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PART III

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JUNE 12, 1780
AMSTERDAM, HOLLAND

ELLIOTT WAS BEING rocked gently, sunlight seeped through his eyelids, his body encased in soft lemon-scented cotton, lying in a bunk with a relatively soft mattress.

It was quiet but for leisurely footsteps overhead, far-off shouts and laughter, bells tolling the half hour, and the creaking ships of a busy port at midday.

Mrow.

A small animal between his head and the wall stood, stretched so hard it trembled, relaxed and kneaded his hair, then turned around to curl its furry body firmly against his ear. Dindi sniffed at the corner of his eye with her cold, wet nose, laid her chin on his shoulder, and began to purr.

The familiar scents of a ship wafted into his nose: offal, food, and unwashed bodies, all faint and overlaid by fresh air, lavender, and more lemon.

And he had to—

With one great heave he rolled over and cast up his accounts into a pan that must have been placed there for this purpose.

“Elliott!”

He looked up at the breathy female voice as he wiped his mouth on the back of his arm. “Milly?” he croaked, seeing her in a chair at the foot of Celia’s bunk. “Where’s Celia?”

The hopeful expression on her face froze. “Ah … she is ashore,” she murmured, standing to gingerly pick up the chamber pot she then emptied out a stern window. She bustled about Celia’s cabin wetting a rag and wiping his mouth, then retrieved a bottle of rum and a glass from the table.

“Can you sit?” she asked tersely as she splashed a goodly amount of rum into the glass. “Dr. al Ibrahim has left this, but I cannot lift you to give it to you and I am loath to call someone.”

He watched her warily, unable to fathom why she was overset, but attempted the maneuver. He groaned at the pain in his side and looked down at his otherwise naked body to see his entire torso tightly wrapped in cotton. Milly turned away with a flush when the sheet over him slipped to reveal his nudity, never mind she had tended him assiduously those first few weeks straight out of Newgate and had likely seen him without a stitch. With more grunts and groans he settled himself with his back to the bulkhead and covered himself up to his armpits.

He had no idea what to say to her, so he simply made a small noise that prompted her to look at him, though it seemed she could bear to give him no more than a glance. She gave him the glass.

“Where are we?” he asked as she took to one of Celia’s overstuffed chairs and picked up the book she had been reading. He tilted his head to read the spine. Descartes?

“Amsterdam,” she said shortly.

Amsterdam? Their destination had been Rotterdam, where the Silver Shilling had lain at anchor for weeks now.

“Why?”

“The captain has some malady Dr. al Ibrahim wished to treat at the university here.”

Ah, that. His brow wrinkled, as he could think of no female malady that would require such a venue. “What malady?”

“I don’t know,” she muttered resentfully. “The officers and crew here do not trust me, and her girl is utterly hostile to me.”

Elliott blinked and only then noticed his sister was garbed in a rich dressing robe and her hair was beautifully, if minimally, coiffed. If Celia had allowed that, he would be shocked.

But instead of pointing that out and why her toilette might engender such hostility, he merely asked, “How long have we been here?”

“Six days.” She paused. “Do you remember anything?”

Everything right up to the moment he had caught that spike of wood. “Just this,” he murmured, touching his side. “Was it so very bad?”

“You have been unconscious since it happened,” she sneered. “It was so very bad.”

Elliott’s eyebrows rose.

“I do not believe you would have lived if I— If Drs. al Ibrahim and Telesca were not so learned. Dr. al Ibrahim has odd ways of physicking, but I am told he is far more advanced than any English physician.”

“He is Arab,” Elliott murmured, as if she should understand the correlation.

“I see.” She clearly did not, but she stared at her book as if that would put an end to the conversation.

“How long has she been gone?”

“She left the moment we moored, and you had barely been stitched back together again.”

His jaw clenched. “Did she say goodbye to me?”

“How would I know? And why would you care? You were unconscious.”

Indeed. “When is she expected to return?”

His sister’s mouth tightened and she did not look up from the book. “Three days from now.”

“Give over, Milly. What has you nettled?”

She looked up at him with that sneer she seemed to be perfecting. “Where do I start?”

His mouth pursed. “Your choice does not please you?”

“I did not know ship’s justice was so lacking common sense!” she blurted.

“Ship’s justice? You’ve been flogged? Already?”

Her mouth dropped open with a gasp. “Already?” she screeched. “You expected me to be whipped?”

“Aye,” he replied calmly. “You’re as headstrong as mother, Lucy, and Sophie. It was inevitable.”

She whimpered, though at precisely what, he could not tell. “I have not been,” she muttered, staring at the floor. “Yet. ’Twill be done once your— Once Captain Jack is well again. I am given to understand she administers the punishments she decrees.”

She would, Elliott supposed. “What did you do?”

“Disobeyed a direct order.”

Elliott snorted. “Of course you did.”

“Except that in the doing, I was saving your life!” she cried.

That gave Elliott some pause. “How so?”

He listened to her account of his rescue without surprise. Indeed, all the Raxham children were strong swimmers and had had occasion to rescue those who foundered in the cold, rough waves of the North Sea. She had been taught to act without hesitation.

“And I will be punished for having saved the life of her lover?” she wailed.

Elliott had no answer for that except, “The word of the captain is the prime law, Milly,” he said quietly. “If it is not strictly adhered to, order cannot be kept.”

“And then—you ask for her with a bare acknowledgment of my existence!”

Ah, that was it. Aye, he could understand her anger with that and he sighed heavily. He had determined he would not intervene on her behalf, but sailing with his uncomprehending sister would have more pitfalls than even he had realized.

“Can’t you do anything?”

He wiped his hands down his face. “There is only one thing I’m willing to do, Milly,” he said quietly, “and that is request she take a vote.”

That confused her. “A vote?”

“Aye. On a pirate ship—privateer—when there is doubt of an action, the captain will often take a vote. I have no knowledge if she will be amenable to that, as in some matters, this ship operates apart from pirate law.”

“Ah, well, there’s reassurance,” she snarled, “as everyone here hates me, particularly Officer Mary and that girl you were to wed. They will not vote to save me from having my back scarred as … as hers is.”

“Were I to guess, you are being judged by the standard that girl set, which was to throw herself wholeheartedly into her new life, no matter how terrified she was.” He paused. “Put off your airs, Milly. You are no longer Lady Camille, daughter of an earl, and you can no longer think of yourself as above everyone else. If you are treating everyone here as you did Miss Simpleton, ’tis no wonder they hate you. What of Papadakos?”

She flushed. “He has been avoiding me.” She paused, then blurted, “I want to go home!” whereafter she promptly clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide.

Suddenly Elliott’s eyelids grew heavy. He had run through what little energy he had thinking about this, and had, in the meantime, grown a bit angry himself—with Celia, for abandoning him whilst he was barely out of surgery. He could not think of a single reason for her to have gone ashore immediately after dropping anchor.

Yet … she had been so ill in Sint Eustatius immediately following their brawl, she could not intervene in her parents’ battle, instead obliging her first mate to bear the burden of making the decision to cast Dunham from his daughter’s ship. Thus Elliott must believe her reasoning to be sound, as upon reflection, it always was.

Camille returned to her book and he returned to … doing nothing. He had been in countless battles and sustained countless injuries. Indeed, he had had splinters and lead balls dug out of him before, and knew from long experience he must rest before attempting rehabilitation. At least now he was under the care of a physician far more learned than a normal ship’s butcher and that the rum concoction was, in Elliott’s experience, nigh magical.

So he slipped down in the bunk and back into slumber, desperately missing his lover and attempting to curb his growing resentment over the fact that she had not been at his side when he awoke.

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If you don’t want to wait 2 years to get to the end, you can buy it here.
Pirates!