Louise Allen - The Piratical Miss Ravenhurst

‘Well, I didn’t volunteer,’ Clemence said bitterly.

‘No, and I didn’t save your ungrateful skin from that pack of jackals in order to get self-righteous lectures from you either, brat. So keep your lip buttoned, Clem, or I’ll tan your breeches for you.’

She subsided, instantly. Let him think she was terrified of a beating; better that than have him lay hands on her. The vision of herself turned over Nathan Stanier’s knee and that broad palm descending on her upturned buttocks made her go hot and cold all over. There was no way, surely, that he could fail to notice that she was a girl if that happened.

‘I’ll go and get our dinner, shall I?’ she offered, by way of a flag of truce.

‘I’m eating with the captain and Cutler.’ Nathan was shrugging into his coat. Old naval respect for a captain must be engrained, Clemence thought dourly, if he felt he had to tidy himself up for that scum.

‘Will they tell you where we are going?’ she asked. If they docked at a harbour on one of the other islands, surely she could slip ashore?

‘Hunting,’ Nathan said. ‘And not from a harbour, if that’s what you are hoping for. McTiernan’s got a hideaway, and I can show him a shortcut to get to it. Now, enough questions. Are you going to eat properly, if I’m not there to nag you?’

Disarmed by his concern, she smiled. Life was so complicated. It would be much easier if it was black and white, if he was an out-and-out villain, but he wasn’t and liking, gratitude and the disconcerting tingle of desire kept undermining her certainty. ‘Yes, I promise. I’m hungry after all that work.’ Nathan was staring at her. ‘What is it?’

‘That bruise is getting worse,’ he said abruptly. ‘It looks…odd. You’re all right otherwise? You’re not seasick?’

‘In this weather? No. I don’t know what I would be like in a storm, though. My father used to take me on short sea journeys with him. The crews were very good, they’d let me go anywhere, even though I was a—a child,’ she finished hastily.

The moment he was gone, she went to look at her reflection in his shaving mirror. Yes, her face was black, blue and purple on one side and still swollen. Her hair was lank and she plucked at it, wondering whether to wash it. It was horrible like this, but on the other hand it helped her disguise, and that was the most important thing. Clemence fished the bandana out of her back pocket and tied it round her forehead again, pulling it one way, then another for effect.

Then the irony of it struck her. Here she was, prinking and posing in front of a mirror, trying to make herself look as unfeminine and unattractive as possible, when all the time she should be on her way to England, to her aunt Amelia the Duchess of Allington, stepmother to the present duke, who was to give her some town bronze before her come-out next Season. They’d have the letter by now, telling them of her father’s death, of her own ill health .

She should be in the luxury of her own cabin on a large merchantman, practising flirting with the officers and worrying that she did not have pretty enough gowns in her luggage.

A proper young lady in this situation should be in a state of collapse, not scrubbing out privies, swaggering about with a knife and sharing a cabin with an attractive, dangerous, good-for-nothing rogue. Depressingly, this proved she was not a proper young lady. On the other hand, if she was, she would still be in the Naismiths’ power. Better to be a skinny tomboy and alive.

Clemence gave the bandana one last tweak and headed for the galley, her stomach rumbling with genuine hunger as it had not done for weeks.

Street was ladling an unpleasant-looking grey slop into four buckets. Clemence wrinkled her nose, hung back and hoped this was not dinner.

‘There, that’ll do for ’em.’ The cook gestured to the two hands who were waiting. ‘They got water?’

‘Enough,’ one of the men said, spitting on the deck close to Clemence’s feet. ‘Waste of space, the lot of them. Not worth nothing.’

‘If the captain says keep ’em, we keep ’em,’ Street said, his voice a warning growl. ‘He’s got his reasons. You check the water and let me know if they’re sickening. I’m not taking a lashing for you if you let any of them die.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ the man grumbled, hefting a couple of buckets and shuffling off, followed by his mate.

‘Mr Street?’ Clemence ventured. ‘I’ve come for my dinner, sir.’ The cook waved a bloodstained hand towards a rather more savoury-looking cauldron of stew. He seemed out of temper, but not with her, so she ventured, ‘Are there prisoners on board?’

‘None of your business, lad.’ He swung round to glower at her. ‘You keep your nose out of things that don’t concern you if you want to keep a whole hide. And don’t go down to the orlop deck, either. You hear?’

‘Yes, Mr Street.’ The orlop deck? Why mention that? It was the very lowest deck, below the waterline where the cables were stowed. There would be no cabins down there, just dark holds with bilge water, rats and darkness; it would never have occurred to her to visit it. The cook went back to wielding his meat cleaver on a leg of pork, so she took bread to sop up the stew, poured some of the thin ale into a tankard and retreated to her refuge on top of the barrels.

The stew was better than she had expected and her appetite sharper, but Clemence spooned the gravy into her mouth absently, her eyes unfocused on the expanse of blue stretching out to the horizon. If there were captives down on the orlop deck, then they would be common seamen, she assumed, otherwise, if they had any value, they would be up in a proper cabin being kept alive with some care.

And if they were seamen, then some of them might be men from Raven Duchess . She stared down at the planking, scrubbed white by constant holystoning, the tar bubbling between the joints in the heat. Somewhere down there below, in foul darkness, could be men in her employ, men who’d been kept prisoner for six months. Men she was responsible for.

‘Then lay in the course you suggest through the channel, Mr Stanier. We’ll take it at first light.’ It was Captain McTiernan, Nathan at his side, Cutler behind them. All three men had their hands clasped behind their backs, just as she had seen her father pacing with his captains. It seemed impossible that pirates would behave in the same everyday way, but the more she saw, the more she realised they were not bogeymen out of a children’s storybook, they were real men operating in the real world. Their work just happened to be evil.

Instinct made her wriggle down amongst the barrels as though she could hide in some crevice, then common sense stopped her. It was not safe to cringe and cower; if McTiernan saw her, he might assume she was spying on him. As they drew level she wiped her crust round the tin plate and drained her tankard with an appearance of nonchalance, despite the fact that her heart was thudding against her ribs.

McTiernan stopped, bracketed by the two men, and looked at her. Clemence stared back, trying, without much difficulty, to look suitably nervous and humble. His eyes were flat, without emotion, staring at her as though she was no more, nor less, than one of the casks. Her eyes shifted to the left. Cutler was more obviously assessing—now she knew what a lamb in the slaughterman’s yard felt like. She shivered and glanced at Nathan, trying to read the message in the deep blue gaze. Warning or reassurance?

McTiernan blinked, slowly, and she half-expected to see an inner eyelid slide back into place like the lizards that scuttled up every wall in Raven’s Hold. Then, without speaking, he turned. Clemence felt the breath whoosh out of her lungs just as there was a shout from above.