Page 7 of The Pirate Lord
Ann looked up, a wide, ingenuous smile on her face. “’Tis a magic trick, Miss Willis. Queenie showed it to me yesterday. You can take a body’s things off him without him even noticin’.” She turned to the boy. “Hand it back, Robbie. You can’t keep it. That would be stealin’.”
Suppressing an irritated sigh, Sara shot a stern glance beyond Ann to Queenie, who suddenly became engrossed with organizing her cloth scraps, mumbling all the while about “naive country girls.”
As Sara returned her attention to Ann, she softened her tone. “Yes, well, I suggest you avoid such ‘magic tricks’ from now on. They’re liable to get your sentence lengthened.”
When Ann merely gazed at her questioningly, Sara shook her head. She had her work cut out for her, trying to keep the incorrigibles from corrupting the innocents. Some of thesewomen could become contributing members of society. It just wouldn’t happen in a day.
Night had fallen by the time Sara ended her first day with the women. Though lessons had long been over, she’d lingered below decks, trying to learn as much as she could about the convicts. They’d hesitated to tell her much at first, but after some coaxing she’d gleaned a few tidbits about them and their children.
There was Gwen Price, a Welshwoman like Ann, except that she spoke so little English Ann had to interpret for her. There was squirrelly Betty Slops, who seemed a slave to her wretched surname, for she constantly sported the remains of her last meal on her coarse cotton gown. And there was Molly Baker, who’d been convicted of selling stolen goods and was pregnant with her second child. Her first child, Jane, was the son of her husband, but the baby had been conceived in Newgate after she’d been “seduced” by a guard.
More like rape, it was. And it infuriated Sara to think that the very same system that had gotten Molly with child had punished her for something that wasn’t her fault by following through with the sentence of transportation despite her advanced pregnancy.
Sara had tried to spend a few moments with them all. By the time the women were locked in for the night and she’d climbed the steep steps from the hold to the ‘tween decks, her head ached and her muscles were sore. She’d left the prisoners only twice to take her meals in the galley, and now all she wanted was to climb into her berth and sleep.
Then she opened the hatch to find a sailor standing beside it in the cramped ‘tween decks. Bother it all. It was the same sailor who’d sought to go down to the women the night before, and he looked as surprised to see her coming up as she was to see him standing there.
Taking advantage of his surprise, she clambered up quickly and closed the hatch behind her. “Good evening,” she said in her sternest voice. He was alone, of course. The ‘tween decks were used as storage. Seldom did anyone come down in them, which meant he was probably there for the wrong reasons.
Feeling a tremor of uneasiness, she sought to hide it by glowering at the sailor. “What are you doing down here?”
The sailor was of the most unsavory sort. His beard was unkempt and he stank of stale sea water and grog. Too much grog. “Look here, missy, Queenie’s expectin’ me, so don’t you be interferin’.”
The thought of this man having relations with a woman in front of everyone in the prison appalled her. Donning her most severe expression, she crossed her arms over her chest. “Surely you realize I can’t allow you to expose young children to such debauchery.”
He scowled. “Nay. I’ll be bringin’ her up here with me, I will.” He dangled a ring of keys in front of her. “I’m sure the lass and I c’n find a private spot to do our business, not that ’tis any of yer concern.”
She stared at the ring of keys. “Who gave you those?”
“The first mate. Tole us men that as long as we don’t bother nobody, he don’t care wot we do with the women.”
The very idea! She would certainly recordthatin her journal. Quickly, she stepped on the hatch, blocking his way to it. “I’m afraid I can’t allow you to go down there.”
“You ain’t got any say in it, missy.” He stepped closer and grinned, exposing a gap in his rotting teeth. “You best be gittin’out of me way, before I change me mind about who it is I’m wantin’.”
She colored. The audacity of the man! Oh, she would speak to the captain about him at once! Surely the man wouldn’t countenance such overtures made to a respectable woman!
“I’m not moving until you vacate this deck,” she retorted. “Leave now or I shall tell the captain what you’ve been up to!”
An ugly frown beetled his low brow. He set down the candle he’d been carrying, then clasped her arms with two hammy fists and lifted her off the hatch. “You ain’t tellin’ nobody nothin’. I’ll say you lied and the first mate’ll back me.” He dropped her behind the hatch like a sack of meal, then bent to open it.
She refused to give up, especially with Ann Morris’s mournful words about forced whoredom still ringing in her ears. After regaining her balance on the rolling deck, Sara shoved the hatch door closed again with her foot. This time the wretched sailor drew back his hand as if to slap her.
But a voice from the steps behind him arrested him. “Lay a hand on her, matey, and you’ll see stars, you will!”
Both Sara and the sailor faced the steps in shock. They hadn’t noticed the man who’d climbed down from the top deck and was now rounding the steps, his flattened hands held in front of him like knives.
Sara groaned. It was the monkeyish sailor who’d spoken to her on deck this morning. Wonderful. Now she had two oafs to deal with.
“This ain’t none of y’r business, Petey,” the sailor with the rotting teeth spat. “Go back up where ye came from, and leave me and the miss to settle our tiff.”
The man named Petey drew circles in the air with the edges of his hands. “Get away from her or I’ll lay you out.”
“Lay me out? A scrawny thing like you?” The sailor shook his fist in the air. “Get on with you, and leave me and the chit be.”
What happened next came so quickly, Sara could scarcely believe it. One minute the two men were facing each other. The next minute the sailor who’d accosted her was flat on his back unconscious, and Petey was standing over him, locked in a strange stance.
When Petey lifted his gaze to Sara, she whispered, “Good heavens, what did you do to him?”
