Very, very peculiar.
Bart rubbed at his brow. “Milady Cameron Jack, meet our resident cockroach, so named for the shadows he calls home and the way he scutters about them and sneaks up on everyone. Some claim so that he can cut their throats for profit and theft.”
The Frenchman made a rude sound of disgust. “Ignore the mannerless, motherless snipe. Armand de la Roche at your service, madame.” He clicked his heels together and gave her a proper court bow that was completely at odds with his shabby, careless clothing. “Enchanté.”
“Merci, monsieur. Ravi de vous rencontrer.”
Covering his heart, he acted as if he savored every syllable. “You speak beautifully and yet I detect a hint of an Irish lilt in your voice.”
“Me mother was French and me father Irish. They brought us to Virginia when I was a small child.”
“Us?”
“Her brother.” There was a note of ice in Bart’s tone that Cameron didn’t quite understand. “Now, Roach, if you don’t mind…”
He stepped in front of them to cut off their path. “Pardon, Monsieur Meers … mais you do not want to be doing that.”
“Why ever not?”
“There is a bit of a calamity onboard. It would appear as if le soul has gone a-missing … again.”
“Ah, dear God.” Bart appeared sick to his stomach.
“Oui! Exactement!”
Cameron scowled at them. “Soul?”
Bart let out a long-suffering sigh. “Not even sure how to begin to explain this … one of our crew—”
“Absalon le lune—”
Bart grimaced at Armand. “He’s not crazy. Per se.”
“Ja, he is!”
Armand’s use of German amused her.
“Anyway,” Bart said between clenched teeth, ignoring him. “Sallie is under the stupidity that his soul was somehow sucked out of him and trapped inside an old rum bottle by a malicious witch.”
Cameron gaped incredulously at the utter travesty of that belief. “What? Why?”
Bart gestured helplessly. “We’ve learned not to ask these questions, as they lead us into a realm of madness from which there’s no escape. And let’s face it, reason and logic abandoned this crew long ago. Therefore, we don’t judge each other over the insanity, for there’s not a member here who isn’t a bit … touched in the head and peculiar in the ways.”
“That is also true,” Armand agreed. “But more so than any other, Absalon is … how do you say? A moonbug?”
She arched a brow. “Moonbug?”
“Lunatic,” Bart said with a grimace. “Roach screws up about half of everything he attempts to say. English is not his native tongue. Stupidity is.”
Roach made a sound of supreme irritation. And an extremely vulgar gesture that left Cameron wide-eyed and gaping—and she’d grown up an orphan, working in one of the most dangerous taverns in Williamsburg, frequented by scoundrels, pirates, and known rabble-rousers. In fact, she prided herself on being jaded and worldly for her age. Yet these men made her feel rather naïve and prudish.
Suddenly, she heard a loud whooping sound that was followed by cackles of raucous laughter.
“Ach, now! Ye faithless, motherless dogs! Give me back me soul! What’s wrong with the sorry lot of you! What kind of cretin bastards be stealing a man’s soul now, I ask you?”
Bart groaned out loud and slapped himself across the forehead. “I can’t believe I died painfully in order to deal with this shite. I think I’d have rather stayed in hell. At least there, I only had Lucifer and his demons to contend with, and not the Devyl’s bane and his idiots. No offense, but our Devyl scares me a whole whopping more than Old Scratch. Bastard’s deadlier too, and more cantankerous. Never do you know what’s going to set him off. Or how he’ll react to anything.”
Laughing, Roach clapped him on the back. “There, there, mon ami, ca c’est bon! ’Tis better than hell, anyway.”
