5. Cinders and Ashes #2
Jack appeared over the top of the drum to peer down at her. “But you made such a stink about being bought and sold and what have you. I supposed it made sense.”
“I was never a prostitute.” She slammed the door, rose, and returned to the rail, fighting the urge to chuck the entire bucket off the ship as she dumped the ash into the water.
The wind caught a few stray ashes and tossed them back at her face, and she turned her head and held her breath against the onslaught.
Jack’s gaze burned over the back of her neck, but when she turned to him, he didn’t look at her with hunger or judgment. There was no hint of desire or cruel intentions.
He just…looked at her.
The shock of it dulled the steel in her voice as she asked, “Who told you such things?”
“Morgyn.”
This time, she did drop the bucket. It clattered to the deck before she could hurl it at him.
“Ah, don’t get upset,” he said, and his smile was all teeth. “You told me such interesting things about her—I wondered what she might have to say about you. She actually seems a bit scared of you, which I found surprising after you told me none of the women had any reason to be.”
Terror and rage told her to put this man down for good. But it wouldn’t be possible—he was covered in tiny, hidden blades and she had nothing but impulse and hatred, and those didn’t kill nearly as fast.
She would shut him up another way.
“Are you really so gullible?” she asked instead. “You can’t believe a word Morgyn says. She’ll do and say anything to win your favor.”
“And what about you?” He spoke casually, like they were having a lovely conversation over tea. “Suppose you were desperate. Would you do and say anything?”
She stared, silenced by his question. He considered her for a long time—long enough to make her feel naked and flayed, which only made her heart beat louder.
Then he asked quietly, “How does a murderess get sent to the Americas?”
A breeze passed between them. She blinked, turned her head like a songbird watching a serpent.
Well, Jack Copson was a smart bastard. She added that to her list of reasons to hate him.
She scooped up her bucket, deafened by her pulse, her anger, the rising heat in her chest. Heat, where there had only been cold for so long. Sucking in a breath of cool air, she said, “I don’t know about murderesses.”
“Oh, sure you do.” His wicked grin appeared. “What manner of murder got you sent away instead of hung? An accident? Or did your victim deserve it and letting you live was a mercy?”
Trembling, she stalked past him, unsure of where she was going except away.
How had he guessed it so quickly? No one else had, most of them too eager to jump on the idea that a pretty young woman would be a conquest rather than a killer. They hadn’t bothered to question—until Jack, apparently.
Her lungs constricted, her stomach burned, and she could hear the crackle of flames and feel the kiss of glass in her palm, drawn from the depths of her memory—but it wasn’t real. It was never real.
He followed her with slow steps, his coat fanning around his long legs. “Why didn’t they hang you, Cecily?”
She whirled to face him so quickly that the bucket swung into her leg. “Maybe because death is too good for me, and sending me away was to be my curse.”
He blinked. She froze, realizing too late that her defense was an admission. Her thoughts spiraled, moving too fast, fighting for a way to undo what she’d said. But all that came out was, “You’re a fool to accuse me.”
He wasn’t smiling anymore. “Well, you’re certainly not a prostitute.
You know, I half thought Morgyn was lying when she told me.
It didn’t seem to fit. Not when you pulled your shiv as fast as you did or when you took my sword to fight the captain.
” He cocked his head. “I can’t imagine you let anyone touch you. Not now, and probably not ever.”
He made it sound so elementary. He’d known she was a murderer by merely seeing her.
Her eyes traced the cut on his face. A memory threatened to rise, heavy as a lump in her throat. She shook her head, forcing away the images before they could reach her. “No,” she said to them, as though it might halt their journey to her mind. “No.”
But this, too, sounded like an answer. She stared into those penetrating eyes and bit out, “I’m not a whore. And I’m not a murderer.”
She nearly gagged on the word, hating the taste of it on her tongue.
Murderer.
She heard a judge declare it through a courtroom full of men, before whom she wasn’t permitted to defend herself on account of being a woman.
Murderer.
Months later, a nobleman had laughed over the word on the day she should have been executed.
“You’re here for murder,” he’d said, “but that occupation shall no longer be yours, for if you thought their deaths were worth it to escape the title of prostitute, then the title of prostitute you shall wear, and you will bear the shame of it forever.”
As though it were that simple. It wasn’t the title she’d taken issue with—it was the fact that she’d never had a choice.
She’d only tried to save herself after her cousin threw her to the wolves, and murder only happened to be the manner in which she did it.
It could have just as easily been something else, but she knew how to fight, and in a haze of panic and grief, instinct and impulse wrested her control.
A few minutes of fear had both saved and destroyed her in more ways than she could count.
She wasn’t a prostitute. She never had been. And as much as she despised carrying the name of one, she couldn’t bear to be called a murderer because of how it had shattered her soul.
“Oh, don’t be so pious,” Jack said. “I’m a murderer too. Most of us are. I’ve killed many people, Cecily Shoard, and I could kill you too, if you like.”
She took a deep breath, debating if she should punch him or shove him into the waves. Maybe both.
It wasn’t the same. His murders were not the same because he didn’t care. He didn’t mind his soul, but she ached to tend to her own, to cease chipping away at what little was left.
“You know nothing,” she said. And there was the last memory, unbidden, unwelcome, threatening to swallow her. Flames reflected in green glass, hands on her arms, so much screaming, shattering, flesh tearing, choking on the stench of blood.
So much blood.
She shivered it away.
Jack’s eyes fell to her hands, which clenched and released, clenched and released. He studied her face for a long moment, the silence broken by the breeze skimming past the masts and the waves lapping against the ship.
He asked quietly, “Have I made you uncomfortable?”
She couldn’t tell if he liked the idea or not. “Don’t flatter yourself,” she said with a thin, harsh laugh.
A moment passed. He kept watching her, and she dreaded whatever he saw.
But all he said was, “Once the ash is out, you light the fires again. I’ll show you.”