Page 31 of Hooked by a Hero (Tales from the Brotherhood #4)
Sixteen
S omething was not right. It was difficult for Caspian to say what exactly that something wrong was as he and Elias walked Dick back to the survivors’ camp, however.
It was more than the fact that Dick was a horrible person in a desperate state.
Caspian could not puzzle out why that seemed false when Dick was clearly hungry and dirty.
The man was in a state, but at the same time, Caspian felt as if he were being lied to.
Worse still, he could not share any of his thoughts on the matter with Elias.
Not with Dick marching between the two of them as they made their way back over the beaches and rocky bits jutting into the water.
They had no chains or shackles and no one else to march Dick ahead of them so that they could take a moment to discuss the matter.
It was more than Dick’s appearance that had Caspian feeling as though he were dangling from a line.
Elias knew the truth now. The full truth.
They’d swum together, and they’d shared a kiss that had enabled Elias to experience everything their love could do to keep them together.
They’d almost consummated their love, at long last, but once again had been blocked.
That alone was beginning to annoy Caspian, but he could not say a single thing about it with Dick between them.
“How did you escape the Fortune on the night of the storm?” Elias asked after they’d been walking in silence for nearly an hour.
Caspian was so relieved by the question that he blew out a breath and let the tension drop from his shoulders.
“I scrambled for one of the lifeboats, of course,” Dick answered with protective swagger, still clutching the water flask to his chest. He’d drunk the thing dry within fifteen minutes of walking, but continued to cradle the leather flask as if his life depended on it. In many ways it did.
“By yourself?” Caspian asked.
Dick glared at him. “I wasn’t going to wait for any of you lot to pile in and drag me down.”
“But what about Tumbrill and the others?” Elias asked as they rounded a jetty of rocks and caught sight of the beach with their signal fire.
“How should I know?” Dick snarled. “That lot were as drunk as skunks when the storm hit. For all I know, their corpses are rotting on the bottom of the sea.”
There were no corpses. At least not any that belonged to Tumbrill and the other mutineers.
Caspian had found the remains of two of the passengers on the ocean floor near the shoal in the days right after the wreck, when he’d been helping with the salvage efforts, and though several others were still missing, he had not seen their remains.
He would have noticed any other bodies during those searches.
“You took an entire lifeboat for yourself when you could have saved at least a dozen men or more in the vessel?” Elias asked incredulously.
“That was my lifeboat,” Dick snapped, hugging his flask tighter.
Caspian sent Elias a wary look that both said everything he felt about Dick and warned his lover to be careful not to antagonize the man.
He wanted answers as much as Elias, but that prickling, dangerous element that surrounded Dick was as powerful now as it was on the ship, when he was hale and hearty.
“How did you maneuver an entire lifeboat by yourself?” Elias asked more gently. At least he was trying to temper his feelings about Dick.
“Maneuver? What kind of fancy word is that?” Dick snorted.
“I didn’t maneuver anything. The ship was rocking and sinking due to that broken mast and the bloody storm.
Someone cut the lifeboat free and shoved it in the water.
I found myself tumbling overboard into the drink, and next I knew, I’d climbed over the side of the boat and huddled there, cursing the name of every fool who ever crossed me and landed me in that water. ”
Caspian frowned. The story made sense. Dick hadn’t so much saved himself as he had been extraordinarily lucky.
His story did not account for the other lifeboat, however.
“And you’re certain you do not know what became of the others?
” he asked, glancing ahead of them to where there return had garnered attention from the crew that were fishing with nets a little way out into the water on one of the remaining boats.
He waved back to them, then watched as the men gave up their fishing efforts to row the boat back to the beach.
“Are your ears filled with sand? I told you, I don’t know and I don’t care,” Dick said with a snort, then spit on the sand.
“You did not see Tumbrill or any of those who joined your mutinous efforts the night of the storm or after?” Elias asked.
“No,” Dick growled. “And damn their hides for not lifting a single finger to help me. Damn you lot, too, for thinking you’re so much better than me.”
Everything about Dick’s story seemed logical and reasonable, given who the man was and what the circumstances had been that night. At the same time, none of it sat well with Caspian, like a briny bit of fish he could not swallow.
Neither he nor Elias said another word as they walked Dick along the beach toward the point where the path leading to their settlement met the sand.
They’d been noticed by more than just the fishermen and two of the ladies, Miss Winters and Emily, who, as always, were vigilantly feeding the signal fire.
Someone must have run to inform the others, because a few more people, one of them Hunt, raced out from the mouth of the path.
“Blimey!” Dick puffed as they approached the signal fire. “The chits weren’t all drowned after all.”
Caspian cursed himself for not thinking far enough ahead to shield the ladies from Dick’s perception. He’d had too many other things swimming around in his mind.
“Don’t you even think about it,” Elias told Dick firmly, grabbing his arm and holding him back when Dick attempted to run ahead and likely assault Miss Winters.
As soon as Miss Winters and Emily saw who Caspian and Elias had brought back with them, they gasped and scrambled back from the fire as if some of the embers had leapt out and burned them.
Caspian couldn’t blame them, especially since, despite his weakened state, Dick still leered at them as if he would assault them on the spot.
“What is this?” Hunt demanded with a scowl as he marched forward to greet them.
“We found him stealing from our packs when we, er, took a moment to go swimming,” Elias answered.
Caspian would have warned Elias not to say where they were or what they’d been doing when they’d discovered Dick, but it was too late for that. “He was hungry and thirsty,” he added, hoping Hunt and the others would be more interested in Dick than him and Elias.
“Where have you been hiding all this time?” Hunt asked, crossing his arms and standing taller as he frowned at Dick. Hunt was not particularly tall or muscular, but in the last three weeks, he’d had more than enough food and physical labor, whereas Dick looked as though he’d hardly eaten anything.
“Why should I tell you?” Dick asked defiantly all the same, turning up his nose.
Hunt snatched at the front of the man’s shirt, closing it in his fist and tugging Dick close so suddenly that he nearly stumbled.
“Do not take that tone with me,” Hunt said.
“You are a convict and a mutineer. I witnessed you murdering men with my own eyes. You will tell me what I want to know and accept whatever punishment I see fit to give you.”
“Who made you the Queen of England?” Dick demanded in return.
“We all did,” Mr. Archer, who had come out from the jungle with Hunt, answered. When Dick stared at him in confusion, Archer went on with, “We, the survivors of the Fortune , elected Mr. Hunt to be our leader.”
Dick looked surprised for a few seconds before falling back into a smarmy laugh. “Of course you did. You passengers always were so smug and proper. Leave it to you lot to go and elect a leader when it’s dog eat dog on this island. Every man for himself, I say.”
“You will not say much if you keep talking like that,” Hunt said.
“That man needs to be locked in chains so he cannot hurt anyone,” Mr. Woburn, who had been fishing on the boat with the others, said.
Dick snarled at him and said, “Too bad you don’t have any locks and chains.”
“In fact, we do,” Hunt said, lifting Dick to his toes by the grip he had on the man’s shirt. “We’ll take him to the camp,” he announced to the others. “We’ll all decide together what should be done with this man.”
Caspian was relieved that Dick would be in chains soon. He was happy to hand the villain over into Hunt’s care. But as they all left the beach and headed along the path to the encampment, the sense that they were all still in a great deal of danger continued to hang over Caspian.
“I do not believe in executing men simply for showing themselves,” he said quietly to Elias as they walked side by side a short distance behind the others, “but I do not believe that any of us are safe as long as that man lives.”
Elias sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “I hate to say it, but I agree,” he said. “Only, who would be strong enough to slit the bastard’s throat for the benefit of the whole?”
Caspian felt sick at the very idea. But as they emerged from the path into the clearing where the settlement stood, his feeling that they needed to do away with Dick as soon as possible only intensified.
“Bloody hell!” Dick exclaimed as he glanced around the settlement with a stunned look. “You’ve had all this here the whole time and you didn’t think to share with the likes of me?”
“I do not believe for one moment that a man like you would have contributed to what we have built here,” Hunt said, marching Dick over to the pile of crates, barrels, and other things from the ship that had yet to be sorted. “Find shackles for this man’s hands and feet,” he ordered as he walked.