Page 16 of Her Perfect Pirate
They had never tried offering presents before.There was hardly any time after they boarded a ship for polite conversation, since the battle usually began about then.
Still, as a strategy, Chow could see its advantages.“You’ll get the goat back,” he assured Rebecca.“After all, we’re going to take the ships.”
“I see.”She looked back at the captain.Her smile did not return.“I’ll fetch Mrs.Adams for the longboat, then.Where would you like me to post myself during the battle, sir?”
Captain Boukman’s grin widened.“Why, didn’t I say?You’re presenting the goat to the captain yourself.”
And now Chow’s heart stopped.He stepped forward.“Wouldn’t she be better off as a powder monkey?”
Captain Boukman’s good cheer disappeared.“Again, Chow, you try to give orders onmyship?”
“She has never fought before.She doesn’t have any training or experience.We should send our best fighters on the longboat.Rebecca will be of more use here, tending to the ship and the injured.”
“You tax me, Chow, and you know I do not like to be taxed.”The captain’s voice boomed loud enough that the crew hustling around them hushed.“I am the captain, and you are the quartermaster because I am a forgiving man.A man who gives second chances.Am I not?”
Chow forced his heart to stop hammering long enough to swallow the captain’s words.To remember that he was a man who followed the wrong instincts and who had only been able to repent for his past mistakes because Captain Boukman had given him the chance to serve on theGhost.
“You are, sir,” he replied, his voice so hoarse that he barely heard himself.
“Good.Then you know my orders.See that they are done.”His authority proven, he turned his back on the whole crew and watched as theGhostslid into formation with the slavers.
Chow and Rebecca descended the stairs from the quarterdeck together.In a whisper, she said, “I don’t understand what just happened.”
“You’re going to be in the longboat with Jack Davies.”Chow forced his mind to the tasks at hand instead of inhaling the coconut smell of her.“You’ll board the flagship and pretend to make a present of the goat.Then, we’ll fire our cannons and start the battle.”Rebecca still stared at him—eyes narrowed, brow furrowed—so he added, “You’ll get the goat back.”
“I understand the captain’s orders,” she said, “but I don’t understand how he has turned you into this…”
Her hands finished the sentence, waving in a circle in front of him as if to encompass some great mess of his spirit.
Chow didn’t have the capacity to acknowledge a remark like that.He gripped her shoulders.“Come back alive.”
Rebecca stared at him.The captain shouted another order, and Chow would be stupid not to heed.He didn’t let her go.Not until she promised, “I will.”
It was all he could ask of her.Chow released her and turned to face his own fate in the battle.
Chapter Eight
RebeccafearedMrs.Adamswould jump off the boat into the ocean.It was a stupid fear and far from the biggest threat to either of them at the moment, gliding in the longboat between two slave ships towards the master slaver.Yet it was all she could worry about.
If Mrs.Adams jumped into the ocean, Rebecca wouldn’t be able to save her.Then Rebecca would have brought the goat on this godforsaken adventure for nothing.
She resisted the urge to look back at Sharkhead.He could have volunteered to come on the longboat with her, but he hadn’t.He could have embodied the shark that raged across his skin and insisted to Captain Boukman that the plan was too faulty, but he had caved at the captain’s first verbal lashing.
When condemning her to the longboat, he could have at least lied and said he loved her.But he hadn’t.Proving once again that a man could bind his body to hers physically yet not lend her any of his heart.
And so Rebecca would not look back to find him on theGhost, nor would she waste any of her last moments worrying about him.
She would worry for Mrs.Adams instead.
As they approached, she could see the flagship’s name painted in gold lettering:Whimsy.Her sides were well scrubbed, the ropes new.That couldn’t take away from the smell that grew stronger as they drew closer.Old wood mixed with something human—and something evil.
Rebecca had heard that slave ships stank of their sin even when they were empty.She had dismissed that as lore to scare greedy men straight.Now she knew better.
Not even the strongest soap wielded by the hardest-working sailors could scrub away the smell of so many people tortured and killed.
She held Mrs.Adams’s lead that much closer as the slaver’s sailors hauled the longboat up to their deck.
Jack Davies, the twenty-year-old Scottish coxswain who thought far too well of his own looks, acted as spokesperson for theGhostas they clambered out of the longboat.He shook hands with the captain of theWhimsy—who wore a fine coat with shining gold braids and a black patch over one eye—and gave a report on the weather and their positioning.
