Not seasickness.
Fear perhaps?
No, I’d known fear. This wasn’t it.
Before I could rationalize it further, he spoke again in his commanding tone.
Turning his full attention back to Sully, he slid his cutlass back into its sheath. The jeweled handle sparkled in the pinprick rays of light that shone through the fog. I exhaled the breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.
“Give her no tasks, eh? For fear she’d do it better than you?”
Sully’s pale face colored. “I’ll thank you not to speak of my fiancée.”
“Your fiancée?” He didn’t look back at me though I continued to stare at him. Something in me wished he would meet my gaze again.
“Yes, my fiancé, you, you—” Sully stammered. “You—you brute!”
A chorus of rum-roughened laughter rang out from everywhere and joined that belonging to the man in the fur hat. There was no denying it, we’d been overrun.
“A brute?” The man in black grinned and clicked his tongue. His tan skin, weathered by salt and sea, cracked into almost friendly planes.
I flickered a smile and tossed my braided hair over my shoulder. Still, he didn’t look at me.
Appearing almost friendly, he spoke again. “I prefer to be called Russian Jack. Not a brute.”
My breath caught in my throat and a rabid murmur escaped Sully’s lips but formed no words. He didn’t have to. Tales of Russian Jack and his sea-faring brutality, not unlike the one’s Sully was telling only moments before, were so prominent along the London streets I’d almost figured him to be a man of fiction than one of flesh and blood.
“I see my reputation has preceded me.”
He showed innocent ships on the high seas no mercy. Russian Jack never left captives alive and he took no prisoners. His ways were ruthless and his soul long since damned. I should be scared.
Why aren’t you shaking, Red?
A flash of movement caught my eye. Sully’s brother Johann!
I tried not to stare as Johann crept up behind Russian Jack, his sword drawn. Just a step or two closer and he would be in the killing zone.
Without warning, the deadliest pirate to sail the Atlantic let out a roar. Spinning on his booted heel, he drew his cutlass. As Johann raised his blade above his head to strike, Russian Jack slashed him across the middle.
I watched as Johann’s eyes widened and his hands flew to his gaping gut. Before he could make a sound, Johann’s body fell with a sick thunk at Russian Jack’s feet.
“By God’s Blood man.” Sully’s voice was a croak as he fumbled with the gold knots of his blade’s handle, which was still securely tucked at his side. “You’ve cut down me brother!”
Finally, Sully freed his sword and brought it aloft. I couldn’t read his eyes, but surely he meant to avenge his brother’s death. Before his blade reached its deadly arc, he hesitated.
Sully was no killer and he knew it. His hesitation proved to be a fatal mistake.
Russian Jack slashed my fiancé through the heart as easily as he would slice a crust of bread from the loaf.
The light, like a flickering candle down to its final moments, faded from Sully’s brown eyes as he turned to me. Ever slow, he sank to his knees. Behind him, Russian Jack flicked Johann’s blade with the tip of his boot. It flew expertly into his outstretched hand.
Sully clutched his sword in one hand and the hem my skirt in the other. His eyes locked onto mine. Pleading. Afraid.
I looked for any sign of apology in his deep brown eyes, any hint of regret for leaving me at the mercy of a notorious killer. I found none. He wasn’t afraid for me. He was simply afraid to die.
I stumbled backward. Sully collapsed on the deck at my feet. His scarlet lifeblood pooled around the russet haired body that would move no more.
Russian Jack studied Johann’s sword briefly before tossing it to a potbellied pirate. A snicker rippled over the lot of them as the short man plucked it from the air like an apple from a tree.
An angry breath slapped my lips in a huff. Without thinking of anything aside from Russian Jack’s lifeblood spilling alongside my fiancé’s, I bent and snatched Sully’s sword from the deck with both hands. I may be just a young slip of a girl in the eyes of a ruthless sea gypsy, but as a London debutante, I had one thing they didn’t. Honor.
The snickering stopped.
Despite the sudden silence, Russian Jack paid me no mind.
I lifted the tip of the blade until it pointed squarely at his back. No need anybody know this is my first time to handle a cutting instrument of any sort.
“Russian Jack.” I was powerless to quell the tremble in my voice or the tremble in my hand. “Today, you’ve breathed your last. Let it be known that woman named Redella Jerningham took your life to avenge the murder of her fiancé.”
Finally, the green-eyed buccaneer cast a hollow glance in my direction. I hoisted the blade in a wide arc above my head. From the corner of my eye, I saw the hairy pirate beside me draw Johann’s blade, but my realization was too late. He thrust it toward my neck with a deadly growl.
Like the striking of a snake, Russian Jack drew his cutlass and deflected the blow that could have easily relieved me of my head. I flinched as someone’s sword met my cheek and opened the skin of my once-flawless face, gifting me with an angry, gaping gash.
My eye twitched, but I didn’t cry out. Blood ran down my face and neck in a sticky ooze, like holy tears from a virgin statue. Fresh rage fueled my hands and brought Sully’s sword down with a whistle.
It missed its mark.
Quicker than my eye could follow, Russian Jack’s blade was held at ready. He nodded at me as though to invite me to tea.
