Page 10 of Hooked by a Hero (Tales from the Brotherhood #4)
“I will not have those blackguards on my deck at any time, for any reason,” Captain Woodward said, as if he were attempting to have the final word in a longer conversation.
“I am well aware that I said they would be allowed time on deck at the beginning, but that was before I knew how vicious those men are.”
“You see what is coming as clearly as I do,” Tumbrill growled at him. “It’s long past time you shoved your so-called morals into a trunk and cast them into the sea. If that storm breaks the way I think it will, we’ll need every able-bodied man working to keep this ship afloat.”
Elias tensed with sudden worry, turning slightly, as Caspian did, to watch the two men arguing.
“Nonsense,” Captain Woodward said. “The crew is more than capable of taking the ship through a storm. They’ve done admirably so far.”
“Then do it for the sake of humanity,” Tumbrill argued on. “Those men haven’t stood upright or seen the sun in weeks.”
“Those men are thieves and murderers,” the captain argued. “Why do you care so much about them at any rate? You’ve never shown yourself to care much for your fellow man before now.”
“I…I’ve turned over a new leaf,” Tumbrill growled.
Elias exchanged a look with Caspian. The conversation was far more unsettling than it should have been.
While Elias agreed that the prisoners should not be kept in the sort of confinement they’d been in for the duration of the journey so far, he’d had enough experience with those men through treating various wounds and complaints to know that not all of them were just pickpockets and fencers. Many of them truly were dangerous.
At the same time, he reluctantly agreed with Captain Woodward that Mr. Tumbrill did not seem to be the sort who would care one way or another about the comfort of convicts.
Something else was afoot. Something that reminded Elias of the half-forgotten mention that Caspian had overheard the convicts talking about some sort of plot.
“Give me the keys to their cell at least,” Tumbrill argued on. “We’re sailing right into something, and if it transpires that we do need the additional help of those men below, let me be the judge of when and how to release them.”
“Not on your life,” Captain Woodward scoffed. “I wouldn’t trust a man like you with those convicts if you were the last officer aboard this ship.”
“Then you are as much of a coward as I’ve always believed you to be,” Tumbrill hissed.
Captain Woodward’s eyes went wide with indignation. He also noticed Elias and Caspian standing there, observing the argument as well. Instead of confronting Tumbrill, he snapped, “What are the two of you looking at, you filthy buggerers.”
Elias and Caspian stood straighter. Elias’s heart pounded with alarm as he said, “Nothing. We’re not looking at anything. We were just discussing the weather.”
“A storm is definitely on its way,” Caspian said. “A bad one.”
“You see?” Tumbrill demanded, using Caspian’s words as if they were a sword he could poke the captain with. “Even a landlubber can see we’re sailing into danger.”
“I am not a landlubber,” Caspian said.
Elias put a hand on his arm, tugging him away from the railing. As much as Elias would have loved to learn more from that statement, he could see now was not the time.
“We’ll have a better view from the forecastle,” he said, mostly to the captain, before dragging Caspian away.
They walked up the length of the deck, Elias’s heart still pounding.
As they passed their group of friends, Elias noted how unsettled they looked.
The wind had picked up, and Lady Adelaide had been forced to lower her umbrella, lest it blow away.
The ladies had their hands on their hats to keep them from blowing off, and before Elias and Caspian had made it to the stairs leading up to the forecastle, Mr. Hunt and Mr. Cartwright rose to offer hands to the ladies, presumably to help them to their cabins.
“I believe more than one sort of storm is brewing,” Elias said once he and Caspian were alone on the sharply bobbing forecastle.
They were more alone than they’d been in weeks, but it was as far from an appropriate moment for the two of them to steal kisses or tender touches. The ship was racing fast into choppy waters, and the clouds ahead of them were a dark, heavy grey.
“I do not like this,” Caspian agreed. “There’s a bad feeling in the air.”
Elias hummed and nodded. He glanced ahead at the brewing storm, then behind them, down the length of the ship.
The crew had been roused from whatever they were doing.
Several men were climbing up into the rigging, likely to adjust the sails in preparation for the storm.
Captain Woodward and Mr. Tumbrill were still arguing, and now Mr. Cox had joined them.
All three men were gesticulating, their faces red as they shouted.
“We need to decide what we are going to do if that argument spreads,” Elias said, standing closer to Caspian as rain began to spit down from the sky.
“Do you think we should take over the ship ourselves and sail it into the nearest port?” Caspian asked.
Elias blinked and pulled his focus away from the argument on the deck to look squarely at Caspian. “I thought you had traveled profusely,” he said. “Surely, you know that passengers cannot take over command of a ship. That would be mutiny.”
“I….” Caspian’s face colored as the wind picked up. “That is to say, you are right. We must do something to protect our friends and maintain the integrity of the ship.”
“But what?” Elias asked. His insides swirled with uncertainty, and not just because of the storm about to break over them and the disagreements between the captain and his crew.
Caspian’s answer had been so odd that, taken with all of the other mysteries about the man, it left Elias feeling as though he were staring at a stranger instead of a man he was ready to give his heart to.
Before he could ask more questions or come up with any sort of plan for action, Captain Woodward shouted, “All passengers must return to their cabins! We’re sailing straight into a storm, and it will be a rough one.”
“Come on,” Elias said with a weary sigh, heading for the stairs that would take them to the main deck.
“We aren’t sharing a cabin,” Caspian reminded him as they half climbed, half stumbled down to the main deck.
Conditions were deteriorating far too quickly for Elias’s liking. He knew that some storms could rise up suddenly, but he’d never seen anything like what they were sailing into.
His worries were not allayed at all when lightning split the clouds ahead of them and distant thunder was heard across the crashing of waves that seemed to swell higher and higher with each moment.
“Get below!” Captain Woodward snarled at them as they stumbled their way along the deck to the hatch at the stern. “It’s madness for anyone to be above deck for a storm like this. Although I wouldn’t consider it a great loss if two sodomites were washed overboard in the?—”
“Captain!”
The captain’s insult was cut short as one of the crew called to him from the yardarm above.
“Blast it,” Captain Woodward grumbled, ignoring Elias and Caspian to attend to whatever the sailor needed.
“We should get below while we can,” Elias said, hurrying along the deck. “I still haven’t figured out where you’re lodging, but you can stay in my cabin until the storm passes.”
It was an offer for the purpose of safety, though if they managed to hold onto their courage in the dangerous storm, perhaps they could enjoy each other just a little.
It was a mad thought and one that Elias brushed aside as they descended to the middeck.
Of course they would not be able to make love in the middle of a storm.
Elias figured he would be lucky if he could keep his lunch in his stomach and his wits about him as the ship pitched and bobbed and was lashed with rain and wind.
God forbid one of the masts was hit by lightning.
He shivered at that thought, but even his shivering was stopped short as soon as they reached the middeck. The deck was a hive of activity as passengers rushed to their cabins, but that was not the only rush Elias saw.
Off to the side, where the other set of stairs descended into the lower deck, Mr. Tumbrill was racing up, a sword in one hand. Behind him, without any shackles or chains at all and with a sword of his own, was the convict Dick.