Page 9 of Hooked By a Hero
“You heard the man,” one of the prisoners, the large, grizzled man who had growled at Lady Adelaide when he’d been brought aboard, said. “We’re injured and should be let out of our cell.”
He had some sort of tin cup in his hand which he raked across the bars holding him at bay, creating a clanging sound that had the hair standing up on the back of Elias’s neck.
“Settle down, Dick,” the second guard said, slamming the butt of the club he carried into the bars as if he were aiming for Dick’s fingers. “You’ve caused more than enough trouble already.”
“Not by half, I haven’t,” Dick said, laughing viciously.
Elias instantly detested the man. He could not speak for the rest of the convicts, but Dick most certainly deservedtransportation. Whether he deserved to be kept in the dank darkness of theFortune’slower deck for the entire, four-month journey was another thing that Elias could have debated. Surely, there had to be a way to give even these dangerous men some time in the sunshine of the main deck. Was that not what Captain Woodward had originally intended?
“Let us treat these men’s wounds at least,” Hunt persisted with the guards. “Captain Woodward might be a hard man, but he would not want word to get back to the Crown that he was cruel as well.”
Elias sent his new friend a sidelong look. He was not entirely certain, from what he had seen so far, that Captain Woodward would give a damn whether he was considered cruel or not.
It took a bit more arguing, but Hunt managed to convince the guards to let him and Elias treat the convicts for their minor injuries. But to do so, they had to crawl into the cell with the men. The guards would not let them out.
It was one of the most harrowing experiences of Elias’s life. The conditions in the cell were wretched. Not all of the men were as vicious as Dick, though a handful of them were. Most were sad, defeated men with sores along their wrists and ankles from the shackles they still wore who had probably done little more than steal a bauble here and there.
“There must be some way to convince Captain Woodward to let the prisoners up into the sun now and then, under controlled conditions,” Elias said later, as he and Hunt climbed up to the main deck for some much-needed air. “Perhaps if they were kept in a tight group at a specific part of the ship, far away from the ladies aboard.”
There were only four or five ladies aboard in total, so Elias reasoned that it would not be too difficult to keep them isolated.
Hunt shook his head, running a hand through his reddish hair. “I doubt the captain would allow it. I’ve sailed with him fortwo years now, and he is not a man who is inclined to change his opinions.”
Elias frowned and hummed.
“You might try appealing to Mr. Cox,” Ruby said, startling Elias. He hadn’t seen her standing near the hatch as he and Hunt made their way up into the fresh air. She had likely heard most of their conversation.
“And what would you know of Mr. Cox?” Hunt asked her, his eyes suddenly shining with fondness and amusement.
Ruby grinned right back at Hunt. “I know that he does not like Captain Woodward particularly,” she said, cleverness radiating from her.
“Is that so?” Hunt crossed his arms and leaned against the top of the railing at the side of the hatch.
“Yes,” Ruby went on, her eyes only for Hunt. “And neither of them care much for Mr. Tumbrill.”
“You think?” Hunt asked.
“I have eyes, sir,” Ruby said. “I can see that the three highest-ranking sailors on this vessel barely tolerate each other. That must have made for some interesting voyages in the past.”
Hunt laughed. “It has indeed.”
Elias might have been curious about whether Ruby’s guess that Captain Woodward, Mr. Cox, and Mr. Tumbrill did not like each other, but at that moment, he spotted Caspian at last near the ship’s bow.
“If you will excuse me,” he said, walking quickly away from Hunt and Ruby, his heart suddenly beating twice as hard.
Caspian looked radiant in the sunlight. His coloring made him stand out against the dark wood of the deck. As Elias approached, the fleeting thought that it was odd someone with such pale skin had not become burned, like a few of the other passengers unused to spending so much time out of doors, struck him.
That thought and all others vanished from his mind as Caspian saw him and smiled.
As soon as they were in close proximity, Caspian’s smile changed from eager and affectionate to teasing. “You smell horrible,” he said in his usual, charmingly blunt manner.
Elias laughed. He should not have, given the potential insult Caspian had just hurled at him, but he could not help himself. “I was down on the lower deck, treating some of the unfortunate convicts for wounds they sustained during our stretch of bad weather.”
Caspian hummed, his expression turning serious. “Some of those convicts are very bad men,” he said.
“Yes, I’ve just experienced that,” Elias said. “But not all of them. Some of them are just hapless souls who turned left when they should have turned right.”
Caspian’s smile returned. “You are a kind man, Elias,” he said. “And you are right.”
