Page 9 of Unearthing the Smuggler's Heart
The crewmen were at their posts, many squinting from the consequences of their bottle aches, but ready to set sail all the same. Mathias had found in his own experience that there was very little more restorative than a brisk ocean breeze, assuming one has sturdy sea legs, of course.
Miss Ferris appeared in that same yellow dress she'd worn on Easter, her bonnet held at her side. Her impressive mane of dark hair was caught up in a thick, braided coil at the nape of her neck, and a look of consternation adorned her face. She appeared rapt, gazing up at the masts of theHarpyas the sails whipped and snapped in the breeze.
She did not spare Mathias a glance at all, which gave him time to lean across the railing and properly study the elusive little miss.
She had the biggest eyes he'd ever seen, so big that they should have been unattractive on her pale face. Somehow, they were not. He had seen only her eyes when they'd briefly met, and had found himself entranced in the depths of a deep, rich green that likely inspired her given name—Jade.
She always stood in such a way as to make Mathias think she was prepared to fight or flee, should the necessity arise. She certainly was clutching that bonnet like she would use it to knock anyone who tried her patience into oblivion.
She was slight, built like someone who had never truly indulged at mealtime, and he had not once seen her smile. Or frown, come to it. She was locked up like a strongbox and stood sentry at the threshold of her own acquaintance.
It was a wonder Gigi had ever gotten to the point of what appeared to be genuine friendship with the girl. He should have asked her how she'd done it.
Perhaps that would be his challenge on this journey. He would coax Miss Ferris to smile. Such conjuring was among his meager talents, after all, and he did well with a quest in hand with which to pass the days.
Zelda Smith had departed after the Easter celebrations, leaving the poor girl with no one to say goodbye to but his sister, who must have come for that purpose alone. She certainly had never come to wish him safe travels on his many other journeys.
He watched them speak to one another in low voices, Gigi's hands on the other's shoulders. They embraced, the sandy hems of their dresses dragging in the rising tide, the telltale glitter of tears on their cheeks.
He shook his head and forced himself to step away from the railing. Suddenly his observation had felt inappropriate. He cleared his throat, choosing a random direction to stomp off in.
He came to the captain's quarters, the door propped wide open. Isabelle had fitted the bed with fresh linens and stacked some of the smaller luggage in the corner of the room, near the cabinet with the lamp oil.
He would be sleeping below, with his crew, for this trip. He didn't mind a hammock in a pinch, and of course the ladies should enjoy a more civilized space while aboard.
A gust of wind picked up, blowing the fragrance of fruit blossoms and salt into the room. It swirled around a curious little brass clock sitting near the bed, blowing up the ends of a stack of papers under its weight.
Curious, he walked closer, noting that the pages contained writing. Isabelle had never been prone to recreational writing, so these documents must belong to Miss Ferris. Was she a poet, perhaps? A storyteller? What an irresistible peek through her steel façade.
A step closer revealed neat rows of numbers, times of day, split into quarter hours. Each time was spaced evenly down the page with an adjacent line, as though to schedule out someone's day. They were blank, currently, aside from the hand-created template.
What on earth?
He lifted the clock with the intent of taking a single sheet up to examine more closely, but the instant the weight of the clock was lifted, the pages flew out of alignment, sending several layers of carefully created order into chaos throughout the cabin.
He scrambled to gather them, his cheeks burning with thoughts of his stupidity. He gathered as many as he could snatch into a stack and shoved them back under the clock, before turning to hunt for more.
He kicked the door shut so that none could flee to the outside as another swirl of wind made its way into the room, knocking everything doubly askew.
He went to straighten the stack, to make it look as though it had been untouched, and noticed that one of the sheets of paper had become irreparably rumpled. Surely she would not notice if one page were to go missing? It was the only one that gave away his blunder, and with a bit of finesse, he was able to tug it free from the rest of the stack cleanly and with a great sigh of relief.
It was a good thing ithadn'tbeen poetry, he thought. God knows how he would have ever gotten them into the correct order if they weren't all identical.
He looked down at the rumpled sheet in his hand and paused.
Thisone was not a schedule sheet. It was something else.
He looked around the room, wondering where he might wedge it so that it would appear it had blown away by innocent mistake, all the while his hand raising the paper to his line of sight like a moth drifts toward a particularly tempting flame.
A Way Out!,read a most intriguing headline. Below it were a numbered set of ideas, which, he realized as his eyes scanned over them, were for the purpose of escaping the necessity for this very expedition.
There were several at the top that had been dashed through with an impatient blot of the pen.
* Feign ill, very contagious?Take weak poison?
* Run away?
* Break arm and/or leg?How?
