As Tess hurried to retrieve the birthing powder, her mind stuck on a disturbing detail.
He's lying! That captain made my moon ring change color! But which part of his boast is the untruth?
She didn't have more than the time it took to run a few quick steps over to the room her grandmother used to store provisions in, to ponder it further. She slid to a stop in the wide doorway.
The room beyond was crawling with sailors busy ransacking the supply room.
Focus, she admonished herself.
The powder wouldn't be hard to find.
Her Gram's newly accomplished reading and writing skills had been put to work in the pantry. Tess had only to take note of the pieces of paper tacked to the edges of the shelves that braced the span of the storage pantry's alcove. The hand printed labels identified, in alphabetical order, the contents that each wooden ledge held.
There hadn't been any babies to birth in the past year. The leather birthing powder bag would be at the back of the first shelf to her right.
Tess stepped deeper into the storeroom and was nearly knocked over by a sailor who pushed past with his arms hugging three large bags of sugar to his chest. All around her, sailors swarmed in and out of the storeroom, taking everything that they could carry back to their ship.
Necessary supplies for them? They're just stealing everything! Thieves! All of them! A hot flush streaked up her face as her wrath built. Gram's outrage was contagious.
To hell with discretion.
Tess doubted that many, if any, could read. None would know the contents of the satchel that she had come to fetch.
She pushed her way past two crewmembers, their arms full of sacks and boxes pilfered from the wooden cupboards. Standing on tiptoe, she stretched up to the top shelf in full view of them all. Her hand swept across the rough surface of the wooden shelf in a grasping motion and came up empty.
The bag was gone.
Already taken.
And gone with it, was any chance of sedating the Navy crew, and of giving the Calleberry and those sailing her at least the slimmest chance to escape the Navy's clutches.
I have to find it!
For just a moment, Tess gripped her hands together, and reflexively fidgeted with the tiny tourmaline band, setting it spinning in its track around her finger. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.
Where is that medicine bag? My God! If they've taken it to the ship already we're lost. We need that sedation powder! Think! Where is the powder? How am I going to get my hands on it?
Heart pounding, Tess tried to keep her fluttering eyelids shut and to ignore the activity going on around her. She concentrated on any pictures or thoughts that might come to her. And ... there it was. A rope, knotted into a noose and weighted down by something swinging at the end of its short length.
No! A hanging! Oh please don't let it be!
Her eyes shot open. She blinked in surprise. The leather pouch, dangling from a piece of rope, swung in front of her.
"Lookin' fer this?" A lecherous grin greeted her.
"In fact, I am," Tess retorted, hoping that she sounded braver than she felt.
The sailor took a step closer and grabbed a handful of her hair with his free hand, tilting her head back, exposing her neck. His eyes traveled down her neck, stopping at the frill of her blouse as it topped her cleavage. "An' what might ya offer me, in exchange fer it?" His hand slid around her waist and he pulled her firmly against his pelvis. A noticeable bulge in his trousers announced his interest and probable intention.
"I would offer you my silence." She pulled herself up as haughtily as possible and braced her hands on his chest, pushing back to make more space between their bodies. "And I may resist arranging to have you gutted like a fish," she added for good effect.
"Eh?" Confusion clouded his face.
Tess fixed her stare on the man's eyes, and peeling his hand from her waist, she took one step back. "Let me be more specific. Your captain has requested a meal for which the spice contained in that bag is required. If you were to return it to me now, I will not be required to explain to your captain, any delay in returning with it to the cook who is waiting for it even as we speak."
"The captain?" The sailor visibly paled.
"Yes. How reasonable a man does he seem to be to you?"
The hand holding the bag shook ever so slightly as her tormentor held it in front of her, his ardor completely vanished. "Take the damned thing then!"
***
Returning to the kitchen down the hallway as quickly as possible, Tess was nearly through the connecting kitchen doorway when she caught partial sight of her grandmother's frame next to the kitchen table.
A sailor, his temple sporting a laceration that oozed a stream of fresh blood down the side of his face, stood next to Emma. He had been standing a little too close, by the looks of it.
And then Tess noticed the large pistol he held. Its tip was pressed to Emma's ribs.
Tess lunged towards them just as Hannah's giggle reached her ears. She froze at the sound.
Her child's laughter was coming from outside the house. Spinning around, her head whipping from side to side, desperate to locate her daughter, Tess screamed her daughter's name.
"Hannah!"
Another giggle and happy squeal floated through the air. Tess tore through the outside doorway, rounded the corner of the house and stopped dead.
Situated in the dappled shade provided by an overhanging tree branch in the garden, Captain Holbrook sat on a wooden bench.
Sat with Hannah on his lap.
Tess stared and then choked back the sour bile that rose in her throat.
"Hannah!" Tess screamed and her heart lurched. Her legs felt leaden, bolted to the ground. It wasn't just that the captain was holding her daughter. Intermittent sunlight glinted off an object that Hannah was gleefully playing with. Tess stared, stunned as her daughter slid it into her mouth, as infants and youngsters often did when exploring new things.
Tess gasped, both recognition and terror sinking in.
Hannah was gripping a tiny revolver with both hands, her pouty pink lips encircling the barrel of the shiny Queen Anne.
"No-o!" Tess shrieked and charged towards the captain. One of her feet caught on a protruding rock, and she slammed face first into the ground.
Captain Holbrook merely watched her with a look of amusement and called out as Tess struggled to pull herself up onto her feet again, blood dripping from her knees, palms, and forehead.
"There now!" he clucked. "Too much haste can be dangerous. You seem to have cut yourself. And needlessly, I might add." He shrugged his shoulders. "As you can see this charming little girl of yours is perfectly content. No need to worry. I just thought it prudent to unburden both you and the cook with child care, leaving the two of you free to focus on providing us with food and drink." He smiled down at the top of Hannah's head. "A sort of insurance package, if you will. It's not that I don't trust you, but your menfolk are quite another thing."
"Get that pistol away from her!" Tess gasped, desperately trying to regain the breath that her crash landing had forced out of her lungs.
Captain Holbrook laughed. "What? This little thing?" He grabbed the Queen Anne from Hannah and held it above her head while pretending to inspect it. "It is a little beauty though, isn't it?" His eyebrows lifted. "My favorite, in fact."
Hannah squealed with annoyance at having her new plaything plucked from her mouth and out of her grasp. Captain Holbrook chortled, "Surely you don't think that I would give a loaded pistol to a child?" He taunted Hannah with it for a moment, dangling it just beyond the child's reach. "No, Missus, it is not loaded," and he grinned maliciously as he dropped it into Hannah's lap.
"However," he continued, and the smile dropped from his face as he shifted the toddler slightly, revealing another pistol that he gripped with his free hand, its barrel pressed firmly against Hannah's lower rib cage.
"This one is."