Dragon Tamer Read online

  Bolstering her courage, Eleanor paused, gave the door to the tavern a closer look, and almost lost her nerve. It wasn’t exactly a place she wanted to enter.

  “Go on, missy. No one in there’ll bite ya.” He cackled. “Unless ya wants ’em to.”

  Eleanor took a deep breath and stepped into the dim, smoky interior. It had a stale, rancid smell, like odors from everything that had ever been cooked, drunk, eaten, or puked up still hung in the air or was forgotten in the corners. She fought the urge to press a handkerchief to her nose and mouth.

  The room was almost empty. When her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she searched the place.

  “What can I do fer ya?” The man behind the bar was wiping a glass with a grayish-looking towel that looked to have also been used to wipe up the floor.

  “I’m looking for Cappy Galvin.”

  The bartender turned toward a door at the back of the bar and barked Cappy’s name.

  To Eleanor’s relief, Mr. Galvin stuck his head out.

  “A lady here to see ya,” he was told.

  Cappy squinted toward her. “Miz Rayburn?”

  Eleanor smiled, a little nervous. “Hello, Mr. Galvin. It’s good to see you again.”

  He hobbled out, gimpy-legged, and drew her to a table in the back where he motioned for her to sit. He eased himself into the chair across from her, clearly uncomfortable. The barkeep brought him a shot of whiskey, which he downed in one swallow. “What’re you doing down here, ma’am? This ain’t no place for your kind, you know.”

  Eleanor straightened in the chair. “Mr. Galvin—”

  “Cappy.”

  She smiled. “Cappy, you served with Amos on The Dragon many years ago, didn’t you?”

  He nodded. “Yep, ’bout fifteen years ago. Why?”

  “I’m looking for information regarding an incident that happened during one of the voyages.”

  She explained exactly what she was looking for, then paused, waiting for a reaction. When she didn’t get one, she added, “He and his brother were on board together, apparently working as cabin or steerage boys.”

  Recognition lit Cappy’s gaze. “Well, maybe one of them was working, but that young one. He was a hellion.”

  Excited at this news, Eleanor asked, “Do you remember their names?”

  His rheumy eyes became thoughtful. “Odd names, they were. The only reason I remember either name t’ all, was because the older one kept yelling the hellion’s name, asking him to behave, or he’d get whipped. Again.”

  Eleanor flinched at the word “whipped.” “And what was his name?”

  He suddenly appeared thoughtful. “Well, let me think.” The barkeep brought him another whiskey, and he downed it, then scratched his chin. “Dirk…David…”

  Cautiously excited, she sat forward. “Could it have been Dante?”

  He nodded. “Yep, that was it. Dante and Damon, or somethin’ like that.”

  He had pronounced Dante as if it rhymed with “ante.” “Damien,” she corrected, feeling an odd chill clutch at her chest. “Do you remember what happened, exactly?”

  He eyed his empty glass. Eleanor caught the bartender’s gaze, and nodded. She dug into her purse and placed a coin on the table.

  When Cappy had gotten his third whiskey, he began telling the stories he recalled, and the incident when Damien fell into the sea and was lost. His recollection was much like Amos’s entry into the log. It did nothing to reassure Eleanor, however.

  “Was there an attempt to rescue him?” she asked.

  “Oh, sure. Amos tried. We all did, but the sea, she was a choppy one that day. And that Dante. It took three of us to keep him from jumpin’ into the drink after his brother.” The old salt shook his head.

  “Ain’t often that we lost one so young,” he said, his voice pensive. “They was a rambunctious pair, them two. Damien, the older boy, done his work, though. That Dante.” He shook his head. “Amos whipped him to shape him up, but there was no tamin’ him.”

  The thought of being whipped made Eleanor’s skin hurt. “So Amos really whipped him?”

  “Yup. Often and hard. But not just to be mean, although, if you’ll excuse me, Miz Rayburn, Amos could be cruel. I don’t mean no offense.”

  “None taken, Cappy. Did…did the whippings leave scars?”

  “You betcha,” Cappy answered with a nod. “I hear tell that after his brother died, the hellion went off and got himself royally tattooed, attempting to cover them.” He shrugged. “I don’t know if he succeeded or not. Ain’t heard nothing about him since.”

  She thanked him, wished him well, and left the tavern. Although it was getting dark, and the docks were not a decent place for a woman no matter what the time, she decided to walk home.

  The day wind that constantly buffeted the shoreline had died down, and she occasionally got a whiff of tangy salt air peppered with the odor of rotting fish. Every now and then, through an open window, she smelled someone’s dinner cooking.

  She walked through The Common, beginning to get a picture of who Dante Templeton was.

  Although it sounded a bit dramatic, maybe he was a man out for revenge, and she, the wife of the man he probably blamed for his brother’s death, was his target. If that were the case, it was no wonder that he was barely civil.

  As she made her way up Pinckney, she wondered if she should confront him with the truth. He would probably deny it. No one wants to look into his own soul and discover that he’s wrong. Especially not a man like Dante Templeton.

  The blue-footed booby is an unforgettable sight. While named after the Spanish word “bobo,” meaning dunce, because they would not fly away when approached to be killed, they are extraordinary divers and can often be seen diving into the ocean from sixty or seventy feet in the air.

  Their feet are a bold, striking blue and they have some comical courting rituals, dancing toward one another, plodding about, showing off as if to say, “Look at me, am I not beautiful with my big, blue feet?”

  Dante blotted what he’d written, placed the sheets carefully in the drawer, then checked the time. His guest would arrive soon.

  After settling himself into one of two plush leather wing chairs that bracketed the marble fireplace in his library, Dante gazed around the room he loved. It was his favorite.

  His most recent additions to the room were built-in bookshelves on either side of the fireplace, something he realized he needed when he discovered he was stacking his much used reference books beneath his desk and behind the chairs because he had no more room for them in his freestanding bookcases.

  The walls had been painted in deep, warm tones. One of his two favorite paintings, the one of his ship, Whispering Winds, painted by the elegant Chester Harding, hung from silk cords over the fireplace.

  Dante never ceased to marvel at the intricacy of the piece. All twenty-one sails were clearly defined. He always felt that if a stiff wind should somehow enter the library, Whispering Winds’ sails would fill and his vessel would sail away, so realistic was the image.

  The other was a sketch that he, himself, had done of Damien, from memory, a number of years ago. It hung between the windows above the Hepplewhite-inspired card table.

  Except for his cottage at the end of Nahant Peninsula, this was the one room where Dante felt the most at home, probably because he had furnished it himself, with pieces he loved. He could usually think clearly in this room.

  While he waited, he thought about what he actually knew of Sylvester Conway. He had heard that the man was widowed, but no one remembered him ever having had a wife. It could have been before he moved to Boston from Providence. Young women died in childbirth all the time.

  But as long as Dante had known Sylvester, he had lived with his mother, a difficult, demanding, controlling woman. Dante had a hard time believing Theodora Conway would approve of Sylvester taking a bride. Or another bride, if that truly were the case. And if Sylvester did, indeed, bring one home, Dante would pity her. Even if that bride w
as Eleanor Rayburn.

  He glanced toward the door just as Sylvester came through it, and raised his glass. Sylvester gave his greatcoat, hat, and umbrella to Horace, Dante’s manservant, and joined him for a drink.

  Nine

  Sylvester lowered himself into the wing chair opposite Dante, his oversized reddish eyebrows raised in question. “Nice of you to invite me for a drink, Dante, but I must admit I was a bit surprised.”

  Dante understood that. Except for large gatherings, they hadn’t socialized. Dante had an excuse ready for just such an occasion. “I thought you might be interested in hearing about my last trip.” He gave him a generous smile. “You invested in that one, you know.”

  Sylvester accepted a drink from Horace. “Why, yes. Where did you go this time?”

  The fire crackled in the highly polished marble fireplace. “The Galapagos Islands.”

  Sylvester frowned and mouthed the words Galapagos Islands. “Where are they, again?”

  “Off the coast of South America, between five and six hundred miles west of Ecuador.” Dante rose from his chair, crossed to the rolling globe stand, and rolled it over to where Sylvester sat. “Here,” he said, pointing to a tiny group of islands in the eastern Pacific Ocean.

  Sylvester reached into his jacket and pulled out a pair of reading glasses. He leaned forward and studied the area. “And did you find what you were looking for?”

  That question always made Dante smile. He never knew what he would find, anywhere. So many places he had studied were in the path of the shipping lanes or the whalers; those were the places Dante knew he would find trouble, especially after the whalers and other hunters had discovered the barrage of riches to be taken from the sea.

  “The Galapagos are relatively isolated, although they haven’t been completely spared.”

  He rolled the globe back to its place near his desk then returned to his chair. “It was my second visit, and I’m now doing everything I can to see that the entire marine population isn’t wiped out. I have a report nearly ready to publish. Would you care to read some of it?”

  Sylvester nodded, pensive. “Indeed I would. Since I’m not much of an adventurer myself, I thrive on the adventures of others.”

  Dante went to his littered desk, rummaged a moment, then came up with what he wanted. “You might find this interesting,” he answered, handing the paper to his guest.

  Sylvester read, his expression grave. “This is true? About those giant turtles?”

  With a nod, Dante answered, “I’ve known ships to return from there with hundreds of live tortoises stacked upside down on top of each other in the holds for over a year with no food or water. Apparently they can still be made into fine soup, even after that sort of treatment.”

  “That’s barbaric,” Sylvester remarked, with a shake of his head and a frown. He studied Dante for a moment. “Have you heard of this Darwin fellow, and his outrageous ideas on—what does he call it—‘natural selection’?”

  “Yes, but I haven’t read his papers through yet.”

  “What do you think about that? It’s rather far-fetched, wouldn’t you say?”

  Dante was in no mood to get into a lively discussion about something he found fascinating and his guest felt was nonsense.

  One of Darwin’s theories, that thirteen similar species of finches probably descended from one original species, particularly fascinated Dante.

  It was realistic to believe that after arriving on the Galapagos, each finch produced offspring that were slightly different from the parent.

  In these new environs, some of the chicks were better suited to survive. Those reached maturity and produced young, passing on the new genetic traits to their offspring. Darwin noted that now, some had short, thick beaks for splitting seeds, and others had long, thin bills for catching insects.

  But he didn’t want to discuss this with Sylvester Conway. “Ask me again when I’ve finished reading his theory.”

  Sylvester smiled and nodded blandly. “Do you enjoy what you do?”

  Dante stood again, went to the side table, and poured each of them another brandy. “I love what I do. I can’t imagine doing anything else,” he admitted. “There are times, however, when we’ve been at sea for months, or even years, that I admit to longing for home,” he added with a smile.

  “Oh? How so?”

  Dante thought about the trials and tribulations of sea travel. “One gives up a lot of creature comforts to go to sea, Sylvester.”

  “Yes,” he responded. “I imagine so.”

  But Dante knew that no one would understand the massive planning that had to be done on a ship unless they had been on one. On his last voyage, he’d had a crew of seventy-four, which included medical men, a chaplain, and a ship’s artist, who recorded the places they visited, and the animal and plant life they found there.

  And in addition to the food they had to take, they also had to come prepared for the inevitable scurvy by packing pickles, dried apples, and lemon juice. Toward the end of that voyage, weevils had invaded the biscuits. Other sources of meat, besides weevils, he thought wryly, were stored in brine.

  Sylvester cleared his throat. “What do you do for drinking water when you’re gone so long?”

  Dante smiled, pleased with the question. “Whispering Winds holds fifteen tons of fresh water. Of course, we use every opportunity to get more whenever we can.”

  Sylvester nodded, although Dante wasn’t sure he really understood. “So, Sylvester. Are you keeping busy?” he asked, handing his guest the snifter.

  Sylvester cleared his throat again. “Well, yes and no. Mother has been in Newport for the past few months, taking in the sea air.” He ran a stubby finger around his collar, as if it were suddenly too tight. “She still has much to say about the business, you know. She finds your research very interesting, by the way. She reads each article with zeal.”

  “A very intelligent woman,” Dante answered, not at all surprised, for Theodora Conway was not in the least bit handsome or attractive. “But I find it unusual that a woman would find such things of interest.”

  Sylvester laughed quietly. “You’d be surprised. Actually, I find intelligent women very stimulating.”

  Ah, Dante thought, now that was no surprise. And he had offered the perfect segue. “I…I hear you’ve been keeping company with, ah…” He pretended to deliberate, as if trying to remember what he’d heard.

  Sylvester blushed and cleared his throat again. “Eleanor Rayburn.”

  Dante appeared thoughtful. “Rayburn…Rayburn…I’ve heard that name somewhere…” His voice drifted off.

  “She’s Calvin Simmons’ sister,” Sylvester offered. “She’s widowed.”

  Dante nodded. “Ah, yes. Is it serious, then?”

  Sylvester laughed, a nervous, almost feminine sound. “Oh, my, no. Well,” he amended. “I’m not really sure.”

  Dante swirled his drink, watching the firelight glint off the amber liquid. “Odd, I thought I heard that you had become engaged.”

  Sylvester had taken a long pull on his drink, and Dante’s words sent him into a coughing fit.

  Horace was at his side immediately with a glass of water. Sylvester nodded his thanks, got control of himself, then pulled out a handkerchief to mop his high, freckled forehead.

  “Wherever did you hear such a thing?” The man’s pale eyes were wide with what almost looked like fear.

  Dante waved away the question. “I don’t remember. Perhaps I was mistaken.”

  Sylvester took a small sip of his drink. “Truthfully, I could…marry a woman like that. She’s demure, kind, intelligent, and she has a sweet disposition. I don’t believe I have ever heard her raise her voice or do anything not becoming to a lady.”

  Now it was Dante who nearly choked on his brandy as the memory of the sting of her palm revisited his cheek. “And your lovely mother? Does she feel the same way about the woman?”

  Sylvester continued to sweat. “Actually, Mother hasn’t met h
er yet.”

  That was a meeting Dante would pay to see. He also had the distinct feeling that whatever Theodora Conway wanted was what Sylvester would do.

  After Sylvester left, Dante continued to drink his brandy, becoming more ill-humored with each snifter he downed. He glanced up when Horace stepped into the room.

  “Will there be anything else, sir?”

  Dante stared at him. “Horace, do you remember how we met?”

  “Of course, sir. It was a day I shall never forget.”

  “Nor I,” Dante answered, somewhat chagrined. “You pulled me out of a London brothel before my bankroll was stolen.”

  “Yes, sir. I thought it was high time the madam quit doctoring the drinks,” Horace recalled, his smile grim.

  Dante shook his head. “She wasn’t a very attractive woman, was she?”

  “No, sir, she was not a handsome woman, but she was very sharp.”

  “Sharp,” Dante repeated. “And intelligent?”

  With a quick nod, Horace answered, “Oh, yes, sir.”

  Dante waved to the chair opposite him. “Pour yourself a drink, Horace, then have a seat. I want to ask you something.”

  Horace raised his eyebrows, but did as he was told, then took a seat across from Dante.

  “Do you like intelligent women?”

  “Do I like them, sir?”

  “Yes, as opposed to, you know, beautiful ones.”

  Horace attempted to stop a smile, but failed. “That’s a very dangerous question, sir, for you are implying that a woman cannot be both.”

  Dante shrugged. “I’ve never known them to be.”

  “Pardon me for saying so, sir, but you obviously have not looked very hard.”

  Dante hunched into his seat and frowned. “Oh, I expect they’re out there, all right, but…don’t you find their intelligence exasperating and bothersome?”

  Horace nodded slowly. “Sometimes. But I also find them stimulating. Personally,” he began carefully, “If I had to choose, I would rather spend the rest of my days with an intelligent woman than with a beautiful one. I believe her intellect would not only keep me interested, but in time, tend to make her more beautiful, in my eyes, anyway.”