Chapter 32
A high sun nudged Anne awake. She stirred, flipped over in the gentle golden air, and smiled into her down feather pillow. Such a dreamless sleep. Such a deep, needed, peaceful—
Her eyes snapped open with sudden memory.
Scrambling out of bed, she noted the lighting and cursed. She’d slept late. More than late.
And that bastard owed her answers. What did he know? Was James already hunting her down?
Throwing on her boots, she scanned the room. Beyond the vase of flowers, nothing proved unique. No clues. Nothing of ill report.
Then she spotted his sea chest at the base of the bed.
A thrill moved through her, but she didn’t move. She comforted herself with the fact that, unlike him, she could take the moral high ground. The less she knew about him, the better. He’d leave soon enough. And so would she.
Since when have I been a saint? She felt the leather and brass studs of the trunk, ready to rifle through it all, then frowned.
It was locked.
Racing down the stairs, Anne’s heart lurched when she saw the empty floor under the bar.
“Good afternoon,” came Huxley’s voice. She jolted. He gave her a once-over as he sat beside the hearth, then continued prying conch meat from a stack of pink shells. “Missed the breakfast shift—all three of our guests, that is, who managed to rise.”
“I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.” She was acutely aware of her wrinkled dress, her mussed hair, her next budding question. Her cheeks flushed. This did not look good. But this was Nassau, not Charles Town. “Have you seen Captain Rackham?”
The cook’s annoyance was unmistakable. “Be back before the night rush,” he said, motioning his paring knife toward the door. “Said to find him at the docks. You’ll know the Ranger when you see it.”
Gentle waves bumped against the wharf as the sky vaulted in an endless celestial blue.
In the distance, Anne saw a colony of flamingos.
Black-headed gulls flapped overhead in a breeze that made the constantly wet air tolerable, even pleasant.
Anne floated toward the sounds and smells of the open sea, a destination she’d avoided since her arrival.
Every venture outside had felt like a risk.
But this? She closed her eyes and inhaled. This was home. The closest thing she’d known to it since leaving Ireland. And out of fear, she’d stayed away, hidden in the Jubilee.
It wouldn’t be a mistake she’d repeat again.
Sure enough, she recognized Rackham’s lovely ship immediately. A sloop with a needle-thin bowsprit and Ranger painted in gold lettering. It was modest, but fine—with a strong mainmast holding a mainsail and a jib.
“How’d you sleep?”
Anne craned to look at the honey voice above as she stood on the dock. Rackham waved from the raised quarterdeck of the stern. He leaned against the rail and propped his chin on a fist. He wore a loose pink shirt.
“I’ve had worse.” She wasn’t ready to admit it was the best she’d slept since before Mam died. “And yourself?”
He shrugged. “Well enough.” He gestured to the ladder. She climbed, and he offered his strong hand to pull her inside. She hesitated, then took it, feeling the tingly heat of his rope-callused fingers.
“What do you think?”
She scanned the polished oak deck. A few crew members cleaned the bow at the other end of the sixty-foot sloop until it gleamed, and Anne couldn’t hide the look on her face.
He beamed in response. “I’m glad you like it, Bon.”
She turned to face him, crossing her arms and returning to her purpose. “You owe me answers.”
“Which I’ll be pleased to give. Shall we?” He offered his arm.
For a moment, she remembered her old life—the parties and balls, the society events back in Charles Town.
But she was that woman no longer. Anne strode past him toward the elevated platform, where stood a compass and the most glorious helm she’d ever seen.
She placed both hands on the handles, admiring the craftsmanship and brass inlay of stars along the spokes.
“How do you know my name?” she asked.
“You told me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be coy. I need to know if I’m in danger.”
“Why would you be?” He placed himself beside her, then stole her fingers away from the wheel to redirect her attention to him. The places he touched singed as she dropped her hands to her side. His gaze had a new look, one she hadn’t seen in the captain before. He searched her eyes. “You’re safe.”
What a presumption. For all she knew, he was deliberately seducing her with the beauty of this ship. Safe? With a man like Bonny on the loose? What empty nonsense. She almost laughed to cover the emotion that simple phrase could stir. He seemed to notice.
“You’re safe,” he repeated, and at last, she caught his stare without fear.
He took a step back, then cleared his throat.
“I meant what I said yesterday. There are no secrets in Nassau. This shantytown is well-enough acquainted with Bonny in the ten years he’s lurked about New Providence.
But”—he paused—“it was you, in fact, who offered up your full name when Bonny listed the Swallow at port.”
Anne shifted, her boots hard against the glorious polish of the wooden deck. She’d forgotten. She never thought it would matter. The only thing she cared about now was procuring forged papers to get off this island.
“My crew and I make it a point to know who is in town, and who is away. We have many friends and even more enemies. I have a deal with the name-takers and risk nothing.”
“You don’t strike me as a man of caution.”
“Maybe not for myself,” he said, leaning against the rail as he studied her. “But for others in my care and under my protection? I try.”
Anne returned to tracing the decorative edging of the helm. He might know her name, but he knew nothing about her.
“And James Bonny?”
“Off island.”
She sighed with relief, then studied the fore-and-aft rigging with closer attention, running her palms along the ropes.
“Are the rumors true?” he said. “Do you know your way around a ship?”
She grinned. “What about your own escapades?” she asked. “Ousting Charles Vane, running amok in the Caribbean as a fearsome, bloodthirsty leader, and evading capture at every turn?” She paused. “Are those rumors also true?”
He knocked on the boom above her head. “Not the violent part, not if I can help it—I’ve never been that kind of pirate.” He made a dramatic bow. “Merely a gentleman at your service. I can make an exception for James Bonny, though. If he deserves it.”
She huffed by way of sidestepping the question.
Though she knew he was a pirate—like anyone else on this scab of land—it still made her squirm to hear the word spoken aloud.
Had she not, herself, been a kind of pirate?
James would have accused Murphy, Alby, Dutton, and Captain Eford of the very actions Bonny and Anne participated in while aboard the Swallow.
What did it mean to be a pirate? And when had she slipped, without a clear warning or border, into this murky life? She knew that it had consequences. “Why do you do it?”
He used his thumb to polish the standing compass. The front of his open shirt waved in the soft breeze. “You tell me. Why does the sea call to you?”
Because of the texture of salt air when it dries on bare skin.
Because of the wind in my hair that calls me back to something older than myself.
Because of the burning flame of a sunrise after a storm.
Because it refuses to be small, contained, controlled, predictable.
Because it has no care for names or pasts or marriage arrangements or sins.
Because it’s not afraid of me or who I might become, what I might say or not say, how I might act or fail to act in a moment of terror or weakness.
Because the sea didn’t leave me.
Because it never will.
She rested against the wall behind the helm. “Surely loving open water and a fine horizon isn’t the same as thieving and stealing.”
He shrugged and rubbed his neck. “I’ve never met an honorable seaman.
Merchants prey on the less fortunate and exploit and lie and cheat at every corner.
Slavers are unworthy of even the deepest circle of hell.
The navy beats its men into groveling ash, then invokes God to justify murdering fellow humans who speak another tongue.
Privateers are pirates who call themselves noble and make deals with the worst of the lot—governors and royals.
Pirates, at least, are honest—or the kind whose company I most enjoy.
It is said that ‘when a pirate sleeps, he dreams not that he has died and gone to heaven, but instead, that he has returned to New Providence.’ You’ve witnessed enough to observe Nassau’s particular freedoms. Stealing is a quicker way to make a coin, too.
But,” he added with dramatic emphasis, “it might please your Christian conscience to know that I am reformed. Took the king’s general pardon up with Governor Woodes Rogers last night before dinner.
It’s all settled. A life behind me and my men. A clean slate stretched out ahead.”
Anne rocked on her heels, studying his face for any hint of lies. “So … you’re not a pirate?”
“Not anymore.”
“Then what will happen to your ship? Your crew?”
“I must be content to remain dishonorable in the same, ordinary ways as all the other self-proclaimed members of the ‘civilized’ world.”
Jack, seeing Anne shift her weight, pulled up an empty keg for her to sit on.
“Thank you,” she said, surprised and touched by the gesture.
“With pleasure. Now. Tell me of yourself.”
Another hour passed, then another. Anne told Jack of Ireland and her parents, the bleak days of life in London, and a summary of her time in Charles Town.
Da—heaven help her, the wound still stung.
She surprised herself in telling him about Nathaniel and what drove her into marriage with Bonny.
He listened—unlike her father, the only other person she’d told—and seemed to believe her.
Imagine it! Sharing the story, however vaguely, helped release some of its hold on her heart.
In turn, Anne learned about Jack’s childhood in Bristol.
Fishing in the River Avon. His overprotective father and over-doting mother.
Breaking his mother’s heart when he committed to a life at sea.
How he came to be called “Calico Jack” on account of his preferred choice of clothes—a light calico textile akin to muslin, perfect for the hot climate—and why he felt little need to distinguish himself with stiff velvet waistcoats and constrictive jerkins.
He had nothing to prove in dressing like a proper gentleman and wore every wild color under the sky, a trait Anne found rather endearing.
When the sun seeped into a buttery glow off the port side of the Ranger, reflecting off the crystal green water, Anne took her cue to return to work. “Are you coming?”
“In an hour or two. Need to settle a few things and careen my sloop with due haste.” He adjusted his tricorn. “Save me a seat, Bon. One away from the Scot with wandering hands.”
She bit her lip. Did she like this pet name?
She hoped her cheeks didn’t reveal how she felt knowing this wasn’t goodbye.
At least for a short while longer. It wouldn’t hurt to have a friend, if she was foolish enough to call it that, who knew the town, who could help her find a way to escape before James returned.
“Which, of your many names and titles, am I to call you?”
The corner of his mouth twitched into a half smile. “Anything you want.”