“You—” Tubal had raised his finger and was shaking it to prime his lecture, but I ducked under his arm and was in the narrow alley across the island before the rant could commence.

Off to find Jessica. Another calamity threatened, another rescue to be attended to—what a bawdy bitch is fate when the best bit of a bloke’s day is a brace of bloody mermaid murders.

Twelve: To Belmont and Beyond

TWELVE

To Belmont and Beyond

Hold still, thou squirming rat,” said Jessica, cruelly stabbing me.

“Stop poking me with the needle, thou vicious harpy,” said I.

By now Viv’s venom had subsided and I could feel the stinging of the knife wound on my ribs and the claw punctures in my sides, as well as the needle being driven in me by the sadistic madwoman.

“Stop being such a coward. One more stitch and the wound will be closed.”

“Coward, am I? I suffer great bodily injury to deliver your message and return with glad tidings and I am a coward?”

“I’ve made consideration for your glad tidings, which is why I am tending to your wounds instead of letting you die from fever when they fester.”

How could I tell her that not only was she not going to elope with her beloved, but that he was quite headless at the bottom of the sea? It would be no comfort to her to know that he had been a scoundrel intent upon stealing her favor and her father’s fortune. So, I had told her a different tale, and she was ready to sally forth into the arms of her bright and hopeful future. She had not been so gleeful when I’d first told her.

“Corsica? He talked of Cyprus. Why Corsica?”

“Lorenzo was quite insistent,” said I. “And he insists I accompany you, to assist and protect you.”

“But the whole reason I wanted a slave was so Lorenzo and I could run away together and not feel guilty that there was no one to take care of Papa; if you come with me—”

“We will bring your guilt as well. You wouldn’t have escaped it anyway. It is a parent’s gift. I was orphaned as a babe, yet carry the curse of my parents’ guilt like a woodpecker around my neck.”

“You mean an albatross. The curse is supposed to be an albatross around your neck.”

“You’re positive?”

She nodded. “Albatross.”

“I was a very poor child. The nuns that took me in couldn’t afford an albatross, so they just put a bit of string on a woodpecker the cat brought in.”

“Well, that’s not the same, is it?”

“An albatross is a crashing huge bird, innit? You can’t just go garroting a small child with it, that would be heinous, even for nuns.”

“But as a metaphor for guilt—”