Page 4 of Shiver Me Satyr

“It’s not pox!” I take out my ire on the cords to the hammock. Blasted netting is tangled and won’t release from the sterncastle mast.

“If you cut that, someone will teach you how to rebraid the cords—”

“I’m not learning women’s work!”

The boat goes silent. Not even the ocean waves lapping against the hull fill the void. Dozens of angry eyes glare at me from the rigging. Chub slowly shakes his head at his shuffling feet. I yank on the cords to my hammock. If they don’t release in the next few seconds, I’ll abandon it. Embarrassment burns hotter than the sunburn on my cheeks. I didn’t mean to make my outburst, but it needed to be said. Men on the mainland assume that women are pirates to perform the women’s work on the boat—not to order about the men.

Hell, Chub’s wife is the cook—he has no room to talk.

“Good,” declares a feminine voice behind me. I whirl around to find Captain Betts leaning on a post at the base of the sterncastle deck stairs. I had forgotten the floor I stand upon is the roof of the room where she slept. “No woman wants to teach you anything.”

The crew laughs, and my face flames hotter.

“I didn’t mean to disrespect you, ma’am.” My apology lands with a splat at her feet.

Her chin lowers as her eyebrows rise. She doesn’t say anything as she lifts her hair from her lips, where the wind has blown it over her mouth. I follow the tendril across her lips like a caress. How soft is her kiss?

Chub smacks the back of my head to knock some sense into me.

“Captain,” I correct myself. “Not ma’am, Captain.”

She waves a hand between us as if dismissing the slight.

“It’s all the fussy handicrafts like cooking, cleaning, and sewing. I didn’t mean sailing. I’ve sailed many times, so I doubt my parents sent me here to learn the basics of a boat.” My mouth runs away, spinning my story faster than my brain can catch up. What am I saying? I’ve never been on a boat. I’m lucky my seasickness subsided after the first day.

“Is that what your parents told you? That I was taking you aboard to teach you to be a pirate?”

“Not a pirate exactly,” I reply with a roll of my eyes before I can stop them. “My family imports many commodities from the East India Company. My father’s always complaining about the inefficiency of the voyages between England and New England. I thought this apprenticeship was to prepare me to inherit the role of overseeing our import business from my father.”

“Captain?” I can’t tell if Chub requests Betts’s attention or is asking her to flog me for disrespect, but it doesn’t matter. She puts her palm up to quiet him.

“You know how to sail,” she says as she climbs the stairs. Did her hips always sway like that? I can’t pay attention to her words and hips at the same time. “Yet your family hired us to teach you…what exactly? How can a voyage on a pirate ship help you learn your merchants’ inefficiencies?” She pulls a string, and my hammock’s knots unravel at her command. The web falls onto my feet with a deafening thud. My toes hurt like hell, but I bite the insides of my cheeks to contain my cries.

I’m caught in a lie.

I either admit I don’t know the first thing about sailing, or I admit that I have no idea why my parents sent me on this boat. When Betts rescued me from the tavern, I assumed my parents’ staff would rescue me from the pirates. I swallowed my tongue when Betts made me drag the cart with my belongings to the harbor and sign for the trunks with the harbormaster.

“Captain,” Chub interrupts again, earning a glare from Betts. “Perhaps there is a gentler way of telling the lad that thewomen’s workis what his parents hoped he would learn from us. Perhaps this is an opportunity to teach him the pirate code—you know, how everyone is treated as an equal because everyone has a voice?”

She squints at him before schooling her face. Whatever is about to come out of her mouth will be a lie. But why? Are my parents not merchants, but a store for offloading pirate contraband? I rack my brain for images of my parents’ storehouses and shops…nothing seemed out of the ordinary…but then again… Would I know the difference between stolen goods and purchased ones? Every time my father said our warehouse was out of an item, maybe it wasn’t a shipping error. But was it something his pirates failed to commandeer?

“Fine,” she says, tossing her hair back just so the wind can sweep it forward. “I’m going back to bed. You deal with him.”

“Many thanks, Captain,” Chub replies.

“The rest of you,” she calls to the center of the boat, “excellent work today!”

They whistle and shout her praises as she descends the stairs to return to her cabin. Chub leaves his post to grab my shoulders, but my temper has taken control of my faculties. Ishake loose my jacket, leaving it in the meaty hands of the quartermaster. My feet stomp down the stairs.

How dare she placate me with a lie and hand me off to a babysitter! I won’t be treated like a child—not by her! I shove my way inside the map room after her, but I won’t stop at the atrium if she tries to run. I use my weight to slam the door shut. Flicking the lock is a dumb move, but I do it anyway. I don’t want Chub bursting in here to save me from the monstrous Captain Betts.

She isn’t the boss of men with a pedigree like mine.

“I deserve to know the truth.”

“Do you?” She freezes in the doorway. There’s a full-length mirror in the captain’s quarters, so I can see her smirk in the reflection.

“Yes,” I snap. “It’s my fortune that pays you, so I deserve to know where the money goes. You have a quartermaster who keeps accounts. I’ve seen him work the ledgers—”

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