Chapter 17

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

F ear struck my heart as the stowaway kept a firm and somewhat familiar hand on my shoulder, almost as if waiting for me to turn around and face him.

Wait… familiar?

My eyes widened as I realised this was someone I knew. Someone from Jorvik.

Unable to handle my mind wandering any longer, I let go of the wheel spokes and turned around to face the stowaway. When my eyes finally landed on his face and familiar features, I blinked several times to ensure I wasn’t seeing things. When his face didn’t warp into someone else’s, and he even had the nerve to smile at me, somewhat hopeful–mostly naive–that I would receive him happily, I could hardly believe what was happening.

“Crosby?” I gaped, unable to believe my eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“Ouch,” he grimaced. “Is it wrong of me to hope you would have been excited to see me, Astrid?” He slipped his hands into his breeches’ pockets–they were far too big to be his own.

“Sorry,” I apologised even though I didn’t mean it. “I’m just surprised to see you.”

“I bet you are,” he chuckled, but the sound was cut short by a throaty cough.

“Are you okay?” I asked, my eyebrows knitting together in concern.

He nodded and coughed once more.

“I’ve just been a little cold lately, so I’ve picked up a nasty cough,” he explained, pausing to clear his throat once again. “Nothing warm soup, a thick blanket and some much-needed rest can’t get rid of.”

“I don’t understand…” My voice trailed off as I tried to make sense of the situation. “You’re the stowaway?”

“I wouldn’t exactly refer to myself as a stowaway, but I guess that’s what some people would call it.” He shrugged, his eyes drifting over my shoulder to stare into the darkness of the ocean. “The sea is beautiful at this time of night.”

“How would you know?”

“It’s not the first time I’ve been out here at night,” he told me, still staring at the ocean as we gently bobbed up and down. “It’s far more difficult to make it out onto the top deck during the day, but I have done it a few times. For food and stuff, but I try not to. It’s far too risky.”

“I saw the fish.”

“Yes, sorry about that.” His gaze snapped back to me, and he had the decency to look sheepish about it. “I only ever took food when I felt like I was going to pass out from hunger.”

“I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” I murmured, shifting uncomfortably on my feet. “I’m just trying to make sense of this strange situation.”

“How about I help you?”

“You’ll tell me?” My tone was sceptical.

Crosby nodded and inhaled sharply. His eyes flitted over my shoulder to admire the sea, but they were back on mine just as quickly as they had left.

“I bet you’re wondering how I got on The Serpent in the first place?” His lips were curled in a ghost of a smile.

I nodded.

Crosby was silent for a moment, staring at the sea. “You were there, weren’t you?”

My eyebrows knitted together. “Where?”

“At my wedding.” H dropped my eyes. “To Chara.”

I nodded.

“She’s pregnant.”

I nodded again.

“I didn’t want to marry her,” he whispered so lowly I wasn’t even sure that’s what he had said. “I didn’t want to marry Chara, but I was forced to go through with it. Everyone told me it was the proper thing to do.” He dropped to the ground at my feet, crossing his legs to get comfortable. I wasn’t sure what was going through his mind or what he wanted, but I sat before him to keep the playing field level.

“I didn’t know I was going to do it,” he whispered, his voice even quieter than before. “Days leading up to it, I didn’t know I was going to sneak onto The Serpent. I didn’t plan it. One moment, I was helping Chip load some jars of honey onto the ship, and the next, I was moving those barrels to the corner and hiding behind them, waiting for everyone to leave and for the ship to start moving. To start moving away from land, from Jorvik, but most importantly, from Chara and that baby she claims to be mine.”

I held back a gasp. “What are you saying?”

He answered me with a pointed look.

“Are you insinuating that you’re not the father of Chara’s baby?”

“Yes,” he sighed but then shook his head. “No,” he denied, burying his face in his hands seconds before I saw a lone tear rolling down his face. “I don’t know,” he groaned, and when he lifted his head, a waterfall of tears streamed down his face.

I gulped and watched Crosby with wide eyes. I had never seen him like this before.

So lost.

So sad.

So broken.

Crosby had always been pleasant and had a way of looking at the positive side of things. He always tried to find the good in everything, but it appeared that all that had changed now.

If this were someone else, if this weren’t the same Crosby that proposed to me and blown his top when I accepted Viktor’s offer of marriage over his, I would have done more to comfort him. If this was someone else, I would have hugged and held them until the tears stopped. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not with Crosby.

“Did you ask her?” It was an obvious question, but it needed to be asked. People never thought to ask the otherwise obvious question when they were as distraught as Crosby was right now.

“I tried,” he sniffled. “But every time I try to ask her about it, she turns it into an argument and refuses to answer the question. If that isn’t her admitting that I’m not the father of the child growing inside of her, I don’t know what is.”

“Maybe,” I murmured, my lips tugging into a frown. “Or maybe she’s hurt by your question and thinks you shouldn’t even have to ask such a thing.”

“Whose side are you on?” Crosby snapped at me, but the anger quickly fizzled away at the startled expression on my face. “Sorry, Astrid. I didn’t mean for it to come out like that.”

I shook my head and pursed my lips, choosing not to hold a grudge.

“I’m not on anyone’s side, Crosby,” I told him. “I’m just trying to make you see how things might look from her point of view.”

“She’s lied about it before.”

“I know. You don’t need to remind me,” I chuckled, but he didn’t find it very funny. “But just because she’s lied about it once before doesn’t mean she’s lying again. Or that she lies all the time.”

“You don’t know that,” he grumbled, and I couldn’t think of anything to say.

What could I say to a man who had already made up his mind?

An uncomfortable silence washed over us. Crosby allowed the tears to fall freely, making no move to wipe them away. I sat across from him, just watching him and feeling sorry for him.

Crosby wasn’t a bad person.

He wasn’t my person, but he wasn’t bad.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t say the same about Chara. It was sad that he had spent more time at sea than with his wife after their wedding.

“And you’ve been sneaking around the ship ever since?” I asked, having already figured as much.

“The blankets, food, clothes, it was all me,” Crosby admitted, still refusing to meet my eyes.

“And last night?”

“Yes, sorry about that,” he chuckled nervously. “I was sick on my tunic and wanted to replace it with a clean one. I haven’t figured out the rooms yet, so I picked a random one. I didn’t know it was yours.” His cheeks burned crimson. “And I didn’t know you two were awake.”

“That’s okay,” I murmured, gulping uncomfortably. It wasn’t okay. Not really. I had been really embarrassed, but not as embarrassed if it had been one of the crew that had been flashed with the image of my legs wound around Viktor’s waist while he was buried balls-deep inside of him. Luckily, Viktor had pulled the blanket up over us just in time. “But it’s probably best if you don’t mention it again. Especially to Viktor. There’s no need to make things awkward.”

“Yes, of course! I wouldn’t dare to do that.”

I smiled gratefully at him, but my lips were quick to drop.

“I disagree with you running away from your newly married, pregnant wife, but what’s done is done. There’s no point in crying over spilt milk.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that since you’re stuck here for the next few months, you might as well make yourself useful. And there’s no point in hanging around on the bottom deck anymore. You’ll make yourself even sicker than you already are.” And, as if on cue, Crosby started coughing. “Come on,” I told him as I rose to my feet, brushing the dust off the skirt of my dress. “Let’s go find Viktor and Laurence. I’m sure we can set you up in a room, but I must warn you, you’ll probably have to share a room with somebody. We haven’t got enough rooms for one each.”

Crosby got a peculiar, unsettling look on his face. At first, I assumed it was at the mention that he would need to share a room with someone, but when his eyes widened and he slapped a hand over his mouth, I knew it was due to something else.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time to move and save myself.

I promised Viktor that I would scream as loud as I possibly could if I needed help, but I doubted Crosby’s vomit all over my dress and shoes was the kind of dangerous situation he had in mind.

Well, I guess this also explained the mysterious puddles of sickness all around the ship.