Eve resisted the urge to smile. She knew her father's pride had been hurt, but that he'd also cared enough about the woman to leave her to the sea and her lover, Davy Jones. The old sea dog should have known better in the first place. Mermaids were never happy out of the water, even if it was on the rolling deck of a ship. Their relationship had been fishy from the start.
"Bested by a fishwife," he groused. "I've never lived that down with the crew."
Eve couldn't help but laugh again. It always tickled her funnybone to see her father defeated, because it was a rare occurrence indeed.
"It was skullduggery at its worst," the Captain remarked, shaking his head. His blue diamond earring sparkled in the light from the large beveled window. Then, shrugging his shoulders, he turned his attention back to his mutinous daughter. "Skullduggery, it seems, abounds in all places—on deck of me ship and in this dusty old asylum. The Towers? Towers of raging idiots is what it is. I had hoped for once in your life you might show some appreciation for what is owed your Bluebeard heritage."
Dismayed, Eve straightened her back and thrust her chin forward. "I told you before that this is the way I choose to live my life. I will not be bound by the pirates' code."
The Captain glared at her. "A plank! A plank! My kingdom for a plank. It's mutiny, surely it is, for a daughter to speak so to her doting old da."
Eve smiled coldly. A lesser woman might have given in to her father's constant harassment, but not she. "Yes, it is."
"Argh," he sputtered, his face red. "Blast it to smithereens! I can't believe me own flesh and blood is so cold-blooded, so unfeeling of her poor da's feelings. Ashamed of me, ye are."
Eve's icy smile faltered, and she hurried over and patted his arm. Was he serious? "I'm not ashamed of you, Da, just of what you do to earn your living. I love you, you know, in spite of the fact that you're a rogue of the first order, and a rapscallion to boot."
The Captain patted her back, the redness leaving his thickly bearded face. "Well, then, if I can't get ye to leave this here mausoleum, then at least give me my second wish. Give me grandkids to dandle on my knee and to sail the China Sea with."
Eve raised a brow. Grandchildren were the last item on her agenda, especially with her husband—or rather, without him. She said, "You know that's impossible for the time being."
"You're speaking of your marriage, are ye not? This mysterious marriage ye contrived in Vienna? This havey-cavey marriage that I was not contacted about, to a man I never met and have still seen neither hide nor hair of?"
Nodding warily, she agreed. Her marriage of convenience was convenient indeed. For her. "Adam is very busy. You know full well that I have explained over and over about him. It's a marriage of convenience." Her father was up to something; she could tell. But what was it this time?
"A connivance is more like it. How's it convenient when the man ain't here to bed ye? Why, it ain't natural! Why on earth would ye go and marry some nobody who nobody ever gets to see?"
Eve hid her wince, his comment cutting too close to home. She turned away and nervously began to twist the pearl necklace around her throat. "You of all men shouldn't contest the fact that he's not titled. I don't care if Adam is a nobody. My husband is a paragon among men. I fancy that there is not a male like Adam Griffin in the whole world." And truer words were never spoken.
Bluebeard scowled, repeating with an assurance Eve found quite disturbing, along with a hard glint of determination in his eyes, "He's a nobody. It appears you've married a ghost, a nothing, a will-o'-the-wisp."
"You can't say that. You don't know him. He's really quite something," Eve defended staunchly, trying to quell her misgivings about the Captain's comments. He was giving her no quarter, and she really could have used the two bits. "He's perfect—and perfect for me. The perfect man."
Her father threw back his head and laughed. "You wish. Let me tell ye a secret, lassie. There is no perfect man. It's an invention by bored, silly, love-struck ladies." As he said the last, the laughter faded from his voice and his eyes fixed harshly on Eve's countenance. "Or of lassies who think they are better than they are. Daughters who should be giving up fairy tales before pirate stories."
"Your imagination is as unbridled as your tongue. I haven't the faintest idea what you're speaking of. Would you care for a glass of brandy?" Eve asked, pointing to a decanter atop the china cabinet, hoping the old ploy would work.
It failed, and her father shook his head. "I don't be needing any spirits to deal with a spoiled child."
"Oh, fiddle-faddle and fifteen men on a dead man's chest," Eve grumbled. Why couldn't he just leave her alone?
Undeterred by bribery, Bluebeard pursued his course. "You need a flesh-and-blood man, lass, one who'll love and cherish ye. One who'll stick with ye during shipwrecks as well as windfalls." He fixed his fierce blue gaze upon her. "You're ripe for the bedding, Evie. You're twenty-eight come this March. Don't you think it's time to end this farce of a marriage and find yourself a real man? Why, I know Captain Ben Hook is still interested in you. And he said he'd pay me the dowry price. Though he ain't of the Penzance line like we be, the pirates of the Caribbean are not a bad lot. He wants to take to you wife, bad."
More like bed, Eve thought grimly, but she kept her rebellious thoughts to herself. Captain Ben Silvers—later dubbed Captain Hook—was a tall, thin man with a dark brown eye and a slightly rakish air. He had an eye patch, and a solid gold hook where his right hand used to be. He was also ruthless and cunning. Ever since she'd turned fourteen, Hook had attached himself to her. When she'd become eighteen, he'd begun to try to win her affections, to bind her securely to him. It had taken all Eve's cunning to elude the crafty rat. She had barely escaped his clutches and a seduction attempt, fleeing to Vienna to go to school.
Perhaps she should have told her father about Hook's less than honorable schemes. At the time she had been afraid her father would either challenge Hook to a duel or clap his hands in joy at the idea of her getting married. She'd wanted to risk neither event, so she had remained silent.
"You would tie to me to a pirating marauder whose motto is, Any port in a storm or a calm sea?" she asked.
"He's a lusty man who will fill yer belly with fortune."
Eve grimaced. "You make me sound like some Chinese cookie. Besides, I wouldn't want his fortune. I have never been interested in Captain Ben Hook, and well you know it. That rat-faced moron must be the unluckiest person I know."
"Why, that's blasphemy. Ben Hook is a wily pirate. He's got a hoard tucked away in his treasure chests, and his ship, the Tiger Lily, is fine, fast in the water and has good, strong lines. He's also got wererat blood in him. 'Tis true he's not a full-blood, but at least he's got some shape-shifting ability."
"I was speaking of his unfortunate habit of losing body parts," Eve remarked. And a rat was a rat, as far as she was concerned, even if he didn't turn completely furry during the full moon.
"Why, Evie, Hook's loss could have happened to any ol' sea dog. It's not his fault that ogre took exception to him trying to steal his gold fillings."
"And his eye?" Eve asked, arching a brow.
"A mere accident in Persia. Could have happened to anyone," her father replied lightly, staring up at the ceiling in an expression of pure innocence.
"Yes. I imagine he won't be peeking through keyholes into any harems anymore."