Race to World's End (Rowan and Ella Book 3) (10 page)

After her long
unproductive day in her hotel room—and with the prospect of another one looming
ahead of her tomorrow—Ella found she couldn’t go back to the hotel
without making the night count for something more. Keeping to the shadows, she
slipped through the scrum of men blocking the entrance to the bar and found her
way to a back table. She knew she couldn’t position herself too much on the
perimeter or she wouldn’t hear anything. It was a fine balance: close enough to
the action to pick up conversations, but not so close that anyone glanced her
way.

She was confident
that her disguise was good. First, it was unimaginable that a woman would
deliberately want to be among this lot. Second, it was equally unimaginable
that a woman would deliberately cut off her hair—her crowning glory in
this age—for any reason.

As she sat down
at the far table, instantly catching a nasty splinter in the back of her thigh
in the process, she saw what looked like another cabin boy not far from where
she sat. He held up a finger to the barmaid and she nodded. When the
woman—fifty, if she was a day—looked at Ella, she too held up a
finger.

When the tankard
of ale came, Ella realized from its odor that she wasn’t going to be able to
drink it and keep it down. But to
not
drink it would cause only slightly less reaction than spewing it back up. The
lip of the tankard had food encrusted on it, which Ella broke off. She lifted
it to her face and pretended to drink, trying to pick out English words from
the babel of men’s voices.

It was clear that
a ship had come in recently. Probably this very day from the looks of the men
in the pub. Ella wondered if she’d have time to visit many more taverns
tonight. She wondered of the likelihood of any of this toward getting her
killed. She thought of Tater and quickly pushed the image from her mind. Being
all weepy-Mommy right now was the last thing she needed if she was going to
pull this off.

“Oy! Some’un piss
in yer beer?”

She looked up to
see the other cabin “boy” lumbering over toward her. The good news was that he
appeared to be English, not Spanish or French. The bad news was that he was
coming over to her. At the moment before he sat down, she sorely wished she’d
had the nerve or the forethought to pull one of her front teeth. Nothing said
low-life cabin boy as authentically as a missing front tooth. In any case, now
was not the time to show her perfectly straight and brilliantly white teeth.

At least thirty
years old but not much bigger than Ella, the man sat down next to her and the
two of them faced the crowd. It occurred to her that sitting with this lug was
actually good for her cover—if she didn’t blow it. He reached for her
beer and drank from it, his eyes, yellow and bloodshot, watching her from over
the rim. Ella panicked for a moment until it occurred to her that she could
make this work for her. She shrugged. He was at least getting rid of the
detestable ale for her.

She forced
herself to gum her teeth with her lips and grinned at him. He blinked once at
her reaction and paused and then finished the rest of her ale and slammed the
tankard down on the wooden table in front of them. Ella jumped and moved to a
half-standing position, ready to bolt out the front door—or as close to
it as she could get with half of the male population of Casablanca standing
between her and it—when her companion clapped a heavy hand down on her
shoulder and belched loudly.

“Oy fink some’un
did
piss in it!” he said loudly, then
laughed raucously at his own joke. Ella mugged her way through another version
of her gummy, no-teeth grin and hoped for the best.

It worked.

“They calls me
Roger,” he said, drinking from his own tankard. “Got a bob for another?”

Ella patted her
pockets and came up with half a shilling, which Roger snatched out of her hand.

“This is a lucky
day me meeting you, matey!” Roger turned and hailed the barmaid, this time
holding out two fingers.

Looks like he intends to buy me a drink with my own money
, Ella thought.

“Ye from the
Clarence
?”

Ella frowned
.

“The Clarence
.
Whut just came in today? From Marseilles?”

Ella shook her
head.

“Dumb, huh? That’s
all right, matey. Me cousin’s dumb.” The beers came and Roger set them both in
front of himself. “Me, I’m from the
Constantine
.
Ye savvy what this lot is about, eh?”

Ella could see
that poor Roger was respected and admired by none. It seems she had just been
nominated his one-woman cheering squad and appreciative audience.

Which suited her perfectly.

She shook her head.

“Cap’n Sully,”
Roger said in his first hushed tones of the evening. He took a swig of his
tankard and looked out at the men in front of him as if concerned they might
have overheard him.

Ella followed his
gaze. She had to admit it was a rough crowd and perhaps a little rougher than
your average merchant mariner. One man in front of her was missing an ear.
Another appeared to be
wearing
an ear
on a chain around his neck. She didn’t know when the clientele had changed, but
a decidedly rougher crowd seemed to have taken over.

“Ye be knowing
who that is, aye?”

Ella looked back
at Roger, who appeared to be examining her a little too closely. She shrugged.
Clearly, she was supposed to know who it was.

“Member of the
running trade, savvy? Those who fly no flag?”

She didn’t answer
but held his gaze. He blinked first, pushing one of the tankards to her. “Talk
is he took the
Eendracht
, a Dutch
merchant ship, off the coast of Spain. Killed all but one who promised him a
prize for his life here in Casablanca.”

Ella turned back
to him and lifted her the tankard her lips. He’d already drunk most of it. With
any luck she’d get the rest down without gagging.

“Brung ‘im to
Casablanca—the Dutchman, that is—and got his treasure right enough.
So they say.”

Ella glanced at
him as she fought to keep the brew down.

“Ye’ll be
wondering if he honored his word and let the Dutchman go, aye?”

Ella nodded,
suddenly feeling extremely sleepy. There was no doubt she was seeing two Rogers
at the moment.

“I wouldn’t put
cold-blooded murder past Cap’n Sully, true as true. And honor ain’t a word
connected to him either, savvy? Say now, what ails you, matey? Ye ain’t lookin’
too good.”

Several Rogers appeared
to be grinning at her. It was the last thing Ella saw before the table full of
splinters slammed into her face and the whirling world around her ground to a sudden
halt.

 
 
8

When she awoke,
Ella saw immediately that she wasn’t tied up or bound in any way. She could also
tell that the closet she was in was small and dark. And it was moving. A
vicious thread of panic wormed up from her gut as she realized from the sway
and creak of her cell that she was on a moving boat. She scrambled to her feet
and instantly fell. There were boxes and heavy coils of fat rope laying about
that, in the dark, she couldn’t see or maneuver around.

That bastard! He’s kidnapped me!

She inched her
way along the rough wooden wall of her enclosure until she saw cracks on the
floor that indicated a door. She grasped the long wooden bolt, surprised that
it was on the inside instead of the outside, and threw the latch up.

What kind of a jail is it that latches on the inside?

Which made her
wonder—
who latched it?

“Oy! How be me
matey? Ye need to lay off the grog, lad. Little fella like yourself—”

“Stow it,
dickhead,” Ella said, blinking into the sunlight where Roger loomed over her,
backlit. She could see he had a tray of food in his hands. “You can’t do this.
I’m an American citizen.”

When her eyes
adjusted to the sunlight, she saw that the closet opened up onto a narrow
outdoor corridor. Over Roger’s shoulder was nothing but blue sky. No buildings
in the background. No wharf sights. They were on the ocean. God knows where.

“Yer voice sounds
prissy-like,” Roger said, frowning.

“Why did you drug
me?” Ella asked, forcing her voice as low as she could make it. “Why did you
bring me here?”

“Leave off, boy. Captain
sent me for more recruits.” He shrugged. “So I recruited ye.”

 
“How did I get locked in? The latch is on
the inside.”

“Sure ye was a jolly
dog last night. Ye don’t remember, do ye? Sometimes the dope does that to a
man. Never seen it turn ‘em quare before though.”

Ella rubbed a
hand across her face. She had to get off this boat. She had to find information
on Rowan. What a mess. Why the hell didn’t she pack a derringer when she and Halima
were trying to plan for every event?

“Might as well
have a mug o’ tea, matey. Y’ain’t going nowheres.”

Ella weighed her
options. She had little doubt she could outmaneuver this moron—as soon as
she figured out a way to actually get off the ship—
but what then?

“What ship is
this?”

Roger grinned and
handed her a steaming tin of tea. “Like I said before, this is the
Constantine
.”

“Have you heard
anything about anyone being picked up by any ship any where near here?”

Roger looked at
her in stark amazement.

“Hello? I’m
asking you a question.”

“From where did
you say you came? The Americas?”

Ella spoke more
slowly. “Have you heard any news about a man being picked up from a nearby
island?”

“The Dutchman.”

“No. He isn’t
Dutch. He’s big, though.” Ella stood on her tiptoes to indicate Rowan’s
six-foot-four height. “And broad shouldered.”

“Blimey,” Roger
said, a look of incredulity creeping over his face. “The giant? Sully has ‘im,
doesn’t he?”

Ella jumped up
with excitement, knocking over her tea. “Sully? The
pirate
, Sully?”

Roger nodded,
only now his eyes strayed to her chest and Ella had a very bad feeling, which she
confirmed when she looked down and saw that the straps she’d used to flatten
her breasts had snapped. She was not only fully pushing against the blouse of
her cabin boy’s shirt, she was showing remarkable cleavage in the process.

Crap!

“Scuttle me and
rot my bones!”

“Okay, Lurch.
Let’s not get distracted here.” She didn’t bother with the deep voice. It was
pretty clear from all viewpoints that she was female.

Ella closed the
gap between them with one step and jerked the knife free from the man’s waist sheath.
He grunted as if he’d been hit but didn’t drop his mug of tea.

“Stand over
there, please,” Ella said, motioning to the far end of the corridor. “And if
you’d be so kind as to tell me where, exactly, we are?”

Roger stared at
her with his mouth open. “Ye’re a wench!”
 

“What time did we
lift anchor? What direction from Casablanca are we heading?”

She watched a
stupid grin spread across his face and she felt her panic ratchet up.
What moron smiles when he’s got a knife on
him? A moron who knows there’s a pal nearby with a gun.

“Oy, Roger. Ye
brought us a toy for the long voyage, so ye did.”

Ella took a step
back toward the cell and, still holding Roger’s knife in front of her, glanced
off to the side to see a very large, very hairy man holding a pistol aimed at
her.

Did she have time
to dart back into the cell and lock it before he pulled the trigger? It
occurred to her that was a big risk to take when the best-case scenario then had
her trapped like the proverbial rat in the cell.

Should she go
down fighting?

“Drop the knife, lass,”
the ape with the gun said. He took a step forward as he spoke.

“I don’t think
so.” Ella’s hand felt sweaty around the knife grip. She shifted her focus to
the man with the gun although Roger was nearly as threatening.

“Cap’n won’t want
her killed,” Roger said. “And Cook won’t want another ‘un to patch up.”

“Stow it,” the gunman
snarled.

Deciding delay
was better than whatever these two had in mind for her, Ella jumped back into
the cell and slammed the door shut. She dropped the knife and grabbed for the
locking lever with both hands, trying to wedge it into place before they could
wrench the door open. Her fingers felt for the locking cradle in the dark, one
hand holding the lever and sweat popping off her as she heard the men’s shouts
on the other side of the door. Her right hand located the cradle and she
slammed the lever down, but before it could catch and lock into place, the door
jerked open.

Ella stood in the
shaft of daylight staring into the face of the ape with the gun. With his free
hand, he grabbed her by the front of her shirt and yanked her out of the cell.