Chapter 50
Spanish Town, Jamaica
“How is she this morning?” Anne demanded when Johnson returned.
The cell door clicked behind him. He hesitated before responding. “Fighting.”
Anne slumped on the cot and buried her head in her hands as the captain took his usual perch on the stool.
The bulge of her stomach felt like a cannonball.
It strained against Jack’s shirt. Anne didn’t have time.
Sweet Jesus, they had no more time. The doctors, Johnson assured her, were doing everything they could.
But then what?
“My paper? The ink you promised?”
“I have it with me.”
Anne glanced up. “Today?”
“Yes,” he said, patting a second leather bag at his side. “A deal is a deal. A man of my word, remember?”
She could already feel her hands around the quill. The words burning inside her. The names, their locations. She fanned the flames of hope.
She’d have to wait for him to leave.
“Mary told me a rather peculiar story,” Johnson said, clearing his throat. “It is quite delicate. I wondered if you might clarify what she meant—fevered as she is, not in her right mind.”
Anne raised a brow. She reminded herself that she still needed Johnson.
There was one last favor she had not asked of him yet.
“Is it true,” he said, his cheeks pink as a sunburn, “that you were rather intimate with your female comrade? That at one point, you touched her bare skin?”
She scoffed. “You can’t be serious?” Of everything—out of all that they’d been through—that was what the blithering captain wanted to talk about?
“Did you love Mary Read?”
Why the bloody hell was he talking in past tense? “Of course I love Mary Read!” Anyone who ever knew Mary, truly knew her, loved her. “She is the closest companion I’ve ever had.”
Steadier than Mam. More temperate than Da.
Kinder and wiser than Ellen—with the same dark, beautiful lashes.
Smarter than Jack. Stronger, too.
More interesting, more complicated, and braver than the hundreds of other sailors and pirates she had been acquainted with. Selfless. Thoughtful. Curious. The person she wanted at her side, whether with a cutlass raised against an attacker or with a gentle hand of reassurance.
Mary had saved her life in more ways than one. Anne wouldn’t let her die in a cell. Not her, and not her child either. They’d come too far.
“But you do love her,” Johnson repeated. “For the record.”
“For the record, yes.” In a thousand ways he, and maybe no man, could ever understand.
Johnson scratched down some notes, then paused. “Charles Vane was taken to the gallows. That’s what detained me this week. I had to record his history.”
Good. Unsurprising. Vane had pillaged long enough, murdered enough captives and brother sailors alike. If they all had to end up here, a demon and a coward like Vane at least deserved it.
Whatever her fate, she would not die like a coward.
“Did you know that Bonny sailed with him, after you captured the William?”
Anne balled her fists, the area around her nails raw and angry from chewing. She hadn’t heard word of Bonny since fleeing Nassau.
“Vane, who knew Rackham better than most, jumped at this brief stint as a privateer before turning pirate again. Rumor has it that Bonny was hired to join him as a mercenary to hunt you. Governor Rogers has not confirmed this information with me—whether or not he ever granted Bonny or Vane an official letter of marque. No matter the details, Bonny seems to have disappeared. I thought, given what you shared with me, that you ought to know. They are still searching for Bonny—though the remains of the ship …”
It was him, Anne realized at once, staring at the stone wall.
It was he who put Governor Rogers up to it all.