I scurried to keep the tip of the knife out of my back, and the captain hung on my side. Together, we walked down the steps and paced around the deck in a circular pattern with me closest to the water’s edge. I was quite sure my proximity to the edge was done as a precaution in case I tried to escape, but with no land in sight, and Evie in the wheelhouse, there was no way I’d take the risk of trying to flee.
“I met your mother when I was twenty-seven,” Captain started, his voice was strong. “Back then I had a more respectable career as a cargo sailor, hauling imported goodsfrom all over Italy to the Americas.” His head turned toward the sea, taking on a faraway expression.
“Jaliyah was her name, and she was an Italian Goddess. I first laid eyes on her at the merchant square. She was laughing and singing with a whole group of kids. She wasn’t a good singer, and her laugh wasn’t anything special, but when I looked at her, a ping went right to my heart. I was instantly enamored by her. I walked up to the group of kids and told them I’d pay them each a silver coin if they could get her to go on a date with me. Those kids.” Gray Beard threw his head back, chuckling. “They did not disappoint. One little boy even made up a poem. And she said yes. We went to dinner, and from that moment on, any time I was in that town for an overnight, we were inseparable. I didn’t come around as often as I wanted because of my long voyages, and because of that, I never asked about her normal life. Part of me worried she was seeing other guys, and I wanted to believe she was all mine. I also felt like she deserved more than a guy who was only around once every three weeks. But we just got each other.” He shrugged and quit talking like he was ending the story, but I was hooked.
“You can’t stop there,” I insisted. My heart was oddly still, unlike any time before. Usually, it was a bit bipolar, either ramping too high, or sinking too low. Maybe it was the shock of it all, but it was even. “Did you guys get married?”
“We did.” He nodded, the gleam in his eyes growing. “My shipping route got changed, and it went from me being gone for twenty-one days, to one where I would be gone forty-five, and we both cried. I knew if I didn’t ask her then I never would. She didn’t even pause before she said yes. I bought a nice ring for my small wage, but that was when things started to get weird. I wanted to get married in the courthouse, but she insisted we have somewhere more private. That should have been my first clue, but I didn’t care if we got married in the middle of a circus,I wanted to be with her. I said yes.” He chuckled lightly, shaking his head. “She dragged a priest out to the forest in the middle of the night. We said our vows clandestinely under the stars, and the only witness she allowed was a woman she said was her childhood nanny—”
“You didn’t think that was weird.” I couldn’t help but interrupt. There were so many warning signs. “Was she married already, or what was her deal?”
“She wasn’t married, but she didn’t want her family to meet me. I never understood it, but I also never asked. Whenever I tried to bring up her family, her eyes would grow cloudy. We were happy, so there wasn’t a reason for me to push it. We were two newlyweds, and she came on the boat with me. And you know as they say, two became three, and she had an awful time delivering you. At one point, I didn’t think she was going to make it. They called more doctors, and specialists. Somehow, we got a miracle, and you both lived. We were so tired, and it was the wee hours of the morning, and everything was blurred. I’m not sure what happened, and I’ll never get the real answer. Maybe someone recognized her, or they read her hospital records, but in the middle of the night, her hospital room was stormed with soldiers, and they took her.”
“What do you mean they took her?” My heart wasn’t still anymore. It ramped up back into manic mode. “Where was I?”
“She had you in her arms and wouldn’t let go. I was quickly banished and then branded as an outlaw, ordered to never return. I couldn’t get a job in any country with this brand. I quickly became so bitter, taking to the seas to rob people. I told myself I’d be okay if your mother and you lived and had each other. The news spread fast about our child and her father wasn’t happy. He ordered the same fate for you, and you were branded, and removed.”
“W-What kind of barbaric practice was that?” I spit out with such disgust. “And who did her dad think he was?”
“He was the king.” The captain turned to meet my eyes again. “I found out the day I read it in the paper that your mother was a princess, and you had royal blood.”
I started to stutter out a rebuttal when a mirage I’d seen only in my dreams—but for some unsolved reason it never left—glittered in front of me. A woman’s face with skin so smooth, I wouldn’t believe she ever knew how to frown, looked down on me. She’s dressed in the finest silk dress unlike anything I’d ever seen or felt, and part of the reason I knew she was only ever a dream.
I heart pounded out so many questions, but I was completely frozen.
Everything I had thought I had never known was now being unveiled. Now the real question: Does my mother care as much as I do?
fifteen
Evie
The guards returned me to the cell, slamming the door so hard, the lock echoed when it clanged into place. Even though it was still day, and the same cell I’d been in the last week, it was much scarier without Jasper. Nobody gave me a clue as to what was going on, and the hours ticked by. My curiosity turned to concern, and then my concern morphed into panic.
What if they really did make him walk the plank?
I’d be here all alone, and I have no idea how to escape by myself.
When the heavy wood door opened down the hall, I held my breath until I saw Jasper’s familiar face appear. I flattened my body against the wall, feeling the need to be guarded until the guards left again. Instead of returning to the cell, Jasper bobbed his head in and waved me forward. “Evie, come with me. They are letting us go.”
No guards were with Jasper, and he dangled a giant key ring at his waste. Doing a double-take, I scanned both sides of thehall. I was never a scholar, but one thing I’d learned was that pirates couldn’t be trusted. It seemed too good to be true. My eyes raked his body, looking for a clue of deception, but Jasper wasn’t even tied up anymore. I hung back in the cell, not trusting the situation yet. “What’s going on?”
“I talked to Captain Gray Beard, and he’s letting us go. We’re docking here shortly.”
“Docking where?” I scrambled forward, as disbelief circled my brain, and my body moved instinctively toward him, not stopping until I grabbed his hand. It’s how we’d spent the last week, hand in hand. When his eyes hit mine, there was a warmth that hadn’t been there before, and he smiled at me, a rare genuine smile that said, “everything is going to be fine.”
“What happened on your walk?” I gushed out, everything about Jasper’s demeanor had seemed to change as if the dull gray cloud that had been following him around since I’d met him had been lifted.
“Something important came up. I hate to be so vague, but I need to take care of some business tonight—alone.”
Alarms sounded in my head but cascaded to my heart. He saidI.Before we left this cell this morning, he insisted we were doing everything together. Now after he’d made friends with a pirate, he’s back to saying I. Was he planning to ditch me after I’d stayed by him through everything?
“Just you are going?” My gaze was a bit scrutinizing, but I tried not to act the part of the jealous girlfriend. I had no desire to hang out on a pirate ship all by myself.
“I told you; I’m not leaving you anymore.” Still holding my hand, he reached his other hand out, taking both my hands together, pulling them close to his chest. The gesture was smooth, and unlike him in every way, while twisting my intestines into a southern backroad of curves. “I said everything we do is together. I intend to keep that promise, butunfortunately this is risky business, and I can’t put you in harm’s way again.”
“Where are you going?” My heart was sinking fast as the promise he had just made me was already a memory.
“We’re going to a dock at a small island off the coast of Italy, not that far from home. I’d like you to return home, where you are safe and comfortable. I’ll come find you when I know it’s safe.”
