Page 70 of Paid to the Pirate

“I’m Charlotte.” I touched my locket. “I think. The truth is… I don’t remember.”

Colt stared, hard, accusing. He did not lower his sword from beneath my chin.

Shaking my head, I wiped more tears. “I was found on a beach one day. I – I possessed no memory of what came before. The Penninghams gave me shelter and work at the inn. I’ve never known who I was or what happened before that day. I possessed nothing of my life here, save this locket. Until you stormed our tavern two months ago, I didn’t know of-” I gestured broadly “-any of this.”

Colt blinked, mouth parted in surprise. “Amnesia?” he whispered, body slumping. He lowered his sword, staring with more wide-eyed horror than if I’d declared myself a witch.

I nodded. “I was afraid. Afraid of what you’d tell me, what you might make me believe if you knew the truth. I feared you’d take advantage of me. So I pretended that I hadn’t forgotten. Only, I needed something to cover up my lack of knowledge and familiarity with,” I shrugged again, “all this. So I played the lady. The lady I hoped I had been before I lost my memory. The lady I always wanted to be.”

Colt’s sword clattered to the floor. He was only half-listening. His eyes glazed over, dazed. Conks appeared in the doorway, perhaps lured by Colt’s shouting, and pulled the man pretending to be my brother out of the room. Colt and I couldn’t be bothered to care.

“You don’t remember…” Colt whispered, as if lost in his own memory.

“I don’t remember who I was before the day I was found on the beach,” I confessed.

I watched Colt’s face crumple in pain. Two agonized hands tore through his hair. His eyes rose back to mine, wild, wounded.

“You don’t remember,” he repeated, wincing.

I stepped forward and hestumbled back, as if I were a threat. I reached out my arms, “Colt, I-”

He stepped back again, hands raised, refusing me. One hand smacked his forehead, half covering his closed eyes. His fingers tensed and his brow was creased with pain, as if he tried to subdue an unbearable headache.

I froze. It seemed like an eternity passed in those seconds. Beneath his large hands I could see Colt’s face crinkled in distress.Despair.

Finally, Colt’s hand moved, swiping down his face and neck. His eyes snapped open. New eyes. Eyes that saw something else as they focused on me. They were no longer the blackness of pitch, ready to suck me in and trap me forever, but the blackness of an abyss providing nothing to stop my fall, offering nothing for me cling to. No warmth or light, just endless nothing.

“Since your jig is up, I suppose mine can end as well.”

What?I drew in a shaky breath and swallowed. I didn’t know what those words meant, and I didn’t like his ominous tone.

“I thank you for confessing, Miss Charlotte, and I thank you for the jolly time you gave me while forcing you to do so.” Colt winked. “I won’t soon forget it. At least, not until I’ve had my next turn to crack jenny’s cup.”

“Stop it,” I said, fear rising in me with as overpowering as the tide. “What do you mean?”

“I mean as you’re through pretending, so am I.”

I wanted to slap my hands over my ears and stop hearing his words. I wanted to close my eyes and stop seeing the truth, plain upon his cruel face. Socold;his face was so cold it could scarcely be called human.

“Pretending? Stop it,” I ordered. “We haven’t been. You haven’t been…”

“Treating you with affection to wrest the truth from you?” he said. “There’s no further need.”

The room spun.What was he saying?

Colt sneered. My heart screamed.

“You haven’t been doing that,” I repeated.

“Oh, but I have. Did you think I couldn’t best you? Are you forlorn to have been beaten at your own game? Did you think it was real?” he mocked. “Aw, you did? I’m sorry about that. We’ll return you to your port and keep it quiet, you have my word as a pirate,” he winked again.

What in the world was happening?

“Stop it!” I sobbed so hard, so childishly hard. “Don’t treat me like this. Like I’m some whore you’ve used and discarded. That’s not what we had. It was real, I felt it. You felt it.” Blubbering, I continued, “I know it’s true. Itisreal! It hasn’t changed.”

Shrugging, Colt said, “You might not have been a whore when you stepped onto this ship but you sure as hell are one now. Do you honestly think I’d marry you? A girl who’d sully herself as you have? Even a pirate has better standards than that.”

Oh God, it hurt so badly I couldn’t stand the pain. I threw myself at Colt, beating him and wailing, “That’s a lie! It was real.”

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