“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.”
Hazel’s black hair hung over her eyes like a sheer curtain. “Let. Her. Be,” she spat. “Nobody asked her to come here. To strut about, acting like she’s so much better.” She dragged her hand across her nose and her words dripped venom. “Just because she married up with the only half-decent man on the sea.”
I pushed back from the table. “Keep talking and I’ll shut your mouth for you.”
“Let what go?” Angel-Arse looked like a sea hag set on a fight to the death. “First she took my man, now she’s on my ship.”
“You should have done what the lady said and let it go,” I snarled.
“Pshaw, a lady, she says.”
“You will not like the ending of this story, but you can’t stop writing it, can you?”
Like a woman freed from an asylum, Hazel sprang across the long table, knocking over bowls of gruel in the process. I was ready for her.
Hands snarled in my hair, but before I could be yanked to the ground by a woman who hated me with a pure hatred the likes of which I’d never known, something hit Hazel so hard and so fast, that she flew from in front of me like she’d been swept up in a hurricane. Handfuls of my hair went with her.
Dots of blood cooled my hot scalp. Someone was yelling. I shook my head and rubbed my eyes.
“Nobody’s your enemy here, except maybe me!”
In the corner, Hazel sobbed on the floor and swiped at a bloody nose. Her jaw hung at an odd angle. I studied the long, lean body that stood over her. Unable to see the face of the person who’d intervened on my behalf, I only stood and stared. A canvas shirt hung loose over a pair of black britches. Shoulder-length brown hair stuck out, this way and that, and the air of commanding confidence that came with the mystery sailor’s appearance silenced the women.
“Oh, Red?” Rhodesia, who never moved from her seat, scraped the bottom of her bowl. She didn’t bother to look up. “That’s our captain, Irish Bon.”
“You attack our guest aboard The Molly Maiden, I’m happy to put you back ashore in Nassau.”
Hazel pulled her knees to her chest and hid her face. “I’m sorry Bon, don’t put me ashore.”
“Treat our guests with respect, Hazel. You could be replaced in a minute.” Bon turned toward me. Eyes more purple than blue studied me with a warmness that took my breath. I blinked.
Irish Bon. Sully’s voice was a shout in my ears. Who sailed with Russian Jack before falling out over a game of cards and manning the whoring ship—The Molly Maiden.
“Welcome, Red. I heard the wife of Russian Jack was among us. Stay. Enjoy your time with us, we’re all family on the high sea.”
Bon’s rollicking Irish voice, harsh when chastising Hazel, softened like warm butter as it met my ears. A shiver danced down my spine as the captain of the sloop that saved my life stepped over to me. Lips tilted into a sly smile, Bon stuck out a hand. “Come on.”
“Excuse me?”
Violet eyes sparkling, Bon spoke again. “I say, come on. I have something you need.”
