P.J.
With a gruff countenance, Bane returned it to her. Again without touching her or the necklace charm. “And so what’s the first thing you do with this?” he mocked.
He was right. She’d done exactly what her brother had instructed her not to do—she’d handed it over to someone she didn’t know. “True, but I have to find me brother, sir.” She turned the letter around and pointed to the top of it. “Note the date. It’s months after they went down, and he supposedly drowned by all accounts. Yet if he drowned, how did he send it to me?”
A peculiar light flickered in Bane’s dark eyes. One that made them appear almost red in the candlelight. Surely an optical illusion of some kind. “Who told you to come here?”
“A witch-woman named Menyara. She said that you’d be able to help me find me brother.”
He let out a fetid curse under his breath. It was so foul and guttural that it caused the man on his left to snap to his feet and step away from him, as if fearing an imminent attack of some sort from his captain.
“Who’s Menyara?” the man asked.
A tic started in Bane’s jaw. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want answered, Will. And pray to your God that you never meet that bitch.” With a dark, deadly grimace, he finally took her trinket into his hand to examine it more closely.
His expression unreadable, Bane met her gaze. “Did she see this?”
“Nay. Only the letter.”
“Why did you show it to me, then?”
“I … I’m not sure.”
He flipped the trinket through his fingers several times while Will slowly returned to his seat.
“What are you thinking, Captain?” the one in the wig asked.
“All kinds of folly.” He paused to meet the man’s curious gaze. “I commend her to you, Mr. Meers. Take her to the ship.”
“Beg pardon?” He scowled fiercely. “What she be this?”
The captain screwed his face up at him. “Are you dafter than a doornail, son? Our little Cameron Jack here be a lass as sure as I be your devil’s bastard seed.”
Both of his companions gaped at him, then her.
And she returned their slack-jawed stares without blinking or flinching. “How did you know that?” No one could ever tell she was female whenever she disguised herself as a lad. It was a ploy she’d been using ever since her parents had orphaned them when she was a small girl. A ruse Patrick had insisted on to keep her safe from harm, and under his nose so that he could watch after her.
Bane scoffed as he reached for his ale. “Never try to fool the devil, love. I can see right through you. Besides, no man has an ass that fine. If he did, he’d serve to be changing my religion on certain things.” He took a deep drink, then inclined his head to his companion. “See her to the ship, Bart.”
Bart hesitated. “Are you sure about that?”
“Aye, and settle her in private quarters for now. Make sure the others know to leave her in peace or face my full wrath.”
Bart saluted him. “Aye, sir.”
“And Mr. Meers?”
He paused to look back with an arched brow.
“I expect on my arrival to the ship to find the lass as virginal after parting your company as she is on leaving mine right now.”
Bart let out an irritated growl. “I hate you, Bane. You live only to suck all the joy out of me death, don’t you?”
He snorted. “Pray that joy is the only thing I ever strive to divest from you, my friend. The day I seek greater entertainment than that is the day you should live in absolute terror of.”
“Duly noted, and me testicles have adequately shriveled back into me body so as to pose positively no threat whatsoever to the fair maiden in boy’s clothing.”
“Good man.”
