Chapter 44
New Providence, Nassau
A deluge blinded Anne’s vision, rain pelting her cheeks as she fled into the night. She slipped around street corners amid the storm, feigning confidence despite the chaos of drunken card games between seafarers under pavilions.
Her pulse hammered and she tightened the scarf shielding her face.
A week had passed since the wife sale, and she missed the knife she’d abandoned in the square every day.
She had studied the path to Bonny’s estate, but it was harder to recognize side streets in the soggy darkness.
And to think she’d once believed the Jubilee was in the rough area of Nassau.
The stench of Mary’s part of town made Anne’s nostrils flare.
The rain did little to alleviate it. Her boots were soaked through. Lord, she had been walking for hours.
Bonny might already be looking. This flight was, she knew, her final chance. She would either escape with her life or forfeit it.
Thunder rumbled overhead. She’d made a wager—Mary or Rackham—and Anne bet on what she hoped was the less obvious option to anyone hunting her down.
A mutt yapped at her heels, and Anne nearly knocked over an umbrella covering a gambling table.
“Watch it, will ya?” A man swatted at her before righting a candle that had fallen over.
She raised her hands in silent apology, her eyes not leaving the dog.
This is not Ireland.
I am no longer a helpless child.
At last, Anne reached Mary’s familiar door. Mary pulled her inside.
“Thomas,” Mary said with a calm yet firm tone using her resonant female voice. “She’s here.”
Thomas dropped the fishnet he was mending and glanced up. Seeing Anne, he stood in a hurry.
“Go,” Mary said. “Tell Rackham. Gather the others.”
Thomas sprang to leave without a word.
“What others? What the Devil is happening?” Anne asked. She surveyed the room, even more bare than before. “Are you … packing?”
Mary flung a cutlass into the single trunk and gave Anne one of Thomas’s coats to wear. “We knew we’d need to move fast.”
We?
“I’ve been gathering arms. I’ll explain on the way; there isn’t time,” Mary said. She closed the lid of the ironbound sea chest. “Help me? Drag this to the door. The two of us will carry it out.”
“What about Thomas’s fishing net?”
“Leave it.”
Thunder boomed outside as Mary took an armful of weapons out from under the bed—a sawed-off musket, a pistol, several cast-iron grenades, and a dirk.
The sight left Anne queasy. She swallowed. “Tell me we aren’t staging a revolt.” She’d just escaped Bonny—she had little interest in going back to fight him.
“Not exactly,” Mary said, tucking the pistol into her belt and throwing the musket strap over her back. “Rackham said you’re a fine hand on a ship. We’ll need it.” Mary held out a small blade for Anne to take.
“You found my knife?” she breathed, hesitating.
“I’ll teach you how to use this one day. But with any luck, you won’t have to use it tonight.”
A heartbeat passed, then another, before Anne took the dagger. Then they fled into the torrential rain.
When Jack threw his arms around Anne, squeezing her like a vise, she inhaled his scent—rain and rum and cedar—and every muscle in her body relaxed.
Safe.
At last, she felt she’d be all right.
“Bon,” he breathed, picking her up and spinning her on the dark shore.
He kissed her, hard, desperately, and she leaned into his heat, knocking off his tricorn.
Then he ripped away, looking her over as his hair dripped, and ran a finger along her jaw.
“Did that bastard hurt you? I’ll kill him. I’ll slit his scheming throat.”
Anne shook her head and hid the shiver that shot down her spine.
She did not want to recount her revolting week of pretending to be a grateful, repentant wife.
Jack didn’t need to hear it. All that mattered now was that they were together.
“I’m fine,” she said, touching his chest. “I’m here.
” His strong embrace instantly singed her senses.
She could have taken him right there and then on the beach.
Someone cleared their throat, and Anne turned to see the crew Mary had described.
“Earl’s returned from scouting,” said Richard Corner, Jack’s quartermaster. Despite his enormous size, he had a friendly face—the kind one might expect from a priest.
“How many aboard the William?” Jack said, retrieving his hat.
“Two, Captain. Seems to be stocked for the privateer’s journey, as we predicted.”
“And at Fort Nassau?”
“Half the men at their stations with twenty-eight cannons and a guard ship. But with this wretched weather, we might slip past unscathed.”
“Everyone is in position?” Rackham said.
“Aye. We’re ready.”
Anne searched the faces in the fog as the breakers crashed. She recognized half of the crew from men who’d served under Jack during her year on the ship.
Then she spotted Thomas’s rowboat pulled up onto the sand.
Was he back in Jack’s good graces?
Mary sprang open the trunk they’d carried to the shore.
“Gather your weapons. Remember, intimidation is your sharpest blade.” She handed out arms and cartridges of gunpowder.
Thomas pulled the fishing vessel toward the sea.
The swells threatened to knock him over. A bolt of lightning lashed overhead.
“Seems like a bad night to steal a ship,” Anne said.
“That’s why it’s the perfect night, Bon,” Jack said, flashing his winning smile. “You chose your escape well. Now, after you, my lady.” He offered her a hand and helped her into the boat. Her fingers tingled at his touch. Lord, she ached to get him alone.
When the last of the crew were aboard, Thomas pushed off as the leaders paddled with all they were worth.
The waves slammed into them, sending ocean spilling over the sides.
Anne gasped and blinked against the rain, her heart thumping like an angry fist against her ribs as the silhouette of the ship emerged from the fog.
“Ladders are on the starboard side,” said Earl, the spindly young scout.
They dug the oars against the violent current and angled for the William in perfect silence. The sloop sat high above the waterline. At one point, Mary leaned over the side—to vomit, Anne presumed. Thomas didn’t look up from his rowing. Was Mary well enough for this plan?
When the rowboat knocked into the hull, Thomas stood and latched a boarding pike to the ladder, drawing them in and tying off.
Thomas held the boat steady as one, then two crew members scrambled up the ladder.
The rest did the same, followed by Mary and Thomas.
Then, Jack swept Anne up with one arm, surveying her face and the knife tucked into her belt.
He kissed her wet forehead before sending her up.
“I’ll never let anything bad happen to you again,” he whispered.
Her throat squeezed and her stomach fluttered. “I know. Besides, I’m not done with you.” She kissed him fiercely before climbing up the ladder ahead of Jack, his body pressed close behind her as the fishing vessel below shrank from view.
Flinging themselves onto the upper deck, Anne found her footing and drew her knife.
She flicked her gaze to each member of the silent crew.
They’d boarded undetected—a step toward victory.
The scout signaled to a hatch near the mainmast, below which the sailors manning the William must be stationed.
Her pulse hammered as they crept along the damp planks, the ship bucking under the swells, threatening to knock her over.
Jack’s hand found hers. She caught his eye, and courage welled within her once more.
Mary, Thomas, and another crewmate moved right, steel raised. In her other hand, Mary also held a flintlock pistol.
Surrounding the hatch, everyone looked at Rackham. He pressed a finger to his lips before pulling a bottle of wine from his coat.
Now? Really, Jack? At a time like this?
Then, George Featherstone—Jack’s sailing master—threw open the hatch as Jack shattered the bottle on the deck, loud enough to draw notice.
“Did you hear that?” came a voice from below.
Silence. Anne’s crewmates withdrew to the shadows, weapons ready. She felt her knees shake and she clutched her knife tighter.
“Wind blew open the hatch.”
Stop shaking, she told herself. Don’t show your fear.
“Better check,” came another voice. “Could be something amiss with the rigging.”
His companion let out an exaggerated sigh. The seconds dragged like minutes as boots clomped up each step. Anne closed her eyes, then forced them open. Her heart sounded like cannon fire in her ears. She braced herself.
When the sailor emerged, Featherstone tackled him to the floor as another stuffed a gag in his mouth. Thomas bound his hands.
“Disarm him,” Rackham mouthed. Anne helped the others search the man’s waistcoat. His feet banged against the deck in protest as he tried to yell through his gag.
“Everything all right, Fletcher?”
The sailor squirmed all the harder at his name, rain pelting the main deck around him like grapeshot, until the second set of boots made their way up the ladder.
The second man didn’t have time to use his raised musket before Richard Corner pushed him down and snatched the weapon from his grip. He crashed onto his stomach. The others held back his arms and pinned him down, tying his wrists.
“Sorry about that,” Corner muttered.
“Who are you?” the bearded sailor bellowed, eyes wild as he took in the sight of his thrashing companion on the deck beside him. “How dare you board this vessel without permission!”
Jack stepped forward. “Sorry to disturb you, fellow seafarers. We mean you no harm, but we are in need of this ship.”
The man barked out a laugh. “Are you deranged? Do you have any idea who commands this sloop?”
“Aye, I do,” Jack said. “And, much as I admire Captain Ham and his mission to hunt down sea rogues, urgency demands sacrifices.”
The sailor scoffed as half the crew dispersed to check the inventory and the other half saw to the rigging.
The wooden yards knocked against the mast. Reefing the mainsail was necessary if they didn’t want to capsize.
Featherstone and Corner, the largest of the crew, stood guard over their captives.
“Fully stocked hold, Captain,” Howell reported—the biggest drunkard in their crew. Anne never did like him. “Provisions to last a month. Some great wine selections, too!”
“We’re ready to sail,” Earl said, elbowing Howell in the ribs.
Jack turned to the captives. “Seems we will be on our way now. Once we put enough distance between the William and shore, my men will escort you to your escape vessel—a nice little rowboat.”
The bearded one without a gag leaned forward. He studied Anne’s face and hair, then sneered at Jack. “I know you. I know what you are.”
Anne’s grip tightened on her knife.
“A pleasure to meet you, despite these regrettable conditions,” Jack said, ignoring the threat as the crew returned to their positions.
“We should just kill ’em,” Howell growled, his missing front tooth on full display. “They’ll turn us in the second they can.”
“We don’t kill unarmed men,” Mary snapped with conviction. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, she could be scary. And to think, only Anne and Thomas knew the half of it.
Jack raised his tricorn, bidding the sailors adieu. While the rest of the crew sprang into position, Anne stayed at Jack’s side.
“I suppose there is no return now.” She looked up at him, his smiling eyes, the rain caught in his lashes.
“Nothing to return to, Bon,” he said, pulling her in, his lips finding hers.
She tasted the sweetness of his mouth. His ragged breath sent her blood aflame as he whispered, “The horizon is ours now.” He nipped her earlobe before darting for the helm, where Mary and Featherstone were busy shouting coordinates and directives.
Anne panted, relishing the warmth returning to her numbed toes. Even in a downpour, that man could light a fire in her with a single strike of flint and steel. She tucked her knife into her belt. Her fingers lingered there for a moment, on her stomach.
I’ll tell him. When the time is right.
She shook herself alert and sprinted for the ropes, the halyard line with a white pennant flag knocking against the mainmast. Her drenched hem slapped against her legs. The wind whipped at her hair and the shrouds as the reefed sails caught the full strength of the squall.