The Captain squinted. "Is someone pretending to be your husband? Why, I'll run him through, I will."
Eve scoffed. "That look hasn't worked on me since I took my hair out of pigtails."
Bluebeard fought down his pride. Instead of praising her courage he complained, "It's just unnatural for a daughter not to fear her da." But Eve had a good wind, all right, no doubt about it.
"It's unnatural for a father to pay a man to pretend to be my husband," she retorted, clenching her fists. She needed that money much worse than did the wastrel who was being paid to be her loving husband. In fact, she wanted to beg her father for some of his treasure right now, but knew she never could with the terms of surrender. They would be too heavy: Close the asylum and marry that hateful Hook.
"A pox on yer fears, daughter. Ye should trust me!"
Girding herself for more battle, Eve let nothing show on her face. She wasn't her father's child for nothing, having his fierce determination to be victorious. She would stay afloat without Captain Bluebeard's plundered, pirated, sunk-shipped treasure.
Her father said, "You gave me no choice, lassie. Wedded bliss is a fine state, a holy state between man and woman. Marriage is forever and, well…" He hesitated before nodding. "Marriage is blissfully blissful."
"How droll! How can you say that when you've been married seven times?"
The captain remained unrepentant, ignoring her scorn. "Well, now, it took a bit of practice. But I got it right with your dear mother."
"Humph," Eve grumbled, shaking her head.
"Now see here, missy, no need to get on your high horse. 'Tis true—marriage is a fine state with the right companion. It's not me fault that six of me wives were she-devils in disguise."
Eve snorted inelegantly. "None of your wives were demons."
Bluebeard shrugged. "Nay, ye're right. They were worse. Me first wife was a witch. Mean-tempered, with a wart on her as—" Realizing what he had been about to reveal, he quickly said, "Never mind where the wart was. Just know that she was a stomach-churning shrew, always spewing curses and stinking up me ship with her boiling cauldron and mumbo jumbo. Me second wife was made more for the bliss bit of matrimony, but she just didn't have a strong constitution. Of course, it wasn't her constitution that got her in the end, just her poor eyesight."
Eve nodded, for she had heard the story a time or two when her father was in his cups.
"Aye. Imagine mistaking a crocodile for a stepping-stone," Bluebeard reminisced. "We were married only four years. I never should have taken her to Africa."
"At least not without her spectacles."
"True, true. But then, she was a vain woman, even on nature walks," he replied, pursing his lips. "So she died looking better than she saw."
After a moment he frowned, recalling his third wife. "Holly was a true beauty in every respect, but she couldn't keep her nose out of me treasure chests. Could sing like an angel, and could wield a cutlass better than most of me sailors. But she was a hard-hearted wench who loved gold more than me. And the rolling of the sea made her queasy."
"Should have been hanged from the yardarm," Eve remarked sardonically.
"She was," Bluebeard replied, and then added with a contented sigh, "In Port-a-Prince, after putting her hands on the governor's chest.
"Now, yer mother was the best of the lot. Six was me lucky charm. Yer mother was a real lady with a heart of gold. She was me real treasure. Loved me with all her heart and never played me false, even if she couldn't tell north from south or hit the broad side of a barn with a cannon. Still, I loved her dearly."
Eve's anger died a little in the face of her father's adoration.
"She was my pride and joy—just like you are," the crafty old pirate added. He loved his daughter, warts, nuthouse, and all. "That's why I picked a handsome, fine husband for you. A good solid Irishman, with a touch of piracy, a touch of the English, and a seducer's touch as well. His father was a baron, ye know."
"No, I didn't," Eve said, "and I don't care. Besides, I think one pirate in the family is enough." That Adam had been into pillaging the seven seas with a bunch of cutthroats was another point against him—a big, fat point. "And I find him neither fine nor handsome," she lied.
Bluebeard pinched her cheek. "Never try to lie to a liar, lass, or cheat a cheater—or outman the man of the sea. They'll give you no quarter."
Eve glared, hating the fact that her father knew her so well. "I didn't say he was ugly, now, did I? This Adam character might be fairly attractive, for argument's sake, but I'm not in the market for a husband. As you well know!"
"Of course not, Evie. You already have one." Her father laughed.
"Da, if you don't get rid of him, I'll have him thrown in prison for pretending to be someone he's not."
Her father glared at her. "I don't think so, lass. I have a friend or two in some pretty high places."
"Of course you do," she snapped. "But that won't stop me from declaring him an impostor. Adam is looking at a fall."
"Adam won't be arrested for pretending to be anything, for he's the very man ye married in Vienna. Or so I shall say. Already those busybody doctor friends of yours think he's yer husband. How will they feel about giving their coins to a woman who says her husband isn't her husband, yet who pretended he was her husband when he was pretending to be that same husband?"
Shaking her head, trying to decipher that sentence, Eve finally got the gist, and the jest was unhappily on her. Dr. Sigmund and Count Caligari would never give her their foundation funds if they realized she was a liar and a fraud. It was all as she'd feared. "You bloody-minded, conniving, conspiring crab!"
The Captain's face became a mottled red, and he fought the urge to turn his grown daughter over his knee and paddle her bottom as if she were still a child. "You're one to talk! That's like the pot calling the kettle a Bluebeard. Look who's the calculating chit, pulling a spouse out of thin air with nothing more than her overactive imagination."
"Well, I certainly learned from the best!"
The captain stood, pointing a finger. "Adam stays as your husband. If ye so much as breathe a word to anyone that he isn't, I will personally see that the good mind doctors find out the whole story. Ye will be ruined in the scientific community. Ruined in any society, scientific or otherwise—except on a pirate ship, which is where ye belong anyway, so don't tempt me!"
Eve's chin quivered, but she held back her tears. "You hard-hearted barnacle! For how long am I supposed to play house?"
"I want grandkids, lass."
She shot him a look of pure horror. "Sleep with him? We're not really married!"
"Now, don't get your sails in a knot. I have a plan," he confided craftily.
"Why am I not surprised?" she muttered, her eyes aching with the sting of sorrow, yet her demeanor rigidly polite.
"Adam is to be your husband for only a while. Then, unluckily, he dies and you're a widow—free to marry a flesh-and-blood person!"
"He might have something to say about dying just to please this plan. I know I do. I don't like the lying lout, but I won't let you murder him," she retorted abruptly. What a waste! Not many men were so dashing that they could make a lady's toes curl by kissing her silly. "When did you become so bloody bloodthirsty?"
The captain rolled his eyes and shook his head, his weathered face revealing his annoyance. "I'm a pirate. What do you expect? But I wouldn't do him in. Since he's yer pretend husband, it will be a pretend death. But we'll have one fine and dandy funeral for him."
"A real funeral?" She was beginning to get mixed-up.
"Of course, real. A fancy funeral for a fine man, so that all will know ye to be a poor widow."
Eve stomped her feet, then stood with legs apart, hands braced on her hips. Ironically, so did her father.