Chapter 22 #3
“Well?” she yelled, feinting a physical taunt by stepping forward with a stomp. “Get to work, you scurvy dogs!”
Men moved to rush around in confusion, nearly bumping into each other in frantic steps. Her crew, with faces of humour, quickly stepped in to take charge and direct them. Even Mr Smith and Naeem stepped down to assist, leaving Alister alone with Rosetta.
He got to watch her take in the reality that this ship was hers now.
She turned and walked to the helm, brushing her fingertips over the well-polished wheel. Then she clutched two of the eight handles firmly, squeezing them so tightly he thought she was trying to break them.
“I have waited so long for this day,” she murmured.
He wasn’t sure if it was to herself or to him. “Your father was never a sailor on this ship, was he?”
She shook her head. “No. My brother was.”
“That wasn’t enough for you to know this ship inside and out. You knew this ship because Theodore brought you on it.”
“Partially,” she admitted, slowly shifting her eyes away from the wheel to his face. “My father was a businessman like Mr Smith. He designed this boat.”
“Your father helped build it?”
“No, Alister. He designed it.” A small, sad smile filled her features as she stared forward. “I am the Laughing Siren.”
Her eyes trailed over the railings, the sails, just as he did the same with an unnerved hint to his gaze.
“He told me when he had it made that I was the inspiration. When he had the mermaid carved at the front of the ship, it was because he loved the way I laughed when I was truly happy. He said I had a wonderful laugh.”
Alister snorted. “Your laugh is terrible, lass.”
“I know.” She sighed, her sad smile not falling as she hugged the wheel in longing. “Theodore hated it, told me I sounded like a screeching monkey. He would often tell me to shut up.”
He suddenly wished he could eat his own words.
Although her laugh was something terrible, he’d come to find it quite adorable for such a small woman to produce such a boisterous noise.
She seemed to sense his disquiet.
“This ship has always been mine. When Theodore discovered I was the inspiration for it, he told the queen this was the ship he wanted to sail. I hated the idea of him having it.” Then she muttered, “He didn’t deserve anything that represented me.”
“It’s a beautiful boat.” Just like its inspiration.
He couldn’t stop his good eye from roving over the pretty woman who was truly a brute inside – a sensual, bitchy woman who tied him up in knots.
“You lied to me,” he told her.
“I did that a lot.” She brought her gaze to him. “You’re going to have to be a bit more specific.”
“You told me you didn’t have a tormented past, but what I discovered today is pretty twisted.”
“It’s a complicated past.”
“I have a complicated past, Rosetta.” He laughed darkly. “Yours is tormented.”
She narrowed her gaze at him.
“I refused to wear it. I’m no longer that person, and I will never allow someone to treat me that way ever again.”
“So, you’re from Luxor.” She thinned her lips, likely at him knowing where she was from, and he rolled his eyes. “It’s where he’s from. Even I knew that.”
“I wasn’t born there. My family is from Showater City, just a few ports down.”
That made Alister frown. “Then how did you end up marrying him?”
She groaned, draping herself over the wheel dramatically. “Why do you even care? I’d much rather not talk about it.”
“I’m curious.” He gave a shrug before crossing his arms, then raised a brow when she pouted. “If you weren’t from the same city, how did you end up in his sights?”
“My brother,” she admitted with a sigh. “My father used his ship-making business to get my brother employed. Theodore first saw me when I was nine, there to congratulate my brother for joining his crew.”
Alister came forward to rest his back on the wheel, curling his arm around the handles. Leaning against it, he crossed one foot in front of the other. He was trying to get her to stop using it to hide.
“From that day, he visited my father to look over his ships under the pretence he was looking for more vessels for the queen’s fleet.
He would also visit my brother and got him promoted quickly.
It was all a guise so he could check on me.
When I turned thirteen, he told my father he wanted my hand in marriage, and to arrange it for when I was old enough. ”
“So you had an arranged marriage.”
“No,” Rosetta said with a shake of her head. “My father denied him. He wanted me to choose my husband when I was old enough.”
Alister frowned once more. “Then how did you end up marrying him anyway?”
Rosetta gave a bitter laugh with very little humour in it. “Theodore tried to ruin my father’s business. He made sure he couldn’t sell as many ships, did everything to make sure he lost his income to the point where we were so poor we had to start selling items.”
“Your father actually agreed to give you to this man because of this?” Alister couldn’t believe it! They had willingly handed her over to someone obviously bad and corrupt.
“I didn’t know until after I married him – when it was too late.
” She pressed her chin against the wheel, right near the crook of his elbow.
“Theodore got drunk a lot. He told me what he’d done one night when he was too drunk to remember.
But before that, when I turned sixteen, he demanded my hand in marriage, and my father was so desperate that he agreed to it. ”
“Sixteen? Lass, that isn’t legal.”
“It is if your parents agree to it,” she muttered, trailing her eyes back up to his. “My father didn’t want to, but he had no choice.”
“And you agreed to this?”
She squinted at him, no doubt realising he wanted her to wear some of the blame. If she agreed to it...
“He promised to save my father’s business, and he paid for me rather than my parents needing to give a dowry.
” She shifted her gaze away. “I did it to save my family, not knowing what I was truly walking into. I was a teenager, thinking I was to be married to a duke. How was I supposed to know he would start beating me?”
She has a fair point.
“So, you were an underage bride sold to a man who had destroyed your family just to have you.”
“Aye, lad,” she mocked. “He sought after me hard, apparently because I was this beautiful thing, and he hurt me. He at least delivered on his promise to promote my brother again and save my father’s business. He’d bought the Laughing Siren before all this, though.”
“You noble people are so complicated.”
She gave a snort of laughter. “You can say that again.”
“If you wanted him dead, why go through all this trouble? Why not just poison him?”
“Because I wanted to be free.” She leaned back to palm the handles again, glaring at them.
“If it was discovered I’d murdered him, I would have been sent to prison.
The day he killed our child was the day I decided to escape, become a pirate, and eventually steal this ship by putting a bullet in his head. ”
“What did you say to piss him off?” Her lips thinned and he let out a laugh. “Don’t get me wrong, lass, I’m not the kind of man to hit a defenceless woman, but I do believe I shot at you. You’ve got a bold personality; I can only imagine how much he hated that.”
A smile pestered her lips. “He was expecting some quiet woman,” she agreed.
“Instead, he got me.” She gave a deep sigh, turning her head up to the sky, as if to pull strength from it.
“He was so drunk that he told me if our child wasn’t a boy, he’d tell the woman he’d gotten pregnant that he’d take that child and make me raise him.
I didn’t know he’d been unfaithful to me, so when he told me that, I told him if he continued to have port girls, I would sleep with other men while he was away at sea. ”
Alister cleared his throat of the lump in it, stepping away from the wheel. It seemed his movements caught her attention because she looked at him, then rolled her eyes like she could read his thoughts.
“I understand it now,” she conceded with a laugh.
“Women can’t swim across the sea and tell each other.
It’s easy to have other girls.” She turned the wheel from side to side with a smile.
“It’s lonely at sea. I had to sail it to understand what it’s like.
Still, you would’ve thought he’d have kept his dick to himself. ”
She leaned her elbow on the wheel, resting against it. It didn’t seem like she was willing to let it go now.
“I was a good wife. I did what I was told, did my wifely duties without complaint. I held teas, parties, showed off his wealth to make him happy. Unfortunately, any mistake, no matter how large or small, was punished. I looked forward to when he would piss off to sea.”
It didn’t take Alister much to realise it. “You never wanted him to come back.”
“Nope. I wanted him good and dead long before I set out to do it myself. That being said, even though I hated my situation at the time, I’m glad it led to this.
” She gave Alister a brighter smile, her blue eyes catching the sunlight, which made them look like shallow water.
“I think I was born to be a pirate. I hated sitting around like some stupid, brainless woman. Theodore never shut up about the sea; it’s all he would talk about.
He told me so much about being in command of a ship and crew, and I used that information to become a captain.
He had old books on sailing, which I studied before I left.
The moment he left for duty, I ran, since he wasn’t around to stop me. ”
She fell back, stretching her arms out while she held onto the handles and bowed her back. It was like she wanted to turn upside down, the tips of her brunette hair almost brushing the timber decking.
“There is no truer freedom than being a captain of the seas.”
Alister shook his head with a deep chuckle. “Well, ain’t that the truth.”