Page 10 of The Pirate Lord
“It’s a convict ship from England—theChastity. It’s carrying women to Australia. There’s fifty or more from what I could gather, and they might just fancy being rescued, if you know what I mean.”
Glancing down toward the crowded harbor, Gideon rubbed his chin. “Convict women, you say?Englishconvict women?”
“I know what you’re thinkin’, Cap’n,” Silas put in, “but it don’t matter if they’re English. Englishwomen will do as well asany others. The men don’t all hate the English as much as you do, you know.”
When Gideon glowered at him, he added hastily, “And I understand why. But these here women … they ain’t like the kind of English you hate. They’re just poor sods like the rest of our crew, who got handed a raw deal from the first. They’ll suit the men just fine, much better than these uppish island girls who think themselves too good for a bunch of pirates.”
“But we don’t have much time,” Barnaby said, wisely staying out of the discussion about the English. “TheChastitysets sail in the morning. She only put in here tonight for provisions.”
Ignoring Barnaby, Gideon focused on his normally grumpy cook, who had no personal stake in the scheme. Silas disliked women and had sworn never to take up with one. “Do you really think this will satisfy the men?”
“Aye, I do.” Silas said.
Barnaby straightened his cravat with a knowing look. “It’ll certainly satisfyme.”
Gideon hesitated. But he had no choice. This was the best opportunity to come along in the past few months. And a convict ship would be easy to take at sea. Convict ships were never well-armed.
“All right.” When his two closest friends looked relieved, he went on. “Barnaby, find out all you can about the ship—what guns it carries, its dimensions … anything we need to know to take it. And for God’s sake, try to be subtle. Luckily, we’re moored in another harbor, but do what you must to keep theChastity’s crewmen from hearing that a pirate ship’s in port. Keep them drunk, even if you have to pay for their drinks the whole night. We don’t want to spook the prey.”
As Barnaby hurried back toward the docks, he turned to Silas. “Round up the crew. Tell them we sail at first light, and I want them on board tonight.” When Silas bobbed his head andstarted off down the path, Gideon called out, “And make sure they know why, so they don’t curse you for it.”
After they were gone, he gazed down at the harbor to where a ship with a demurely draped female figurehead squatted in the water. TheChastity.It had to be. Though he saw no sign of the women, he imagined they were kept in chains below when they were in port.
TheChastity’screw was scrambling about, obviously eager to finish furling her sails before they went in to Praia to drink and gamble and whore. Good. With any luck, they’d play right into Barnaby’s hands.
He assessed the ship as best he could from the distance. Square-rigged, three-masted … and obviously sitting heavy in the water. He didn’t see many guns from here, and he counted twenty-odd crewmen, far less than the sixty-three men in his company. He couldn’t ask for an easier prize.
He grinned.You’re a beauty, my dear, and carrying a very valuable cargo. It’ll be like plucking grapes off a tree.
He could hardly wait for the morrow.
Petey climbed out on the royal yard to furl the sky sail as he tried to puzzle out Miss Willis. Two weeks had passed since their conversation, and she still insisted he look after the women every night. She’d even convinced the captain to put him on duty there permanently. He’d hoped he could stop once the men realized he meant business, but Miss Willis didn’t trust nobody, that one.
Wiping sweat from his brow, Petey threaded the line through the block and inched back along the royal yard. His lordship had warned him the miss would be troublesome, but she’d held toher part of their bargain. There’d been no more confrontations between her and the sailors, thank God. It almost made up for his sleepless nights watching after the women on the orlop deck.
Actually, it hadn’t been so bad after the first night. Then, the women had been wary of him, and the children had stared through the bars, all goggle-eyed to see a sailor hook his hammock up betwixt the cells. Sailor after sailor had stuck his head in at the hatch, though the captain had commanded them to stay above decks unless they had business below. Once they’d understood that Petey intended to make them follow captain’s orders, they’d stopped trying.
After that night, the women had suffered his presence in silence. Some had even ventured to thank him. Indeed, there was one little lass, a sweet young thing named Ann, who’d offered him some of her supper. Considering that the women made better use of their rations than Cook did, he’d been happy to take a bit.
Of course, the crew resented his interference, but he didn’t care. The earl was paying him three times his pay as a sailor. For that sum he’d fight the lot of them.
Thankfully, he’d only had to trounce one man, and the man had been drunk. Though the others had tried to make his life a misery, what they thought would be misery to him wasn’t. The first mate sent him up to the royal yard often, thinking to punish him. It made sense because of Petey’s small frame, but furling the skysail wasn’t a happy task for most sailors, seeing as how it was so dangerous.
What the first mate didn’t know was Petey liked being up in the rigging, where he could feel the salt wind dust his ears and see the grand ocean spilling out on a fair day like a fortune in sparkling diamonds. Now that they’d left the cold drear of England behind, he was happy to sweat beneath the tropicalsun. Besides, he’d rather do dangerous tasks than dirty ones, like tarring the lines.
Looking down, he spotted the women swabbing the decks. The convict women had been put to work in shifts, though they didn’t seem to mind if it meant being allowed above deck. He glanced at the other men, who watched the women with only a bit of interest. After spending last night in port, the men were still sated enough from whoring not to feel an urgent need for the convict women.
But it wouldn’t last. And strangely enough, two weeks of protecting the convicts had made him regret that soon they would have to suffer the sailors’ advances again.
“Hey, matey,” called the sailor who was posted as lookout in the crow’s nest. “I gotta take a piss. Will you relieve me for a minute?”
Nodding his agreement, Petey replaced the sailor in the crow’s nest. He scanned the horizon with the spyglass, then surveyed Santiago as theChastitycleared the last outcropping of rock. It was a perfect day for sailing. Though theChastitywould reach the calm of the Equator in a day or two, today a playful wind filled her sails, pressing her south along the coast of Africa.
He settled back against the crow’s nest, his thoughts returning to little Ann. Welsh, she was, judging by her speech. And a pretty woman, too, with creamy skin and teeth white as ivory. He wondered what she could’ve done to end up with that crowd of criminals. It didn’t seem right.
Mayhap it was because of lasses like Ann that the earl’s sister risked so much to help the convicts. Miss Willis tormented the captain something sore to improve their conditions and spent every waking moment down in the orlop deck, learning them their letters. Only two weeks out of London, and the women already talked about her as if she were a bloody saint. Perhaps she was.
Picking up the spyglass, he searched their surroundings, taking in the sweep of water and benign clouds with a practiced eye. He’d just made a complete span of the ocean and was scanning the islands they’d left behind when something arrested his gaze. Focusing the spyglass, he drew a sharp breath.
