Page 48 of Hooked By a Hero
Caspian cursed himself for not thinking far enough ahead to shield the ladies from Dick’s perception. He’d had too many other things swimming around in his mind.
“Don’t you even think about it,” Elias told Dick firmly, grabbing his arm and holding him back when Dick attempted to run ahead and likely assault Miss Winters.
As soon as Miss Winters and Emily saw who Caspian and Elias had brought back with them, they gasped and scrambled back from the fire as if some of the embers had leapt out and burned them. Caspian couldn’t blame them, especially since, despite his weakened state, Dick still leered at them as if he would assault them on the spot.
“What is this?” Hunt demanded with a scowl as he marched forward to greet them.
“We found him stealing from our packs when we, er, took a moment to go swimming,” Elias answered.
Caspian would have warned Elias not to say where they were or what they’d been doing when they’d discovered Dick, but it was too late for that. “He was hungry and thirsty,” he added, hoping Hunt and the others would be more interested in Dick than him and Elias.
“Where have you been hiding all this time?” Hunt asked, crossing his arms and standing taller as he frowned at Dick. Hunt was not particularly tall or muscular, but in the last threeweeks, he’d had more than enough food and physical labor, whereas Dick looked as though he’d hardly eaten anything.
“Why should I tell you?” Dick asked defiantly all the same, turning up his nose.
Hunt snatched at the front of the man’s shirt, closing it in his fist and tugging Dick close so suddenly that he nearly stumbled. “Do not take that tone with me,” Hunt said. “You are a convict and a mutineer. I witnessed you murdering men with my own eyes. You will tell me what I want to know and accept whatever punishment I see fit to give you.”
“Who made you the Queen of England?” Dick demanded in return.
“We all did,” Mr. Archer, who had come out from the jungle with Hunt, answered. When Dick stared at him in confusion, Archer went on with, “We, the survivors of theFortune, elected Mr. Hunt to be our leader.”
Dick looked surprised for a few seconds before falling back into a smarmy laugh. “Of course you did. You passengers always were so smug and proper. Leave it to you lot to go and elect a leader when it’s dog eat dog on this island. Every man for himself, I say.”
“You will not say much if you keep talking like that,” Hunt said.
“That man needs to be locked in chains so he cannot hurt anyone,” Mr. Woburn, who had been fishing on the boat with the others, said.
Dick snarled at him and said, “Too bad you don’t have any locks and chains.”
“In fact, we do,” Hunt said, lifting Dick to his toes by the grip he had on the man’s shirt. “We’ll take him to the camp,” he announced to the others. “We’ll all decide together what should be done with this man.”
Caspian was relieved that Dick would be in chains soon. He was happy to hand the villain over into Hunt’s care. But as they all left the beach and headed along the path to the encampment, the sense that they were all still in a great deal of danger continued to hang over Caspian.
“I do not believe in executing men simply for showing themselves,” he said quietly to Elias as they walked side by side a short distance behind the others, “but I do not believe that any of us are safe as long as that man lives.”
Elias sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “I hate to say it, but I agree,” he said. “Only, who would be strong enough to slit the bastard’s throat for the benefit of the whole?”
Caspian felt sick at the very idea. But as they emerged from the path into the clearing where the settlement stood, his feeling that they needed to do away with Dick as soon as possible only intensified.
“Bloody hell!” Dick exclaimed as he glanced around the settlement with a stunned look. “You’ve had all this here the whole time and you didn’t think to share with the likes of me?”
“I do not believe for one moment that a man like you would have contributed to what we have built here,” Hunt said, marching Dick over to the pile of crates, barrels, and other things from the ship that had yet to be sorted. “Find shackles for this man’s hands and feet,” he ordered as he walked.
One of the younger men who was busy building another hut left what he was doing and ran to sort through one of the crates. He pulled out two sets of shackles just as Hunt forced Dick to sit in front of the pile of things from the ship.
“No!” Dick shouted, genuine anxiety in his eyes as the shackles were handed over to Hunt. “I’m a free man, I tell you! I won’t have you chaining me up again!”
“I do not trust you not to wreak havoc on this peaceful encampment if you are allowed any sort of freedom,” Hunt said.
“I’ll be good!” Dick whined. “I swear I’ll be good.”
There might have been a sliver of a chance that he could actually mean what he said and that the others would have believed he’d turned over a new leaf, but Ruby emerged from behind the hut under construction, a hammer in one hand, a moment later.
Dick gasped. “You! The heiress! And where is your grandfather’s shiny treasure, little Ruby? Did it go down with the ship?”
The hair on the back of Caspian’s neck bristled with those words. They were not spoken casually or as a sudden thought. Somehow, Dick knew that the treasure had been salvaged, he would have staked his life on it.
“Whatever you do with that man,” he spoke up, nodding to Dick, “he should be kept well away from this encampment and the people who inhabit it.”
