Page 81 of Marry in Secret
Two rows in front the Swede was mumbling, raving in his insanity. The whip kept him rowing. For now. Much more of the madness and they’d throw him to the sharks. Insanity was a disease on the galleys; infectious, unsettling. Fatal.
The man beside him rowed like a grim automaton, a skeleton thinly wrapped in tanned leather, every bone showing, his back a network of silvery scars. He hadn’t spoken a word in months. A Frenchman; they’d been enemies once. Here countries didn’t exist. Were they still at war? Thomas didn’t know.
Above him the captain called down to him. “Hey, Englishman, changed your mind yet?” Thomas looked up. The rhythm of his rowing never faltered. He knew better than to stop or even slow.
The captain drank a long draft of water, letting it spill down his neck and chest. Thomas’s dry throat convulsed. The captain grinned knowingly. “Say the word, Englishman, and you could be up here now, drinking as much water as you wanted.”
Come and be his navigator, he meant. Hunt down blameless ships, maybe even English ships. Join him in murder, and plunder, and rape...
“Thank you, no, Captain. I am content here.” He returned his gaze to the bony spine of the man in front of him and rowed grimly on. He didn’t know the man’s name but he knew every bump on the man’s spine. And every scar on his back.
“You’re a fool.” The captain poured the rest of the water out on the deck. The men nearest him licked at the escaping droplets in desperation. And received a kick in the face for their trouble.
Don’t even think about it.If he took up the captain’s offer, he’d lose his soul, lose his humanity. As a slave it was only his body they could torment...
“A sail!” the shout came.
An English ship? French? Spanish? American? He couldn’t see. Not that nationality mattered to the pirates. Or the slaves.
“Faster!” The beat increased. His muscles screamed. “Faster!” The lash of the whip snaked across his back. “Faster!” Closing in on the target ship now. Hounds baying for blood. “Faster! Faster!”
“Thomas!”
He jerked upright.Faster! Faster!
“Thomas, wake up.” Soft, fragrant arms closed around him. “You’re having a dream.”
He blinked stupidly, his heart racing. Disgust and dread and rage still clogged his throat.
Cool, gentle hands smoothed his damp hair back from his forehead. “It’s all right, Thomas, it was just a dream. You’re home now, safe.”
Safe.The room smelled of flowers. And faintly of lovemaking.Home.The last few candles were guttering, a whisper of acrid smoke signaling their final passing.
His pulse slowed. He pulled her against him, breathing in her clean, sweet-smelling goodness.
“Sorry,” he began.
“Don’t apologize,” she said softly. “Everyone dreams.”
Not like Thomas, they didn’t.
“Do you want to tell me what it was about? It can help, sometimes, I know.”
“No!” He almost shouted it. God no. To bring that evil place into this... haven? He moderated his tone. “No.”
“Then lie down now and go back to sleep. And try not to think about anything except being here, safe, with me.” She pulled him down on the pillows beside her and drew his head to her breast. He lay in silence as Rose held him and caressed him. Slowly the dream faded, and with it the sense of filth and unworthiness and desperation.
Thomas slept.
***
The effects of the dream might have passed in the night but the memory of it hung over Thomas in the morning. As soon as he woke, he slipped out of bed and went downstairs, naked—they had no servants as yet—and scrubbed himself from head to toe in the secluded backyard, rinsing off in cold water from the pump.
It was irrational, he knew, but he needed to clean away the stench of memory along with the sense of filth, and unworthiness.
Tipping a last bucket of cold water over himself, he shook his head clear, like a dog shaking off water, and found Rose leaning against the doorpost, watching him. She was wearing slightly more than last night, but not much—another confection of lace and gauze designed to go over the original tiny scrap. Or maybe the word waswithrather thanover, for it hardly hid anything. He was already aroused—despite the cold water.
“I hope you won’t be wearing that in front of the servants,” he said.
