The Pirate

He reached over and picked up a stack of papers from her desk, then held them out to her. 'About this,' he said, waving them at her. 'Your work. The subject of the book you're writing.'

Meredith's breath caught in her throat. 'You searched my desk?'

He let out a laugh, a harsh sound without a trace of humor. 'Of course I searched your desk. You forget, Merrie, I'm a spy. If I need information, I make it my business to find it.'

'You had no right,' Meredith said softly.

'No right!' Ben mimicked.

Griffin glared at the bird, then leveled a cool gaze on her. 'I had no right? I had every right,' he said, his voice deceptively even. 'When, Merrie? How long did you expect to keep this from me?'

She stepped back, surprised at the intensity of his tightly leashed anger, and unable to answer. How long? She had never wantedto keep it from him, there had just never seemed to be a good time to tell him. And then, later, it didn't make any difference.

'Tell me now,' Griffin demanded. 'Tell me that you have spent years studying the man I despise, that you plan to write a book glorifying his crimes. Tell me that you would do anything to learn more about Teach. Tell me that you are the reason I am here. For 'tis the only thing that makes sense,' he said. 'Youbrought me here, Merrie. Now, tell me how you did it!'

'I don't know!' she cried. 'I've searched my brain since the night you arrived, but I can't recall anything that would have prompted you to land here. But you're not here because of my work, that much I do know.'

'If not your work, then what?'

'I-I can't tell you,' she said. 'It's just so crazy, even I don't believe it.'

'Damn it, Merrie, I have a right to know exactly how and why you've manipulated my life.'

She drew a deep breath. 'You're my fantasy man,' she said, the words coming out in a rush.

He gasped. 'What?'

Meredith felt a blush creep up her cheeks and warm her skin. 'I-I've had these dreams, these… sexual fantasies about a pirate. But they were just fantasies,' she cried. 'I didn't mean any harm. I didn't mean to bring you here, I swear it.'

Griffin laughed harshly. 'I have been in your world long enough to know that many strange and unfathomable things are possible, but this I do not believe. I was not brought here to take you to bed! I would not have been taken from my task simply to satisfy some woman's erotic fantasies.'

'Then why?' she challenged. 'Nothing else makes sense. I know more about Teach than you do. Nothing you've told me is new. At first I was afraid to talk to you about Blackbeard for fear you might be snatched back into your own time. Kelsey warned me that to do so might alter history in some way.'

'You've already altered history,' he said. 'You brought me here, and took me from my task.'

Meredith rubbed at the growing knot of tension in her temple. 'If I was the cause of your coming here, I'm sorry. And if I could undo it, I would.'

'Then there has to be more,' he muttered. 'We have missed something. You have missed something.' His voice was cold and accusatory.

'If I knew how to send you back, don't you think I would?'

'I don't know, Merrie. Would you?'

'How can you even think that?' she asked.

He cursed beneath his breath. 'What, then? I am just left to live out my life in this time and place.'

She threw up her hands in frustration. 'You make it sound so appealing,' she said. 'Do you find life here that objectionable?'

'I had a life, in my owncentury,' Griffin said, punctuating his words with a jab to his chest. 'It is not so simple to forget that.'

She scoffed. 'A life? You had an all-consuming plan for revenge. Is that what you call a life?' Meredith demanded.

Her aim was true and her volley hit its mark. Griffin cursed, then turned away, bracing his hands on the mantel again. She could feel his anger all the way across the room, could see it in his tightly coiled body, could hear it in his harsh breathing.

'Is this plan for revenge that important to you?' she asked, wanting to reach out and touch him, to soothe his anger. 'If so, why didn't you kill Teach when you had the chance, on his ship, while he slept?'

He refused to face her. 'To murder him would make me no better than the criminal he is. Teach was responsible for my father's death. I will be sure he pays for his crime.'

'Tell me about that,' she said. 'I mean, if you've been brought here for my research then why don't we take advantage of it while we can. My research says that Black-beard was not a bloodthirsty murderer. Though I have read of his capture of the Betty, I have yet to find a record of him killing a man named Rourke.'

Griffin turned, his eyes hard with anger. 'He did not kill him by his hand,' he said. 'Teach killed him by his deeds.'

'And what does that mean? Explain it to me. Make me understand.'

Griffin's expression softened slightly and he drew a deep, steadying breath. 'When Teach attacked the Betty, he put everyone on board ashore. My father watched as the pirates scuttled the ship and it sank off Cape Charles. When he returned home, my father wasn't… right. Over the next several months, he grew very sad and quiet, the same as when he lost my mother. The doctors came and bled him, doused him with calomel, but it did no good. He died soon after.'

Meredith's heart twisted in her chest. 'Calomel? Are you sure of this?'

'Yes. What of it?'

She winced, then bit her bottom lip. Oh, Lord, she'd have to tell him. He needed to know. She drew a shaky breath. 'Griffin, no matter how much you want to, you cannot blame your father's death on Teach.' Her voice filled with sympathy for him, for she knew what she was -about to say would hurt him deeply.

'My father was a fine and healthy man until he ran afoul of the devil.'

Meredith slowly crossed the room and took his hand in hers. He stiffened at her touch. 'Your father became ill afterthis incident. And maybe his condition was brought on by his upsetting experience with Blackbeard,' she said softly. 'Or maybe he wasn't even sick, but simply depressed. The fact is, the medicine the doctors administered probably killed your father.'

'No,' Griffin said, shaking his head, suspicion clouding his blue eyes. 'That cannot be so. They were the best physicians in Williamsburg. I made certain of that.'

She squeezed his hand. 'Calomel was made with mercury chloride. And mercury chloride is poisonous. George Washington, the first president of the United States, died from the effects of the same treatments your father probably received.'

'Are-are you saying it was myfault?'

'Of course not,' she cried. 'You did what you thought was best for your father. You can't be blamed for the state of medicine at that time. I'm just saying that you might want to rethink your determination to bring down Blackbeard.'

'Rethink?' Griffin asked, snatching his hand from hers. 'What does that mean? That you don't agree with what I'm trying to do? The man is evil incarnate, Merrie, and someone has to put an end to his plague of piracy.'

She clutched his arm. 'I believe Teach needs to be stopped, too. But I don't believe you're the one to do it.'

'And why is that? Because your history books tell a different story? Or because it soothes your conscience to think as much?'

She sighed and shook her head. 'Consider for a moment that you were brought here for another reason.'

'What might that be?'

'Maybe you were brought here for your own good. To protect you.' She stalked over to the desk and pulled a file folder off a tall stack, then snatched a paper from inside. 'Here,' she said, holding it out to him. 'This is a copy of a letter to the British Admiralty. It relates that at the end of the battle with Teach, Lieutenant Robert Maynard's men advanced on the few members of Blackbeard's crew who had retreated onto the pirate ship. During this time, one of Maynard's men was shot and killed by another member of the Royal Navy, when the man was mistaken for one of the pirates.'