I swallowed hard. My clammy palms tightened around the spray of flowers I clutched. Already, they were beginning to wilt. The long lace veil that couldn’t be adjusted to cover the blade scar on my cheek may well have been a veil of iron fitted over my hair. All around the edges, my coal black mane insisted on peeking out wherever it could, clamoring for freedom.

Bright sunshine broke through the dismal clouds that had masked the day and shone through the balcony doors that were graciously left open. Just below, white capped swells of the north Atlantic crashed over the rocky bank in tune with my pounding heart. A sudden breeze swept over the balcony and through the open doors. I sucked in the air, heavy with salt, as a seagull cried in the distance. If I was still of a crying sort, I would have let go a tear or two now. But all my tears dried up long ago.

I surveyed the room with a wary eye. No family, since I had none. No friends, since I had none of those left, either. The faces of women whose names I didn’t know beamed from the church pews.

Fat aristocrats, all of them.

None of them would have offered me a penny when I was down and out in the poorhouse of Swansea. Not a good morrow nor even a smile. At least, not until Charles Hoolihan, the richest man in Wales, took a shine to me. Now, here they sat, grinning at me as though an invitation to tea was about to fly off each of their pursed, wrinkled lips. They knew as well as I that once the vows were said, I would be a richer woman than the entire lot of them put together.

I kept my face stoic and stared back at them.

Beneath the pale cross that dominated the far wall, Charles hobbled out and took his place next to the minister. His jagged, stumpy teeth peeked out from under his uneven moustache, even when he wasn’t smiling, and his chubby hands were clasped at his middle. A golden-handled sword hung at his side and he kept shifting his hefty weight, like a man uncomfortable wearing a blade.

I’d known men like him before. They were the easiest to kill. But those days were behind me, a memory so distant, that at times, I wasn’t certain the memories belonged to me. The blade scars on my face and neck reminded me that they were in fact mine to cherish.

You’ll make new memories. The tiny voice inside me sounded positive and certain. Finally, you’ll be a woman of wealth and stature. A respectable woman.

On a signal I obviously missed, a handful of the wedding-goers stood in unison. My eyes widened as one woman, wrapped in a pink shawl, strode over to the large harp that sat indiscriminately in the corner and eased herself down on the seat. She strummed an eloquent series of notes before the rest of the standing women began to sing.

Is thatThe Song of the White Piper?

A gnarled grandmotherly woman appeared at my side. “Go ahead dear, it’s time.”

I didn’t look at the old woman as I exhaled the breath I’d unwittingly been holding. Steeling my backbone, I began the slow steps down the red carpet. Alone.

Three more steps. You can do this.

He’s a good man, I’m sure.

He’ll never do me wrong and I’ll want for nothing the rest of my days.

Charles, who I more often than not mistakenly called Mr. Hoolihan, grinned from beneath the cross. I couldn’t look in his rheumy, hopeful eyes and focused just over his shoulder as thoughts swirled in my mind. The tapestry on which I focused featured a large wooden ship amid the frothy swells of the sea. Towering masts, billowing sails, and a jungle of ratlines made this tapestry my favorite. I searched the image for a Jolly Roger, or even that of a heavy bodied and bare-breasted woman, but found none. Still, my lips refused to turn up into a smile on what should be the happiest day of my life.

The harpist silenced, and the women took their seats as I stepped to Charles’ side. So quiet was the church that I wasn’t entirely sure I was breathing. I forced a swallow as the minister opened his mouth to speak.

The back door of the church met the wall with a crash and made me jump. Color heated my cheeks and I spun on my heel, my bouquet all but crushed in my grasp. There, in the outline of the doorway, stood a man clad in black.

His tall boots folded over just below his knees and his matching black waistcoat and britches took my breath. I blinked, then blinked again.

A ghost? A gasp hitched in my throat. His ghost.

Chapter Two

Seventeen Years Earlier, London, England

Entry fee, sir.” The large, muscular man that looked as though he threw heavy loads since the day he was born stared down at me from beneath his furrowed brow. He extended his hand. “Now.”

I stuck my hand in my pocket and fingered the tattered wanted poster that filled it. “You see,” I began, trying to hide my Russian accent by clearing my eighteen-year-old throat. “I was unaware of the requirement of an entry fee.”

“Then off with you, you unlicked cub,” he growled. “You can’t pay, you can’t come into White’s Chocolate House.”

I ignored the insult and stepped aside, my heart thumping in my chest. “I understand your job here is important,” I stammered. Mikhail, I thought to myself, you haven’t come this far for nothing.

The large man didn’t pay me any mind as he extended his hand to a gentlemanly sort of fellow in a tricorne beaver hat. The man slipped a pound into the large man’s hand and strode inside the elite establishment.

“It costs a pound just to set foot in the door?” My eyes widened. “All chocolate drinks included, I pray.”

“’Course not, them’s extra,” the doorman grumbled. “Now pay up or clear off.”

Another patron paid the man and walked inside. I chewed my lip and stared after him. My entire reason for making the journey from Russia to London seemed further away now than it had on the icy Moscow street. I wet my dry lips and cleared my throat again. “Sir,” I began, stepping nearer to the brutish doorman, “I cobbled streets in Moscow for a year to save up enough to buy myself passage here to London. Didn’t count on having to pay extra fees once I arrived.”

The man shifted his uncaring gaze to me, spurring me on.

“I have business with a man inside, I’ll only be a moment.”

He sighed loudly. “If you are entering the chocolate house, the entry fee is one pound.” His gaze hardened. “Except for you. For you, the fee is two pounds.”

“Pardon?”

His stare turned frosty. “One pound for the establishment. One pound for me. For having to listen to your sad tale and look upon you, you tatterdemalion.”

I glanced down at my shirt and breeches, each made by my mother’s own hand before her death. Patchwork, they were, consisting of pieced together squares of wayward calico. The man was right. I was a disheveled sight to look upon.

A man, dressed in shiny black silk and a large white wig, sporting golden rings in a rainbow of colors on his fingers, strode up. He and his entourage, all sporting golden earrings, stopped short and stared.

“I don’t have two pounds, I don’t even have one pound—” I began.

A sharp slap from the man stung my face. “Then be gone with you!”

I set my throbbing jaw. “My business inside will take but a moment—”

The man drew back his hand again, but this time I was ready. I ducked his open-handed slap and readied myself into a fighting stance, eliciting a whistle and whoop from the group of ogling men.

“Two pounds on the blond boy,” one of the men yelled.

Another answered, “Five on the lobcock—er, the money-taker!”

The group of rapscallions, headed by the man in black, burst into a drunken cacophony of laughter. The burly doorman’s face went scarlet as the men waiting to gain entrance made sport of our predicament.

I swallowed back the hot fear that burned my throat and tried to figure a way out of this mess. The man in black, thankfully, stepped to my side.

“Good heavens,” he began. “For a sprout the likes of you having the gall to take on an oaf the likes of him—” He turned and gave a stony glance to the money-taker. “Your business must be quite important inside. It will be quite a sport just to see what becomes of you on the other side of these walls.”

The man in black slid his arm around my shoulder and nodded to one of the men behind him, who paid the money-taker for the lot of us. He guided me inside, my heart still pounding.

“My name is Teach, Charles Teach.” He gestured to the men who flanked us. “And these are my men. We are, how would you put it politely, regulators of goods that traverse the seas.”

One of the men with next to no teeth leaned down near me with a grin. “We be pirates, we be.”