The Scarlette Pirate

by Atonia

“I believe you’ve already played that card.” Richard Pettigrew commented.

He looked up slowly and lay the card down.

“I say…you’ve played that card.”

“I have not played this card…I play it now.” He replied quietly.

Charles Ainsworth sitting on his right said, “You may be mistaken young Pettigrew.”

James Cunningham kept silent; his eyes flicked nervously toward Benjamin Scarlette.

“Do you say, Richard, that I am cheating?” Benjamin fanned his cards and then closed them and lay them face down on the table.

“I say you’ve played that card…how is it you have another?”

“I do not cheat. I may be many things but a card cheat I am not.”

“Show your hand?”

“I will not.”

“Gentlemen, please let us get on with it.” Charles shifted in his chair looking at neither man.

“You have accused me of cheating. Do you take it back?”

“No… I do not.” Richard, young and foolish and flush with rum answered him.

“I demand satisfaction.” Suddenly Benjamin stood up tipping his chair backwards and upsetting the table. He’d had enough of the young man and his snide remarks. Accusing him of cheating was the last he would take from him.

“Take it back, young Pettigrew…take it back.” James pleaded with the young man.  He was a planter’s son who obviously did not know who he was dealing with.

“Pistols or swords?” Benjamin asked as if he were trying to make up his mind between tea or coffee.

“Pistols.” Richard was on his feet.

“Very well.” Benjamin led the way toward the door where they gathered their weapons from the doorkeeper of the tavern. He paused long enough to empty a glass of rum a patron near the door had offered him.

The tavern emptied except for those already fallen face down on the tables with their empty glasses in front of them. Bets were placed by the patrons as they followed the two young men behind the tavern to an oblong of green.

They paced off turned and fired. Benjamin walked over to the dying young Pettigrew and threw a coin down for his burial. His expression had not changed since he walked from the tavern door.

The tavern keeper walked over and picked up the cards still lying slightly askew on the table. The Queen of hearts was not among them.

Benjamin climbed through a window of the tavern and ran up the stairs. Not bothering to knock he opened a door.

“I heard a shot.”

“Did you?” Benjamin was already removing his coat and his breeches.

“I was so afraid it was…it wasn’t you was it?”

“Am I dead?” he moved to her, opening her dressing gown and exposing her nakedness.

“No…no, Sir, you most certainly are not.” She gave herself over to him and he used her roughly.

Before he left he tossed a coin on the dresser.

“You don’t pay me…you know that,” She said from the bed.

“Keep it…for it is all you will ever have of me.” He closed the door behind him shutting out the cries beyond.

He walked lightly down the main staircase of the tavern. Someone handed him a glass of rum and they moved away from him not wanting to be near him for the blackness was upon him. Charles Ainsworth did not fear him and handed him his money from the table.

Benjamin handed it back. “Give it to young Pettigrew’s wife.” He left the tavern and found his horse which would take him up the hill to Redcliffe, the sugar plantation his father had bestowed upon him.

Benjamin Alden Scarlette, second son of Lord Ansley John Scarlette, had been called into his father’s office when he was twenty-one years of age. He’d been given a choice to either follow his older brother’s footsteps into the Royal Navy or he could be sent to Jamaica to oversee the sugar plantation his father owned called Redcliffe.

Benjamin wanted no part of the navy. He’d grown up in the shadow of his half brother, John Scarlette. John the naval hero, John who’d made a good marriage, John who’d excelled at everything he’d ever attempted. John was ten years his senior and the son of his father’s first wife.

He’d grown up under the cruel hand of his father and the over indulgent hand of his mother. He’d been educated as his station in life required. He spoke four languages; Spanish, French, Latin and Portuguese. Benjamin was an intelligent young man but given to drink and debauchery. He loved his mother until she died in childbirth when he was ten. He hated his father from the womb.

Jamaica proved to be a further descent into hell for him. He was greeted by Mr. Bellow, the plantation manager. Mr. Bellow, quick with the whip for the slaves that worked the plantation and a condescending attitude toward Benjamin who was young enough to be his son. Benjamin cared little for the plantation, the slaves, or the lifestyle that awaited him.

He soon found his niche with other sons of planters who enjoyed the fruits of the island; women, rum and gambling. He was dangerous when under the influence of rum and therefore he was a dangerous man.

He was also a handsome man with dark auburn hair which he wore long and clubbed at the nape of his neck. He inherited the slanted brows and green eyes of his father and the Cupid’s bow lips of his mother. Seductive in looks and personality he soon had the young women of the great plantations setting their snares for him. He indulged them and worked his way though most of the bedrooms of the daughters and wives of his fellow planters. He did this without any remorse…for he had none.

For all he was kept busy he hated his life on the island. He was five years into the ten his father had set him down for. Jamaica was his first introduction to slavery and although he found it barbaric, he never interfered with the overseer. He would sit unmoved on his horse should he come upon Bellow delivering punishment to a slave. He insulated himself from life on the island with rum.

On this particular day his friend, Charles, mentioned there were new whores down at the tavern on Water Street. They were said to be clean and free of pox. Benjamin finished his rum punch and agreed they should go and have a look. Water Street was down near the docks; an area they did not usually frequent. However new whores was a drawing card for he was tired of the same girls and they had become possessive of him to the point where fights had broken out between them.

The taverns on Water Street catered to the sailors and soldiers that frequented the port. The rum was rougher on the tongue.

The sun was already beginning to set when they dismounted their horses and gave them over to a young slave to keep. Benjamin paused and looked out into the bay seeing a ship outlined in the sunset.

“I wonder it does not come in?” He queried.

“Probably waiting for darkness…might be it’s a pirate ship.”

“Pirates?” Benjamin chuckled and made his way into the tavern.

Hours later, with his sexual appetite satisfied and a belly full of coarse rum, Benjamin staggered from the tavern. He did not spot Charles inside but no matter. He went between the buildings looking for his horse. Blackness threatened to take him several times and he fought it off. However, the rum was a stronger opponent and he soon succumbed falling across a body already prone in the alleyway. He lay there passing into nothingness.

He was unaware when two burly looking men came upon him and hoisted him up half dragging him toward the dock and the boat that waited. By morning the ship out in the bay was gone and so was Benjamin Scarlette.

 

 

Chapter 2

It was not a practice he normally used but he was in need of an educated man. His quartermaster had been killed and though it might be possible to raise one up from the ranks and present him to the council he thought it best to introduce some new blood. But if he should not prove suitable then Captain Wood could easily rid the ship of him.

He’d sent two mates into Kingston to observe and if possible find such a man. He lay now in the hold in a fit of vomiting. He required of his surgeon to report when the man came to himself. There were two others brought aboard with him and deemed to be gentlemen but it was the one he was most interested in.

It was a pirate ship by the name of Sea Lion and often referred to as The Lion. It had been taken from a merchantman some years ago. An English built sloop fitted with 24 guns and manned by a top notch crew of former Royal navy and experienced Spanish sailors. Sprinkled amongst them were a few French and Dutchmen; deserters and mutineers the lot of them.

As pirates go, Captain Wood was very successful. He had three ships he kept in his squadron and manned by good sailors. It was his success in battle that kept him in his present position of captain for he was a most unpleasant man. Since his quartermaster had met his death he’d taken on the job of settling arguments and deciding punishment for the offenders. He especially liked the cat o’ nine tails. There were enough bloodthirsty men in his company that usually voted with him out of fear.

Contrary to Royal Navy practices, the pirate’s orders of allegiance were more of a democracy. Everyman on the ship had a vote and elected their captain and officers. The captain’s full authority was only recognized during chase or battle. Likewise punishments were also decided by the majority vote. Punishments for certain offenses were laid out in the orders of allegiance that was drawn up and agreed to before the ship ever set sail with her crew. They were bound by those orders as long as they sailed with the ship or the squadron.

Benjamin Scarlette was unaware of any orders of allegiance or in fact exactly where he was when he roused from his rum induced coma. Lying on a stinking straw mattress in semi darkness and immediately feeling the effects of the rum his stomach revolted. A man appeared to attend him but all he wanted was to go on deck and breathe fresh clean air and try to get himself under control.

Benjamin was not a stranger to the sea or the ways of ships. Before being sent out to Jamaica he’d spent 18 months on a privateer. That had cured him of ever wanting to join the Royal Navy. Too many rules and regulations and authority figures. None of these were respected by Benjamin.  He’d jumped ship in Gibraltar and made his way back home to England.  The fear that he’d been pressed by the Royal Navy had not yet made its way in to his mind. He staggered, as the ship rolled, to the ladder.

The surgeon reported to the captain that the man was now up and on deck.

Benjamin held on to the ropes vomiting again over the side of the ship. Soon the effects of the fresh air brought his stomach under control. He began to take notice of his surroundings.

“What ship is this?” He asked a passing sailor.

“The Sea Lion.”

“Royal Navy?”

The man laughed and moved on.

He looked up trying to make out the pennants flying above but they were flapping so in the breeze that he could not identify the ship.

Pale and still a little wobbly he was taken to the captain’s cabin.

Captain Wood, a man of average height and some girth looked over the man brought before him. His one good eye taking in his arrogant stance and the cold eyes fixed on him.

“Who are you?”

“I would ask you the same question. Who are you and why am I here?”

Captain Wood fingered his braided and greasy beard. “You are in no position to ask. You will answer me and then if I desire I will inform as to who and why and were.”

“My name is Benjamin Scarlette of Redcliffe.”

“Redcliffe…it is not a town.”

“It is my home in Jamaica.”

“Ah, so…you are a planter. Be you a sailor?”

“No.”

“You are on the Sea Lion or the Lion as we call it.”

“I demand to be put ashore.”

“Your demands fall on deaf ears. I am in need of a quartermaster and think you may be suitable. A planter will be educated and able to carry out his duties fairly. You do know what a quartermaster is?”

“You’re not Royal Navy. Quartermaster…I believe only on pirate ships. Is that what you are, a bloody pirate?”

“You will speak to me with respect, young sir.”

“I owe you no respect. I demand to be put ashore”

“You may demand at will but you will not be put ashore and you will show respect to your captain.”

“You are not my captain.”

“Ah, ha, ha, ha… but I am.” He sent a chilling look across the table toward Benjamin.

Benjamin noticed a knife lying on the desk and he grabbed it and threw it at Captain Wood striking him with the blade along his shoulder and cutting the fabric a small amount of blood oozed out.

Two mates who had been standing outside the door grabbed Benjamin giving him a vicious knee to his kidney.

“Take him below in irons.” The captain bellowed.

Benjamin’s only regret as the iron manacles were placed upon him was that the knife had not found it’s mark.

Two days he sat in the hold with tepid water and ships biscuit for nourishment. He was unaware of the argument going on above. The captain had wanted to charge him with attempted murder but he was outvoted and the charge facing Benjamin was striking another officer. The fact that he wasn’t an officer at all had been brought into question but the captain had lied and said he’d accepted the order of allegiance.

He was brought up on deck before the assembled ship’s company and stripped to the waist. The charges against him were read and then the punishment. Forty lashes save one. He was asked if he had anything to say.

He looked at the captain. “My only regret is that you still stand before me.”

He was lashed to a gun and flogged. He passed out after the twentieth lash, revived with a bucket of salt water and the punishment continued until he passed out again.  He had not one friend aboard the Lion but the doctor stepped forward and said it was senseless to keep flogging a man when he was unconscious unless they meant to kill him. Others agreed and so the punishment was stopped.

Benjamin had been beaten as a lad by his father but he’d always been careful not to leave a lasting mark on his son. His back would heal over the coming weeks but the scars would last a lifetime.

Once he was back on his feet they were out in the Atlantic looking for prey. He would not now be quartermaster but was put under the boatswain. He did what he was told and vowed the opportunity would come one day and the captain would be his. Meanwhile he was earning the respect of the crew. They’d all witnessed his ordeal and there were many among them that had shared the same fate. They were in sympathy with him but treated him equally giving him no quarter above the rest. It was a position new to Benjamin but not an unwelcomed one. He was finding his way aboard the pirate ship.

In the back of his mind he thought once they docked somewhere he would escape into the populace. The Lion was not looking for land but for bounty and it came in the form of another pirate ship with a Spanish ship alongside taken as prize. The pirates were still aboard the prize ship when Captain Wood ordered them to open fire.

A fierce fight began and Benjamin along with his mates were taking the pirate ship. Armed with an ax he turned to see the Lion’s quartermaster go down with his head cleaved. In the melee he found a gun still loaded and looked back toward the Lion. The captain was on the deck in plain view. He fired and he went down with a mortal wound.

It was impossible to tell who had fired the gun that killed the captain as guns and grenades were firing both ways. Without a leader the men were still fighting hand to hand. Benjamin gathered a group together and went below decks and released prisoners arming them and directing them toward their former captors. The battle was soon over and the Lion was victorious.

As the smoke cleared the riches were counted but before they could be divvied up the ship’s company reckoned they needed new officers. They agreed Benjamin Scarlette’s actions warranted recognition. It was put to a vote and Benjamin Scarlette was voted captain of the Sea Lion. He’d been at sea for four months and had suffered much. He accepted the captain’s cabin and the captain’s share of the riches which included jewels and gold coin.

As he slipped a gold and emerald ring on his finger he contemplated on the life of a pirate and found it not bad…not bad at all.

 

 

Chapter 3

Benjamin Scarlette was learning the wily ways of pirating. With five ships now in his fleet he plundered ships and coastal towns giving a wide berth to Florida which was in Spanish hands he sold his goods in Cuba and in Jamaica and found wiling customers not willing to pay the high prices charged by the Spanish and English. He made deals with Tortuga which belonged to the French. Making promises not to attack their ships they offered protection from the English. The English offered protection from the French and the Spanish. He had a free hand and he used it without fear. Paying off each in turn he attacked any ship that looked like it might be profitable. He had become a wealthy man in a short length of time and could have retired from the sea to do anything he wished but he was hooked now. Just as the rum had him in its clutches the rush of adrenalin he got from a battle was even more addicting.

One evening on ship when the wind was fair and the men were playing their flutes and mandolins he climbed up in the rigging and holding on with one hand and one foot he let the wind blow him around.

“Careful there,” a voice came from above him, up in the crosstrees.

He grabbed onto the rigging and looked up, “Who is about there?”

“Riley, Captain.”

“Riley, and where do you hail from?”

“Cornwall, Captain.”

“Is there room?”

“Aye, there is.”

Benjamin climbed up to the crosstree and found his seat.

“Captain, from where do you hail?”

“Wiltshire, but it is a long time ago. I am recently by way of Jamaica.”

“Cursed place.”

“I agree and I am glad to be gone from there.”

“You are the second Captain Scarlette I have sailed under, might you be related?”

“Captain John Scarlette, Royal Navy, he is my half brother.”

“Is he now?”

“How did you find him as your master?”

“He’s a fair man, hard but fair.”

“Does he flog?”

“He does when necessary…as you do.”

“I hate it but it must be done.”

“Beg pardon, but I heard you were flogged on this very ship.”

Benjamin’s eyes grew dark, “I was and flogged unfairly. I was not of the ship’s company when Captain Wood introduced me to the cat. Why did you leave Captain Scarlette’s ship and end up here a pirate?”

“Me and the Navy didn’t get on. I like it better here…a man is free here.”

“Aye, we are free. It suits me. I answer to no man.” He looked up at the stars, “Save God.”

Riley chuckled, “Well I s’pose there will be a reckoning for this life’s work.”

Benjamin turned to him, “It is no worse than others. I am a planter’s son and own many slaves. Is that not worse? Is it not worse to plunder in the name of the King as a privateer? I would not have a letter of marquee were it handed to me. And what of the Royal Navy where you may officially plunder because it is your right. No, Riley, we are no worse. We have no prisons for our captives. Ransom is better, is it not?”

“Aye, it is and fills our pockets.”

“It is a good night, many stars…tomorrow…tomorrow we shall be lucky.”

“If you look, Sir, on the horizon.”

“A fog bank.” He took the glass from Riley. “Well, enjoy the night for it may be the last dry one for awhile.”

“Good night, Sir.”

“Good night to you, Riley.” Benjamin climbed back down the rigging.

Twenty months and he’d lost most of his arrogance except when parading in front of captives. It was still there beneath the surface but he adapted a different attitude with his crew and his officers. They were all in it together and worked for the common good of all. His men respected him and some cared a great deal for him, backing him during battle and protecting him where he would prefer they did not.

More than once he’d been pulled out of a brothel before the authorities arrived looking for him. He was a wanted man with a price on his head on land but on the sea there was no match for him. He gained the respect of other pirate captains for not attacking their ships as Wood had done.  He would only attack another pirate if being menaced or if he knew him to be a rogue and then he would show no mercy leaving the survivors marooned which in most cases was a death sentence. Marooning was the practice of leaving men stranded without food or water on a deserted island that in some places would flood at high tide.

Benjamin landed on the deck and walked over to where his men were playing and dancing a jig.

“Join us, Captain, show us a jig.”

“I do not think so, you do it much better.” He had to maintain some dignity.

He went to his cabin and consulted his charts. He was well out to sea but off the coast of St. Augustine. It was not a place he wanted a storm to drive him into. He looked farther north to the Carolinas. His quartermaster, the only other officer aboard the ship who was elected to office soon joined him and called in the master. They charted a new course. NXNW.

As dawn approached the fogbank revealed a convoy trying to outrun the storm as well. Heavily laden merchant ships and a British Man of War.

Benjamin positioned himself on the bow of the ship with his glass. The temptation was too great. He identified the ships as coming out of Brazil and as so would no doubt be carrying gold along with other marketable goods. There were six ships in all arrayed out in a line with the Man of War leading the way. His quartermaster, Tom Hart, joined him and he too agreed it was a plum worth picking.

The convoy appeared to be following the same course and so he checked his speed and changed his direction so that he might intersect. Benjamin had no desire to engage the man of war and it was his plan to let him get well ahead before he revealed his intentions. He was sailing with his consort, Ransom and a brig, Kingston. He sent Kingston on ahead of the storm.

He began to close in on the convoy and yet still it appeared he was also trying to outrun the storm. The last ship in the line showed his colors as The Lion closed in and Benjamin did the same. It was over in less than ten minutes. The merchant surrendered. Quickly his seasoned pirates boarded and relieved her of her cargo. Consumable goods were found but no gold. Tom Hart was of a mind to get the information from the captain about which ship carried gold but Benjamin called his men back and left the ship afloat with its crew in a badly damaged state. There was no time to waste.

He hit the second ship with a broadside that brought her into his company. Again no gold was found but they took the cargo anyway. Tom Hart reckoned the gold was in the first ship as it was protected by the man of war. He left the second ship listing in the water surely to go down in the approaching storm.

He set his sights on the third ship meaning to work his way up the line until something of value was found. The third ship had fallen out of the convoy with the intention of rescuing the fourth. With the Ransom on one side and the Lion on the other they hit it with two broadsides and quickly brought it to bear. While relieving it of its cargo a lookout on the Lion called down and a signal was sent to the crew to get back aboard.

The man of war had come about and positioned himself to force Benjamin farther out to sea. He debated with his officers and took the chance going straight for the man of war. He mean to stay out of gun range and pass him. It might have worked without incident but he hadn’t reckoned on the captain of the man of war.

His crew worked sanding the deck and reading for battle. The sail master barking orders and the ship picked up speed there was still a possibility they may safely pass.

The man of war fired across her bow and the Lion answered aiming for the rigging. Benjamin knew he was out gunned and his only hope was speed which he had over the man of war.

“What ship is it?” He asked his quartermaster.

“It is the Phoebe…yes…the Phoebe.” He handed the glass to Benjamin.

Benjamin looked through the glass and picked out the captain standing by the 9 pounder with his own glass.

“Well, well…brother.”

Aboard the Phoebe Captain John Scarlette was shocked to see his younger brother aboard the pirate ship. “Who captains this ship?” He asked his lieutenant.

“I believe it is Captain Wood, Sir.”

He raked the deck with his glass and brought it back. “I believe not.”

The Phoebe was positioning for a broadside and Benjamin was ready to answer her fire but a sudden gust of wind took him forward. The Phoebe fired cutting up his rigging. He hung on the ropes and threw his head back and laughed as they passed the Phoebe.

 

 

Chapter 4

The chase was on with both ships crews busily repairing the damage. The Ransom, left behind, changed course for the convoy. Benjamin was enjoying this more than any battle he’d taken part in.  He knew he was outclassed for his brother was a better sailor and had more guns, but he had the wind and a faster ship. He no longer cared for the convoy it was brother against brother.

All day the Phoebe chased the Lion, sometimes gaining and getting off a shot that fell short. Both captains watched the storm’s progress and by late afternoon the rain began. Benjamin meant to find a safe haven before the full force of the storm hit. He calculated he was off the coast of South Carolina and headed for shore. Every time he looked back he could still see the sails of the Phoebe and they appeared to be gaining. He ordered the guns to be thrown overboard. Without the extra weight he gained speed and manoeuvrability. He calculated his position once again and pointed to the chart.

“Here…we will come into Georgetown avoiding the American port of Charleston which may have Navy ships in port. Agreed?”

Tom Hart agreed.

The Lion was lost to the Phoebe in a squall that blew up. Captain John Scarlette reluctantly gave up the chase.

The Lion limped into the port of Georgetown in much need of repairs. He showed no colors when he lay out in Winyah Bay at dawn. He and Tom Hart went onshore to see about warehouse space for his cargo. Once money changed hands the ship was unloaded and their bounty safely stored away.

Tired, wet and hungry they sought accommodations and found them in an inn run by a widow and her daughter. There were brothels and taverns aplenty on the waterfront but Benjamin was physically tired. He’d been awake all night and really wanted a good night’s sleep. Tom Hart was of the same inclination but after a meal the lure was too much for him and he left Benjamin in the Inn.

He’d eaten a hearty breakfast served by the woman who owned the inn. She was Rose Caulfield and her daughter Megan had gone down to the fish market for the daily catch. Due to the storm the fishermen hadn’t gone out and she came home with crabs and shellfish. Megan was unaware they had new guests.

Benjamin went up to his room and fell into bed and into a deep sleep. He did not wake when the girl brought in a pitcher of water. She placed the pitcher quietly in the bowl and chanced a look toward the bed. He’d partially undressed leaving his breeches on he lay curled on his side. What drew her to the side of the bed were the horrible scars on his back. He made a little movement and she left the room quietly closing the door behind her.

Later she was helping her mother prepare the mid-day meal and described the scars she’d seen. “What would cause such scarring?”

“Might be he’s been before the mast. I’ve seen such sailors in my time.”

“He was beaten.” Megan paused with a knife in one hand and a sweet potato in the other. “Well, he must be a very bad man then.”

“Not so, Megan, them at sea has strict rules they must follow and if they break one then they must take the punishment for breaking a rule.”

“Seems very harsh to me,” She resumed her peeling.

The wind picked up along the coast and brought in a fine steady rain that did not let up all day.

Benjamin roused around 4:00 feeling strange in a bed that did not move. He rolled over on his back and then looked toward the window. A sheet of rain obscured the quiet street below. He sat up and shook his head to clear it of any remaining dreams. He had dreamed but he couldn’t remember what it had consisted of only that it left him with a sense of fear. Fear was something he never thought of because he considered himself invincible. He walked over to the window with the uncertain gait of a seaman on land. A tree was getting a bashing from the wind and rain. He picked up his pocket watch and noted the time. It was already growing dark from the storm. He washed in the basin and donned his still slightly  damp shirt and boots and went downstairs in search of drink.

He found Megan in the great room clearing off tables from the meal that had been served.

She looked at him for a moment now that he was up and awake. He was tall and carried himself well. The long dark auburn hair she’d seen spilled over the bed was now tied neatly back with a strip of leather. His black shirt slightly clung to his body and his breeches fit him well. He had a pistol stuck in the wide black leather belt and he looked as though he knew how to use it.

“You’ve missed the meal but I can serve you a plate if you’re hungry.”

He moistened his lips and was hungry but not for food. “Ale…have you ale?”

“Yes, I’ll bring it.” She disappeared into the house and he found a seat and looked around the room furnished as a place for eating and drinking. A small fire burned in the grate of the fireplace though it was early September; it served to brighten the room gone dark with the storm. She brought out a tankard and a pitcher of ale.

When she set the tankard down his hand closed over it and he moved it so that she was obliged to lean across him to pour. His eyes were on her bosom straining above the neck of her dress. He reached with his other hand and touched her and she spilt the ale and jumped back.

“Don’t do that.”

“Why? Your breasts are soft…they need touching.”

“You don’t touch me. Please move your tankard so I may fill it.”

“No.”

“Well then, you’ll drink ha’f.” She moved away from him and heard his low chuckle.

She was a beauty with hair the color of honey and skin like cream. His hunger was increasing.

“What’s your name?” He watched how her breasts moved when she mopped up the spilled ale.

“Megan.”

“Megan,” he repeated. “Megan, will you warm my bed?”

“I will not.” She tossed the rag over her shoulder and picked up the pitcher of ale turning her back to him she walked quickly from the room.

He sighed and picked up the tankard for a drink. He wiped his mouth on his hand and walked to the door and opened it. A gust of wind hit him and he quickly closed the door. “A big blow is upon us.” He said quietly to himself. He thought of Tom Hart and wondered if he had returned. All of his crew was in port and at leave. He supposed they were in the brothels and briefly thought of going there himself…for he had a hunger.

Rose noticed the flushed face of her daughter. “What have ya been up to girl?”

“Nothing, Momma, it’s only…who is this man with the scarred back that you have let a room to?”

“That be Captain Scarlette of The Sea Lion. I don’t know of him…you’d better be careful there, Megan. He’s not one of your milk-fed farmers as goes hereabouts.”

“No, he certainly is not.” She set the pitcher down soundly.

Megan is nineteen years old and still a virgin. She keeps herself that way with a small dagger she has strapped to her thigh. Some of their paying customers are a little too free with their hands and although she’d never stuck anyone with her dagger she had presented it to a man once.

“Some has gone inland fearing the storm.” Megan commented as she filled a plate with vegetables and stewed chicken.

“Ah, yes, they run like scared chickens leaving their lot behind to be plundered and when they return they cry loud and long for their missing belongings. This house and all that’s in it is all I have in this world, save you. I’ll not be running off and leaving it. Add a loaf to that plate. He’ll be hungry…men always are.”

Megan carried the plate of food into the dining room and set it on a table. He was over by a window but turned when she entered.

“I’ve brought a plate.”

“I see you have. Come and sit with me whilst I eat.”

“I…I…can’t. Momma has work for me to do.”

“She won’t mind…sit.” He indicated the chair across from him.

“No…I,” but she did sit.

He looked up with a little smile and a teasing look in his eyes. “Are you afraid of me?”

“No, I’m not afraid.” She straightened her shoulders.

“Perhaps you should be.” He dipped into his plate.

“Where…where do you come from?”

“How far back do you want me to go? I’ve sailed from Jamaica…from Kingston. The storm drove me in. Have you lived your life here?”

“Yes, I have. I grew up in this house before it was rooms to let.”

“Where is your father?”

“He drowned in a storm. He was a fisherman.”

“Brothers?”

“None, just me and my mother.”

“You are not married?”

“No.”

“How old are you?” Not that it made a difference to him.

“Nineteen.”

“You are a peach, a ripe peach.” He met her eyes for a moment until she blushed and looked away. “I love peaches…their juice is so sweet…firm and ripe.”

She moved her chair back. “I think, Sir, you may enjoy your meal alone.”

He chuckled, “There, I’ve frightened you. You need to fear me for I will do you much damage.”

“First there must be an opportunity and that you will not have.” She stood up and made to leave.

“You are wrong, Megan, I will have you. I will make you want me so that you will gladly lie beneath me.”

Her bosom heaved and her face flushed red. “I will never lie beneath you; you are a dog, Sir.” She ran from the room hearing his laugher follow behind her.

He finished his meal and left the house into the blowing rain. The rain did not bother him for he was used to wet. He walked down to the docks and along looking at his ship rocking in the berth. He was uneasy about it and went aboard finding his carpenter and his mate plugging up a hole that had come from his encounter with the Phoebe.

“How goes it?”

“Will be all right but we need the pumps a ‘goin’ and there’s no one to man them. This storm is knocking us about.”

Benjamin surveyed the hold the water was up a foot at least. “Very well, I will find someone.”

Chapter 5

He left his ship for the brothels and taverns and pulled several of his crew out of a tavern and sent them to the ship. He came upon Tom Hart with a woman sitting in a tavern and told him the ship was in peril. Tom left to see to the ship and Benjamin sat down at the table and picked up Tom’s tankard and gave the woman a knowing look. She soon took him upstairs.

Later he went back to his ship and seeing more of his crew at work on the pumps and that everything was being done that could be he left heading back to the inn. Tom was already at the inn helping Rose and Megan secure the shutters. He helped pull them in against the wind and latch them shut.

“Perhaps we should have left the Lion at sea,” Tom said as they dripped on the floor in front of the fire.

“Would you rather drown? She would not have weathered the storm at sea. I hope she weathers it in port. It is a powerful storm and I am worried for the Ransom.”

“The Ransom went after the convoy and should Phoebe rejoin them then the Ransom is lost.”

“There is always that chance, Tom, that luck will be on our side. Who knows, the Ransom may have the gold whilst we sit here riding out the storm.”

Tom paced about for a while and Benjamin watched him. “I am going back to the Lion. There is no need for you to go.”

“No and no need for you to go it is well in hand.”

“Still…I cannot stand about. I will see you when the storm has passed.”

“Have a care out there, Tom.”

Tom would not see him again. As he walked to the dock a tile came flying from the roof of a house across the street and struck him in the temple and brought him down. He lay in the grass by an oak tree and died.

The wind blew down the chimney sending sparks over the floor and Benjamin put out the fire with a bucket of water Too much danger to have a fire. Rose Caulfield agreed although she commented on how much trouble it would be to relight it once the storm passed.

“Might we have a candle?” Megan asked for the room had grown dark with the shutters closed and the fire out.

“You may have a candle.” Benjamin answered her and watched as she lit the candle and it’s soft glow flowed over her face and neck. She was a peach…a ripe peach.

“We should go out to the cook house…it’s been through many a storm,” Rose said but she never moved from her seat.

The wind howled down the fireplace scattering ashes.

“Perhaps we should go to bed…there’s nothing down here we can do, Momma.”

“You go on to bed, Megan, and cover your head. It will all blow past very soon.”

“Good advice.” Benjamin said, “And you as well, Mrs. Caulfield.”

“I’ll stay about. I ‘m not so afraid of storms as my Megan.”

“I’ll stay with you, Momma.”

“Ah, nonsense there’s nothing to do but sit about…go on to bed.”

Megan moved to the staircase and stopped looking at her mother outlined in the faint light of a single candle. Of Benjamin she could see nothing as he was near the fireplace with a hand on the mantle.

“Don’t be too late, Momma.”

“You have a beautiful daughter, Mrs. Caulfield.”

“She is, yes, a fine girl. Headstrong like her father but she’s a hard worker with a quick mind.”

“How long since your husband drowned?”

“Three years. There was nothing to do but take in guests to keep us going. We do all right.”

“Still…coin must be hard to come by.” Did she know he was going to take her daughter?

The house creaked and moaned in the wind.

“Well, no need for us both to sit in the dark, I believe I will retire. Will you be all right?”

“Of course I will…you go on.” Rose was thinking of her husband who drowned in such a storm.

He went up the stairs and at one point he stopped holding the banister. The house had moved…definitely the house had moved. He continued on to the top of the stairs but instead of going to his own room he stopped by the room he knew from closing the shutters to be Megan’s room. He opened the door and closed it behind him.

“Momma?”

“I’m not your Momma.”

“Where is she is she all right?”

“She’s gone to bed.”

“You lie…she sleeps here…her bed is here.”

“She is where you left her.” The room was dark but he knew where she was.

Megan had gone up and lay across her bed but she could not sleep with the storm raging outside and beating against her windows. Roof tiles were coming off…she could hear them crashing against trees.

She got up from the bed. “Get out of here…go.”

“No.”

He began to move closer to her and a shutter came loose then the other the shock of it sent her forward and right into his arms.

“There now little peach.” His hands were all over her and she tried to push him away. She screamed but her screams went out the window with the wind and rain. He fell onto her bed with her. The bed she’d slept in since she was a child and it gave way under their combined weight sending them with a thump to the floor.

He didn’t let up and had her hands above her head kissing her and biting her neck, her chest and her exposed breasts as she struggled beneath him. He got a knee between her thighs and reached down fumbling with his breeches.

Megan got a hand free and raked him with her nails. It made no difference to him. He had her skirts up and the house gave a big sigh and shifted sideways. Megan got hold of her dagger and stabbed him repeatedly.

Rain and wind were pouring through the side of the house and it collapsed slowly into a pile of rubble. Still with the dagger in her hand she screamed, felt his weight on her body through the hard crash landing onto the ground. It was padded somewhat by the mattress and part of the floor. She fainted.

Benjamin rolled off of her and through half open eyes looked up at the world gone mad. Leaves and debris partly covered him. A great tree had fallen to his right and its branches scratched him in the wind. He regained his breath and looked over at Megan.

“Oh, no…” He thought she was dead and he gathered her to him and kissed her wet hair. He was beginning to feel the effects of the stab wounds. He was bleeding from many places. After a bit he realized the water wasn’t only coming from above. The ground had about six inches of water standing. He pulled himself up using branches from the tree and looked around. It was the tide…the tide was coming. He knelt down and felt of her, she was still warm and perhaps not yet dead. She would be if he left her…she would drown. He sat her up and tried to wake her and she roused and began screaming.”

“Hush, hush…we must get out of here.” The water was coming in fast.

“Momma, Momma!” She screamed and tried to get up falling against him and nearly knocking him down.

“I cannot help your mother. We have to go…go…get out of here…the tide is coming…Megan. YOU WILL DIE!” He screamed at her.

She fell against him sobbing. Somehow he found the strength, perhaps because he himself did not wish to die, and picked her up. Staggering through the rubble he remembered the cook house.

“Where is the cook house?” She couldn’t answer him but he stumbled along with her until he saw a building still standing in the back garden of the house. Already water was up to the top of his boots and when he kicked the door in water was on the floor of the cook house. He lay her on the long sturdy work table and staggered back to the door and with one last mighty push he closed it.

Physically spent he fell against the table and onto the floor where his blood mixed with the water that sloshed over him.

It was the silence that she became aware of. The eye of the storm was passing and through that eye moonlight streamed through the small window set deep in the walls of the brick cook house. She sat up on the table and fumbled with her bodice trying to cover herself she tied it in a knot and wiped her face. With full misery washing over her hot tears ran down her cheeks. She slipped from the table and the water was above her knees. She remembered then, that he had brought her here. She took two steps and stumbled over him. His head was leaning on the leg of the table and water was up to his chin. She thought he was dead so pale was his face.

“Good…it is good that you die or else I would kill you.” She said and stepped over him. The water was too deep to open the door and so she went to the window and peered out. Trees were down and she could not see her house but she saw her neighbor’s house flattened and scattered. “Oh,” she cried aloud. “Oh…no.”

Benjamin slipped from the table leg slowly into the water and made a gasping sound that brought her back. She pulled his head up…so he still lived. She could not lift him far…only as far as the water helped her. She balanced his head and shoulders on a stool and the rest of him on an overturned chair. It would keep him from drowning. Why she bothered hadn’t occurred to her. Only a moment ago she was glad he was dead.

He began coughing and she turned around not sure what to do with him. His shirt was torn and dripping and she noticed blood dripping from him into the water. She waded over to him and finished tearing his shirt away.

“Oh,” she said seeing the blue looking wounds seeping blood. She’d never hurt anything in her life and she didn’t know how seriously she’d hurt him but…he’d deserved it. His skin was covered in goose bumps and the wounds bothered her. She couldn’t just let him bleed to death. If she could only get him on the table but he was dead weight.

The rain was starting up again and with it came the storm surge. Water seeped in from everywhere and she feared the cookhouse would fall apart. The water level had risen to her thighs and Benjamin was half floating. She got behind him and slipped her arms under his shoulders and pulled him off the stool. He flopped lifelessly onto the table and she took a breath and hoisted his legs up. Now he was out of the water.

The cook house was used in the hot summer months but had been mostly used by her mother’s slave, Simms. Simms was set free after her father died and she left. Her mother preferred to cook in the house. Megan tried not to think about her mother as she went through the shelves looking for something with which to bind up Benjamin’s wounds. She found towels that had once wrapped bread and tore them into strips.

She dabbed at the wounds and wished she had some salve to spread over them. There were six that she’d found. One on his upper left arm, on his shoulder, his hip, his thigh and one on his side that had skidded along a rib. She hoped the salt water had cleansed them enough to avoid fever. However when she looked down at the murky water surrounding her legs she had her doubts. The water was still rising and she was beginning to become alarmed. It slapped at the bottom of the table now. With nowhere else to go she lay down on the table with him half covering him with her body.

The back end of the storm raged on outside blacking out the fact that dawn had finally come. Exhausted physically and emotionally Megan fell asleep on Benjamin.

The storm passed while she slept and the wind washed the sky of clouds leaving it a clear azure blue. There was still a stiff breeze coming in from the ocean but the water was beginning to recede and flow back to where it came from.

She became aware of the world hearing his heart beating strong under her ear. She raised herself up and looked at him. Long lashes still against his pale face. The curve of his lips and the stubble of an unshaven face, dark smudges beneath his eyes. He looked dead but his heart gave him away. He was really a very handsome man…then she remembered he tried to rape her. She turned her face from him and looked down at the floor. The water was only puddling now on the old bricks.

Gingerly she eased herself from the table and every muscle and bone in her body protested. She struggled with the door until it came open and revealed a landscape she’d never seen before.

Chapter 6

Megan stumbled out of the cook house and looked toward where her house used to stand. There was little left except the foundation and debris half covered in sand. The house in front of theirs was gone along with so many trees and the ones left standing were bare of leaves. She could see all the way to the dockyard in Winyah Bay.

“Momma,” she cried and ran toward the remains of her house but if her mother’s body was there it was buried. She fell to her knees and cried aloud. With her tears spent she rose and walked to where the road passed in front of her house. In a distance she could see some men moving…walking and stopping.

An old black man on a mule detached himself from the two men and rode in her direction.

He doffed his hat. “You all right?”

“There’s nothing…nothing left.”

“No, Ma’am, look like it all gone. You gots a place to stay?”

She turned toward the cook house. “There…I was there.”

“We come down from Clinton Plantation to see if anybody needs but eb’body needs. We gots some water with us.”

“Water…yes, please.”

“You wait right here.” He rode back to the two men and they mounted their horses and rode with him back to Megan.

“Hello, Miss, looks like you made it through.”

“Ah, yes I did. We were in the house when…when it collapsed.”

“Are you alone now?”

“Um, no…he’s…in there. He’s injured.”

“Samson, give this woman a cask of water and a pile of blankets. You got any food, anything to eat?”

“I don’t know…I don’t think so.” She wasn’t sure what they meant to do about her. “It’s a kitchen.”

“You say you got an injured man here?”

“Yes, I’ve bound him up but I don’t have any medicines.”

The man looked at the other who hadn’t said anything yet. “Give her the box.”

“All right, Samson, give the lady the medicine box. We’ll be back around…bring you some food and some more water. Least you got shelter.” He smiled and turned his horse.

“Here you are, Ma’am. Dey be good brothers, you don’ worry ‘bout dem.” Samson set her a cask of water outside the kitchen with a pile of blankets and the medicine box. She thanked him and he mounted his mule and rode after the good brothers.

She looked down at herself and realized she was exposed. No wonder they didn’t offer her a ride somewhere.  She took the blankets inside and put them on a dry shelf and looked at Benjamin. She was half a mind to let him die for what he’d done but it wasn’t in her to do a thing like that. She went back out for the medicine box. On the front of it was an engraved plate that said Sea Lion. That was his ship. She held onto it for a moment thinking what that could mean. Well, no matter, she would dress his wounds and get him out of his wet sandy clothes.

She’d done what she could for him including finding another stab wound high on the front of his left thigh. It was the first time she’d ever seen a naked man and she examined him thoroughly. She wasn’t ignorant for her mother had explained things to her when she began her menses. It all made a little more sense to her now. She wrapped him in blankets and made a pillow out of one for his head. She tried to give him a cup of water but he began choking. She wished he’d wake up. Her mother told her the body needs to rest and sleep to heal itself. If that was so she was afraid he’d need a lot of sleep.

She set the chairs and stool out in the sun to dry out and threw out a wet bag of flour and pecans. She draped his pants over the chair and set his boots there to dry as well. Then she went on a scavenging mission being careful not to disturb her own house for fear she’d find her mother’s body; she went to the house across the street bringing back unbroken crockery and a cooking pot. Fabric of any kind was a plus to make bandages out of and she found clothing falling out of a wardrobe. It was all wet but at least it would cover her. On her third trip she uncovered Tom Hart’s body and backed away running back to the cook house.

Everything was wet and she opened all the shutters in the cook house trying to dry it out. It was missing some tiles on the roof but otherwise it had withstood the storm. The only food she found was dried peas and rice but the fireplace was wet and so was any wood she might find. She contented herself with water and hoped the good brothers would remember to send something her way.

By nightfall Benjamin had developed a fever. She could get him to drink a few sips of water now and again but he still had not woken up. She was beginning to worry she’d hit some vital part of his body and that he’d never wake up. What if he died?

The next morning Sampson arrived with a cart and brought her another cask of water and a large canvas bag of food. She told him about the dead man and he said a gang would be around later in the week looking for corpses to bury. She thanked him for the food and water. He had several bags on the back of his cart so she knew there were others around who survived the storm.

She managed to get a fire going with wood she’d carried in. It smoked and sputtered for awhile until it caught. Now at least she could prepare some food and hopefully get some of that willow bark tea down him. It would help with the fever.

She sat against the wall on the old wooden settle that had served as her bed the night before and began talking to him.

“I hope you’re worth it. I hope when you wake up that you’re sorry for what you tried to do to me. I know…I know you saved my life out in the storm. If you hadn’t brought me in here I would be at the bottom of that sand pile out there. I’m trying to save yours too. I hope you know that. I’m not sure I’m sorry for stabbing you. I might be…maybe.”

She was sorry, for if she hadn’t stabbed him she wouldn’t be working so hard to save him. She brewed the tea and held his head firmly forcing him to drink it sip by sip. She changed his bandages and applied salve to his wounds and kept him warm. She fed him broth from the cooking pot and kept him alive.

People were returning and beginning to clear away the debris from the town. A gang came and took away the man across the street. She ran out and told them his name so they might put it on a cross if they were inclined. She also told them she thought her mother was under the house debris. They dug around for over an hour until they found her. She had them bury her on the back of their property next to her father’s grave. After they left she had a little ceremony for her repeating the 23^rd Psalm and placing stones around the grave. She wept for her all over again.

When she returned to the cook house she found Benjamin awake.

He came to on the table in pain and dying of thirst. He’d tried to get up and found he couldn’t. He was too weak from fever and loss of blood. He didn’t know who had been caring for him but obviously someone had for he was bandaged all over the place. He thought it might be Tom Hart for he was naked under his blanket. The smell of food was almost making him nauseated but he soon put that aside when Megan came into the cook house.

“You’re awake.” She stopped in the doorway surprised to see him sitting up.

“Water.”

“I was beginning to think you were never going to wake up.” She dipped a cup into the cask of water and handed it to him.

“You…where’s Tom Hart?”

“He’s dead, Captain Scarlette. I found his body across the road. He died in the storm”

He sat quietly letting that sink in. He’d come to depend on Tom Hart, for his knowledge of the sea and ships. “Well…that is a shame. I need to get to my ship if you’ll find my clothes.”

“I can find your clothes but…there is no ship anymore. There were a lot of boats in the bay before the storm hit but…”

“What do you mean there’s no ship?”

“It was destroyed in the storm…it sank in the bay.”

“And my crew?”

“I don’t know about them. I haven’t been down there. How many men did you have?”

“Eighty-eight.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know about them. There are people coming back maybe they will be among them.”

He looked at her a moment, “You tried to kill me.”

“You tried to rape me,” She threw back.

“Fair enough.” He looked toward the door. “Who has been tending to my wounds of which there are many?” He glanced back at her.

“I have.”

“You are not so innocent then.”

“I was until you came along. I had to…to undress you. You were wet and…I had to.”

“More water.”

She refilled the cup and handed it to him. He grabbed her arm and held it.

“I am not accustomed to innocent young women.”

She dropped her eyes, “I can believe that. Let go of me.” He released her arm.

“I’ve just come from burying my mother. Some men found her body in the rubble of the house.”

“I’m sorry for your loss, Megan.”

“There is a great loss here, Captain Scarlette; this cook house is all that is left on this end of the road. The only thing left standing and you brought me in here. I believe you saved my life and I want to thank you for that.”

He remembered his struggle to get her in there. He nodded. “It appears we are even once again for you have surely saved my life.” He looked at her and noticed a mark on her neck where he’d bitten her and he was sorry. That bite mark bothered him for he’d behaved like an animal and that did not set well with him.

She noticed his eyes and her hand went to her neck. She met that green gaze until he closed his eyes. Why couldn’t he just say he was sorry for it?

Chapter 7

Now that Benjamin was awake he was able to eat. She still gave him the willow tea for his fever which had lessened she thought when she touched him. She prepared to change his bandages and he sat quietly on the table while she tended to his arm and shoulder. She winced at the damage she’d done to his ribs but her attention to the wound kept it from becoming infected.

“You’ll have to…lie down.” It was different now that he was awake.

Being exposed to her was different for him too. He rolled on his right side so she could tend the hip and back of his thigh. He tried to cover himself. Never had he been shy around a woman. Quite the opposite with a belly full of rum he’d expose himself in a minute but this was different. He was sober and she was…Megan.

“I can do that one.” He said when she touched him to turn him over. It was the wound at the top of his thigh.

She looked at him, “What does it matter now. I’ve seen all there is to see.”

“Did you enjoy it?” He rolled to his back and propped himself on his right arm.

“It satisfied my curiosity.” She didn’t look at him and covered him with the blanket.

He frowned a little, “Your curiosity…have you not seen a man?”

“You’re the first.” She was busy cleaning the wound with water.

He lay back on the table and rested his arm over his eyes. “You’re a virgin.”

“Yes.”

“Megan, I’m sorry. I’ve never bedded a virgin. I’m not sure I knew they existed.”

She stopped and licked her lips. He had apologized at last. “No harm done to me but I’m afraid you will carry my scars for the rest of your life.”

He raised his arm and looked at her, “You have marked me.”

“I’m afraid so.” She lightly applied the salve.

She may have marked him in more ways than one. Her light touch aroused him. “I’m sorry…I can’t control that.”

“No matter.” She quickly wrapped the cloth around his thigh and her hand brushed against him causing him to jump slightly. “There…it’s done.”

Never had so many apologizes come from his lips. He wasn’t in the habit of apologizing and it left him confused and wondering why it seemed necessary now. He spoke a little more forcefully than he meant to.

“What have you done with my breeches?”

“They’re here. I washed them…washed the blood out of them.”

“There must have been buckets.”

“Nearly. Do you want them now?”

“Yes and my shirt.”

“I had to throw it away. It was ripped and cut. I found one here that you may wear. It was my father’s…still a little sandy.” She shook it out.

“I’m not sure your father would approve of me wearing his shirt.”

“I can’t think why not. I accept your apology.”

He smiled slightly, she really was an innocent. Dressed he felt more like himself and not quite so vulnerable he asked for his boots and stockings.

“Where is it you think you’re going?”

“Out.”

She chuckled and left him to it.

He stood by the table for a moment trying to still the dizziness in his head. It was no worse than being filled with rum, he told himself and took a step or two before falling heavily against the table. “Damn, this weakness…what have you done to me?”

“I bled you.” She went to his side to offer him assistance.

He leaned his arms on the table. “You’ve bled me dry you have.”

“You’ve only just awakened from your fever why don’t you sit down.”

He could not let physical weakness overcome him. “No, I need to stand. I need to get to the docks and find my men.”

She opened the door, “Well, you can see from here that the docks are hardly there. I’m not sure you will find anything, Captain Scarlette.”

He was sweating with the effort and blinking he made it to the door and looked out. “My God in heaven.”

“It’s like that everywhere…like it’s all been swept clean. There’s an old man named Sampson who brings me water and food from the plantation. He says it’s God’s wrath visited here. He says it’s cleaned of sin and we must start over thanking Him that we were spared so that we might live a better life and live by His word.”

“Rubbish. All ports are hellholes, Megan. They supply what sailors need, women and drink. All else they have aboard ship. I will go down there…perhaps not today.” He leaned on the door.

“I’m sorry about your ship, Captain Scarlette.”

“Megan, don’t you think you might call me by my given name. You have been rather intimate with me.”

She blushed and looked away. “I don’t know your given name.”

“Benjamin Alden Scarlette.”

“Benjamin.” She repeated it liking the sound and the feel of his name. “Are you a privateer?”

“Ah…in a way I am.”

“I knew you weren’t navy. Do you work for the American’s?”

“I work for no man, no country…I sail for me.”

She took a step away from him, “You’re a pirate.”

“Does that bother you? Does that make me different than I was a moment ago?”

“I might have known.” She crossed her arms under her bosom.

He laughed. “You are an innocent babe. How refreshing.”

“No man of honor would have tried what you did.”

“Oh, so we’re back to that are we? A man is a man, Megan, whatever his profession might be. Have you met many pirates? I ask because of the knife you carried.”

“I don’t know…I don’t think so.”

“So it was to protect you against honorable men?” He smiled. “How many have you buried your knife into?”

“None till you.”

“I will make sure you do not have cause to stab me again. I‘m not sure I could stand it.”

“I should have let you die and rid the seas of one less pirate.”

He tilted his head, “Why didn’t you?”

“I was tempted.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I…I couldn’t…you brought me to the cook house and saved me.”

“How do you know I didn’t bring you here to finish what I started in your bed?”

“You weren’t able to do anything. I found you near drowned on the floor up to your nose in water.”

“And you pulled me out and saved my life. I’m getting stronger now…do you not fear me?”

“You just said I needn’t.”

“I said I would not give you cause to stab me but then…I am a pirate therefore untrustworthy.”

She narrowed her eyes and looked at his. They gave nothing away. Was he serious or teasing her? “I still have a knife, it’s even bigger than the one I had.”

A smile tweaked his lips, “I’ll remember that.”

He surely would have died had she let him. He knew this and the knowing burst his invincible bubble. He’d never feared for his life no matter how fierce the battle being fought or how unscrupulous his opponent. He’d fought many duels knowing he would not die. It took a woman, a virgin woman at that to bring his death. It was he who feared her but not for what she could do to him physically. He covered his fear with bravado.

“While I appreciate the accommodations do you not think we might make a bed? The table is most uncomfortable. I’m sore enough without splinters.”

Megan gathered pine needles from the downed trees and piled them between two blankets on the floor. It did not occur to her to do the same for herself. She’d made herself a bed on the settle with bundles of clothing she’d found. It was small and cramped but she made do with it. He lay on his pine needle pallet and watched her getting ready for bed. Finally he turned away.

The next day she fed them grits for breakfast and set about checking his wounds. The shoulder wound she left uncovered but the rest still required a bandage. The one on his upper thigh had nicked a vein and while it no long bled she kept it tightly bound. He hadn’t said a word to her while she worked on him. When she finished he caught her with a hand at the back of her neck.

“Let me kiss you…that’s all nothing else.”

Her heart was beating madly about in her breast. A kiss…only a kiss. “All right.”

He kissed her forcing her lips apart and exploring her mouth with his tongue. It took her breath away and then he abruptly released her and sat up on the table. “I think I will try a walk today.”

She was still reeling from the kiss and backed away from the table touching her mouth with her fingers. She went about putting the medicines away in the box turning her face from him. She could hear him dressing behind her. She jumped when he put his hands on her shoulders and softly kissed her neck.

“Thank you,” he said and slowly made his way out of the cook house feeling rather proud of himself for his constraint.

The kiss was like nothing she’d ever experienced and it had opened a door that would never close again. 

 

 

Chapter 8

They walked down to the beach. Her house had stood one house from a stand of trees that separated them from the ocean. He was amazed at the trees that still stood without a leaf and most smaller branches gone. It was slow going for him and he paused often. Once they reached the sand he sat down on a fallen tree. His left leg ached but he didn’t mention it.

“I could go for a swim.”

“In the ocean?”

“Where else? Do you swim, Megan?”

“No. I’ve only played along the edges. Do you?”

“Of course I do…like a fish.”

“How long have you…been a pirate?”

He smiled and looked toward her. “It still bothers you. I don’t know perhaps two years or more.”

“Only two years. Why did you become one?”

“It wasn’t my idea. I was pressed, taken from an alley where I’d passed out drunk with rum. When I woke I was at sea on a pirate ship…The Sea Lion.”

“What were you before you were a pirate?”

“I was nothing. I have a plantation in Kingston called Redcliffe. It’s really my father’s…he sent me over some seven years ago to make a go of myself but I fell into drink and women.”

“What grows there?”

“Sugar cane.”

“Can I ask you about the scars on your back?”

“You can ask. I tried to kill the captain who had me pressed. He in turn lied and said I was of the ships company…that I’d sworn allegiance…which I had not done. They took a vote and I lost. I was flogged.”

“It’s horrible.”

“Well, I can’t see it…its behind me.” He grinned and threw a shell toward the water. “That’s all behind me now. I am my own master.”

“A master without a ship.” She dug her toes in the sand.

“Not for long. What will you do here, Megan?”

“I’ve tried not to think about it. The only income we had was from paying guests.”

“I’m not giving up my pine needle bed so you can make a few pennies in the cook house.”

She laughed and threw sand at him. He caught her wrists and looked into her eyes and laughed with her but she caught that intense look. Careful…Megan. He was like a cat, she thought, soft and friendly one minute so that you forgot the teeth and the claws he kept sheathed.

He dropped her hands and looked away down the beach. She’d washed his hair for him that morning and it had dried in curls and waves and blew about his face and shoulders. She was already attracted to him, but after that kiss there was something else. And yet…she feared him.

She looked at the side of his face where she’d clawed him. He had a couple of scabs still. She rested her head on her knees.

“Megan, are the warehouses still standing?”

“I couldn’t say.”

Perhaps all was not lost. He had a small fortune in a warehouse near the docks and if his crew had abandoned him so much the better.

“Tomorrow we will walk to the docks and find out.”

“That’s a long walk for you.”

“Why do you think I’m including you? You can carry me if I fall. Strong girl like you.”

“I’m not that strong.” She looked at him through her hair.

“You can’t tell me that…fought like a tiger did you.”

“I don’t want to think about that.”

“I think about it.”

“Don’t.”

“I think about how you felt squirming beneath me. I thought I would explode.”

She looked at him, at his smoldering eyes. “We should start walking back.”

“Why…are you afraid to talk to me?”

“I’m afraid of you.”

“I wouldn’t hurt you, Megan.”

“Ha, you already have. I still bear your marks.”

“And I bear yours. Mine will fade but yours will be with me forever. You see why I think about it. I was caught up in lust for you and I did not know you as I do now. I called you a peach and so you are but high up on the tree and I cannot reach you.”

His deep voice was as mesmerizing as the sound of the waves. She looked at his mouth and thought about that kiss and her breath became shallow. “We…we need to go back.”

“Very well, give me a hand will you.”

She stood and offered her hand and he pulled her down on top of him in the sand and held her.

“No…your wounds.”

“You’re like a frightened little bird. Kiss me.”

She hesitated but the want of another kiss won over. He kissed her as he had before and let his hands run freely up her back and over her bottom. She lay her head on his chest and he began to wonder how much of this he could stand. He squeezed her to him and kissed the top of her head. “We’d better go back,” he said.

She was beginning to want him and it confused her, and pleased him.

The next morning they walked down to the dock area. There were men about repairing the docks and he could see the bow of his ship still standing above the water but the rest was submerged. He stopped and talked to one of the workmen asking about survivors from the ship. He was told all bodies been taken away and were up at the church waiting to see if anybody identified them before they were buried.

The taverns were destroyed leaving only foundations and debris, a wall left standing here and there. However, the warehouses were still intact. It was a short walk but the debris field made it a difficult one.

The warehouseman said there had only been some roof damage and opened the warehouse where his bounty still sat unmolested.

Megan stood away from him while he walked around the crates. She saw it as his stolen goods. He had a light in his eyes when he came back to her.

“Let us go to the church.”

“Why?’

“I want to know who is left of my crew.”

“Where are they?”

“That I do not know…scattered I should think…or hiding.”

“Are you sure you can walk that far?”

“I can walk.”

While he went about walking the length of the church looking at dead bodies she went along the protected area around the walls gathering gypsum weed and yarrow. The church was not in use as the inside of it had suffered a fire during the Revolutionary War and had not yet been repaired. She walked out into the graveyard and looked for her grandparent’s graves.

Benjamin joined her on the path. “Do you know these people?”

“Some of them. My grandparents there. Did you find your men?”

“Ten of them. Let’s go.”

“Where to now?” She asked.

“There is a merchant I need to see.”

Benjamin found his merchant and arranged for the sale of his goods.

Bay Street did not receive the damage seen closer to the coast and port. There were chimney’s down and rubble on one side and the other side of the street still had buildings standing with roof damage. Benjamin paid close attention to the men he saw walking about or in the work gangs. He couldn’t see how 77 men could have simply disappeared…unless they got a ship.

Chapter 9

With an advance he got on his goods he bought a meal for them in a Bay Street tavern and ale which he’d sorely missed. It was the first time Megan had been in a tavern and she couldn’t see what all the fuss her mother had made was about. Men and women were seated and having meals. She recognized one and went over to speak with her and told her about her mother. She received condolences and a few glances toward her table at the man seated there.

“Why did you do that?” He asked when she returned to her seat.

“I know Mrs. Richards and I thought she’d want to know about Momma.”

“Do not draw attention to us.”

“Why?”

“Just…don’t.” Did he want to tell her there was a price on his head? No.

By the time they got back to the cook house he was pale and shaking.

“It was too much for you, I was afraid you were trying to do too much, Benjamin.”

“I just need to rest.” He eased himself down on the pine needle bed.

She fiddled around making tea that he’d bought. “You have money…why did you not take a room in town. I saw a hotel above the tavern.”

“I’d rather stay with you.”

“And sleep on the floor? I don’t believe that.”

“Soon I will have a small fortune. Neither of us will have to sleep in a cook house.”

“What do you mean to do?”

“I mean to find myself a ship and as for you…I will see that you are taken care of with a decent place to live.”

“Why would you do that for me?”

He put an arm over his eyes. “I ask myself that and I do not know.”

“I can live here…it’s enough for me. Perhaps get a bed.”

“You are welcome to share mine.”

“I’m sure that’s not a serious suggestion.”

“I’m sure it is. Why do you sleep on that awkward bench?”

“It’s on the opposite side of the room from you.” She knelt down with a cup of tea for him. 
“Drink this it will give you some strength.”

He sat up with his back against the wall. “You don’t trust me do you?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Why make me strong…I may come for you.”

“I don’t think you will…you can’t reach that high up in the tree.”

He smiled slowly. “A ripe peach does not cling to the tree for very long.”

She rose from the floor. “I think, Benjamin, you are the devil in breeches.”

He laughed.

She made a poultice from the gypsum and yarrow and asked him to undress.

“What are you about now?” He pulled off his shirt.

“It’s the bottom half that needs to come off.”

“You like that don’t you.” He unfastened his breeches and slid out of them not bothering to cover himself.

“There, just as I suspected. See how red it’s become?” she examined the wound high on his thigh.”

“Hmm, what does it mean, is it poisoned?”

“It may be.” She mashed the poultice with the back of a spoon and applied it to the wound. “Tomorrow and the rest of tonight you stay here in the bed.” She wrapped it carefully and looked up at him.

“I saw you limping yesterday and you said nothing.”

“I was not thinking of my wound.”

“What were you thinking of when it was hurting?”

He took her hand and lay it on his penis and watched her eyes widen as it hardened under her palm.

“Benjamin…I.”

“You feel it…that is for you…when you come to me.”

She pulled her hand away. “You’d better cover it up.” She said shakily and rose with her bowl.

She would, he knew she would. It was just a matter of time and he hoped that time did not run out for them.

Just to be on the safe side she made him more of the willow bark tea adding leaves she’d picked on their walk to the church. She questioned herself at times as to why she worried so about him.  It should not matter to her if he got an infection and became sick but it did. She wanted him to be well and healed…when he left her…when he found his ship.

He lay in his bed of pine needles and thought about the money he had stashed in Tortuga. He’d paid off the French governor for protection in his waters. He thought when he got out of Georgetown that’s where he would go…after he found the Ransom. The Kingston he did not worry about for the captain of that ship was loyal to him. He’d never trusted Captain Rogers of the Ransom. He’d been quartermaster on a ship he’d taken six months ago. Tom Hart had trusted him and put Rogers forward for election. Tom Hart was no longer. Things would be different when he got his ship…very different.

The loss of The Sea Lion was a great loss and he felt it. The familiar ship, his home for the last two years, his trusted crew…but where were they now and why had they abandoned him?

He realized he was cold and looked toward the fire. Megan banked it for the night but there was a chill in the air and a chill coming from the brick floor beneath his pine needles. He started to get up and a pain shot down his thigh and he sat back down pulling the blanket around him.

“Can’t you sleep,” Megan asked.

“No, and neither can you. It’s cold in here.”

“I’ll stir up the fire.” Megan stretched and went to the fire stirring the coals and place another log in the fireplace.

“Come and warm me.”

“You don’t give up do you?”

“I never have but for now I am serious, I’m cold I can’t find my shirt.”

Megan picked his shirt up from the table and handed it to him.

“Lie with me…I will not do anything you don’t want me too. I don’t think I am able.”

She knelt down by his bed and felt his forehead. “No fever.”

“The fever is within. Your hands are cold why should we both be cold when we may warm each other…truly, my leg pains me…you are safe.”

“Lie down,” he did as he was told and she covered him with his blanket and then brought hers over and lay beside of him snuggling up spoon fashion. His arm went around her and he buried his face in her hair.

“Better,” he said.

“Yes.” Megan hadn’t slept with anyone in her whole life. It was not an unpleasant thing having his body warmth on her back.

He pulled her closer and closed his eyes with a little smile on his face.

 

Chapter 10

A few days later the pain in his leg was gone. Megan’s poultices had drawn the infection out. He was restless now that he felt himself again. One morning two men appeared on horseback in the road. He went out to talk to them. Megan stood in the doorway of the cook house and watched him accept a packet, open it and count out money. He handed some back to the two men and they rode off. He was smiling when he came back to her.

“We are rich again.”

She wondered about the ‘we’.

It was to be a day of visitors. He wanted to walk down to the beach and she accompanied him. They’d progressed to holding hands when they walked.

“You have no pain, Benjamin?”

“None…I think you are a witch with your magic potions.” He smiled and gave her a sideways look.

All of his bandages were now off. He had new scars forming on his body.

“I suppose you can buy a ship now.”

“Buy?” He laughed, “I don’t believe I have ever bought a ship and I have many…as many as five, I think for I shall have the Ransom back.”

“You’re a thief, a robber.”

“I am a pirate and I do pirate business. Do you think the merchant in town asked where the goods he bought came from? No, he did not. He was happy to have them. People like your Mrs. Richards will be happy to purchase them from the merchant and can do so at a better price than goods from England or South America.”

She shook her head slightly. “You make it sound legal; a business.”

“It is a business and a very profitable one.”

They reached the beach and he pulled her to him. “What will you do, how will you live?”

“I’m not a lady, Benjamin. I’ll find work in town in some house. There are people I know will give me a placement.”

“You mean to clean or cook in some other person’s house?” He frowned, “I…I cannot see that for you.”

“I’ll be all right. I have a place to live and it’s not a far walk.”

He pressed her face to his chest. He could do so much for her…

“I’ll buy you a house in town.”

“No.”

“I’ll give you money to live on.”

“No…I don’t want your money.”

“You will find some good man to marry and he will take care of you.”

“I don’t know any good men.”

He lifted her chin. “Not even me.” He kissed her and she unconsciously pressed herself against him. “Megan.” He couldn’t put a name to the feeling that boiled up inside of him. The thought of another man with her; of her working and slaving for some pinched nose woman in town.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a movement and looked up. A ship was coming around the spit of land.

“What is it?” She looked too.

“I don’t know.”

As the ship cleared the outlying island he could detect no colors and wished he had his glass. It was going to anchor. Then a small boat was put down.

“Megan, run back to the cook house and bar the door.”

“No, no, Benjamin…who is it?”

“Go…do as I tell you.” He barked at her. His eyes told her he meant it and she ran back down the path in tears worried for his safety.

It was too late for concealment not that Benjamin would have hidden from them but he was unarmed. However, his fears were soon put to rest when a man stood up in the landing boat and hailed him.

“Riley,” Benjamin called back.

There was a joyful reunion on the beach with much back slapping and hand shaking and laughter. His men thought he was dead but there were a few hold outs that wanted to check one more time before they sailed away in a pirated ship.

“Tom Hart is dead.” Benjamin told them and he recounted the others he’d seen in the church.

“They wouldn’t leave the ship even when we knew it was lost.”

“I don’t ask that kind of dedication of any of you. There will always be another ship. You must tell me how you came about this one and what ship is it?”

“It’s the Christina, an old Spanish brig but it was handy.”

They told the tale of how a ship had anchored out in the bay and two boats came ashore. The Lion’s were standing about the dock and some on the Lion and some still in the tavern. The storm was beating up pretty good by then and the Lion was already going down. They took a quick vote, drug the drunkards from the tavern, them that would go, and took the boats the men had rowed in. They rowed out to the ship and it was hard going due to the water stirring up. Once they climbed on board they found 32 men still there and they overpowered them and pulled up the anchor and were away before the storm came ashore. Riding close to the coast they went southward until they could get out to sea.

“What of the captain?” Benjamin asked.

“He and the quartermaster came ashore in the boats. He was Captain Flagg.”

“Flagg, eh? And have you voted a new captain?”

“No, not till we knew of your fate. You’re still our captain.”

“There will have to be a new ordinance. Tell me of the captives, will they join us?”

“Some will and some won’t. We thought you could sort them out…should we find you.”

“Well, you have found me and I’m ready to join you. I was wounded during the storm but am fit enough now. Tell me, what news of the Ransom?”

“We heard she took the merchant.”

“We heard she was chased away by the man o war.”

“Nah, the man o war chased me. But does she have the gold?”

No one seemed to know.

“There is something I must do before I go…wait for me?”

“Aye, we’ll wait until the tide is ready to go out.”

He left them on the beach and walked back to the cook house and banged on the door.

“It’s me, open up.”

“Oh, Benjamin.” She fell into his arms and he savored the feeling. “I’ve been so worried…you’re all right?”

“Yes, yes, it is my crew with a ship. I’ve come to say good-bye.”

“No, no.” She clung to him.

“Megan, Megan.” He kissed her and felt the full length of her body against his. He ran his hands slowly up her back and down her sides grasping her hips to his he ground into her and she pushed back. It was now or never.

It was now. He led her to the pine needle bed. “Are you sure you want to do this…give yourself to a pirate…you know I will leave you and no man will have you who is worth a damn after I’m gone.”

“I don’t care. I give myself to you, Benjamin. There is no other man I would want.”

“Don’t say such things.”

“It’s true and it’s true that I love you.”

“No, no, no…do not love me, Megan.” He closed his eyes and she pulled his shirt from his breeches. “You…don’t know what you are doing.”

“I do know…all this time you’ve been trying to get me beneath you and I fought it but all the time I wanted it. I want you, Benjamin.”

Her hands were on his belly and it was more than he could resist. He lay her down and unlaced her bodice. She helped him remove her clothes.

“It’s only fair,” he said huskily, “You have had all of me for your eyes and I have had none of you.” He feasted on her body touching every part of her, tasting her gently until she was more than ready for him. He took her hard breaking her membrane and silencing her cries with his mouth. Then it was pure bliss for both of them.

He lay spent upon her lightly sucking her neck. There had been no mention of peaches. His worst fear had come home. He raised up on his arms and looked down into her eyes, deep and dark and soft with love. Her creamy skin flushed, her honey hair spilled across the blanket.

“You have killed me,” he said softly and kissed her ripe lips.

She didn’t understand what he meant. For the first time since his mother died he loved someone. As sure as a knife plunging into his heart all he had been before that moment was dead. She had him and God save both of them.

In truth, he’d come back for his money.

Chapter 11

As they dressed he told her what to wear from the pile of scavenged clothes she had. He wanted her blessed body covered. She had no idea what he was about and only wanted to please him.

He stepped back and looked at her…the hair. Taking it in his hands he twisted it until it curled round his hand and brought it up on top of her head tying it with a piece of his own leather tie which he bit into.

“You haven’t a bonnet?”

“No.” She widened her eyes.

“It will do.” He took his packet of money from under the pine needle bed and stuck it in his shirt. Handing her the medicine box from the Sea Lion he told her what he was doing.

“I’m going to take you with me. You will be the ships surgeon or his assistant or whatever need be…dispenser of medicines. I’m going to make you a pirate. What say you to that?”

She smiled slowly, “Aye, Captain Scarlette.”

She was overjoyed so that she could hardly breathe.

“There is a rule on a pirate ship…no women. I’m going to break it and create my own rules. You will at all times do as I say without question because you do not know our ways. You will…look at no other man and if he should look at you I will put out his eyes do you understand this?”

She was near to bursting, “Yes.”

“All right then…we will go…and…you will walk behind me.” He tied his hair back and lifted his chin.

“I’ll walk beside of you.”

“Already you are disregarding my authority. For now…walk behind me. I may have a devil of a time getting you aboard and an even harder time to have you accepted. They may toss me off for bringing you.”

“But you’re the captain.”

“Aye, for as long as they want me to be. Ready? We go."

They walked out to the road and he threw over his shoulder, “You do know if we’re caught the penalty for piracy on the high seas is hanging. They will not give quarter to a woman.”

“We won’t be caught. I trust you, Benjamin.”

He laughed, “That’s where you made your first mistake with me.”

Megan smiled as she walked behind him. What did she care if she was a pirate there wasn’t anything here in Georgetown to hold her? She wanted to be with him more than anything and especially now that he had loved her and he had. This was nothing like what he’d attempted the night of the storm. She’d been afraid of him, afraid of the violence he possessed and afraid of his total manliness. His masculinity poured forth and threatened her and yet he had that boyish quality that was so appealing. She realized while she anxiously waited for him to come back from the beach that what she felt for him was love.

Yes, it was insane and he had no idea he could pull it off. He could see them now all eight of them standing some removing their hats, others with their hands on their hips…curious. He didn’t fear it for there was always another ship to be had but he hoped they would accept her. Megan marked him as hers and he’d taken her into himself and could not let go.

“We are ready, Miss Caulfield and I. She is a healer and has healed me of many wounds. Her house and family are gone. You see…she has the medicine box.”

“You mean to take her aboard Christina?”

“Yes, I do.”

“No women aboard.”

“She is not a woman she is mine…that is to say…she is with me…and she is a healer.”

“We don’t have a doctor on Christina.”

“A woman doctor…ah yer daft, man.”

“Either she comes or I stay.”

They finally agreed to take her aboard. They’d vote on it.

Benjamin breathed a sigh of relief and helped her into the boat. She sat close to him starring out at the water and not at the men in the boat for she didn’t want their eyes put out.

Once on board Megan felt even more like a fish out of water. There was a great hue and cry over her when she came aboard. Benjamin took her arm and it quieted down. The ships company assembled on deck. The captain was back and there was a new ship and so new ordinances must be drawn up. An election was to follow for captain and quartermaster and then where was the question of the woman on board.

Benjamin, although an elected captain, had no real say-so in the proceedings. He was allowed to make a statement and he did. Heaping praise on Megan for her curing abilities and assuring the company that she was indeed his property and that she would take the orders of allegiance as the rest of them would. The thing that sealed the deal for his own election was the desire to go after the Ransom. He assured them that was his first priority. That and the packet of money he pulled from his shirt to give to the newly elected quartermaster to distribute amongst the company.  New items in the ordinance that was drawn up included a rule that said no officer of a taken ship would be put in command of that ship. The last rule – No women aboard except the captain’s.

Benjamin was very happy with the results for if they had not let her stay he would have left the ship with her.

He went down to the captain’s quarters, a large cabin with windows on three sides and a high ceiling for a ship.

“This is to be your new home for now.” He did not tell her he planned to go to Tortuga or anyone else. Once they had the Ransom and the gold, if she carried gold, then he would set his course for a safe haven.  He left Megan to settle in the cabin and went in company of the quartermaster to sort out the prisoners.

Megan still clutched the medicine box, a prized thing among pirates worth around 470 British pounds. She set it on the long table and explored the cabin.

Benjamin and his officer agreed to let the prisoners take the oath of allegiance to the ship and make their mark on the ordinance. There were no officers among them or they would have been put off the ship at the first opportunity. There were now 68 former Lions and 32 Christina’s to form the ships company.

The next order of business was to go down into the hold and see what bounty the Christina had brought them for it was a pirate ship. For nearly three weeks his crew had sailed the Christina and not a coin in the cargo had been touched. It was the quartermaster who now counted and recorded what was there and his job to disperse it according to rank. There was a small casket of jewels, a smaller one of coins of various countries, three trunks of clothing, lumber and rope. The lumber and rope was assigned to the ship and the rest dispersed even women’s clothing for it could be sold.

Benjamin appointed his officers, a master and master’s mate. Then he returned to the cabin to chart a course.

Megan rose when he came in and he paused with a light in his eyes but went straight to business with his master.

“It was about here,” he marked the coordinates, “that we lost her. “The storm came in here and would have prevented a sail north for some hours and I do not think he would have stayed long with the convoy. No way to know how long it took the man of war to rejoin them.”

“South then, suppose he turned around?”

“If he sailed north there was also the danger of running into Kingston…but Kingston did not know he’d gone for the gold and might accompany him for awhile.”

“What would you have done, Captain?”

“I would have sailed north and damn the storm.”

“Teach’s old hideout.”

“Exactly,” Benjamin smiled. “NXNE it is.”

The master left to pass the new course onto the coxswain.

“Pirate business.” Megan smiled and approached him.

He caught her around the waist. “Listen and learn, pirate Megan. Do you know you are to have a cabin of your own? You must work too, there are no slackers about.”

“But…I won’t be sleeping with you?”

“Do you want to?” He teased her.

“Yes, you know I do.” She blushed and looked away.

“I’ll see what I can do about that.” He kissed her and left her to go up on deck.

Megan was taken to the doctor’s cabin where she was able to put down her medicine box. She examined the well stocked dispensary and determined it well beyond her knowledge. She wasn’t a doctor and couldn’t pretend to be. She only knew of home remedies her mother had taught her. They’d worked well on Benjamin but she felt woefully inadequate in the doctor’s cabin. The array of saws and knives gave her a chill.

However word was out that the Doctor was in and her first patient arrived with a hernia. He came with another seaman to observe. She remembered her mother doing something for her father once with wrappings and so she wrapped a tight bandage around his belly and sent him on his way. The men were very respectful of her bound as they were by the ship’s ordinance.

In the doctor’s cupboard she found a book on the treatment of common ailments and kept it with her.

Megan took her meals with Benjamin in his cabin. Benjamin was in good spirits and happy to be back at sea. He had a certain swagger about him, she noticed, that he did not display on land. His men loved him and feared him for he could be cruel and if crossed he showed little mercy. He had with him a quartermaster from the old Lion crew, a man he liked and trusted, Sean O’Brien, who would more than likely follow rather than try and lead as Tom Hart had done.

Benjamin soon became frustrated with the old Christina. It had not the speed and ease of manoeuvrability that the Lion had. He was in search of another ship.

 

 

Chapter 12

As if ordered up the ship came in form of an American schooner. The Christina came upon it in the dead of night with clouds covering the moon. All lights had been doused and the ship silenced. By the time the alarm had been raised on the schooner the pirate ship was upon her without firing a gun.  It was a bloody and vicious fight but the ship was theirs inside of twenty minutes. Benjamin lost three men in the battle and Megan was kept busy cleaning, suturing and bandaging up wounds. The ship’s carpenter was called to amputate a man’s arm and she fainted.

Everything of value was transferred to the schooner which they renamed The Lion. A prize crew was put aboard the Christina and she was sent into Little River to ransom the Americans since none of them agreed to join the company.

Megan was appalled at the bloodletting.

“It is the nature of the business.” Benjamin told her. “You are young, my sweet, and have seen nothing of the world. It is a bloody place in one way or another. You may as well get used to it.”

“I’m not sure I want to.” She said under her breath but he heard her and came over to her and lifted her chin.

“You will.” He kissed her and fondled her breast making her weak in the knees.

Benjamin was still trying to come to terms with his feelings for Megan. He kept her in a state of arousal when she was near him. It excited him to know she wanted him and he would take her whenever and wherever it pleased him. She was his, belonged to him alone and he was very protective of her. He loved her as much as he was able to love anyone. But she brought out softness in him that he tried to banish by doing outrageous things with her like pulling her onto his lap and exposing her breasts in front of his master and his mate. It embarrassed her and he’d laughed.

He loved her sweet innocence but a part of him wanted to exploit her. Megan was addicted to him and let him do anything he wanted to with her. She had yet to see that what he did might be construed to be cruel.

On her twentieth birthday he gave her a ruby and diamond ring from the spoils of the Christina.

He’d been sitting out at sea waiting for the Christina to rejoin him and when she did she brought news. The Ransom was in port in Wilmington undergoing repairs. A tricky operation, Benjamin thought, but not if you had gold to bribe the authorities.

He came along the coast of North Carolina and saw a British man of war resting out from the harbor. Now he was certain the Ransom had the gold but she was trapped.

He sailed on to the Outer Banks and there encountered the Kingston. After some posturing until he could identify himself the two ships joined and visited back and forth. He informed the captain of the Kingston about the Ransom’s rogue act.

“I wish I’d known.” Captain Bennett said, “I escorted her into Wilmington after the storm had damaged her unmercifully. I asked Rogers about The Sea Lion and was told you got separated in the storm.”

“I got chased by the Phoebe who now sits in blockade of the harbor. Ransom was seen making for the convoy and then not seen again. She might have aided me.”

“Aye, she might have done. What do you propose, Scarlette?”

“I may pull the Phoebe away if you will bring the Ransom out.”

“I do not know what state she is in, is she seaworthy?”

“I can send someone to find out. I have in my company a number of former Christina’s who are unknown to the Ransom.”

“What of the Christina do you mean to keep her?”

“She is of little use to me, slow and heavy. I may burn her…a nice diversion I think.”

Captain Bennett smiled. “I will see you in Tortuga.”

The party on the Outer Banks was over and the crews were called in.

Benjamin’s Christina’s delivered the news that the ship was ready to sail at the first opportunity. He would provide that opportunity.

Benjamin sent the Christina close enough to the Phoebe to be seen and they hoisted a British flag and identified themselves as the Christina in His Majesty’s service. A proper salute was given and the Christina sailed toward the horizon. The Lion soon was seen to be in pursuit and to overtake the Christina. A mock battle was staged and the guns brought the Phoebe out to aid the Christina which was now on fire as planned and the crew transferred to the Lion.

Benjamin was up in the crosstrees watching the Phoebe coming hull up. He meant to escape her and gave the word.

Phoebe could not identify the Lion except by the black flag she proudly flew that said pirate ship. The Lion was well on her way by the time Phoebe reached the burning wreckage. Benjamin couldn’t resist leaving his calling card…a scarlet pennant attached to a floating raft.

It was a childish thing he’d been better off not to have done. Captain Jack Scarlette of the Phoebe took offense.

“There are no survivors.” His ship’s surgeon reported of the Christina.

“No, I should think not. He’s playing his games again but for the last time.” The pennant was a message to Jack. At their home in England a red pennant had flown on the flagstaff when their father was in residence. There was no doubt who he was chasing.

Benjamin was watching him closely. There was no storm for him to escape into this time and the Phoebe was a fast ship. He thought the Phoebe would return to the Ransom and hadn’t reckoned on pursuit. His lips curved in a smile…then it was personal. Jack wanted him…all the better.

His crew were giving it all they had and at times it looked like they might make it but Benjamin already knew it would soon be over. He went below to find Megan. She’d just finished bandaging a man’s hand and he waited until he left and went into her cabin and closed the door.

“You’re bloody.” He said looking at her smock.

“It’s a bloody business you conduct.”

“Take it off.”

She removed the smock and came to him. “We’re running awfully fast aren’t we?”

“Not for much longer. You’re beautiful, Megan.”

She put her hands on his chest feeling him beneath the fabric. “I think you are too.”

He played with her breasts, “I should never have brought you from Georgetown.”

She stopped, “Why?”

“Love me.”

She put her arms around his neck and kissed him trailing them down his neck to his chest and unlaced his shirt. She teased his nipples with her tongue and unfastened his breeches and touched him.

He picked her up and placed her on the narrow cot and stripped her of her clothes and made love to her satisfying her every need. When he finished he told her to dress in one of the provocative silken dresses from the Christina that clung to her body without petticoats. He wanted her waist length hair loose. All this she did for him. He crushed her to him and kissed her.

“I have to go.” He picked up his pistols.

“Where are you going?” She asked as the first shot hit the Lion.

“To war,” and he was gone.

The gunners fired their guns and got back threefold in return. They were hopelessly outmatched. The Phoebe came around and caught her with grappling hooks. When the seamen and officers from the Phoebe began to board Benjamin told his men to stand down. No need to die today. But he’d been ready; he would have sacrificed himself on this day if it would have saved it.

He stood calmly while he was divested of his weapons and his hands tied behind him. His brother soon came on deck and found him.

Benjamin smiled, “It was the pennant wasn’t it?”

“You’re not as clever as I thought you were.”

“Maybe I am.”

“It’s a sorry end for you, Benjamin…take him aboard and put him in irons.”

Benjamin called over his shoulder, “There is a woman aboard, a captive. Treat her kindly.”

Jack’s eyes flashed “As I’m sure you have.”

Jack went below opening doors and into the captain’s cabin, his brother’s lair. Charts covered a table and he looked at them for a few minutes until he was satisfied. Someone came for him and said they’d found the woman. He followed the seaman to the doctor’s cabin.

Megan tried to make herself as small as she could on the bunk. Frightened half to death and unaware of what had happened except their ship was no longer moving and no one came for her. Benjamin hadn’t come.

“You there…are you unharmed do you need assistance?”

Her eyes wide she looked at the man who’d entered the cabin. A naval officer. She shook her head.
“You’d better come with me, Miss.”

She shook her head again. “Benjamin?”

Jack tilted his head and narrowed his eyes, “He is aboard the Phoebe.”

“Oh,” she burst into tears.

He moved closer to her, “Come, come with me you cannot stay here.” He reached to take her arm and blinked. Something stung his arm and he looked down to see blood oozing from his sleeve.

“You little devil.” He looked up into her wide dark eyes and trembling she dropped her knife.

“You’ve stuck me.” Jack looked as surprised as she was.

“I…I…”

“Get out of there.” He caught her arm and pulled her out of the bunk. Her appearance was not lost on him but he had mistaken her. He thought her a captive and the knife for protection against pirates.

She struggled to get away from him. “No, leave me alone.”

“I have no intention of harming you, young lady, but this ship has been shot to pieces and it is in your best interest to come aboard the Phoebe

“Benjamin is there?”

“Yes, he is but you needn’t bother about him.” Jack led her to the ladder. She went willingly with him thinking she would be joining Benjamin.

Meanwhile Benjamin was being escorted to his new quarters. The rest of his crew was locked in the brig but he was to be kept separate and as directed the officer locked him in irons in a small cubicle. He sat down on the wooden bench and leaned against the wall. This would not be his end; of that he was positive.

He did not fear for Megan. Jack would have her. “A man has needs.” He said under his breath repeating something Jack had said to him before he was old enough to know what needs were. Jack had been going out and he’d wanted to go into town with him. Jack had no need of an eight year old boy and had refused. That was then; when Jack came home it was an event in his life as he so rarely came.

It was only later that the line had been drawn between them. Later after his mother died. Jack left home at 12 years to join the Naval College and went to sea. Benjamin hardly knew him but thought he looked grand in his uniform when he did come home. He wanted to follow him to the naval college but his father refused. Along about fourteen he knew how the land lay with his father. Jack was the son and he was but a shadow.

 

  

Chapter 13

Jack sent Megan along to his cabin to be dealt with later.  While his crew took over the pirate ship he went down to see his brother.

“I cannot compliment you on your accommodations. Comfort is not a requirement for His Majesty’s sailors?”

“You’d better enjoy what you have, Benjamin, for it will not get any better.  It was all a ruse to get me out to sea and it worked, your clever little plan.”

Benjamin smiled.

“However, we have both lost the Ransom. I am sure she’s well on her way by now.”

“I’m sure she is.”

“Where were you to meet up with her?”

“I wasn’t to meet up with Ransom. I was just doing a favor for a fellow pirate.”

“I doubt you have ever done a favor for anyone.”

“My reputation precedes me. There is nothing I can add.”

“I must say I was shocked to see you aboard the Sea Lion. I understood you were at Redcliffe.”

“I was at Redcliffe for five miserable years.”

“I can imagine it was, but to turn from that to pirating…I cannot see it.”

“I found it suited me. I was a free man and answered to no one. You should try it yourself, or are you too afraid to disappoint father.”

“Our father is dead these thirteen months.”

“I did not know that…I can’t say I am sorry to hear it.”

“No…no. He’s left you Redcliffe.”

“Ha, right to the end. Well, it will come to nothing for I will not have it.”

“No, Benjamin, I am sorry to say it’s the hangman’s knot for you.”

“Well, it’s a good day’s work for you, Captain Scarlette.”

“It gives me little satisfaction.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“Ah…yes. Your captive woman.”

Benjamin laughed, “I should have warned you. She’s quite good with a knife.”

Jack stopped by to see his surgeon and have his arm bandaged and then went to his cabin to see what was to be done with the woman.

Megan had examined his cabin, being interrupted by a steward bringing her a cup of coffee. There were guns in the locker but she didn’t know how to load them or where the powder was kept. The steward told her the prisoners were locked in the hold and she understood now what their position was but why she hadn’t been locked up as well was a mystery.

“Ah, coffee.” Jack went straight to the table and poured himself a cup. “What is your name, Miss?”

“Megan Caulfield.”

“And where do you hail from?” Jack moved around the table and sat near her.

“From Georgetown, South Carolina.”

He sipped his coffee and his eyes were on her bosom clearly outlined in the thin fabric of her dress. He blinked and looked up meeting her eyes. “Georgetown was much torn up in the storm, I hear.”

“Yes, it was.”

“You have family there?”

“No, not anymore.”

“I cannot return you to Georgetown but my tender can take you back to Wilmington when he joins me.”

“I don’t want to go back to Georgetown…there is nothing left there for me. My mother was killed in the storm and my house is gone. “

“How did you come to be on a pirate ship; what ship were you taken from?”

“I…taken from? The, ah, Christina.”

She was lying and he couldn’t think why. “The Christina.”

“Yes.”

“And where were you bound for on the Christina?”

She was staring into his eyes…eyes so like Benjamin’s. “Where is Benjamin?”

“He is in irons as he should be.”

She lowered her eyes and looked to the side. “What will you do with him?”

“Take him to Bermuda and turn him over to…why does it concern you? You should be glad to be rid of him.”

“The rest of the company…what will happen to them?”

“They will be tried and hanged…along with Benjamin.”

She couldn’t contain it any longer. Her eyes welled up and spilled over.

Jack started to reach out and noticed the bandage on his arm and didn’t. “There now, the worst is over for you. I’m sure it’s been an ordeal. Killick, Killick there…find Lt. Pullings and have Miss Caulfield put in his cabin, he can find another.”

“Captain Scarlette, we’re ready.” Another man had stepped in the cabin.

“Scarlette?” She raised her head and looked at Jack through a curtain of hair.

“Yes, an unfortunate business but Benjamin Scarlette is my younger brother.”

He left her to go on deck and left her to digest the fact that Benjamin and the Captain were brothers. There had to be something there…something…perhaps all was not lost. Captain Scarlette did not know she was a pirate. She was not an experienced pirate and at present had no weapons…save one. What was it Benjamin had told her…”A man is a man no matter what his profession might be.”

Down in the hold Benjamin and his quartermaster had greeted each other. The quartermaster was in the brig and Benjamin chained hand and foot next door. A guard was trying to put a stop to the conversing and looked through the barred door where Benjamin was kept. The look he got back sent a chill down his spine. He moved away from the door. Aware that Benjamin Scarlette was the Captain’s brother he thought the devil must be in this one.

As busy as he was, Jack gave some thought to the woman in his cabin. From the look of her and the manner of her dress, she had either been ill used aboard the pirate company or she was a whore Benjamin had picked up. No decent woman would dress in such a manner, and yet there was an innocence about her. She was very young and if she had been aboard the Christina, which he now knew to be a pirate ship, she may have suffered much. He was inclined to be sympathetic towards her but…she had lied to him and so he was wary.

“I see you are still here.”

She had her back to him looking out of the bank of windows at the sun’s last rays playing across the water. She said nothing in reply.

Jack moved over slightly behind her, “You did not tell me where you were bound for in the Christina.”

“I was bound for Norfolk.”

“In the Christina…well, I should imagine the American Navy would have been glad to see the Christina sailing into port.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“No, Miss Caulfield, I do not.”

“The truth is I do not know where I was going. I was taken aboard ship in Georgetown. The…port was destroyed along with my home. I was…starving. I didn’t know it was a pirate ship.”

“Who took you aboard…Benjamin?”

“Yes, he was very kind to me.”

“The last time I saw him he was on the Sea Lion.”

“I don’t know about his ships. He was kind to me. I had nothing except the clothes on my back.”  She was aware how close he was standing. She slowly turned around and he didn’t move away.

“You’re very like him except in color.” He was older, heavier but still a handsome man. It wouldn’t be so hard for her after all.

“Were you…did…he…?”

“Yes,” she set a tremble in her lower lip. “I couldn’t stop it from happening.”

“I am so very sorry for you, Miss Caulfield.”

“At least he didn’t let anyone else have me.” She turned her face up to him and a tear rolled down her cheek. “It was all so horrible.”

He hesitated but of their own violation his arms moved around her to comfort her in her distress. She was so small, so young, and so…very female and she fit right against him.

“What, um, did you do in Georgetown?”

“My mother had a guest house and I helped her. My father was a fisherman but he drowned three years ago and we began taking in guests.”

“You have suffered a great loss.” His lips moved across her hair. She was so soft and…common sense entered his being and he dropped his hands from her and moved away.

Megan hung her head hiding behind the curtain of hair with a little smile.

Jack moved away and fingered something on his table but his eyes were on her. The emerald silk of her dress molded against her form. . Her hair caught in a ray of sun looked liked molten gold. His chest still retained the feel of her firm breasts against it

He cleared his throat, “Well, we will see to your accommodation.”

“Thank you, Captain; I am grateful for your care.”

“Killick…Killick there…”

“I’m here ain’t I?”

“Um, see Miss Caulfield to…Lt. Pullings did you?”

“You put him on The Lion didn’t you?”

“So I did, well, see her to his cabin.”

Megan followed Killick to the lieutenant’s cabin. She was pleased Captain Scarlette had reacted to her. She didn’t have a plan yet only the naïve thought that she if she could seduce him he might release Benjamin.

Jack went up on deck with his glass looking for his tender who had yet to join him. The Lion was sailing on ahead toward Bermuda. A nice prize to send in. He frowned thinking of Benjamin, there would be prize money for his head too but it didn’t please him. There was nothing for it; he was bound to take him in. After all, he’d signed his own warrant when he signed onto a pirate ship. He’d had no guidance as a young man of that he knew. Their father was a hard man who took little notice of him; dismissing him with a wave of his hand whenever he brought his brother’s fate into conversation. He shook his head slightly and took one last look for his tender and went below for his dinner.

Killick had set two plates out and he questioned it.

“Well, I thought as how you’d have the young lady to dinner.”

“Oh, and so I will,” Jack smiled looking forward to dinner.

He smiled when he greeted Megan and she smiled back liking his face when he smiled. During dinner their conversation centered on her desperate situation in Georgetown.

“I took refuge in our cook house. The water came table high and I was really frightened I would drown before the storm passed. Afterward I couldn’t believe what had happened. Everything was gone even the leaves on the trees.”

“It was a powerful storm. We rode it out at sea and lost our tops’l.” Jack picked up his wine glass.

“I found the medicine box…” she bit her tongue.

“What medicine box?”

“Uh, I don’t know it appeared after the storm. I guess it came from a ship that floundered somewhere. It came in handy though for there were many wounded about.”

“You have some knowledge of medicines?”

“Mostly folk medicines. My mother was her own doctor and treated myself and my father all our lives.”

She was finding with enough truth mixed with lies she could hold a conversation with him. He was very quick and sharp and she had to be careful. The medicine box nearly tripped her up.

“That was a nice meal. Thank you for inviting me.”

“Not at all,” he refilled her wine glass.

She dropped her head and sniffed.

“What is it, Miss Caulfield?”

“I am so afraid…I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. I’ve nowhere to go and no one.” She looked up pitifully.

“Perhaps you will go on to Bermuda with us…some suitable family there will take you in.”

Killick cleared the table and left the wine decanter.

“No one will want me after I’ve been with pirates.”

“I’m sure that is not true.” It would be difficult if that knowledge became public. She was right to a point. No gentleman would…although her beauty…she was a lovely creature. But he could not entertain thoughts in that direction…no for it would mean a court martial for him should he…aboard ship…no…out of the question.

“I should retire and leave you to whatever…” She looked at him beneath her lashes.

“Finish your wine, it will help you sleep.”

“Yes,” she looked into his eyes and quickly away, “I need help. I wonder, Sir, how you sleep with your brother in irons below?”

“It is not I who chose his way of life, Miss Caulfield. He knew the price of it.”

“He didn’t chose it. He was pressed in Kingston. He tried to kill the captain who had him brought on board and he was…flogged to within an inch of his life. He bears the scars on his back. There was nowhere for him to go at sea and so he fell into it.”

Jack took that in, “He’ll be able to present his case at court.”

“They hang pirates, Captain Scarlette.”

Jack sat back in his chair. “Are you very much in love with him?”

“No…I…no of course not.” She blushed becomingly.

 

Chapter 14

The next morning Jack went down to see Benjamin. He was propped on the bench again drinking from a cup with the heavy irons on his wrists.

“I’m still here,” He said without looking at his brother.

“Miss Caulfield tells me you were pressed.”

“Did you have her yet?”

“No, Benjamin, I have not. Unlike you, I have some restraint.”

“You have no idea what kind of restraint I possess, Brother. You should have her…she is delicious.”

“She’s in love with you.”

“Ha, I know she did not tell you that for it is not true. I took her and used her for my pleasure. I give her to you. She was inexperienced but she learns quickly. You’ve never had anything like her.”

“You know no more of me than I of you.”

“I know what you married and I doubt if you’ve ever seen her naked.”

“Close your mouth.”

“Where are you taking me anyway?”

“Bermuda.”

“Ah, so…no trip to green and glorious England. I’m to die in Bermuda of all places.” He smiled at Jack.

“I am sorry it has to be so. I have no choice, Benjamin.”

“There is a choice but I know that for you, soaked in the Royal Navy as you are that choice has not occurred to you.”

“You are correct, it has not.”

Benjamin stood up and walked to the barred door. “It is a shame that we never really knew each other as brothers…as men. I might have liked you.”

“I don’t dislike you. I dislike what you have become whether you were pressed or not, you have had opportunity to escape and did not take it.”

“Give me the opportunity now.”

“I cannot do that.”

“Well then…damn you.”

Jack turned on his heel and left him. Benjamin leaned his head on the bars and closed his eyes.

During the day Megan met the ship’s surgeon and talked with him about her medical knowledge. She told him she’d helped bandage some men on the Lion as they had no ship’s doctor. He took her on his rounds among the sick and injured. She even spoke to several of them wishing them well. He was nice and she liked the doctor. However, given a moment in his surgery she palmed a small knife.

At sundown a cry went down from the lookout that sails were spotted. Jack came up and took the glass. “It is the tender…with a ship. She has a ship with her.”

Tense moments passed for it was unclear who was escorting who. It was too dark to really say but as they neared and signals could be read the tender was escorting the Ransom. The signals kept coming. The captain of the Ransom had set out with a third of his crew on board and the tender had taken her unawares.

A cheer went around the Phoebe and a very pleased Jack Scarlette went below to have his dinner.

He had his officers and a few midshipmen to dinner and drank much wine in the process. Many explanations were put forth as to how the tender had managed her prize. It was a happy group that dispersed late in the evening.

Full of himself and wine Jack found himself at the door of his lieutenant’s cabin well after midnight. His good sense had gone wanting and something else that wanted had taken its place. He opened the door and came into the room.

“Who is it?” Megan felt under her pillow for the knife.

“It’s Jack.”

“I don’t know Jack.” She sat against the wall of the bunk.

“Jack Scarlette and you do know me.” He lurched toward the bed.

“You…it’s rather late…don’t you think?”

“Yes, I think.” He took off his coat, his neck cloth and felt for the bed.

Calmly she asked him, “What do you want…can’t you sleep?”

“You, Miss Caulfield…Megan...I have need of you.”

She took him into her bed, the knife sweaty in her hand. Now that she had the opportunity…she was finding it hard to…

Jack ran his hands over her body, kissed her breasts and found her lips. Even though he was a little drunk his attentions aroused her. It confused her that she could want him…he wasn’t Benjamin. She felt his weight upon her and he ran his hands up her arms moving them over her head he kissed her. She still held the knife loosely in her hand. He soon found it and tossed it on the floor.

“I’ve been warned about you.” He kissed her neck and lightly bit her nipples.

Benjamin…

“No…No…please…no.” He kissed her again and slightly raised himself from her. “Your protests come a little late for the invitation was given.” He’d read her eyes when she looked at him.

On deck the ship was quiet, the midshipman asleep at his post and as the tender neared the men awake and alert paid no mind to it.

Her arms went around his neck and she kissed him back. She was doing this for Benjamin, she told herself.

Jack was thoroughly enjoying her, delicious stayed in his mind because she was. She wrapped her legs around his back and drew him in deep.

There was a sound, quickly extinguished, then another. Quietly as possible the pirates came aboard. Under orders to move silently and quickly they climbed up the side of the Phoebe. Down the ladder passing the sleeping seamen and down again into the hold. Guards dispatched without more than a grunt. The blackened faces of the pirates set to work freeing the crew of the Lion.

Not one of the Lion’s made a sound. Benjamin was at the barred door and smiled leaning his head back. His door was opened and the irons soon removed. He rubbed his wrists and led them toward the ladder.

Spent and heavy Jack moved from her body. She turned and kissed him and he went quietly to sleep. Megan slipped from the bed smiling. Jack was as good as his brother…almost. She found her dress and felt on the floor for her knife. She had in mind to go down to the brig and release Benjamin.

At the ship’s ladder she stopped and hid herself for she saw heads below coming up on the deck. She silently watched the men move about until she saw Benjamin emerge from the ladder. She ran to him and he clamped his hand over her mouth.

She nodded and he released her.

“Where’s the Captain.” He whispered in her ear.”

“Asleep.”

His teeth flashed in a smile and he pulled her with him across the deck to the rope ladder hanging over the side. The Phoebe’s crew were tied together and gagged and could only watch as the pirates made their exit. They landed on the tender and were moved to the Ransom. The Ransom had anchored but now it was coming up. Ahead of them the Phoebe hesitated and staggered without her helmsman. Soon the sleeping midshipman would wake and raise the cry by ringing the bell until someone came running on deck to see what the almighty noise was about.

By dawn the Phoebe was alive and ready for action. Every man grim faced but none more than their captain. They boarded the tender and found the crew locked below.

Jack left the deck and went below he was seething with anger. He paced about but the whole escape and the way it was executed blew his mind. Finally he paused at the windows and he had to admit he’d been outsmarted. Only one man suffered an injury and he was the master of the tender. The rest would recover their bruised necks and their pride. What he needed now was a victory and if he had to scour the surface of the sea he would have one.

The Ransom, a swift vessel, was on its way south and standing on the bow with his arm around Megan, Captain Benjamin Scarlette threw his head back and laughed.

The Kingston had taken the Ransom and in turn took the tender who had been following at a little distance. Manned with Kingston’s crew they set out to find Benjamin and the crew of the Lion. It had been a bold move but it had worked. Captain Bennett had the gold on board the Kingston and being an honorable man, did not mean to keep it all for himself.

The now former Captain of the Ransom was being kept in chains aboard the Kingston. He would be delivered to Captain Scarlette for justice which would no doubt be swift. The crew of the Ransom were give a choice by Captain Bennett and to a man they signed on fearing marooning, for he sailed around a deserted island off the coast of South Carolina twice until they made up their minds.

Benjamin thought Megan was brilliant occupying Jack as she did, for it allowed them to escape. She’d been afraid to tell him but he asked her how she knew Jack was asleep.

“I…I took him into my bed.”

“Did you enjoy him as much as me?”

“Well…he’s not you.”

He laughed, “No matter, it was brilliant timing. You are a peach, my love.”

“What did you call me?”

“A peach.” He smiled and stepped up into the rigging.

Megan shaded her eyes and looked up at him. She’d heard what he called her…My Love.

“Benjamin…where are we going?”

“To Tortuga…where you will live like a queen.”

 

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