Page 34 of A Prince Among Pirates
I squint at him and he grins back at me. “I appreciate the hair of the dog anyway,” I say.
“What got ye so crawsick, anyway? Ye barely touched the—what d’ye call it?—swill from the galley.”
I click my tongue in amusement and rub at my face. “I worked late on the books, and the captain shared a bottle or three with me.”
“Did he, now?” Renard asks, brows rising slowly. “Why’d he go an’ do that?”
I wrinkle up my nose and sit back as I try to recall. “You know,” I say finally, “I can’t remember. Or maybe he didn’t tell me… I can’t remember that, either.”
“What’s the matter, rich boys can’t hold their liquor?”
I chuckle, though in truth, I’m not amused by his comment. “I can hold it just fine, and I’m not rich anymore.”
“Nae?” he asks, and I can tell by his expression he’s assessing my clothes.
I look down at myself and frown. I’ve dressed in my cravat, waistcoat, and jacket again this morning without truly intending to do so. I must have dressed using nothing but muscle memory, for my waistcoat isn’t quite the correct shade of green for the brown trousers I’m wearing. What was I thinking?
“Damnation…,” I mutter, adjusting my jacket. “I thought it felt unreasonably hot today.”
“Yer still pissed.”
“I most certainly am not,” I insist, then groan as I rub once again at my temples. “Though skipping dinner was probably unwise.”
“Mmm… drinkin’ weth the cap’n maybe wasn’t all that wise either. Especially if ye cannae even remember anythin’ from it. Did he tell ye why we’ve changed course?”
I blink, for that sounds familiar. “Have we?”
“Oh aye, last night as we were messin’ belowdecks. We all felt the shift.”
“Where are we headed now?”
“Due south.”
As if that means anything to me. I frown at him. “I assume we were not headed in that direction before?”
Renard shakes his head at me and closes his eyes as if I am trying his patience. “How did ye survive this long, Kit?”
“At the behest of others,” I mutter as I slouch in my rickety chair. “Whichwaywere we headed before?”
“Southwest, towards St. Augustine.”
“And what’s south of us now?” I ask.
“A few places.”
I don’t have to ask again, because the look I give him is enough to make him grin and answer me properly.
“Cuba… an’ Jamaica.”
Jamaica. Why does that sound familiar? “Should that mean something to me? I feel as if you’re hinting at something, but I’m not sober enough to follow. I hardly even know what day it is.”
“Port Royal is where Jeffrey Reuter vanished. We haven’t been back since. The men’re spooked by it.”
A chill slithers down my spine as I recall what Renard told me about the previous scribe’s mysterious disappearance. All at once I remember last night’s conversation with Captain Sharpe, about the possibility that Mr. Reuter may have been stealing from him.
“An’ it’s July the thirty-first.”
This addition is a direct blow to my gut. I am not sure I can keep from retching much longer. “Ah,” is all I manage as I pull myself to my feet. “I… I’ll see what I can find out.”
