Aboard the Lady May Ch. 04

"No!" Felix snapped, appalled by the idea. "I didn't mean—"

"What else am I fit to do?" she interrupted. She jerked her wrist from his hold, gestured at the ship around them. "This is all I know," she cried. "All I'm good for. I've not been on dry land for more than a few days' time in ten years!"

She pushed against him as if she were rising to leave, and Felix set his hands on her waist, held her gently but firmly. When he spoke his voice sounded hoarse, forced—as if he'd swallowed a barnacle. "You might marry," he ground out. "The backcountry's wild yet. Men settling new land, they're always in need of wives. I'm sure someone—"

But Jamie was already shaking her head. "And sell myself for food and a roof over my head?" she asked. "No, Felix. I've already said, I'll not be a whore."

They were silent then, glaring at each other. Felix moved his hands from her waist to her shoulders. He wanted to shake her until her teeth came loose. There was one sure way for her to save herself, and she refused to even consider it. He didn't want her to marry. Just the thought of sending her off with some frontier farmer to spend her days pregnant and strapped to a plow—it was enough to make his guts clench in protest. But at least she'd be safe. Safe, he admitted, and trapped, unhappy, subject to the whims of some unknown man...

"Christ," he swore. He released her shoulders, shoved one hand through his loosely queued hair, said, "We need an army."

"We have one," Luke said, and Felix and Jamie jerked to look at him, having both forgotten he and Peter were present.

"What?" Felix demanded. "What are you thinking?"

The two boys were staring at each other, conversing silently in a way that normally amused Felix but which he now found infuriating.

Peter reached up to tug a strand of his pale hair, arched one brow.

Luke flicked his eyes toward Jamie's red curls, nodded once.

Peter grimaced and made an obscene gesture.

Luke nodded again then, frowning, dropped his gaze.

"What?" Felix repeated, nearly snarling. "Luke, if you don't tell me—"

Luke shook his head and waved one hand at Peter, transferred the burden onto his friend.

Felix shifted his glare to the other boy. "Peter..." he began and allowed his voice to trail off warningly.

Peter swallowed hard. His eyes flicked from Jamie to Luke, then back again to Jamie. "Danny," he blurted.

"Danny?" Felix said, surprised, "What about him?"

"Who's Danny?" Jamie broke in, sounding confused.

Felix barely spared her a glance. "Another boy," he said briefly. "My first. He died of fever a year or so back." He looked back at Peter then, demanded, "What about Danny?"

"Do you remember—" Peter paused to lick his lips. Began again, "Do you remember what happened when Danny fell asleep on watch? When Fitzhugh tried to have him flogged?"

Felix's lips thinned. He did remember. He'd come close to killing his captain that day, and consequences be damned. Fitzhugh had kept Danny with him, in his cabin all night, then sent the boy aloft for the morning's first watch. Danny had been weak, battling a bout of the recurring fever that would eventually kill him, and he'd fallen into a fitful sleep slumped over the rim of the crow's nest. When Fitzhugh spotted the boy, he'd fired a pistol shot to wake him, ordered him down to the deck, then tried to have him stripped to the waist and bound by the gunwale. Felix had been nearby, finishing repairs on a rain barrel. He'd had his mallet. He'd been ready to act. But the crew had beaten him to it. More than twenty of them, they'd formed a circle around Danny, refused to let Fitzhugh or the other officers anywhere near him. Rather than force the issue and risk mutiny, Fitzhugh was obliged to stand down.

"Aye," Felix said. "I remember. What of it?"

"The men loved Danny," Peter said. "They protected him." He glanced again at Jamie, then flushed, looked pleadingly at Luke.

Luke nodded, rubbed one knuckle beneath his nose. "Jamie's redheaded," he said. "She'll remind the men of Danny. I've heard some say it already—that there's a likeness."

Felix looked down at the girl, studied her thoughtfully. The hair, he supposed, was near the same shade. But the shape of her jaw was all wrong, her build was far too delicate, she had only a few freckles whereas Danny had been more spotted than not, and her eyes—the dark blue eyes that seemed huge in her too-thin face were nothing like Danny's, which Felix was fairly certain had been hazel. He shook his head, opened his mouth to deny the resemblance, but Peter cut him off.

"You'll not see it," Peter said, "because you know what she is. Truth is, I don't see it myself. But the men—they see red hair, they think of Danny. Most won't look past that, and the few who do won't care."

Jamie sat up straighter on Felix's lap, pushed against his arms until he allowed her to turn to face forward. "That's why you wouldn't let me wear the cap?" she asked Luke. "Because you wanted them to see my hair?"

He nodded, repeated Peter's words: "The men loved Danny. They protected him." He looked down at his hands, said, "If we can make them love you, they'll protect you too."

"How do I make them love me?" Jamie asked. She glanced from Luke to Peter, tilted her head back toward Felix. Neither of the boys would meet her gaze, and Felix looked angry, mean. From her angle beneath his chin, Jamie couldn't see his eyes, but his jaw was solidly locked, his dimples nowhere to be seen. He was rigid, focused straight ahead on Peter and Luke. If his hands hadn't remained gentle on her shoulders, she'd have flinched from him then.

"No." The world fell from Felix's lips in a clipped burst. He lifted one hand from Jamie's shoulder and banded it low across her stomach, pulled her back tight to his chest. He repeated, "No!" with more force. Then, "She can't." To Luke, he said, "You've seen how it is. You know she can't. She needs a week at least. Two would be better."

"What?" Jamie settled one hand on Felix's wrist where it was pressed against her waist. She could feel him stiff, shaking with anger, and she was prepared to dig in with her nails if he started to squeeze. "What do they want me to do?" she asked. Then, glancing back at Felix, "What don't you think I can do?"

Felix didn't look at her to reply, "They want you to let one of the men bugger you. To prove your use to the crew, your selflessness. Tonight?" He asked the last as a pointed question.

Both boys nodded, but Peter was the first to speak. "If someone could see," he said, "see her bruises, see...how she's hurt, he'd spread the word. By morning everyone'll know she's been treated rough. They'll be angry. They'll think her brave. They'll start to love her."

"We could try," Luke injected softly, "try to tell them ourselves, but it won't have much weight coming from us. The men know we'll speak as you ask us to," he said to Felix.

Felix was shaking his head, holding Jamie tighter still to his chest. "No," he said. "We'll wait. She can win the men over slowly. She needs time. She needs to heal. She—"

"She needs you to stop speaking of her as if she weren't here." Jamie spoke quietly but firmly, determined to reclaim her place in the conversation. It was true she'd asked for their help, but she was sick of being ignored and talked around as if she were a child. She stroked Felix's wrist to ease the sting of her words, then looked at Peter and Luke in turn. "I'll do it," she said.

"No." Felix still didn't look at her, but his arm across her stomach contracted so she could barely breathe. "No," he repeated, "you won't."

Jamie dug in with her nails and squirmed, and his hold loosened slightly. Wriggling, she managed to turn a bit toward his chest, then she rested her head on his shoulder, reached up to turn his face down toward hers. Several moments passed, however, before he relented to look at her. His expression when he finally did was cold, emotionless, but the nearly-red flecks in his eyes shone with molten heat. "I have to," she whispered.

"No, girl," Felix said, and his words were weighted with all the desperation he wouldn't show in his face. "You'll wait. You need to wait. A week or two won't make any difference—"

"Yes," she interrupted. "Yes, it will." She allowed her hand to fall from his cheek to the bit of chest exposed by his open-throat shirt. She touched the face of a mermaid whose name she did not know, asked, "We're bound for Charleston, you said?"

Felix nodded.

"But I assume we'll stop along the way to take on cargo?"

"Guadeloupe for pineapples," Felix said. "Saint-Domingue for Indigo and Cotton. Cuba for coffee."

"And what of the Navigation Acts?" Jamie asked.

Felix shrugged, frustrated by this digression, but said, "Fitzhugh's brother-in-law is customs inspector in Charleston. He gets a bit of contraband, and we get our documents saying all enumerated goods on board have shipped through England."

"You're smugglers?" Jamie asked, surprised.

"And you served on board a slaver," Felix returned. "Jamie, what does this matter?"

"The Ariadne—" She paused to lick her dry lips. Began again, "The Ariadne has a hold full of slaves set for the rice fields."

Felix swore, released his hold on Jamie. His hands flexed for a moment, as if he wanted to hit something, then fell to land limply on the planked wood floor.

"Carolina?" Peter whispered.

Jamie turned slightly to look at him. For the first time since they'd entered the hold, his skin was pale white rather than pink beneath his freckles. "Charleston," she confirmed, then said, "They're a few days behind us. They'll take their time bartering with the sugar barons. But they'll not be stopping along the way as we will. They'll catch us up," she whispered. "We'll likely dock within a day or so of each other."

Luke sighed, shoulders slumped, said, "And a ship that left Bridgetown the day their cabin boy disappeared won't go unnoticed."

Jamie shook her head. "No," she said. "It won't." Then, "Right now I may remind the men of Danny, but how many of them will turn down coin to tell whether or not there's a new redheaded boy on board?" She paused, then, "How many will hold out if they're beaten? Threatened with gaol? Pressed into serving aboard the Ariadne?"

"Three, at least," Peter said.

Jamie shot him a shaky smile. "Yes," she agreed. "I know. At least three."

She could feel the pulse in Felix's chest pounding rapidly beneath her fingers. She glanced up to find that he was staring down at her. His face was still smooth, blank, but his eyes gleamed nearly maroon in the forenoon sun. "One of the men," she whispered, and hated the way the tendons in his throat tensed. "You choose—Whoever's most likely to talk, maybe embellish a bit. You choose, and I'll do it."

Then she hooked her fingers in the collar of Felix's shirt, pulled the neck wider until the mermaid fashioned after his mother appeared. She must have been a remarkable woman, Jamie thought, to raise a son who continued to love her so much. She touched the serene face, imagined the lips bore a slight smile of approval. Jamie would be brave, she determined, and strong. She would endeavor to deserve the woman's son.

She rested her head against Felix's chest and was pleased when his arms wrapped back around her. "I'll do it," she whispered again. "I don't have the time. I don't have a choice."

* * *

Dom Lyttle didn't like whores. He'd known one once—a pretty girl named Pearl who worked the docks in Philadelphia. She was blonde and buxom and blind in one eye, though you'd have never known it to look at her. She had lovely eyes, Dom recalled. Sometimes blue, then green, as changeable as the sea. He'd told her that once, and she'd smiled, called him her merman, asked him to think of her on his travels whenever he saw the color.

He found the aquamarine in Brazil, shipped from the mines in Minas Gerais to São Luís, where Dom came across it at a vender's stall and bartered his last quarter's pay for the stone. It was rough-cut and dull, but big as his thumbnail, and Dom knew of a goldsmith in the Somers Isles who he thought might shine it up a bit. The resultant ring was stunning even to Dom's untrained eye, and he'd pictured it worn proudly on Pearl's slender hand. He'd pictured a small house near the river in Philadelphia, a passel of children with blue-green eyes, and one day his own sloop for short trips along the coast—north, perhaps, to Boston or south to Carolina.

When he returned to Philadelphia nearly a year after he'd left, he spent several days searching for Pearl. He asked around, followed fruitless leads, and finally found her—ensconced in a fine stone house, living as a rich man's mistress. He hadn't minded. She'd had no cause to wait, to expect his return. He told her of his plans, presented the ring, said they'd be married just as soon as he summoned the preacher.

She laughed.

She'd laughed and shown him her silk dresses, the imported porcelain in her cupboard, the cache of jewelry secreted beneath in a hidden drawer—the emeralds and diamonds and ropes of pearls. She'd take Dom's ring, she said, as a memento. It was pretty, and he was handsome, and she'd thought of him often. But she wasn't about to trade her snug house and small luxuries for a riverside shanty and a life as a fishmonger's wife. Then she'd raised her skirts to her knees, said her patron was away on business, asked if Dom might like to share her bed that night. She was lonesome, she said, and he wouldn't have to pay anything but the ring.

Dom had considered for a moment. She was still lovely, with shapely calves beneath sheer silk stockings and large breasts shoved high by her square-necked dress; if she'd taken too deep a breath, he imagined he'd have seen her nipples. Then he noticed her eyes, glinting with avarice toward the pocket where he'd tucked the aquamarine, and decided he'd rather dip his cock into the most pox-ridden trollop on the docks than come within three feet of that venomous sea snake.

He left without a word, threw the ring in the river. And he'd not used a whore since.

He didn't hate all whores on principle. In hindsight he didn't even hate Pearl—he'd been overeager and arrogant and too proud to tell her he'd never expected her to live as a fishwife. Fitzhugh allotted senior men small portions of the hold in which to ship their own cargo. Dom was thrifty and smart, and he drove a hard bargain, so while he'd not be deemed rich by any man's standards, he was far from the pauper she'd thought him to be.

And the next time he'd passed through Philadelphia, Pearl was back on the docks, having been dismissed by her patron for seducing the man's teenaged son. She'd pouted and laughed, seemingly as frivolous as ever, but Dom had noticed the carefully patched dress, the new lines by her sea-colored eyes, the two missing teeth in her grin and the matching bruise—faded but still visible—mottling her jaw. He'd felt pity for her then and considered their score settled.

Notwithstanding this forgiveness and recognition of his idiocy, Dom still couldn't bear to bed with a whore. No matter how comely she was, or generously endowed, he would think of the payment—He would think of the fact that the woman was far more interested in the contents of his coin purse than that of his pants, and he would invariably lose all interest. The Lady May occasionally stayed in port long enough for him to seduce a loose woman for free, but that happened once a year, if that.

He'd first turned to one of the ship's boys—the redheaded one who'd died of some sickness—out of desperation several years ago and, to his surprise, he'd been neither disgusted nor left unsatisfied by the encounter. The boys were young and soft and warm, and they expected nothing from him but a bit of consideration and perhaps a kind word or two. That, Dom thought, was little enough to ask. He'd never been brutal with his female partners, and he saw no reason to treat the boys any differently. Even if he had, the thought of Felix would have quickly changed his mind. Dom had seen a few sailors beaten by the huge tattooed man, and the ones who survived were never quite the same again.

Still, Dom liked Felix, even respected what he did for the boys. He'd been a teenaged sailor himself, and Dom remembered well the helplessness of always wondering which man might be the one to do him permanent damage. There could be no guarantees. There never were at sea. But Felix evened the odds as much as he was able; he gave the boys at least a fighting chance of making it safely to manhood. Dom wished there'd been someone there to do the same for him.

Thus, when he stood smoking his pipe by the starboard rail, and the blond boy, Peter, approached him and put forward his request, Dom was surprised but not unwilling.

"The new boy?" Peter asked, joining Dom at the rail. "You've noticed him?"

"Of course." He loosed a stream of smoke into the late afternoon sky. "He's redheaded," Dom replied. "Like the one who died."

"Aye." Peter nodded. "He looks a mite like Danny."

Dom nodded in return and continued to lazily blow smoke. He wished the boy would get to the point. "What of him?" he prompted.

"His name's Jamie," Peter said. He paused for a moment, then, "He's...frightened. He's been hurt. Badly. He should wait awhile, but the stubborn eejit insists he'll be doing his duty, one way or the other. 'I'll not shirk,' Jamie says. Keeps saying it over and over."

"And?"

Peter cleared his throat. "We," he began, "I mean, Luke and me, we hoped you might oblige him."

Dom arched one brow, slanted a downward look at the boy. He was amused to see Peter flushed pink beneath his freckles. Just to provoke him further, Dom asked, "You want me to bugger the boy? This Jamie?"

Peter said nothing for an instant, then, "Aye. You've always been...kind to Luke and me. Never hurt us, I mean. The boy," he paused again, "Jamie—he couldn't bear to be hurt again right now, I don't think."

"What of Felix?" Dom asked. "What does he think?"

"He...understands," Peter said slowly. "He's not happy, mind you. But he understands about duty, Felix does." Dom nodded but said nothing, and Peter added, "He'll be there. Felix, I mean. I thought you should know. He won't leave Jamie alone." He shrugged. "Just in case."

Dom snorted. "Just in case I need to have my head mashed flat, you mean."

"You won't," Peter said, but he sounded unsure.

Dom snorted again, hawked a wad of tobacco-flecked mucus over the rail. He upended the dregs from his pipe into his palm, smothered the heat with his leathered fingers, then shook the few leaves into his inside vest pocket. Thrifty, Dom was. Always thrifty.

He hooked the toggle on his vest, turned to face Peter fully. "Now?" he asked.

"Oh...um, aye," Peter said. "If you don't mind."

"I'll mind if I end up having my head mashed flat."

"You won't," Peter repeated, but he sounded more uncertain than he had the first time.

* * *

Felix was furious, Jamie knew, but resigned. He stood in the corner of the hold, stiff as a figurehead, crushing her hand in his while he refused to even look at her. Luke, on the other hand, was subjected to the full force of Felix's incensed attention, answering the same questions over and over until Jamie knew all his responses by heart.

"He'll talk?" Felix demanded. "You're sure of it? I won't have her do this for nothing."

Luke nodded reassuringly. "He'll talk," he said. "You've heard the story of the 'perfidious Pearl,' haven't you? He tells it every time we dock, every time the men make for the brothels. And it changes a bit each time. Pearl gets prettier, and the ring gets bigger, and her lover gets richer. Next time he tells it, she'll likely be swiving Thomas Penn himself."