Silver Tears by Becky Lee Weyrich

could have pleased Pegeen more. Grabbing her lover’s hand, she hurried for the door, but Alice stopped them.
    “What happened to Captain Hargrave?” she asked.
    “Not a hair mussed, mum,” O’Dare replied with a grin. “We found him locked in one of your trunks after the fighting was over.”
    “I’m glad to hear he’s all right. Run along now, you two.”
    Once they were gone, Alice sank back on her pillow, staring up at the shadows from the firelight dancing on the low ceiling. She felt as if she were swimming among them—some aimless, weightless, hopeless thing.
    She had poured out her heart to Christopher Gunn tonight, and look where it got her. She felt empty, beyond tears even if she could let herself cry. She wouldn’t take any more, she decided. There had to be some way to set her life in order at once, or she’d go mad.
    “Tomorrow,” she said aloud, “I should speak with Jonathan Hargrave.”
    But deep down in her heart she wished tomorrow would never come.

Chapter 5
    G unn shoved his empty tankard away from him and rose to leave the common room. Just as he reached the door, it flew open, letting in a flurry of snow, cold wind, and a tousled but beaming Will Phips.
    “I figured I’d find you here,” Will said, gripping Gunn’s arm and tugging him toward the open door.
    “What’s wrong?” Gunn asked.
    A wide smile lit up Will’s long, thin face. “Not a thing in the whole damn world. I just want to talk to you, friend to friend.”
    Gunn frowned. The last time Phips had sidled up to him with that innocent be-my-buddy smile had been back in ’83. On that occasion, Will had convinced Gunn to set out with him on his first treasure hunt, searching for sunken Spanish ships in the warm waters of the Caribbean. To Gunn, it had seemed as wild a dream as those of men, and women, who came to Maine searching for the mythical kingdom of Norumbega. But somehow, with his open grin and winning words, Phips had persuaded him to go along.
    King Charles II himself had provided a ship, the Salee Rose , a frigate captured from Algerian pirates. Will, Gunn, and the others had left Boston in January of 1684, headed for the Bahama Banks. But that trip proved disastrous from the start as they faced storms, pirates, and finally the mutiny of their ragtag crew. Will and Gunn had survived, but they’d come home with no treasure and no further support from the king.
    Gunn had been so disgruntled with his own folly that he’d refused to go back in ’87. That was the year Phips found his fabled wreck and sailed back to England loaded down with sows, pigs, champeens, and dowboys of silver, doubloons of gold, and chests filled with jewels. He brought back twenty-seven tons of treasure all told. Gunn still cursed himself every time he thought of missing out on such an adventure.
    “I know what you’re thinking,” Phips said as the two men strode across the parade ground toward Will’s quarters. “But what I have to propose is not a treasure hunt. A man can’t be so lucky twice in his life.”
    Hiding his disappointment, Gunn scoffed, “What other madness do you have in mind, then?”
    “I’ve bought a new shipyard. I want you to leave the wilderness and come run the business in Boston for me.”
    “You can’t be serious,” Gunn said, laughing. “Just up and leave everything here?”
    “At least give it a try,” Phips urged. “Winter over with Mary and me. See what it’s like to feel civilized again.”
    “The two of you don’t need me around,” Gunn protested. “I’m sure the last thing Mary wants is a spare man underfoot when you’ve been away so much these past five years.”
    It wasn’t that Gunn found the idea unappealing. Running off to Boston to spend the winter in the Phipses’ fine home would remove him from his troubles with Alice and Ishani. However, the main problem he longed to escape, the very thing that was bedeviling the life out of him, was the same thing that would keep him