Jack’s brows rose. “Cringy?”
“Yes. Lines that read fine on the page are different when they’re spoken aloud. Sometimes they’re better. But sometimes…”
Jack seemed to give Ellery’s words serious consideration. “You think maybe it’s the acting? The Scallywags are amateurs, after all.”
“Sometimes it’s the acting, for sure.” Ellery could say that, being a former actor with no illusions as to his own limited ability. His career, such as it was, had been largely based on the fact that he was easy to get along with and had been blessed with physical fitness and symmetrical bone structure. He knew how to smile, and he knew how to look terrified. That was pretty much his dramatic range. And it hadn’t always been acting.
Jack said, “I’m sure people will enjoy the play.”
“I hope so. It seemed to go fine tonight.” He added carefully, “Well, except for all the talk about my ex buying Skull House.”
Jack had been reaching for his beer. He sloshed a little on the table, glancing quickly at Ellery. “Todd bought Skull House?”
“No, no. My other ex. My first ex.”
“Er, how many exes do you have exactly?” Jack inquired.
“Wellll, you know.”
“Nope.”
“It’s just that I had an active social life before I moved to Pirate’s Cove.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
Ellery laughed at Jack’s rueful expression. “Two. Only two what I’d call serious relationships in my life. And I wouldn’t call Brandon serious so much as…”
“As…?”
“Significant.”
“Ah.”
“Brandon taught me everything I did not want in a relationship.” Ellery wasn’t kidding about that. “I’m not looking forward to his moving here. But maybe he’s not planning to live on the island. Maybe he bought the place as an investment.”
“An investment? Skull House? He must need one heck of a tax deduction.” Jack swallowed a mouthful of beer, studying Ellery. “So there’s bad blood between you and—”
Before Ellery could respond, the door to the pub was shoved open as the Scallywags arrived on a breath of chilly night air. Everyone seemed to be talking at once as they flung off their coats and scarves, calling for drinks. The already busy pub grew instantly louder and more boisterous.
“I guess that’s my cue.” Ellery smiled, pushing back his chair.
Jack seemed about to say something, but instead smiled back. “Enjoy your evening.”
“You too.” Ellery picked up his drink and moved to join the cast and crew crowding around the long table in the center of the room.
“There you are. The man of the hour,” Dylan greeted him, scraping his chair sideways to make room for Ellery’s.
Ellery laughed and shook his head at what was clearly Dylan trying to make up for earlier. He couldn’t help wishing Jack had asked him to stay. He knew he wasn’t imagining that spark between them. There was definitely more than just liking and friendship going on between them; it wasn’t all on his side.
He glanced over, and Jack was once more reading his file.
“Ellery, do you think Brandon Abbott is going to write his next book about Skull House?” Sue called.
Honestly. Brandon. Again? Was there no other news on this island?
“Like I said earlier, I haven’t spoken to him in years,” Ellery replied. Which was true, but even if he’d had a definitive answer, he’d have kept it to himself. He’d learned the hard way that for Sue, nothing was off the record.
Cyrus Jones, balding and portly with warm brown eyes and—usually—a wide smile, exclaimed, “Surely not!” He sounded genuinely shocked. As Pirate’s Cove’s mayor, he was always fretting about what might reflect badly on the village.
The others were amused.
“Maybe he came here because he wants you back,” Libby interjected. “That would be so romantic.”
“God, I hope not!” Ellery shuddered visibly, which got a bigger laugh.
“Then we can assume your relationship didn’t end well?” Sue inquired.
Ellery hung on to his smile, but Sue was seriously starting to get on his nerves. He turned to Cyrus, who was sitting on his left. “Is there some reason someone would want to write about Skull House?”
Was it his imagination, or did the mayor hesitate? “I’m afraid I’m just as in the dark as everyone else,” Cyrus said. “People don’t need the mayor’s permission to buy property.”
“Isn’t it supposed to be haunted or something?”
“Ghosts!” Cyrus shook his head at the idea.
Dylan’s brows rose. “You haven’t heard the legends?”
“I’ve heard the building is unsafe.”
“It is unsafe,” Cyrus said. “It should have been razed to the ground years ago.”
Nora gasped in protest.
Felix groaned, “Jeez. It’s a historical landmark, Dad.”
“No, it certainly is not. It’s just old and dangerous.”
Dylan said, “It’s one of the oldest houses on the island—”
“It’s cursed!” Libby said eagerly, and Felix laughed at her. “It is,” she protested. “That’s the legend.”
Nora, ever the island historian, chimed in. “Skull House was built by John Mansfield in 1608. It’s not a historical landmark. Not yet. But the property is of significant cultural and historical interest. It’s a disgrace that it’s fallen into the hands of a private party.”
“Who was John Mansfield?” Ellery tried to head Nora off before she could get too wound up.
Dylan grinned. “The original pirate of Pirate’s Cove.”
“Seriously?”
Dylan bobbed his head side to side. “Well, one of the original pirates. One of the big guns. Pun intended.”
Ellery nodded. He was aware that Rhode Island—and Buck Island in particular—had an impressive piratical history. In fact, Rhode Island itself had been discovered by a pirate, named by a pirate, and kept afloat—in a manner of speaking—by pirates. Not that it was all love and kisses between the Ocean State and her founders. In July 1723, twenty-six pirates had been hung in one day in Newport.
“Buck Island used to be known as the Port Royal of the New World until people like your own ancestor Captain Horatio Page made it their home port.”
“And John Mansfield was one of these pirates?”
“Yep. One of the worst. Right alongside Edward Low and Edward Teach. He was cruel and ruthless, although according to historical accounts, he was also handsome and could be very charming. Nowadays we’d probably call him a sociopath. Back then he was just part of the scourge… Anyway, he fancied himself a ladies’ man, and used to, er, appropriate the female slaves of vessels he commandeered. Occasionally he even brought them back to New England. The women, I mean.”
“Yikes.”
“Appropriate? You can say rape,” Nora put in tartly. “We’re all adults here. Let’s not romanticize the past.”
Dylan nodded in acknowledgment. “According to the story, Mansfield became obsessed with a local girl named Ann Rathbone. She wasn’t having any of it, so he kidnapped her and carried her off to Skull House. I don’t know why he thought he could get away with that. There were a lot of things the town fathers could turn a blind eye to, but abducting ‘a lady of prudent virtue’ wasn’t one of them. Mansfield did it nonetheless. We can all use our imagination as to what happened next—or Nora can spell it out for us.”