Page 24 of Maggie and the Pirate’s Son

“Captain?” Bash glanced at Maggie, expecting her face to have drained of color, but she was simply staring up at the tops, half biting her bottom lip like she was assessing the challenge.

“We each must pull our weight, must we not?” Mad asked, conveniently ignoring Maggie’s work repairing the sails.

There was no clean way to argue without Bash showing unwarranted favoritism.

He sidled up to Maggie. “The ropes are all a mess,” he explained. “See up at the top there?” he asked, standing a little too close to her, close enough to smell her hair, to catch the faintest notes of rosewater beneath the brine.

She smiled. “Like the tangled-up ribbons of a lady’s stays,” she muttered.

Bash cleared his throat. If she kept talking like that, their secret would be out in no time. She must have realized it too, for her posture stiffened. “How are they to be untangled, sir?” she asked more loudly.

“Very carefully. Do you know how to climb?”

“Like breathing, isn’t it? You just do it?”

A soft laugh escaped before Bash thought to hide it, and she turned with questions in her luminous lapis eyes.

“Hold on to the shrouds,” he said, pointing to the angled vertical ropes, “and step on the rat lines. One foot at a time. The wind is stronger than you think.”

Completely unperturbed, the girl grabbed hold of the nearest rope and tested her weight on the first rung, then began to climb with an unsuppressed joy that caught Bash by surprise.

“Slow down,” he called after her, and she cast an annoyed look over her shoulder at him. She was only about ten feet off the ground, but when she did it, her fists clenched tighter around the rigging, and she tried to grip the rat line with her toes, her face blanching. “Best you don’t look down either,” Bash cautioned.

Still pale, she rolled her eyes at him before facing forward again as he’d bidden.

Maggie Mackintosh Budge did not like being ordered about. Bash shook his head. She’d make a terrible sailor, whipped constantly for insubordination. What a handful she must have been for her late husband, the lucky bastard.

“Good climber at least,” Dutch said, stepping closer as they both gazed up at the rather appealing backside shimmying up the ropes.

“We’ll see,” Bash huffed, which only amused Dutch all the more.

“Do you remember the first time I sent you up the rigging?”

“Wasn’t you who sent me,” Bash argued petulantly under his breath.

“I gave the order. And you flew up there like a monkey in a tree.”

“Made it to the top, took one look down and lost my footing. Would’ve fallen the whole way and cracked my skull if I hadn’t tangled myself in the lines.”

Dutch laughed. “Your face was as red as a radish, time we got you down.”

“And my arse soon matched, compliments of the captain.”

Dutch stopped laughing then. He’d felt guilty for not arguing when Mad suggested sending a child up the rigging, but Bash had never blamed Dutch for any of it. He knew better than most which way the wind blew on board the Revenge.

The girl had reached the topmast, and she paused, looking out at the vast, impregnable vista. Bash well remembered his first time taking in that view. Even the whipping hadn’t soured it.

After a moment’s pause, she wrapped her arm around the line and peered down at him again. She looked ill but didn’t sway. “Now what?” she yelled.

Now what indeed?

“Has the lad been sailing before?” Dutch asked.

“I rather doubt it.”

“Then what are you waiting for?”

Not usually one to require permission, it was all the encouragement Bash needed to climb up after her. It was no more than he’d do for any new recruit not yet dry behind the ears. Proper instruction could mean the difference between life and death, and besides, four hands were better than two when it came to fouled lines.