Kate was breathless against the mast, tilting her head back against the
wood with her eyes closed to feel something solid. She had swirled and
stomped and sashayed with half the crew by now, though they
didn’t share Jack’s nimble flare for the dramatic—Ha!
Well few things on heaven or earth did. He had dipped her so low that
her hair fell onto the deck. She had been afraid to fall at first but
then let go at the look in his eye.
“Is the Pearl swaying more than usual? Is there a storm
coming?” She opened her eyes again to squint out to sea and was
just in time to take a battered tin dipper from young Bobby and help
herself to more of Murphy’s treacherous and aptly named
“punch.”
“I believe it is you that is swaying more than usual, luv, and
the only storm is that tempest in a teapot—well a bucket
then—that you are imbibing with some alacrity.”
“In for a penny, in for a pound, Jack,” and he watched with no small surprise as she drained another ladle.
The sentiment was echoed at the back of a tavern deep in the port town
of Croton Bay as Mary threw back another shot of something that
didn’t have a name other than “foul” and met a
warning glance from Anne with a shrug of her shoulders. Repairs and
restocking of the Chamada do Siren had been hampered by the constant
buzzing of red flies around port, necessitating undue caution and more
time than they had hoped.
“Keep yer wits about you, Mary. I have never seen so many of the
bastards in one place, seems like the whole British navy is desiring a
slice of pirate pie. Mind you, there’s a few that will think
twice about setting foot on my ship again after the warning we left for
them,” Anne smiled gently to herself as her mind flitted through
the circumstances of the day and alighted on a thankfully far less
bloodied one “That Jack Sparrow…he is too generous, mark
my words.”
Mary nodded in agreement and stood herself up to adopt that unique
slightly unstable stance and found a passable imitation of his voice,
“Surely Anne, couldn’t you leave them to the
sea?…Sailors after all.” An overly dramatic flourish of
her hand had Anne’s laughter wake several of the drunks
prematurely from their stupor.
“Between us, Mary, we wouldn’t be sitting here but for the
Pearl, but I do this my way. It was our necks those bastards wanted,
and if in the sorry event I ever meet one of those men again I want
them imagining the feel of our blades before we even cross swords. But
all the same, slow down with that grog.”
“Oh, don’t you worry about me. There’s not a man in here that could take me, Anne, and you know it.”
Anne flashed a smile across the table and leant in, lighting a pipe
that only added to the rancor of the air. “Aye, that may be the
truth but there is a whole platoon camped up the hill.
Something’s afoot, and I could do without me First Mate on her
back.”
Mary’s mutter of “Not just yet anyway” made Anne rock
with a loud laugh and contact the bone of Mary’s calf sharp with
her foot.
“Am I to understand that you will be gracing my bed tonight then?
Sad second fiddle though I am to young Rosie and all those
laces…”
Mary grinned and shook her head, her fingers threading under the table
to find seams and thighs and a receptive groan—off the map
without a compass seeming to be the natural home of these women.
Sitting back in the wooden chair, Anne’s eyes followed familiar
and barely disguised curves while she sucked hard on her pipe, a swell
of full anticipation filled all the spaces down to her toes; the
exhalation of her breath, however, was stolen by a loud clatter of red
through the wooden doors.
“We have orders to search this place for fugitives, pirates, and
any other scum we happen to find!” In an instant and in unison
Anne and Mary pulled their hats down low in the same fluid movement as
they felt for their knives.
Shouts mixed up with the sound of boots and a wave of redcoats flooded
the bar, a press gang for a night in the cells or a taste of steel.
Mary stood, her blade drawn with the conviction and impulse that always
took her, but she found hard hands on her arm. “Leave it and
follow me.” Anne’s eyes flickered to the back of the bar
and a door that would ease their passing back into the street and
escape from capture.
A flash of defiance challenged her, “Come on, Anne, we can take
some of them. These buggers think they own the place.” A smash of
pottery against the wall had them both move instinctively, and wry
smile from Anne covered the seconds it took for her to pull Mary from
the bar.
In the dark of the alley behind the tavern Anne pressed a whisper into
Mary’s ear, “It’ll not serve us to be run through nor
have the pleasure of the King’s accommodation tonight, Mary. Now,
do you still have that pouch of powder? I will show you who really owns
this place.”
Mary frowned but her hand was already inside the pockets of her jacket
withdrawing a small leather bag warmed from her body. “Never know
when you might have a need of a small explosion.”
“Indeed…” Anne resolved to finish that thought
later. “Now, I think this may be one of those times. Just a small
show, mind, a distraction you might say from tonight’s lofty
military objective of rounding up the flotsam and jetsam of Croton Bay.
Agreed?” Mary’s placated grin back sealed it.
They stayed low and close to the walls, stealing along the back alleys
down to the harbour until Anne pulled them up in front of a small but
imposing wooden building whose windows appeared to be surveying the
very sea. Inquisitive eyes searched Anne’s face for clues.
“The storehouse for the East India Trading Company in these
parts. Now hurry with that powder.”
A flurry of bright green red and yellow parrots, woken far too early
before dawn sent unholy screeching into the air and suddenly the whole
forest was alive with red hot anger
“Captain! Stop!” Peawick was becoming increasingly
breathless in the stifling humid heat, his regulation uniform designed
by naval men in temperate climes of London, was almost choking him as
he ran to catch Captain Standish. He was so hot now he had gone past
caring whether a banshee with a sword was about to run him through, it
might even be a blessing to be pensioned off with a so far unstained
record, because Peawick, whilst he had never made the heady heights of
Harrow nor Eton, knew a thing or two, and it mostly concerned how
things worked. Here he was chasing a captain who had left his men
behind, his sword drawn but not a snowball in hells chance of capturing
any pirates, even if they had now the misfortune to come across any,
and frankly tying his career to this one’s mast might not be such
a good plan.
The sight in front of him made him briefly consider if he had time to
make a hasty retreat before the Captain saw him, really this was beyond
the call of duty and as far as he knew there was nothing in the
lieutenants manual that said ‘Rules of Behaviour should you find
the Captain beating his head against a coconut tree’ usually, he
was sure, these things were hushed up. They would be here soon- the
rest of the crew and Peawick winced, approaching with some caution lest
in his anger the Captain mistake him for a pirate
“Captain…if I may be so bold…a return to ship and a
cup of tea might well be in order..the pirates are clearly departed.
Aboard the Valiant Peawick felt his hands shake as he carried the cup
and saucer across the cabin to where Standish was boiling his own steam
at the desk, maps spread all over it as he searched for clues that were
keeping their counsel. The tinkle of china wobbling the only sound in
the second before Standish turned to face his lieutenant
“I don’t want bloody tea you fool!!” The crash of
porcelain against wood ringing out over the deck. Peawick winced and
looked nervously around, no escape it seemed from the undimmed rage of
a man thwarted once again by the pirates he had been seeking.
His voice low Peawick cautiously approached “You think it wise
captain, to let the men see you like this again?...the word below
deck..” an involuntary gulp finished his sentence
Standish stood, his eyes glaring “You expect me to be concerned
about the idle chatter of a bunch of the poorest excuses for sailors I
have ever had the misfortune to command? Do You??!”
Peawick shook his head “Of course not Sir, it’s just that after that business in Tangiers…”
Captain Standish felt the blood drain into his boots, and he struggled
with Peawick’s assistance to the leather backed chair that stood
by the desk “What do you mean Peawick?” This called for
caution. In truth Captain Standish has been the laughing stock of the
entire fleet, a circumstance he was acutely aware of, but Peawick
wisely sought not to remind him of the enormity of the bellow of
‘fool’ that had followed him for months. She had
disappeared not only with Standish’s pride but a considerable
purse.
“That…woman Sir…of course we were all most
sympathetic. Clearly a slut and a deceiver of the highest order- how
else could she have won your favour? My personal belief if you will
indulge me is that she used some potion to cloud your otherwise sound
and highly thought of judgement” He swallowed hard as
Standish’s steel eyes held him and continued somewhat nervously,
picking his way through words for which he might well be court
marshalled “but her sudden departure shall we say, the moment we
touched land in Tangiers, did leave you, how shall I say?
Understandably distraught.”
Captain Standish cleared his throat “What is your point Man? Out with it!”
“Well Captain, the men, that is some of them…are beginning
to wonder if your command isn’t compromised…in some small
way you understand…by a desire to find that harlot who now, as
you know, sails with Anne Bonny. Perfectly reasonable in all human
respects as that might be, of course- what man wouldn’t want to
see her pay? And for her to prefer the company of women!” Peawick
struggled to swallow that last sentence whole
“Go on…”
“Well…there is the tiniest whisper that this chase around
the Caribbean after a ship load of harlots may not necessarily be the
best military strategy, but it is one nevertheless for which we have
already suffered considerable losses…Sir”
****
He was so close now she could almost hear the breath catching in his
chest and Rosie closed her eyes, he hadn’t moved a muscle when
she had told she had sought out the Captains bed to save herself from
the hands of far too many more, he had just kept looking at her,
flashes of something in those brown eyes, recognition maybe of hard
lives and choices that weren’t really
I don’t want to talk to you now Will Turner, I want to feel your tongue in my mouth
She could almost feel the tingle in her own fingers when he swept a
long stray lock back behind his ear, every inch of skin awake and fully
conscious of the exact distance his body was from hers, measuring the
desire to be closer.
“What happened in Tangiers Rosie?” his voice was so deep
and quiet she could hardly hear, or that might have been the din of her
blood pumping.
And mine in yours
Rosie looked up at his face seconds before her hand touched his cheek.
She wasn’t kissing him, no, not yet, just feeling that soft skin
with hers and whimpering at the connection her mouth suddenly seemed to
have with where she sat on the wood,
“You don’t have to do this…” he was serious now
She could feel him speaking rather than hear the words, the parting of
his lips let her flick her tongue through his, an ‘open
sesame’ where the treasure wasn’t all gold, and Rosie felt
his hands brush over the prickled skin of her shoulders, a wave of a
question that made her whole body shiver.
“I think I do...” She wanted him all at once, and in one
movement she was in his lap, seconds passed slow while she let her body
register all that contact suddenly burning through her clothes
“Yes, I really think I do” Rosie felt a lunge of heat
transfer between them as he let her in and firm hands covered her back.
Gasping kisses that held all that afternoon in them and she could feel
his strength now, his hands all around her face, rope worn fingers
that, whilst gentle, also meant possession.
Jesus, yes you can
The shock of cold air sucking into her mouth made her eyes open
demanding to know where he had gone; his mouth was on the skin of her
neck and she almost missed what he said for the moan she made
“I am willing to give up me cabin, if it’s just a bed you
are after…and there will be no man that bothers you, I promise
you that”
Had she been capable of anything like words she might have told him he
was a good man and that no, she got the difference here, appreciated
him asking but on calm reflection had decided that it was him she
wanted not the bed, though him on the bed might be preferable to right
here on the deck in front of the whole crew. Instead her hand slipped
down between her legs to where he was pressed against her, her fingers
a far more eloquent answer.
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