Demons & Pearls (The Razor's Adventures Book 1) Page 12

  He stopped and tossed the blanket back on the bunk and picked the lantern up from the table. I stood like a statue as he stepped behind me. I could feel the warmth of the lantern as he drew it closer to my skin.

  “What the devil are you doing now, Razz?” I asked, growing slightly uncomfortable under his inspection.

  I peeked back over my shoulder and watched him. He was passing the lantern over and across my back. I flinched when I felt that tender and sandy touch of his as he brushed the long white waves of my hair away from my shoulders, and I heard him release a sigh.

  “It isn’t as bad as it looks,” I whispered back to him. “Look at this,” I said. I started to turn around so he could see the worst one of all on my right hip, but he sat down the lantern and turned me away from him by the shoulders. “Razz, really? Stop being so shy.” I chuckled at him until I turned again and looked up into his eyes. Had I not known better, I would have sworn they were glazed over with tears.

  “I’m alright. I promise I am. I just bruise easily. This one is rather tender to the touch though.” I twisted until the lantern light shined on my hip bruise. He refused to look.

  I reached up and dared to achieve what I’d been longing to do since the first time I’d watched him do it—I laid my hands on his beard. I hesitated with some subconscious fear that once I’d done this, my hands would forever bear the blisters. The warmth permeated my palms, but the burning I experienced was radiating from somewhere well beneath my chest. I’d never in my life felt such an ache. I pushed it down and away and focused my attention on his glorious eyes as they finally met mine.

  “I don’t believe God created such a beautiful sight as the female form for it to be abused so,” he whispered to me while I caressed his face.

  “Don’t look at me then. Come on; I’ll sit in the chair, and you can just pretend I’m a man and cut away.”

  At last, I felt his hands upon me. He was stroking and petting my hair as I brushed my thumbs repeatedly down his beard. He ran his fingers over and over again through my hair as if he were saying goodbye to it and then let it fall against my back. “This wasn’t supposed to happen, lass,” he said as he closed his eyes. I was suddenly amazed. Here I was completely bare, and yet I had only felt uncomfortable about my wounds. The same wounds he had ignored my nakedness to examine.

  “Nothing has happened or will happen. Just cut my hair,” I said softly, and I finally withdrew my hands and stepped away from him. I walked to the chair, sat down, and picked up my razor. The ache I had felt moments before returned with a vengeance while he’d stroked my hair and stared into my eyes, but I denied it. I was confused and torn and even a little frightened. I thought of how he’d made me feel so special one minute and so ordinary the next, the way he’d brushed me off and had treated me more as some sort of pet and then so lovingly stroked my hair. How could my body be betraying me so? I was telling him nothing was happening, yet my body was crying out from deep inside for him to touch it. When he at last took the razor from my hand, he held it for a moment and then tried to hand it back.

  “No, Razz. Please, just do it.”

  He picked up my glass and downed what was left of the rum in it, and I closed my eyes.

  “Please stay as still as ye can. I’m not a barber, as ye can clearly see.”

  “I used to shave my uncle with that razor, remember? If you miss any spots, I’ll find them.” I smiled, still with my eyes closed tight.

  I felt his big hands gathering my hair together at the back of my neck. It tickled a bit, but I forced myself to remain still. I heard Rasmus swallow hard, and I could hear the strands shear apart as he pulled the razor straight through my hair just above his fist. I opened my eyes when his hand moved forward in front of me and laid no less than fifteen inches of my hair on the table in a clump.

  I reached back with my hand, and for the first time since I was a small child, I didn’t need to brush my hair out of the way to touch the back of my neck. “My goodness, how much lighter my head feels,” I exclaimed. “Please, keep going. It’s fine.”

  Rasmus did not speak throughout the entire process. He sighed with every clump of hair he removed and sat them neatly atop the first big cut, until he finally felt it was close enough to my head to shave the rest. He gathered his shaving tools and used soap to create a thick lather in his cup with the shaving brush. Those huge but gentle hands gave me such a sense of safety that I knew he wouldn’t hurt me, or even nick me.

  “It’s finished,” was all he said as he rinsed everything out in a bowl of water and began to gather up all of my hair.

  “What are you going to do with it?” I turned around in my seat and asked him.

  “I have no idea,” he said as he stuffed it all into a small sack and tied it closed.

  I stood and swept as many of the tiny bits of white hair off of my body as I could find and walked back to the mirror on the bookshelf. I stared at my reflection as if I were looking at a stranger. My hand flew to my mouth, and I gasped when I touched my scalp for the first time in my life. “Oh my God…” I whispered and felt Rasmus walk up behind me.

  He placed the blanket around my bare shoulders, and I felt his lips press through his beard and touch the back of my head. “Are you alright, lass?”

  “I’ll be fine.” I turned away from the mirror. “It’s as smooth as freshly sanded wood, that’s for sure.”

  “It will grow back quickly, too,” he said as he walked to his bunk and sat down.

  “Rasmus, if I ask you something, do you promise to tell me the truth?” I walked towards him, wrapped tightly in his blanket.

  “I’ll do my best, but I’m getting somewhat uncomfortable with you still walking around in your skin there, lass.” He looked up at me now standing right in front of him.

  “Will it work?”

  “Oh, it works. It’s been wearing me down for an hour now it wants to work so hard.” He chuckled and started to reach out for me and then pulled back his hands and sat them on his thighs.

  “That’s not what I meant, though you’re very funny. I mean, will I pass as a man now?”

  “Well…not dressed like this, ye won’t. At least I hope not, because if ye do, I’m on the wrong side of the fence for good.” He chuckled again. His eyes sparkled and his cheeks were glowing with a blush of rose.

  “Somehow, I don’t think you’re going to give me a straight answer.” I smiled down at him.

  “May I tell you something, Ivory?” he asked as he dipped his head to one side.

  “Anything.”

  “Yer the most beautiful creature I’ve ever had the blessing to behold, and if it’s possible, you’re even more beautiful with no hair at all.”

  The ache came rolling back. It grew out from somewhere deep beneath my navel until it burned me from hip to hip. My eyes closed and opened, and I was breathing so deeply to release the pressure and fear within my body that the air blasted forth from my nostrils in trembling bursts. My hands clutched tightly at the blanket, but I saw what I perceived to be a longing in his eyes. The fear of what could happen next was warring with the fire inside of me, and I wanted to throw myself on Rasmus and defeat them both. I’d allowed myself to run wild inside his comfort and safety, and in giving up my hair, I’d completely lost my head in the process.

  “I want to touch you,” he looked up at me and whispered in a deep and gritty voice I’d never heard before. I finally took his emotions into consideration and imagined he burned as deeply as I did. I couldn’t look away from the hunger in his eyes. Here I’d paraded myself in front of him this way, and he hadn’t made one indecent gesture. He’d barely hinted that he saw me the way most men looked at women. In all my hate and disdain of men, here sat the only one I believed I could ever want, and regardless of any world or king or obligation, I knew he could stamp out this ungodly burn and replace it with a flame that would burn eternally.

  I took his face in my hands and nodded down at him. The sincerity in his eyes told me not t
o fear him, and my thoughts immediately conjured images of what pleasures and delights his body could provide. I waited for him to touch me, but his hands remained on his thighs. I leaned down and pressed my lips against his for a moment, but he pulled away from me. I stepped back and slowly began to peel the blanket away, when he reached out and pulled it closed.

  “No. Put your clothes on.” He stood and pulled my clothes from the heap on the floor where I’d left them, tossed them on the bunk, and turned his big back to me. “I won’t have you like this. You’ll not regret me as you regret so many things in your life. I won’t be a part of that.”

  “You said you wanted to touch me, and I thought…”

  “I want to touch you, hold you, love you, and take care of you. I don’t just want your body, Ivory.”

  “But, these feelings, Razz. These feelings I have inside for you—they’re horrible. They make me want you as a woman wants a man, and I…I’ve never felt this way, ever. Not in my whole life. Oh God, help me…what’s wrong with me?” I asked as I tore through my clothes and pulled them on. “You must think I’m some horrible tart.”

  “Put your clothes on, lass, and I’ll explain some things to ye.”

  Once I’d finished dressing, I sat down on the bunk with a thud and put my bald head in my hands. “I thought you liked me. I thought you wanted me. Today at the beach, you said things no one has ever said to me before. I’m a complete fool.”

  Rasmus took the chair from the table, pulled it to the bunk, and sat facing me. He reached out and took my hands in his and sighed. “Maybe someday I’ll look back on this night and want to punch myself in the head for this, but I’ll admit it…my heart wants ye, little Razor. My heart sings for ye. I’d be lying if I said seeing ye the way ye were when I walked in before didn’t stir me up. Oh, I was stirred up as high as a man can get. But a young woman like yourself…well, you’re not some tavern whore to bounce around with for a few hours. Those feelings you’re having are lust, girl, not love.”

  “What if I don’t know what love is? What if to me, bouncing around a few hours is love?”

  Rasmus’s brow furrowed, and he lifted my face by the chin to meet his saddened eyes. “Lass, you’re not telling me you been, as we been calling it, ‘bounced’ around before, have ye? I’ll kill the son of a bitch who took advantage of ye,” he growled.

  “No. I only imagined my first time would be with someone wonderful and gentle and kind. Someone with big, blue eyes and fiery hair, who I don’t have to be frightened of and want to kill.”

  “Ye had my heart jumping out of my chest for a minute there,” he said with a sigh and sat back in the chair. “I’m flattered that you chose me to do the honor, but it’s your honor I’m worried about. Mine is fine. You’ll be keeping yours tonight. And what do ye mean, who you don’t have to be frightened of?”

  “I’m telling you this because, whether you believe me or not, and as much as I told you I wouldn’t ever throw my head at you, I do believe what I’m feeling right now is love, Razz. It isn’t just my head I’m throwing, it’s my heart. The night the Spanish raided Charles Towne and killed my aunt and uncle, one of them grabbed me and…I’m not a maid anymore.”

  “What the devil are ye squawking? Ye most certainly are a maid. What a greasy and disgusting thing to do, and to a child no less. If I knew where that good-for-nothing piece of…” Rasmus’s face turned as red as fire, and his fists pounded on his thighs as he spoke. Then, he bit his lips closed.

  “Cass killed him,” I interjected. “She killed him in the act. I was too frozen with fear to know if, well, he’d gone all the way. But afterwards, I was certain he did.” I’d hoped my words would give him some relief in knowing my rapist was dead.

  “You’re still a maid. I don’t care who or what told ye otherwise. I see ye more now lass, than I did walking around here naked. No wonder ye don’t give two shakes about them bruises. Those aren’t the ones that hurt. I do believe I can see right down into ye now,” he muttered quietly and lowered his head.

  “Yet you still don’t want me,” I felt something tear again inside my soul. All at once, a thought came to me that I had engrained in myself after what had happened to me. It was the idea that no man would ever want me, and that maybe I was to blame for turning all of that pent-up rage into my hunger for freedom. I had vowed that no man would ever hurt me again, nor have a hand in the decisions I made. I was shaking inside now in the belief that, no matter what Rasmus said, whatever feelings he had for me were now scattered to the wind.

  He raised his head and then dropped it into his hands. “Ivory, if ye knew how bad I want ye, you’d run out of here and never come back. If I wasn’t able to control myself, there wouldn’t be any bouncing in that bunk for a few hours, love. I’d bury you in that bed with so much love that I’d reach inside of ye and tear out every scar, bruise, or ache you have, until there’d be nothing left but skin and bone.”

  “Then why don’t you do it?” I shouted at him.

  “Because I want ye to love me first.” He slammed the butts of his fists down hard on his thighs, and his eyes shot up at me so hard and fast I thought they’d knock me backwards.

  “But I don’t know what that is! I only know what I’m feeling inside, and it feels like love to me.”

  “Well, when it is love, you’ll know it. Then, we’ll have that first time.”

  Suddenly, his head snapped to the side.

  “What is it, Razz?”

  “Shhh…I thought I heard someone on deck,” he said as he stood and took a few steps.

  “Maybe your crew is returning?” I rose to my feet and stood behind him.

  “My crew wouldn’t step so lightly, lass.” His eyes were wild, and he snatched his sword from its sheath from where it hung near the door. “Stay here,” he whispered. He rested his hand on the latch, but a second later, we heard a loud crash and he bolted out the cabin door.

  “Get out here, Ivory! She’s on fire!” he shouted back to me.

  I grabbed my scarf and hat from the table and ran out the door to find Rasmus surrounded in flames. They were everywhere, as if whatever had started the fire had fallen from the sky like rain. I looked up, and the fire was already climbing the mast, and all of the sails on every yard were burning.

  “Razz, you can’t save her!” I cried out to him as he pulled pails of water, two by two, from the harbor below and tossed them on the flames.

  “Run, lass! Save yourself!” he shouted at me, but I didn’t want to run and leave him this way. The smoke and flames were growing intense, and I could hear a crowd of people coming from the taverns and buildings along the wharf. I leapt to the pier, tied on my scarf, pulled my hat down on my head, and backed away into the growing mob. People were carrying axes and buckets tied with rope, throwing them into the harbor for water to help him. I stood there like a statue, watching as he leapt from the deck onto the pier and rolled to a stop, batting at the fire that had caught on his clothes.

  “Cut her loose!” he cried to the men who were tossing the buckets of water on her in futility. “Cut her loose, I said! Before she takes the dock down with her!” he shouted again as he climbed to his feet and swiped an axe from the hands of one of the men standing on the pier. He ran to the pilings, and I watched as he whacked away at the lines and pushed her off with his boot. The beautiful Oyster drifted away like a funeral pyre into the harbor.

  He dropped the axe and fell to his knees, coughing and spitting out the smoke. I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I started to run for him. I had taken but two steps when I felt myself hung up by the arms. The last thing I saw before everything went black were the eyes of Rip Townsend with his voice saying, “Well, look at what we ‘ave ‘ere, mates.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  ~The Spider’s Web~

  There was an ache in my head the likes that I had never felt, and as my eyes fluttered open, I wanted to touch it. I flexed my arm to bring my hand to that aching spot, but I couldn’t. I tried again a
nd again, and as my eyes strained to open, the room was blurry and mostly dark. It took several moments before I could see well enough to realize I was tied by my wrists to a bed in a room I’d never seen before. It was then I saw the light rising in the lanterns.

  There were long, red velvet drapes that ran from the ceiling to the floor and fancy table lamps with fringed shades painted with flowers. The room came and went in my pounding head until I heard a familiar voice when the door slammed shut.

  “Well ‘ello there, lass.”

  It was Rip’s voice. I tried to speak, but I couldn’t. They’d taken my scarf and tied it tightly around my face and through my mouth. I was able to raise my head enough to see that, by the grace of God, I was still dressed, but my legs were spread wide and tied by the ankles to the bed posts as well. I spoke through the gag in my mouth, asking him what he was doing and why was I there.

  “What’s that? Oh…I’m sorry, lass. I can’t understand a word yer sayin’,” Rip said in a condescending tone.

  I followed him with my eyes as he circled the bed and stopped on my right side, sitting next to me. My eyes shot up at him, and I pleaded with him to let me go.

  “Still can’t hear ye. Seems ye been sneakin’ ‘round a bit, aye? Ye got some ideas about runnin’, but that’s not gonna work fer us.”

  “Us?” I said through my gag.

  “Us fellas figured ye was a risk, and ye need ta’ be taught a lesson. We’re here ta’ help ye, Ivory, seein’ as how yer a bit mixed up and think yer a man now. Humph,” he said, rubbing my head as I jerked away. “Too bad about that hair a’ yours. Ole Big Red cut it off fer ye? Did he do it before or after he loosened ye up fer us?” he asked with that gritty, dirty laugh of his. “Aye, we know all about Big Red Rasmus Bergman,” he said. He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and shook his head. “Looks like he won’t be takin’ anyone anywhere without a ship now, will he, lass?”