Other Oceans: Book Two of the Hook & Jill Saga (44 page)

T
he ship went quiet after the uproar and confusion. Liza listened carefully to make it out but, in the end, she had to creep up the steep, clammy steps, barefoot in her nightdress, to learn what had happened. The men had subsided at last. Some, her father and Mr. Smee included, adjourned solemnly to confer in the galley. Some sat cross-legged on the forecastle with torches and bottles in their hands. In any case, the excitement was over for them. For Liza, it was only beginning.

To all appearances, Hook’s discipline was over, too. Earlier in the evening, Liza heard Mr. Yulunga order another cask broached. The reek of rum reached her nostrils as she peered, half in and half out of the hatch. The smell reminded her of the taste on Tom’s lips when he kissed her, so long ago now. Before he became the burly man with the scar on his temple. Liza considered the other men, too. Many of them bore scars, but, like his discipline, Hook’s wasn’t visible most of the time— yet one always sensed its existence.

The pirates were joking and shoving their elbows into one another’s ribs. Every so often a burst of laughter erupted, then hushed as the men looked behind them across the long deck toward the master’s quarters. Under cover of one such spasm, Liza hoisted herself to the deck and rolled away from the hole. Bending to keep her head lower than the rail, she scurried in the shadows from cannon to cannon, away from the gaiety, toward the companionway.

Mr. Jukes at the wheel appeared to be mapping the stars. The man’s tattooed face fascinated Liza, as did his hands with inky swirls and spirals all up and down his fingers. She could see them in the lanternlight as he stretched to grasp the wheel, and she hesitated, wondering what the rest of him looked like. Never before had she found an opportunity to get a good, long look at Mr. Jukes. She had developed a new desire to compare him, and all men, to her captain. Crouching in the darkness of the stairway, she paused before climbing to the captain’s quarters, determining which scene held more promise.

Then she heard the sounds, always more intriguing to Liza than the sights, and she slipped up the steps unseen by Jukes, drawn by sighs of spirits, the haunting breath of the dying. Liza knew what that sound was. She’d heard it before. It issued from the same place, too, only now there was an embarrassed hole instead of the stately door with its brass plate boasting ‘Capt. Jas. Hook.’ Candlelight flickered from within the cabin, to tempt her, offering for only the price of dignity to betray the sights there.

Liza’s feet made no noise as she hastened upward, and her nightdress snagged on the ragged door frame as she lowered herself to kneel within it. She pulled it free with a tiny snap. Like a penance, her knees absorbed the discomfort of the splinters scattered within the entrance. Obviously, the crash she had heard through the crack of the doorway to her own quarters originated here.

The spirits were moaning now, their shrouds rustling under their feet. The clink of their chains littered the air. A candle sputtered, and Liza raised her eyes to verify the scene before the light might be extinguished in the windy breath of these phantoms. Her pulse quickened at what she witnessed.

She needn’t have worried about losing the light. The candles shone in abundance. The scene played just as before, when she’d hidden behind the curtain to watch the master make love to the mistress. But tonight the semi-darkness was inspired by the flames instead of the moon, and punctuated by glitters of gold. Liza’s eyes connected the flecks of light, deciphering their meaning. She had recognized the chiming as Cecco’s bracelets, and it was his familiar cuffs that fettered the spirits who danced and whispered on the bunk. All illumined by the flickering eyes of tapers.

But other, invisible bonds connected the pair as well. The lovers were adorned, and adoring. They pressed together, rapturous, and only came away to rearrange themselves for further meeting. In the orange light of the candles, their bodies appeared very much intact, and their fully fleshed lips followed each other’s contours, outlining the linking limbs for Liza’s view. But where before a curtain of black hair had obscured her vision, Cecco’s hair was bound, and now her mistress’ face was clearly exposed and the girl could see their mouths pressing together and pulling away but not completely because their tongues were kissing too. Liza wrinkled her nose, then ran her own tongue over her lips. Caught up in this bonding, she could hear her heart beating again, too loudly.

And where, before, the master’s body had been long and sculpted like a statue, this master was thick and heavy, bulging all along his arms and legs. But the mistress was the same as before. As with the other captain, her female frame somehow endured his weight, even gloried in it. Her arms made the motions they had made behind her first lover, pulling and pushing, her hands caressing everything. With Cecco tonight, she used new motions, too, rolling the ends of his leather strap in her fingers, and stroking the scars covering his back, working as if to heal them. Her legs wrapped around his, her hips rose and fell with the sighs she expelled. And when the path to it was clear, her crimson hand would travel up the man’s thigh to touch the place where sometimes another glow of gold appeared, and her fingers would massage it, and she would close her eyes and sigh again.

The big man was smiling, always, and murmuring, and moving. At length he lifted the woman as lightly as if she were a toy, but precious. He sat up to position her on his lap, and then he stretched down on his back. Now it was the fair hair that drew the curtain on their upper bodies, and Liza felt herself become fluid as she watched their lower bodies coupling. Then she heard footsteps behind her, and a strangled gasp of outrage. She turned in time to see the signet on her father’s finger flare in the candlelight before his hands seized her shoulders. He dragged her off the splinters and into the velvet that covered the cage of his arms. One look back showed her Jill’s eyes, darkened to indigo now as she shook the hair from them, unashamed, even defiant as she identified the witness to her rites. But her body never stopped moving and her lips were parted and the man kept smiling and the spirits never ceased their airy utterances.

Liza pushed her face away from her father’s neck. Yet after she made sure Jukes saw them pass, she let her hair cover her features to drape over her father’s shoulder, as Jill’s had done over Cecco’s. Surely her father would punish her. Jill might punish her, too, and maybe even Captain Cecco would favor her with his attention, tomorrow. Liza’s pulse beat brutally all over her body, and throbbed between her legs. What would her father do to her? He hadn’t recognized her earlier transgression for what it was.
That
sin was still her secret. But surely he would react strongly now— and she would imagine that the black-haired captain with his velvet voice and his eyes like Jill’s was watching.

The lady had moaned for him. The lady’s glinting ghost moaned for Cecco, now. Would she one day moan for Liza’s father, too, the way Liza remembered hearing as her mother died?

Liza smiled through her trepidation. When her father took his cane to her this time, she might surprise the good doctor again and moan for him— just like Jill.

§ § §

He could still smell the sea. That was good. And the movement of the waves was good, unless it was only the continuing disorientation. He waited, and assessed….Yes. He was still aboard a ship.

The first time he’d come round, he learned not to open his eyes. He had jolted into awareness, staring with his eyes wide, striving to sit up. But he was immediately restrained, and gagged soon after by a foul-smelling rag in a firm hand, and that had been the end of it. Now, he listened instead. Steady breathing. The slap of the sea. Through his eyelids he perceived the light of coming dawn, through his nostrils, the scent of a warm female body, and the residue of the drug.

He flexed his fingers, but slowly. The band of iron still encompassed his wrist. He couldn’t risk allowing the chain to jangle. He’d been stripped of boots and coat, but the soft linen of his shirt had been replaced since his last awakening. The hook, of course, was the first thing they’d taken. Moving his right foot ever so slightly, he affirmed the grasp of the metal cuff on his ankle.

The heavy ache of his head had not abated. Throughout his befuddled state of the past hours it throbbed, for he’d not been asleep. The drug had rendered him incapacitate, but had not delivered to him the blessing of unconsciousness. As always when his woman was wakeful, he was incapable of sleep. All through the dark time, something— most likely his absence— had prevented her rest. Now, though, he felt her to be drowsing, and sealing his eyes once again, he commended himself to the mercy of slumber, for however long he might enjoy it.

Floating at last, soothed in the waters of his dreams, he sought relief in the arms of his mermaid. Reaching for her, he discovered she was no longer at his side. He swam into the depths, stroking against the sea with all his strength, searching, spying out that emerald flash of scaling. But though he glimpsed the tip of her tail, the void in his soul told him she had gone too far to follow.

Hook’s chains held him back, and Jill was sinking, away and down, into another ocean.

§ § §

Yesterday, the fateful day of Hook’s disappearance, Liza welcomed Smee’s change of plan. Obedient to his order, she forsook the rest of her lesson and kept to her quarters. Her peek into the cabin next to her own confirmed her hopes, and she hastened to prepare herself, letting down her hair as she stole back to her room. It was there, at last, that she captured Captain Hook’s attention.

As he rolled up his charts and prepared to quit the cabin, Hook must have heard the scrabbling of little stones, for with a rustling of papers, he scraped back his chair and rose. Liza listened to the tap of his hook on the door as he pushed it wider. She heard the cautious step of his boots as he emerged. With a swipe and a skittering, he nudged one of the gems with his toe. She thought he wouldn’t resist picking them up, but as the sounds indicated, he forbore. Smiling to herself, Liza felt the swaying of the ship, and she appreciated her own cleverness. She had been wise to arrange a more immediate enticement as well.

From her hiding place behind her open door, Liza heard the shuffling noise continue. Hook followed her path, gathering the diamonds together with his foot, like so much refuse, and sweeping them toward her cabin. There was a silence during which Liza’s heart careened, and in one final swish, he shoved them all to roll twinkling into her quarters. Then he paused.

Liza knew what had to be happening in that instant. Captain Hook was absorbing the sight of a dazzling diamond bracelet, positioned strategically on the sill of the open window and glistening in the midday sunlight. As the ship rocked with the waves, the visible end of the bracelet swung. Clearly, the precious ornament was worth a fortune. Just as clearly, it was in peril. At any point, the pitch of the
Roger
might send it sliding into the sea, to be lost forever. What pirate wouldn’t act to save such a treasure? Liza held her breath as she watched its reflection glitter in the mirror over her bureau. This was the deciding moment. Success or failure hung on her master’s next movement.

He didn’t hesitate. Liza heard his boots stride boldly to starboard. Breathing again, she watched his red velvet image in the glass as he hastened to the window and snatched up the jewelry. At last, the great Captain Hook deigned to visit her quarters!

As she watched, his glance swept the room, noting a bowlful of fruit on the table, linen napkins, a sherry bottle and two familiar glasses. Lowering his eyes, he observed the loose diamonds on the floor. Then, choosing not to turn toward Liza, he cast his blue gaze to the mirror, where her reflection stood in the shadows behind the door. He weighed the bracelet in his one good hand.

“What game are you playing, little girl, and with your father’s pieces?”

He had spoken to her! Her throat swelled with sounds fighting to escape. But she couldn’t answer. Waiting for more of his words, her yearning compelled her to behold him directly. Her desire was so consuming that, as her face emerged, she forgot to push the door. He turned to squint at her, and she remembered. Taking a deep breath of courage, she pushed hard. The door swung silently to click shut.

He lifted one eyebrow. His eyes coursed down and up her unclothed, ripened body. Without any indication of his thoughts, he turned toward the door. Liza flung herself between him and the exit. He halted with a jerk, his golden earring bobbing. When he advanced again, she fell back against the door, splaying her arms and shaking her head. The wood was rough and cool against the skin of her elbows, her back, and buttocks. She’d expected that. She hadn’t known what else to expect. Anger, interest? Certainly not the containment with which he responded.

“Stand aside.”

He was so commanding, so tall! His presence filled the room in the way she wished he would fill her body. Her wide eyes gazed up at his face. Her finger pointed at the gems shining on the floor, indicating that he should take them.

“None of this plunder is yours to give.” Carelessly, as if it were a shuttlecock, he tossed the bracelet onto her father’s desk.

She winced, and then she looked at the two pink pearls on her ring. Wrenched with clashing desires, she drew the ring off. With hope in her eyes, she offered it to him.

Like a long-suffering teacher, he said, “Little girl, I already have access to your jewels.”

Her mouth opened as if she longed to speak. Her hands opened as well. With a leap of faith, she relinquished her precious ring, dropping it to rattle on the floorboards. Surely he would see that the ring, the diamonds— nothing— held meaning for her. Only
he
mattered. Gazing intently at the master, she ran her palms up her thighs and her hips and over her torso, drawing them under her breasts. Inviting, she held her bare arms out to him.

The patience in his wonderful voice wore thin. “Understand. Had you anything I wanted, I’d have taken you long ago. Move aside.”