Page 58 of The Worst of Them

“Oh,” Maria whispered back. “Is she his?”

Tendrils of panic squeezed Cecily’s stomach, but Fay only sighed in response. Then the two broke apart, Fay gliding alongside Cecily while Maria walked with Hester.

Maria casually said, “These woods are haunted, so you know. Most people who wander in don’t make it back out.”

Cecily attempted a laugh at what she assumed was a jest, but it came brittle and broken. Hester whipped her head this way and that, scanning the trees as though a ghoul might drop from the sun-speckled canopy.

Fay’s giggle sounded like the tinkling of tiny bells. “She means to say it’s ours, since no one ever comes this way because of the frights in the trees.”

Cecily looked at Fay. “What kinds of frights⁠—”

“Thank God for you two,” Maria barreled on. She waved a hand at the men walking ahead. “It’s been too male for too long. We’ve spent ten summers with those buffoons and have been dying for relief.”

Cecily wondered if Fay and Maria ought to be as frightened by a haunted forest as she and Hester clearly were, but they were unbothered, or perhaps they were only teasing. Perhaps that was the kind of friends Jack kept—ones who liked to scare others when they were already distraught.

Fay’s pale eyes fixed on her. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “You won’t die.” Then she smiled like it was supposed to be comforting

“Finally, some balance,” Maria was saying. She threw her arm over Hester’s shoulders. “I say we’d’ve left these boys years ago if they weren’t so easy. And we’ve got no one else, really—save for Jack and Greyson, ‘cause they sail so far and much.”

“You’re from here?” Hester asked.

“I grew up in Tortuga,” Maria said. “My ma was a local and my da was a Spanish sailor, or so she said. She died when I was ten, then I found my way on a ship. Pretended to be a boy and earned my keep. S’where I met Frederick. He started looking at me odd when I got to be a woman and my clothes couldn’t hide it as well. He suspected I was a girl and followed me one night when I fancied a dip in the sea by myself. He saw everything and liked it, so I invited him to join me.” She winked. “I got better clothes and he keeps my secret so we make twice as much salary. Everyone thinks we’re friends rather than the most passionate of lovers, and we don’t hear shit about women being bad luck.”

Cecily looked at Frederick ahead. She couldn’t help the way her eyes moved from him to Jack, so she faced Maria instead. “You pretend to be a man?”

Maria grinned and lowered her already deep voice. “Yes, ma’am.”

Within a few minutes, they reached a pristine little cove of white sand and clear blue sea. Far off the shore, a natural wall of rock held back the forest, creating a perfect arc of beach that was clearly lived in. The men marched through, grabbing liquor bottles hidden in the rocks next to bedrolls and ratty furniture.

Cecily paused, taking in this perfect hideaway with its rowdy, happy group of friends. They were more like a family, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d just walked into someone else’s home.

Across the cove, Jack plucked a bottle from behind a boulder and clinked it against one Greyson pulled from a bush. He lifted it to his mouth and downed several gulps, his hair catching the sun as it fell away from his face. When he lowered the bottle, his cheeks were flushed, his scar stark and red against his tan skin.

His gaze locked with Cecily’s. Though he smiled for his friends, the happiness vanished from his eyes.

Then he looked away, lifted the bottle, and took another long drink.

She turned away too, facing the sea as she attempted to quash the well of anguish that threatened to pull her down, wishing more than anything that it would turn back to hate.

It was so much easier to hate.

Maria flopped back onto the sand with a bottle of rum in hand and beckoned the other women. Hester sat next to her, then Cecily. Fay gently lowered herself to the sand, her spine straight. A small pendant sat at the base of her throat on a thin gold chain—a beautiful little turtle with tiny emeralds set in its shell. The gems caught the light, sparkling darkly against her pale skin.

“Tell us about you and Jack,” Fay said to Cecily, tilting her head as she watched the waves roll against the shore. “Why’s he so…”

“Damn bitchy, damn,” Maria said, using the rum bottle to shadow her eyes against the sun. “He looked about ready to⁠—”

“He can be lovely,” Fay interrupted gently.

Cecily knew that too well. “Sure, but I’ve convinced him to hate me.”

Perhaps hate was too strong a word. He’d had an opportunity to tell her he hated her, but he hadn’t. So perhaps it wasn’t hate, but the same distaste he’d harbored for her from the beginning.

Fay cocked her head. “He hates you?” She peered across the shore at Jack. “Hmm.”

Cecily began to add, “Perhaps it’s more dislike, but⁠—”

Fay cut in to say, “He’s not angry about the knife.”