Chapter Twenty
It was a credit to Captain Carrington’s size and hardiness that he lasted as long as he did.
I saw the end of the contest at the bottom of my twelfth glass of rum, watching the distorted image of the man sway as he
tried, desperately, to locate his lips with the rim of his glass to finish the two fingers he’d been poured for the round.
A funerary pall had spread over his crew at the thirteenth, their jovial encouragement and backslapping giving way to looks
of disbelief and horror. Many themselves had overindulged, trying to match our rounds.
By the fourteenth drink, I had that wonderful, warm, boneless feeling of giddiness that alcohol brought on and a rather full
bladder. Carrington looked near to tears when I asked to relieve myself.
When I slid back into my seat, picking up my glass to begin again, he tipped forward . . . forward . . . forward . . . until
his forehead met the table with a hard thunk that made the men around him jump.
I met Reddy’s gaze over his head. He ran a hand over his face, somehow looking both mortified and amused by the proceedings.
How? he mouthed to me.
“My God . . .” Carrington moaned to the battered wood tabletop. “What . . . are . . . ye . . . ?”
“Rather disappointed, I must say,” I murmured into my drink as I finished the last of it.
The rum had burned my throat the first two rounds, but now gave a pleasant, glowy sort of feeling in my stomach. The first
mate hovered nearby, looking as though he’d been cracked over the head. I merely held out my palm.
He slapped the foolscap with the name into it with a noise of disgust. I’d forced Carrington to write it before we’d begun,
knowing what the end would be.
“What sort of lady are ye?” the first mate demanded.
“One who’d suggest removing your captain before he embarrasses himself in front of all of Riverside,” I said with a sweet
smile. “Ta, now.”
I waited until he and two other men had bodily lifted their captain out of his chair before I attempted to blow the sagging frilly edges of the mobcap up from where it had drooped into my face.
I had asked Reddy to procure one for me so I could remove my hood, knowing damn well that my hair was too memorable to risk anyone taking notice of it.
Judging by the faint scent of roast and herbs, he’d bought it off the proprietress of the pub.
Reddy’s essence drew close behind me. “You’re looking quite pleased with yourself, my lady.”
“I suppose I’ve given myself away by coming here,” I murmured. A lady would, of course, never darken the doorstep of any sort
of establishment like this one. “Has it been an hour?”
“That and change,” he confirmed ruefully.
I held up the folded foolscap to him, feeling the first burst of giggles well in me as he plucked it from my fingertips. Plucked was a rather silly word, wasn’t it? Then again, so was rum—yes, more rum. To drown the giggles, and because it was so lovely and warm.
The pub took on a glossy sheen, its edges relaxing with my body. The air was suffused with drink, sweat, smoke from the hearth,
the innumerable candles scattered over the tables. My mouth watered with the lingering scent of a roast. The walls were laden
with an odd assortment of pastoral art and defaced portraits of strangers, a wall of men’s gloves tacked up like hunting trophies,
a rusted suit of armor.
The whole of the pub was tidy and comfortable, and its occupants a pleasing mix of sailors and pink-cheeked tradesmen. Many
were in quality attire—Fleetmill jackets and Corby boots, even—and everyone seemed to know everyone else, as if the pub were
a beloved little secret between them.
The man with the fiddle finally realized that his melancholy fairy ballads of stolen love and curses weren’t having the desired
effect. Struck with sudden inspiration, he worked his bow over the strings as if to set them aflame, and as the merry tune
filled the air, cheers erupted.
I grinned as a deep baritone at a nearby table thundered out the first verses of the flash ballad.
In a time of war when all seemed lost,
And Old Albion had paid the cost,
God sent his shadow to change the tide:
A bonny lad with a long black needle at his side.
God, I adored “The Black Needle.”
By the land and by the sea,
No man, no soldier, no general could flee
The God-touched one so braw and lethal
As the one we call the Black Needle.
The ballad had been a mainstay of pubs and gatherings since before the war’s end and, conveniently, was structured in such
a way that more verses could be added as the Black Needle increased his deadly tally. It was a rare day you didn’t hear at
least one person humming it on the street.
I closed my eyes and swayed to the music, pressing the warm rim of my glass to my lips. I was enjoying myself immensely now.
The ballad had an oddly cheerful melody, given each successive verse cataloged the most noteworthy murders and, more specifically,
when and where said needles were applied—in the heart while driving a cart, in the head while asleep in bed, in the belly while eating mint jelly. It had a way of worming into one’s mind and overstaying its welcome.
I grinned as he reached my favorite verse.
Upon the roof no soul saw him creep,
To stick the admiral in his sleep,
And while old Proulx snored in bed,
The needle did lance his haughty head.
It was hard to say what, exactly, it was. A shift in the air like the first hint of a storm. The now familiar weight of his
gaze as it fell over me, surely. And there, as if my mind had conjured him from the languid shadows of my heart, was Foxcourt.
He occupied the seat across from me. The rum brought another pleasant rush of heat as my heart fluttered. It made his unbearably
handsome face glimmer in the low light, as if it had been kissed by fairy dust.
A small smile, almost boyish, touched Foxcourt’s decidedly unboyish lips as he arched a questioning brow at me.
I finished the last of my rum and set my glass down. He had removed his cowl and allowed his shirt to gape open at the neck, revealing a tantalizing hint of dark hair and muscle. The night had unraveled him, it seemed, from gentleman to pirate.
My brow furrowed as I turned to look for Reddy.
“He took himself home,” Foxcourt explained. “I do believe you have done the impossible and shocked him—I would expect him
to come up to scratch and offer marriage by morning.”
I sobered in an instant. If anything was going to roughen the silky contours of my mood, it was the threat of matrimony.
Foxcourt chuckled at the sour face I made, reaching for the captain’s abandoned glass and giving it a sniff. “Rum?”
“Drink of the—” I had to press my lips into a tight line to stop the giggle. “Drink of the Deep.”
I had expected anger—irritation at the very least—at what he no doubt saw as a foolish risk, but just then, Foxcourt looked
as relaxed as I felt. He slid an arm over the back of his chair, lifting the glass to his lips to take an experimental sip.
My eyes dipped to the hollow at the base of his throat again, then down farther still, to the muscles that shifted beneath
the soft lawn.
“Do you know,” he began, “I was rather beside myself, not knowing where you and Reddy had gone, until people started bellowing
down the streets about a lady drinking a captain under the table. Was it fourteen glasses or forty? There was little consensus
on that.”
“Fourteen,” I informed him smugly, leaning back against my seat. The mobcap slumped over my left eye, forcing me to shove
it back up again. “I could have done forty.”
“Mm.” Again with that warm, amused hum. “This is one of those rare instances I might have preferred you be a fainthearted
miss. It would have spared you the splendors of the Bitter End.”
“I haven’t had the luxury of being timid,” I informed him.
Foxcourt had never looked more appealing than he did now, his dark hair tousled, the hard lines of his face softened with
the scruff of a night beard, his big body sprawled out in his chair, unthreatened by any of the men around us. In fact, he
looked utterly satisfied with himself, his top lip wet with rum, tantalizing. I had the sudden sense of what it would be to
suck it between mine, how he would taste . . .
The curve of his sinful mouth deepened. I felt it flutter my soul as surely as if those lips had smiled against my skin. The
liquid heat in my belly spread through me. I pressed my thighs tight together beneath the table, but there was no quelling
it, no mistaking it.
Hell’s tits, I thought miserably.
This was hell, wasn’t it? That my body could heat and melt for one it could never—would never—have. Was it that, then? The allure of
the impossible?
“I fear you may be a legend around these parts for years to come,” Foxcourt said, hooking a booted foot over his knee. He
seemed unaware that it had begun to bob in time with the ballad. He seemed unaware of anything but me, in fact.
A flush touched my cheeks, and I fanned it with my hand. I should have taken off my blasted cloak.
“Rather warm in here,” I muttered, only a bit pathetically.
“Is it all alcohol you’re immune to, or only rum?” he asked curiously.
“All of it,” I said. Though immune wasn’t entirely correct. “It makes me silly more than anything.”
Silly was the only word for the way my eyes kept returning to that hollow at the base of his throat.
“Is that true for all fairyborn?” he asked.
“I only know it was true for my mother and me.”
Foxcourt’s eyes dimmed, lowering to the table. “I suppose that’s why the fairies drink only their own wine in the old stories.”
“Or—” I began, only for him to raise a hand, silencing me.
Wearing a uniform stolen true,
He became one of the enemy crew,
And when Captain Durand went to the head,
A needle did paint his fine coat red.
“That one,” he said, closing his eyes with relish. “That is my favorite verse.”
I let out an unladylike snort he seemed to enjoy. Foxcourt inclined his head, listening to the ballad as it spun on and on,