Status: Complete
Skull and Dagger
Yes. Escape.
“I was young,” Frank sighed. “Naïve. I knew nothing of the business and so fell into the very trap my father had been escaping.”
“Your father had been escaping…” Annabelle repeated slowly.
Frank flashed her a wry smile. “I had the same thought, but my father’s death still looks like an accident…albeit, a very convenient one for the Williams.”
“You’re sure?” Annabelle raised one eyebrow skeptically.
He shrugged. “Doubt even the all-mighty Williams could rig that storm,” he argued. “Besides, my father was too important to try that kinda underhandedness. I, on the other hand, was a nobody who was better
gotten rid of…”
* * *
Frank leaned on the rail of the ship, watching the rhythmic waves of the ocean until they vanished at the horizon, lit up brilliantly by the setting sun.
At first he had been quite wary of leaving England for the very first time, but Lord Williams had insisted that as the new executive of the Arlington title, he should investigate his father’s businesses himself.
And, much to his surprise, he had found that he rather enjoyed the sea. It soothed his nerves in a way that nothing had done ever since he’d learned of his father’s disappearance. His only regret was leaving his mother behind. She had been ailing more and more of late, as if she had nothing left to live for now that her husband was gone.
He and his mother had never been particularly close, true – she had wanted a strong, athletic son rather than the bookish intellectual that she got – but it still pained him that he was seemingly not reason enough for her to keep going.
But it was yet another problem that the ocean seemed to sweep away.
He felt as though he could get lost on the seas, bury everything else until all he heard was the gentle lapping of the waves against the wooden planks of the hull.
All that changed when night fell upon them, however. Frank had just thought that he had dimly seen the outside of a ship in the pitch black that surrounded them when the first shots were fired…
“Your father had been escaping…” Annabelle repeated slowly.
Frank flashed her a wry smile. “I had the same thought, but my father’s death still looks like an accident…albeit, a very convenient one for the Williams.”
“You’re sure?” Annabelle raised one eyebrow skeptically.
He shrugged. “Doubt even the all-mighty Williams could rig that storm,” he argued. “Besides, my father was too important to try that kinda underhandedness. I, on the other hand, was a nobody who was better
gotten rid of…”
* * *
Frank leaned on the rail of the ship, watching the rhythmic waves of the ocean until they vanished at the horizon, lit up brilliantly by the setting sun.
At first he had been quite wary of leaving England for the very first time, but Lord Williams had insisted that as the new executive of the Arlington title, he should investigate his father’s businesses himself.
And, much to his surprise, he had found that he rather enjoyed the sea. It soothed his nerves in a way that nothing had done ever since he’d learned of his father’s disappearance. His only regret was leaving his mother behind. She had been ailing more and more of late, as if she had nothing left to live for now that her husband was gone.
He and his mother had never been particularly close, true – she had wanted a strong, athletic son rather than the bookish intellectual that she got – but it still pained him that he was seemingly not reason enough for her to keep going.
But it was yet another problem that the ocean seemed to sweep away.
He felt as though he could get lost on the seas, bury everything else until all he heard was the gentle lapping of the waves against the wooden planks of the hull.
All that changed when night fell upon them, however. Frank had just thought that he had dimly seen the outside of a ship in the pitch black that surrounded them when the first shots were fired…
♠ ♠ ♠
:OOh dearie me..