Page 8 of Maggie and the Pirate’s Son

In the sunlight, it was plain her lips were dry and cracking, her eyes a bit sunken. Had she drunk a drop since coming aboard? She must be dangerously thirsty.

“Inverness by way of Orkney,” Mad repeated, stepping back from her a pace. “Welcome aboard Auldfarrand’s Revenge, madam,” he added, gesturing around them.

She blinked back at him. Bash could almost see her mind working as she realized it was no ordinary merchant ship, not with a name like Revenge. She licked those poor parched lips, while the captain scrutinized his pirate crew.

“Who brought a woman aboard my ship?” Mad demanded, his voice soft but cold as chert.

The men looked from one to another suspiciously, but none came forward.

“Who?” Mad yelled, and the girl flinched but lifted her chin defiantly.

“No one,” she answered, but the captain ignored her.

“Was it you, Langley?” he asked the youngest lad, a lanky, sunburned boy of seventeen. “I’ll bet you like them young and pretty.”

Young Langley shook his head. “No, sir, Cap.”

“Duffy?” Mad barked, and the next youngest, a ginger sailor with gangly limbs and a beaklike nose, snapped to attention, shaking his head. “Roo?” Mad asked the cook. “You’re down in the hold more than anyone else. What say you?”

Rooijakkers shifted his weight from foot to foot, no longer so eager to expose the girl now Mad’s suspicions rested on him. “Well, now I⁠—”

“Roo?”

“It were Bash with her down below when I spied ’em just now,” the damn cook offered, casting a shrug Bash’s way.

Mad turned back to Bash with a delighted sneer. “You brought a woman onto my ship?” The surprise in his voice didn’t quite mask a note of something like pride.

Bash stared straight ahead and didn’t answer. There’d be no winning anyhow. The captain wanted it to be him, and maybe if he drew Mad’s wrath he could at least protect the girl.

“The cat,” Mad ordered without taking his eyes off Bash. And he didn’t mean the mangy mouser which had led Bash right into this godforsaken trap in the first place. So much for good luck.

His bowels twisted, his palms beginning to sweat, but Bash would be damned if he let any of them see it.

“Captain, you know it wasn’t him,” Dutch argued in his placid, even way. “He’s not allowed ashore. Where would he find a girl to smuggle aboard?”

Mad cut his gaze to the quartermaster. “Perhaps he’s disobeyed more than one order,” he hissed. “Bring me the cat o’ nine tails.”

Dutch glanced sideways, but when Bash didn’t protest or even acknowledge him, he stepped away to retrieve the dreaded sack while Mad continued his grandstanding.

“You see, madam, there are rules on my ship. Forty lashes,” he reminded Dutch when the quartermaster removed the blood-stained whip from its bag. Thirty-nine may be customary, but Mad always liked to go that one extra.

Bash removed his waistcoat and shirt, then stepped towards the post, extending his wrists for binding. He reached for a faraway place in his mind, but the imprint of the girl upon his senses made the fog difficult to access. She gasped when she saw the nine-tailed whip, and likely the scars adorning his skin. He willed her to shut up and turn away until the business was over.

Instead she exclaimed, “Wait!”

“You may not have known the rules, madam, but Bash most certainly did,” the captain advised her.

“But he didn’t bring me aboard,” she argued in that surprisingly low, raspy, lilting voice of hers, unable, it seemed, to simply hold her tongue.

“Who did then, miss?” Dutch asked her.

“No one. I brought my own self. So if anyone’s to be whipped, I suppose”—her words wavered—“I suppose it should be me.”

Christ.

Bash closed his eyes as a rumbling murmur went up from the gathered men, and Dutch stood frozen, unsure what to do.

Bloody foolish girl, playing games with her life and she didn’t even know it.