Rich beyond our wildest dreams.
Command a pirate fleet as the captain’s equal.
These things alone were enough to entice a debutante to piracy. However, it was the smoldering look behind Jack’s piercing eyes that almost made the decision for me. I nodded.
“Is that a yes?”
The old Redella, who nursed her dying mother and allowed herself to be swept along in life, never making decisions, melted away as I wrapped my arms around his neck and knocked his signature fur hat to the deck in the process. “Aye, it’s a yes.”
His bleached blond hair stuck this way and that and gave him the look of a schoolboy who’d skipped his lessons in favor of playing at the beach. The old Redella was gone, the new Red—the fiancée of a pirate captain, was here to stay.
I buried my fingers deep in those thick yellow waves and a smile that made no sense spread my lips wide. “Yes, I’ll marry you, Russian Jack.”
And I meant it.
After Jack and I climbed aboard The Black Otter, I discovered that I wasn’t sad over Sully. A handful of Jack’s pirates were still aboard The Scarlet Rose, which had just become the newest vessel in Russian Jack’s fleet, as evidenced by the fluttering Jolly Roger that was hoisted in place of the English flag. I glanced at the schooner that had hours before been my prison, destined to carry me to a life of inadequacy and misery, and another new feeling churned in my gut. I felt liberated.
It made no sense, but I didn’t care.
“Here here,” Jack called.
The scurrying, stowing, and general movement stilled to a stop until all eyes were on Jack. None had seemed to notice my boarding with him until this moment.
“We plundered a ripe maiden when we boarded The Scarlet Rose,” he announced. “A crate of Spanish coins, freshly minted. And bolts of golden cloth.”
The pirate crew, most of which had stayed aboard The Black Otter, mumbled a collective, knowing mumble.
Jack nodded. “Yes, we know what that means, don’t we men?”
“Aye aye,” a few men grunted.
“What was your final destination, Red? Let me guess—the islands no doubt?”
“He said we were going to get married in Jamaica,” I whispered, my voice muted.
He looked down at me. “Your pig fiancé was trading the golden cloth for men. Women and children, too.”
“You don’t mean—”
“He had business to conduct on the side, Red,” Jack whispered back, so that only I could hear. “Slaves from the islands to bring back to England. In bondage.”
Jack turned and addressed his crew again. “The Scarlet Rose. No doubt the man who captained her was a headhunter.”
My eyebrows knitted together above my eyes. All the doctors in London had dark-skinned servants bustling about their homes, didn’t they? Doing the cooking, minding the cleaning. Answering the door. Scrubbing everything. Dull eyed, never smiling.
A rogue memory leapt to the forefront of my mind. I’d been searching Sully’s home for him as my mother’s breath grew weak. Her final moments were near and he needed to be there by her side. And by mine, if the words of love and devotion he often whispered to me were true.
I’d peeked into his washroom only to discover Sully, naked in a tub. His back to me. A young female servant, younger than me by a mint, poured a bucket of steaming water over him.
“Too hot, witch,” he barked. His arm shot out from the tub and disappeared in her skirts. His muscles tightened as he grabbed her between the legs. Hard.
She yelped in pain as I eased the door shut, unsure of what I’d just seen. A burning bile rose into my throat as her dark, hopeless eyes met mine through the closing crack of the door.
Jack’s booming voice drew me from my unwelcome reverie. “The headhunter also had a most precious jewel aboard.”
Without warning, he hefted me onto his shoulders. My face ached from the slash, but a sudden grin spread my lips wide despite the pain. “Now this jewel is mine!”
A raucous whoop went up from the crew.
“We’ll be married today!”
I laughed. Here I was, amid plunderers and murderers, beneath the infamous Jolly Roger, and I was laughing.
The whoops turned to good-natured jeering as Jack sat me down. Pirates stepped forward, one after the other, to offer good-natured congratulations.
As I watched Jack, everything I thought I knew about life and the world where I lived melted away. His comfortable stance as he stood aboard the rocking ship as though he was made for life at sea, and his wide smile ensured his friends and shipmates stayed at welcome ease. He wouldn’t care if I failed to fold my napkin properly at high tea, he wouldn’t chastise me or raise a hand to me if an unladylike word passed my lips in his presence. In fact, he planned to teach me to be a version of myself I never dreamt of being. That thought alone brought a sizzle to my veins.
However, the longer I watched Jack speak to his crew, the more my eyes traced his masculine frame. From his hard jawline, to his rolling Russian accent, tight-fitting britches, and the way his muscled arms flexed as he moved and spoke, parts of me that had just this morning been content to be used at whim by a blaggard of a man also sparked to life with a foreign want. I fought the urge to wrap my arms about his waist and draw him close. To feel his body enveloped in mine, to have his warmth near again. I licked my lips and swallowed hard.
Never had I figured on coming into a predicament such as this. Polite society certainly hadn’t prepared me for it. However, when I looked up at his smiling, ruggedly handsome face only to be rewarded with an intoxicating wink, I didn’t hesitate any longer. I wrapped my arm around his waist and pulled my body close to his until I could feel his heat through his waistcoat and britches.
Surprised, Jack squelched the conversation he’d been enthralled in with another large man and focused all his attentions on me. “Well now,” he cooed. “What have we here?”
I pushed onto my tiptoes and pressed my lips to his. He didn’t pull away. Instead, his tongue caressed my lips, further stoking the growing flame within me that I was beginning to like.
The crew let out another whoop.
“She be a saucy one, Jack!”
