Page 23 of Escaping Pirates
“Is that so? What would you want in a letter, then?” Harlan looked steadily at me. “I can think of a host of things I could say.”
I froze. Did he think I was flirting? Was I? Was he? If he was just teasing and I went on to bare my soul, it would alienate the only friend I had aboard. “Well, obviously,” I told him, waggling my eyebrows, “a lady should receive endless admiration for her rapier-sharp wit, of course. Blossom would like that.”
“Your wish is my command,” Harlan said, whipping out the quill and dipping it once more. His playful attitude was back in full swing. “Blossom,” he said as he spelled her name in beautifully curled handwriting. “How fortunate I am to know a woman like you: sharp as a nettle, unwavering as a century-old oak, and as endlessly persistent as the wisteria that climbs whether one wills it or not.”
“A romantic and knowledgeable of flora? You never cease to amaze me.”
Harlan squinted in the dim lantern light and scratched his chin before writing again. “Your mind is a vast garden of knowledge, each thought a rare bloom, exotic and complex, requiring great care to fully appreciate and understand. Your relic is thorned vines, wrapping tight around my mind, leaving no room for retreat. How skillfully you wield it!”
“Relic? Do you mean rhetoric?” I asked, tilting my head so I could see the paper better. “Relic means an old item, but rhetoric is using language persuasively.”
The mischievous twinkle was back in Harlan’s eye. “I know that, but I doubt Blossom does.”
I flopped back on my pillow. “This is undoubtedly the best love letter that has ever been penned. No woman alive stands a chance against you. Is that the end of the letter?”
“Just a little more, or else they will bicker about whose islonger,” Harlan said, focused on the paper once more. “And yet, despite your formidable nature, there is beauty in your brilliance. You are the cherry blossom in full bloom, impossible to ignore, stealing the attention of all who pass by, even those who may wish to look elsewhere. Your presence is like ivy upon stone, unyielding, inevitable, a force of nature itself. As long as this ship is at sea, I am yours. Harlan. There, I’m done.”
He carefully screwed the lid back onto the ink bottle.
“Watch out or I may get jealous that I don’t have a letter of my own,” I teased.
He raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”
Then, realizing what it had sounded like, I hastily added, “But once we have more paper, we’ll get to write a letter for the bottle.”
Harlan waved his hand to help the ink on Blossom’s letter dry, then puckered his lips to blow on the paper. I hastily looked away. We didn’t need the awkwardness that would ensue if Harlan saw me watching his mouth after I’d told him I would be jealous without my own love letter. Instead, I idly picked up one of the bottle corks and turned it over in my hand, examining the slightly porous texture.
“Whatcha got there?” Harlan asked. He had finished with the letters and tucked them into his vest pocket.
“Just a cork.” Soon, that cork would float off, attached to the bottle that would carry our plea for aid. I smiled as I looked at it. “I know it sounds silly, but this almost feels like our ticket to freedom. Here,” I went on, pressing the cork into his hand. “You hang onto it tomorrow so that you can remember that we’ll be out of here soon.”
Harlan rolled it around in his hand, then tucked it into his pocket. “Thank you. Everyone needs a good reminder of a brighter future.”
The lantern light had been bright enough whilecomposing the letters, but the oil was running out now, and the wick was burning low. “You have a smudge of ink on your cheek,” I told Harlan.
He rubbed his cheek against his shirt.
“Other side.”
He raised a hand and ended up smearing it worse.
I laughed. “I’ll get it.” I reached through the bars with my apron and blotted at the ink. When I pulled the fabric away, there was still a spot where his nose met his cheek. “Hold still.”
I used my thumb to wipe it away. It felt addicting to touch Harlan, and I quickly pulled back. “There you go. If you’re going to court multiple women, you need to look your best.”
Harlan didn’t lie down on his bunk like I did. “You know, everything I write in the letters to them is a lie.”
I propped myself up onto my elbow. “If it were the truth, I’d be concerned.”
“I don’t want you to think I’m a liar, even if I have to lie to them. I’ll always tell you the truth.”
My heart warmed. “I’ll always tell you the truth too, and I fully support your lies to Sugar and Blossom. Staying alive is more important that being honest with our captors.”
CHAPTER 10
“Harlan spent all night thinking of what to write to you,” I told the sisters when they had me brought to them the next day. I held the letters out to them. “He wanted me to give them to you right away and says he looks forward to his time with you tonight so he can hear what you thought of them.”
Their eyes widened, and they snatched at their treasures, unfolding them and greedily reading.
