Jack was beside me in an instant. “Darling, what is it?”

I coughed and wiped my hand across my mouth. “No more rum. Ever.”

“Cap? Cap!” Solo’s voice was frantic, very atypical for the most level-headed pirate on board. “Oh Cap. We’ve got trouble.”

“You’re telling me,” Jack grumbled. “What is it, Solo?”

Solo huffed, as though he’d been running all about deck to find Jack. “It’s Tommy. He’s gone.”

“Gone where? On shore?”

“No. He was very drunk. He took The Revenge.”

“He what?!”

Solo’s voice went higher pitched the longer he talked. “He was talking about his father, and wanting him to be proud of him. So he got it in his fool head to sail to Madagascar.” Solo paused. “To kill his half-brother, Prince Ratsimilaho.”

Chapter Thirteen

Swansea, Wales

The balcony door flung open and smacked against the wall of the church. Charles hovered in the doorway. He looked as though he didn’t know whether to run or vomit. Or both. Instead, he spoke. “Might I inquire as to the state of our matrimony, Drucilla?”

Jack looked down at me with a bemused expression. “Drucilla? Did I manage to crash the wrong wedding?”

I ignored Jack. “Charles—” My hands wringed on their own. “I must apologize. I wasn’t quite honest when I told you my name was Drucilla.”

“Drucilla,” Jack scoffed.

“Drucilla,” I began as I glared at the tall, blonde pirate, “was my late mother’s name. She could have been a Saint. She died of a cancer instead.”

Jack’s face softened and the jovial smile melted into a look of concern. “I’m sorry, Red.”

“Who’s Red?” Charles’ confused old face made my heart pang. The Welsh copper baron had been nothing but kind to me, while I had told him nothing but lies. Flutters of guilt filled my gut.

I sucked in a breath. “Charles, my name is Redella. My late mother was Drucilla. After a pirate by the name of China Joe overran our ship and pushed me overboard, everyone, including my husband Russian Jack—” I nodded to Jacky, who touched the edge of his fur hat in smug greeting. “Well, they thought me dead. When I made my way back to Jack, and to our ship, instead of calling me Red, they began calling me Back from the Dead Red.”

Charles’ face paled. “I’ve heard of Back from the Dead Red. Heard that she was—is—a murderess.” He stuck his finger in his collar and tried to swallow, but choked. “With quite a handsome reward on her head,” he managed.

“Rumors travel quickly, Charles,” I began. “That is why I couldn’t tell you my real name.”

Charles coughed. It seemed he couldn’t draw in a proper breath. He dug his gnarled old finger into the collar of his shirt.

“Excuse me,” Russian Jack began. “Charles, is it? We weren’t quite through here. Perhaps you can let yourself back inside for now.”

Still choking, Charles did as he was instructed.

Jack looked very satisfied with himself. “Now my dear, where were we in our reminiscing? Somewhere on the high seas, I believe?”

•

“Solo and Dark Water—go on shore and procure what supplies you can as quickly as you can. “Get as much ginger root as you can find. Maybe off one of our ships that caroused in the Oriental waters.”

I watched Jack bark orders from my spot on the deck. Crammed between two barrels of ale, I was hidden and supported at the same time, with an easy shot over the railing for my still-churning stomach.

“Hurry men! Off with the old and on with the new. We have to catch Tommy.” He reached out and grabbed the spineless Charles Swan by the stained canvas shirt. “Did you see him last night?”

Charles’ head whipped back and his thin moustache looked somehow sweaty. It was as though he couldn’t pull a thought out of his head without Dark Water William to exchange glances with first. “Yes Cap.”

Jack tightened his fists and pulled the shrimpy pirate closer. “And?”

Charles glanced around. I knew he was looking for Dark Water. His eyes fell upon me and he pulled his thin lip up in a scowl before turning his attention back to Jack. “I think he took Poison Lightning with him when he left, Cap. That woman dueling with Nikolai got him all upset. Especially when she started talking about his father.”

I opened my mouth to dispute him, to tell Jack I’d only been attempting to compliment simple Tommy, but instead I leaned over the rail and relieved my stomach again.

A wry smirk twisted Charles mousey lips into a grotesque excuse for a smile. “Yeah,” he continued, “after Red starting chiding him about his father, Tommy went on shore. I thought he was going to kill someone, or kill himself. As you know, Cap, the crew of The Revenge went into town—with you—and Tommy saw his chance.”

Jack went into town without me? I pulled rogue stories from deep recesses of my mind together. Pirate captains go into to drink—and whore.

By now, Charles was fully animated. “Yeah, and then he jumped on board and said, ‘I’m going to Madagascar and I’m going to kill that sorry brother of mine, Prince of the Rats’.”

Jack gave Charles a sharp shake. “Nobody was with him? He was all alone, without provisions?”

Charles shrugged, unfazed. “Like I said, The Poison Lightning was with him.”

A deep cough squelched the one-sided conversation. The Poison Lightning stood beside Jack, a look of thunder on his face. “Poison Lightning never go nowheres that Captain not know. Charles Swan is a liar. Black liar.”

Everyone’s eyes widened. To my knowledge Jack, along with everyone else aboard The Black Otter, assumed that Poison Lightning simply couldn’t speak. But talk he did, and with a low, grumbling voice.

“Tommy go because Charles tell Tommy to go. Dark Water help Charles. Tommy set up to die.” Something flashed in Poison Lightning’s eyes, an emotion I thought foreign to him. Hate. “Bad men, Charles Swan and Dark Water.”

Jack’s eyes blackened. He’d told me before that The Poison Lightning was a seer who could tell the future and something that he was seeing now was enough to get him mad enough to talk.

“Charles, go below decks. Make sure we’ve enough fresh water for the trip to Madagascar.”

Charles slunk off like a whipped pup, all the while throwing pouty, doe-eyed glances over his shoulder. I studied the pirate who preferred to stay in the shadows if his cohort, Dark Water William, wasn’t around.

Never accused of being friendly, Charles was distinctly cold. Not just to me, but to anyone except Dark Water and Jack. Though, everyone knew where his loyalties lay.

From the moment I came aboard The Black Otter, Charles struck me as a feminine man. His face was feminine, his look was feminine, even how he carried himself, not to mention his doe-eyed glances that seemed to beg something, compassion perhaps, from whomever they were aimed toward. Because of that and his attachment to Dark Water, who was muscular and burly with a hard stare, I wasn’t at all shocked the night when I witnessed for myself Charles and Dark Water, who were much more to one another than simple crewmates.

Solo had been teaching me to climb the ratlines. The moon was long risen and the sun long set as Jack sailed by starlight. Solo had finished instructing me for the day and assigned me the task of climbing the ratlines, from the deck to the crow’s nest on the tallest mast, ten times before I could retire for the night. Climbing will toughen up your hands, he promised. It was on my seventh trip up the ratlines that I spotted them, Charles and Dark Water, locked in a lover’s embrace, hidden away behind a stack of crates and barrels. A place where they thought they could express their feelings for each other without being seen. Only they were seen. By me.

The Poison Lightning stood, unmoving, before Jack. “Bad men, Charles. Dark Water. Loyal to each other. Not Jack. Not Red. Bad.”

Jack nodded. “You know I trust your sense in these matters. But we have to sail to Madagascar to intercept Tommy, who has quite a lead on us. And if he means to kill their prince, we will need all the manpower we can get—Charles and Dark Water included.”

Poison Lightning nodded.