Page 44 of Escaping Pirates
I owed Tyrone nothing but contempt.
Perhaps I would be able to get away with staying in my dirty and patched servant dress. I didn’t care about offending Tyrone, but I did worry what Harsh would do if he felt I had intentionally insulted his kin. And it wasn’t me who would pay the price; it was Harlan.
The afternoon wore on, and I worked on every task possible to procrastinate getting myself ready. I even found excuses to complete the dirtiest of chores and didn’t bother to wipe the grime from my face and arms. Would Tyrone lose interest if my hygiene was poor enough?
My feeble rebellion was quickly squashed. An hour before dusk, Captain Harsh arrived. After praising his daughters until they glowed with pride, he turned a scathing eye on me. The venomous look he gave me made me wish I had flung myself into the ocean instead of agreeing to act as his daughters’ handmaiden.
He stalked toward me like a cat toward a mouse, and Ifelt just like a powerless mouse cornered by a predator. His fist clenched around my upper arm.
“Let me make myself clear,” he hissed. His shouting had always made me anxious, but this low, venomous tone was far more frightening. “You will get cleaned up and into whatever my brother sent for you, and you will be ready to go with a smile on your face by the time the sun sets, or I’ll let you spend the evening with my crew in the galley, and I assure you that they won’t be as benevolent as Tyrone. You won’t get another warning.”
A fresh surge of fear tightened my chest so that breathing became impossible. Harsh released my arm and backed away, flashing a final warning look as he left the cabin.
With the fresh threat to motivate me, I rushed to get ready. Sugar and Blossom were too pre-occupied with practicing dancing to pay me any mind, so I hurriedly bathed, combed my hair, and squeezed into the tiny dress. There was hardly enough of a bodice to deserve the name. I felt so ashamed that I didn’t even want to look in the mirror. At least I had Harlan’s letter tucked safely away.
“Well, well, it looks as though Scurvyella thinks she’s a princess now,” Blossom said when she finally noticed that I’d gotten ready. “Going to be too good to scrub the floors now?”
Sugar’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t go thinking that this makes you anything other than a servant, Scurvyella.”
I couldn’t help it; I snuck a look at my reflection.
Sugar and Blossom may have considered my outfit flattering and attractive, but I felt nothing but humiliation as I stared at the mirror. The tight crimson dress hugged my curves and cinched my waist to nearly non-existent. I hadn’t realized how emaciated my middle had become, and nomatter how much I tugged it up, the plunging neckline showed enough that I easily could have been mistaken for a barmaid at a seedy tavern.
My cheeks burned so brightly that they matched my dress, and instead of styling my hair into an elegant updo to match Sugar and Blossom’s, I left it down, praying that it would hide as much skin as possible.
Sugar and Blossom strutted out, prancing so that their hips swayed from side to side. Their wide hoops accentuated their backsides even more than normal, a fact that both girls seemed delighted to flaunt.
I dragged my feet as slowly as possible and kept my arms tightly folded across my chest, dreading a night of dancing with the most despicable man I’d ever met. By the time I arrived on the main deck, which had been cleared of the usual barrels and crates, Sugar and Blossom were already cooing over Harlan.
“You look ravishing.” Tyrone’s voice, just as slimy as his hair, oozed over to pool in my ears. I clenched my jaw and stared straight ahead as he picked up a handful of my hair and pressed his lips against it. After a moment of tolerating his behavior, fists stiff and shoulders rigid, I began to pull away, but Tyrone slid his hand across my back to steer me toward the dance floor.
It was obvious that he was staring at me, looking away only briefly to shoot smug smiles at the crew, who chuckled low in their throats and leered at me.
As terrible as I felt being gawked at by Tyrone, I felt a hundred times worse when Harlan saw me. His eyes widened in shock, and he stared for several moments before he quickly stripped off his jacket and held it out to me.
“Here,” he offered, his eyes begging me to take it. “I don’t want you to…to be cold.”
Before I could even stretch out my hand to accept, Tyrone swatted the suit jacket away. “She’s fine,” he snarled. “Stay out of this.”
The sick feeling in my gut intensified, and the urge to simply throw myself into the ocean became overpowering. I couldn’t even meet Harlan’s eyes, and I felt so ashamed that I wanted to curl up and disappear.
“Har-har, come dance with me!” Blossom demanded, tugging on his left hand as the music began.
“No, dance withmefirst, Har-har!” Sugar cooed, walking her fingers up Harlan’s right arm.
Despite my own predicament, I couldn’t help but smile over Tyrone’s shoulder and mouth,Har-har?at Harlan.
My smile didn’t last long. Tyrone held me much too close for comfort and had the disgusting habit of running his cheek along the curve of my neck. Streaks of grease from his oiled mustache left a trail that made me want to scrub my skin with salt for a week to rid myself of the slimy sensation.
Many of the crew were watching as I danced with Tyrone and made no effort to lower their voices as they exchanged crass comments. If he hadn’t been such a repellant man, I might’ve been thankful to use Tyrone as a shield as he held me, but I couldn’t bring myself to be grateful for anything he did.
Each time I spun past the pirates that made up the poor orchestra, I saw Harlan, whose heated gaze never wavered from watching me and intensified with each turn around the dance floor. If he continued much longer, the back of my head would burst into flame.
“Aren’t you glad I saved you the effort of washing those dishes today? After you broke them, you had a great deal more free time,” Tyrone murmured into my ear. “How fortunate.”He pressed his hand against the small of my back, forcing my chest against his.
“You broke them, and you know it,” I hissed, trying to lean away.
“I don’t think so,” he said with a leer. “I remember very clearly thatyoubroke them, and it seems as though you are now in my debt. I paid enough that I think I’m at least entitled to several satisfactory dances with a lovely maiden. How providential that you found a way to repay me.” I lifted my shoulder to block out his loud breathing in my ear, but he was too close to stop.
