The Devil's Luck Ch. 05

It seemed that a woman could enjoy these forbidden fruits with just as much enthusiasm as could any man, and this discovery was causing her to reconsider any number of other long-held beliefs. What other illicit joys might she find to her liking?

Yes, if she could only reject, for a time, any thoughts of the inevitable problems she needed to resolve, Hannah Collingwood might finally be able admit that she was beginning to feel quite pleasantly at home in her role aboard The Devil's Luck. Worries about contacting her father and uncle, and hiding from them her scandalous behaviour, could wait until some other day.

* * * *

"It seems our widow is finally coming to accept us now, don't you think?" Edmund observed as he worked at breaking off a final piece of tack.

"That it does, my friend," Till nodded his agreement while he filled his mug a second time with beer.

The two men picked at the remnants of their meal in the captain's stateroom after a review of their plans for Nassau, and then Boston.

Supplies awaited the ship on the island port: foodstuffs, line, canvas, water. Various bits of hardware for the carpenter and cooper, paper and the like for the navigator's records, and for Edmund's personal use. Some of the crew would be going ashore to find clothing items they couldn't make themselves, and to generally carouse. All except Graves, whose insubordination that day with Hannah at the mast had cost him the privilege of shore leave.

It did seem backward, at this point, for Edmund to punish the man for bringing Mrs Collingwood aboard in the first place, considering the very pleasant way matters had turned in his favour. The newly willing company of an educated, beautiful woman like the widow had not only livened up what would likely be an otherwise uneventful journey, but had improved the general sombre attitude of the captain considerably.

He would pass Benjamin out on the decks and they would trade knowing grins when the both of them knew that the woman they'd come to share was putting herself back together in one of their cabins or the other.

It was an odd arrangement, and one they never spoke of aloud. The tacit agreement appeared to be that they would not both have her in the same day and, unlike whores they'd passed between them, they didn't compare their encounters with her. Both of them seemed to know somehow, that discussing her in those terms would make her into an object, and it was becoming more and more difficult to see her in that light.

What would he do when she found out about his agenda with her uncle? The longest her ignorance could possibly last was until they arrived in Boston, and once she became aware of his aims, Edmund knew exactly what would happen to the little castle he was currently building from sand. There was no possible way she would forgive him once he did what he intended. Perhaps if she hated her uncle, but then why would she journey thousands of miles to take care of him?

No, better to stow thoughts like these for another day. Which day that would be, he had no idea. How many more sunrises would be an acceptable limit to the time he could spend with his lovely, perfect Hannah? Questions with no answers, the lot of them.

"Edmund?" the bald man stirred him out of his fretting by repeating his name more loudly a second time.

"Sorry. Sorry. Say that again?"

"I said, how will you go about finding Prometheus once we anchour in Boston? Surely she won't tell you herself where he is. And what will you do about her?"

As usual, Benjamin gave voice to the thoughts Edmund would prefer to ignore. He didn't know what to say about the second question yet, but as for how to discover the whereabouts of Bertrand Symes, the part of him that was still Black Edmund, captain of infamous The Devil's Luck, knew exactly what he would do. He explained carefully, and his oldest friend nodded in reluctance at his plan.

* * * *

Rowland Graves did not forgive, and he most certainly did not forget. That arrogant fool of a captain had taken his prize from him and now he paraded her about the decks the same way his older brother would steal a toy from him as a boy and dangle it over his head, taunting him with it just out of reach.

It was not only that Blackburn had stolen the little strumpet Rowland had so neatly caught up in his web, but the man had also attempted to humiliate him in front of the crew on his first day aboard the ship.

The surgeon sneered to himself in contempt as he went about sharpening his implements in the quiet of his dank little cabin. The captain and his pretty words, pretending status when everyone aboard knew he was a bastard all the same. And that inked-up quartermaster of his, always skulking about with a watery green eye for Graves, making sure to impress the fact that he was watching him closely.

The lot of them underestimated him, and this was an assumption he would make them come to regret. Graves had waited for years in the past to teach an appropriate lesson when people had dared to cross him, and he would have no trouble biding his time now.

He stretched a leather strip taut a time or two, testing its strength. It would serve well enough as a gag, he thought.

Blackburn would pay for his insults. Perhaps not this week, and possibly not even this month, but the captain would be made to feel pain, and in no way so obvious as a knife in the back or a cudgel to a knee.

No, Graves knew now, as he watched the man day after day, just how he would hurt the captain most. He saw the touch of the bastard's hands growing ever gentler at the waist of that wretched widow, his eyes looking at her with increasing fondness when he thought she wouldn't notice.

The surgeon ran the pad of his thumb over the keen edge of one of his scalpels, and smiled a cruel smile that only God and the Devil could see. He'd have that fine harlot just as he'd wanted her in the first place, and slice out Blackburn's soft heart in the process with each cut he made into her jerking flesh.

Whoever heard of a pirate in love? Certainly not Rowland Graves. Once again, the people around him required a lesson on their place in the world, and he would be more than happy to give them one.

* * * *

The genuine smile on Brigit's face was nearly as startling to Hannah as the intimate discoveries she'd been making about her own self over these past weeks.

As she made her way down into the galley the scarred face of the woman who'd been her maid for a short while grinned back up at her. The expression looked nearly as out of place as the sun would at midnight.

"Brigit," she greeted her carefully, uncertain how she'd be received considering it was at least partially her fault that the woman was here at all. "How do you fare?"

"Oh, right enough, Mrs Collingwood," the young woman responded as though it was the first time she'd considered the question herself. She was carefully at work with a knife, trimming a bit of mould off of the remainder of a block of cheese.

The normalcy of the scene didn't quite fit within the boundaries of Hannah's understanding. She didn't want to be rude with Brigit, but she had to be satisfied she was hearing the truth. "You've not been treated harshly, then? What does he have you do all day, this cook?"

"Mr Bone?" she replied, lifting her eyes for a moment from her task. Brigit's gaze was far less vacant and glum than the last time Hannah had seen her. "He hasn't been the least bit of trouble, Ma'am. I've mostly been set to help him with the meals, and the cleaning."

"And the other men? The crew? Have they let you alone?" She'd hesitated to ask this question, but she knew from her own experiences now that it was very difficult for a woman to avoid the pursuit of men within the limited confines of a ship. It was one thing if the attention was wanted, but...

Brigit burst out with an unladylike bark of laughter at her question as she went about wrapping the newly pruned cheese back in its paper. "The crew?" she chortled, "Oh, no, Ma'am. Mr Bone don't allow any of that lot to come near me!" A smirk curled the woman's lip and it spoke of another meaning behind her last comment.

Hannah's brows went from being lowered in confusion to raising nearly off her forehead in sudden clarity. If the captain and Mr Till were protecting her from any advances or mistreatment by the crew...

"Ye done with that cheese then, lass?"

John Bone came thumping down the stairs behind her then, trailing King George, the ship's cat, and Hannah moved out of his way to let him into the galley. The cook would never approach anyone in stealth for as long as he lived, with his left leg missing at the knee and a wooden peg in its place that clunked along in a regular rhythm wherever he walked. His booming deep voice didn't help him avoid notice either.

"I've just put it up," Brigit called up to him. "You have something more for me to do?"

The man was bald like the quartermaster, but there the resemblance ended. He was half again as wide as Till through the middle, and a great red bushy beard bristled from his face and down his chest, long enough to be braided into twin plaits, and beginning to come in white at the edges.

Brigit's pockmarked cheeks dimpled deeply with her grin at the sight of him, and as he passed her by he landed a firm slap on her bottom. The woman giggled – giggled! – in response and turned her head to catch a playful kiss from him as he made his way 'round.

Bone slipped in behind Brigit and went to move his hands over her hips as though Hannah weren't standing there right in front of them.

"I'm sure I can find some work for those hands of yours, girl," he teased her, tickling her ear with his beard.

"Oh, leave off, you great beast!" Brigit swatted at him and put an elbow in his ribs, but her tone said she might not mind too much if he didn't listen.

It was not to be believed. Brigit and...and the cook? She didn't begrudge the woman happiness, but her history of sullen stares and bitter complacency made this new side of her quite the challenge to accept. Hannah had never expected to see a smile, much less hear two pleasant words out of Brigit, and had certainly not thought to see her demeanor improved in any way whatsoever after weeks aboard The Devil's Luck. Let alone endure a pairing such as the one revealed to her now in the ship's galley. The man was old enough to be the woman's father, for Heaven's sake.

"Cap'n let you out of his rooms for a spell then?" Bone turned to give Hannah a merry wink and waggled his ginger brows suggestively at her.

She felt her cheeks heat up at the cook's implication. As I suspected, everyone knows. She felt the cat make a furry pass at her shin, as if to indicate that he, too, was in on the gossip, and wanted to make sure Hannah knew it.

The burly man seemed to expect no answer from her and moved off into the room to rummage noisily through a small pantry in the back.

Brigit leaned over the cutting block toward Hannah, taking advantage of their temporary measure of privacy to whisper at her with a mischievous grin that seemed totally out of place on her pitted face.

"Don't worry, Mrs Collingwood," she said, her voice conspiratorial, "I won't be telling anyone."

Hannah was confused even further. "Telling them what, Brigit?"

The woman's salty smile nearly split her face in two. "That a fine lady such as yourself likes to have a go just the same as any maid or farm wife. The captain and the quartermaster I hear? Didn't think you had it in you, Ma'am," Brigit declared in appreciative tones. She seemed to reconsider something, because she added with an impish laugh, "But then again, I suppose you did!"

Hannah could not possibly have coloured further. The sullen Brigit she knew from the inn was almost preferable to this fiery girl before her now who spoke with such a blunt familiarity.

It would be difficult enough now for her to eat anything at all if she thought of what those two might be up to down here in the kitchen when no one else was around, but that was not the only reason Hannah excused herself and beat a retreat up the stairs. No, she needed also to be away from the impertinent comments of Brigit and the cook lest her already burning face finally catch flame and she be assigned a permanent new role as an oven.

* * * *

Pirates had never struck her before as being an especially pious lot, what with the murdering and thieving and ravishing of widows, and so it had surprised Hannah that someone aboard The Devil's Luck would remember Easter Sunday and suggest something in the way of a feast.

Counting back through the weeks she'd been on the ship, she realised that the time for the holy day had indeed rolled around, and was jarred to some extent at the rapid passage of time.

Oddly enough, the ship's cooper, a Mr Henry Adams, had brought up the notion to the cook, and Bone in turn to the captain. It wasn't as though there was any sort of feast-like variety to the food stored in the galley, but Edmund had approved the idea regardless. An uncharacteristic show of enthusiasm and charity from the man, Hannah noted. His demeanor did seem to be improving as the weeks went by.

Adams had interrupted her one evening, with a warm excitement in his eyes, to bring up the idea as she'd sat reading to some of the crew from a waterlogged copy of the Bible. Someone had the book tucked away among his things and Hannah felt sorry for it. The poor thing probably had no idea what its holy pages were doing laid open among such a floating den of thieves.

It hadn't taken long for the crew to more or less accept Hannah's presence. After they came to see her as belonging to the captain, the most of them were even friendly, and those that weren't simply avoided her instead. Black Edmund tolerated no nonsense aboard his ship, and for once, Hannah was grateful.

As a result of the easing of tension between herself and the crew, Adams had found in conversation that she could read, and he'd hinted that some of them might like to hear a passage or two, of an evening. And that had led to a Bible being produced, and subsequently inspired the cooper's idea for an Easter meal.

Such an idea found Hannah now crammed into the council room with the more senior members of the crew for the strangest Easter Sunday meal she'd ever had the opportunity to witness.

She didn't know what pirates would go without for Lent and still manage to be scoundrels. The looting of other ships? She hadn't seen that happen yet. Still the cook had made Brigit carve crosses into the hard pieces of ship's biscuit in lieu of cross buns for the occasion, and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves on the feast day, despite the unlikely venue.

The council room was the only place on the ship with a table large enough to accommodate a number of people at once. The bulk of the crew had to eat elsewhere, in their own bunks and hammocks, or out on the decks. Some that had a later watch were even asleep. The cabin outside the stateroom was filled with the men who were mostly responsible for running Blackburn's ship. The surgeon was conspicuously absent.

Hannah sat next to Henry Adams, and was continually amazed at the man whose idea this whole thing had been. The man put away enough liquor in a day to intoxicate a horse, and yet aside from being an excellent cooper, he could recite astonishing streams of poetry from memory, and could sing with a surprisingly pleasant voice. His appearance made no sense either. He was fleshy and pale for a man of the sea, and his skin always looked clammy as if he'd just climbed out of the water after several hours afloat. But here aboard The Devils Luck, a sweeter man there never was. She wondered how he'd made his way into this life.

The captain sat on her right, at the head of the table, and Till to his right, facing Hannah. The occasional tap of a boot at her ankle accompanied by a hidden smile from Edmund kept her fidgeting with her fork and knife, rearranging them this way and that in an attempt to avoid staring at him for too long at a time.

What that man does to me...

On the other side of the cooper was Ellis George, the man who'd supervised her bathing on that first occasion. The carpenter was yet another with whom Hannah had grown fairly comfortable. She would often spend some of her free daylight hours conversing with him while he worked. He'd pile up curls of wood on the floor and speak to her about all manner of things. No matter what the subject, he always had some unusual perspective on it that would cause Hannah think about the matter in a completely new light.

Further down was John Bone, and to Hannah's surprise, Brigit had been allowed to join him, despite her lack of seniority. It appeared that cooking the same meal they ate had granted the man some privileges. What was more, Brigit completely eschewed the additional chair that was meant for her and chose instead Bone's lap for a seat. At an Easter dinner, of all times. The two of them were incorrigible. Bawdy comments flew back and forth, and there was every now and then a flurry of pinches and squealing.

It is a pirate ship, after all, she reminded herself, trying to ignore their display.

Seated next to Mr Till were Hezekiah, Simon Grey, and Mr Osbourne. These three men she did not interact with so often, but they all managed to be cordial with her when she did.

The quartermaster did have to give Grey the elbow to keep the lewd comments he directed at Hannah to a minimum, but Osbourne mostly pointed his conversation elsewhere. She thought he might be embarrassed for her, after the act the captain had invited him to stay and watch those many weeks ago. Hannah didn't know whether she'd reconciled herself to that whole situation or not.

The presence of Hezekiah intrigued her. The Bosun had been a slave in another life, and she'd heard snippets of conversation that seemed to indicate he'd worked on a cane plantation in Kingston, where Edmund was raised. She wasn't brave enough to ask him how he'd come to be in charge of line and sail aboard a vessel such as this, but the cruel scars over the dark skin of his back and chest spoke of a transition that would've thwarted other men less bold. The one thing she did know was that a person could hear his booming laugh from nearly any place on the ship, and he was rarely seen without a contagious wide smile that Hannah found endearing.

Hannah thought about crew members like Hezekiah and Ellis George while she stole a glance at Edmund as he cut into the salted meat on his plate. It seemed the only thing that mattered aboard The Devil's Luck was that a sailor could do his job, and Hannah admired this about the captain. A sea of change had certainly passed her by, she thought, for her to be able to admire anything about the pirate known as Black Edmund.

Yes, a number of curious changes had been brewing, she mused as she swept her eyes from Edmund to Benjamin. What these yet meant, she was not sure.

Cutlery clanked against dishes and cups were filled time and again as the ten of them made their way through their odd version of a Holy Day feast. Tongues wagged as they were loosened by drink, and there was one comment that made Hannah look up from her plate.

"I've had enough of the whores in Nassau already," Mr Grey slurred, clearly ready to have his mug taken from him, "But 'm sure there's plenty of likely flesh in Boston! Why I bet the skirts will climb right up when I -"

Grey cut off with a start and a slosh of wine, and Hannah thought someone might have kicked him under the table. He went back to eating with a purposeful silence.