Emotion burned in my throat as Jack continued.

“Once I came to see that I answered to nobody, belonged to nobody, and nobody was waiting for me to come home to them. That nobody cared if I ate, bathed, combed my hair, or had fresh clothes—or any clothes at all. . .” Jack shrugged. “The decision almost made itself for me. I had to go find my father—the only other kin that I knew of in this world.”

“So I claimed a dock as my own, down in the roughest part of town. Was no matter, I was a whore’s son and expected to be rough and wild.” Jack sat up and pulled a smoke out of his shirt pocket. I’d never seen him smoke before, not even when other pirates would. I didn’t say a word, and chose instead, to prop up on one elbow and listen to a story that I was sure had never been told before.

Jack struck the flint he produced from his shirt pocket and lit his smoke. He took a long drag with his eyes closed before he continued. “I already knew how to take a beating, and I was learning how to dish them out, too. Not bad for a lad who was not yet a man.”

“I learned all I could from anyone I could watch or from whoever would teach me. Fencing I picked up straight away. I would challenge drunk men to a duel and make it known people should place their bets. I earned quite a hefty sum since nobody ever bet on me.” He exhaled and turned and offered me a wink. “Hell. I wouldn’t have bet on me, either.”

I would have.

“One day a ship came through, a cargo ship of some sort. From the Orient. The men who disembarked spoke of a Russian pirate who boarded their vessel, took their rum, silk, and spices, and left them a mess of gold coins in trade. Of course, the men were to keep the gold for themselves—not pass it on to their masters, who would be sorely disappointed when they discovered they were robbed of their Oriental goods.” Jack flicked the ash of the smoke onto the floor. “That was the first time I saw Spanish gold, when the men went ashore with their pirate loot, much too rich to bother sailing the seas for someone else any longer.”

I cleared my throat. “The Russian pirate, it was your father, wasn’t it.”

“Aye, it was.” He took another long drag before continuing. “I figured it was Providence that a ship looted by my own dear father pulled into my port. Since I was rootless and burning for adventure, with a healthy dose of anger at my father, I sought out the man they hired as the new Captain and informed him that I was his newest hired hand.”

Jack laughed and stood. The sweat on his naked body had dried and I drank in the sight of him. So many scars, so many stories. And so beautiful, all the while. He made his way to the porthole nearest our bed, unlocked the tiny round window, and flicked the butt of his smoke out into the salty sea. “Of course, he thought me nothing but a young fool and called me such. So I swiped his dagger from his hip.”

My eyes widened and I pulled our thin blanket up to my chin. Stories of young Jack were so much more lively than those of young Redella.

“I told him that I could kill him with that dagger if I had a mind to, but killing wasn’t why I needed a job just then. Instead, I’d throw it wherever he pleased. Into an empty barrel, through a ratline square, wherever he pleased. If his dagger made it, then I came aboard. If not, I would leave.”

“Did he take you up on your challenge?”

“This sailor, a man by the name of Vane, was no ordinary Captain.”

Vane. Vane—where have I heard that name before? My eyebrows knitted together as I puzzled over the familiar name.

“He told me where I could stick that dagger, which was most ungentlemanly, and informed me that he would relieve me of my head before I had a place on his ship.”

I sat up and snapped my fingers. “Charles Vane!”

Jack sat back down next to me, his lips turned up in a knowing smile. “Ah, I see you’ve heard of him.”

“His wanted posters, I’ve seen them. They offered a handsome reward—called him an English-born pirate.”

“So you see where this story goes.” His hand came to rest on my knee as he continued. “I informed Mr. Vane that he would not have my head and that I was going to sail with him—with or without his blessing. Do you know what he did?”

“What?”

“He had the audacity to laugh at me. Asked me what kind of business did I have to conduct by way of his new ship. He called it the Lark.”

I let my hand fall over his.

“Since a challenge didn’t work, and threats didn’t work, I decided to try something even more insane.”

I was powerless to stem my curiosity. “What’s that?”

“The truth.” Jack chuckled at the memory. “I told him I was the bastard son of Vladimir Nemirovsky, the Russian pirate who probably looted this rig. My whore mother was dead and it was high time I found Vladimir and called him out. Either make him respect me as a father respects his son—”

“Or?”

“Or kill him. For breaking my mother’s heart.”

I studied the blanket, suddenly shy and at a loss for words. Is it possible to love this man even more?

“Vane took me at my word. He promised to teach me what I needed to know, so that when we met Vladimir on the high seas, not only would my presence be humiliating to him, but I would have the skill to back up my mouth. And he did.”

“Vane was my mentor, and soon became my friend. He helped me perfect my fencing technique, my fighting, and everything else. And any time we passed a ship, I learned on my feet how to relieve a ship of their goods. Much like you are.”

“The day finally came, we spotted Vladimir’s ship once we reached Caribbean waters. We sailed alongside, and they allowed this, thinking we were an English trading vessel, ripe for the plundering. Once we pulled down the English flag and ran up a black flag, they realized this wasn’t the case.”

Suddenly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear more. Jack’s voice was coming quicker and with fire behind his words. No, not fire. Venom. Deadly venom. “Does it bother you to speak of this, Jack?” I shifted on the bed and briefly considered slipping my shirt on. “Because if it’s painful to recall—”

Jack didn’t hear me, or if he did, he didn’t let on. “I boarded first, sword outstretched. The same sword I gifted to you when we married.”

My blood turned icy and I shivered a bit, though there was no reason at all why I should be cold.

“I told them, I am Mikhail Nemirovsky, and I was in search of Vladimir. He appeared, of course. It was like looking in my own eyes, a few men aboard gasped. There was no denying I was his son. I told him, just as Vane and I rehearsed, that I was there to sail the seas and plunder their riches as his son.”

I wanted to reach out to Jack, to hold him as he told this horrible tale. He’d begun to shake a bit, and something in my gut told me to stay put and keep my hands to myself for the time being.

“The lot of them laughed so hard, tears streamed down leathery faces. One pirate, closest to me and wearing a tall, fur cap—”

I glanced about until I set eyes on his iconic headpiece that consumed an entire corner of our cabin.

“Not one to enjoy being laughed at, especially at such a pivotal moment in my young life, I swung my blade and sliced off his ear.”

I was incredulous. “Your father’s?”

“No. The pirate with the tall, fur cap,” Jack smiled. “So not only did they stop laughing at me, but I earned my cap which I still wear to this day.”

“What did your father do?’

Jack’s head drooped a bit. “He said the day he took a whore’s son aboard his ship as anything but a slave would be the day he met his Maker. I told him that could be arranged.”

“We drew our swords, him smiling all the while. I know he was toying with me to gauge my abilities and to see if I was a worthy opponent. He even instructed his crew to stand down, no matter the outcome. Vane and the men who sailed with us stood down, too.”

Someone banged on our door and made me jump. Tommy’s voice rang out from the other side as my heart thumped in my chest. “Are ye alive in there, Cap? Ye and th’ missus?”

“Yes, Tommy. We’ll be up in a moment.” Jack stood and plucked a fresh shirt from the chest of drawers in the corner. He slapped his arms into the sleeves and began buttoning furiously. “Our duel ranged all over. From helm to helm, bow to stern and back again. On top of boxes, through the rigging. I was ready. I was young and full of fire. His smug smile melted from his face the longer we dueled, and he began to tire. The longer we dueled, the angrier I became. Every smack of every john who bought my mother spurred me on, every time I heard her cry when she thought I wasn’t listening, or cry his name in her sleep.”

Jack’s fingers shook as he spoke. “I thought I had him. I flipped his blade from his hand and fed it to the waves below and held my own steel to his neck. I looked into his face, up close, and forgave him for almost two decades of hurt and abandonment. So I lowered my blade, having won the fight, and turned to walk off his ship and leave him be, safe in the knowledge that his bastard son could have relieved him of his head. As I walked toward Vane, I saw something flicker in my mentor’s eye, and realized that in that instant I forgot the first rule of being a sea gypsy.”

“Never trust a rival pirate,” we said in tandem.

No wonder that’s the first rule of the sea you made me memorize.