In front of his crew, Jack had at first claimed no knowledge of who had thrown the ceremonial dagger, but that one in particular, with its sapphire encrusted hilt, had been in Jack’s quarters and not in the cargo hold where anyone from the crew might pilfer it. As Jack himself hadn’t removed the weapon from his quarters, that only left Katherine and he had caught her with that bag full of daggers. Now he wondered if he should simply tell his crew the truth in hopes of heightening their fear of her. It was a plan, though certainly not the best he could have come up with.
“But did you see her titties?” Jennings asked with a laugh. “Cor, she looked wonderful, her arse in them tight breeches. I’d risk my life to get a handful of ‘em, to be sure!”
Suddenly, Jack was wondering if giving Katherine a choice as to her clothing was a good idea.
“Eh, I’d not mess with her, no matter what” Hayes, the surgeon’s assistant offered as he attended to another injured man. “First, she’s the cap’n’s property and as he’s already dipped his wick in her, I doubt she’d welcome another one.”
“She don’t have to welcome it,” Jennings snapped, though not as harshly as he had and his words slurring slightly, making Jack wonder if Wells had dosed the man with laudanum to keep him calm after the battle. It was possible since there weren’t many aboard who liked the man. Or Goddard, for that matter. And both tended to the violent side after a skirmish. “She don’t have no choice.”
“Gentlemen. A word.” With that simple phrase, Jack immediately had their undivided attention. Thankfully, his crew was well trained enough to know when he was at the end of his temper. Those three words usually did the trick. “First, I would like to thank you all for defending The Darkness so well today. We fought well and survived. We also collected a fair bit of bounty, which is, I will admit, a happy accident. Tortuga shall taste all the sweeter because of it.”
As he anticipated, a rousing cheer went up among the crew. Some had already pilfered ale from the kitchens to dull their pain without the effects of laudanum and were well on their way to being foxed. Normally, Jack would probably punish them, but given all that had transpired today, he was inclined to pretend he didn’t notice. Sometimes, being a good captain and a good pirate meant knowing when to overlook minor indiscretions. This was one of those times.
“As for Lady Katherine, I will state again that she is mine and mine alone. My property and mine to do with as I wish. I do not share. I also have plans for her that go beyond you ragged fucking lot, so take care around her.” He crossed his arms over his chest, mindful that he had only tossed on a shirt and not bothered to do it up. His old scars, along with the bandages covering his new wounds, were there for all to see, a reminder that it was not as easy to kill him or take what belonged to him as many believed. “The first man to touch her without my permission dies. No matter what she is wearing or not wearing. Am I clear?”
Once more, Jack could hear the grumbles of agreement from his men. He needed to get Katherine off this ship, but until they reached Tortuga, a place where Boucher likely could not touch her without endangering himself, that wasn’t possible.
“But if…” Goddard began, but Hayes cut the man off again.
“She’s also wearing the Pirate’s Blood, you damnable fool!” the other man hissed. “Didn’t you see it? I’d not noticed it afore today, but it’s there, around her neck, and it’s bloody cursed, man! Only those descended from Captain Kidd himself can handle the jewels and not be struck dead! I wouldn’t go near the lady now if she was the only cunt left on earth!”
And those rumors and superstitions were exactly why Jack had gifted Katherine the exquisite and expensive necklace the first night she had been aboard his ship.
Legends about the so-called “Pirate’s Blood” necklace had been around for decades. Rumored to have been seized by Captain Kidd from a Spanish merchant ship and originally intended for the Queen of Spain, the priceless bauble was said to have been crafted from gold, diamonds, and rubies, stones so heavy and so beautifully woven together that they flowed like a pirate’s blood around a woman’s neck. Not to mention that obtaining the necklace had been obtained with a good bit of a pirate’s blood, as well.
The stones, in particular, the large center ruby often referred to as “The Pirate’s Heart” were also, for some absurd reason, believed to have been cursed when they were stolen many years ago from an Indian raja. Jack did not believe in curses, but he did believe that the man who had turned him toward a life of piracy had possessed the real Pirate’s Blood necklace rather than a clever copy, having taken the necklace directly from the man whose family had held the beautiful trinket since Kidd’s death nearly a century before.
Jack also believed that the crew of The Darkness thought the necklace cursed just as so many others did – and that there was a reason for their belief.
Years before, Jack had gifted the necklace to the beautiful but treacherous Lady Isabelle, only daughter of a wealthy Spanish prince, when he had rescued her from her supposed captivity with another pirate. Or he had believed her to be a captive, anyway. That was what she had told him at the time. Now he knew that she had been a willful companion to the man, having run away from her home to take up with a man who had promised her the world, only to find that he was not nearly as wealthy as he had implied.
By the time Jack had staged his raid, Isabelle was already searching for an easy way off of the other pirate’s ship. Whether she had been looking for a new adventure or a return to Spain, Jack still had no idea. All he knew was that she had begged to be rescued, looking both beautiful and tempting in the process. And he had obliged, promising her the world when he freed her.
It had been a stupid, youthful mistake, though he supposed he had only been trying to replace Katherine in his heart with a woman who was her complete opposite. Before Jack had given Isabelle the necklace, he had heard whispered rumors that she was not as innocent as she pretended to be and that the necklace brought bad luck if worn by anyone other than the giver’s one true love.
Jack hadn’t paid any of those rumors much mind. Jack dealt in facts, not superstition and innuendo.
And in this case, in the end, facts were all Jack had needed.
After all, it was a fact that Lady Isabelle had proven herself to be a worthless, lying, cheating, stealing cunt who had chosen to lay with another man, a wealthy merchant, when The Darkness made port at Nassau and then lied, saying she had become full with the man’s child after only one night with him. It was Isabelle who had been wearing the cursed necklace and nothing else the night the man’s wife, a woman who could trace her family’s roots on the island back to the days when it had been known as Charles Town, had attacked Isabelle and chased her back aboard The Darkness. And it had been Jack who had stripped the necklace from a naked Isabelle and sent her back to her faithless lover and his rampaging wife to face her justice.
Rumor had it that a naked Isabelle had spent several days in the town stockade being bombarded with rotten fruit and eggs before some foolish Spanish sea captain had paid for her release and taken her back to Spain. After that? Well, Jack had no idea what had become of the woman who had dared to share his bed and then think to share that of another man as well. There were some rumors that she was now a scullery maid in some rich man’s house, the sea captain abandoning her after she did to him as she had done to Jack. True or not, he didn’t know, though it would be sweet justice if it was the truth.
After all, Jack didn’t share his things – or his women. Everyone knew that.
After that incident, however, the legend of the necklace’s power had only grown, as had Jack’s reputation for cruelty toward those who took what he considered his. For some bizarre reason, there was also a rumor going around that the necklace gave Jack a degree of power over the woman who wore it, allowing him to compel her to submit to him if that was what he wished. That made no sense, as Isabelle had left Jack’s bed to fuck another. However, she had suffered for her sins in a most
public fashion, so perhaps there was a bit of logic in there after all, even though it was twisted logic. If nothing else, pirates were, in general, a superstitious lot.
So by gifting Katherine the necklace, Jack had also given her a sort of protection that no amount of coin or loyalty could buy. He had given her the protection of a curse, false though it was. Still, she would be safer for it, as Goddard, Jennings, and a few of the others aboard were amongst the curse’s biggest believers.
Across the small room, Goddard scowled. “Is that true, Cap’n? Does she wear the Pirate’s Blood?”
“Aye. She does.”
Three simple words were all Jack needed to produce the desired effect. He watched both Goddard and Jennings shiver. Hayes made the sign of the cross over himself and Colton, a small mixed-race man of indeterminate origin chanted something that sounded much like a Vodun curse. Good. That was very good indeed.
For added effect, Jack shrugged. “Might I also remind you, men, that she is quite proficient with both a bow and throwing daggers both. She has threatened to kill me. Several times. She has already killed two men. Two lived taken. Not just one.” He gestured to the sheet covered bodies of the two men Katherine had killed. They knew of one. Why not confess to the other? “She also devised the plan that saved The Darkness from Boucher’s men. She is not one to be trifled with and not easy to bring to heel. I’d wager that without the power of the necklace, I’d never have fucked her at all since she is such a hellcat.”
That was laying it on a bit thick, he supposed, but better that than leave Katherine vulnerable, for Jack had a feeling that at some point, she would choose the breeches and shirt over the gown. Maybe not at first, but today in his cabin as she had studied herself, she had glimpsed her feminine power. Or what her power could be if she chose to wield it.
For a woman like Katherine, that sort of power would be tempting indeed. It would be power unlike any she had ever known and Jack knew her well enough to understand that she would not be able to resist its allure forever. She had always been tempted by the darkness. She might have been a good and obedient girl on the surface, but the heart of an adventurer lurked below the surface. She would likely not have befriended a young and rebellious Daniel Montgomery otherwise.
“I’d stay away from her,” Hayes repeated, looking at Jack for reassurance.
“Your choice, certainly. It’s your cock, after all,” Jack replied. “Simply remember that choices have consequences, men. Lady Isabelle learned that lesson well. Now, I shall expect you all on deck tomorrow morning as we send these men to their final rest. The time in between is yours, save for your regular duties. No extra work tonight as we are sailing straight and true for Tortuga. Dismissed.”
Spinning on his heel, Jack stalked up the stairs to the main deck, eager for some fresh air. The infirmary stunk of death and decay, but as it was filled with corpses, he supposed that was to be expected.
Still, it was more than that. Those sheet clad bodies reminded Jack of how close he had come to dying again today. How he would have been dead if not for Katherine. Six years ago, even though he had been young and new to piracy, Boucher’s man would not have managed to get the upper hand. Years of injury, some obvious and others not, were slowing him down. He needed to get out now, while he still had life in his body.
“Yes, Ramsey. What is it?”
Jack had known that the ship’s cook had followed him onto the deck. The man was not subtle in his tread and Jack was not deaf. At least not yet.
“It’s about Lady Katherine.” The burly man came to stand just behind Jack near the ship’s rail.
“What about her?” As if he didn’t already know.
The cook cleared his throat. “I saw her today. I saw her fight. You weren’t lying down there. She did kill two of Boucher’s men.” He paused. “Does she know what that means? That if Boucher captures her, there will be no return to Barbados? That he’ll exact his revenge for her crimes on her body.”
Jack shook his head, his eyes fixed ahead of him. “No. She has no idea. The first kill was an accident. She threw the dagger blindly and without thought to consequence. I can tell by where it struck. She would not be so blood-thirsty.” He let out a long, slow breath. “The other, however? She knew. She drew her arrow and she shot him in the throat. She acted to save my life, yes, but I have no doubt she did not think beyond that.”
“You knew she could do that. You knew she could kill if pushed.” The bigger man was not asking a question.
“I did.” As Jack saw it, there was no sense in denying the cook’s assertion.
“She’s the one from the time before, isn’t she? From before you became Midnight Jack.”
What could he say to that, but the truth. “She is. But no one else knows. They believe she is my prize for this last trip. Nothing more. And nothing more it shall stay.” It was as much of a warning as he felt he needed to offer the other man.
Ramsey nodded in understand, seeing far more than Jack wished. “You love her.”
“I used to love her,” Jack corrected. “Now I only want to fuck her.” That was a lie. Well, not the fucking part as he still wanted nothing more than to sink his cock into her delicious cunt, but the loving part. Daniel had never stopped loving Katherine and, despite everything, Jack was still Daniel. At least a part of him was.
“You love her,” Ramsey said again. “Don’t let that love get you killed.”
It was good advice and a warning that he should certainly heed. Would he? Well, he would do his best. He had no desire to die, after all.
Therefore, Jack decided it was time to change subjects. “When we reach Tortuga, I am done. I am returning to England and Lady Katherine will come with me. I have something waiting for me.”
“I know.” Ramsey shrugged as if he had already figured that much out on his own. “I don’t know what, but I know there’s something bigger than this ship awaiting Midnight Jack. Or whoever you really are. A peer, I suspect. Third or possibly fourth son who now needs to go home.”
The man was clever, Jack would give him that. They had also once inhabited the same world, even though they had not known one another at the time. That was probably why they now trusted each other.
Jack cleared his throat. “The day of our arrival on Tortuga grows closer, so I will make my offer to you now before we reach land. I want to make certain you have time to think, Ramsey, and think well.”
“And what offer would that be, captain?” The older man’s eyes were guarded.
“Come with us. You and Rupert. Once in England, I will have more power than you can even guess at.” Especially as the heir to the Duke of Morton, Jack – or rather Daniel – would be fourteenth in line for the throne due to some very convoluted bloodlines that not even he understood. Anyone under twentieth in line for the throne of England wielded a great deal of power back home, so Jack – or rather Daniel – could make certain that Ramsey and Mary could live a life of peace and luxury. They would be safe. As would he and Katherine.
The old man was quiet for a long moment. “I’ve been thinking of home a lot lately. England that is. Wondering if there was a place there. For Rupert and me.”
“You could have a more luxurious place than you can even now imagine,” Jack replied.
“And in exchange?” The man had not lived this long among pirates by being stupid.
“As I said once before, keep both Lady Katherine and me alive long enough to reach Tortuga. Keep her safe from my crew. If we reach that promised land unmolested? Then you can have your heart’s desire.” Jack meant every word he just spoke, for he did not make such promises lightly.
“A small cottage in Kent?” Ramsey asked, something close to hope dancing in his eyes.
“You can have a whole bloody village of cottages if you like,” Jack promised solemnly. “You can be a wealthy merchant. A baron. You name it. Whatever you and Rupert desire shall be yours.”
Once more, the older man grew quiet, indicating that he was thi
nking. “You call her duchess.”
“I do.” Once more, Jack would not lie. “I am the son of a duke and will one day take the title myself.”
“I thought so.” Ramsey nodded, seemingly having his suspicions confirmed. “On behalf of Rupert and myself, we accept. No need to think about it. I’m old, captain, and this is no life for a boy like him. You have my word.”
When Ramsey offered his hand to shake upon the deal, Jack did not hesitate. After a day of chaos and confusion, it felt good to have accomplished something other than killing. It felt good to begin to make plans for the future.
“Now. Go see your lady. Dip your wick, if that’s what you want.” Ramsey nodded in the general direction of Jack’s cabin. “I heard the cryin’ earlier. Or rather Rupert did. She needs you. Needs someone after what she’s done.”
Jack agreed with the old man and for one of the first times since he had taken control of The Darkness, he followed someone else’s orders. He went to Katherine.
Chapter Thirteen
Katherine paced Jack’s cabin, wondering if she was brave enough to leave its safety. Then again, she had killed a man today. Possibly two as she still had no idea where that dagger she had thrown had landed. She should, at the very least, be able to face down Jack’s crew.
Except she couldn’t because she was afraid. She was afraid of what she was becoming. She was afraid of herself.
Over the last few days, she had done many things she had not thought herself capable of doing – ever. She had her bare arse shown to an entire pirate crew of strange men. She had become aroused by that same idea as well as the spanking she had received. She had taken a man’s life. She had unbound her breasts and her hair, put on a pair of breeches and a scandalous, undone shirt and gone out amongst Jack’s crew, not caring who saw her body. She had fought to save a life. Jack’s life. Daniel’s life.
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