скачать книгу бесплатно
Beth shivered. “Actually,” she said, wrapping her arms around her waist to still her shaking, “you caught a mermale.”
Light flared in Carl’s sunken eyes. For a few precious seconds wonder eased the lines of suffering around his mouth and brow. “I knew they were out there,” he declared almost dreamily, his thin cheeks flushing with rare color. “I first sighted one in these very waters—a beautiful female with long, dark hair floating on the waves. Nearly twenty years ago it was, only a few months after your mother died…” His voice trailed off on the final sentence. A spasm of pain crossed his features and he fell back against the pillows, coughing.
Beth glanced around the room, and realized her father’s nurse must have gone to the galley for her dinner break. “I’ll go get Anne,” she said, turning back toward the door.
Carl’s voice stopped her. “No,” he wheezed, still coughing sporadically, but shaking his head. “Stay here. We need to talk.”
Beth leaned against the doorjamb. Pushing her wet hair back from her face with a trembling hand, she forced her own breathing to slow while she waited for her father’s coughing spell to stop.
Carl’s paroxysm finally eased. He rested for a few moments against the pillow, staring up at the mahogany-paneled ceiling. Then he turned his head to look at her again. The color in his face had faded, but his gaze still held the glittering sharpness it used to have whenever one of his theories had proven correct as he asked, “How did he look?”
Beth stared back at him unseeingly, images whirling in her mind. A bronzed, muscular chest. Shimmering, golden scales. “Incredible,” she whispered. Hard-edged features and a dark, fathomless gaze. “Dangerous,” she added with a shudder. “Dad, that merman is very, very angry.”
She jumped as Ralph spoke from behind her. “Please, keep your voice down, Elizabeth,” he admonished her. With a murmured apology, he brushed past her into the room, closing the door deliberately behind him. “We want to keep the merman’s existence a secret for the time being.”
She stared at him in astonishment. “A secret! The whole crew must know about him by now.”
Ralph shook his head. “No, they don’t. Even the captain has no idea what we’ve captured. Only you, your father, and the Delano brothers know what’s actually in the tank. After we netted our find, I wrapped him up in canvas before we brought him back to the ship. Oh, the rest of the men probably know we’ve snared something of interest,” he admitted, “but who among them would ever suspect the truth?”
“I knew that one day we’d find one,” Carl declared with pride in his voice. “It was just a matter of time.”
“And you were right, sir,” Ralph agreed fervently. His pale eyes lit with excitement as he added, “Think of the coverage, the attention, this will garner when it hits the media. A live merman! We’ll be famous!”
Nausea twisted in Beth’s stomach. She didn’t want to be famous. She just wanted that merman off the ship. Back in the sea where he belonged before he did something more dangerous than splashing her.
“But he hates being in that tank,” she protested, glancing from Ralph to her father. “He threw water all over me!”
“An accident, I’m sure,” Ralph told her. “If anything he’s probably just playful. Apt to splash a bit if one gets too close…” His gaze swept over her, and disapproval thinned his full mouth. “As you apparently did.”
Glancing down, Beth realized what a mess she was. Her gown was ruined; her bra showed clearly through the wet material. Crossing her arms protectively across her chest, she opened her mouth to argue, but Ralph cut her off with a wave of his stocky hand.
“You’ve had a shock,” he said in a soothing tone that merely annoyed her. “Let me get you a towel. You’re dripping all over your father’s carpet.” Without waiting for her answer, he headed into the adjoining bathroom.
He’s worried about the carpet? Beth thought in amazement. When there was a merman down in the hold?
“Listen to me,” she insisted, watching him through the open door. “That merman is really upset.”
“Nonsense, Elizabeth. You’re the one who’s upset.” Ralph opened a cupboard and reached inside. “The merman doesn’t have real emotions. Not like people do.”
She stared at him in surprise. “You can’t know that.”
“Of course I can. I’ve been observing him most of the day,” Ralph informed her as he came back into the room. “We’ve made numerous efforts to communicate, but the creature hasn’t responded at all—not even on the most primitive level. He can’t understand a thing.”
“If anyone should know, Ralph should,” her father reminded her. “His expertise is working with sea mammals.”
“But he hasn’t worked with mermen—no one has,” Beth pointed out. “And I’m sure the merman understands something at least. Why, he’s wearing some kind of medallion around his neck. Would a fish do that?”
Amusement caused Ralph’s mustache to twitch. “Sometimes. I’ve trained dolphins to slide chains around their necks, after all. Perhaps he picked it up from the bottom of the ocean and slipped it on. Chimps put things around their necks, too. Even in the wild.”
“But he’s not a dolphin or a chimp! He’s half-human—”
“Shush, you’re getting all excited.” Draping the towel around her, Ralph brought the ends together beneath her chin and looked down into her face. “Don’t be deceived by appearances,” he chided softly. “It’s not a man, just a fish. With no more sensibility than a cichlid in a bowl.”
His thick knuckles nudged her chin, encouraging her to meet his eyes. Aware of her father watching, Beth forced herself to do so. Ralph’s pale eyes looked sincere, confident. Her worry eased a little…yet refused to disappear completely. The merman had looked so—so intense.
She stepped away, forcing Ralph to release his grip. Clutching the towel closer around her, she turned back to her father. “Even a fish can feel pain.”
Carl smiled reassuringly at her. “Of course they can, my dear. But he’s not in pain…or at least—” he hesitated, glancing at his assistant “—did you tend to that wound yet, Ralph?”
“No, not yet, sir.”
“He’s hurt?” Beth glanced at Ralph in concern. “Where? I didn’t see anything.”
“It’s on his back. High up on his shoulder. Rather minor, in my opinion.”
“How did it happen?”
Ralph shrugged, spreading his hands in puzzlement. “Who knows? Maybe he scraped himself on some coral. Or possibly got bitten by another fish. It’s hard to say until I have a chance to examine the injury more closely.”
He glanced over at her father as he added, “I’ll have to contain him in a smaller crate in order to do that, sir. We’ll get right on it tomorrow. I thought it would be best to give him a chance to settle down in the tank today. To acclimate himself to his new environment.”
Carl nodded with approval. “Good idea.”
“Yes, that is a good idea,” Beth agreed. “If the wound needs attention, then take care of it. And after that…” Taking a deep breath, she resolutely met her father’s eyes. “Well, after that, I think you should let him go.”
“Let him go!” Carl’s incredulous tones cut off Ralph’s exclamation of protest. He stared at his daughter in amazement. “Elizabeth, do you realize what you’re asking?”
She clasped her hands tightly together. “I know this has been your lifelong quest—”
“Not just my quest—the quest of every man throughout history who’s ever glimpsed the creatures,” Carl said, his voice rising sharply. “The Greeks—the Romans. Even Captain John Smith spied a mermaid in 1614 when he reached the coast of Maine. But I am the first—the very first man in thousands of years—to actually manage to capture one of the creatures.” His thin chest heaved as he gasped for breath, but the intensity of his gaze didn’t ease. “And you want me to let him go?”
Beth stared back at him helplessly. “Yes. It’s amazing—wonderful—that you found him,” she said, trying to calm him down. “But we can’t just kidnap him—”
“Kidnap!” Ralph laughed heartily. Putting his arm around her shoulders, he gave her a squeeze. “Elizabeth, Elizabeth. Your imagination is running wild. You can’t kidnap a sea animal. We’re simply holding him in the name of science.”
“Well, can’t we simply videotape him?” she asked with sudden inspiration. “Take some pictures and release him?”
Ralph released her instead. “You’re being naive,” he told her, with a hint of contempt. “No one will believe a videotape. This is the kind of find that scientists will insist on seeing for themselves.”
Carl nodded somberly. “He’s right, Elizabeth. No one knows that better than I do. In fact, Ralph has convinced me to keep our find a secret for a couple of weeks until the Fall Science Exposition opens in San Diego. We’ll gain more validity by revealing the merman there, where the world’s scientists can see for themselves that it isn’t a hoax.”
“But, Dad…”
He waved her to silence, and lay quietly for a moment. Staring unseeingly ahead, he collected his thoughts, his thin, restless fingers plucking at the blue silk bedspread lying across his legs. Then he looked back at Beth. His mouth twisted as he slowly admitted, “It hurt, daughter, to have lifelong colleagues turn away from me the way they did when I announced my belief in the existence of mermaids. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t believed in me, and I want your support now, too.”
Guilt—hot and heavy—flooded Beth’s chest. The truth was, she hadn’t believed in him. She loved him with all her heart—she worried about him constantly—but not since she was a little girl had she considered the notion that his claim might be valid.
Until today.
She stifled a sigh. Who was she to think she knew better than he did? She’d majored in sociology, not marine biology. Besides, she’d only seen the merman for a minute or so—met his eyes for barely seconds. Even if it had been anger in his gaze, that didn’t make him human. Animals got angry, too. Maybe he didn’t mind being in the tank as much as she thought. If Ralph—who’d worked with sea mammals for over a decade—was sure the merman had the sensibility of a fish, then who was she to say differently?
In fact, maybe it was even a good thing that they’d caught him, so Ralph could tend to the wound on his shoulder. Perhaps the merman would have died if they hadn’t captured him.
She looked over at her father, lying there so pale and thin. So sick with his damaged heart. She thought of the years, the decades, he’d been on his search. All he’d given up to pursue it. If she hadn’t had faith in him before, wouldn’t now be a good time to start?
Her father met her gaze, entreaty and pride combined in his own. “Don’t you understand, Bethie? This find will restore my reputation, my standing in the scientific community. You want that, don’t you?”
Tears prickled behind her eyelids. Did he really need to ask? “Of course I do.”
The tension eased from his body. With a sigh, he shut his eyes.
Weariness washed over Beth as well. Suddenly conscious of her wet clothes, she turned to leave. “I’d better go change.”
She reached for the doorknob, and Ralph immediately stepped forward to open it for her. Perhaps he saw the trouble on her face, because he suggested, “Why don’t you come and watch us work with the merman tomorrow, Elizabeth? It will give you a chance to learn a thing or two about the creatures.”
“I don’t think so,” she said quietly as she slipped past. “I already know enough as it is.”
Down in the hold, the merman circled the tank, flashes of rage still surging through him. The saltwater whipped along his skin, stung his open wound, but still he kept going. Ignoring the increasing pain in his torn shoulder, he let each powerful motion of his arms and tail flow fluidly into the next.
Such a deceitfully sweet face his captor had. Such false distress in her sea-colored eyes.
He churned the water harder—faster. Yet even its loud grumbling in his ears could not drown out the thoughts of the little female tumbling through his mind.
Her voice had been soft yet lilting, like water murmuring merrily over sea stones. She’d stared at him as if she knew him—yet feigned surprise at the sight of his tail.
He passed the place where she’d stood. Then passed it again. From the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a mark on the tank’s clear wall. He faltered, destroying his rhythm. Jerking to a halt, he stared at the circle she’d made with her small hand, her image surfacing in his mind once again.
Slim arched brows. A delicate nose and winsome red mouth. Smooth skin that glowed like a pearl. She wore her thick brown hair long, like the females of his people. Streaked with the mellow gold of ancient doubloons, it cascaded down her back, the ends frothing in playful curls.
Glancing away with a silent curse, he surged upward, exploding out of the water in a violent burst of energy. Flinging back his hair, he stared measuringly at the low platform hanging over the water.
If he were but mer, like his sisters, escaping would be no problem. But he was meremer, one of the cursed ones. For him, there was no transforming back and forth from mer to human between land and sea.
He glanced at the high porthole then turned to study the door at the top of the twisting staircase. A low growl rumbled in his throat.
Like a princess she had descended, wrinkling her nose, holding her skirt high. Stepping over the small puddles on the floor with dainty precision.
His eyes narrowed with grim satisfaction at the memory of how she had left, fleeing from this pit with water streaming down her hair and dress. A minor revenge, but he’d enjoyed the sweet taste of it nonetheless. It fed his hunger for more.
He began swimming again, relentlessly working his arm lest the wound in his shoulder should become tight and stiff. He was not worried that he might have startled her away for good. He’d seen the fear in her blue-green eyes…but he’d seen the curiosity, as well.
It was the same ill-fated curiosity that had drawn him to her when she’d stood on the bow of her ship.
His jaw tightened, his strokes grew faster. Aye, she would be back. Like the turning of the tide beneath the full moon, her return was inevitable.
And so was his escape.
Chapter Three
Yep, if anyone knew about mermaids she did, Beth reflected the next day as she sat in the shadows at the top of the staircase in the hold. Everything from the Disney classic to ancient texts of mermaid lore. In fact, due to her father’s obsession, she’d probably be considered an expert on the subject.
As a child she’d listened for hours as—minute detail by detail—he’d recited the descriptions of the sea people documented by the Roman historian Pliny the Elder. Or reviewed aloud the eyewitness account given by the esteemed Bishop Pontoppidan of Norway, who vouched for a mermaid netted at Hordaland in Bergen Fjord.
She knew that a Greek named Alexander had been the first to describe a mermaid complete with a fish tail—reportedly a lovely creature who burst into tears when a curious crowd examined her, then dived back into the water, yelling unintelligible curses as she swam off. And as a teenager Beth had practically memorized the stories about the fifty beautiful daughters of Nereus, a god of the sea. Apparently, they rode the waves on the backs of dolphins, and had many fantastic adventures.
Yes, she’d heard them all—fables of sea sirens who saved ships or foretold the future or lured sailors to a watery grave. Stories of mermaids with green hair, or feathers, or scales they could remove when they wanted to live on land but had to wear when they returned to the water. She knew legends of potent mariners who’d married mermaids and went on to found dynasties of great navigators because, after all, who would know the sea better than the creatures who lived there?
How fiercely she’d longed as a little girl to actually see one of the lovely, mystical beings. And how she’d wished, even more desperately in recent years, for some proof that her father wasn’t completely delusional.
Well, now she had it—both her wishes granted in the form of one restless bundle of male energy trapped in the tank below. Be careful what you wish for, she thought wryly.
She stifled a sigh. As she shifted to ease the numbness in her bottom caused by sitting so long on the metal step, her hand brushed a sticky patch on the railing by her side. Making a face at the machine oil on her fingers, she bent over to try to wipe it off on the metal step at her feet. She probably had it all over her jeans and red silk shirt, she thought in disgust. The light was so shadowy at the top of these stairs.
She’d lurked in the dimness for over two hours now, unnoticed by the men below. Which was exactly what she wanted. She didn’t plan to interfere—or even make her presence known. She hadn’t even intended to come watch. Her instincts kept telling her to get as far from the merman as she possibly could yet, at the same time, she hadn’t been able to stay away.
A fearful curiosity was part of what drew her back, she admitted silently to herself. The same kind of feeling that caused people to slow down and gawk at the scene of a car accident. Or pick up the National Enquirer to read about the latest sighting of fanny-faced aliens landing in the Arizona desert.
But even more than any of that was the disquiet she still felt. An odd niggling uneasiness that just refused to disappear. Worry for the people around the merman; and a bit of worry for the merman himself.
Not that she’d seen any evidence to support either. As he’d said, all that Ralph and his two helpers did was watch the merman swim endlessly around the tank. Beth kept watching too, but like the previous day, she wasn’t able to see much from the staircase. Just an occasional glimpse of a dark head, or flash of a golden tail fin, flipping up through the foaming water. But even those brief glimpses made her breath catch and her heartbeat quicken. Fish mentality or not, the merman was definitely a fascinating creature. She could hardly look away.
Ralph didn’t take his eyes off him, either. Her father’s assistant had changed from his dress shirt and slacks into a set of work clothes he kept in a small supply behind the stairs. Dressed all in black—shirt, pants and even shoes—he stood on the wooden platform built out over the tank. Hands behind his back, rocking on his heels every now and then, Ralph kept turning to keep the merman in sight. Like the ringmaster in a circus, Beth mused. The effect was heightened by the light shining down on him from the porthole above.
Unlike Ralph, the Delano brothers stood in the shadows, well back from the tank. They were watching the merman, too, Beth noticed, as she glanced their way. She studied them, wondering what they thought of the creature they’d helped capture. She certainly couldn’t tell much from their expressions. Ralph had once told her the men were twins, but beyond having the same olive-toned skin and dark hair, the brothers didn’t look much alike.
Small and wiry, Little Dougie Delano’s shrewd expression and quick movements—not to mention his long pointed nose and buck teeth—gave him an unfortunate resemblance to a rat. Standing next to his brother, Big Mike appeared as huge and stolid as a baby elephant. Legs spread, slowly swaying back and forth, he stared at the tank with his mouth agape, dull surprise briefly lighting his fleshy face every time the merman passed.
Around and around the merman kept swimming, without any noticeable decrease in the speed or power he’d displayed from the start. Fifteen more minutes slipped by. Thirty. Beth was just thinking that the merman would swim endlessly, when Ralph gave a shout.
“He’s tiring, boys! Get ready to get to work.”
Unconsciously, Beth stiffened, leaning forward. At first, she thought Ralph was mistaken. The current was still whirling at a fantastic rate, lapping now and again over the side of the tank or up onto the low wooden platform to trickle beneath Ralph’s shoes. But as she strained forward to see, she suddenly realized the water was slowing. The merman, rather than pushing it along, now merely appeared to be floating with the current, the motion of his arms and tail sporadic, and frighteningly weaker.
Even so he was obviously alert enough to avoid the side of the pool where the Delano brothers stood. The brothers were lowering a slatted crate that vaguely resembled some kind of lobster trap into the water. Once they had the box in place, they picked up long, sharp poles and began herding the merman inside.
The merman refused to cooperate. Time after time he’d appear about to enter the crate, only to slip away at the last possible moment. For over an hour the game continued. Big Mike stayed in one place stabbing steadily, if ineffectually at the water, while Little Dougie chased about the perimeter, trying without success to prod the merman in the correct direction.
Obviously exasperated, Ralph had quickly grabbed a pole, too. From the platform, he tried to block their quarry from swimming from one end of the tank to the other, but the merman evaded the poles with seemingly little effort, almost appearing to taunt the men at times with a lazy flick of his tail before he agilely darted away.
Biting her lip, Beth remained resolutely at her vantage point, even though several of the jabs Ralph and Little Dougie directed toward the merman were vicious enough to make her wince. Ralph had told her father he’d be putting the merman in a smaller cage, and she could see he’d need to do so in order to get closer.
But then Ralph threw down his pole. “This is asinine—a complete waste of time,” he snarled, wiping at the sweat on his face with the back of his hand. Even from a distance, Beth could see angry disgust in his expression as he added, “We’re going to have to tranquilize him.”
“No!” Beth cried out, jumping to her feet.
Everyone turned toward the staircase. Even the merman—a still, golden form in the water—glanced at her as she rushed down the stairs.
The Delano brothers and the merman continued to watch her descent, but Ralph turned away to climb down from the platform. When he reached the floor, he glanced at her, then looked over at Big Mike and Little Dougie.
