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Author's Chapter Notes:
YAY A new chapter and so soon!
Chapter 11: Maybe, Maybe Not

“Tell me everything.” Spike was trying to sit still while everything inside of him told him that he needed to get away from this situation. Warning bells were going off like sirens inside his head, he didn’t need this on top of everything else. He couldn’t deal with another mentally ill woman. It had almost killed him once before and he didn’t know if he was strong enough to deal with something like that again.

“I don’t know everything. I never paid much attention to family history lessons and they stopped altogether when my mother died. I don’t know what’s going on. Maybe it has something to do with being held captive on a pirate ship! I don’t know but what I do know is sitting here discussing it is going to do us no good. I had an episode okay, let’s pray it never happens again.”

“And if it does?” He stood up and started pacing.

“Than we’ll cross that road when we come to it, for now we need to keep our wits about us. I feel fine for the time being. I would like to continue on my stroll, if Giles wouldn’t mind lending me his arm once more.” She slid out from beneath the covers and smoothed down her wrinkled shirt.

He stopped in front of her and made a grand gesture of holding out his arm to her. “Oh and my arm isn’t good enough for the, lady?”

Elizabeth looked at him like he was crazy. “You are going to take me on a stroll around the ship?”

“No one better than a Captain to show you ‘round his own boat.” He would have never admitted it aloud but he wanted a little more time with her. There was something in him that craved her presence. Maybe it was just not having a woman around for so long or maybe not. Right now he was going to take a lady on a stroll.

****************************


“So tell me about yourself, Elizabeth.” Spike asked as he watched her lean back against the ship railing and turn her face up to the sun. She looked paler than when she first came aboard and he hoped that she’d be able to get her previous color back.

“There’s not much to tell.” She answered without looking at him.

“Any woman who sneaks out in the middle of the night, to play cards at a pub with a bunch of men has secrets to tell.” He tried not to be so obvious in his appraisal of her body. The thin cotton of the shirt he had lent her was see through and where you wouldn’t have been able to notice anything in the dark of his cabin, out here in the light her supple figure was blatantly obvious.

“And what makes you think I would tell you any of my secrets, Captain?” She cracked an eye open to look at him and smiled when she caught his blush.

“What woman wouldn’t want to tell me all her deep dark lil secrets?” He leaned closer to her and whispered in her ear, “Unless you have something so precious to hide, ‘Lizabeth.”

She scoffed in his face and continued across the deck, calling back over her shoulder when she saw he was rooted to the place where she left him. “You’re so sure of yourself, Captain. What if this woman is immune to your charms?” She raised an eyebrow as he jogged to catch up and join her.

“Impossible!” He declared when he was but inches away from her.

“Plausible.” She smirked.

“Unheard of!” He grinned.

“Yet entirely true.” She rolled her eyes as he crept closer.

“How come I’ve forgotten why we are arguing?” He asked quietly while gazing into her eyes.

“Maybe it is not I who have been seduced but you who have fallen for my charms.” She swallowed as she tried to find her breathe. He was to close.

“Maybe.” He whispered.

His eyes, they were stunning and they held her captive. “Please,” she asked not really knowing what she was asking for.

He wanted to kiss her but knew that he would ruin things if he did. Caught between reality and fantasy in this daydream moment he wondered if she really would mind. She seemed to want it just as bad as he did. He brushed a stray strand of hair out of her face and she turned away from him. He refused to say anything, knowing that the spell had been broken.

“I think I’ve had enough of the sun for one day.” She mumbled as she tried to look at anything that wasn’t him. What as happening to her? Was she able to forgive and forget so easily? The man was hired to kill her! He was cruel and wicked, treating her like she was no better than a dog.

Is that why he’s given you his bed? His protection?

He yelled at her and embarrassed her!

He saved you and held you.

That doesn’t make him an angel.

It doesn’t make him a devil either.

“Elizabeth!” She spun around and came face to face with a tired looking Giles. “I think I’ve found something. William, this pertains to you too.”

“Well what is it old man?” Spike said while steering them both back in the direction of his cabin away from the prying eyes of his crew.

“You know the journals you’ve kept aboard?” Giles asked as he took off his glasses to clean the lenses.

“The one’s mother sent with me?”

“Yes. Well I got to thinking what if…” he trailed off trying to decided whether or not he was going to tell them what he discovered or let them read what he read and figure it out for themselves.

“Yes…” Elizabeth urged him on. They were now all standing at the door way of Williams cabin.

“Here,” Giles said as he took an old leather bound book out of his back pocket and set it in Williams’s hands. “Read it for yourselves. It’s the marked page, Will.” William opened the door and the other two followed him inside.

“I don’t understand, how is this supposed to help?” Elizabeth asked perplexed.

“Come sit Elizabeth.” William motioned her over to the bed and scouted closer to her as she sat down, trying to give her a clear view of the journal. “This belonged to my great grandfather. He was a Captain in Her Majesty’s army.”

Elizabeth looked at him, clearly surprised and listened as he began to read.


”I do not know how it has come about but I have a Lady aboard my ship. She has refused to give me her name and I am at a loss of what to do. I mustn’t go back to London for we are already two weeks out and can not delay the Queen’s missive, which she has entrusted me to deliver.

“This Lady whom I shall call,” Spike hesitated and Elizabeth leaned over his shoulder trying to catch a glimpse of the reason he had paused for, but he was faster as he moved the book out of her eye sight and stood up.

He cleared his throat and began again. “This Lady whom I shall call Buffy,” There was an audible gasp as he looked up to catch Elizabeth’s reaction of utter shock. “This Lady whom I shall call Buffy, for she was wrapped up in buffalo fur when I found her trying to keep warm down in the hold. This Lady is radiant and I fear for my heart.” William glanced up quickly trying to gage Elizabeth’s reactions to all that he was saying and was surprised to see that a mask of indifference had fallen over her delicate features.

“Her hair like spun gold and light skin tanned by the suns rays with green eyes that burn me like fire. Beautiful does not begin to describe her.

“She refuses to answer my questions and has a stubborn way about her. She is a Lady, for none other than a Lady would dare to defy one of the Queens men when questioned. I do not know why she is on my ship but I will find out, for mysteries have never sat well with me.”

William looked up at Giles, “Read on?”

Giles nodded.

William cleared his throat once more, “This entry is dated some weeks later.” He stole another glance at Elizabeth and then began.

“She has bewitched me, body and soul. I do not know how it happened but it has, I have fallen for Lady Elizabeth Clarice and we are to be married as soon as we reach Spain. She has yet to tell me what she’s running from but I do not care. Her soul sings to mine and the love I have for her is all that matters.”

William stopped. “That is all he wrote. That’s the last page in the journal. It looks like others have been torn out.”

Elizabeth stood up abruptly and left the room.

William sighed. What did all this mean?

“She can’t be alone up there by herself. I’ll go keep her company. You stay here.” Giles didn’t know what to think. One thing was for sure though he needed to keep both William and Elizabeth apart for as long as he could.





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