Page 16 of Hooked By a Hero
“I am not a landlubber,” Caspian said.
Elias put a hand on his arm, tugging him away from the railing. As much as Elias would have loved to learn more from that statement, he could see now was not the time.
“We’ll have a better view from the forecastle,” he said, mostly to the captain, before dragging Caspian away.
They walked up the length of the deck, Elias’s heart still pounding. As they passed their group of friends, Elias noted how unsettled they looked. The wind had picked up, and Lady Adelaide had been forced to lower her umbrella, lest it blow away. The ladies had their hands on their hats to keep them from blowing off, and before Elias and Caspian had made it to the stairs leading up to the forecastle, Mr. Hunt and Mr. Cartwright rose to offer hands to the ladies, presumably to help them to their cabins.
“I believe more than one sort of storm is brewing,” Elias said once he and Caspian were alone on the sharply bobbing forecastle.
They were more alone than they’d been in weeks, but it was as far from an appropriate moment for the two of them to steal kisses or tender touches. The ship was racing fast into choppy waters, and the clouds ahead of them were a dark, heavy grey.
“I do not like this,” Caspian agreed. “There’s a bad feeling in the air.”
Elias hummed and nodded. He glanced ahead at the brewing storm, then behind them, down the length of the ship. The crew had been roused from whatever they were doing. Several men were climbing up into the rigging, likely to adjust the sails in preparation for the storm. Captain Woodward and Mr. Tumbrill were still arguing, and now Mr. Cox had joined them. All three men were gesticulating, their faces red as they shouted.
“We need to decide what we are going to do if that argument spreads,” Elias said, standing closer to Caspian as rain began to spit down from the sky.
“Do you think we should take over the ship ourselves and sail it into the nearest port?” Caspian asked.
Elias blinked and pulled his focus away from the argument on the deck to look squarely at Caspian. “I thought you had traveled profusely,” he said. “Surely, you know that passengers cannot take over command of a ship. That would be mutiny.”
“I….” Caspian’s face colored as the wind picked up. “That is to say, you are right. We must do something to protect our friends and maintain the integrity of the ship.”
“But what?” Elias asked. His insides swirled with uncertainty, and not just because of the storm about to break over them and the disagreements between the captain and his crew. Caspian’s answer had been so odd that, taken with all of the other mysteries about the man, it left Elias feeling as though he were staring at a stranger instead of a man he was ready to give his heart to.
Before he could ask more questions or come up with any sort of plan for action, Captain Woodward shouted, “All passengers must return to their cabins! We’re sailing straight into a storm, and it will be a rough one.”
“Come on,” Elias said with a weary sigh, heading for the stairs that would take them to the main deck.
“We aren’t sharing a cabin,” Caspian reminded him as they half climbed, half stumbled down to the main deck.
Conditions were deteriorating far too quickly for Elias’s liking. He knew that some storms could rise up suddenly, but he’d never seen anything like what they were sailing into.
His worries were not allayed at all when lightning split the clouds ahead of them and distant thunder was heard across the crashing of waves that seemed to swell higher and higher with each moment.
“Get below!” Captain Woodward snarled at them as they stumbled their way along the deck to the hatch at the stern. “It’s madness for anyone to be above deck for a storm like this. Although I wouldn’t consider it a great loss if two sodomites were washed overboard in the?—”
“Captain!”
The captain’s insult was cut short as one of the crew called to him from the yardarm above.
“Blast it,” Captain Woodward grumbled, ignoring Elias and Caspian to attend to whatever the sailor needed.
“We should get below while we can,” Elias said, hurrying along the deck. “I still haven’t figured out where you’re lodging, but you can stay in my cabin until the storm passes.”
It was an offer for the purpose of safety, though if they managed to hold onto their courage in the dangerous storm, perhaps they could enjoy each other just a little.
It was a mad thought and one that Elias brushed aside as they descended to the middeck. Of course they would not be able to make love in the middle of a storm. Elias figured he would be lucky if he could keep his lunch in his stomach and his wits about him as the ship pitched and bobbed and was lashed with rain and wind. God forbid one of the masts was hit by lightning.
He shivered at that thought, but even his shivering was stopped short as soon as they reached the middeck. The deck was a hive of activity as passengers rushed to their cabins, but that was not the only rush Elias saw.
Off to the side, where the other set of stairs descended into the lower deck, Mr. Tumbrill was racing up, a sword in one hand. Behind him, without any shackles or chains at all and with a sword of his own, was the convict Dick.
Six
Caspian’s first instinct on seeing Tumbrill armed with Dick and a few of the other convicts following him, also armed, was to race back up to the main deck, jump over the side of the ship, and find safety in the best way he knew how. He would not leave Elias behind, however, and it would be too much of a shock and take too long to explain that, if done right, Elias could jump overboard with him and be perfectly safe.
Elias was not the only person aboard whom Caspian cared about, though.
