Chapter Seven

The captain personally fetched two pails filled to the brim with seawater and gave Adriana a look that brooked no argument just before he left the cabin.

So she bathed, because she could.

She poured the water into the hip bath and sank into it. It was cool and it would leave dry white traces of salt on her skin, but, oh, what luxury! Finally she could scrub away all the sweat and grime and stink. It wasn’t easy to keep clean on the ship, especially when her courses were upon her. They used to come every few months but now that she had steady food, they came more often. She was growing a reputation for being careless with her dagger because of the gashes she had to make as an excuse for all the bloody linens.

She scrubbed herself pink and tried not to think too hard as to why Captain Wolfe was insisting she take a bath. She figured he preferred his women clean and smelling sweet. Smelling of lavender and roses, no doubt, all of those women soft of foot and hand and lips. Well, simple perfume could make her smell like lavender and roses, but her feet and hands would never be soft.

In the middle of the sea a man can’t be choosy about his bedmates.

Then that rumbling began, that quivering low in her belly, a lush, full feeling that unnerved her. She supposed if coupling was going to happen, she could do worse than lie with the captain of a privateer. At least he was man enough to bide his time until after she was clean. She could only hope that coupling with him wouldn’t be as brutal as some of the couplings she’d witnessed over the years, with the sailors pounding into standing strumpets with such force that the poor girls’ heads banged against the walls.

She poured some water over her head and rubbed a bar of lye through her short hair and wished she could wash out some of the fleshy thoughts sweeping through her mind, not all of them unbidden.

She stilled as the door to the main cabin opened and slammed shut. She heard a patter of paws before Chou-Chou charged into the alcove and sprung onto the edge of the metal tub. He shivered, skinny and wet.

“Oh, Chou-Chou.” She leaned into him to burrow her face in his damp fur. “They didn’t hurt you, did they?”

“Your fears are misplaced.”

Her heart stopped.

“Your pet took his pound of flesh,” he said, stepping into the alcove. “You should check his teeth for remnants of my lieutenant.”

She shifted Chou-Chou to her chest as the captain tossed a sack of clothing into a dry corner of the room.

Chou-Chou kept moving around, trying to climb on her head while she struggled to keep him against her chest. The captain’s gaze burned over her, taking in everything she couldn’t hide and her pet refused to. His gaze smoldered with a strange gray-green light.

No man had ever seen her naked. The experience was strangely unnerving. He made no move to leave. He leaned against the doorjamb, looking his fill. Chou-Chou finally gave up fighting. His paw fell on the curve of her breast.

“Lucky lemur,” he murmured, “to touch you like that.”

She didn’t bother to remove her pet’s paw. The ship dipped into a swell, causing the water to swirl around her, causing disturbing eddies and currents around her privates. She felt a sudden urge to invite him to touch her. Perhaps if she stood up and revealed everything to him, she could at least take control of a situation that was swiftly becoming uncontrollable.

She might have the courage to do so, if her legs weren’t trembling so much.

He asked, “How old are you?”

She was tempted to tell him she was fifteen again, but she didn’t think he’d believe that now that he’d seen her body. “Coming up on twenty, I think.”

His breath hissed through his teeth. She ran her fingers through Chou-Chou’s wet pelt and pretended it didn’t matter.

“You’re small,” he said. “Even for a woman.”

“My mother was tiny.” She remembered watching her mother being laced into a corset, her waist so small it seemed she’d break in half. “I never reached her height.”

“Your mother,” he said, “who earned her keep with her body.”

She met his eye to show that his cruelty didn’t hurt, though hearing those words spoken aloud cut deep.

“Tell me, did you try your mother’s vocation first, before you turned to the sea?”

“She saved me from that by shaving my head.” Her jaw tightened. “That was the point.”

“But you aren’t a boy. Did you take a lover in some distant port? A Madagascan native who took your fancy—”

“And risk being discovered by my shipmates? Do you think I’m daft?”

“Then you’ve never had a lover.”

She felt her cheeks grow warm. She knew, without the soot to hide her reaction, that he saw her blushing as well. The humorless half-smile faded from his face. He dropped his gaze from her body to focus on the floorboards with an attention the battered old wood didn’t deserve.

In the stretching silence, the water gurgled around her knees with the gentle rise and dip of the ship. A storm must be coming, she thought. She heard footsteps above as the men trimmed the sails. She wished she were there, where the world was more familiar, rather than sitting naked in this alcove with this tall, muscle-bound man.

Suddenly he pushed away from the doorjamb. “Keep dressed around me, Adriana. I’ve been at sea for too long.”

Then he retreated into the main cabin. She clutched Chou-Chou so tightly that her pet squealed and wiggled out of her grip. What had just happened? She’d expected him to pick her up, drag her to the bed, and do what men are wont to do. That was their unspoken deal, wasn’t it?

She felt vaguely…disappointed.

She shook herself mentally and stood up out of the bath to do exactly what the Captain advised: Get dry and get dressed. Chou-Chou perched by the stern window and licked the seawater from his fur. With unsteady hands, she pulled a pair of culottes out of the sack. She tied a clean linen binder around her breasts and covered it with a voluminous shirt. She pushed the hip bath aside and strung her hammock from the ceiling. She’d need buckets to drain this bath, but that would have to wait until later. When she finished doing everything and anything she could possibly think of in the alcove, she peered around the open doorway.

The captain stood staring out at the sea. He must have heard her, for he turned and riveted her with his clear gaze. He stubbed out his tobacco on the nearby desk.

“Your new duties as cabin boy consist—”

“Do you mean to cut my portion?”

His pause was pregnant with impatience. “Your duties will consist of this,” he continued. “You shall serve meals to me and my officers at dinner and at supper. You shall be responsible for the care of this room.” He gestured to the clutter around him. “You shall be responsible for my clothes—”

“I shall be your valet.” She walked deeper into the room. Chou-Chou followed at her heels, sniffing the air. “Do I dress you, too?”

He lifted his brows. “A wiser woman wouldn’t make such a suggestion.”

She cast her lashes down. She’d been thinking as a boy, just ticking off her duties. But as a woman, she had to be careful. Simple words were so frequently misconstrued.

“Look at you,” he said. “No wonder you kept yourself as dirty as a street urchin. Your skin turns pink on the slightest provocation.” He glanced down at the ashes of his tobacco, scooped them up in one hand and came at her.

“So you’ll dirty me up, after I went to all that trouble to get four weeks of filth off my skin.”

“If it will hide your sex, then yes.”

He seized her jaw with his big hand. His fingers felt as rough as Chou-Chou’s tongue on her skin. She knew it was useless to struggle so she suffered his touch until, suddenly, he stopped brushing ash on her face.

She met his gaze. His eyes were the clear, gray-green color of the harbor outside of Saint-Malo. The air in the room grew thin and hot, and she wondered if he, too, was suddenly having difficulty breathing.

He released her chin and returned to the window, slapping his hands free of soot. “You’ll have some outside duties. The gilding on the stern of this ship needs to be polished before we reach the Caribbean. You’re small enough to be hung from the side to do it. I want the forecastle scrubbed—”

“You’re treating me differently than before,” she said. “You can’t do that.”

“You’re very glib for someone in a vulnerable position.”

“The crew will notice if you take me off the crow’s nest.”

His face tightened. “The crow’s nest I’ll approve, so long as it keeps you out of the way of the men.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Dinner is served at sunset.” His eyes rested on her in warning. “Start swabbing the forecastle now, and make it look like a punishment. Send Drake in as you leave.”

She startled. “You’re not going to tell him?”

“Indeed I am.”

She felt the old panic. “But—”

“Drake looks like a fop but he’s got the heart of a warrior and the loyalty of a mastiff. He’ll hold his tongue.”

His tone left no room for questions. Closing the door behind her, she crossed the narrow hall that served as a dining room for the officers and stepped out into the sunshine of the upper deck.

Drake stood on the forecastle, leaning in the shade of the foremast. His usually stiff, snow-white shirt hung in limp folds. He wiped his forehead with a lace-edged pocket handkerchief. She thought that he was far too fair to be under the tropical sun. Vanity prevented him from protecting his skin with tar and soot.

“Ah, if it isn’t our wayward urchin.” Drake made loud, dramatic sounds of sniffing as she approached the forecastle steps. “It seems that our captain saw fit to give you a bath.”

“A pity he ruined your fun.”

“I was looking forward to drenching you, but…” His lips stretched over his teeth. “I got your pet instead.”

Chou-Chou, still soaked, rushed past Drake and climbed to the first yardarm. He settled on his wet haunches and opened his arms to the sun.

“The captain wants to see you,” she said sullenly.

“Now?”

“Yes.” Conscious of the act she must play, she rubbed her behind as she walked toward the cleaning supplies. “In his cabin.”

“You had it coming, boy.” He walked off the forecastle deck and playfully slapped the back of her head. “You survived.”

She glared at his back. Picking up a brush, a pail of water, and some soap, she sat down in front of the forecastle railings.

Gwynn soon appeared below her, a sheepish look on his face. “The cap’n didn’t hide you too badly, did he?”

“It’s your fault.”

“Your face is still dirty as hell.” A light of mischief entered his eyes. “At least you don’t stink like a rotting carcass.”

She couldn’t help herself. All of this was Gwynn’s fault. So she tipped the pail of soapy water over the rail and soaked him. Laughter burst among the crew as Gwynn roared in annoyance.

“Now you won’t stink like a rotting carcass,” she mimicked, shaking the last drops of soapy water on his head.

Furious, Gwynn whirled up the stairs. She sprang from her post and rushed to the other end of the forecastle. He seized a slippery bar of lye where she’d dropped it and headed straight for her.

“Sayer!”

At the sound of the captain’s voice, Gwynn stopped in his tracks. She skidded to a stop on the wet deck. The captain stood just outside the quarterdeck with Drake a step behind him. The captain’s glare was pure ice, and it was focused on her.

“How quickly you forget your orders, Joubert.”

“It wasn’t the boy,” Gwynn confessed. “I was just having a bit o’ fun—”

“This is a privateering ship, Sayer, not a nursery.” The captain’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Drake, tie him to the mizzenmast. Give him a bone to bite for a few hours and maybe he’ll remember his duties.”

Gwynn’s ruddy face whitened. The blaze of the midday sun could bake a man to a crisp in a matter of hours. She heard the crew shuffling in disapproval, for Gwynn’s punishment far outweighed his crime.

Drake took Gwynn by the arm and dragged him toward the mizzenmast. On the main deck, the sailors watched in a dead silence.

“And you, Joubert,” the captain warned. “You know very well what consequences you will suffer if I catch you away from your post again.”

The captain returned to his quarters. She turned back to her post.

But all she could see, as she scrubbed the deck, was Gwynn tied to the mizzenmast and the crew’s sullen, angry faces.