Page 57 of A Prince Among Pirates
Then I pick up the little parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with a pretty blue ribbon and take a seat at Captain Sharpe’s desk. I unlock the drawer to my right, where he keeps his spyglass and compass caliper. It’s then that I notice scratches in the drawer’s face, along the keyhole. I frown as I brush my fingers along them. Have they always been there? I really ought to drink less—my memory is appalling as of late. This desk is hardly in tip-top condition, though; the scratches have likely always been there, and I have simply been too self-involved to notice.
I close the drawer and lock it, leaving the key in the hole, as I usually do when both Captain Sharpe and I are around. I know he’ll find the parcel later, likely after he’s settled in for the night. I’d rather he find it that way; it would be embarrassing, somehow, to hand it to him directly.
Once that is done, I step back out on deck and watch as the men move about the ship, preparing for departure. I wait on the stairs by Sharpe’s cabin door for Trevor and Rodriguez to return. When they do, with a cask far larger than I anticipated, I leap tomy feet and wave for them to follow me down to the galley, where I can hear Cook barking orders to his men. I slip in past one of them as he leaves the galley, repeating the orders to the men carrying Cook’s newly acquired rations down to the hold.
I offer Cook my best smile as Trevor and Rodriguez follow me in.
“What doyouwant?” Cook grumbles, without looking up at me.
“I have a gift for you.”
He looks up then, suspicion written across his face. “That so?”
Trevor snorts from behind me, but I motion to the cask Rodriguez has set down. “A fine cask of sauce from China.”
“And what am I ta do with that?”
“Cook with it, I imagine,” I suggest.
Cook’s eyes narrow further and he crosses his arms. “Yer askin’ fer a black eye, lad.”
My smile doesn’t falter, because he is still calling me “lad,” not “lordling”—which means I have much more time before I need to start dodging punches. “Oh, come now—don’t you want the chance to make something new?”
“Got a problem with my cookin’, do ya?”
“I never said that,” I point out. “I’m merely—”
“Insulting me.”
Trevor is giggling behind me now, and I shoot daggers his way before looking back to Cook once more. “I meant no insult, on my honor as a gentleman,” I say, setting a hand over my heart. “I just thought the men might like—”
Something red whizzes past my ear and strikes the doorframe behind me with a squelch.
“Right,” I say, taking a step back. “I’ll just leave this with you, shall I?” I duck as a second tomato hurtles towards me, grazing my ear before landing on the floor with a plunk. I don’t give him time to gather a third. I hurry from the galley, chased by the sound of Trevor and Rodriguez’s raucous laughter, and a string of curses from Cook.
Tristan is grinning at me, shaking his head as if he predicted exactly how that interaction would go. I offer a sheepish grin in reply and shrug. With any luck, Cook won’t want to waste food, and we will get to enjoy that delightful sauce again sometime soon.
I make my way back up on deck just in time to hear Billy call, “Weigh anchor!” The crew is already in motion as I head to the starboard bow, where I might be out of the way and enjoy the best view of the sunset when we come about.
It’s then that I see Renard, and my stomach drops.
He’s the last of the men to come back on deck, and once he does, he makes straight for the stairs that lead below. For one awful moment before he disappears into the bowels of the ship, he stops to glance up, and our gazes meet. The sight of him makes my stomach churn. I could throw up, but instead I hold my breath and wait for some kind of sign from him—anything to tell me how to feel in the wake of our last horrible encounter.
But he just grimaces, and I am left wondering whether it was out of disgust or discomfort as he turns away from me and disappears into the shadowy staircase belowdecks.
Twenty
It’s less than a week before we reach Port Royal. In that time I have seen Renard only twice, and each time he has avoided looking directly at me. I do hope this isn’t going to be a permanent thing. I don’t love the idea of remaining trapped in close quarters with such animosity brewing between us, and I refuse to beg anyone for an apology. It all feels like a recipe for disaster.
What will I do if he decides to tell other members of the crew, twisting the story in his favor? Would they turn on me? Despite everything Sharpe has said about my being one of them, I can’t help but hear my father’s voice in my head, reminding me of my curse and how unlovable I am. Does the crew’s loyalty surpass the strength of my curse? As much as I joked with Digby Hale about pirate ships being a hotbed of buggery, I know this isn’t actually true.
No one else is acting strange around me, though, as far asI can tell. Or if they are, it’s because they’ve taken to calling me “lordling” again and making snide comments about my father’s title. Snide comments are fine; I think most of them stem purely from a mislike of the peerage, rather than true animosity. That’s understandable—I mislike the peerage too.
Ihavenoticed the new blue ribbon tying back Captain Sharpe’s locs, however. And unfortunately, so have the men. He thanked me the next morning for the surprise of pastries in his desk drawer. I thought that was that, but then I saw the damned ribbon… and to make matters worse, whenever someone teases him about it, his gaze locks straight on to me. Whatever happened to subtlety?
Most of the men assume it was a gift from a harlot on Nassau, which he’s neither confirmed nor denied, so none of them seem to suspect me.
Except for the twins.
