Page 72 of Maggie and the Pirate’s Son

“I’ll be the most sought-after ear reattacher in all of Scotland. Pirates and highwaymen will be lining up in droves for my services. They’ll pay me in golden teeth and stolen jewels, and the leech houses will soon be empty.”

Bash snorted and rested his scarred cheek against the crown of her head. He almost hoped she would hang up a shingle. It might make her easier to find if he was ever respectable enough to track her down.

Maggie snuggled against him and sighed. “Honestly, I could get used to this life,” she said. “This freedom.”

“It only feels like freedom,” he reminded her. “Because you’ve never been free. This ship is just a different sort of cage.”

“I’m sorry, Bash. I didn’t think.”

“You’ve nothing to apologize for. You’re like the Pleiades. He pointed up to the brightest stars in the sky.

“What are they?”

“The seven sisters: Sterope, Merope, Electra, Maia, Taygeta, Celaeno, and Algone,” he said, lifting her arm to point out each star. “The daughters of Atlas. He couldn’t protect them,” he said, frowning. “He was too busy holding up the sky.” Did that make him Atlas, then? Distracted by a task so colossal that he’d fail in the one that truly mattered—keeping Maggie safe?

“A valid reason,” Maggie said. “I’m sure they understood.”

“To save them from the hunter Orion, Zeus transformed them into stars and fixed them up there for eternity.”

“Mmm,” she said sadly. “Turned seven innocent women into stars rather than shackle one man.”

Bash couldn’t argue. If he could place her amongst the stars to keep her safe, he’d like to do it, but what right did he have?

She pointed back up at the stars. “Jory, Ellen, Maggie…”

He followed the line of her long, lovely finger. Would it bother her, comfortable as she was, if he kissed all the way down her arm and back up again?

She dropped her pointing finger lower. “That’s not a star.”

He tore his gaze from her hand to the speck she’d identified on the horizon. “Sails,” he breathed, as she took out her spyglass for a better look. Of course it was. He was as cursed as the captain, not deserving even a breath of stolen peace.

“What do we do?” she asked.

“We sound the alarm and get the hell out of here.”

Chapter Seventeen

Bash left Maggie to keep an eye on the approaching vessel while he shimmied down the rigging to alert the other lookouts. Within minutes, the sails were turned into the wind, and oars were manned to speed up their escape.

The bells were not rung to change the watch, and no one came to relieve her, so she stared into the distance until her eyes burned, until she had to blink to keep from seeing double, as the naval ship slipped further and further behind them. When dawn came, she could see nothing at all in their wake.

Finally, Langley arrived for the forenoon watch a little after eight and greeted Maggie with a serious nod. “Nav says it were you spied the devil out there. Well done, Magnus. Go and have a rest.”

“What’ll happen if they catch us?” she asked, to which Langley gave a studied shrug and extended his spyglass. “I mean,” Maggie pressed, “will they fire on us? Or will they wish to take the ship in one piece?”

What she meant was, destroy us or take us alive, so they can execute us one by one?

“Nav won’t let it happen, don’t you worry,” Langley assured her, but he refused to meet her gaze.

Maggie squeezed his shoulder and then clumsily descended the rigging and stumbled below deck. She wasn’t surprised to find Bash’s quarters empty but for Kes, who squawked a greeting. Maggie tossed the bird a bite of beef before collapsing into the hammock and falling instantly to sleep.

She awoke sometime later, disoriented and thirsty, so she crept to the galley where Roo was clearing up.

“Beans is all,” he said, and she nodded while he dished out a bit of what he’d just packed away. Then from a chest he took a small wheel of cheese. “Isn’t aged long enough, but as you saved Bashy, enjoy.”

“Cheese?” she asked excitedly, almost unable to believe her eyes.

“Cheese, pah!” Roo scoffed. “Not just cheese. Dutch gouda!”