MARRIAGE AND MONEY #2
Her gaze swept down the length of his body and all those beautiful hidden knives. “Can you actually read, or do you have a monkey to do it for you?”
Somehow he managed to make derision look lovely. “Charming, Cecily.”
Her ears perked at the sound of her name hissing off his tongue. She was determined not to like it and set her attention back on the articles.
When she read the next one, her heart lifted. “I’ll be paid?”
His tone turned condescending, “So long as you do something useful. Everyone’s expected to earn their keep on this ship, whether its cooking, cleaning, or raiding.”
She’d get gold, a cut of Copson’s loot. Her mind spun with the possibilities.
She could have the little home in her head, or something like it.
With enough money, she could buy a little cottage in the countryside like the one she’d shared with her father.
Whether it was in the New World or England, it wouldn’t matter.
It was a chance to get back a shred of the life she’d had.
Want surged so fiercely that her hand began to tremble. She clapped her fingers over her wrist to still it.
Jack noticed and cocked his head. “Dear me, greedy for blood and money. Can’t say I’m surprised.”
“Good thing you’ve got so much blood money,” she mused, skimming the rest of the articles.
“Don’t get too excited.” He jerked his chin at the parchment. “Cut me again, hurt anyone on board, and you won’t get a single copper. Give in to that murderous glimmer in your eye, Cecily Shoard, and you’ll be killed.”
Mercy, this man. “By you?”
“I’ll certainly be the first to offer.”
She met his blue gaze through her lashes. “I can read, you know.”
“Just ensuring you don’t miss anything important.”
As she read the last article, she sighed. Once she signed on to Copson’s crew, she wouldn’t be allowed to leave until she was formally released. To leave without permission would be punishable by death if she was caught.
Even though she was most definitely going to sign the articles—she saw no other choice—she certainly didn’t intend to be on the Fortuna Royale forever.
If Hester was right and there was any goodness in this world, she would find her way off this ship and climb her way back to grace, no matter how many devils she had to step on to get there.
The moment they docked, no matter where it was, she would escape and build her life from the scraps she’d been left, regardless of some pirate’s laws.
It might be a risk to her life, but she’d skirted worse fates.
Maybe Hester would come too, once she tired of Greyson.
She swallowed her objection and said, “These aren’t terrible.”
“We’re not barbarians. At least, not when it comes to loyal crew.” He spoke pointedly, heavily implying that she was not loyal and he didn’t believe she ever would be. Which was fair.
“I suppose that makes sense,” she said. “You know, you have the most gentlemanly speech I’ve ever heard from a barbarian, so I suppose you must have some conduct that matches it.
” It was strange, the way he spoke—even, clean, and perfect when so many of the others had gruff accents and filthy swears.
Only he and his father practiced such careful diction on this ship—and so did she.
“Are you in hiding, or did you simply decide you weren’t fit for decent society? ”
“Judgmental, aren’t you,” he said. “Piracy pays, and that’s as good a reason as any to pursue it.” He gave her a cold look. “Besides, what would you know of good society? They cast you out.”
“I used to be among good people, Jack. And I would have been a lady.” The words were laced with pride, even as grief prodded her heart. “A baroness, actually.”
She wondered if Oliver ever thought of her, or if he had looked for her after she disappeared. Had he been told why, or had he been lied to? Maybe he’d found another girl to be his bride. If he had, she hoped he was happy.
Jack wasn’t impressed. “Lord above, you should have said so.” He spoke so dryly that she was almost embarrassed. “Perhaps your ladyship would deign to sign the bloody articles.”
“Insufferable,” she muttered as Jack handed her a pen.
“If you feel inclined to break any of these, do let me know so I can bear witness.”
She scribbled her name at the bottom and handed the parchment back. “Perhaps the one I’ll break is murder.”
A wolfish grin spread across his lips. “Tell me that’s a threat.”
She leaned in. “It is, but unfortunately for you there’s nothing in your articles about threatening the captain’s idiot son.”
“Don’t cross me, Cecily. I’ll make your life hell.” He held out his hand. “Give me the pen.”
She slipped the pen from where she’d hidden it in her pocket and tossed it at him. “I’m used to hell.”
He deftly caught it, facing the revelers as he stuffed it with the articles into his coat. When his hand reappeared, there was a gold coin between his fingers. “Truce. Two minutes.”
Jack certainly didn’t let the dust settle on any matter before he was onto another. It seemed his mind and patience were as sharp and unrelenting as everything else about him.
She folded her arms tightly over her middle. “A truce? So far into this lovely conversation?”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, all the better company is otherwise engaged. If you’re not going anywhere, you might as well be useful and tell me what I want to know.”
The others were beginning to move in ways that bordered on obscene, their faces flushed and eyes heavy-lidded with alcohol and delight. Cecily and Jack were the only two not partaking, save for the captain and a few older pirates.
She stared at the coin. Two more minutes next to him seemed like an eternity, but she would do it for the money—and he knew it. She plucked it from his fingers. “Go ahead.”
He nodded to the pirates. “Greyson,” he said, and Cecily picked out his bald head on the edge of the throng, dancing with Hester. “Who’s the girl with him? The blonde one. Built like a house.”
“That’s unkind,” Cecily said.
“I’m not insulting her. I’m ensuring we’re talking about the same person.”
“She’s a butcher’s daughter. You’d look like that too if you spent years slinging dead cows over your shoulders.”
He huffed. “A minute and a half, Cecily. Lord.”
She couldn’t ignore her satisfaction at his annoyance as she ate up the time in their truce. Nevertheless, she said, “Fine. What do you want to know?”
“He’s calling her his wife. Who is she?”
“Hester,” she said, “is my only friend in the world. She’s kind, perhaps too much so. She’s a widow, but I don’t believe she had any fondness for her previous husband.”
His eyes squeezed with concern for his friend. “Is she a murderess?”
“No, he succumbed to an illness,” she said, even though she doubted it was the truth. She wouldn’t give anyone a reason to think poorly of Hester—especially not Jack. She nodded to Greyson. “Will he treat her well?”
“Too well,” he said. “I don’t want him hurt.”
His worry might have been sweet without the threat in his tone.
“Hester won’t hurt him,” Cecily insisted. “She’s mad about him already.” She turned the coin over in her fingers. “Forty-five seconds. What else?”
“What was she in for?”
“Theft. You swear she’ll be safe with him?”
“Yes.” He nodded to where Morgyn had curled herself around a burly man, his hands wandering over every inch of her body. “What about that one?”
Cecily scowled. “Morgyn. If you should’ve left anyone behind, it’s her.”
“What’d she do?”
“Fraud. She had at least twelve identities through England. Pretended to be an aristocrat’s daughter and tricked families into giving her food and money.
She lived with a couple of them and had all these grand ideas for pretending to be the queen’s sister when we reached the Americas.
” It was a clever plan, and she’d always thought so.
Despite her hatred, she wasn’t above admiring the skill such feats of fraud required.
“What about the others?” he asked.
She shook her head, biting back her snarky grin. “I think your time’s up, Jack.”
He didn’t argue. He merely rummaged in his pocket to withdraw another coin, which he dropped into her waiting hand. “Tell me about the others.”
“Liars, thieves, and frauds,” she said. “No worse or better than that—worse were hung, better never left England.”
“Anyone we should be concerned about?”
“I hate Morgyn the most. I love Hester the best. Everyone else falls between them.”
“What does Hester think of Morgyn?”
Cecily frowned. “They’re friends, though I’ve never understood why.” Her lips pinched in thought. “Why’d you only save the women on the prison ship instead of the men?”