Aboard the Lady May Ch. 03

When the wool blanket was draped over her shoulders, Jamie flinched before she realized what was touching her. Then she gripped the fabric, gathered grateful handfuls, shifted until it fell into place and covered her pale nakedness. Though she never looked up, she sensed Felix standing above her. He was silent, unmoving, but undeniably there. She felt the heat and breath and heft of him as surely as if he were tucked in beside her, sharing his warmth beneath the fragrant, sweat-damp wool. And she was tempted for an instant to raise one arm, to offer a bit of blanket she knew would not come close to covering him, to invite him down—carpenter that he was—and give him a chance to shore up the damage he'd done, to recaulk the chinks he'd carved in her hull so she might float unmanned once more.

Because the urge was so real, and because she was as angry with herself for her weakness in wanting to make the gesture as she was with Felix for his actions against her, she wrapped her arms even more tightly around her legs, gripping both wrists to keep herself still.

"Please," she whispered before her resolve softened, "won't you leave me be?"

He said nothing, and she didn't hear him move, but then the door clicked softly shut and Jamie knew she was alone. Even without the hint of sound, she'd have known he was gone by the sudden dearth of warmth in the hold and from the familiar fear that settled into her chest. While she no longer believed that Felix was the perfect protector he'd first seemed, she was still certain that he, along with Peter and Luke, were all who stood between her and the fate from which she'd barely escaped aboard her previous vessel.

She'd thought of the frigate Ariadne several times since she'd sought safety on board the Lady May: the first night when Felix found out she'd been buggered; the afternoon when Luke discovered fresh blood on her body; that morning when Felix's rough treatment recalled the pain and shock of her most recent rape. Now, however, left alone with only her own thoughts for company, the rest of the memories—the ones she'd fought so hard to suppress—came flooding back, inexorably as a rogue wave.

She'd fallen soundly asleep. That was her second mistake. Her first was that she'd gone to her berth. Usually she napped lightly, or if she sensed her exhaustion ran too deep to control, she'd hide herself, find a secret nook, slip inside a coiled rope or crawl between boxes where no one but she could fit. But she'd been up all night, shining the captain's silver. The merchants of Bridgetown were to board the next morning, to breakfast with the officers, to discuss the worth of the ship's cargo in terms of sugar, molasses, and casks of rum.

She'd been up all night, and then she sat on her narrow bunk. Just for a moment, she told herself. Just to rest before she hopped to swab, to clean the crystal, to set the captain's table.

And she'd fallen asleep. Deeply asleep.

If she'd not been so tired, she might have woken in time. Or if one of the tars had thought to nudge her when they left for their morning's shore leave. Or if Benton were a normal man and not the soft-shod spook who the sailors swore could sneak up on anyone, God included.

She'd not fought. She woke with the crushing weight on her back and the hot hand, sour with sweat, over her mouth, and she'd not fought. She concentrated instead on breathing through her nose, on not vomiting, on holding her thighs tight together to protect the secret in between. She knew Benton wouldn't finish quickly. He never did. But this time, with the ship all but empty around them, he'd obviously felt free to take his ease.

He used her once. His hands moved from her hips to her thighs, to her stomach and chest. He felt the firm-packed flesh beneath her shirt, and his hands paused. Just for an instant. Then he gripped one knee and jerked her thighs wide. He laughed and licked the back of her neck.

She had fought then.

Jamie couldn't remember where the knife came from. She only knew one second she was unarmed, that she was groping behind her, frantic for any soft bit of flesh to dig her nails into. And then the hilt was in her hand. Her father's knife. She'd thought for a moment he was nearby, that he must have handed it to her, and she remembered what he'd taught her years before.

Her thighs were forced wide, one of Benton's hands between them. He used his other to paw her bound breasts, to search ineffectually for the bandage's edge. He was hard again.

Jamie reached between her legs, sharp blade in hand.

She slashed deep. A lucky strike. Found the large vein in his thigh on her first try. Felt hot blood erupt on her skin. Leapt forward when his hold slackened, before he recovered from the shock, then rounded and attacked again. Stomach and chest, over and over. Kept stabbing long after he ceased to rear up, ceased to flail his fists, ceased to see, ceased to breathe.

She'd scrubbed off the blood, desperate to be clean. She remembered the shock of cold water, gooseflesh like sandpaper on her bruised skin. She remembered freezing. She dressed. She ran.

She left the knife.

Jamie didn't know why she left the knife. Somewhere in the blanket, maybe imbedded in Benton's chest, she'd left it, and she didn't know why. Her father's knife. The knife with the gold from her mother's wedding band, melted, inlaid into the handle, filling in the etched letters—Evangeline. The knife named Evangeline whom every man on board the Ariadne knew belonged to the redheaded cabin boy.

She left the knife, and she ran, and she lied to Felix.

When he'd first touched her, first discovered the truth of her sex, Jamie'd told him he was the first to have done so. She'd acted sweetly afraid—and she had been—but more than anything else she'd been enraged, furious because he knew the truth. He knew the truth, and she'd left her knife, and she couldn't do a damned thing about it. And in that instant, Jamie knew, if she'd had her knife, she'd have killed him too.

But then he'd held her while she cried. He'd touched her in ways she hadn't thought possible. He'd cleaned her, fed her, offered her the first friends she'd had in years. And he hadn't hurt her. Until that morning, he'd been nothing but wonderful.

Now, Jamie mused—huddled deep within her wool cocoon, wracked by the wrath of her unwanted memories—it hardly mattered if Felix weren't precisely the white knight he'd seemed.

For a while, for a single sweet day, she'd allowed herself to pretend she'd escaped, that she'd found a safe place and people with whom she might share a bit of her true self, even if they weren't able to wholly protect her.

Now she'd remembered, and with that memory came the knowledge that none of it mattered: Peter's laughter, Luke's soft mothering, all the gifts Felix gave her, along with the hard truths he forced her to endure. None of it mattered because she couldn't keep any of them. She likely had weeks, perhaps a month or more, but word spread fast from port to port. Especially the murder of a well-liked boatswain—that news would travel even faster than most. And slight and redheaded as she was, she wasn't by any means inconspicuous.

Now, if she could somehow keep her secret safe in the time before her crime caught her up, she would count herself well blessed. It wasn't a great hope, Jamie knew, but it was the only one she had left—the prayer she'd go to the foreyardarm, still intact, as a woman whole, able to find some ease at least in the thought she wouldn't be hanged in vain.