Christine Dorsey - [Sea 01] (11 page)

Of course eating in the crew’s quarters on boards hinged to the wall wasn’t the worst of it. He had to sleep here, too. When he was younger—and shorter—before becoming the
Sea Hawk’s
captain, he’d slept down here. And he hadn’t really minded it. But now that he was used to a bunk, lengthened to fit his stature, with a feather-filled mattress, a six-by-three-foot canvas hammock was hellishly uncomfortable.

Between doubling his six-foot-four-inch body into the canvas and the belches and snores of the crew, Jack had gotten little sleep since the kidnapping.

But he imagined Miranda Chadwick slept just fine, all soft and warm in his bed. Jack took another bite and found his mind wandering to what it would be like to cuddle up with her. To feel her smooth pale skin and smell her warm, womanly smell. Then he’d kiss her like he did the other day. She’d wrap her arms around him and open to him on a sweet sigh. She really did have a nice voice—except when she was screeching at him. Or talking in that heathen Spanish.

Jack jerked himself out of his reverie. God’s blood, he had to stop thinking about that woman. His eyes focused on Phin and narrowed. “What are you doing?”

Phin looked up guiltily and brushed hardtack crumbs to the deck with one sweep of his gnarled hand. “Ain’t doin’ nothin’, Cap’n.”

“Well, it looked to me as if —”

“I was pickin’ out maggots if ye must know,” Phin interrupted.

“What the hell for?”

Phin’s expression was incredulous. “I ain’t too happy ‘bout eatin’ em.”

Jack looked down at his own round of sea bread, could find nothing different about it than the hundreds of biscuits he’d eaten over the years, and then back at Phin. “I don’t understand.”

“‘If ye could see one of them slimy devils, you’d feel a mite different,” Scar piped in.

“What are you talking about?” His crew was acting stranger and stranger.

“Nothin’. He ain’t talkin’ ‘bout nothin’,” Phin said. He slid off the bench, giving Scar a kick in the shin as he moved by. “I ain’t hungry no more. Better get back on deck.”

Jack had a mind to question Scar and King. But they were now stuffing their mouths with hardtack, each looking like he was ready to retch. And suddenly Jack felt a little queasy himself as he stared down at the beef swimming in its greasy broth and the maggot-infested sea bread. Pushing his trencher aside, he stood and headed above deck.

There was barely room in the cabin to move around.

Miranda slid from the chair and allowed a pirate named No Thumb—for obvious reasons— to take her place. She hadn’t counted how many men crowded the pirate captain’s cabin, but she imagined it was near a dozen.

They’d come to talk about how fast light traveled. Actually they’d come to listen to her explain Olaus Roemer’s conclusions about how fast it traveled. Miranda had mentioned to Phin yesterday the Danish astronomer’s sightings of Jupiter’s satellites and how he came to realize it took longer for light to travel from Jupiter to Earth the farther apart the two planets were. He’d started to question her then, but there hadn’t been time for her to answer him completely.

They had agreed she would explain it more fully this morning. But when Phin arrived, he was trailed by a multitude of pirates. “They wants to know, too,” Phin said in way of an explanation.

But one of them—No Thumb—had yet to see the animalcules in water, so Miranda set up the microscope for him.

“What’s this Phin’s saying about light travelin’? It’s just there or it ain’t,” Scar announced once No Thumb finished expressing his amazement at the little animals swimming around in the water.

“It does seem that way,” Miranda explained. “But only because it moves so incredibly fast—faster than you and I can even imagine.”

“The
Sea Hawk
is a mighty fast ship. When she’s sailin’ all her canvas, she can outrun any other vessel on the seas. And had to more’n once,” Scar added with a laugh.

“Yes, I’m sure it has,” Miranda said with a smile. “But the kind of speed I’m talking about is faster than we can see.” Miranda held up her hands, palms out, when a general grumble of disbelief broke out in the cabin. “Now, I know what you’re thinking,” she said, and the men quieted. “if you can’t see it, it doesn’t exist. However, we all know that isn’t true. We couldn’t see the animalcules without the microscope, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.”

“Her ladyship’s got the right of it there,” Phin said, and several others mumbled their agreement.

“Now, the fact that light does travel is very hard to prove. Galileo tried, but—”

“Who’s this Gallo fellow?”

“Galileo. He was an astronomer who lived over fifty years ago. Anyway, he tried to measure the speed of light using lanterns. He and a friend stood on two different hills, and... Well, anyway, it didn’t work. But in 1675 Olaus Roemer made a discovery that not only proves light travels, but measures it.”

Every eye was on Miranda as she chronicled the Danish astronomer’s surprise discovery made while checking Cassini’s timed observations of the eclipses of Jupiter’s satellites as they passed behind the planet.

“What is them satellite things?”

“It’s like our moon. The moon orbits around the Earth. Jupiter’s satellites orbit around it.” Watching Phin’s expression, Miranda wasn’t sure he understood, but she continued. “The point is that Roemer found the eclipses came progressively earlier as the Earth approached Jupiter and later as we went farther away.” Miranda finished with a flourish, happy that she could explain this exciting bit of science to the pirates.

For a moment a hush blanketed the cabin. Miranda looked from one face to the next, hoping, to see some sort of understanding. Just about the time she realized there was none, a general questioning broke out.

“I don’t get it.”

“What’s she talkin’ bout?”

“That don’t prove a damn thing.”

They were all talking at once, and Miranda tried to regain their attention, but without success. Their complaining grew louder, and Miranda tried again to quiet them. She was close to giving up when the cabin door slammed open and a bellowed question silenced everyone.

“What in the hell is going on in here?”

Miranda looked up into the angry face of the pirate captain. His tall stature and wide shoulders filled the doorway. And he seemed very wild and savage with his billowy white shirt open to the waist and tucked into tight black breeches.

Miranda chanced a quick glance around her. To a man the pirates stood, gape faced, staring back at their captain. It was almost comedic.

Phin stepped forward, and Miranda saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. “We was just gettin’ ready to leave, Cap’n.”

“You were, were you?” Jack’s even tempered question belied his stormy expression.

“Aye, Cap’n, we was. Me and the lads were just—”

“Who do you suppose was sailing the
Sea Hawk
while you and the lads were down here having tea?”

“Oh, we ain’t had no tea, Cap’n,” Scar injected, and Miranda couldn’t help cringing. The pirate captain’s scowl became even more thunderous.

“What Scar means is...” Phin hesitated, then realized he couldn’t explain Scar’s statement or why they were all here. “We weren’t exactly thinkin’ right, Cap’n. It won’t happen again.”

“I should say it won’t.” Jack let his gaze shift around the room, meeting every pair of eyes, waiting until they glanced away. That is he met every pair of eyes except the deep blue set that watched him wide-eyed. Those he skipped over.

Stepping into the room, Jack took a deep breath. “It’s only good fortune that kept us from running into a Spanish galleon or French privateer while you were all down here socializing.

You’re all guilty of dereliction of duty, and I should have each and every one of you flogged.”

“Can he do that?” Miranda meant to whisper her query to Phin, but in the silence that followed the captain’s outburst, her voice sounded unusually loud and easily carried to his ears.

He couldn’t ignore her any longer. Jack drilled his captive with a searing look. “And you. I should have known you’d be behind this.”

“Cap’n, she didn’t do nothin’—”

“Thank you, Phin.” Miranda lifted her shoulders. “But I can speak for myself. You see, Captain,

“Oh, we’ll talk, all right. But in private. The rest of you, get above. There are to be no more visits to this cabin... by any of you. And I want this ship shining like a Spanish gold piece.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Right you be, Cap’n. Like a jewel.”

The pirates scurried to follow their captain’s orders. All except Phin. He stopped in the doorway, his wizened face more wrinkled than ever. “You ain’t gonna hurt her none, now are ye, Cap’n?”

Jack shut his eyes and tried to rein in his temper. What did Phin think? He’d never seen Jack deliberately hurt anyone except in battle. And he never harmed women—not even Spanish women. But for some reason Phin thought he had to protect this particular sea witch from Jack. The woman was coming between him and his crew!

“I won’t harm her.”

“Ye givin’ me yer word as a pirate?”

“Phin!” Jack turned on the wiry first mate, and he hurried out the door.

“You didn’t have to yell at him. He was only trying to—”

“I know exactly what he was trying to do. And I don’t need your advice in how I discipline my men.” God’s blood, he couldn’t seem to keep from yelling when he was around her.

“If you say so,
Captain
.”

She managed to intone the word captain with enough contempt that Jack narrowed his eyes. But he kept his voice calm— with difficulty. “Would you mind telling me what my men were doing down here?”

“Not at all.” Miranda folded her hands. “We were discussing the speed of light.”

“The what?”

“The speed of light. I was explaining Olaus Roemer’s observations of Jupiter’s moon and how they showed that... oh, Jupiter is a planet.”

“I know what Jupiter is.”

“Well, anyway Roemer discovered that the farther away the Earth was from Jupiter, the later the eclipse of the moon by Jupiter occurred. Conversely the closer the Earth was, the—”

“Wait a minute.” Jack held up his hand. The damn woman was trying to befuddle him “You’re trying to tell me that Scar and No Thumb and Phin were down here talking about this Roemer’s theory about light traveling from Jupiter?”

“Actually they weren’t talking; they were listening.” And though it appeared the captain could grasp the significance of Roemer’s discovery, she wasn’t sure about his men. “Truthfully, I can’t attest to their understanding of the principals.”

Jack couldn’t help it. He threw back his head and laughed. When he regained his composure, he realized it was the first good laugh he’d had since this ill-advised kidnapping. He also realized Miranda Chadwick was smiling at him. God, but she was beautiful when she smiled. The thought sobered his expression immediately. What did he care what she looked like. The effect she had on his crew was something else, though.

Jack advanced on her. “You don’t really expect me to believe this mess of bilge water you’re feeding me, do you?”

Miranda raised her chin, but to her chagrin she retreated a step. “I can assure you it’s the truth. Though not all of it.”

“Aha!” Now he’d hear what they had really been doing. Though in truth, he couldn’t imagine what it was.

“Sometimes your men like to look through my microscope.”

Jack’s anger flared. She had to be lying. These were pirates she spoke of. Cutthroat scourges of the sea. They had no interest in—

“They especially enjoy observing the animalcules and maggots.”

Jack felt the color drain from his face. “What did you say?”

“I said, they are curious about—”

“No.” Jack took another step toward her. “The maggots. What did you say about maggots?”

“They’re quite interested in them.”

“But not in eating them.” Jack rubbed his chin. It bristled with whiskers that he hadn’t been able to adequately shave since giving up his cabin... and his looking glass.

“I doubt anyone would harbor a desire to eat a maggot after seeing one under a microscope. They hatch into flies, you know.”

Jack let out a sigh of frustration. “Did you tell them that, too?”

Cocking her head, Miranda thought back over her conversations with the pirates. “No, I don’t believe so. But I’m sure they’d find it fascinating.”

“And refuse to eat altogether,” Jack added. “Do you have any idea the chaos you’re causing?” Her wide-eyed innocent stare only incensed Jack more. How could she not know the effect she had on his men... on him? This last thought made him angrier still.

Hands on hips, he paced the cabin, glancing her way occasionally as he passed. “Phin, King, Scar, hell all of them are crumbling apart their hardtack trying to pick out the maggots. Dead maggots, I might add,” he said, turning to face her.

“Well, it’s completely understandable. Would you like to see a sketch I did of a maggot?”

“Hell no, I don’t want to see a sketch! And I don’t want to see one under that damn microscope of yours.” He bent down till he was almost nose to nose with her. “I don’t even want to think about maggots.”

His words faded away, and still he stood, staring down at her. Close enough to smell the soft, intoxicating scent of her. Close enough to feel her breath against his chin.