“Watch that one,” Captain Hall had muttered as he returned to the Challenger to continue their hunt. “Both eyes open, Nick. He’ll make as if to cut your throat from the front as another knife slices clean through your back. You won’t see his hands move.”
“A charming image.” Nicholas laughed, but the older man was grave.
“I know his type. More wind than a tempest, and more pride than Lucifer himself.”
Nicholas wished he could have convinced the captain to stay. But Hall, floating on the wave of victory, was already eager for another prize—and, no doubt, to have Nicholas make a quick journey of it back to New London.
Captain Hall had clasped his shoulder and pounded his back, light eyes sparkling as the sunset turned the sky a warm rose. “I know you’re ready for this and more. Finish your business with the family and meet us back in port.”
A pure thrill moved from his scalp down his spine, warming him to the core. I am ready. He wanted his own command the way the dying wanted their next breath; it was just a matter, as always, of money. Of outrunning the ghost in his past that seemed to haunt him at every turn.
Nick! Help me, help me—!
He breathed in deeply through his nose, his fingers twisting in the tablecloth as if caught in a memory of their own.
The past was past. Now he needed to see the young ladies safely delivered into the hands of Cyrus Ironwood, and escape whole and preferably unscathed.
By the time he was finished with that task, finished with that family for once and all, Chase and the others would already have the Ardent in the hands of the Lowes’ agent, who’d then bring her and her cargo to the prize courts for a ruling.
A crucial part of that process was the testimony of the ranking officer of the captured vessel. He couldn’t stab his fork into Wren’s eye—well, he supposed he could. The man only needed his mouth to serve as witness to the courts that the vessel had been fairly won. Did every nicety need to be observed?
His stomach soured again as Miss Spencer gave a pretty little gasp of dismay. Wren, brave Mr. Wren, consoled her by saying, “Do not fret, my dear. I have stitched up more than one wound myself. This was, however, the first time I had ever seen my own entrails.”
Nicholas scoffed. If a man could see his own entrails, he could also see the hand of God swooping down to take him to his eternal reward. There was no living with a wound like that. He had seen enough proof to drive that fact home, even if his guest had not.
Guest. A dark, humorless laugh welled up inside him. Hostage, really, but why use the true term when you could be polite? If there was one thing Nicholas loathed more than almost anything else, it was this. Behaving, even to an enemy, with hollow civility and false flatteries. He preferred to be direct in his dislike, and if that did not make him a gentleman from society’s mold—well, then so be it.
“—the ship was tossed onto the reef by the swells…there was simply nothing we could do other than hold on to her as she was wrecked. Those of us that survived, who made it to the sandbank, crawled ashore. We lived as savages for a week, foraging for food, hunting wild boar, creating shelters from palm leaves and whatever dry wood we could find, searching day and night for water. There was only a single knife between us—a blessing, I think, for we were so out of our minds, we might have killed each other in murderous rage had there been more.”
“A cryin’ pity that would have been,” Chase grumbled, jabbing his spoon into the stew. Nicholas cleared his throat.
Chase’s green eyes slid over to meet his, and he raised his glass. The prize crew was, by Hall’s design, filled with sailors who had known Nicholas for years. Davy Chase had known him the longest.
He and Chase had been brought aboard Captain Hall’s old ship, the Lady Anne, to serve as cabin boys—just weeks before the Lady Anne was torn apart at the seams by a squall. Both they and the captain had been pressed into temporary service in His Majesty’s Navy by the very same ship that rescued them from the waves.
Wren told his story in hushed tones, his voice rising and falling with each imagined danger. Having survived his own ordeal at age eleven, living through two days and nights of starvation, thirst, and fear of death from exposure in the rough winter waters, Nicholas found himself growing steadily more impatient. Hall had kept him and Chase alert and distracted by relating stories about his travels as a young man in the West Indies—his favorite dock doxies; a past storm when the water, the masts, the deck, had been lit by strange blue flame; the small hoard of old Spanish bullion he’d all but tripped over, running from the British Regulars through Tortola.
The experience wasn’t something Nicholas spoke of now. It wasn’t something he enjoyed thinking about. His lips had cracked and bled, burning at all hours from the salt water, and there were times even now when he imagined he could still feel the splinters beneath his nails from the section of the bulwark he had clung to. His vision had gone dark at the start of the third day, and panic had choked him, until Captain Hall had swum to his side and held him afloat by force. The rescue had only been the beginning of another nightmare.
Something ugly in Nicholas stirred when the first mate put an all-too-forward hand on Etta’s bare wrist. Something made him want to promptly remove the whole arm from the man’s body.
She is a job.
She is a means to an end.
But she was also not Wren’s.
“Mr. Wren,” he interrupted. The resulting silence cracked over the cabin like a whip. “Perhaps you’d be so good as to clarify one point in your story?”
The other man’s face twisted into a smirk. “Of course. What troubles you?”
Wren’s first mistake had been to assume that those around him had never sailed through the Virgin Islands.
“You mentioned that the island where you ran aground was about two leagues from Tortola, did you not? Just northeast of Peter Island?”
Chase’s chair creaked as he shifted his weight.
Wren’s own smile slipped for a moment, but he said, “Yes, I believe I did.”
“I thought, surely, that you must be referring to Dead Chest Island,” Nicholas began, wondering if he looked half as diabolical as he felt.
“I am,” Wren said, a slight flush creeping over his face. “I wasn’t aware you were familiar with it.”
That much was obvious.
“I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a sailor who hasn’t heard of it, sir,” Nicholas said. “That is the island where Blackbeard set his fifteen sailors ashore with only cutlasses and a bottle of rum between them in retaliation for their mutiny, correct?”
“That is correct,” Chase confirmed happily. “They tried swimming to Peter Island, but drowned. That’s why they call that stretch of sand ‘Deadman’s Beach,’ of course, owing to the bodies that washed ashore.”
Etta leaned forward, unexpected interest sparking in her eyes at this delightfully gruesome detail. “Really?”
“Truly. But that’s the trouble, you see,” Nicholas said, turning back to Wren, whose smile seemed frozen. “Having seen Dead Chest myself, I’m afraid it doesn’t match your description. It’s an outcropping of rocks, with no fresh water, no vegetation, and certainly no wild boars for you to hunt.”
His spoon scraped against the bottom of his bowl. When he dared to look up again, Etta was watching him, biting her bottom lip. Her eyes sparkled with laughter, and he felt a small bundle of warmth tuck away inside of his chest in response.
Wren busied himself with the task of refilling both his and Etta’s glasses with claret. Perhaps it was the awkwardness, or the fact that Wren seemed to be steaming enough to curl a wig, but Etta drank the dark wine in a single gulp, and sang, in a charmingly tipsy way, “Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest! Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!”
Nicholas blinked. Silverware clinked as it was set down on plates. Chairs creaked as the men around her shifted, turning toward her. Etta blanched, looking down at her lap, as if her skirt would offer up some kind of excu
se.
“Where did you hear such an extraordinary song?” Wren asked.
The question instantly sobered her, dousing the flush of laughter from her cheeks. She sat up as straight as a mainmast in her seat, pushing her wineglass away, and steeled her expression to try to hide the flash of regret and panic he saw in her eyes. Nicholas wished she would look up, to see how easily mended this was. If Sophia was not here to mop up her spills, he would gladly take on the challenge.
“Perhaps from Captain Hall? He has a charming repertoire of songs,” he suggested.
Chase gave him a narrow look. “That’s not one I’ve heard before. Is there more to it?”
“It was in a book I read with my mother,” she said vaguely. “We used to read adventure stories before bed. I don’t remember the rest. Excuse me for being, ah, so rude.”
“Rude? Nonsense. What a delightful voice you have!” Wren said. “Do you have any other musical ability, Miss Spencer? Perhaps you’ll treat us to a song later on?”
Grateful for that shift in subject, aren’t you, weasel? Nicholas thought.
“I—no, well—” She looked to the ceiling for rescue, more panicked than before. “I play the violin.”
“The violin? That’s most irregular,” Wren said. “I suppose I’m out of touch with the training you ladies receive. Are there many instruments of quality in the West Indies?”
Etta straightened and repeated, “The West Indies?”
A horrible suspicion snaked through Nicholas’s mind. Was there a possibility that she didn’t know the location of whatever passage she had come through? But then, wouldn’t that mean…
She’s not here of her own free will.
Anger flashed through him at the thought, and he brought one boot down against the rug, as if to stomp it out.
It does not matter. Your concern is bringing her to the old man.
But he knew the feeling of being caught in the Ironwoods’ net. He knew it very well indeed.
“Ah! If I remember correctly, there’s a violin somewhere around here.…” Goode said, glancing around the cabin. Aside from the shelves of warped book spines, a sturdy desk, and the berth for sleeping, there wasn’t all that much to observe.
“Perhaps Nicholas will be so good as to search for it, so that we might hear you play tomorrow?” Wren said.
“Mister Carter,” Chase bit out.
“Curse my clumsy tongue,” Wren said, raising a glass in a mocking salute.
Nicholas raised his own. “Thankfully, you have a sparkling imagination to make up for it.”
His lips tight, Wren returned his attention to Etta, who was toying with a spoon. “I must say, I’m highly affronted that the captain kept such lovely young ladies from us. Though I suppose I can see why he would want to shield the crew from such radiant beauty.”
Nicholas choked on his next sip of claret. Etta flushed from her cheeks down to the slope of—He returned his eyes back to his plate, gripping his knees beneath the table.
“I meant to ask about that very thing,” Chase said to her. “The others only knew there were passengers because these two gentlemen were moved to the bosun’s and carpenter’s cabins in the bow. They were as startled as the Challenger’s crew to see you.”
“My sister, as you know,” Etta said carefully, “is not well. We were confined to the cabin because of that.”
“Why did you not ask for the surgeon? Both Mr. Farthing and I would have been glad to have been of assistance,” Goode said.
Nicholas registered the girl’s expression. Her silence was telling.
“Likely because a surgeon would try to fix with a saw what water and broth could easily soothe,” he said.
“I resent that implication, sir. There have been advances in medicine, and having studied—”
“I can hardly credit the two of you as sisters,” Chase said, pushing the hair off his forehead. “You’re so markedly different in appearance and accent.”
Nicholas kicked his foot beneath the table. A drunken Chase was a blunt Chase.
“That observation is hardly polite,” Wren said coolly.
“I only meant to ask if they’ve different mothers, is all,” Chase groused. “My apologies, Miss Spencer, if offense was taken.”
“That’s all right,” Etta said weakly.
“And the late captain was your uncle?”
Where the devil are you going with this? Nicholas thought, studying his old friend.
“He was indeed, Mr. Chase,” Mr. Goode said, venturing into the conversation again with a disapproving look. “Related to Miss Sophia’s mother, their father’s first wife. Correct me if I misunderstood his story, Miss Spencer, but I take it to understand your father and his second wife, your mother, had a fine plantation on Nassau before they lately passed away. Miss Sophia was bringing her sister back with her to England.”
“Yes,” Etta said quickly. “That’s exactly right.”
This was beyond belief. Ironwood had actually seen to it that an elaborate history was created to explain the differences between the girls. If he had to guess, the old man had bribed the captain to pose as their uncle, so they would have an escort and protection on this journey, as the rules of the era dictated.
“It’s regrettable,” Wren interrupted to regain Etta’s attention, “that your voyage was so rudely interrupted. Will you be able to get word to the family waiting for you in England that you were forced to alter your destination? My God, what if they think you’ve been lost at sea? Imagine their devastation.”
He was looking at Etta, but clearly speaking to Nicholas.
“Rest assured, sir,” Nicholas said with a patience he did not know he possessed, “they will be able to write to their family once we are in port. They will be well cared for until we can find them safe passage home. There’s bound to be a Royal Navy ship or a British Army encampment near enough to Connecticut willing to assist them.”
“Ah, yes. I long to hear how this little skirmish is shaping up. How long before Washington surrenders? Let’s place our bets, gentlemen.” Wren’s fingers drummed against the table. “Perhaps another month? I’ve heard Howe has his eyes set on New York. That would be a terrible blow to your army’s efforts, would it not? The loss of such a vital port and city?”
“They certainly aren’t my efforts,” Nicholas said, an uneasiness creeping up on him. “I have no investment in this war beyond what ships it brings to the water that we can capture.”
“Really?” Etta asked. “But I thought this crew was American?”
“Well, Americans were Englishmen until a few months ago,” Chase said. “Some on our crew still consider themselves to be. But the Challenger sails under a Letter of Marque from the Continental Congress, and we’re authorized to prey only on British ships, so I suppose that seals our allegiance.”
“A lot of good those papers will do for you if you come across the Royal Navy,” Wren said. “Traitors are worse than murderers in the eyes of the king. A length of rope will be your reward.”
“Please, sir,” Chase begged, holding up a hand. “I’ve enough of a headache without a bloody recitation of ‘Rule, Britannia.’”
Wren’s look was withering. “I only meant, Mister Carter, it strikes me as odd you wouldn’t want to join your Congress’s fledgling navy. Surely there’s some fortune to be found in legitimacy over piracy? Perhaps some…honor?”
Chase snorted. “A fraction of what we’ll take on board a privateer. And rest assured, this is a legal endeavor—much to your own misfortune.”
Nicholas raised his own glass, but recognized the glint in Wren’s eyes. The name belied his true nature—this was an osprey across from him, one that was wheeling in circles, waiting to dive.
“I don’t understand,” Etta said, looking uneasily around the table. “Why is it odd? It’s his choice to stay out of the American navy, isn’t it?”
It was the opening the other man had been hoping for.
“Why, on his brethren’s behalf,
” Wren said, his smile all teeth. “Surely all this commotion about freedom and liberty has stirred some memories of the chains of his past. Though I’ve also heard that, unlike the British, there have been no offers of freedom in exchange for military service for the slaves of the colonies.”
Hall had told him once that if Nicholas allowed his dislike of every man who insulted him to sharpen into hatred, he’d only end up cutting himself. But truly, did Wren think pointing out the obvious would somehow discredit Nicholas in the eyes of the others? That it would undermine his authority?
You may have this, Wren was saying, this moment, this ship, but you’ll never be anything other than what men like me decide you are.
Never. Never again would he allow any other man to define him, set his course.
Chase shot to his feet so fast that his chair toppled backwards. His blood rushed the other way, straight to his face. “Sir, I’d call you out if—”
Nicholas put a hand on his friend’s shoulder, stood to retrieve his chair, and promptly guided him back into it. “Remember that there’s a lady present, my friend.”
The very same one who looked perfectly horrified. What a wonderful meal this was turning out to be. And to think, there’d likely be about ten other variations of it as they sailed north toward New York.
Nicholas refilled his friend’s glass with more claret, hoping it would settle his temper instead of stoking it.
“Are you speaking of Dunmore’s Proclamation in Virginia last year?” he said, ignoring Wren’s smug expression. “In which slaves of rebels would earn their freedom by escaping and fighting for the British army? The Continental Congress has, in fact, encouraged the Virginians to dispute the ruling, and they have since driven the governor out. I can’t credit your implication that all slaves will be free at the end of this exercise, either. The king is well aware of how much the colonies rely on enslaved labor to produce the goods he enjoys. He means only to punish his wayward children by taking away their tools. Empty their pockets for a time. Nothing is likely to change.”
Wren turned his glass on the table. Nicholas met the man’s eyes, trying to keep the loathing from his own.