Page 120 of The Worst of Them

Her chest tightened at the sound of the captain’s voice. She didn’t turn to him as he approached from behind, coming to join her by the rail. He stopped at her side, both of them facing the greater part of the ship.

“Thank you, Robert,” she replied flatly, even as anxiety prickled in her stomach.

The captain huffed a single, unamused laugh. “Surely you don’t expect me to call you by my name simply because you seduced my son.”

“He did marry me,” she said pointedly. “In a church, before God. To that end, I can’t imagine what more official means you’d require to call me by your family name.”

“Do you need my acknowledgment? You certainly didn’t need my permission, and yet you beg for my respect. Such an annoyingly fickle thing you are with all your whims.”

She chanced a look at him. His beard was neatly trimmed, his eyes keen beneath his hat as they swept over his small kingdom. Beneath the shadows and wrinkles, he had a noble face that looked like an older, harder iteration of his son’s.

“My whims have kept me alive,” she said. “Perhaps I’ll have fewer of them now that my life is marginally more assured.”

His beard twitched, but he still refused to look her way as though she were hardly worth the attention he barely gave her now. “I have no designs to kill you, if that’s what you fear,” he said with the slightest bit of amusement. “I’m not so cruel as to do away with the girl my son dallies with.”

Girls like her aren’t suitable for men like you. The thought rose from where she’d hidden it behind golden memories of Jack’s love. Her jaw set, and she shifted her gaze back to the ship.

“Some weeks ago, Jack told me he lied about giving you his knife,” the captain told her.

“So he said.”

“I suppose that makes all this my doing,” he said derisively. “Forcing you two together made him fancy you.”

“You give yourself too much credit,” she said in the same tone. “Sowing our hatred only delayed the inevitable.”

The captain hesitated. “You are young.” His words were careful, ensuring she heard them. “And the only constant in a young heart is that it changes.”

The wind blew past, but neither of them moved, both staring resolutely at anything but each other.

Young hearts may be changeable, but Cecily’s heart was tested. She wasn’t some fawning, brainless young woman with untried whims and ideas. She knew what she wanted, and she couldn’t imagine any reason she’d stray.

“I won’t change my mind,” she said. “I love Jack⁠—”

“Obstinate girl,” he interjected. “Hearts are treacherous things, and you hardly know my son, let alone yourself. Your mind will change—you will change, and you could grow to despise him as quickly and as easily as you’ve grown to love him these past weeks.”

Cecily shut her mouth. Jack’s mother had hated Copson for choosing piracy, and no doubt that was the reason he didn’t trust her feelings for Jack. Surely he saw her only as a young woman desperate to embrace any life that wasn’t prison, eagerly declaring herself to his son after tasting freedom for less than two months. She’d hardly had any time to go anywhere or do anything, but marrying Jack wasn’t any more or less than what the other women on this ship had done to protect themselves and their freedom.

“Captain,” she ventured carefully, “I’ve changed my mind on more things than I can count, all in the name of surviving. Hell, I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to live when you offered. I certainly didn’t want to be a pirate, nor did I want Jack, but I was a fool, and I’ve made peace with what was set before me.” She turned to him even though he didn’t look at her. “Nothing has gone the way I hoped it would, but I can despise my past while being grateful for where it’s brought me. I can even love where I am, and I do.”

Copson watched his son in the sails. “If only it were so simple.” He turned his steely gaze to her. “You have much to learn, Miss Shoard. The hardest lessons are yet to come.”

If she thought Jack had been vexing, she understood where he’d gotten it from—though Jack wasn’t nearly as difficult as his father.

“What do you want from me?” she asked. “To tell you where your map is?”

“I don’t care what you tell me. I have other ways to get what I need, and I won’t be impeded by a girl.” He spun, about to head for the helm where another pirate manned the wheel. But then he paused. “I was merely curious if my son and your little knives had somehow made you believe you’d gained any favor or position.”

“You’ve said I’m of use to you as a sword,” she replied, careful to speak evenly. There was no warmth in his eyes, no gladness or mercy either. “I believe that’s all I’ll be to you for now, but you won’t be rid of me. I’ll only ever be where Jack is.”

Disagreement hung thick between them, but neither acknowledged it before he walked away. She waited a few seconds before taking a deep breath, then another.

She didn’t expect Copson’s opinion of her to change quickly. Both she and Jack knew he would require more convincing, but it was easier to face that truth when it was merely a topic of conversation rather than an actual conversation she suffered through with the captain. He was a shrewd man, and if he weren’t so surly, she might have admired him for it.

Meanwhile, Jack climbed down the rigging. When he reached the deck, he strolled in her direction, the wind tossing his hair and fluttering his white shirtsleeves.

His gaze trailed over her like hands and fingers, his smile reminding her of those lips on her skin and the things he’d whispered to her the night before.

Her face was flushed by the time he reached her, and her heart leaped to her throat as he hooked a hand on her waist, sat on the rail, and pulled her between his open knees. She forgot about everything else as Jack leaned in close, his eyes hooded and his voice bedroom soft as he murmured, “You have chicken shit on your sleeve.”