Page 20 of Her Perfect Pirate
“This is a pirate ship.Isn’t this the one place we are supposed to be free of hierarchy?Isn’t this the lawless ocean where we can stand up and say ‘No, we won’t do as you say because it is stupid and dangerous and petty!’?”
He leaned backward from the force of her voice.“He’s the captain and so Itrusthim, Rebecca.He is the best man in the world for fighting slavers.If he wants you to go on the longboat, I trust it’s because he knows it is our best chance for winning the fight.”
“It had nothing to do with winning and everything to do with putting you in your place.This captain of yours isn’t the best at anything except for holding a grudge, and if you can’t see that, then you’re stupider than I thought.”
He didn’t like her words and he didn’t like her tone, and he most especially didn’t like her implication.If Captain Boukman hadn’t been acting out of strategy, then he had been punishing Chow.And if the captain had sent Rebecca into battle in order to punish Chow, then Chow didn’t belong anywhere near her.
He reeled up to his feet.
Rebecca didn’t let him escape.“Do you know what happened on theWhimsy?Do you know what great plan your Captain Boukman enacted?The cannons didn’t fire as soon as we were on deck.They didn’t fire even after Jack Davies gave his little story about the weather.They still didn’t fire when the captain asked if I was a gift to the crew, and yes, they remained silent as he took me back to his cabin and pushed me against the wall to fuck me.In fact,husband, the cannons didn’t fire until after I had cut his cock off, just before he was about to rape me.Tell me.Which part of that was Captain Boukman’s plan?”
His mouth went dry.His stomach turned.Rage—hot and violent—filled his body.Rage that he couldn’t do anything with.“I didn’t know that.”
“You should have.”
Her words rang so true that Chow could barely hear them.Hehadknown that Captain Boukman’s order was wrong.He should have insisted, somehow, that Rebecca stay on theGhost.He didn’t know what he had been afraid of.Insubordination would be easier to face than this, the full extent to which he had failed to protect Rebecca.
He was no better than he ever had been.He should never have believed he had improved.
“And if you come near me again, I’ll cut your cock off, too,” Rebecca hissed.
Chow took himself away without the guts to even look back.
Chapter Nine
Forthreedays,theGhostwas caught in a storm that thrashed it from wave to wave while lashing it with great sheets of cold rain.From the first terrible rock of the ship, Rebecca was sick to her stomach.Her guts sloshed one way, her brains another, and her eyes couldn’t fix on anything that wasn’t moving.It was nausea worse than she had ever experienced—overwhelming and enduring—mixed with cold sweats and, when she tried to move, a weakness in her muscles like fever.
If they had met this storm before the battle, Rebecca would have tried to rise above it.She would have insisted on doing her duty even if she couldn’t stand up straight, because she was a part of the crew just like anyone else.
She didn’t care anymore.When Sharkhead saw her retching over the side of her hammock, he ordered—in that gruff tone of his as if she were nothing but a member of his crew—“Stay below until you feel better.”
Rebecca didn’t argue.She got out of her hammock and crawled to sit beside Mrs.Adams, one hand plunged into the goat’s hair and the other holding a blanket around her shoulders.When the nausea overwhelmed her, she leaned into the animals’ pen and left her mess with them.Mrs.Adams nudged Rebecca’s cheek every now and then, and even the pig came to sit by her, as if they all believed that if they touched each other, they would be protected from the storm.Rebecca didn’t know how long the pig had been sailing, but she knew Mrs.Adams remembered as well as she did the hurricane that had wrecked thePrimrose.That had begun in dribbles of hot rain, then whipped into a terrible fury before the crew could even adjust the sails.In a matter of hours, the ship had been torn asunder, its top deck on fire, the air full of screams, and Rebecca and Mrs.Adams and five sailors had been numb on the longboat, rowing themselves to shore.
Now, with her body revolting, Rebecca wondered why she had not sworn off ships altogether after that terrible hurricane.She had been stranded on an island, alone except for Mrs.Adams.She hadn’t had any way to look after herself there, not in a place where the households kept slaves instead of servants.If Rebecca had refused to ever get on a ship again, she would have had to become a whore.
Instead, she had become a murderess.
She had known, of course, that was what pirates did.They pillaged, raped, and killed people.Even the crew of theGhostdid more than just destroy slave ships.From the very first moment that Rebecca considered joining the crew, she had known she would be among men who had done unthinkable things.She had known she would have to do some of those things, too.She had been ready to do them.
She hadn’t been ready for what came after doing them.The fear that she had refused to feel on theWhimsygripped her now, filling her with a helplessness she could only express as fury.And remorse—she hadn’t expected remorse.But she could feel her arm shuddering from the impact of her machete on a sailor’s arm; she remembered the sensation of its tip slicing a red, sputtering line across the other’s neck.She had thought they were evil men without an ounce of redemption—and theywereevil, if they had ever come within one step of the slave trade!—but what if they had been like her, stranded on an island with no good option?
They were dead now.Sunk to the bottom of the ocean along with the remains of theWhimsy.Whether they had been guilty or not, whether they had deserved it or not, they were dead now, and Rebecca had killed them.
She wished those feelings would disappear the way her seasickness did when the storm finally calmed.Her body righted itself, her muscles renewed their strength, and with a few hard biscuits fueling her, she climbed to the top deck without a single wave of nausea.The sky was clear, the sun strong, the air warm.
Sharkhead found her as she was tying up her skirts to help swab the deck.He had checked on her every few hours, never saying much except asking after her health, and even now, he watched her with that old, wary gaze from before they had become husband and wife.As if she were some kind of foreign creature who might bite his hand.
Rebecca might bite his hand.She hadn’t decided.Yet she hated that he looked at her like that.
“Glad to see you feeling better,” her supposed husband said.
She didn’t feel it necessary to reply to that.
“Sometimes storms are hard to take.”
She hadn’t anything to say to him.She didn’t want to ask if he was fatigued from working the bilge pumps all night.She didn’t want to tell him he looked like he needed a good meal—and a shave, haircut, and bottle of rum, to boot.She wanted him to take back what he had said.She wanted him to stop her from going on theWhimsy.
“Captain says we’re headed for Pirate Island.”He stepped a little closer, his voice lowering, as if this were privileged information for her only.“That’s where we’ll leave the slavers.Then we’ll land at the Azores.It’s a respectable port with trade ships of all kinds.If you want to leave theGhostand book passage home, you can do it there.”
