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Lucie and the Captain

Lucie of Greystone Cottage

Lucie of Beacon Bay

Greystone in the Summer

Dinner For One

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Chapter Forty

Denying A Demon His Due

"You really can be a prize fool and no mistake," Daniel commented roughly, frowning at his good friend as they stood together on the dock in the early morning light. "I see the conniving woman has managed to worm her way aboard your ship. Well, you are more than welcome to her. Good luck with the voyage back home. You're going to need it."

He turned his frustrated gaze to where the elegantly dressed Countess Beauvoir was standing at the rail of the Rebecca, looking down at them with simmering impatience. She shook her head as she shrugged her unconcern at Daniel's obvious chagrin. She raised one gloved hand to wave at him.

"Thank you for your vote of confidence. But it's all right." Lucius chuckled at his good friend's brusque concern. "I'm totally immune to her feminine wiles. Besides, it's not I that the blasted she-devil desires. I'm safe enough and her coin is good, her cargo large and honestly come by. She came to see me after you dismissed her repeated requests, and she made it more than worth my trouble to carry her home."

He rubbed his hands. "It'll make a goodly profit to pay off the Admiral sooner and then the company will be our own. Then we truly may do as we please. We may pick and choose our cargoes and who we carry."

"As long as she stays aboard your ship," Daniel grumbled, folding his arms across his chest. "She will never set foot aboard mine."

He looked away from the woman, turning his frowning gaze downstream and the course every ship's captain must steer to gain the freedom of the open waters of the English channel. As always, the broad waterway was crowded with shipping of all sizes and shapes. It took a master navigator to make headway through the thronging ships. Daniel was impatient to be gone.

It had been four long days since they'd encountered the Countess in the dusk of their first evening ashore. Now they were about to set sail again for Boston and home. The tide in the great river was on the turn and both ships were rising against the wharf pilings, eager to be gone downriver to the freedom of the wide ocean beyond.

"I'll see you again in Boston. And this time there will be a winner." Daniel passed a hand over his chin.

"Yes, and it will be me!" Lucius stated with certainty. "I am convinced of it this time." He grinned as he punched Daniel in the shoulder before he hurried away to his own gangplank, taking the wooden boards two at a time.

Daniel shook his head as he saw Lucius become quickly involved in an animated discussion with his beautiful passenger as she encouraged him to cast off so they may be on their way. She seized his arm as they left the rail and Daniel looked after them with grim resignation.

"You are welcome to her, my friend," he muttered as he turned away to walk to his own gangplank.

He boarded the Carolyn and began bellowing orders at his crew, who jumped quickly to do his bidding with pulled forelocks and averted gazes. He offered no explanation for his sudden ill-humour and no one was foolish enough to ask. Mr Jarvis conversed with him respectfully, his frowning gaze at all times fixed on some point beyond his Captain's broad shoulder. He took his orders in stoically before he ran to shout his commands at any lagging crewmen.

Down belowdecks, tucked neatly away in the sailmaker's cubby, Seaman Elroy Applegate cocked one listening ear to the brusque orders being shouted above his head as he worked at his sewing. Once, some of those commands would have been aimed at him. He would have done his best to comply and failed time and again. He sighed his regrets.

Seated cross-legged beside him, old Alfred cleared his phlegmy throat pointedly and spat into a darkened corner of the cubby. "Captain's in a fine mood this morn and no mistake. But it be nought to do with us, lad," he said, bending over his sewing work, peering at it with rheumy old eyes that were now almost blind.

What he could no longer see, he completed unerringly by deft feel. He was still a master of his craft and had a lot to teach his eager new apprentice. "You keeps ya eyes down and onto what ya gotta do. Sails is what makes this ship run. The rest'll take care of itself. Better not annoy the Captain until we's out at sea. Then we can go above and see to what's needin' repair."

"I know…" Elroy sighed as he paused in his work to drag up his striped sock that always insisted on sliding down his leg whenever he moved. "But I do miss the Captain's pretty lady. She was so good to me."

Old Alfred scowled at him. "Well, that's as may be. She was pretty and sweet-natured, I'll grant. But you get's ya work done and keep's ya nose clean is all I got ta say, lad. We'll make a fine sailmaker out of ya yet."

The old man grimaced, licking his lips. "I miss that Martha. Her cookin'…" He shook his old grey head. "Now she was a fine lass."

"Yes…" Elroy sighed again as he bent over his work, peering at the rough canvas in the gloom of the cubby.

The cloth hurt his hands and he had yet to grow the thick callouses that Alfred wore proudly as a sign of his mastery over his craft. Elroy missed the open air of the decks and being able to watch the gulls weave and dive for the scraps.

But he would not complain. He well knew his place aboard the ship. And anywhere out of his Captain's eye right now was the best place to be. He applied himself to his sewing and silence fell between the two men.

Above them, Daniel mounted the steps to stand impatiently beside the river pilot at the wheel. He watched the wharf workers throwing off the mooring ropes from the bollards as his crew pulled up the gangplank and the anchor.

The ship responded immediately to her sudden freedom, rising with the tide and turning eagerly toward the river mouth. Daniel stared at the stern of the Rebecca as she headed downriver ahead of them. He silently wished his good friend well with the journey ahead.

"Blasted woman…" he muttered grimly.

He'd already wasted enough precious time on the Countess Beauvoir. Time he did not have to spare. He'd disposed of her little perfumed notes of entreaty by throwing them into the fire, unopened. But that had not stopped the Countess.

She'd followed up her letters by presenting herself at the door of Admiral Kearns' townhouse without invitation. Hearing of her arrival, Daniel had declared he was not at home to any visitors. He was far too busy with his own business. The haughty butler had imparted his regrets and shut the door in the woman's face. The Countess had walked away with her head held high and her carriage stiff with outrage.

"A rather fine-looking filly, that one," the Admiral had remarked conversationally as he'd watched the woman leave his doorstep from the drawing room window which looked out over the street. "But by the mulish look on her face, I don't think she's ever been broken to accept any man's bridle."

He chuckled broadly as he turned his head to wink at his frowning houseguest. Daniel was seated at the table, working on his bills of lading and other bookwork.

The Admiral sighed. "Sadly, it's not me she seeks to pursue so keenly. More's the pity. But back in my salad days, before I was shackled…"

He sighed again as he stroked the line of his great walrus moustache, then quickly averted his gaze from the countess's enticing back-view as his wife entered the drawing room. "Um, good day to you, my dear…" he commented a shade too heartily. "I trust you have spent a pleasant afternoon."

"Good day, yourself, Sir." Mary Kearns frowned at him sternly as she settled herself on the sofa. "I am grateful that pushy, ill-mannered woman does not seek your company. To arrive unannounced without sending us a formal calling card, first…"

She glanced at Daniel's grimly-set expression. "Lucius told me all about her and her attempts to regain your affections. I am glad she will find nothing here for the likes of her. I instructed Clayton to send her on her way and not to admit her if she decides to return. Her goods may be welcome, but she is not."

"Thank you." Daniel inclined his head. "And I can assure you, Madam, that she most certainly will not find anything here for her. The Countess is firmly in my past and there she will remain."

"Excellent." Mary nodded with satisfaction. "I'm very pleased to hear it, young man. But I carry no tales and nor will my son-in-law. If he knows what's good for him. That kind of woman will always cause trouble to decent, God-fearing folk."

She smiled. "Now, I have been busy purchasing some suitable gifts for you to convey home to your good lady and your baby," she continued comfortably, as she patted the sofa next to her with a beckoning smile. "Come and sit with me and we shall be comfortable. I have something I wish to show you."

She turned to a small side table as Daniel did as she asked, settling beside her with a rueful look at his host who was still standing in the window embrace, surreptitiously watching the delectable Countess pass from view out of the corner of his eye. The Admiral shrugged as he shook his head.

"I found this…" Mary Kearns flourished a heavy brocade cover from a strange-looking machine sitting on the table. "I thought of your Carolyn the moment I was informed about its many uses. It is quite the modern miracle."

"It's many uses?" Daniel frowned at the odd-looking machine. "I do not see that it has any. What is it?"

"Ahhh…" His hostess smiled knowingly, obviously pleased that she had bamboozled him. "It is called a typewriter," she announced proudly. "I am told they are soon going to be the rage of all the best boudoirs of London. I see no reason why Schooner Bay should lag behind."

"If you say so." Daniel shook his head. "But what does it do?"

"It writes type," Mary replied with a shade of impatience in her tone. "You know, young man. Just as a newspaper is typed. This will allow a lady to type out her own correspondence in the blessed privacy of her own home. A saving in time and money."

"I see…" Daniel stood up to approach the machine, going over it with both his hands and his eyes. "It does appear to be functional," he allowed slowly, touching a fingertip to the rows of shiny keys displaying the letters of the alphabet. "But what use have I for such a machine aboard my ship?"

"It's not for you…" Mary replied with exasperation as she stood to join him. "I already said, this is for Carolyn. To assist her in typing out her stories. It will speed up the work immensely once she becomes proficient with its uses."

"It will?" Daniel stroked his bearded chin slowly. "My own hand has always been fair and good enough. I do not see the need to change."

"Progress, my boy," the Admiral said heartily, leaving the window. "It seems one cannot stand in its way. I said the same yesterday when I first saw the thing. A confounded machine, if you ask me. You should have heard the clacking. An infernal noise fit to give anyone a stout headache. The steady scratching of a good pen will always do me nicely."

"But you are not a published author." His wife shushed him with an impatient wave of her hand. "I have employed the salesman to call upon you by tomorrow in the forenoon watch to instruct you in its uses. Then you will be able to instruct Carolyn when you return home. You will see I am right. It is the future."

"I have no doubt of it," Daniel replied, leaning close to kiss her cheek. "But I do wonder what my wife will think."

"Carolyn is a progressive young woman and quite modern in her thinking," Mary assured him stoutly. "The time saving will be most satisfying. You'll see she will be thrilled with it."

"I am sure she will be…" Daniel replied slowly, studying the machine with doubtful eyes.

※※※※※

After three busy days of extensive consultation and hard work, Carolyn bid a very fond farewell to Sally Hall. They had mapped out and drafted some new ideas which pleased them both. It would mean long hours sitting at her bedroom desk and writing out the ideas into full manuscripts, but Carolyn wasn't complaining. It gave her a necessary focus away from her deepening sense of loneliness.

"If only my love could be here…" She rested her weary body back against the closed front door, breathing a long sigh of regret.

The work had been intense and productive, but it had all been very tiring and her fingers were aching. She knew she would always need Daniel's help. His elegant penmanship was much more elegant than hers given he had to write daily reports. Her mind had always been too impatient with the slowness of her handwriting and the work suffered.

"Be safe, my love…" she whispered to the long shafts of morning sunlight creeping into the foyer. "Come back to me soon…"

She could admit privately to an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach that had plagued her for the last two days. She had no source or concrete evidence for her unease. It was just there, a stirring of discontent in her vitals.

The deep unpleasantness with Claymore still rankled. His utter overstepping of all the bounds of decency wrinkled her brow. It was still hard to understand what had possessed him to be so thoughtless and greedy. But she was also aware he would miss seeing his adopted son. Henry was growing up fast and Claymore would miss out on all his important steps.

"It really can't be helped…" Carolyn inhaled deeply as she laid a hand to the rounded swell of her abdomen. She took comfort from the small life growing steadily there.

"Your father will be home, soon," she murmured, as she pushed herself away from the door. "Until then, we shall just have to make the best of it. And I have work to do. But first, I need some coffee."

She shook her head as she went in search of Martha in the kitchen to help her with the breakfast dishes. She needed the distraction of some domestic conversation from her troubled emotional state before she returned upstairs to the mountain of work that awaited her.

※※※※※

Claymore extended his hand toward George Turner's with wide and fearful eyes. The demon began to purr with satisfaction as he watched his prey through narrowed eyes, satisfied he'd finally won the tense battle for Claymore's eternal soul.

"That's right," he encouraged, as their flesh came within a breath of touching. "You will feel all the better for it. You know you will. All will be as it was before. All you need to do is take my hand…"

"I feel faint…" Claymore turned his gaze longingly toward the large bag of gold and jewels on his desk. Bile rose into the back of his throat, threatening to choke him. "I think I'm going to be sick…"

The sight of all that treasure enticed him deeply, appealing to everything avarice and base within his soul. But such drive and need for gold and jewels had pitched him headlong into this place of disquiet and discontent. Where he had become estranged from his family through no true fault of his own.

People he cared about deeply, even if he had been unable to see it before. He had never meant to disappoint them. Especially not Carolyn. She least of all…

He vividly remembered how close he'd come to shaking the demon's hand the last time. They'd been standing outside Gull Cottage and it was only Bradford Williams' untimely and fortunate intervention that had saved Claymore from eternal damnation then.

"A decent man…" he repeated slowly, shaking his head. "I could become a decent man…"

"Yes? What of it? You know it's already far too late. The die was cast when you were born," Turner replied with his cold flesh poised to make contact with Claymore's outstretched hand. "You truly are a deluded fool. Souls such as yours are almost worthless to my master. But if I collect enough…" He shrugged as he curled his fingers to take Claymore's within his grasp.

"A fool, mayhap…" Claymore stated through set teeth. "But, I am no longer deluded. I am wise to your game, you blasted demon spawn!"

He jerked his reaching hand aside as if it had just been burned, making a dive for his hat on the coat rack beside him. He crammed it onto his head as he opened the office door wide behind him.

"Good day to you, Sirrah! And goodbye!" he shouted, stepping backwards out the door and slamming it shut behind him.

He quickly locked the door and then stood quivering on the sidewalk, staring through the door's window at his incandescently furious nemesis. Claymore's chest heaved with the unwelcome knowledge of how close he had come to finally losing his immortal soul forever.

And for what? Gold? Jewels? His gut clenched at the thought and his heart raced with consternation. "A decent man…" he repeated like a mantra. "I can become a decent man…"

Through the glass, he saw Turner face's turning bright red with fury. "You misbegotten, penny-pinching, spineless snake of a guttersnipe!" the demon shouted as flames licked from his flickering tongue, halloing his head with lambent fire. "You will never amount to anything without me! You need me!" His red, flaming eyes glared through his heavy-rimmed spectacles. "I am the only one who understands your craven nature and base needs!"

"I need you like a bad dose of the clap!" Claymore responded hotly, shaking his clenched fist at his unwanted attacker. "I command you to leave me and never to darken my doorsill again!" he went on with a great deal more courage than he felt. "Go!"

He was glad the demon couldn't see how hard his knees were knocking. He felt quite faint with fear, but he managed to brace himself. He had escaped. It was the beginning of his new life. If he could manage to survive the next few minutes. He rechecked the door lock and shook the handle before running his hand around the frame to be sure.

"Bah!" The demon within waved one hand and the bag of gold and jewels vanished as if it had never been.

Staring through the glass, Claymore managed to stifle a whimper at the loss. He squared his shoulders, trading glares with the demon. "I intend to inform my cousin about you the very moment he returns! I will make him understand. He will know what to do about you!"

"Why, you…" Turner glared at him, his flaming red eyes suddenly narrowing with cunning. "If he returns at all…" he suddenly purred. "Many a good ship and her hearty crew has gone to their deaths deep in the careless embrace of the blue Atlantic. What would one or two more be to Davey Jones?"

"You wouldn't dare…" Claymore hissed, his heart quailing at his error.

"Would I not?" Turner smiled evilly as he preened. "I'm sure I can rely on you to comfort the grieving widow when the sad word finally reaches shore of her most grievous loss…"

A wide, knowing smirk curved his lips as the long, flaming crack opened up in the air behind him. "It has been a long time since I last crossed swords with the good Captain Daniel Gregg. It's beyond time I renewed our acquaintance and evened the score…"

He stepped backwards into the crack. "And this time, I will win!" He waved an ironic hand as he vanished and the crack closed around him with a resounding clap of thunder.

"No!" Claymore fumbled at the locks and threw the door open again, tumbling back inside the office. "You come back here and face me, you base coward! Take me! Take my worthless soul! Here I am! Come on! Do it!"

But only the echo of deeply mocking laughter answered him before silence fell and he was alone once more with his deeply troubling new dilemma of conscience. Frightened beyond his wits to cope with it all, his knees finally buckled and he fainted dead away onto the floor with a despairing cry.

※※※※※

"I don't like it, Captain," Mr Javis commented grimly, jerking his thumb toward the sight of towering storm clouds gathering ahead them on the far horizon. "I don't like it one little bit. It races on toward us like no storm I have ever seen."

"It's not to my liking, either," Daniel replied, studying the storm closely through his telescope. "There is a malevolence to those clouds that smacks of more than just bad weather." He sniffed the air as he dropped his glass and walked away toward the starboard rail.

They'd slowed to a halt upon the restless Atlantic, trimming the sails as the sailors watched the warm afternoon turn from bright sunshine into brooding darkness as the storm swept closer. Beside them, the Rebecca also rode the increasing swells of darkening water, her crew doing their best to keep her steady as their captains jumped up on their respective rails to confer across the watery divide between them.

"I fear we are about to fall foul of some rough weather," Lucius shouted across the water separating the Carolyn from his own ship. "Do we turn back or make a run for it and hope to reach the Azores before we're overtaken?"

"I doubt turning back will avail us any," Daniel shouted back. "This storm seeks to keep pace with us. It will overtake us long before we could make a safe return to any worthwhile shelter."

He sampled the air again and suddenly caught a whiff of something odorous that did not belong in the middle of the ocean. His lips thinned with anger, "There's more mischief here than meets the eye. I suspect an unseen presence here. His unholy stench betrays him."

Lucius frowned at him, sensing what his friend left unsaid. "You're thinking back to the day of the whale that delayed me the first time?" he replied with a shake of his head. "Do you think it could be so again?"

"Aye, I do…" Daniel nodded, deeply aware of the attentive ears of his listening crew. "I have been expecting such interference with our plans. He does not give up easily and it has been a long time since he and I exchanged blows."

"But what has stirred him this time?" Lucius demanded to know. "You whipped him fair and square the last time we stood off Madagascar."

"No doubt we will find out in due course," Daniel replied. "But I do not intend for him to beat us now. He grows too big for his boots. But even such as he cannot change the course of a storm against its nature. South, it is!"

"We shall not allow him to win." Lucius cast an eye at the storm that was towering toward them, its thunderheads full of lightning flashes and impatient rumbles. A hard rain began to fall in blinding sheets across the dark waters, reaching out toward them.

"Then we'd better show him a clean pair of heels, Captain Beaumont! Before it's too late!"

"Aye, aye, Captain Gregg!" Lucius' white teeth flashed in his dark beard as he jumped down and began bellowing orders at his crew.

"Mr Javis! If you please!" Daniel shouted to his own crew, jumping down to hurry along the deck and up the steps to take charge of the wheel.

It would require an iron grip and a pair of strong shoulders to keep the ship on course against the crosswinds that would seek to dismast and scupper her to the bottom of the ocean. Even then, Daniel's strength of limb may not be enough to keep them from harm. His crew kept a weather eye on their captain as they hurried to their duties.

The unfurling sails on both vessels started to billow and fill with the rising wind. Like two eager greyhounds, they began to run, heeling their bows over to point southward toward the Portuguese island group that could offer them shelter. If only they could reach them in time before the thunderous storm could tear their fragile ships apart upon the ocean's careless breast and doom them all to a watery death.

※※※※※