Page 67 of Maggie and the Pirate’s Son

Dutch shook his head once, but stopped.

“Dutch?”

“The day after…” He gestured to Bash’s ear. “She and Langley were chatting over loud. She mentioned watching Simon Fraser march on Inverness.”

Bash stared at him blankly, the name ringing some vague, distant bell.

“Not many books on this boat for a man learning to read, but the captain always did like his Scottish history.”

Bash nodded, holding his breath. He’d avoided the captain’s favorite books, preferring to memorize his maps instead.

“The siege of Inverness was in 1715.”

Bash remembered now, part of the Rising to restore the Scottish king. “Fifteen years ago,” he said.

Dutch nodded. “Arithmetic doesn’t quite add up,” he said. Not if Maggie was supposed to be a lad of fourteen.

Bash swallowed. “What else?”

Dutch looked away then, almost embarrassed.

“What?”

“She was leaning forward stitching you up. I was crowding in to see. Looked down and well… most men don’t wrap their chests in linen, do they?”

Ah. “Christ.”

“Who is she?”

“She’s just… a marvel. Just…”

“Magic?”

“Aye,” Bash agreed, cheeks burning.

“Are you in love with her?” Dutch asked, and Bash slowly nodded his head. “Well. Seems like so far she’s brought pretty good luck,” he said, cupping the back of Bash’s neck.

Exhaling with relief, Bash nodded once more in agreement. She was the best kind of luck.

“Promise me you’ll be careful.”

He nodded at that too, seemingly all out of words.

Dutch put one arm around him in a quick, sideways embrace.

“I wanted to tell you,” Bash whispered.

“Well. Now you have.”

Chapter Sixteen

Maggie was fairly certain she wasn’t actually going to die, no matter what her body was telling her. And that was almost too bad, because she really kind of wanted to. If she’d been less impulsive, if she’d stopped to consider anything beyond her immediate desires for more than five minutes, she might have made some sort of plan for this eventuality. Instead, running around pretending to be a boy had allowed her to forget.

Until she awoke in the hammock alone, after Bash had insisted he sleep on the floor for the sake of his ear. She was roused by the sensation of being repeatedly stabbed in the gut with the Butcher’s filthiest knife. Her courses, which had never been predictable, had finally made a most inconvenient appearance.

“Is it dysentery?” Bash asked, searching her face when she emerged from the head.

“No, of course not,” she assured him.