“As much as it might pain you to hear it, I understand more than you know. Your assumptions about me appear to be that I’ve lived an ideal life, and up until six weeks ago, you’d be almost right. I can assure you now, though, of the fact that there’s a good chance one of us might be with child, and that we’ve all been well-tainted and most likely completely spoiled for any decent man who’d have us.”
“I’m sorry, I had no idea. I suspected after what you said to me the other day, but…”
“I was promised to a wealthy young gentleman named Harold Scott. Money, a beautiful home with servants, and every comfort and luxury a young woman could ever dream of. I’d venture to say that’s all gone now. Would you like to hear the worst part?”
“You really don’t have to go on like this, Francis. I said I was sorry,” I said, walking off towards the house to see what was keeping Green, but she wouldn’t let up, so I felt it best to just let her free herself of this horrible nightmare burden. I stopped and snatched her by the arm and drug her away from the house as I saw Master Green emerge from between the front doors and motion for the girls to come inside.
“Alright then, what is worse than all of that?”
She spun at me and spoke through her teeth. “I liked it. Not all of them, of course; some of them were so filthy and vile, but by the third or fourth night when they came for us, I didn’t fight. I didn’t want to fight. I told myself I was doing it to keep them off the little ones, but in truth, the smell of rum on their breath, their hard cocks inside of me, and the way they made my body tremble with pleasure became intoxicating.”
I was in shock. My arms fell limp at my sides, and my mouth was wide in disgust. “Francis, you can’t be serious! My God, that was rape. Those men weren’t making love to you; they were raping you. For God’s sake, please don’t ever tell this to another living soul, and you’ll be able to go back to Virginia and marry your Mister Scott.”
“Aren’t you listening to what I’m telling you? I can never be happy with Harold. I’ve felt the wildness and the lust of those beastly men, and I want more of it, but I don’t intend to ever give it away to any of them again.”
“Francis, stop this! You stop it this instant. You’ve been through a horrible ordeal, and you don’t know what you’re saying.” I snatched her by her shoulders and shook her hard. She began to laugh and laugh, and I couldn’t bear it. Something was wrong with her, and I gave her a hard slap across her smug face.
“You can beat me bloody, but I know who and what I am. I’ll never be satisfied in the bed of a gentleman, and I certainly am never allowing another man past my skirt without filling my hand with silver.”
At the moment when I was ready to turn Francis across my knee, I glanced across the front yard and saw who I believed to be the notorious Valentina gliding down the front porch steps. “Is there a problem here?” she asked in a very thick Spanish accent.
The onyx hair I’d envisioned was more of a chestnut brown, with golden highlights burned throughout the waves that draped down the sides of her head. She swept them back from her face where they were held in place with golden combs. I couldn’t make out her eye color from where I stood, but they had to be light, because they sparkled like sunlight through a stained glass window against her deep beige complexion and sun-kissed cheekbones. As she approached Francis and me, with her one bare shoulder and her swiveling hips, I did my damndest to pick out a flaw. The only one I found was that, despite having never done me wrong, I already despised her before she’d said another word.
“Why are you mishandling this girl, boy? Take your hands off of her,” she barked at me, pulling Francis out of my grip. Her accent was romantic and rich with rolling consonants. I wanted to slap her in her fat lips and slice through her long, lean throat.
“I wasn’t mishandling her. She’s a disrespectful wretch, and she deserves far worse than what I just gave her,” I blurted in her angry little Spanish face, as Francis looked on, cradling her cheek in her palm. “You’d be wise to lock that one up until she comes to her senses.” I stepped closer as I spoke, until I was but a few inches from her, and I snarled into her ridiculously beautiful face. I was then taken aback by the eyes, which I could now clearly see were two different colors. The left was light golden brown and the right, green hazel with flecks of gold.
“Rasmus will hear of this, and you, boy, will be punished for what you’ve done.” Valentina pushed Francis behind her and then turned, leading her towards the house, and I followed closely behind. “No, you, stay out here until I’ve spoken to Rasmus.”
She rushed ahead with her multicolored skirt swaying in the wake of her strut, pushing Francis as she went up the front steps and onto the porch, when I noticed Francis stop and turn to her. I could hear Francis pleading with her as Valentina shook that pile of chestnut hair like a wet mutt and pointed back at me, waggling her index claw. I rested my right hand on the pistol in my belt and my left on my cocked hip and watched Francis pleading my innocence. I couldn’t have cared any less what happened next. I’d seen the woman I had been fretting over all day and now, all I could do was imagine the rest of the story.
“You…Ivan!” Valentina called out to me. I loathed the way she said my name—Evahn. “Come here to this porch.”
I sauntered my way over and rested my filthy boot on the bottom step, with my hands on my hips, looking up at her—her and her obscenely large chest poking out from beneath that stark white blouse. “Here I am, senorita as ordered,” I smartly sniped.
“This girl tells me you struck her to bring her to her senses, not out of anger. Is this true?” she asked, stepping closer to the edge of the porch. She clasped her long, thin fingers around the sash tied at her sucked-in waist, which was so tiny her fingers nearly touched.
“The girl was speaking foolishness and behaving like an alley cat. It’s true; I slapped her to shut her up, but I’m not sorry I did it, and I’ll do it to any lass who speaks such rubbish.” I snapped back at her.
“See? I told you it was my own fault,” Francis stepped forward and stated.
“I do not know who raised you, boy, but on my land and in my home, striking a woman is equal to murder, and there is no excuse for it. I hold to my words from before. You’ll stay outside until I speak to Rasmus.” Again she flipped her head and spun away from me. This time I chuckled to myself and thought, knowing Rasmus as I did, he’d never find anything he could love in such a wench. Granted, she was beautiful and feisty as all hell but he’d never be taken in by such a flip and flouncy woman as Valentina.
“Why’d ye do it?” Fin asked, at last approaching me.
“Now you come to my aid, ye bilge rat? You left me over here to bear that wretch’s wrath alone, did you?” I laughed and sat down, looking up at him.
“Ye can handle yerself, Razor. What a beauty that little Latin fireball is, aye?” he asked, flopping down next to me, and I threw him a look of disgust.
“I suppose, if you go in for that nasty sort of tart. Did you see the pound of paint on her lips? Not to mention I don’t even think she was wearing a corset, the way those things flopped about when she strutted around.”
“Aye, they shook like jellyfish ‘neath those ruffles,” he swooned, looking back up at the house.
“You dirty swine. Is that what you fellas like, then?”
“Well, don’t you? For Christ’s sakes, Razor. Don’t ye be tellin’ me your willy ain’t stiff from getting’ so close to that sweet piece a’ Spanish tail!”
I realized I’d slipped from beneath Ivan in my own personal battle within over Valentina and Rasmus and recovered as fast as I could. “I have sisters, remember? I do my best to look at all women as if they’re one of them.”
“Oh, so ye go ‘round slappin’ yer sisters in the chops when they back talk ye, now do ye?” he smirked at me.
“If they have it coming, then yes, I’ll give them a swat if they need one.”
“I suppose it ain’t easy, neither, findi
n’ one to lay with, unless yer inta that sorta thing anyway,” he said, cocking his left eyebrow and backing away from the shove I was about to give him.
“I get what I need, and don’t you concern yourself with who or how.”
I leaned back as I sat on that bottom step and spun around when I heard the front door open again. Master Green stepped outside and waved to the men on the wagon to prepare to leave. “Razor, you and Mister Finnegan will stay here and stand watch until the Captain arrives. You have also done a very fine job of angering the senorita. Perhaps in the future you should keep your hands to yourself and allow reason, not reaction, to keep them there.” Green stomped down the steps past Fin and me and carried on to the wagon. Fin and I stayed where we sat, uselessly, as not a living soul approached from any direction as we awaited our Captain.
“Thanks fer nothin’, Razor,” he grumbled, laying back against the steps and placing his hat over his face.
“Care to explain that statement? Wait…Green called you Finnegan. Are you Peter Finnegan who sailed with Barclay’s crew?”
He sat up as if on springs and said, “How’d ye know me proper name? Ye ain’t s’posed ta know it.”
In recalling his full name, Peter Joseph Finnegan, I also recalled where I’d seen it—in the log book from Barclay’s Demon. I couldn’t believe it. All this time we’d worked side by side, and I didn’t realize why he’d shortened his name. Now, here we were alone, and my stomach turned over when it dawned on me that he was, in fact, one of Barclay’s henchmen.
“I…I don’t know,” I stammered. “I think I may have overheard it somewhere.” That book of Barclay’s was for his eyes only, until we got our hands on it. Fin didn’t need to know it even existed.
“Ye didn’t hear that name on the Jade, I can tell ye that; so who are ye, Razor…or is it really Razor after all?” he inquired. His face was red with fire and his fists were clenched at his side as he leaned towards me, signaling me to abruptly stand.
“Stand down, Fin. I’ll tell you where I saw it, and then…” I said, drawing my cutlass before he could put his hand on his sword. “Then, you’ll tell me whose side you’re really on.”
SEVENTEEN
MISSING PIECES
I held Fin at the end of my cutlass for several minutes before, again, that shitty little Spanish wench burst out the door and confronted me and questioned my actions. I was through making nice with her, and as the sun began to set, so did my patience.
“What is this? Pirates fighting on my land like common dogs? Where is Rasmus? I have had all of you I will stand.” She gathered her skirt and made a swift and foolish descent down the front steps and met the barrel of my pistol. Fortunately for me, she had no idea I hadn’t even had the time to load it, and she froze, clutching the railing with one hand and her heart with the other.
There I stood; my blade to Fin and my pistol to Valentina. “You stupid and foolish woman, you know nothing of what you speak. Take your saucy arse back in that house and stay there until you’re told to do otherwise. And you, Fin, you’d better start talking, before I render you unable to speak again.”
Valentina slowly backed up the steps when it occurred to me I had no idea who else was in that house, and at any moment, I could be shot from any one of her eight front windows. Just then, I heard hoofbeats approaching and waved my sword at Fin to follow my blade. As I turned, I could see Rasmus approaching on horseback, with Mick close behind. I breathed a sigh of relief and stowed my pistol, thanking God I hadn’t yet been peppered with musket shot.
Rasmus leapt from the horse before it had even stopped and rushed towards me. “What the devil is going on here, Razor?” he shouted at me, pulling the cutlass from my hand before I could draw breath to answer him.
“Rasmus…I mean, Captain Bergman…please, wait. This is Peter Finnegan. Remember? The same Peter Finnegan whose name appears in Barclay’s secret log. Master Green addressed him as Finnegan. Perhaps he was familiar with him aboard the Demon and had no knowledge he was involved with the smuggling. When I found him out, he tried to draw against me, but I managed to best him and hold him prisoner until you arrived.”
“Fin, is this true?” Rasmus eyes narrowed and his teeth clenched behind his flattened lips.
“He wouldn’t explain to me why he hid his identity,” I added.
“Razor, stand down, and let me take care of this,” Rasmus said aside and then walked to Fin, holding my cutlass at his side. “Answer me, Fin.”
Fin fell to his knees before Rasmus and cupped his hands together in front of him, shaking them. “I was…I mean ta say…aye, I was with Barclay’s crew, and I won’t deny I took part in his filthy work, but ye ‘ave ta believe me, Cap’n, when I tell ye I was but a boy alone when I first took up with his crew and signed on. The bastard beat me half ta death, until I agreed to do his biddin’. I’d a’ run off when ye’s took the Demon had I anyplace ta go, but I figured ye seemed like a decent and honest bunch, and, well, I didn’t take part in none a’ that mess in Port Royal, and ye know it.”
“Now you sing like a bird,” I mumbled, slapping my arms across my chest in disgust.
“None of it ye, say?” Rasmus asked.
“That Shepard lass ye married, ye can ask her when we get back ta Port Royal. She’ll tell ye. She’ll tell ye, Cap’n, none a’ them lassies seen my face, nor no other parts a’ me, all the while we was at sea and thereafter.”
“How’d ye get away with it without Barclay’s men knowing?” Rasmus asked, holding my cutlass out to me without looking away from Fin, and I took it and slid it back into my scabbard.
“I’m ashamed ta tell ye, Cap’n, but if ye spare me life, I’ll admit what I done,” Fin said, lowering his head.
“Well, I suppose I can’t spare ye, lad, if ye don’t tell me. So go on.” Rasmus squared his shoulders and folded his bare arms with a heavy sigh.
“After the night we took them girls in Charles Towne, I pocketed some things I shouldna’ from what we took from some of the folks we robbed. I was plannin’ to make a clean start and break loose a’ that Demon Sea and Barclay for good, but when we boarded the ship to head for Port Royal, Barclay snatched me up and told a few of the mates to search me. He said someone seen me takin’ from the loot. I spent the whole trip to Port Royal in chains, sir, and that was after I was whipped again ‘till I was nearly dead.”
“Take off your shirt,” Rasmus ordered.
“What, Cap’n?” Fin asked, with a confused and desperate expression. My head spun left, and I believed my expression matched Fin’s, but a second later, I realized what Rasmus wanted, and I was more than inclined to help.
I walked to Fin and pulled him under his arm, lifting him to his feet. “Take off the shirt. You heard the Captain’s orders.” Hearing the front door close, I glanced over at the house, and there on the porch stood Valentina, flanked by the girls, who were all huddled together as the golden twilight washed over their anguished faces.
Fin removed his vest and then gathered his shirt at the waist, turning to see his audience. With a wince and a groan, he whipped the shirt up over his head and tossed it onto the grass. The gasps from the porch were evidence enough before Fin raised his arms in the air and turned his back to Rasmus and me. There, beyond the shadow of any doubt, were the deep, red lines of truth staring back at us, just as the sun dropped below the horizon.
I cringed in horror at the pain he must have endured to bear such a horrid reminder of his servitude under that beastly man’s reign, which only affirmed even more so my pride in having a hand in ending Barclay. His back looked like ragged and torn fish net had been laid across it and had left an impression. Something drew me closer to it, and I couldn’t move my eyes away.
“That’s enough. Put your shirt back on and catch my horse. Tie it up in the barn and feed and water it for the night. Hand your weapons over to Razor, and make yourself a bed out there. Until I figure out what to do with you, I’ll not have you armed, nor under this woman’s ro
of.” Rasmus looked up at the porch, and I trembled, waiting to gauge his reaction when he finally set eyes on Valentina. Unfortunately, it wasn’t him who spoke first.
“Rasmus! My darling, I have missed you like the rain on a hot day.” She shooed the girls back into the house and met Rasmus at the bottom of the porch steps by leaping into his waiting arms. I instinctively placed my hand on my cutlass again and inched it from my sheath, stopping myself halfway and then sliding it back in.
She disappeared behind his big body, and he lifted her and then set her back to her feet on the bottom step, before at last turning to call me over to join them. “Valentina, I’m going to guess you’ve already met Mister Razor, here.”
“Yes, I have unfortunately had the displeasure of meeting this boy,” she said, brushing her hand out at me as if she were shooing a fly. I believed I’d break off my teeth if I’d clenched them any tighter to hold in my tongue.
Rasmus chuckled and said, “Bad first impression, Razor?”
Before I could answer, that wench said, “He slapped one of the girls right before my eyes, Rasmus, darling, and then, I look out of my window, and he is holding a sword to that man with the scarred back. Who is that man, by the way? I think I have seen him before.”
“You have my word that Mister Razor is a good man, and although you know I don’t stand for any man laying a hand on a woman, I’m sure he regrets it and will make a full apology to the lass. Now, why don’t we put all of this behind us and go inside. I was counting on some of your chicken and rice for supper.”
Rasmus slapped one of his big hands on my shoulder and squeezed as he spoke. I took it as some sort of gesture to keep me calm and obedient, or to squelch any possible jealousy I might be feeling. Unfortunately, all it did was prove to me there was something between them somewhere and sometime before I entered his life. I needed a drink. I needed it immediately, and I rushed ahead of them both and held open the front door for them to enter.
Jaded Tides (The Razor's Adventures Pirate Tales) Page 13
