Chapter Seventeen
Seventeen
Captain, are you certain you want to entrust me with this responsibility?” I ask the next morning as I stand in front of Captain Sharpe’s desk, horrified by the request he’s just made of me.
“No, but who else can I get to do it?” is his less-than-encouraging response, before he lifts his teacup to his extremely distracting mouth.
“Literally… anyone?”
“No, Kitten. Reuter knows everyone else on this ship. If any of them start looking for him when he’s allegedly dead—”
“Or kidnapped by sirens,” I put in helpfully.
Sharpe levels a look at me. “Or kidnapped by sirens,” he continues, “he’ll be suspicious.”
“And what am I to do, precisely? Go around asking random people if they’ve seen a crooked accountant?”
Sharpe snorts. I’m coming to realize that this is a habit of his, one he displays whenever he’s simultaneously annoyed and amused by me.
(I am ridiculously charming, after all.) “No. I want you to go into the taverns and ask for a few recommendations for someone who can keep your books for you. Flaunt your wealth, wear something ridiculous.”
“Ouch.”
“Act like the empty-headed, spoilt rich boy you… used to be.”
“Excuse me!” I gasp, though I’m more offended by how very accurate his comment is than the comment itself. “I’ll have you know I have a wonderful head for figures.”
Sharpe grins and buries his nose in his teacup before he can be tempted to comment further. I realize by the expression on his face that I’ve walked right into a joke about my head for certain figures.
“And what am I to do when I find him?”
“Ask him to meet with you over a pint and take a look at your accounts.”
“I have no—”
“I’ll be there to meet with him instead,” Sharpe explains. “And then your job is over.”
“That’s it, then? Just ask around until someone mentions his name, find him, and ask him to have a drink with me?”
“Yes.”
I consider. I could do it. I put on plenty of similar ruses at Eton, to get access to certain clubs or to sneak away with pretty girls.
And I suppose I proved my salt when I helped rescue Captain Sharpe from the French navy.
Didn’t I? If I plan to stay and live the life of a pirate, I may as well go all in. It might even be fun, in its own way.
“What if he really is dead?” I ask.
“He isn’t.”
Well, all right, then.
“Very well, I’ll do it.”
Captain Sharpe lifts a brow as he sets his teacup down. “Not to sound like a brute, Kitten… but there was never a question of you doing it. You obey my orders. I’m still your captain, even if you are a mouthy little brat.”
“I take offense to that.”
“You’re meant to.”
Touché.
I resist the urge both to laugh and to roll my eyes. “And when am I to do this?”
“When we arrive at Port Royal. That’s where the bastard disappeared, so that’s likely where he still is.”
“Not at the Republic of Pirates?”
Captain Sharpe hesitates, then smiles as if I’ve said something amusing. “And risk being seen by me and my men? No, we frequent Nassau too often for him to be hiding there. Jamaica has more opportunities for him.”
Just as well. I don’t love the idea of wandering around in a place called the Republic of Pirates by myself, dressed in finery. Even doing so in Port Royal sounds absurdly unwise, but I know there’s gentry on Jamaica, so I should be somewhat less likely to be singled out and molested.
Somewhat.
“I don’t suppose we might find plantains on one of these islands?”
“Plantains? What do you want plantains for?”
“Billy has been requesting them for weeks,” I explain.
“It’s bad luck to have bananas on board. The men won’t like it,” Sharpe says.
“They aren’t bananas,” I say firmly. “They’re plantains. And the men will have very little to complain about once they eat them, or so Billy says.”
Sharpe chuckles and sits back at his desk. “Well… Billy is a smart man. If he doesn’t think it’ll cause a ruckus among the men, then by all means. And yes, you’ll find them at the market on Nassau. Take Tydes with you.”
“Why?” I ask.
Sharpe gives me another one of those looks that mean he expects me to read his mind. I don’t take the bait this time. I cross my arms and wait.
He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “After seeing your skill with a pistol, I don’t trust you to be on your own anywhere there are other men.”
“I beg your finest pardon?” I ask, feigning offense, when in reality his assessment of me is, once more, absolutely correct.
He pulls the pistol from his belt and holds it up. “You’re meant to hold it from this end, Kitten.”
My cheeks heat and I narrow my eyes at him. “I am very well aware of how to hold a pistol.”
“Are you?”
“I may not know how to shoot one, but I know how to hold one,” I insist, lifting my chin. “My aim was to strike him over the head. The barrel isn’t heavy enough to knock a man out.”
Sharpe smiles and sets the pistol down on the desk. “I suppose that’s true. In any case, take Tydes with you for protection.”
“The twins—”
“Are too small to protect you if someone tries to start something with the pretty dandy asking for bananas.”
“Plantains,” I correct.
“Take Tydes.”
“Wait—pretty?”
Sharpe ignores me as he opens a drawer to rifle through a stack of papers.
I watch him for a moment, trying to work out what he’s looking for if he can’t read.
Then I realize he’s ruining the order in which I had those papers, and I hurry around the side of the desk to push his hand out of the drawer.
“You’re messing everything up,” I insist when he gives me a wide-eyed look that could be either shock or just his version of a death stare. I raise my eyebrows back at him in a silent challenge, then reach into the drawer to pull the papers out myself. “What are you looking for?”
“My letter of marque from the last time we were in Port Royal. I’ll need it when we dock.”
I roll my eyes and flip through the papers. “Who signed it?”
Sharpe’s chair gives a low creak as he leans back. “Lewis or Lawes? Whatever that prick’s name is.”
“Not a fan of the governor of Jamaica, I take it?” I ask as I slip the document in question from the pile and set it down on the desk. “Do you know what it says?”
For a moment I think he might take offense to my question. But he picks up the paper and studies it. “I remember the gist of it,” he says. “And no, I’m not a fan of the tyrant of Jamaica.”
I’m not going to touch that one. I put the rest of the papers back into the drawer and ease it shut. “Well, I’m off.”
“Tydes will be down with Cook, discussing provisions.”
“Right,” I say as I snatch up my ledger.
I don’t add that I have no intention of finding Mr. Tydes.
Every time that man looks at me, he still gets an expression on his face as if something in my vicinity smells rank.
It’s hardly conducive to feelings of amity.
I turn to leave but stop myself and face Sharpe once more. “I could teach you, you know.”
The tense silence that follows makes me nervous I have overstepped. I bite my lip and am considering simply leaving the cabin when Sharpe finally offers me a strange smile that I cannot read.
“That’s kind of you, Kitten.”
“Is it?” I ask with a grimace.
He chuckles, and the tension melts from my shoulders. “Aye, it is. But I think it’s a bit late to teach this old dog new tricks.”
“Poppycock. I could teach you with the very same novel I’ve been teaching Tristan with.”
At that, he laughs—and warmth swells in my belly. “The filthy one that has him staring at you in horror with those big doe eyes?”
“The very one.”
“I may have to take you up on that, then, Kitten,” Sharpe says with a purr.
I give him my best flirtatious smile and narrow my eyes. “Wonderful. I’ll have you reading words like ‘copulation’ and ‘erogenous’ in no time.” With that, I turn to leave his cabin, the sound of Captain Sharpe’s delighted laughter following me out.
Since I would rather dive headfirst into the ocean in my silks than ask Mr. Tydes to chaperone my shopping trip, I instead make my way to the hold, where I assume Tristan and Trevor will be shirking their duties.
I’m pleased to find that my assumption is correct. I grin at them as I step into the hold and lean against a stack of crates. “Does Renard know you’re down here?”
Tristan lifts his head, wrinkling his nose at the question, and I see that they’re playing some dice game they’ve likely tried to teach me. Gambling has never been for me. Not that the risk doesn’t sound like fun—but I’d rather spend my coin on booze and company. And besides, dice is boring.
“No,” Trevor says, sitting back. “Want to play?”
“Not particularly,” I say as I move to sit with them, setting my ledger in my lap. “How about I just give you each a shilling when we get to port and we can say I played?”
Trevor wrinkles up his nose at the offer, but Tristan laughs. “I won’t say no to free coin,” he says. I smile back at him, feeling a little lazy as I lean against a crate full of sugar we filched off a merchant vessel some weeks ago.
“I didn’t think you would.”
Tristan chuckles and rolls the dice, then mutters something under his breath, and it’s Trevor’s turn to laugh.
I close my eyes and allow myself to enjoy the sound of the dice dancing on the wooden floor, of Tristan’s and Trevor’s voices as they take turns laughing and insulting each other.
When the sounds of their game stop, I open my eyes and look at them both. “Finished already?”
Tristan grins. “Ye fell asleep.”
“Did I?”
“Ye snore,” Trevor says.
I sit upright and gasp. “I do not,” I insist. “Do I?”
“We’re at port,” Tristan says as he pushes the dice into his pocket. He reaches down to help me to my feet, and I frown at them both.
“Do I snore?”
“Yes,” Trevor says.
At the same time Tristan shakes his head. “No. Trevor’s just bein’ an ass.”
“What does either of you know about Jeff Reuter?” I ask as I dust off my trousers with my free hand.
My question startles them both. Tristan frowns. “Jeff, the accountant? We aren’t supposed to talk about him,” he says. “It’ll bring down a curse on us.”
I shiver a little and stare at the ledger in my hand. “So I’ve heard.”
“Renard was friendly with him,” Tristan whispers. “Even he wasn’t safe from the curse after Jeff… vanished.” I’m a little surprised by this revelation. Renard hadn’t mentioned that he and Reuter were particularly close.
“Don’t worry about him, Mr. Kit,” Trevor says, patting my shoulder. “Nothin’s gonna happen to ye.”
I frown, letting them think that I’m worried about the curse and not the assignment Captain Sharpe has given me. “Sure,” I say.
“C’mon,” Tristan says, pulling my shirtsleeve. “Go get yer purse so ye can buy us somethin’ in the market.”
“Tristan,” Trevor scolds, but I laugh and let them lead me from the hold, even as my pulse thrums quietly in warning.