Page 11 of Her Perfect Pirate
Bythetimelanddisappeared from sight, theGhosthad settled into its easy roll through the Sargasso Sea, nary a storm nor a bad wind to be found.Chow permitted the crew to relax; those on watch remained so, but the rest of them carried their meals and rum to the top deck to watch the sunset.The sky was a bright, brilliant red at the horizon, pink in the higher wisps of clouds, and a startling midday blue above their heads.The brown grasses that gave the sea its name floated eerily in the water as a counterpoint to the palette.
It was a beauty incapable of being described.Even a painter could not do it justice.One had to breathe the lightly salted air and hear the gulls cawing around the sails and feel miniature in the face of such vast nature in order to comprehend it.
It was the kind of sunset that made the pirate’s life worth living.
Yet even with such majesty spread before him, Chow couldn’t shake off his nerves.He felt as if he had been carried away in a riptide.He was no longer Sharkhead, the captain’s trusted mate and quiet second-in-command.Nor could he hold himself grumpy and aloof from Rebecca.
She was his responsibility now.Even more than that, everyone on the ship knew it.There was a small part of him that was gratified by that—themachopart of him that flexed his muscles whenever he met a larger man.But mostly, the fact made Chow feel as if he were walking around naked.Worse—as if he were walking around naked for the entertainment of everyone except himself.
His instinct was to ignore her.That would show she didn’t mean a thing to him.It would prove to the crew—and Captain Boukman—that even though he had claimed her as his own, and even though she was the first woman he had shown interest in, and even though they had witnessed him fucking her, he didn’t care about her enough for them to use her against him.
He ignored that instinct.He had claimed her, and now she was his responsibility, whether he wanted it or not.
Chow settled onto the deck beside where she sat cross-legged with a bottle of rum.She was alone, and as he sat, she angled herself with more than a little gratitude to welcome him.“Red at night is sailor’s delight, isn’t that what they say?”
“Aye.No storms ahead.”
“Our good fortune continues.”
He studied her, unsure if she meant that sardonically.The pink in the sky colored her in new shades, darkening her skin and warming her lips.He forgot his thoughts, lost in the idea of kissing her.
“There’s much I don’t know about you,” her lips said, touching themselves in interesting ways with every word.The most interesting of all: “Husband.”
Chow shook his head, fixing his gaze on the crimson horizon.“My parents have been married for thirty years and I’m sure there are still things they don’t know about each other.”
“You know your parents, then?”There was something hungry in her question, and Chow couldn’t help giving a contrary reply:
“I haven’t seen them for over a decade.”He didn’t want to get lost in her hunger.Theirs was an arrangement to protect Rebecca, not a real marriage.
She took a swig of rum.“I’m an orphan.Left as an infant on the steps of Trinity Church.I don’t even know my birthday, much less my parents’ names.”
There were plenty of orphans in the world.Still, Chow felt a pang of sympathy for her.“That you survived shows how strong you are.”
“Or lucky.”She offered him the bottle.
He refused to allow himself to dwell on the fact that her lips had just encompassed its rim as he took his own sip.He would not touch her again, not now that he had marked her as safe from Captain Boukman.
Which reminded him of that moment a few hours ago when the captain had cornered her at the railing.She had only glanced at Chow, yet that one look had been so full of meaning.
Whatever the captain had been saying, it had made her desperate.
“The captain leaving you alone?”
Rebecca took the rum back, but she didn’t drink from it.“He isn’t what I expected.”
“You’ve heard a lot about him, then?”It didn’t surprise Chow.Even when he had joined the crew nine years ago, the captain had a reputation of equal parts mercy and conviction.In the intervening years, they had done so much: stopped dozens of slave ships headed for Africa, marooned the slavers on deserted islands, even set fire to empty barracoons on the Guinea Coast to demolish the African slave traders’ warehouses.
Every pirate captain encouraged stories about his reputation, especially to incite fear in his enemies’ hearts.Chow could only imagine what was said about Captain Boukman.
“I suppose I expected something like a god.A captain above vice.”She laughed softly at herself.“Come to find he is only a man, like all others.”
Chow wasn’t quite sure what she meant by this—except that it didn’t seem favorable.“And what is a man?”
“A man is ego.A man is desire.A man is…” Rebecca lifted her hands in the air as if to say she had no further words.“A man has vices.”
By the mainmast, Jack Davies started playing away on his violin, and Captain Boukman boomed out the start of a song.The sounds of a perfect pirate night.
Chow barely heard it.His mind was captured by all that Rebecca wasn’t saying.He wondered how many men she had encountered and what they had done to make her say such things.At the same time, he didn’t want to know anything bad that had ever happened to her.He couldn’t stand to bear witness to another woman hurt, even if all the hurt was buried in the past.
