She scowls at me as I predicted she would. I love how she challenges any attempt at showing her affection. I’d lose an ear if she knew how much I enjoy her annoyance with me. Annoyance isn’t indifference. The people who mattered to me in Boston ignored me—out of indifference or shame. But Betts can’t ignore my propositions, I irritate her too much. She’s like a lidded pot, boiling on the stove. I vent her fury before she explodes.
“Tension keeps a pirate alive,” she sneers. “Didn’t Chub tell you to hide with the other rodents?”
“Yes, he did,” I say with a beaming smile. She’s prickly, but she’s allowing me to stay. “Your quartermaster is good at his job and very loyal to you.”
“Chub’s the best,” she says, looking through the spyglass again as if the prize will vanish or pounce on us if she doesn’t constantly watch it. “I’ll miss him dearly.”
“Are you throwing him overboard, mid-battle? I’d say wait until afterward, but still, mid-battle is a good choice because it makes his death look accidental. Fewer rules, more chaos, sounds like exactly what you want.”
My heart leaps into my mouth when she lowers the spyglass and flashes those arresting green eyes at me. Her smile doesn’t quite reach them, but I’m progressing beyond a scowl for once. With that little display of comradery, I softly finish climbing the sterncastle stairs and lean against the railing at the top, trying to look as non-threatening as possible. She may call me a rodent, but she’s as skittish as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. One move too quick, and she will draw that wicked sword.
What would it feel like to have it against my throat as she glares into my eyes? Will it be as thrilling as in my dreams?
“We’re dropping Chub and Catty in Mexico,” she says to the sunset on the horizon. “They wish to retire and start a homestead. My job is to get them there before Catty’s baby comes.”
“Is that why we blew out of Boston like the hounds of hell chased us and headed due south?”
“No,” she says with a hollow chuckle. “We fled to outrun the husbands chasing you. How could you live in a town where everyone was mad at you?”
“Mad atme? No, I made no marriage vows. Those husbands were better suited to throw their anger at their loose wives who broke their vows and their daughters who couldn’t stand their rules. And they should thank their lucky stars that I was the one pleasuring their wives and daughters.”
“Thank you? Why would they thank you?”
“Because I never gave or took the heart of any adulterer or curious debutante,” I say with a lump in my throat. I cross the deck so we can speak quietly. The crew is busy, but if I want her to open up to me, we can’t shout over the work being completed below us. “Every woman knew where they stood with me.”
Platitudes of love and forever were pillow talk, instead of promises between hearts aligned. I grew weary of the sweet words until I learned to play the game, too. “Those women loved their husbands the same amount before and after their time with me. If they compared us, I made sure the women always saw me as less. Even the eligible bachelors who pined after the debutantes I deflowered were above me. I may have been more available than respectable men, but I knew my place as second best.”
“Then that’s where I went wrong,” she mutters, dropping the spyglass to her waist. She tucks the instrument into her belt to place both hands through the spokes of the wheel like in a jailer’s yoke.
“Did you fall in love with a scoundrel like me?”
“Not quite,” she says to her shuffling feet. “I was the scoundrel, but unknowingly.”
“I’m so sorry. Is that what you see when you look at me? Yourself?”
She gasps and blasts me with her shocked stare.
“I’m not surprised,” I say with a shrug. “I get that a lot. I remind everyone of a time they weren’t faithful or of when someone was unfaithful to them. It’s a lot of nonsense, but everyone must walk their own journey.”
“It’s not fair to you,” she whispers. “I’m sorry I never took your feelings into account. I just hugged my anger so tightly that it seemed to justify my actions. I didn’t consider you as a person.”
“Apology accepted, although I doubt I know half your sins,” I say, elbowing her the way I saw Teeth elbow Chub earlier. That’s how pirates make friends, right?
“He was a pastor in Trinidad.”
“Was? Did the crew kill him and tie him to the front of the boat with the other figureheads?” We share a small smile as her eyes fill with tears.
“We left his body in Trinidad,” she says before clearing the tears from her throat.
“Do I want to know who took him out?” I ask with a gulp.
“Catty, with her spinnerets and husband’s follow-through,” she says with a teary smirk. “Don’t look so surprised. She’s vicious when provoked.”
“A true hearty,” I say, not hiding my jealousy. I want to be the one who took out the evil pastor to balance the scales in my favor when it’s not my affair. “Can I ask how you got tangled in the robes of a pastor, or is that too personal?”
“I wasn’t living on the island, but visited monthly. His wife ran a traveling ministry, so she hopped from island to island while he ran the orphanage at their home parish.”
“So, a man of the cloth had trouble keeping the cloth on his body. I’m not surprised. My father’s most scandalous partymembers were the most holy in the community. That’s why I kept to the whorehouse—fewer secrets and lies,” I reply with a shrug.
