***
Over the next few days, Teach made it his custom to take his evening meal in his quarters with Mercy. She gave him a fictional account of her life as Sister Bertilde, the youngest daughter of a French noblewoman married to a minor member of English society. With no money left for a dowry once her elder sisters had been married off, she claimed to have entered the convent rather than accept the palsied hand of the elderly but wealthy suitor her father had chosen.
He in turn told her of his life in the Carolinas. Raised by Edward Teach II, a man forever in the shadow of his legendary parent, haunted by tales of the pirate’s lechery and lawlessness. He said his mother died when he was a child, leaving him to be raised by a stern father. A man unyielding in his rigid moral code, determined to show the world how unlike he was to the infamous Blackbeard. He told her how angry Edward II had been when his only son was drawn to a life at sea…and how he’d been disowned.
“Despite what the islanders think, I didn’t inherit Blackbeard’s Tower from my grandfather. I bought it when I was a grown man, through a third party. My father had refused to sell it to me, even though by then he needed the money. He put anger and resentment ahead of good business sense – a mistake his own father would never have made.”
James made light of the struggles he’d had over the years, saying only that he was grateful to his father for insisting on giving him a good education, sending him to study in England as a young man. That voyage had made him decide on a career at sea.
Mercy was perceptive enough to hear the story he left untold, of a motherless boy alone most of the time, save for beatings and lectures from a harsh, unloving man. During their time together, she discovered a warm, witty side to her dinner companion, balancing his powerful pose as the stern ship’s commander.
Somehow, despite all he’d been through, the captain had become a well-rounded man. From Mercy’s experience with the unseen world, she believed it was due to the spirit of his loving mother watching over him.
For Mercy, locked away in solitary confinement, the hours spent with the handsome captain each day were the only things that kept her from going mad. Consumed with worry over the fate of Sairy and the other residents of Whitaker Hall, she could scarcely sleep. She paced the cabin endlessly in the dark of night, like a wild creature trapped in a cage. So far, she’d been unwilling to peer into the scrying mirror for answers. All it ever seemed to show her anymore were scenes filled with pain and sorrow.
When she did lay her head down to rest, intoxicating thoughts of Captain Teach kept her awake. He was not only rugged and strong but intelligent as well and could converse on any number of subjects. It was rare for Mercy to find a man who could match her quick mind and even rarer to come across one she could not trick or cajole or bully into doing whatever she wanted. For the first time in her life, Mercy faced the fact that if she were ever to engage the man in a battle of will and wits, she would be hard pressed to emerge the victor.
If truth be told, her womanly passions were aroused by the possibility she’d finally found a man whose strength of will matched her own. As they dined, she often stared at his large hands, later imagining them roaming insolently over her body as she tossed and turned in his bed each night.
Though still a virgin, Mercy knew of the ways of a man with his mate. She’d glimpsed scenes in the scrying mirror over the years, scenes of a brawny stranger claiming a woman who bore her likeness.
Despite her fears and her sorrow, she found her thoughts turning more and more to the captain, wondering if this man was indeed the faceless stranger of her visions. The man destined to take her innocence and make her fully a woman.