“I am not afraid of the ocean,” she shouted, deepening her voice to a low growl. “I’m afraid of dying in it.” Surely, with the way the violent waves battered the ship and swelled around them, the boys would at least understand that and leave her be.
The crew erupted with their hilarity, howling their mirth loud enough that it swelled over even the rough seas.
Carlisle gave her a little nudge. “Well, get on with it, will ye? Side of the ship needs scrubbing, it do, and yer the newest crew member . . .”
Yes, yes. She knew the remainder of that. Newest crew members saw to it. As in all manner of suspect, miserable assignments no other person ought, or would ever, want. And yet, she wasn’t so gullible as to believe any person would be hung over the side of a ship to clean it. This was only more of his bullying.
A knot of fear formed in her throat, and she tried to swallow that along with the bile that was already threatening.
Her efforts proved to be in vain.
Retching for what was surely the thousandth time on this miserable voyage, Cassia turned in time to cast the little that sat in her stomach over the side; her shoulders and chest heaved, along with her belly.
Her moans of misery were lost to the laughter her seasickness invariably inspired in the merciless crew.
Sinking against the railing, she closed her eyes and gripped the wood beam hard.
Perhaps death would be preferable.
Someone shoved her hard between the shoulder blades, and Cassia dug her fingers into the railing.
“Well?” Oliver shouted. “Get on with it. A fresh wave of vomit for ye to clean off the wood.”
Someone struck her sharply on the back, this time harder and with greater power, and she cried out.
“Off with ye, lad!”
And Cassia snapped.
She whipped around.
“Do not put your hands on me one more time, or I’ll show you precisely what you can do with those rough hands of yours, Carlisle,” she shouted, and the man’s jaw slackened.
But she’d quieted him, and she took advantage of that unexpected silence. She turned on his mean fellow in arms, glowering at him with the same anger she’d trained on her younger siblings, Quillon and Fleur, when they’d put ink in Cassia’s tea and she’d stained her teeth quite terribly. Once. And only once.
“You know what you are?” She didn’t give him a chance to answer. “You are a nasty bully.” She looked to the young deckhands, Oliver, Jameson, and Timothy, who flanked Carlisle’s side. “The lads here look up to you, but instead of using your power for good, you bring them down, making them mean like you.”
Another deckhand joined them—Little Rob, aptly named because of his painfully slender and small size. He took in the scene before him with wary eyes, and Cassia looked hopefully to the new lad for rescue.
He cleared his throat. “The captain be needing his bath drawn.”
Never more grateful for that reprieve, Cassia made to step forward, but Carlisle stepped into her path. “The lad’s busy. Tell ’im that.”
The other deckhands exchanged nervous glances.
“I’m not really busy,” Cassia explained calmly. “I’m being waylaid by Mr. Carlisle.” Tell the captain that, she silently pleaded with her eyes.
Tension crackled around her, and she knew she’d gone too far with that appeal for help.
“Ye tell the captain that, and I’ll make yer life miserable . . .” Too. It hung there in Carlisle’s steely tones. “Is that understood?”
The little boy nodded, his throat bobbing wildly.
An idea took root. Cassia gave a toss of her head. “Either way, I don’t draw baths.” Which wasn’t untrue. She didn’t know a thing about that particular chore. “I take them.”
The lads gawked at her.
“I have a message you can deliver to the captain,” Cassia said, staying Little Ron before he could go. “You can tell Captain Surly-Breeches to draw his own bath. Why, even if I had the energy and inclination to quit my work on the main deck and draw him a bath, well, then I’d have done so two days ago for myself.” Cassia waved an exaggerated hand about. “But here we are.”
Silence met her response, and then . . . Carlisle erupted. Tossing his head back, he roared with hilarity, and Cassia glanced about nervously before joining him and the other deckhands.
Suddenly, Carlisle stopped and fixed a glacial look on her that, even with the sun beating down on the deck, managed to leave her cold inside. “Ain’t that just like a nobleman. Always thinking of yer own pleasures. Expecting people to wait on ye, and all too happy to take yer comforts without a thought for others.”
As if he’d read the tension and sought to escape, Little Ron backed away, tripping over himself in his haste, and Cassia well understood and envied him his flight.
A cold smile formed on Carlisle’s hard lips, and the puckered scar just above the right corner of his unforgiving mouth twitched. “Ye ain’t going to find any help here, ye ain’t. Used to ye fancy kind in London, are ye?” He cracked his knuckles. “Ye want people to fawn over ye and drop ye bows, ye should have stayed in your parlor with the rest of the fine lords.”
So that’s what this was about. He’d rightly identified her as nobility and was determined to make her pay because of her birthright.
Not for the first time, unease swirled in her breast. “Let me be.” She infused as much calm as she could into her voice. “I don’t want trouble with you.”
“Should ’ave thought of that before ye boarded a ship ye don’t belong on,” he jeered.
There’d be no help on this score. Giving up her attempts to reason with a man who couldn’t be reasoned with, she spoke to the deckhands. “Captain Ellsby is a fair man.” Hadn’t he shown her more leniency than she deserved over her repeated blunders? “Do you truly think he’d want you to engage in bullying a fellow crew member?”
As one, the boys dropped their gazes to the deck and shuffled their feet.
Carlisle glared at Cassia. “Don’t listen to ’im, lads. Ye know their kind. Use to orderin’ people about, ’e is. ’e ain’t one of us.” With that, the brutish sailor made a fist and thumped it against his opposite open palm.
Her stomach churned, a product of the seasickness and terror.
And then he was on her.
Nathaniel wasn’t a man given to softness.
He’d grown up in a household with one miserable sire, as one of six brothers; the only speck of softness and light within the bunch had been their mother.
She’d been slight and quiet and often demure, deferring to her bear of a husband and drowned out by her brood of large sons, a brood given to wrestling and sparring and quarreling with their father.
As such, he’d personally say, thus far, he’d handled rather well the accidental deckhand aboard his ship.
When the lad had attempted to paint murals on his corridor walls, he’d assigned him a different task—his cabin—and the boy had proceeded to paint a damned scene there, too.
And when he’d cast the contents of his stomach up near Nathaniel’s boots, he’d forgiven that affront.
The McQuoid lad had since proven himself quite competent. He’d flung himself vigorously into his work. But the line . . . it had to be drawn . . . somewhere.