by C. K. Brooke
Mrs. Newbury turned to Emeline, her face blank with surprise. “You don’t know who I am?”
“To be frank,” sniffed Em, “I don’t care who you are.”
“Emeline.” Commander Redding smiled weakly. “Mrs. Newbury is my sister.”
It felt as though the wagon had come to a halt and jerked Em from the bench. But that was only her imagination, for they continued to roll steadily up the darkening road. “Your…?”
They were both smiling at her now. Em turned, open-mouthed, to Eliza Newbury. She found she suddenly did not deplore the woman nearly as much as she thought she did. That, and Em wondered how could she have missed that Mrs. Newbury’s hair was the exact shade of brown as the commander’s.
The woman reached over to pat her hand. “You didn’t tell your own wife that you had a sister, in order to protect my reputation?” She simpered at her brother. “Miers, dear…”
“Well, that’s another thing.” He struggled to prop himself up on his elbows. “Eliza, please meet Miss Emeline Winthrop. She isn’t really my wife.” He wore a sorry grin. “I only pretended she was, to protect her from the crew we sailed in with.”
“You keep a lot of secrets,” Eliza remarked.
“I’ll say,” muttered Emeline.
Though clearly still in pain, Commander Redding began to laugh.
Chapter 16
The sailors who’d remained aboard descended at once to help Commander Redding out of the wagon. The man stalled by the boarding ramp, leaning against the wood of the ship, his blouse moist with perspiration and clinging to him under his jacket.
“Bloody damn,” one of the pirates murmured. “What happened to you, Redding?”
Eliza Newbury tried to explain, but Em suspected the sailor was hardly listening, for he was staring at the woman’s chest and not at her face.
The quartermaster, the boatswain, and a bare-chested Alexander caught up with them shortly, the former still, thankfully, in possession of the booty.
“Jones.” Commander Redding nodded, looking weak. Em longed to wrap her arms around him, if only to help him stand straighter. “Bring it aboard.”
“Yes, Commander.”
“In the meantime, we’ve got to deal with that.” The pirate Eliza had spoken to cast a grim glance at the commander’s leg. Alexander’s shirt, knotted around it, was already seeped with blood.
“It was just a stab,” said Redding, trying—and failing—to conceal his discomfort. “Albeit, a deep one. But nothing fatal.”
“Aye, though what’s fatal,” said the boatswain, pulling a silver flask out of his pocket, “is the wound festerin’.”
The commander dug his weight further onto his good leg. “Alex, bring Mrs. Redding aboard.”
“Can I come too?” Eliza asked him, eyes wide and contrite. “I don’t wish to see Percival Wyatt ever again. Not after all his lying and conning and stabbing you in the back…side.”
“Very well.” He sighed wearily. “But be forewarned, sister, it’s a pirate rigger.”
If this fazed Eliza Newbury, she didn’t show it. Linking arms together, the women permitted young Alex to guide them up the gangway.
Em faced forward, pitying what the commander was about to endure. She only hoped the alcohol in his wound would help, and that the other crewmen would be able to find something cleaner than Alexander’s shirt to redress his wound with. Sure enough, they reached the upper deck to hear a throaty groan sailing on the wind.
“Alexander,” Em cast an uncertain glance at the woman beside her, before refocusing upon the boy, “what happened to Percy and the others?”
“He got away.” Alex scowled as though it had been a personal failure. “We couldn’t find him no more. But I reckon he’s not doing so well, thanks to your shot, Mrs. Redding.” A gleam of admiration danced in his eyes.
Yet again, Em was reminded of Jackey. She couldn’t help but smile at him.
“The rest of the crew are coming, but later,” he informed her, leading them up to the quarterdeck. “Cap’ and the others shall stay ashore for some revelry this evening, before hitting the high seas again.”
“I suppose we’ll set sail on the morrow, then,” said Em. “Have you any idea of our next destination?” The cabin boy shrugged. He looked surprised when Em embraced him, shirtless and all. “Thank you, Alex. For everything.”
Blushing, he strode off, leaving Em with the commander’s sister on the quarterdeck.
The woman’s gaze ranged about, up at the masts, down over the edges, out to the dark ocean behind them. She then caught Em watching her, and grinned. “This is a quite a ship. Pray tell, was it an eventful voyage?”
Em held her gaze, weakly returning the grin.
***
Commander Redding’s wound had been cleaned and properly bandaged, and he was relegated to the cabin for the rest of the night. Em and his sister had helped him to find a comfortable position, as the poor man couldn’t lie on his back. The sailors had given him a bit of whiskey to help him fall asleep through what he described as “the throbbing,” and he finally slept in peace.
Presently, Em and Eliza stood at the rail together, watching the sleepy port in the torchlight from the top of the docked ship. It was easily past midnight; some of the pirates were returning to their posts, though others stayed out. Everyone drank and laughed and slurred their words, except for Em. Eliza, on the other hand, had accepted one too many flagons from the sailors, who were beginning to swarm around her at the sound of her long, lingering laughs and the sight of her inviting, brightly painted lips.
Mr. Townsend, the bony sailor who, along with Mr. Pleats, had accosted Em her first night aboard the ship, placed another full drink into Eliza’s hand. Em politely took it out of her hand as soon as the man stepped away, and handed it to Ginty. Eliza was flirting over her shoulder with Bucky and his fiddle, and barely seemed to notice.
“Mrs. Newbury.” Em cleared her throat, hoping to snatch the woman’s flighty attention.
Eliza looked at her, her eyes somewhat unfocused. “Yes, dear?”
“It’s rather late, isn’t it? What do you say we prepare to retire?” She took the woman’s elbow, not waiting for a response. She’d hardly been acquainted with Eliza Newbury, but already she knew enough to determine that the woman was susceptible to any kind of trouble from the roughest sorts of men. Em was determined to steer her clear of any more mischief, especially while her brother was incapacitated.
Once they’d put some distance between themselves and the crew, the women strolled slowly, taking their time to reach the companionway.
“So, tell me how you met my brother,” gushed Eliza, clinging to Em’s arm. “I’ll bet it’s quite a romantic tale!”
Em was abashed. “I don’t know about ‘romantic,’ Mrs. Newbury…”
“Please!” The woman waved her off. “Eliza will do.” She beamed. “Whose decision was it to masquerade as husband and wife?”
Em was thankful for the late hour, as the darkness concealed her blush. “His.”
“Oooh,” Eliza teased her, bumping their shoulders together. “I’ll bet he leapt at the chance to call you his bride. What a marvelous story to tell your children someday!”
“Children?” Em stopped in her tracks. “You know your brother and I aren’t really married, right?”
“Well, not yet,” said Eliza, as though it was obvious. “But you will be, won’t you?” She looked so hopeful, for a moment Em was completely disarmed.
She shook her head, clearing it. “Whatever makes you think that?”
One of Eliza’s pencil-defined eyebrows lifted. “Why, have you not seen the way Miers looks at you, dear?”
Em lowered her head, her pulse jumping, not unpleasantly. They reached the companionway, and Em removed the lantern hanging on the wall. She handed it to Eliza, deciding not to acknowledge her last remark. “Goodnight, Eliza. I hope your brother heals through the night.”
Confusion imprinted over her features. “
Are you not coming?”
“You’re his sister,” Em declined her. “You ought to share his cabin; it’s not appropriate for me to join him any longer. Perhaps somewhere there’s a spare bunk I can take.”
Eliza dropped her voice to a whisper. “But what will the others think? Don’t the pair of you have a pretense to maintain?”
“I’ll discuss it with your brother tomorrow, I’m sure.”
Eliza kissed her on the cheek, then disappeared down the steps, the lantern bobbing beside her. Despite all the trouble she’d caused, Em watched her go with a kindling of affection.
When the woman disappeared, Em turned back, rubbing her eyes. She felt exhausted, but wasn’t sure where she belonged. Commander Redding was reunited with his sister, and she didn’t feel comfortable working out sleeping arrangements between the three of them, what with his injury and Eliza’s words ringing through her mind: Why, have you not seen the way Miers looks at you, dear?
A swell of happiness bubbled within Em as she hoped the woman could be right. After everything, was there still a chance that she and the commander might—?
“So,” drawled a voice. Em’s hand flew to her chest. A barrel-chested figure emerged from the shadows, greasy dark hair shrouding his dour face. “You ain’t really his wife, after all.”
“Mr. Pleats.” Em took a tiny step back. He only came closer. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough.” A sinister grin stretched his mouth upward. Em felt bile rise to her throat as he grabbed her arm, lifting it, and dragged her toward a separate companionway, one down which she’d never been.
“Where are you taking me?” she demanded, trying to conceal the quaver in her voice.
“I think it’s time we pay a little visit to the captain.” He leered at her. “He don’t much fancy being lied to.”
“The captain is here?” Em would try anything to play for time. “I didn’t notice him board. I thought he’d still be on the island with the others.”
“Quit your jabberin’! And of course he’s aboard. Man never leaves the Rose for long,” Pleats grunted.
Em attempted desperately to pull herself from his clutches, but he only gripped her arm tighter, ever dragging her the way down the wooden steps.
Commander Redding could not rescue her this time, she lamented. She shouldn’t have been so careless, speaking so feely on deck, Surely, she should’ve known anyone could be listening! What would happen to her now? Would she be punished for lying? Or worse, would the commander be ejected from the ship in his condition?
Em recognized where they must be headed as the cockpit. “So, the supposed ‘gentleman’ commander wanted a free go of you all to himself, did he?” sneered Pleats, stopping her at an ornate door. “We’ll see what Cap’ thinks about that.” Disregarding her protests, he banged on the door with a dirty-nailed fist.
At first, Em thought the quarters were vacant. No one answered. She gave Pleats a withering look, as if to say, I told you I didn’t see him board.
This only flustered Pleats more. He raised his fist and pounded again. “Captain, open at once! There’s been mutiny, I tell you!”
Em’s heart shook at the sound of the door unlatching. It swung open angrily, revealing Captain Crawley in a state of undress that Em had never fathomed witnessing for as long as she lived. She covered her mouth, unsure whether to yelp or to giggle at the sight of the man’s bare skin, covered in unruly black hair, with a tall, nude, strong-looking negro woman standing brazenly behind him.
Captain Crawley proceeded to issue a string of curses so vile at Pleats, Em thought she might go deaf.
Pleats looked slightly shaken, but wasn’t about to quit. “Perhaps you might desire another companion for the evenin’,” he snarled, shoving Em forward by the small of her back. She stumbled to a halt before the captain, her face burning. “For I overheard her confidin’ in that Newb’ry woman that she ain’t really the commander’s wife!”
Em gazed up into Captain Crawley’s black eyes, silently pleading with him not to abuse her or Commander Redding for their betrayal.
The captain stared at her, then his gaze hardened over Pleats. “I knew that from the bloody start, ye scurvy fool,” he spat.
Pleats blinked several times, his grip on Em’s arm loosening. “Knew?”
“Aye, and it was yer randy arses I had a mind to keep her from!” His bushy black brows narrowed as he leaned forward in the doorframe. “And if you think you might just go spreadin’ word to th’ others, I’ll see fit to cut out your blabbin’ tongue. Savvy?”
Em’s arm was completely free now. Pleats swallowed and saluted the captain who, in turn, slammed the door in their faces. They could instantly hear the negro woman and him chuckling seductively inside.
Em wasted no time. She tore away from Pleats and bolted back upstairs.
Chapter 17
Em was impressed that anyone was sober enough to sail the ship the following morning. But lo and behold, come dawn, the ship broke from the port of Barbados beside a fleet laden with sugarcane, and headed back to sea.
Commander Redding was able to get around better with a cane one of the older sailors had loaned him, and his sister stayed ever by his side, assisting and waiting on him. Em hung back, leaving them to each other. She knew if it were her own brother, Danny—God rest his soul—and if they could be reunited, she’d want all the time with him she could get.
She had spent the previous night in a hammock in the galley, which Cook had kindly offered her, and she was prepared to do it again. But no one seemed ready to retire anytime soon after evening rolled around and supper was served. Em sat near the commander and his sister, but kept to her dish. The men were entertaining one another with tall stories, each less believable than the last.
Eliza sat beside her brother, but her focus was on Bucky, who often made her laugh. It wasn’t until the discussion shifted to the ships the sailors had raided when Eliza inquired over her drink, “I wonder, how did The Black Rose get her name? It is rather poetic.”
To Em’s surprise, it was Captain Crawley who answered. She hadn’t noticed him there, standing in the shadows behind the torches that lit the deck. “I named her.” The deck creaked as he stepped forward, heavy boots plodding on the planks. The crew lifted their heads. “Wasn’t always her name, but I changed it when I took over.”
A curtain of smoke parted before his face, and Em noticed a pipe between his lips. He paused for a thoughtful puff, then removed it. “She’s named for a woman I once knew. Rose. Met her in Aruba, years ago. She was a negro, a slave. I rescued her from there, stole her away with me.”
Em thought of the black woman who had accompanied Captain Crawley the night before, and whom Em had watched escort herself back to port early that morning before they’d departed. She felt somehow sure that woman was not Rose. The captain’s tone was too wistful.
“At my side, Rose had freedom, riches. Power. She was a bold thing. Sharper than a cat-o’-nine-tails too.” His braided beard tugged up in a nostalgic smile. “We shared many a day and night in each other’s company. Daresay I made her happy. And so she made me.”
His eyes grew distant, and Em knew for certain that he had loved the woman. “But then,” he continued heavily, “we stopped to mend and restock the ship at Newport News. I warned her not to leave the ship. She wanted to come with me and see the provinces, but I told her it was dangerous there for a colored woman.”
For a long time, he didn’t speak. The deck was silent, giving Em the notion that the captain had seldom, if ever, opened up with such a personal account in the past. She was beginning to wonder if that was all they would get to hear of the story, when the man blew a sigh of smoke from his pipe and spoke again.
“Alas,” he said gruffly, “I’d kept her at sea for more than a year, and poor Rose was starved for land. She wouldn’t heed me. I returned to the ship to discover her gone. I knew she wouldn’t have left me for good, so I searched everywhere for he
r. Couldn’t find her.”
He lowered the pipe, not looking at them, his eyes wandering to the ocean beyond them, still and black. “The crew at the time told me to get on with it, that we needed to leave the coast before we were all caught and hanged. But I wasn’t leaving without her. I told them to go on their way, and return for me later. Meanwhile, I stayed behind to keep lookin’.”
Ginty cleared his throat when the captain fell silent again for too long. “Did y’ever find her, sir?”
Captain Crawley didn’t look at him. Em wondered if the captain had heard him. At last, he folded his arms over his chest, his haggard face unreadable. “Yes, I found her. But by then, it was too late. She had been captured, and sold back into slavery.”
“And that was that?” inquired the boatswain.
The captain glared at him. “No. I learned who’d bought her, and I sought to take her back from the sonofabitch.” His glare disappeared, however, and faded into something far more disturbing. Em and Commander Redding traded glances.
“She was dead.” Captain Crawley’s voice had gone dry as a bone. “Her master had killed her.”
No one dared to speak. Em listened with bated breath, her heart twisting for the man who must have kept such a tragic secret to himself for so many years.
“At first, I reckoned she’d just been too headstrong. But I couldn’t bring myself to leave without answers. I wanted to know why Rose was dead. In the night, I went to the plantation where she’d worked and interrogated the slaves. Turned out the master had been no less susceptible to her beauty than I, and had bedded her. When he discovered she was with child, the bastard—who was wed, with a reputation to protect, no doubt—got rid of her.” The captain’s voice was ragged. “Drowned her. In the James River.”
Em’s breathing had gone suddenly hollow. Commander Redding, seeming to notice, turned to look at her inquiringly. “Captain?” she dared ask.
The pirate shot his black-eyed gaze to her.
