The Blacksmith wouldn’t have given her name if he’d known she’d be required to work in Mad Machen’s bed, too. Ivy was certain of it.
“I don’t owe you that service, Captain Machen. Tell your man to put me in another room.”
“You’re taking passage on my ship—”
“Not by my choice.”
“—and you will sleep in my bed.”
By the bleeding stars, she would not be forced. “You’ll have to chain me down first, Mad Machen.”
His smile was sudden and terrifying, a sharp flash of white against his tan. Ivy stepped back, abruptly aware that the only sound on the ship came from the gulls and the creaking hull. The crew had fallen silent. Barker’s eyes had closed, as if he were praying. A blond, gangly boy with a red mark across his forehead rushed up the stairs onto the quarterdeck and stopped, looking uneasily between her and the captain.
Ivy swallowed. Alright. She shouldn’t challenge Mad Machen here. When they had privacy, perhaps she could appeal to his rational side . . . if he had one. And if not, perhaps she could bargain with the mercenary in him.
Her heart pounding, she held still as Mad Machen crossed the distance between them. His dark face lowered, stopping with his lips a breath from hers. He murmured, “Here in front of my men, or in my cabin. That is your choice.”
“Your cabin.” Frustration shook through her whisper. “And damn you to a kraken’s belly.”
His brows rose, and a surprised laugh broke from him before his mouth suddenly covered hers, his callused palm cupping her jaw. Not a hard kiss, and not tender—it was a statement, she realized, for the men watching them. A claim, pure and simple.
A claim that went on until Ivy had to employ all of her willpower to refrain from biting him.
He finally lifted his head, and turned to the boy. “Duckie, escort Ivy Blacksmith to my cabin. See that she wants for nothing.”
“Yes, sir.” The boy gathered her satchel from the captain, and looked expectantly to Ivy.
Plastering on a smile, she pulled at her trouser legs and curtsied to Mad Machen. His laugh followed her to the stairs—and Ivy decided she could make a statement, too. A brass finial shaped like an egg decorated the end of the banister. Ivy closed her gray hand around it. Metal shrieked as she crushed the finial between her fingers.
His laughter stopped.
She released the mangled brass, and called over her shoulder, “I await your mighty prick, sir!”
Eben couldn’t stop grinning. Judging by the way his crew kept their heads down and their hands busy, most assumed a storm was brewing, but Barker read his grin for what it was.
“Not so afraid now, is she?”
No, she wasn’t. And not ready to trust him, but Eben knew it’d take time to show her that she could. The reputation he’d built couldn’t be brushed away with a word—and he couldn’t risk that it was brushed away from anyone’s eyes but Ivy’s. Yasmeen had been right about that.
But at least her fear had receded. He couldn’t have borne it if she’d kept trembling at his approach or trying to run. The rest would come.
He eyed the stairs. Perhaps he could start—
“Meg!”
The shout came down from the crow’s nest, where Teppers pointed out to starboard. Two hundred yards distant, a razor-edged dorsal fin sliced through the water, tall enough that if Vesuvius sailed next to it, the fin’s point would reach halfway to the ship’s upper decks.
“A big one,” Barker said.
A damn big one. And with luck, it wouldn’t come to investigate Vesuvius. Even under full sail, a megalodon was impossible to outrun. Altered and bred by the Horde until they were aggressive and territorial, a full-grown megalodon could leave a ship rudderless or damage the hull, even on a vessel as solid as Eben’s—and the shark’s armored plating made it damn hard to kill. The best course was just avoiding them, and if that failed, throw out bait—and then watch Vesuvius’s tail, because once megalodons caught a scent, they were hard to shake.
Out over the water, the dorsal fin turned toward them, then slid beneath the surface.
“Hard to port.” Eben braced his feet and settled in. “Ready the chum.”
It was going to be a long afternoon.
With a row of square windows that welcomed the pale, slanting sunlight, the captain’s cabin was more spacious than Ivy anticipated. Though four cannons strapped to rolling platforms were lashed together at the center of the floor, enough room was left over for a dining table that could seat six, a teak desk piled high with maps and ledgers, two leather armchairs beneath the windows, a weapons cabinet, and a wardrobe. Chests with upholstered lids served as footrests or additional seats. A narrow door by the windows opened to a lavatory. Partitioning off one side of the room was a heavy green curtain—behind which, a blushing Duckie told her, was the captain’s berth. As soon as he left, Ivy pushed the curtain aside, revealing a squat bureau topped by a ewer, a washbowl, and a mirror. A thick mattress lay on a waist-high wooden platform.
Blimey. The bed was tiny. Long enough to accommodate the captain’s height, but almost as narrow as her bed in Fool’s Cove. Certainly not wide enough for two people to lie side by side, especially if one had shoulders as broad as Mad Machen’s. Even hanging off the edge would be impossible; a wooden rail guarded the side to keep the pitching boat from flinging the sleeper to the floor.
What in the blue blazes did he expect to do—lie on top of her all night?
Her stomach rolled. Perhaps that was exactly what he expected to do.
So she would reason with him when he returned. She wouldn’t antagonize him, but lay out a rational alternative. With a blanket on the floor, she could sleep in the small space between the end of the bed and the chest of drawers. She wouldn’t mind; she’d spent nights in worse places.
Ivy waited. When Duckie returned, she asked him for an extra blanket and made her spot on the floor. Eventually the sun dropped to the horizon, painting the cabin in orange light and purple shadows. Duckie brought her dinner on heavy plates: a thick fish stew swimming with carrots, leeks, and potatoes and sopped up with crusty rolls; melon slices bursting with juice; and a lemon tart made with French sugar. He didn’t set a place for Mad Machen, who was “leading Meg on a grand chase.” As she wasn’t thrown about the room by a shark ramming the ship, or trying to cut her way out of its belly, the captain must have been doing a fine job of it.
When Mad Machen finally came, she was sitting in a chair by the windows, watching the stars appear against the coal black heavens—a view she never tired of, and that she’d never seen over London’s hazy skies. The moon, sometimes, as a dull red glow through the smoke. Never the stars.
The captain’s gaze found her in the darkened room. She couldn’t see his expression, only the gleam of his eyes. After a long moment, he strode to the berth and slid aside the curtain. Her makeshift pallet made him pause.
Ivy filled the silence. “If I sleep on the—”
“No.” He swept the blanket up and called for Duckie. Wearing only a nightshirt, the cabin boy came through the door an instant later. Mad Machen tossed the blanket to him. “If the nights are too cold, she can have it back.”
“Yes, sir.” Duckie left the cabin as quickly as he’d come.
With the flick of a spark lighter, Mad Machen lit the gas lamp on the bureau. In the dim glow, he looked toward Ivy. “You won’t be cold.”
Clamping her lips tight, Ivy faced the windows again. Rational, she reminded herself. He made it difficult.