Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
I was losing track of time.
Between the fever dreams and stormy skies, there was no telling how long I’d been in his bloody cabin.
I was starving, about to die of thirst, and the shivers wracking my spine left my body agonizingly sore.
I didn’t suppose there was much to be done for me, though.
I was in a warm, clean bed in the middle of the sea with no medicine or doctor in sight.
In my lowest of lows, I’d convinced myself I would die here.
Though I still might, I woke with a sense of irritated urgency to get the hell out of here or, at the very least, in search of medicine to help clear the fog so I could think.
I rolled out of bed in the moonlit cabin, not without difficulty, and clutched the sheet to my chest. The fresh set of skirts and nightgown he left for me still sat folded on the desk.
I’d been too exhausted to take advantage of them.
I peeked at the door before tossing the sheet to the side and quickly donning the clothes, relieved when no one barged in. That would have been my cursed luck.
Silas’ cabin was spectacular. Ornate gold patterns whirled with every piece of trim and accented the corbels under each decorative beam on the ceiling.
I ran my fingers along the intricate carvings on the walls, following them as they flowed into the frames containing paintings of ships unfurling black sails.
They were the same patterns that adorned the desk, the bed frame and legs of the chaise.
It was as if someone, with great taste mind you, had decorated every inch of the cabin from the dark-stained wooden floor to the sumptuously beamed ceiling.
“A real woman’s touch,” I whispered. It had to be. No brute man was capable of such grandeur. In a perfect world, where money was abundant from the result of my studies and findings, this might be how I’d decorate a room in an estate I’d purchased myself.
Did I need such luxury? No, but it would be nice to rub it in the pig face of every man who said that a woman could not find success on her own.
“Witchcraft,” I scoffed. “I’ll show them a witch.”
I circled Silas’ desk and took it upon myself to take a seat.
Papers were scattered around the desk’s surface.
I shuffled through them absently, searching for my journal beneath the mess.
My fingers paused on one page, then another.
The handwriting on them was cramped and tilted slightly to the left, each line tailing into another, as if the thoughts they contained were too elusive not to write down with haste.
They seemed to be frantic scribbles of a mad man that only he could decipher.
I’d seen similar handwriting in collegiate work.
And, oddly enough, at the beginning of my journal.
It had taken me years to fully understand what was written.
“Men.” Curse them all. So selfish that not even their handwriting could be meant for others.
I gave up on the desktop and moved to the drawers, searching each with no luck.
“Where on Earth has he put it?” I grumbled, shoving random things aside and leaving the desk more chaotic than how I’d found it.
I’d just given up on the top drawer when I heard a clink.
Hidden beneath a few layers of leather-bound journals that were not mine, lay a coin purse. It was full to the brim.
“I’ll take that,” I said as I shoved it into the small bit of cleavage I had.
“Compensation for all my trouble, and I’m sure the trouble yet to come.
” My shoulder ached as I moved, but not as badly as it did before.
I was glad that I’d been out cold when whoever had put their dirty mitts on me to set it.
I pushed up to a stand, not quite sure what to do next. A rough texture beneath my fingertips caught my attention. I pushed the papers aside slowly, revealing a carving on the desktop. My breath caught as I ran my fingers over it.
“Stella Mortis,” I whispered. Why on earth would Stella Mortis be carved—
Shouting erupted outside the door. My heart lurched, and I pressed myself flat against the wall beside the porthole. Peering out at an angle showed me nothing useful. If we were being attacked, it was from the other side.
“Land ho!” someone shouted.
“Lift the sails!” came another.
Okay, so no attack. Were we making port again already?
The door opened before I could decide what to do next.
Silas filled the frame with his leather coat and his expression of perpetual irritation at my continued existence.
He leveled his blue-grey eyes at me, small wisps of chestnut hair falling from his braids to dance with the wind as he demanded, “Come.”
My damned cheeks heated of their own accord. One rugged demand from the man and I was practically melting onto the floor.
Stupid, stupid girl.
“Well.” I cleared my throat and wiped sweaty palms down my skirts. “Good morning to you as well.” He stepped to the side, still glaring. “If you wish me to do something, change your tone and treat me like the lady I am.”
At that, a slow smile crept across his face, and he took several slow, damning steps forward. When we were nose to nose, his breath tickling my still burning cheeks, he said, “You are many things, Beastie, but a lady is not one of them. Now, come.”
He stepped back and waited, quirking a brow while I tamed whatever bullshit was floating around inside my brain.
“Fine,” I ground out, but only because the alternative was being stuck in here while everyone else got to see land again. Fresh air would do me some good.
We stepped out onto the deck. His crew ran back and forth, preparing the ship and dinghies to make port.
“Which one will I be using?” I asked.
“Which one what?” he turned and asked, still walking toward the middle of the ship.
“Which dinghy will I take to land?”
Silas scoffed and opened the hatch in the center. I recoiled, unsure of his intentions but knowing damn well I would not be going down there. Especially not once the stench began to waft upward.
“You will not be going to shore, Miss Godwin.”
“I beg your pardon!” My hand clutched at phantom pearls, but the point was the same. “Like hell I’m not!”
“No, you’re not,” he deadpanned.
“I am a sick woman who has been cooped up in a cabin for days on end, and I am telling you right now that if you think, for one bloody second, that I am going back below deck, then you have grossly miscalculated my temperament.”
Silas growled, actually growled. Then he grabbed my arm, his grip bruising as he dragged me down the stairs.
“How dare you?!” I spat, shoving at his hand and trying to plant my feet to no avail.
“Have it your way, then.”
Before I knew it, that same hand was on my ass as he hoisted me up and threw me over his shoulder. I screamed, beating on his back and cursing him into oblivion, yet it didn’t phase him. “You bloody bastard! Put me down—”
“With pleasure.”
“Oh!” The breath escaped my lungs as he dumped me onto the world’s most uncomfortable mattress. I bounced once and grabbed the sides to keep from rolling off entirely.
“You absolute—”
The door slammed behind him, a metal lock clicking into place.
“—insufferable, pig-headed, barbaric excuse for a—” I rushed after him, and kicked the wall for good measure. “—man!”
There was no reply except for the pounding footsteps and shouts above. He was gone.
A cough rattled through my chest, lungs burning from the exertion. I sat back down, not bothering to cover my mouth as the fit took hold of me. I breathed in through my nose, closing my eyes until it passed.
“Godsdamn him.”
I inhaled again, this time to calm the rage rising in my heaving chest. A small lantern hung beside a salt-crusted window, providing a warm glow against the moonlight.
“This is fine,” I said. “Manageable. He will feed me eventually, there is a window I can look out, and I’m not in the bloody brig.
Though I still don’t trust the mattress.
” It looked like it was more bodily fluids than cotton, and I would bet the coin purse in my cleavage that it was riddled with bed bugs.
I was halfway through counting all the ways I would make Silas Draven’s life a living hell when a deep, feminine laugh filtered down from above.
My spine straightened.
It came again, warmer and more familiar the second time. Underneath it was his voice, low and distinct. Shadows moved across the ceiling and I realized I was right under his cabin.
“Oh, Silas,” the woman laughed. “You haven’t changed in the slightest. Shall we?”
Had he dared bring some broad aboard the ship? Did we make for land just so he could get his bloody rocks off?
“Aghh! You have got to be—”
A moment later, the bed creaked.