Captain’s Seat boasted—or maybe confessed was a better word—six bedrooms and seven baths. The bedrooms were spacious, even cavernous, from a heating-bill standpoint. Luckily, each bedroom had its own fireplace. Along with all the bedrooms and fireplaces came a grand foyer, a great hall, a gallery, a drawing room, a library, a game room (sadly, popular games in Captain Page’s day had not included Scrabble), a pantry, and a wine cellar that could easily double for a dungeon.
When Ellery wasn’t working at the bookshop—which, granted, wasn’t often—he spent his time renovating Captain’s Seat. Given the years and years of neglect and his own lack of experience in home renovation, it was beginning to look like restoring the mansion would be his life’s mission. His undertaking had been made even more difficult by a fire on the second level that had happened in June.
Sometimes Jack joined him in the home repairs. Jack’s boyhood summers had been spent working for his father’s construction company, and he was an expert at home improvements. With Jack’s help, Ellery had managed to repair most of the upstairs smoke damage and refinish the railings and bannister of the tall, graceful staircase in the formal entry hall.
Jack seemed to find the work relaxing, and they’d spent many pleasant days sanding, painting, hammering. Sometimes they talked, and sometimes they just worked in companionable silence. Sometimes they shared a meal. Sometimes they didn’t.
Ellery let Watson run himself out, and then he unlocked the front door, stepped over the scattered envelopes and flyers that had arrived in the day’s mail, and flipped on the newly rewired chandelier. Light sparkled off the dangling crystals and flickered like butterflies against the pearl-pale walls.
Watson ran to pick up his favorite stuffed-toy hedgehog, which he proceeded to toss in the air.
Ellery laughed, grabbed the hedgehog, and pitched it up the staircase. Watson raced to retrieve it. They played that game until even Watson tired, and then Ellery went into the kitchen to fix their supper.
Finding the abandoned puppy on that lonely stretch of road between Pirate’s Cove and Captain’s Seat had been one of the best things that had happened to Ellery. The pup’s lively, loving personality had changed the whole atmosphere at Captain’s Seat. Plus, taking care of Watson provided unexpected structure to his life, which had previously consisted almost entirely of working at the bookshop and working on home renovations.
He opened a packet of fresh dog food for Watson, dumped the meat and veggies into Watson’s metal bowl, and placed the bowl on the floor for the puppy, who was hopping up and down as though he hadn’t eaten in weeks. The truth was, it was all Ellery could do to keep his customers from slipping Watson treats throughout the day.
He watched, brows raised, as Watson dived nose first into his bowl, making sounds more similar to a piglet than a puppy, then set about figuring his own supper.
There was still a decent portion of the tuna casserole Nora had made him last Friday. Nora’s tuna casserole was in a class of its own. Maybe it was the fresh tuna, maybe it was the potato chips, but it was as delicious as it was hearty.
While the casserole heated, Ellery went to fetch his mail, sorting through the inevitable pile of catalogs and consigning most of it to the recycling bin. Great-great-great-aunt Eudora had apparently been on every mailing list in the world (surely Auntie E. had not been a regular customer of Frederick’s of Hollywood?!).
He regarded a black envelope with a showy red seal with resignation. Another “special” credit-card offer, no doubt. He turned the envelope over. His name was hand-printed in elegant gold lettering.
He looked at the seal again and realized it was real wax and embossed with what looked like a sailing ship. A pirate ship?
“No. Way.”
Watson, noisily scooting his dish back and forth across the newly refinished floor, ignored him.
Ellery ripped open the fancy black envelope, withdrew the fancy black card inside—a slip of tissue fluttered down—and flipped open the card.
You are invited to the
MARAUDER’S MASQUERADE
Honoring Captain Thomas Blood
Saturday, July 10, at 7:00 PM
Bloodworth Manor House
The Bluffs
Pirate’s Cove, RI 02807
COSTUME AND MASK REQUIRED
A handwritten note at the bottom of the card read: Sincere apologies for the late notice, but your attendance is greatly desired.
“Greatly desired,” murmured Ellery. He didn’t get that a lot these days. He was both flattered and baffled.
The microwave dinged, breaking the spell. Ellery tossed the card to the table and went to get his casserole.
While he ate, he browsed the 1923 edition of Pirates of New England he’d found in Great-great-great-aunt Eudora’s considerable (and considerably dusty) library.
Thomas Bloodworth was one of the so-called “Pirate’s Eight” of Buck Island. These were eight pirates of the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century, who had made the island their home base and built substantial fortifications or “castles,” most of which still stood to that day. Not much was known about most of this pirate fraternity, but Bloodworth—or, as he was known professionally, Captain Blood—had a better PR machine behind him. He was still viewed as one of the “gentlemen pirates” of the seventeenth century.
According to Pirates of New England, he was born the bastard son of a names-changed-to-protect-the-innocent English lord, and had chosen adventure over priesthood. Which, seeing the way things turned out, shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone. The young Thomas had given up a commission in the Royal Navy and turned his talents to marauding and murder. He was a very successful pirate and might even have lived to retire comfortably had his ship, the Blood Red Rose, not been destroyed in a hurricane off the coast of Buck Island.
Ellery studied the history book’s rather gorgeous illustration of Captain Blood. It looked like something N.C. Wyeth might have come up with for Treasure Island.
No question, Blood had cut a dashing figure. The reality would no doubt have been a lot different. Reality always was. But he was looking forward to seeing the results of all that ill-gotten gain—and how the bloodline (no pun intended) had fared through the centuries.
When Ellery opened the door to the Crow’s Nest the next morning, the first thing he spotted was the glass-encased complete pirate costume from Skull House. It was the only item Ellery had removed from the old mansion. The pirate costume was a huge hit with visitors to the bookshop.
He nodded pleasantly to the resin skeleton he’d privately named Rupert. Rupert grinned hollowly back, and Ellery set about opening the shop for the day. Or, in other words, making coffee.
He had come to love the old bookshop with its burnished wooden floors and big bay windows with their view of the harbor. Tidy shelves stacked with hundreds, no, thousands of stories of mystery and intrigue and adventure, and, yes, even romance. Something for everyone. Everyone who loved a mystery, at least.
The morning light reflected off the row of ships’ lanterns lining the back wall, sending flashes of blue and green washing across the timbered ceiling and the vintage seascape oil paintings.
He had not inherited this little jewel. In fact, he’d inherited something a lot closer to a haunted warehouse full of cobwebs, moldering books, and dusty bric-a-brac. Also the odd lethal weapon, one of which still lay in PICO PD’s evidence room. Ellery had spent a lot of time painting walls, washing windows, sanding floors, and polishing furniture, in an effort to make the bookshop a cozy and inviting space, and for the most part he had succeeded.