“Mostly because my employees walked in on us,” she snaps. “Did you forget their faces? I won’t anytime soon. As your captain, I order you to scrub this room from top to bottom. I’ll be cleaning up our mess too—just in dealing with my personnel, not pawns!”
“Your metaphor isn’t lost on me,” I whisper against her hairline. She smells of our combined scents, and I can’t get enough of it. The fact that she squirms as I enjoy her only fuels my fire. “Leave me with your other pawns while you deal withthose you consider people? Tsk, tsk, Captain. I’m not going to be a dirty secret—not with you. You don’t get to use me just like I don’t get to use you.”
“I don’t think of you as a pawn, nor do I want to use you,” she says with a vulnerability creeping into her voice. The little shake is back as the fragile woman within emerges. “I know what it feels like to be someone’s toy—kept in a closet until they want to play and then returned to the closet as soon as something better comes along. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”
“That’s not my intention either,” I say, stepping away from her. “When I offered forever, it wasn’t in the heat of passion. I want to figure us out and create something real. It won’t be a fairytale—I’m not that sort of man. I have no home, no legacy, no family, and very few skills. All I have is my words…”
She shakes her head and reaches for me.
“…And you don’t believe my words.”
“I need to give you something,” she says, opening the door. Her eyes are glassy when they meet mine. “Is it running if I invite you inside?”
I shake my head and take her extended hand.
Now that Teeth and Sabrina’s tentacles don’t dominate the space, I can study the captain’s quarters. They’re similar to what Magda’s journals described. Someone restored the natural wood finish to the walls and removed Magda’s red paint. The red bed linens are the same, but I doubt the bed was made when Magda or Teeth lived here. The crisp corners on the sheets, tucked around the gothic bedposts, speak of Bettina’s self-restraint and self-punishment. The wardrobe’s door is still broken from Magda’s fight with Fayette, but leather ties hold it shut. A white set of rosary beads hangs from the knot. They definitely belong to Bettina.
My lady love tosses her soiled clothes into a hamper that looks half the age of the rest of the furniture. Yeah, I can’t picture Captain Teeth gathering laundry for cleaning…or cleaning laundry…ever. Bettina drags me across the room to a tiny table with a torn, purple tablecloth. Removing the cloth, she reveals a wooden trunk. I never checked there for books! I had no idea this existed! My snooping was mostly in the map room for fear of getting caught in Bettina’s room without permission.
“Only Chub knows this exists, so you get all our secrets today,” she whispers as she loosens a plank on the wall to retrieve a key on a leather cord.
“It’s an honor I don’t take lightly,” I reply, fascinated by the method of removing the locks. I can’t help but peer over her shoulder as she opens the creaky lid. It’s rude, but I never claimed to be a gentleman. Besides, I know that the lid is unoiled on purpose. Opening it would wake the dead. This may be the only chance I’ll have to glimpse into her inner world.
Silks in pastel colors are on the right. Bettina lifts out two pairs of worn women’s shoes with feathers on the ankle straps and sets them aside. She sets a tiny jewelry box, a bible, and a hat-sized conch shell on the floor with a gentleness that betrays them as her treasures. At the bottom is a leather satchel that I recognize as belonging to my father. I don’t need to see theHAstamped in the corner.
“The dancing shoes belong to Sabs. I’m holding them in trust—even though she will swear she gave them to me. She’s the dancer. I tried once and…I…”
“Didn’t have me around to dance with you,” I finish when her words trail off.
“Something like that,” she says with a little huff, but she’s smiling through the tears again. “The conch shell is how Imarked my cove in the Atlantic when I had tentacles. I took it with me because I felt it marked my home, and my home wasn’t under the ocean anymore. The jewelry box is what I bought with the winnings from the prize I helped capture with Teeth. He gave me a cut of the spoils, even when I refused.”
“He’s fair like that,” I agree.
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from asking what she keeps inside of it. While I don’t want to interrupt the way she’s sharing with me, I’m burning to know what jewelry she prefers. Nothing is worse than pouring your soul into a piece of jewelry for your woman to find out she hates the stone you picked or the metal you picked makes her itch.
“The bible is Richard’s book,” she says, rubbing the cover. “And before you think I’m holding a torch for him by keeping his gift, know I stole this from his dormitory before I burnt the place to the ground—with the help of me hearties. Thatched roof and wooden supports…and the village was treated to a bonfire and feast to celebrate some nebulous occasion. Nobody was hurt except in their purses.”
“Would it be callous to wish he died in the fire? I don’t like sharing you with his memory—good or bad.”
“Surprising no one more than myself, his quick, relatively painless death was enough for me,” she replies, pulling me to sit beside her and climbing onto my lap. I can’t help my sigh of contentment as I wrap my arms around her naked body. “He hurt me, but the pain changed me for the better. I was waiting for someone to choose a kraken life or a human life for me. The choice was too big for me. I didn’t want it. Once it was taken, I started my life. I chose to join the boat before Sabs and Teeth were married. Now I must admit, I expected Teeth to choose for them to stay human and that we’d run the boat as a trio…”
“But they chose a different path,” I finish for her.
“And you know what? I don’t blame them either. It wasn’t abandonment…not really. I wanted the best for them more than I wanted them with me.”
“They aren’t gone forever, either,” I add.
“No, my family is beneath us—causing trouble in the abyss—I have no doubt. This last item concerns your family, though. I must admit I got the gist of it when Chub explained the contract contents to the boat…before we voted to take the mission…but I never read it. I learned to read by memorizing bible passages and matching the words on the page with what I remembered, so most of the contract language contains words I don’t know. Your father talked in half-phrases and riddles when I met him. He knew the staff was eavesdropping at the door. Well, I want you to have it—to read it for yourself.”
When she twists to hand me the folder, I cage her closer to me. My hands open the folder on her lap as if they belong to someone else. My eyes scan the words, but my brain struggles to catch their meanings. The scrawling cursive of my father’s handwriting blurs as tears fill my eyes. I now know my worth in my father’s eyes—the price of my disposal is in black and white. The crew was paid handsomely when they left the dock. The details of collecting the other half require the boat to sail to my uncle’s plantation in Carolina. Bastard knew full well a crew of former slaves wouldn’t step foot in that colony. My uncle probably thought he could snatch a few during the hand-off.
My lip curls in disgust as a furious fire ignites in my belly.
“Belongings of the subject are not to be returned,” I read aloud. “That’s rich. The silk of my shirts wasn’t worth the price of someone learning their deceit.”
“I have a trunk full of silk anyway,” she says with a casual shrug. I kiss her temple for attempting to make light of my morbid comment.
“You can’t collect the other half of the payment,” I warn her. “My uncle—”
