Page 9 of Escaping Pirates
I licked my dry lips, dipped the quill’s point into the inkpot, and began, hoping against hope that the captain of Father’s guard would understand.
I scanned the note. Darren was clever enough to pick up on the coded message, and his wife certainly wouldn’t mind the ruse if it meant my safe return. Was Captain Harsh shrewd enough to pick up on the message as well? He hadn’t believed my handmaiden story for a minute and had seen through my ploy to get my crew wooden crates before they drowned.
“Finished,” I said, blowing on the ink to help it dry, then scrawling the address on a different slip of paper. If the captain tried to launch an attack onthe address I’d put down, he’d find himself at a guardhouse. The worst-case scenario would be that it never got sent, which would simply leave me in my current situation. It could only help, right?
My heart pounded so hard against my ribs that I was surprised it couldn’t be heard over the rolling waves and tramping of the crew’s boots on the deck overhead.
Harsh’s eyes darted from side to side several times as he scanned my note then looked at the address I’d written down.
“Who’s Olga?”
“My dog.”
“And you don’t want to alert your fiancé to your position and beg for rescue?” he asked, a highly unpleasant gleam in his eye.
I raised and lowered one shoulder. “You wouldn’t deliver it if I wrote anything of that nature. I merely want to let him know I’m alive and thinking of him. He may have already heard the ship never arrived at port.”
“You’re right.” He drummed his yellowed nails on his desk. “How interesting that you would write to your fiancé rather than your family.”
“Why is that surprising? I love him.”
“Then where’s your engagement ring?”
My mouth grew unnaturally dry. “He couldn’t afford one yet. He’s saving up.”
“How very romantic.” The smirk on his face unsettled me far more than any shouting would have. “Young love really is something to be cherished.”
It was as though thousands of needles were being pressed against my arms and legs. He knew. He must know. But what was I supposed to do?
For the rest of the morning, I couldn’t prevent myselffrom throwing nervous looks at the captain’s quarters anytime I was in the vicinity. Captain Harsh gave no indication that he was displeased with me; had I succeeded? With each passing hour, my nervousness faded and my confidence grew. I was going to be free. Within the hour after the midday meal, a smudge grew on the horizon that broke up the perpetual blue.
Land.
While Sugar and Blossom talked eagerly about what their father would bring them, I was searching my past memories, thinking of every name I could that was even remotely connected to Ebora. Haven Harbor’s crown prince had gotten engaged to a woman from Ebora the previous year, but I’d never met her, or the prince, for that matter. Father used to have some contacts in Ebora, but most had abandoned the land when the government was overthrown.
I didn’t carewhohelped me. As soon as I could, I would be off the ship and screaming for rescue. Even if the government was corrupt, the citizens wouldn’t stand to see an innocent girl being dragged back to a pirate ship. Someone would intervene, and just about anywhere had to be better than here.
Sugar and Blossom droned on and on, and though my eyelids grew heavy, I couldn’t sleep. How long until we came into port? We had to be getting close. If only Sugar and Blossom’s room faced the direction we were heading.
In the middle of tea time, Steele came for me. “The captain wants to see you.”
I instantly snapped up, nerves on edge as I followed him to the captain’s quarters.
“Sit,” Harsh ordered the moment I stepped over the threshold, pointing me into a chair. I lowered myselfgingerly. The captain’s quarters had a wide window that showed…land.
It was still at least a mile away, too far to swim but tantalizingly close. I would be able to find a way back home very, very soon.
Harsh waited until his crewman had shut the door before he fluttered the list I’d made for Sugar and Blossom the day before, an unreadable expression on his face. “You didn’t make a single spelling or grammatical error on the list you wrote for my daughters,” Captain Harsh said, carefully replacing the list on his desk. “And I nearly believed your letter, but something didn’t sit right, so I looked at it again.”
He slapped the letter back down, and my heart sank like a ship during a storm. He had bolded each of my capital letters.
My coded message ofHELD HOSTAGE BY PIRATEShad been written at the bottom in the captain’s own handwriting. I braced myself for the blow.
“Very clever. Very clever indeed,” he crooned, adjusting the paper’s position on his desk. “Now, what to do about it?”
I had been wrong. The worst case scenariowasn’t the letter not getting sent; it was my attempt being found out, and it was the worst case scenario now.
“I’m beginning to think that you don’t appreciate my hospitability,” he said with a leer. “So eager to leave. Am I not an adequate host?”
