Page 1 of Her Perfect Pirate
Chapter One
Itwasaneasydecision to say no to the woman and her goat.Sharkhead Chow barked the order at de la Cruz and turned away without even taking a full look at her.
She was a woman, which meant she had no place on theGhost.Even Captain Boukman, the best pirate to be found on the seven seas, was a threat to her.
Chow had seen for himself how Captain Boukman made use of a woman whenever one was at hand.Sure, the women walked away a little richer and without making complaint—but that was because he only remained with any one of them for a few days at a time.
Chow did not want to imagine what Boukman would do if this woman remained on the ship with him for months on end.
“But Sharkhead,” old Julio de la Cruz countered, instead of directing the woman and goat back into their dinghy.“Fresh milk.Maybe even cheese.Can’t you taste it right now?Even the doldrums would be sweet if we had a goat.”
“Then buy the goat.No women on the ship.”
“Don’t remember ever voting on that.Seems to me only the goat is in your purview of supplies we do or do not need.”
Chow turned to face the navigator.Julio de la Cruz was at least ten years his senior and had been with Boukman since before the captain had seized theGhostand turned it into the best pirate ship in the Atlantic.That didn’t count for much in a pirate crew, though.If they all voted to prevent the woman from joining, then that was the decision.
But Chow didn’t much care to go through the hassle of a crew vote, especially not in the languid afternoon heat of the lagoon off Fortune Island.
“You can’t purchase the goat without me,” the woman said, interrupting Chow’s staring contest with the grizzled old navigator.Her voice was smooth, like a fish too slippery to hold.Her English was native, her accent wide from the American north.“You won’t be purchasing the goat at all, in fact.Either you invite me to join the crew and the goat comes with me, or we’ll both be returning to shore.”
Chow took a proper look at her at last.Tall like a pine tree.Black hair tied under her bonnet in a braid as thick as a rope.Dark eyes that, despite her proud statement, remained cast down to signal submission.A complexion that was neither pale nor brown.
She could be a runaway slave.She could be a white woman down on her luck.She could even be some Mediterranean princess hidden under the shabbiness of a servile identity.
She was pretty, if not beautiful, and that was all Captain Boukman would need to see to take her for his pleasures.
Chow knew he should chase her off the ship.Yet she intrigued him, or maybe he, too, was partial to a pretty face.“Why do you want to join a pirate crew?Don’t you know what pirates do?”
“I know what Pirate Boukman does,” she replied, her chin lifting even as her eyes remained fixed respectfully on the floor.“Chases after slave ships.Maroons their crews and makes their captains walk the plank.Plunders the warehouses on the African coast and sets fire to the longboats.”
Chow couldn’t—wouldn’t—deny those stories.At least Boukman’s reputation was still intact in this tropical spit of land, a proper legend for his heroics, not for these last few cursed months.“Aye.And to settle our balances, we battle other pirates for gold or attack innocent merchant ships to frighten them into giving us their cotton and sugar and tobacco.”
“Merchant ships are not innocent.Not when they are trading cotton or sugar or tobacco.”
At last, her eyes lifted to meet his.Whether it was that look—daring and fierce—or her words, Chow felt as if he had been shaken awake for the first time in days.
Could she possibly know he was from Northfield Hall?Couldshebe from Northfield Hall herself?
He didn’t like to waste time thinking about it.He growled, “In between which, we drink rum all day and take our pleasures from whatever woman is closest to us.Which, if you joined, would be you, all day, every day.”
This time, he was the one to look down, almost as soon as he started the threat.He couldn’t say it directly to a woman’s face, not even in the interest of protecting her.He stared at the deck, which shone in the sunlight from having just been swabbed that morning.
“I can see to myself, thank you.”Beside her, the goat bleated, and she added, “With the assistance of Mrs.Adams.”
“That’s settled, then.”De la Cruz clapped his hands together.“Where shall she hang her hammock, Sharkhead?”
He could, at least, face de la Cruz.Chow glared at him, hating the smug gleam in the navigator’s eyes.“Why couldn’t you buy a goat without its keeper attached?”
“Didn’t you hear the lady?We’re not buying the goat.It isgratis.”
Chow opened his mouth with further objections, which lined themselves up in a row: The cost of a new crew member was far higher than any price de la Cruz could have paid for a goat.This woman, whoever she was, clearly did not qualify as a lady—a distinction Chow resented himself for even thinking.
But most of all, despite her confidence, theGhostwas no place for any pretty woman to survive.
“We’re not as fearsome as Sharkhead makes it sound,” de la Cruz assured her.“No one will touch you unless you want them to.Sharkhead is only jealous that ladies alwaysdowant Captain Boukman to touch them.”
She smiled, a little twitch of her lips that was as practiced as it was coy.Her voice got even more slippery as she cast a teasing glance across Chow’s body.“Perhaps, if you play your cards right, I shall wantyouto touch me, Sharkhead.”
