Page 5 of Hooked By a Hero
“You have valuable cargo, sir?” he asked, crossing to the starboard side of the forecastle to see what the older man was carrying on about.
Elias smiled slightly, as if he knew Caspian had allowed the interruption so that he did not have to answer any further, embarrassing questions, and crossed the forecastle with him.
The elderly man and the young woman standing beside him turned to regard Caspian and Elias. “My entire fortune is contained within those trunks,” the older man said.
“How do you do,” the young woman said, sending the older man a quick, gently scolding look. “I am Miss Ruby Ferrars, and this is my grandfather, Mr. Nelson Ferrars,” she made the introductions.
“I’m Caspian,” Caspian said, offering his hand the way Englishmen did. “And this is my friend, Dr. Elias Pettigrew.”
“A physician, are you?” Mr. Ferrars said, shaking Elias’s hand instead of Caspian’s. “I should be happy to have you aboard for this journey. I have lived these eighty years in the picture of health, but one never knows when one’s heart will give out at last.”
“That is why I am with you, Grandpapa,” Miss Ferrars said with an affectionate smile, taking her grandfather’s arm. “Grandpapa always says I keep him young.”
“That you do, my dear and precious Ruby, that you do.” Mr. Ferrars smiled back at his granddaughter, patting her hand on his arm, then spotted something over the side of the ship. “I say, have a care for those trunks!” he repeated his earlier admonishment, turning back to the ship’s railing. “That chest in particular.”
Caspian sent Elias a smile and was pleased beyond telling when the handsome doctor grinned back at him, as though the two of them shared a joke at the expense of Mr. Ferrars. There was most definitely something special about Elias.
The two of them moved to the railing with Mr. and Miss Ferrars and glanced down over the side. Sure enough, the crew was hoisting a pallet stacked with trunks and wrapped in a net of rope to keep it safe from the dock below onto the ship. It looked to contain mostly traveling trunks and other things belonging to the passengers, but one compact chest with multiple locks sat atop the pile.
“I live in terror of the ropes breaking or the contents of the pallet hifting and spilling my treasure to the dock below,” Mr. Ferrars muttered. “That small chest is packed full of cash, gold, and jewels, and if it were to fall and break and scatter the contents, every guttersnipe and dock rat from Westminster to the Isle of Dogs would scarper off with my fortune.”
“Grandpapa,” Miss Ferrars scolded the man. “You do not need to let everyone along the entire Thames waterfront know how much money you have with you.”
“What?” Mr. Ferrars snapped. “I’ve done no such thing.”
Miss Ferrars sent Caspian and Elias a long-suffering look, as though they had all been friends for years and knew just how impossible Mr. Ferrars could be.
Caspian found the woman, and Elias, and the absolutely lovely situation he’d found himself in all of a sudden, after months of exploring England, to be perfect in every way. Hewas certain his return home would be one of the most pleasant experiences in his recent memory.
Although perhaps not for Elias.
“Dr. Pettigrew!” Lady Eudora’s voice sailed up from the dock. “You cannot do this to me!”
“Oh, dear,” Elias sighed, backing away from the railing.
Lady Eudora and an older woman Caspian assumed was her mother had pushed their way all the way to the end of the dock, nearly directly below the forecastle. Several dock workers were trying to pull them away, and two gentlemen who looked to be of a higher class appeared to be attempting to coax them into leaving as well, but to no avail.
“Do not worry,” Miss Ferrars called down to the two ladies. “I will take good care of him until we reach Australia.”
There was something cheeky in the way Miss Ferrars made the promise, and sure enough, Lady Eudora squeaked in indignation.
“I am uncertain that will help,” Elias murmured, backing farther from the railing.
Miss Ferrars turned to him and laughed, then placed a gloved hand over her mouth for a moment. “I am truly sorry if I have caused more trouble for you, Dr. Pettigrew,” she said.
“You must forgive my granddaughter,” Mr. Ferrars sighed. “She has always been of high spirits, ever since her mother passed when she was but a babe. I have done my best to raise her to be a sweet and sober woman, but she has too much of her mother in her.”
“And I am proud of it,” Miss Ferrars said instead of bowing her head at her grandfather’s scolding. “Which is why I convinced Grandpapa to take me to Australia so that I might establish myself as a leader of business or industry in a new and exciting place.”
“How very intriguing,” Caspian said, then turned to Elias. “Do you not find that very intriguing, Elias?”
Immediately, Caspian knew he’d said something wrong again. Elias, Miss Ferrars, and Mr. Ferrars stared at him for a moment before Elias said, “I…I suppose I do not mind being called by my given name, since we will all be intimately acquainted during this voyage.”
Names! Caspian had completely forgotten about the propriety of names. He should have referred to Elias as Dr. Pettigrew.
“I agree,” Miss Ferrars said with a strong nod. “I should like for you to call me Ruby.”
“Oh, here we go,” her grandfather sighed and rolled his eyes. “You will refer to me as ‘Mr. Ferrars’ or ‘sir’.”
