Page 31 of A Prince Among Pirates
And then I am ready.
I make my way down to the galley and take a plate, far too aware of all the eyes on me as I gratefully choose a chunk of warm bread from the pile beside the fire. I glance up at Cook and nod without a word.
He goes very still, and then he begins to laugh.
I freeze, clinging to my plate, my cheeks turning to molten fire as everyone looks up, first at Cook, then at me. After a moment another man begins to laugh… and then another. Billysteps up beside me, laughing louder than the rest as he claps a hand onto my shoulder.
“Kit Mortimer,” he announces. “The accidental gentleman pirate!”
They all laugh harder, and although my stomach is doing somersaults, the muscles of my jaw twitch and tug until I give in to the sheepish grin pulling at my mouth. I am grateful to him. I wait as he fills his own plate, then nudges me from the galley and leads me down to the fo’c’sle with the other men. Despite being an officer, Billy prefers to dine with the crew.
I hear a few shouts of “the accidental gentleman pirate!” as I walk by. Word travels even faster in the confines of a ship than in the French court—but I’m not complaining. Their amusement is the perfect buffer. I allow the men to tease me for my naïveté. I blush and laugh and cover my face at all the right moments, letting them see that my shock was sincere, but I am no threat. I sit on the floor with Billy on one side and Trevor on the other, as Tristan sits in my hammock nursing his morning ale.
After they’ve worn out the “accidental gentleman pirate” jokes, I take the opportunity to press Billy for the information Captain Sharpe so clearly avoided sharing with me.
“Billy, how long have you been with Captain Sharpe?”
Billy considers before he answers, taking the time to chew the bread in his mouth. “Three years and a half,” he says with a nod. Only a little longer than Renard. “He’s a good man.”
A pirate and a good man. I can’t help but smile a little at the wrongness of it. “Why did you decide to join him?”
Tristan and Trevor both go a little rigid. They sit up and offer Billy their full attention, though it seems like they already know what he is about to say.
“He plundered a ship off the coast of Cuba, not far from where we are now,” Billy says. “There were hundreds of us on board… theSuccesswas her name. She carried many from the colonies to the Caribbean and back again. It was my second time at sea in her grasp.”
Something about the way he speaks makes my blood run cold. I set my ale down on the floor in front of me and watch his face as he stares at the empty plate in his lap.
“I was barely nine on my first voyage. My second came twenty years later, when my captor died and his son sold off all the men he’d enslaved.”
Now I understand the ice in my veins. Never once when he told me stories of his childhood did he mention he had been enslaved. I wonder why that is.
Probably because I am just like the men who stole his freedom. I feel sick at the thought. I hope that’s not how Billy looks at me. I hope that’s not howanyof the men on this ship look at me. In this moment I’m aware of my advantages in life in a way that makes me more uncomfortable than ever.
“Not a week had passed when theDeliverancecame upon us,” Billy continues. “TheSuccesswas no match for her. No guns, and the crew were cruel but untrained.” He stares into his cup of ale as he speaks. Or rather, he seems to starethroughit.
All at once I understand—or hope I understand—that Billymust be sharing this with me now because he doesn’t see me in the same light as the men who enslaved him. Men who take what they want with no consequences. Men like my father. Unlike me, Billy doesn’t judge men based on snap impressions—why else would he always have such a warm smile for me? If he thought I was capable of enslaving human beings, would he tease me or share the wonders of his culture with me thus?
Shame burns hot in my belly as I recall how ready I was to turn and run the moment I learned these men were pirates. Captain Sharpe was right—theyarethe same people they were before. The same men who looked at me with distrust but gave me a chance. The same men who granted me an opportunity to prove myself to them, despite my being the very embodiment of the system that beat them down.
Every interaction I have ever had with a servant flashes through my mind. Was I polite to them? Did I treat them with decency? Was I too entitled to stop and consider that they were people too? I can’t remember, and that scares me.
Billy sips his ale, and the movement brings me reeling back to the present. “Captain Sharpe made an example out of them. He cut them down one by one, and chose those among the captured who could sail to take over theSuccess. They renamed herHope, and Captain Sharpe left the ship and our freedom to us.
“I decided right then I wanted to work alongside Captain Sharpe. I asked to join his crew, and he smiled at me and said, ‘Welcome to theDeliverance, Billy.’?”
I blink and sit up straighter. “He knew your name?”
Billy shakes his head. “No. He chose that name for me, and it felt right.”
I don’t ask how Sharpe knew he would need a new name. I suspect Captain Sharpe knows a great deal about a great many things. A great deal more than me, for sure. My heart aches. “I’m sorry.”
“What have you got to be sorry for, Kit?”
“I don’t know,” I lie.
“Then don’t say you’re sorry.”
I grimace at my foolishness. He’s right. My words are hollow, and I should have kept my damned mouth shut instead of making this about me. I nod and turn to look at him. I don’t need to say anything more.
