CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The Good, the Bad, and the Good and the Mad

The skies were an ominous gray that perfectly matched Eve’s mood, as did the aging buildings she was passing. Although Eve had seen a hundred docksides while growing up in ports around the world, they always depressed her. The taverns were shabby, and the patrons a dirty and uncouth lot living in abject poverty. Garbage always lined the streets, and the sewage smells were enough to put a person off her food.

Again Eve cursed her father for his interfering ways, and for having to seek him out in one of his favorite haunts. When she found him, she didn’t know what she would do, but she did know that the coming confrontation would not be pleasant. Especially if she unleashed her formidable temper. “Loose lips sink ships,” Eve muttered, remembering this fact well, since her father had drummed it into her as a child. He’d always advocated a united front for the Bluebeard family, no matter how bad things got. Of course, he was usually the one causing problems. “I shan’t pull out his blue beard or curse a blue streak and threaten his liver. I shan’t call him an infernal interfering boil on the arse of humanity,” she reminded herself.

By her side, her butler nodded. He’d driven her here in the asylum trap. “That’s right, Dr. Eve. I wouldn’t think you should.”

Eve gave an inarticulate grunt. “Don’t get mad, get even,” she muttered.

Teeter glanced around, taking in the rough-hewn cobblestone path. “Get who?”

She rolled her eyes. “No one. I meant, I shouldn’t be angry; I should get even with that callous conniver who calls himself my father. He’ll rue the day he crossed me!”

Teeter replied anxiously, his Adam’s apple bobbing, “I wouldn’t threaten to break his bottles of rum or lock him in a treasure chest and throw away the key, like you did the last time.”

Eve glared at her butler. Then, continuing her search, she found her ire increasing, but no Captain Bluebeard.

“My father is like a hammerhead shark—hammering away until he gets what he wants,” she complained. “Doesn’t matter what he destroys in the process. Like my very fine life. Oh, no! He wants me married, pirate-booted, and pregnant, the old-fashioned reprobate. To his mind, a woman’s made to stay on a ship for her master’s pleasure, bearing his children and cleaning the poop deck. Perhaps wielding a cutlass in times of emergency. For him, one female is much like the others. Hence his seven marriages. He’s a barbarian, the ripe old cod!”

As the afternoon wore on, Eve discovered that the captain wasn’t at the Barbary Coast Pub, the Sword and Crossbones, or Thatch Blackbeard’s Den of Scurvy. Finally she located her father at Lafitte’s Pride, a regular nest of pirates with a few landlubbers thrown in for good measure. Materlinck, both the bartender and an aspiring writer, waved her through to the back, where her father was holding court by telling outrageous tales of his high-seas adventures.

The smoky room teemed with rough characters. Some wore eye patches, others earrings, and a few sported peg legs. There were scarred faces, grizzled beards, and smelly bodies, and a continual din of grumbling voices. Through the hazy atmosphere and the window’s faint light, Eve spotted Captain Bluebeard sitting by a grimy hearth, with his back against the wall—the only way her father sat in a room full of cutthroats—a smile on his face. He was smoking his corncob pipe.

Turning to Teeter, Eve noted her father’s condition. “At least he isn’t castaway yet. I wish you to stay here by the bar.” Seeing her butler’s pleading eyes, she relented. “Yes, you can get yourself an ale.”

Teeter’s delighted grin spread from ear to ear, which had her hastily adding, “One ale. Only one. I need you to drive us back. Read my lips. No new taxies.”

The grin fled as quickly as it had appeared, and the ogrish butler peered down his very long nose at her. Eve ignored his wounded expression and marched over to her father, pushing through the mass of disgustingly dirty humanity.

Catching sight of his daughter, Captain Bluebeard grinned. His dark blue eyes lit with joy, his lips twisting into a knowing smirk. The cat was out of the bag, the vampire out of the coffin, and the pirate off his ship. Ship ahoy! His daughter’s prow was true and straight, and she was approaching at ramming speed.

Captain Bluebeard’s smirk only made Eve’s blood heat to the boiling point. “I’ll personally kick his Tortuga,” she muttered, but halted abruptly when she reached him. Ignoring his disreputable drinking companions—his crew were beyond three sheets to the wind, were more like eight sheets into a full-blown hurricane—Eve let loose her own personal nor’easter. “What skullduggery have you set loose in my asylum?”

Bluebeard chortled. “Skullduggery, you say? Just exactly what are you accusing me of?”

Eve didn’t fall for the look of indignation that quickly covered her father’s rugged face. The old scalawag was playing it for all he was worth. “You really should tread the boards on land, not on sea. Don’t fash me, father. As if you didn’t know! You can forget the protestations of innocence. You haven’t been innocent since the day you were born. Knowing you, I bet you swiped the cookie of the baby next to you!”

Planting a large hand on his chest, Bluebeard groaned, playing to the audience of blasted buccaneers seated around the table. “To think me own dearest daughter speaks to her da like this. Doesn’t trust me. Just breaks me heart, it does.”

Eve stamped her foot. “If the eye patch fits, wear it!”

“Evie, my love, shiver me timbers. How cold is a thankless child!”

Glaring at her father’s companions, Eve snapped out her next words: “Do you louts think you could pretend to be gentlemen for once, and leave me to speak with this old scalawag alone?”

The three pirates hastily departed, Ol’ Peg almost getting his wooden leg caught in a spittoon. Drunk or not, none of Bluebeard’s sea dogs wanted to get in the middle of this father-and-daughter talk; the Bluebeards’ bites and their barks were equally bad.

Pulling out a chair, Bluebeard nodded for Eve to sit down. She obliged warily, plotting her options. Then temper won out. “How dare you presume to invent a husband for me when I’ve already invented one myself! It’s utterly despicable! I want Adam whatever-his-name-is out of my life tonight! And I do mean tonight!” She lowered her voice to keep the tavern’s crooked customers from overhearing, she didn’t need to be blackmailed by this scurvy lot. Though, with the din of the crowd and the fact that most were so drunk they wouldn’t remember much of anything, she wasn’t too worried.

The Captain squinted. “Is someone pretending to be your husband? Why, I’ll run him through, I will.”

Eve scoffed. “That look hasn’t worked on me since I took my hair out of pigtails.”

Bluebeard fought down his pride. Instead of praising her courage he complained, “It’s just unnatural for a daughter not to fear her da.” But Eve had a good wind, all right, no doubt about it.

“It’s unnatural for a father to pay a man to pretend to be my husband,” she retorted, clenching her fists. She needed that money much worse than did the wastrel who was being paid to be her loving husband. In fact, she wanted to beg her father for some of his treasure right now, but knew she never could with the terms of surrender. They would be too heavy: Close the asylum and marry that hateful Hook.

“A pox on yer fears, daughter. Ye should trust me!”

Girding herself for more battle, Eve let nothing show on her face. She wasn’t her father’s child for nothing, having his fierce determination to be victorious. She would stay afloat without Captain Bluebeard’s plundered, pirated, sunk-shipped treasure.

Her father said, “You gave me no choice, lassie. Wedded bliss is a fine state, a holy state between man and woman. Marriage is forever and, well . . .” He hesitated before nodding. “Marriage is blissfully blissful.”

“How droll! How can you say that when you’ve been married seven times?”

The captain remained unrepentant, ignoring her scorn. “Well, now, it took a bit of practice. But I got it right with your dear mother.”

“Humph,” Eve grumbled, shaking her head.

“Now see here, missy, no need to get on your high horse. ’Tis true—marriage is a fine state with the right companion. It’s not me fault that six of me wives were she-devils in disguise.”

Eve snorted inelegantly. “None of your wives were demons.”

Bluebeard shrugged. “Nay, ye’re right. They were worse. Me first wife was a witch. Mean-tempered, with a wart on her as—” Realizing what he had been about to reveal, he quickly said, “Never mind where the wart was. Just know that she was a stomach-churning shrew, always spewing curses and stinking up me ship with her boiling cauldron and mumbo jumbo. Me second wife was made more for the bliss bit of matrimony, but she just didn’t have a strong constitution. Of course, it wasn’t her constitution that got her in the end, just her poor eyesight.”

Eve nodded, for she had heard the story a time or two when her father was in his cups.

“Aye. Imagine mistaking a crocodile for a steppingstone,” Bluebeard reminisced. “We were married only four years. I never should have taken her to Africa.”

“At least not without her spectacles.”

“True, true. But then, she was a vain woman, even on nature walks,” he replied, pursing his lips. “So she died looking better than she saw.”

After a moment he frowned, recalling his third wife. “Holly was a true beauty in every respect, but she couldn’t keep her nose out of me treasure chests. Could sing like an angel, and could wield a cutlass better than most of me sailors. But she was a hard-hearted wench who loved gold more than me. And the rolling of the sea made her queasy.”

“Should have been hanged from the yardarm,” Eve remarked sardonically.

“She was,” Bluebeard replied, and then added with a contented sigh, “In Port-a-Prince, after putting her hands on the governor’s chest.

“Now, yer mother was the best of the lot. Six was me lucky charm. Yer mother was a real lady with a heart of gold. She was me real treasure. Loved me with all her heart and never played me false, even if she couldn’t tell north from south or hit the broad side of a barn with a cannon. Still, I loved her dearly.”

Eve’s anger died a little in the face of her father’s adoration.

“She was my pride and joy—just like you are,” the crafty old pirate added. He loved his daughter, warts, nuthouse, and all. “That’s why I picked a handsome, fine husband for you. A good solid Irishman, with a touch of piracy, a touch of the English, and a seducer’s touch as well. His father was a baron, ye know.”

“No, I didn’t,” Eve said, “and I don’t care. Besides, I think one pirate in the family is enough.” That Adam had been into pillaging the seven seas with a bunch of cutthroats was another point against him—a big, fat point. “And I find him neither fine nor handsome,” she lied.

Bluebeard pinched her cheek. “Never try to lie to a liar, lass, or cheat a cheater—or outman the man of the sea. They’ll give you no quarter.”

Eve glared, hating the fact that her father knew her so well. “I didn’t say he was ugly, now, did I? This Adam character might be fairly attractive, for argument’s sake, but I’m not in the market for a husband. As you well know!”

“Of course not, Evie. You already have one.” Her father laughed.

“Da, if you don’t get rid of him, I’ll have him thrown in prison for pretending to be someone he’s not.”

Her father glared at her. “I don’t think so, lass. I have a friend or two in some pretty high places.”

“Of course you do,” she snapped. “But that won’t stop me from declaring him an impostor. Adam is looking at a fall.”

“Adam won’t be arrested for pretending to be anything, for he’s the very man ye married in Vienna. Or so I shall say. Already those busybody doctor friends of yours think he’s yer husband. How will they feel about giving their coins to a woman who says her husband isn’t her husband, yet who pretended he was her husband when he was pretending to be that same husband?”

Shaking her head, trying to decipher that sentence, Eve finally got the gist, and the jest was unhappily on her. Dr. Sigmund and Count Caligari would never give her their foundation funds if they realized she was a liar and a fraud. It was all as she’d feared. “You bloody-minded, conniving, conspiring crab!”

The Captain’s face became a mottled red, and he fought the urge to turn his grown daughter over his knee and paddle her bottom as if she were still a child. “You’re one to talk! That’s like the pot calling the kettle a Bluebeard. Look who’s the calculating chit, pulling a spouse out of thin air with nothing more than her overactive imagination.”

“Well, I certainly learned from the best!”

The captain stood, pointing a finger. “Adam stays as your husband. If ye so much as breathe a word to anyone that he isn’t, I will personally see that the good mind doctors find out the whole story. Ye will be ruined in the scientific community. Ruined in any society, scientific or otherwise—except on a pirate ship, which is where ye belong anyway, so don’t tempt me!”

Eve’s chin quivered, but she held back her tears. “You hard-hearted barnacle! For how long am I supposed to play house?”

“I want grandkids, lass.”

She shot him a look of pure horror. “Sleep with him? We’re not really married!”

“Now, don’t get your sails in a knot. I have a plan,” he confided craftily.

“Why am I not surprised?” she muttered, her eyes aching with the sting of sorrow, yet her demeanor rigidly polite.

“Adam is to be your husband for only a while. Then, unluckily, he dies and you’re a widow—free to marry a flesh-and-blood person!”

“He might have something to say about dying just to please this plan. I know I do. I don’t like the lying lout, but I won’t let you murder him,” she retorted abruptly. What a waste! Not many men were so dashing that they could make a lady’s toes curl by kissing her silly. “When did you become so bloody bloodthirsty?”

The captain rolled his eyes and shook his head, his weathered face revealing his annoyance. “I’m a pirate. What do you expect? But I wouldn’t do him in. Since he’s yer pretend husband, it will be a pretend death. But we’ll have one fine and dandy funeral for him.”

“A real funeral?” She was beginning to get mixed-up.

“Of course, real. A fancy funeral for a fine man, so that all will know ye to be a poor widow.”

Eve stomped her feet, then stood with legs apart, hands braced on her hips. Ironically, so did her father.

“Let me get this straight,” Eve managed to mutter through clenched teeth. She had gone beyond vexation into pure rage. “You’ve made me accept an impostor as a spouse so that you can pretend to kill him off so I can be a fraudulent widow?”

“You’ll be a widow for only a short time, lass. Then I’ll see ye married good and proper.”

“I see,” Eve said in stunned disbelief. Her deceitful da was even more devious than she had previously thought.

Plopping back down in her chair, Eve slowly shook her head. “We have a room in the Towers if you’re interested, because you’ve gone barmy, I declare! Madder than any patient of mine,” she growled, her eyes shooting sparks. “How could you?”

“Not mad, just crazy like a fox—even though me bloodline’s pure werewolf. Still, I’m canny as a wolf, and you should be overjoyed. Since Adam isn’t as fine or as handsome as ye like, ye can marry me boon companion,” the old salt suggested, waiting to see if Eve would take Hook, line, and sinker. He knew he had to continue to advance while her guard was down.

Eve just blinked. Her father intended her to marry the nefarious Captain Hook? “I think I’ll keep Adam,” she replied sarcastically.

Bluebeard shook his head. “No, lass. Adam is a fine fellow for an impoverished impersonator, but I want a real pirate for a son-in-law. See, it’s just like I always told you, lassie: every cloud has a silver lining—and if one doesn’t, you just steal it.”

“Never. I’ll never, ever marry Captain Hook!” Giving her father one last baleful look, she turned sharply on her heel, shoved her way through a dirty dozen or two, and stalked back to where Teeter had just ordered his third ale.

Grabbing the mug from him, she downed the strong brew in less than a minute, without choking once—an advantage of having lived on a pirate ship.

So, her father wanted her married to Hook, and by crook. But she wouldn’t marry the heinous Hook, and she wouldn’t sleep with Adam. She would be captain of her own destiny. Maybe not tonight or tomorrow, but soon. “Well, as soon as I can come up with a plan to upset the old pirate cart,” she muttered to herself.

Teeter started to argue as his mistress drank the last few drops of his ale, but seeing her harried expression, he decided that his two previous mugs were quite enough for the time being. He would raid the wine cellar later—perhaps with Mrs. Fawlty, if she were in the mood for high romance.

Eve cursed and set down the mug. Her father had just trimmed her sails without a shot being fired. “Blast him and all men to smithereens!” she growled, shoving Teeter out of the tavern and into the darkness of coming night.

“Where’s our bloody carriage?” she asked sourly. Twisting the pearls around her throat, she realized that in her anger she had forgotten her father’s cardinal rule: “Early to rise and early to strike makes a pirate healthy, wealthy and wise,” she repeated. Well, it didn’t rhyme but it was true. Her father had struck swift and early, his aim deadly accurate, and now she was trapped in a pretend marriage.