashed aggressively, Gayle’s repeatedly swatted it away, the picture of mercurial poise.
Andrew Pierce leaned on the deck rail watching his daughter and the captain spar. He had never noticed how naturally athletic Celia was. He had always deemed her a fine dancer, and in general quite graceful. This type of pursuit, however, was a completely different matter. She seemed almost predisposed to fencing. Perhaps if he himself had thought to teach her the sport, she would never have been abducted in the first place. She could have defended herself, since that dunderhead Farquar had been incapable of doing so.
Of course he himself had never been much with a sword. He had always used intimidation rather than actual force. Before now, he had never realized how powerful a woman with fighting skills could truly be, how imposing simple physical prowess was.
Gayle spun away from Celia’s attack, her blade always deftly blocking his daughter’s. Finally they stopped, their swords crossed before them. Both were breathing heavily, and their eyes locked intently.
“Gayle?” Celia panted, not lessening her pressure on Gayle’s blade even one iota.
“Aye?”
“You’re bleeding, love.” Her eyes darted briefly to Gayle’s shoulder.
Gayle immediately withdrew her cutlass and assessed her still-healing wound. Indeed fresh blood had begun to seep through her shirt. “Buggar,” she muttered.
“I should not have tried you so. You are not completely recovered.”
Gayle seemed amused, her golden eyes squinting. “Are you saying that you should have gone easy on me?”
“Perhaps a bit.”
“Such bloody grandeur.” She smoothly returned her cutlass to its baldric. “Two fortnights ago you didn’t even know how to hold the soddin’ thing.”
Celia smiled back with some degree of cheekiness. “It’s that you are so adept a tutor,”
she said. “Were you not so skillful, I would never have been so able to utterly thrash you.”
“Thrash me?” Her voice was tinged with indignation. “You’ve a thing or two to learn of thrashing, I’m afraid.”
“Is that so?”
“’Tis so, aye. For you to thrash me, you would need to draw my blood—not have me draw my own.”
“A modest formality.” Celia’s blue eyes were flashing. “You were the first to bleed. You lose.” She sheathed her cutlass.
“Do make sure you establish these rules before you engage your next foe,” Gayle replied. “Should you battle someone during her menses you’ll be the winner before you even draw your blade.”
“Let us get you to the doctor, shall we?” Celia examined Gayle’s shoulder with some concern. “How do you hope to engage Fuks this evening if you cannot even weather a duel with me?”
“It just needs to be sewn up, I’m sure,” she said, as they headed below deck to see James.
Andrew remained deckside as he watched them depart—some-what amused yet somewhat disturbed.
Celia made certain to knock loudly on the doctor’s door—wanting never to see him in flagrante delicto for the rest of her natural life and well into the afterlife.
“Enter,” he called. They did so, and James immediately stared at the blood on Gayle’s stark white shirt. “What has happened?”
“I was fencing.” Gayle turned so he could examine her wound. “And I must have re-opened it.”
“So it would seem.” He peered beneath the fabric. “Strip this off, Captain.” Gayle removed her shirt and sat on the table. James dabbed the wound with a rum-soaked cloth, and she winced. “You could possibly do with a stitch or two, if you’re planning to continue this manner of exertion.”
“I am. So have at it, Doctor.”
James threaded his needle with silk. “I suppose it would be completely pointless to try and convince you to refrain from such mêlée until you are healed.”
The corners of Gayle’s mouth shifted upward slightly. “I suppose it would.”
“I know you are eager to attempt to rescue Molly,” he continued, apparently ignoring her answer. “And you feel you have an obligation to your father to fulfill. But couldn’t this skirmish wait a day or so?”
“’Tis the waiting that’s eating at me.”
“We’ll reach her in time,” Celia said. “You yourself stated that Molly is a testament to strength and cunning.”
“She is quite a hardy lass,” James chimed in, inserting the needle and pulling the thread through the skin.
“As you, above all, can attest,” Celia said.
James said nothing in response, but blushed quite visibly and continued to sew.
“You do have a remarkable knack for conjuring awkward silences,” Gayle remarked to Celia.
“Have I?” she asked, playfully.
“Like none I’ve ever seen. You could make the devil himself contrite.”
Celia considered the possibility. “Perhaps that trait will come in handy someday.”
“Doubtful. But I suppose if you’re trying to make someone openly weep—”
“There you are,” James said, snipping the end of the silk with small scissors. “That should hold you together through even the most raucous fray.”
“Which is just what I anticipate,” Gayle answered with a nod, reaching for her shirt.
“For everyone’s sake,” he said, “I hope that isn’t the case.”
“As do I, Doctor.” Gayle put her shirt back on and stood, moving her shoulder to assess its limitations. “Thank you.”
“Good day, James,” Celia said as she moved to the doorway.
“Um, Celia, might I have a word with you?” he asked in an uncertain tone.
Celia glanced to Gayle for a reaction, but she merely shrugged. “I’m off to change,” she said, and headed back up to her quarters.
A long pause ensued, making Celia feel quite uncomfortable. “Well?” she finally asked, coolly crossing her arms in front of her.
“Well,” he echoed. “I simply thought that you and I might converse for a moment.”
“About what, exactly?” she said, feeling too ill at ease to actually walk from the doorway back into his quarters.
“About you and the captain,” he stammered.
Now her curiosity was piqued. She took a few steps toward him. “What about us?”
“Well, I can’t help but notice that you and she are, well, intimate.”
“Aye. We are.”
“Intimate in the way in which lovers are.”
“Easily explained.”
“Is it?”
“Aye. We are lovers. See how it all fits together nicely now?” She interlocked her fingers and held them out for him to study.
James’s brow creased. “I suppose. Though I am surprised that you do not mind being, well, one of many, shall we say.”
“What are you implying?”
“That the captain is not the sort to limit herself to just one companion.”
“You know what sort she is?”
“I think I do. Ask her if she has ever been true to someone, Celia. And if her answer is what I expect it to be, is that the kind of person you want to give yourself to? Don’t you think that you deserve better?”
Celia narrowed her eyes as she scrutinized his expression and tried to sense his motives.
“I think I deserve to be happy, which means more than simply finding someone to be faithful to me. It means finding someone whom I truly love—beyond being merely a suitable match. I know now that I am worthy of someone who completely adores me, not someone who simply endures my company so that he might bed me. Therefore, if you’re trying to tell me that I would do better to be with you, James, then I’ll have to disagree.”
“Oh.” He looked crestfallen.
“You are a very pleasant man. But you and I are not meant to be.”
“I do think I could make you happy, Celia.”
“You couldn’t, because I don’t love you.”
“So you love Gayle, then?”
She paused and felt suddenly flushed. “I do. And if that’s a mistake, then I‘ll just have to jump in headfirst and completely bungle it.”
“And if she perishes tonight in the skirmish?”
“Then I’ll go to my grave with naught but my memory of her.”
James stood there silently staring at the floor, his face twisted in something akin to dejection.
“I am sorry.”
“Go,” he muttered, waving her away. “Be with her. But know that I will always be here for you, no matter what happens.”
Celia found these words strange and vaguely malevolent. With a niggling hint of suspicion, she made her way back topside.
*
As Gayle strode into her quarters to change her bloodied shirt, she was entirely taken aback to see Anne strewn across her bed, completely naked. “God’s gullet,” she exclaimed, unable to draw breath and frozen in her footsteps.
Anne ogled her seductively and slowly ran her hand between her own breasts. “Do you like what you see, Captain?” she asked in a sultry tone. “Because this is all for you.”
“Are you stark bloody mad?” Gayle asked finally.
“Aye. Mad for you.” Anne shifted so that her legs were opened slightly and her wares more evidently on display.
“Put that away,” she said, covering her agape mouth with her hand in consternation.
“But it’s my endowment to you, Gayle. I want to give it to you…all of it.”
At that precise moment, Celia stepped into the cabin, shutting the door behind her. “Holy Mother of God.”
Anne quickly moved to cover her nudity with her shift. “We have been discovered,” she exclaimed dramatically.
“What exactly is this?” Celia asked.
Gayle, who was still horrified, was unable to do anything except shake her head.
Anne stood and slipped her shift back on. “You assu
red me that we would be alone,” she said to Gayle. “I shan’t bed you both at the same time.”
“Can you explain this, please?” Celia calmly asked again, arms akimbo.
“I wish I could,” Gayle answered. “I arrived here about one minute before you did. She was just lying there, bared and brazen, offering me her goods like a sluggish fishmonger.”
Anne was obviously livid. “Who are you calling ‘sluggish’?”
“Would you prefer the term ‘whoring’?” Celia suggested.
Anne stormed over to Gayle. “Are you going to let her speak to me this way?”
“Absolutely. In fact, I’m going to encourage her.”
Anne scowled and picked up the rest of her clothing. “You know,” she said, stopping only a few inches from Gayle’s face, “this simple girl will never give you everything that I can.”
Celia squinted angrily. “Like chancre sores?”
“You horrid bitch!” Anne spun and pulled her arm back to strike Celia.
Gayle caught Anne’s wrist in motion and jerked it, throwing Anne off balance. “Look here,” she growled. “You’re just a passenger on this ship, one that I am increasingly regretting rescuing. But I have no problem securing you in the hold in a barrel full of bilge water if you can’t behave.”
“Oh, really?”
“Or I could let Celia knock you out again. She’s quite a brute when she’s angry.”
“What do you mean ‘again’?”
“Go on, woman. Off with you.” Gayle shoved Anne toward the door. “You’ve worn out your welcome.” With that, she opened the cabin door, pushed Anne out in just her underclothes, and shut it behind her.
“Today is becoming extremely bizarre,” Celia said.
“Verily. And what did our good doctor want with you?”
“To tell me that you would be unfaithful to me and that I should consider being with him instead.”
Gayle sat on the bed and began to remove her stained shirt. “It seems there’s some fuckery afoot here.”
The Sublime and Spirited Voyage of Original Sin Page 19
