Page 6 of Hooked by a Hero (Tales from the Brotherhood #4)

Elias instantly detested the man. He could not speak for the rest of the convicts, but Dick most certainly deserved transportation.

Whether he deserved to be kept in the dank darkness of the Fortune’s lower deck for the entire, four-month journey was another thing that Elias could have debated.

Surely, there had to be a way to give even these dangerous men some time in the sunshine of the main deck.

Was that not what Captain Woodward had originally intended?

“Let us treat these men’s wounds at least,” Hunt persisted with the guards. “Captain Woodward might be a hard man, but he would not want word to get back to the Crown that he was cruel as well.”

Elias sent his new friend a sidelong look. He was not entirely certain, from what he had seen so far, that Captain Woodward would give a damn whether he was considered cruel or not.

It took a bit more arguing, but Hunt managed to convince the guards to let him and Elias treat the convicts for their minor injuries. But to do so, they had to crawl into the cell with the men. The guards would not let them out.

It was one of the most harrowing experiences of Elias’s life.

The conditions in the cell were wretched.

Not all of the men were as vicious as Dick, though a handful of them were.

Most were sad, defeated men with sores along their wrists and ankles from the shackles they still wore who had probably done little more than steal a bauble here and there.

“There must be some way to convince Captain Woodward to let the prisoners up into the sun now and then, under controlled conditions,” Elias said later, as he and Hunt climbed up to the main deck for some much-needed air.

“Perhaps if they were kept in a tight group at a specific part of the ship, far away from the ladies aboard.”

There were only four or five ladies aboard in total, so Elias reasoned that it would not be too difficult to keep them isolated.

Hunt shook his head, running a hand through his reddish hair. “I doubt the captain would allow it. I’ve sailed with him for two years now, and he is not a man who is inclined to change his opinions.”

Elias frowned and hummed.

“You might try appealing to Mr. Cox,” Ruby said, startling Elias. He hadn’t seen her standing near the hatch as he and Hunt made their way up into the fresh air. She had likely heard most of their conversation.

“And what would you know of Mr. Cox?” Hunt asked her, his eyes suddenly shining with fondness and amusement.

Ruby grinned right back at Hunt. “I know that he does not like Captain Woodward particularly,” she said, cleverness radiating from her.

“Is that so?” Hunt crossed his arms and leaned against the top of the railing at the side of the hatch.

“Yes,” Ruby went on, her eyes only for Hunt. “And neither of them care much for Mr. Tumbrill.”

“You think?” Hunt asked.

“I have eyes, sir,” Ruby said. “I can see that the three highest-ranking sailors on this vessel barely tolerate each other. That must have made for some interesting voyages in the past.”

Hunt laughed. “It has indeed.”

Elias might have been curious about whether Ruby’s guess that Captain Woodward, Mr. Cox, and Mr. Tumbrill did not like each other, but at that moment, he spotted Caspian at last near the ship’s bow.

“If you will excuse me,” he said, walking quickly away from Hunt and Ruby, his heart suddenly beating twice as hard.

Caspian looked radiant in the sunlight. His coloring made him stand out against the dark wood of the deck.

As Elias approached, the fleeting thought that it was odd someone with such pale skin had not become burned, like a few of the other passengers unused to spending so much time out of doors, struck him.

That thought and all others vanished from his mind as Caspian saw him and smiled.

As soon as they were in close proximity, Caspian’s smile changed from eager and affectionate to teasing. “You smell horrible,” he said in his usual, charmingly blunt manner.

Elias laughed. He should not have, given the potential insult Caspian had just hurled at him, but he could not help himself. “I was down on the lower deck, treating some of the unfortunate convicts for wounds they sustained during our stretch of bad weather.”

Caspian hummed, his expression turning serious. “Some of those convicts are very bad men,” he said.

“Yes, I’ve just experienced that,” Elias said. “But not all of them. Some of them are just hapless souls who turned left when they should have turned right.”

Caspian’s smile returned. “You are a kind man, Elias,” he said. “And you are right.”

Elias shrugged, flushing under the compliment as if he were a boy who had just been told by a teacher that he’d written a sterling essay. “I have seen enough of mankind to know that it takes an extraordinary effort to be a bad person.”

“You are a better man than most I have met,” Caspian said, his smile and the warmth in his blue-green eyes underscoring the compliment.

Elias drew in a breath, his heart and body buzzing.

Would to God they were not on a ship, where privacy was next to impossible to be had!

He wanted to step closer to Caspian, stroke his fingers up Caspian’s arm, across his neck, and into his hair.

He wanted to slide an arm around his waist and pull the man close for a kiss.

He was certain that if he slanted his lips over Caspian’s full and inviting ones, his friend would not balk or put him off.

Indeed, he was certain Caspian wanted him as much as he was wanted.

“There is a pod of dolphins off to the starboard side,” Caspian said, his soft, rich tone and the way he lowered his voice making those words sound like a lover’s endearment. “Would you like to see?”

“Yes,” Elias said immediately and breathlessly. There were a lot of things he would have liked to see. Caspian without his clothes on was highest on that list.

“Come, then,” Caspian said, taking his hand.

The touch of their palms sent a jolt of desire through Elias, but with it, a rush of alarm. As he let Caspian lead him to the stairs that would take them up onto the forecastle, he glanced around, anxious over anyone was watching them.

His heart dropped to his gut when he looked over his shoulder halfway up the stairs and caught Captain Woodward watching them with a dark scowl.

There were few ways the man’s disapproving look could be interpreted.

Elias did not need to join in the gossip about how hard a man Captain Woodward was or how much conflict he had with his own lieutenants to know he despised men like Elias.

“We need to be discreet,” Elias whispered once he and Caspian were out of the captain’s sight. They took up positions shoulder-to-shoulder at the railing near the front starboard side of the forecastle, looking out over the sunny ocean.

“Discreet?” Caspian asked, a bit too loudly for Elias’s liking.

Elias glanced over his shoulder at the others on the deck. As would be expected at the first hint of good weather after bad, the forecastle was crowded with passengers in need of fresh air and sunshine.

“We cannot raise suspicions of—” Elias turned back to Caspian, uncertain how to continue.

They had not discussed their proclivities with each other in any way as of yet.

For all he knew, Caspian might have been a different sort entirely.

He could have merely considered them friends and himself had a particularly open manner of being friends with other men.

But when his smile grew as he gazed teasingly back at Elias and asked, “Suspicions of what?” Elias was certain the two of them were in accord.

“Suspicions that there might be some other attraction besides friendship between us,” he whispered so quietly that it was a wonder Caspian heard him.

With a subtle, low laugh that had Elias’s heart beating harder and his trousers tightening, Caspian shifted his hand on the railing so that his and Elias’s pinky fingers twined. “I never understood the English revulsion toward two men who fancy each other,” he whispered back.

For a moment, Elias could barely breathe.

His upper arm pressed against Caspian’s but those were not the parts he wished to rub against each other.

His head filled with images of the two of them tangled up with each other in one of the ship’s tiny cabin beds.

He wondered which of them would be more aggressive or more compliant as they kissed and caressed and more.

Of course, it didn’t matter. The ship was crowded and privacy was impossible.

The most he and Caspian would be able to do in the next four months was precisely what they were doing now.

Fleeting touches and concealed pinky holds were the most they would be able to manage, especially with the captain so deeply against what they felt.

“I missed you,” Elias whispered as they pretended to be fascinated by the vista the ocean had to offer. “While I was indisposed, I missed you.”

“I wasn’t far,” Caspian said, turning his head to smile at Elias as if he was taking in a beautiful sight.

“Still, I missed you,” Elias said. He furrowed his brow slightly and asked, “Where were you?”

Caspian tensed subtly. “I was here,” he said, nodding and glancing around at the ship and the sea. “I’ve always been here.”

“I looked for you in all the cabins and couldn’t find you,” Elias said, no idea why he felt the need to push the matter.

“I was not assigned a cabin,” Caspian said.

Elias’s brows lifted in surprise. “You weren’t?”

“No,” Caspian said. “I…I booked my passage at the very last moment.”

Elias opened his mouth to ask another question but thought better of it. Was it possible that Caspian was a stowaway? Surely not. He would have been discovered from the start and put off the ship.

Then again, Caspian had a certain refinement to his manner and his clothing was fine. The crew might have simply assumed he was an aristocrat, and therefore entitled to do whatever he liked whenever he liked.

More questions popped to Elias’s mind that he almost asked, but Caspian turned back to the ocean, pointed out, and said, “Look! There they are!”

All was forgotten as Elias turned and spotted what looked to be dozens of dolphins swimming alongside the ship, not terribly far away. They leapt over the waves and seemed to be showing off.

Caspian laughed. “Cheeky devils,” he said.

Elias’s heart melted at the comment and the delight in his sweet friend’s eyes.

Mysteries could wait. Elias wasn’t entirely certain he wanted them solved.

All he wanted was to stay where he was, standing side-by-side with Caspian, as the Fortune sliced through the clear, blue sea.

Everything else could be damned for the next four months.