After a long pause, the man turned and the light grew dimmer. She blew out her breath and a moment later, the sailor climbed from the hold. The hatch covers banged shut and Josephine flinched as darkness surrounded her. She blinked, her eyes slowly adjusting until the silhouettes of nearby stacks of crates were visible.Thank goodness. A ray of sunlight slanted through a single small porthole, giving the cramped space just enough light to see. At least the journey would not be made in complete darkness.
She flopped her satchel onto the floor and unbuttoned her shirt. “Alright, Lola, this is our home for the next few days.” The parrot climbed free, hopped from her shoulder onto a nearby crate, and began preening green feathers. “Now, be a good girl and stay quiet.”
Chapter Five
The blessed reliefof wind would never grow old. Square sails hummed above while Isaac removed his hat to let the breeze whip through his hair. Though three days had passed since they’d left Tortuga, the memory of oppressive humidity and heat remained fresh. He straightened. Better to remember that part of the island.
Nother.
His hands tightened around the spokes of the wheel. Each time he closed his eyes, visions of her beneath the cascading water haunted him. He’d finished undressing her in his mind an embarrassing number of times since their jungle encounter. A fresh wave of desire coursed through him as his body eagerly reminded him how willing it would have been to take it further.
With a groan, he grit his teeth together.Absolutely not. She was the governor’s daughter, for Christ’s sake. Not some doxy in a harbor tavern to have his way with. With her untamed spirit and reckless charm, she was a woman whose magic could threaten attachment. And he was not a man for attachments.
Why would anyone choose a life tethered to commitments on shore when they could have this? His eyes roamed the activity on deck and his heart swelled. The transition from first officer to lieutenant less than a month before had been as seamless as he could have hoped for. It helped he had sailed and fought alongside many of these men over the course of several missions.
Still, he missed the companionship of his best friend, and former lieutenant, Christian Thompson. That friend was the very reason he’dprocrastinated returning the schooner to Tortuga for so long. Nothing in the world could have kept Isaac from attending the wedding a few days prior to his departure. He couldn’t help his grin. Straightlaced Christian had shocked the entire Navy when he resigned and married a pirate…Ex-pirate.
To this day, his mind almost couldn’t comprehend it. Christian, one of the most disciplined and principled men he knew, had fallen in love. He wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it happen with his own eyes. Christian’s wife, Samantha, was about as unconventional as they came. She preferred breeches to dresses and could outsail—and outfight—most men he knew. Again, his mind drifted to another unconventional woman.
Unconventional or not, it didn’t matter. She wasn’t for him. No one was. Not when he had missions to see through, promotions to earn. He would be a terrible husband. So he kept his relationships short and sweet—one night. The constant reminder kept him content, never wanting more.
Isaac replaced his hat. Here he was, in charge of a brand-new sloop of war, with a notorious pirate to hunt down. This was where he belonged, far away from ballrooms and women who expected him to give up everything for them. His palm brushed his sword. He’d much rather fight Thorne than surrender his heart. The thought sobered him as he flipped open his compass to check their course. The winds had been in their favor since leaving Tortuga and they would be arriving in Savannah early. A good thing, because he would have very little time to prepare for his first big mission as lieutenant.
Thorne’s escape a few weeks before had sent the Navy scrambling. The government wanted the pirate captured and hanged, to make an example of him for humiliating them. But most importantly, they needed to get the pirate before he cost more lives.
So, he would pick up extra men and weapons in Savannah and set sail as soon as possible. Which wasn’t a bad thing. No reason to stayashore long in the sweltering heat of late summer.
A cough interrupted his thoughts and he turned to find his first officer, Silas Cummings, standing at the top of the stairs leading up to the quarterdeck, his face all hard lines.
Isaac straightened. “What’s wrong?”
“We found a stowaway.”
Shit.
“How did someone get onboard?” His teeth pressed together. He had posted an obscene number of guards the entire time they had been at port in Tortuga to avoid precisely this.
“It’s my fault.”
Isaac lifted a brow at Silas’s confession. The man was a stickler for doing things exactly the right way.
“When the cargo was being loaded, there was a boy, he was nervous, and something was off about him. I specifically watched for him to come back off and made the error of assuming I’d missed him due to his small size when I didn’t see him.”
A boy.
Isaac pressed his eyes shut. “Damnation.”
Silas stood next to him in silence for a long minute before clearing his throat. “What are your orders, sir?”
Pain radiated along Isaac’s jaw from where he held it clamped shut. There was only one order he could give. The rules were very clear. The crime of being caught as a stowaway? A dozen lashes.
“Where was he?”
“Tucked away in the back of the cargo hold. Probably wouldn’t have found him, except his parrot made a ruckus when Cook went looking for a missing crate of provisions.”
“A parrot?” Isaac blinked. Only one sort of character in this part of the Caribbean would have a pet parrot. What the hell was a young pirate doing on his ship? One would have to be desperate to try their luck getting onto a Navy ship. The question was, did he have nefariousreasons, or was he trying to escape to a better life in America?
A commotion came on the main deck as two sailors dragged a form out into the sun. Only a head or so shorter than the sailors and sporting a shirt at least two sizes too big, the stowaway must be an adolescent. Possibly older.
