I pulled on the canvas pantalets and the only billowy blouse I found in the drawer. Thankfully, I maneuvered the clunky irons and chains through the too-big leg holes without too much difficulty. They clinked behind me like angry ghosts as I stepped out onto the deck.

Time to find the galley.

Still, convicts, guards and eager women conducted hasty business on the deck as the sun sank lower toward the watery, western horizon. A guard clambered off the black-haired woman I’d seen earlier. She stared at me hard as she pulled her skirts down.

“Heard you’re Russian Jack’s woman.”

I set my jaw and nodded.

She glanced down at my leg irons before returning her piercing stare to meet mine. I didn’t look away.

“I’m Red.” I tossed my hair, which was just as dark as hers. “Where’s the galley on this sloop?”

“Angel-Arse Hazel.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder, but still stared at me. Her golden eyes bore no promise of friendliness. “Galley’s that way.”

I nodded and started past her. My chains followed in metallic succession.

Scrape, thunk. Scrape, thunk. Scrape—

“You ain’t no better’n me,” Hazel barked to my retreating back. “Still a whore, you are. Pirates don’t take wives to sea. Just his whore, joining the ranks of many more before you.”

I turned around slowly.

Hazel’s smug smile wrinkled her pug nose and hid the smattering of her freckles that dotted her nose and cheeks. “You didn’t believe him to be virginal, did you?”

This one’s going to be trouble. But she has an advantage over me seeing as how she isn’t weighted down with irons.

“You’re right.” I returned her smirk. “I suppose I’ll have to track down all the whores that came before me.”

“For what? Fight for his honor?”

“No. To thank them, of course.”

The fake smile melted from Hazel’s face.

“Because Russian Jack is the most considerate lover I’ve ever had the pleasure to bed.”

No need to let on that I was the virginal one that came to the marital bed.

Something flashed in her eyes that warned me I hadn’t had the last word in this unpleasant exchange. Still, I turned, heavily, and strode off into the direction of the galley.

Scrape, thunk. Scrape, thunk. Scrape, thunk.

The snaggletooth wench, Rhodesia, smiled broadly when I stepped into the galley. “Was wonderin’ if you’d track us down. Never known a hungry gal to pass us by.”

I nodded. “Rhodesia.”

“Come on honey, sit by me.” She waved her plump arm. “I’ll introduce you around. After all—”

All activity in the galley stopped as I dragged my chains across the wooden floor. Careful not to duck my head or let my chin fall, I sank down onto the bench beside Rhodesia. I ignored the ache in my neck from the slash Piranha had given me and kept my face blank.

The old Redella would have balked at the women who scratched themselves freely and sat with their legs spread wide. Now, I was a pirate’s wife and my name was known because of it. I left any fear I’d had back in that scarlet pool of blood on the deck of my ship.

“—any acquaintance of The Black Otter’s is a friend of The Molly Maiden.”

Rhodesia ignored the stony stares and unsmiling faces that seemed to say the opposite. “The prison transport ship will be coming back for the customers soon and the girls trickling in will be hungry.”

“Rightly so.”

“You know me, Rhodesia, and that lass who just ambled in? That’s Angle-Arse Hazel. Irish Bon picked her up on a run to Nassau, along with Mary Carleton there.”

“We’ve met,” Hazel growled as she slid onto the bench nearest to Mary.

“I believe you have me confused,” Mary chirped in a mockish voice. Her blonde hair was knotted in island knots across her scalp. Tiny shells dangled from the end of each row. Her dark eyes were deep set in contrast to her pale, European skin. “There is no Mary Carleton here. I am the orphaned Princess von Wolway of Cologne.”

“Mary here is our woman of many names,” Rhodesia explained. “If she’s not careful, she’ll find herself on one of the prison transport ships herself—and not as a service provider.”

A thin woman with a tall, white judge’s wig pulled off the hairpiece and scratched her bald head. “How many services did you have to provide to get your bigamy charge dismissed anyway, Princess?”

A gentle chuckle rolled through the galley as Mary stood up and swished around the tables. “A lady such as me never kisses and tells.”

“Kissing doesn’t get charges dismissed,” the bald woman catcalled. “We all know that!”

Mary smiled. “Kissing doesn’t earn judge’s wigs, either, Nan.”

The bald woman conceded with a shrug and pulled her tall wig back in place.

“That’s Unconscionable Nan,” Rhodesia whispered in her hoarse voice. “She goes for the high-placed men. Has served her well, so it seems, as she’s stayed out of the clink.”

I almost smiled as Nan gave her head a shake and wig powder rained down on Mary. But when I caught Hazel glaring directly at me, my smile hardened like stone.

A few more women sauntered in as the smell of gruel and rotted grog grew heavy in the enclosed cabin. The blonde I’d seen when I first came aboard was deep in conversation with a buxom brunette. When they entered, they both stopped as if on an unseen cue, and glanced around until their questioning expressions met mine.

“That be Buttocks-de-Clink Jenny with the yellow hair.” Rhodesia raised her voice so all could hear. “Jenny, care to tell Russian Jack’s wife how you earned your nickname?”

The blonde’s lips tilted into an uneven smile. It wasn’t until she began to speak that I saw she had relatively few teeth considering she looked younger than me. “When you don’t want to go to the clink, give the guards what they want, something they ain’t never had before. What nobody else will.”

She shrugged, but didn’t blush, as a laugh chorused up from the women who’d experienced a faction of men that I hoped to never know. “Aye, give ’em yer buttocks,” they chortled.

Someone slopped two plates down in front of us. The laughing died down as the women dove into their gruel with ravenous appeal and a blatant disregard for any manners.

“The last one, the woman with Jenny, that be Salt-Beef Peg of Port Royal.” Rhodesia stuffed a mouthful of slop into her mouth, obviously not caring that most of it slimed down her chin. “500 pieces of eight to see her naked at port. She’s a bit of a legend, she is.”

Hazel’s voice met my ears through the talking and kidding. “It was the lightning scar that did it for me. Bloody ’ell, I’d give it to Captain Russian Jack Rackham for free.”

The good-natured atmosphere died like a breeze in an unwilling sail as I looked up. Sure enough, she was staring daggers through me. Something deep within crackled to life with fiery intensity.

“Come on now, Angel-Arse,” Rhodesia began. Her attempt to lighten the heavy mood only made it worse. “Let her be now.”