“Me father was the fiercest bucko to sail the seas, he was,” he boasted. “His blood runs in me very veins, it does. He discovered the island of Madagascar, he did, and the curious people who call it home.” Tommy paused to take a breath. “He did,” he whispered.
As much as The Poison Lightning didn’t speak, Tommy made up for it. I nodded politely. “You are a man proud of your lineage, I see—”
Tommy paid me no mind. “Me father was killed when his ship was overtaken by a Muslim vessel, ten-thousand strong they was, damn them.” He spat dramatically onto the deck. “Lest I’d be sailing alongside him now.”
My head bobbed on its own. “A man who loves his family so much, I must ask. Do you have a wife, Tommy? Or siblings?”
“Uh-oh,” Jack muttered. A few pirates behind Tommy exchanged tired glances.
Tommy’s face flushed from an olive hue to almost purple. “Me half-brudder. Prince Ratsimilaho. Lives on me fadder’s island. Someday—” Tommy drew his sword and slashed a coil of rope that had, until that moment, been lying innocently on the deck.
“Someday,” he repeated through clenched teeth. Tommy sheathed his sword and stalked across the deck, muttering to himself.
I glanced at Jack. He offered me a wink. “This here is our resident royalty.” He paid Tommy’s odd change in behavior no mind and pointed to a tall, slender man with a pleasant face. “Red, meet Prince Solomon of Poland.”
My eyes widened as the prince bent at the middle and placed a polite kiss atop my outstretched hand.
“No prince necessary anymore,” he explained, “but Cap here refuses to drop the troublesome title.” He smiled a wide, white smile. “I much prefer to be called Solo, Miss Red.”
Something inside me softened in Solo’s company, like we were old friends instead of new acquaintances. “Solo, tell me, what brings you to The Black Otter?”
Golden rays lit his sun-kissed face as he tilted his face skyward. “My father’s shipping business is one of the largest and richest in Poland. One night, I was scouring his books and learned that, like your former fiancé, my father had dealings in the slave trade. I investigated my findings.”
My eyes were wide, as though I was back in my childhood nursery in London, listening to a fairy tale being read by my old governess as the gentle dusk cloaked us in an easy dark. “I had no idea the slave trade was as expansive as you gentlemen have described.”
A few snarky snarls roiled at my use of the word gentlemen.
I ignored them. “What did you do?”
Solo smiled. “The only thing I could. I snuck down to the docks under the cover of night to see for myself what went on while the world slept.”
“And what did you see?”
“What I saw—” Solo’s smile faded, and his eyes turned stormy. “My father was there with a whip. Roughly ushering men, broken men, and women from one of his merchant ships to the shore. Children too.” He shook his head as though to clear the thoughts from his mind. His blond hair had several shades of gold hidden within its strands. “I vowed then and there to do something about it.”
Solo shared a warm, knowing glance with Russian Jack. “I heard tale that some pirate ships overtook slave ships such as these and granted those poor unfortunates aboard their freedom.”
Sully’s venomous words from earlier echoed in my ears. Sea gypsies. Savages. Brutes. Granting stolen souls their freedom. Nothing like what I heard about pirates.
“Just so happens I ran into a few from The Black Otter fleet down at the pub not long after. That’s when I struck a deal.”
“What kind of a deal?”
Solo smiled that bright smile. Despite being clad in salt-stained rags, he would never be able to hide his high birth. “Well, I agreed to give sustenance and shelter to pirates by way of Father’s shipping business.”
Solo turned his full attention to me and winked. “After all my dear Red, revenge served through doing good is the best kind of revenge there is.”
Jack clapped him on the shoulder. “When Solo was exiled by his father, the King of Poland, we at The Black Otter fleet were all too eager to welcome him aboard. And his use of oratory is a welcome respite from the silence when we’re days at sea.”
The pair shared a laugh as though they were old family members instead of strangers-turned-shipmates. I offered a smile. “Truly, it’s a pleasure Solo.”
“The pleasure is all mine, Miss Red.” Solo jerked his head in a quick nod and pointed to the other pirates aboard. They had grown weary of introductions and gone back to their storing, piling, and grumbling. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve work to attend to.”
I nodded again, flabbergasted by Solo’s charm and manners.
“Second order of business.” Jack appeared beside me and slid his arm around my waist. “I believe you’ll be requiring a wedding gown.” Something deep within me, something I couldn’t place, churned at his touch and willed him to do more than simply hold me in one arm.
•
“Have you known a man, Red?” Jack’s voice was heavy with want. He stepped into the cabin that was, until today, his and his alone. He pushed the wooden door back with his foot and it slammed shut with a solemn thunk of finality.
I sat on the straw-stuffed mattress and fidgeted with the blankets. I’d been sliding the sleeve of my makeshift wedding gown up and down my arm in an attempt to look alluring, should my new husband enter our bedroom. Now, here he was.
I swallowed hard.
The moonlight streamed in from the port window behind me, illuminating Jack with an otherworldly glow as he stepped toward me in heavy, purposeful steps. My stomach turned up in knots.
Before I could utter a response, Jack was in front of me. The aroma of the strong Spanish ale they’d been passing around deck after our crude wedding ceremony was almost tangible as he fingered my hair. A shiver danced over my naked shoulder.
His voice was a throaty whisper as his hand fell heavy on my knee. “Did that ginger blaggard know you, Red?”
I uncrossed my legs and tried to remember to breathe. “No. No one has ever known me.”
Jack’s breath came quicker as his fingers curled into my hair. “Then with your permission—”
His lips met my exposed throat in a hungry kiss. A flash of sensations flooded my body in unexpected places and I allowed him to spread my knees wide.
“Permission granted.”
