Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Oh, England is a pleasant place for them that’s rich and high,
But England is a cruel place for such poor folks as I;
And such a port for mariners I ne’er shall see again
As the pleasant Isle of Avès, beside the Spanish main.
— ANONYMOUS, “THE LAST BUCCANEER”
“What do you think?” Sara asked Louisa as they peered at the horizon shortly after breakfast the next morning. It had been almost half an hour since the lookout had shouted “Land ho!” and they could still make out only a speck of mottled brown.
“It’s still too far away to tell much.”
A crowd of women surrounded them, pushing against the rails in their eagerness to glimpse their new home. Ann Morris shoved her way through to stand at Sara’s elbow, then shifted a stack of dirty plates from one hand to the other. “Is that Atlantis Island?”
“We’re not sure,” Sara said, “but we seem to be making for it. And the captain did tell me it would take only two days’ sail.”
Ann squinted at the speck. “P’raps we should ask Petey to let us look at it through the spyglass. He’d find a way to get one, I’ll wager.”
“I’m sure if Miss Willis asked, he’d be only too happy to oblige,” Louisa remarked absently. “Now that she’s going to marry him, he—”
A sudden crash made both Sara and Louisa whirl toward Ann. The little woman stood staring down at a pile of broken crockery, her fist pressed to her mouth.
“Ann?” Sara asked as the Welshwoman bent to gather the broken pieces up, placing them quickly in her apron. “Ann, are you all right?” She knelt beside Ann, who was crying now, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. “Good heavens, what’s wrong?”
“Nothin’,” Ann protested, keeping her gaze averted from Sara. “It-It’s nothin’. I just lost my grip on them, is all.”
“But you’re crying—”
Louisa’s hand on Sara’s shoulder cut her off. Louisa bent to murmur, “Leave her be. I shouldn’t have said that in front of her, but I thought she’d already heard.”
“Heard what?” Sara rose to ask.
“That you and Petey are engaged, of course.”
It was true that Sara had told as many women as possible once she’d left the crew’s quarters last night, but she hadn’t thought it would disturb anyone. Sara stared blankly at Louisa, then glanced at Ann, who’d gathered up all the crockery and now rose to hurry away through the crowd.
That’s when the truth hit Sara. Oh, how could she have been so stupid? She’d paid no attention to Ann’s worshipful comments about Petey, to the way she’d always fussed over him on the Chastity.
Ann was in love with Petey—and Sara’s engagement to him must be killing her. She must’ve had her heart set on marrying Petey herself. Guilt hit Sara full force. She’d blithely agreed to Petey’s plan without stopping to think whom else it might hurt. Poor Ann.
It didn’t help to tell herself that Petey probably didn’t even share the Welshwoman’s affections, that he’d be gone as soon as he could find a way off the island.
Ann had never had much in her life, and now the only hope she’d clung to was being ripped away from her.
By Sara, who’d never wanted anything but to make the women happy.
She watched as Ann hurried into the galley. Then she turned to Louisa. “Did you know she had her eye on Petey?”
Louisa nodded. “But don’t worry. I understand why you and Petey joined together, even if Ann doesn’t.
You’re the only two in this unholy crowd who aren’t criminals.
I can’t really blame him for not wanting to marry a convict, and I certainly can’t blame you for not wanting to marry a pirate.
” She shrugged. “People generally stick to their kind. It’s something I learned … a long time ago.”
The wistfulness in Louisa’s voice made a lump form in Sara’s throat.
Louisa had never spoken much about her past, but Sara had made some conjectures.
The man she’d stabbed had been the eldest son of a duke.
It would’ve been easy to fall in love with such a man, but as a governess, Louisa could never have hoped to marry the heir to a title.
Still, if she’d been in love with him, what could the man have done to make her angry enough to stab him? A simple refusal to marry her didn’t seem like enough provocation for a woman of Louisa’s breeding and intelligence. There must have been more to the story.
But Louisa wasn’t the type to talk about her crime as some were wont to do, so Sara wasn’t likely to find out the truth. It was a pity. She’d like to help Louisa.
The way she’d helped Ann? Louisa could do without such help.
“I don’t see any trees,” Louisa commented, obviously determined to change the subject.
Still swamped with guilt, Sara returned her gaze to the horizon. Now the speck had grown to a shapeless blob, still brown and unlikely looking. “That’s what Gideon calls a ‘paradise’?” she speculated aloud.
Louisa slanted a curious look at her. “You’re on a first-name basis with our good captain?”
Hot color stained Sara’s cheeks. “No, of course not. I-I meant to say, Captain Horn.” That was something else she had to feel guilty about—her disastrous encounter with him yesterday.
He’d avoided her ever since, with good reason.
She should never have allowed him such blatant liberties. It gave him the wrong idea entirely.
“I wouldn’t get too intimate with Captain Horn if I were you,” Louisa remarked in a low voice, her face carefully blank.
“I’m not intimate with him.”
Louisa arched one eyebrow. “Good. Then you won’t mind that he sent Barnaby down to the hold late last night to fetch Queenie to his bed.”
Her gaze flew to Louisa’s. “He did what?”
“You said you weren’t intimate with him.”
Jerking her gaze back to the horizon, Sara fought for nonchalance. “I’m not. I’m just … appalled he would do such a thing after he told the men to behave as gentlemen until the marriage vows were said.” And after he spent the afternoon trying to seduce me.
A hot surge of jealousy swept through her despite her attempts to quell it.
Glancing up to where Gideon was manning the helm and shouting orders to his sailors, she grimaced.
In his scandalous leather vest and form-fitting breeches, he looked exactly like what he truly was—a randy satyr who would seduce anything in skirts.
She’d been right not to trust him. For all his soft words, his overtures to her had been meaningless.
He’d never intended anything but a quick seduction.
And to think she’d almost given in to him! What a dreadful mistake that would have been.
Louisa shrugged. “He’s the captain. Surely you didn’t expect him to follow the same rules he set for his men.”
“That’s exactly what I expected.” Sara sniffed. “He talks about starting a colony and making it a paradise, but what he really wants is a harem for him and his men. He wants to make us all into Queenies.”
“Shh,” Louisa whispered. “Here she comes now.”
Sara told herself not to look, not to pay attention to the woman. But she couldn’t resist peeking to see if Queenie looked as if she’d spent the night with the captain.
She’d definitely spent the night with someone. She wore a cat-in-the-cream smile as she swaggered across the deck toward them.
“Good mornin’, all,” she chirped. Stretching her shapely arms high over her head, she gave an exaggerated yawn.
“Afraid I’m a little late gettin’ around this mornin’.
Had a long night, you know.” With a languid grace Sara hardly knew the woman possessed, she let her arms slide back down like wilting flower petals, then struck a seductive pose.
“Ladies, you mustn’t worry about the kind of husbands these pirates make.
Judging from last night, I’d say they’ll do quite nicely indeed. ”
Most of the women chuckled. Sara couldn’t.
Turning her flaming face back to the horizon, she fought down the bitter words rising in her throat.
What did it matter if Gideon had bedded Queenie and the wretched tart had enjoyed it?
They deserved each other. Queenie represented the worst of the convict women and Gideon the worst of the pirates. They’d be perfect together.
Then Sara felt, rather than saw, Queenie press through the crowd to stand next to her. Clamping her lips shut, Sara continued to stare at the island, which now loomed closer and larger than before.
“Is that it?” Queenie asked, bracing her crossed arms against the rail. “That’s Atlantis?”
“We think so,” Louisa thankfully answered. Sara couldn’t have answered civilly at that moment if her life depended on it.
“Don’t look like much,” Queenie grumbled. “There’s no green. And where’s the water?”
Sara’s eyes narrowed. Queenie was right. There was no evidence of a spring or any sort of vegetation. If this was what Gideon had meant by “paradise,” he had a strange idea about the meaning of the word.
A somber silence fell on the women as the ship neared the island. After everything these women have endured, at least Gideon could have had the decency not to deceive them about what lay ahead at Atlantis.
As they watched, however, the ship started to veer to the right. It was still making for the island, but now it seemed to be making for the furthest end of it.
“Maybe this ain’t the island after all,” one of the women standing behind Sara remarked. “Maybe we just got to get around it.”
“I don’t think so,” Sara mused aloud. “If they’d wanted to avoid it, they could have passed it from a greater distance.”
The women surged forward against the railing as each sought to get a better look at the huge expanse of dead grass and half-submerged boulders that was now so close they could make out the white seagulls flitting in and out of the jumble of rock.