Chapter One
Nightmares
“Hillier,I’vechangedmymind.”
I glanced up from my task of dusting the mahogany desk to peer at Captain Martin with surprise.For a moment he was only a silhouette against the sun streaming in through the bank of windows, but then he turned and became solid.
Sometimes when I looked at Dinesh Martin, Captain of theArrow, and realized that he truly was mine in all the ways that counted, I could barely believe it.He took my breath away every single day.Well, except when I was cross with him, but even then I knew how lucky I was.
“Have you?What about, pray tell?”Hillier, the quartermaster, asked, with fond affection.
They were friends, even closer now that the former quartermaster, Donatello, had passed so unexpectedly and cruelly in a skirmish with another ship.
“I’d like to pay a visit to Francis Bell and his wife, if you and the crew don’t mind,” he said.
“Oh!”Hillier exclaimed.“But Talamanca is in the opposite direction to where we had planned to sail, Captain.”
Hillier didn’t seem overly upset, only concerned at such a sudden alteration of plans, I supposed.
“Yes, I know.I hope it isn’t a very great inconvenience to everyone,” Dinesh said.
“To be honest,” Hillier said, “I expect the men will be thrilled.Mr.Bell was almost as well-liked as you.”
“That is high praise from you, and I do hope you’re right.”
When Hillier had gone to tell the crew about the new destination, I asked the question I’d been dying to put forward.
“Who’s Francis Bell?”
“How’s the dusting going, Rooster?”
Rooster was the captain’s nickname for me since I sported a shock of red hair on my head and…in other places.
Dusting the furniture in the captain’s cabin was not a job I would have chosen.However, it was a way for me to serve him, and keep myself busy and out of harm’s way most of the time.I didn’t hate it as much as I let on.
I stood, crumpling the rag in my hand.“Almost done.So, who is he?And where is Talamanca?And why are we going there?”
Captain Martin leaned against one of the posts of his—well,our—gigantic bed and crossed his arms.
“Francis Bell is a former crew member and a very good friend of mine.And Talamanca is a coastal paradise in the Americas where he fell in love with an indigenous woman and decided to abandon us to the joys of domestic living.They’ve recently had their second child.”
“But…that’s quite far, isn’t it?”
He gave me a quizzical look.“Yes.A few months sailing.Believe me, it will be worth the journey.”
“I only mean, how on earth did you find out about the child?The second one?Or even the first one?”
“I received a missive from him whilst we were in Port Royal, before I ran into you and my life was changed forever.”
I smiled, recalling the day he’d agreed to let me onto theArrowand what had happened since.
“There aren’t many ships that pass through that part of the world, so he must have gone to some trouble to send it.And I miss him.”
“Well,” I said.“Then wemustgo.”
He grinned and shoved off the post, coming towards me with nefarious purpose.
“What are you doing?”
