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Pesty bobbed her head up and down. “In line. In line. In line and over the side, mate.”
“It was nice of them to let you keep her,” Serenity said.
“Oh, they didn’t let me,” Barney said hastily. “She caught some kind of sickness and the captain ordered me to kill her. But she was such a helpless little thing that I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Instead, I took her to my cuddy and kept her safe. She’s been with me ever since.”
Lightning flashed, illuminating the cabin. Serenity gasped in sudden alarm.
“It’s all right, lass,” Barney offered in comfort.
Rain started falling, hammering a fierce tattoo against the boat. The lanterns in the room jingled and clanked as the ship tossed about. One chair skidded across the room and bumped against the far side.
“The trick is not to think about it,” Barney told her.
She swallowed, trying not to think about how far away land was, and the fact that she didn’t know how to swim. “H-how do you do that?”
“Me,” Barney said, puffing his chest out. “I just sing. ’Course, the songs I know aren’t fittin’ for a lady to sing. But you probably know a few.”
The ship rolled and pitched. Her stomach heaved. “I feel sick.”
“Now, don’t be getting sick in the captain’s bed,” Barney said, getting up quickly. “He won’t like that none at all.” He crossed the room and grabbed the washbasin out of the cabinet. “You feel the urge, you use this.”
She grabbed on to it tightly and just nodded.
“Ahoy, mate,” Pesty chimed.
A sharp lurch almost sent Serenity off the bed. Oblivious to the vicious bucks of the ship, Barney took her hand and placed it in a small niche carved just over the bunk. “That’s a grab rail. You hang on to it and it’ll keep you in place.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, her stomach churning even more. At the moment, she was more frightened than she had ever been in her life.
Deep inside, she wanted to run away, to find some safe corner of the ship where no harm could befall her. But that was useless and she knew it. There was no safety at sea. The only thing that stood between her and death was nothing more than flimsy pieces of wood that could split apart at any moment and send her to the bottom of the ocean!
Serenity licked her dry lips. “How did you meet Captain Drake?” she asked, hoping it was a long story.
“I met Morgan when he was just a boy. I guess he was about thirteen back then.” He smiled fondly, reminding her of a father who was thinking of his favored son. “Ah, he was tall and strong and honest. A good boy to his very core.”
“What made him join the navy?”
His smile died and anger darkened his face. “He didn’t join willingly. That bastard—Isaiah Winston—had done gone and sold the poor boy off to the British navy. I’d been impressed about a year afore that. Not that it mattered to me back then. Being at sea’s all that I cared about. Didn’t matter what ship I sailed on. But it mattered to Morgan.”
Serenity took deep gulping breaths and tried to steady herself. “Why did the man sell him to the navy? Was he his father?”
“Nay, lass. Winston was no father, just an evil bastard through and through. He’d been the business partner of the captain’s father. And when the boy’s father died, Winston didn’t want no responsibility for him. He wanted profits, humanity be damned.”
Serenity knew the type of man all too well. And she despised such people. “You helped Morgan fit in?” she asked, changing the topic before she made Barney so mad he’d leave her.
“Well,” he said with a sheepish grin. “I tried, but you got to understand, Morgan has a mind of his own. His own way of doing things. He has an order he expects everything and everyone to follow, and when someone gets out of line, it knocks him off keel. Those Brits don’t follow that order. And Morgan was always too much of a fighter for his own good. If he thought he was right, he’d wrestle a den full of lions and not stop until they either killed him, or he had ’em tamed.”
Barney shook his head. “Of course, it didn’t help none that Morgan was terrified for his sister.”
“His sister?”
Morgan had a sister?
“Aye, Penelope. She was a small slip of a thing. Pretty and gentle as any fawn ever born.”
“Where is she?”
The light faded from his eyes. “Dead. She died about fifteen years ago.” Barney stroked Pesty’s head. “She was just about twelve at the time their father died. Morgan was afraid Winston would be using her in wrong ways or be selling her off to a whore…” He cleared his throat and bowed his head in embarrassment. “A place young girls shouldn’t be.”
