“’Tis good to see you up and about again,” he said with a broad smile. “How are you feeling?”
“Much better. Still a little sore, but I’m restless lying about the cabin.”
A few older pirates were sitting in a group nearby, mending a stained sail, and I noticed their interest in Timothy and me. The grizzliest of them scowled at me while the others spoke in hushed tones.
I moved toward the opposite rail as Timothy followed.
“Are the rumors still persisting about a Jonah on board?” I asked him.
“Aye, but the rumors have shifted a bit.”
I frowned. “What are they saying now?”
“They’re now certain the Jonah is a woman.” He spoke quietly as he bent his head toward mine. “And they think they know who it might be.”
My stomach felt queasy again, and I was suddenly weak. Marcus would be near the recovery site, over an hour away. If I was overtaken by a horde of superstitious pirates, it would be too late for him to help me. I was almost too afraid to ask, but I had to know. “Who?”
“Ned.”
“Ned?” I spoke louder than I intended, so I lowered my voice and drew closer to Timothy. “The captain’s cabin boy?”
“Aye. Just watch him—you’ll see it, too. I don’t know how I missed it before.”
I scanned the deck, looking for a glimpse of Ned, but Timothy shook his head. “He’s not here. He always stays close to the captain’s cabin and doesn’t speak to anyone other than the captain. That’s why no one has confronted him yet. If you really look at him, you’ll see that he has fine features and small hands.”
Fine features? I turned my face away from Timothy, afraid he might look too closely at me and see that I had the delicate hands and face of a woman.
“I’ve worked alongside Ned,” I told him. “I’ve never suspected he’s a woman.” Yet as the words left my mouth, I realized the benefit of others turning their attention to Ned—and away from me. “But I’ll keep my eyes on him.”
“My father warned me about the dangers of having a woman on a ship, so if you suspect ’tis true, you’ll need to alert the captain.”
I nodded, wanting to change the subject. “How did your father feel about you going to sea? If he was a pirate, was he afraid you might become one, too?”
Timothy shook his head. “He thought I was too smart to become a pirate, but the more time I spend on theOcean Curse, the more I can see the allure.”
“You aren’t thinking of staying with them, are you?”
He lifted his shoulder and stared at the lagoon where the shimmering water was reflecting the bright sun. “Merchant ships don’t pay well, and they treat their sailors abominably. The abuse I suffered on theAdventurerwas hard to endure. Here, I have a vote, and I know I’ll share in the treasure that’s recovered from the shipwreck.”
“The treasure is one thing,” I said, feeling anxious to convince him that the pirate’s life wasn’t for him. “What about when you’re called upon to rob and loot another ship? You don’t want to be a criminal, do you?”
“It suited my father for a time.”
“But the king isn’t offering pardons anymore. There’s only one way to leave pirating—death.” It was the bitter reality Marcus also faced.
“Are you still planning to escape, Carl?” he asked, looking closely at me again.
It was a hard question to answer. If Timothy turned on me, and Marcus tried to help me escape, would Timothy tell someone?
“I don’t want to be a pirate,” I said, trying to be evasive. “But, if the captain finds the treasure he’s looking for, mayhap he’ll stop plundering other vessels and let some of his crew go.”
“Captain Zale will never stop pirating. ’Tis in his blood, same as Marcus. They’ll go down with this ship. Besides, they haven’t found the Queen’s Dowry, and they’re not likely to, if my father’s tale is true.”
Frowning, I asked, “What tale?”
He moved closer to me, until our shoulders were brushing, and cast a look behind him before saying, quietly, “My father was a privateer for the British during the War of Spanish Succession, but after the war, he worked for different merchantmen while trying to support my mother and three children. He wanted to bein command of his own ship but knew the only way he might do that was to become a pirate. In 1717, he found himself in Savannah, Georgia, without a farthing to his name, tired of the abuses he’d suffered as a merchant sailor. He met two Spaniards who claimed to have been on the 1715 treasure fleet and had survived the hurricane.
“The Spaniards were drinking heavily, so it didn’t take much to get them to talk, and they told him they knew the location of the Queen’s Dowry. But it’s not where most people think. They’d been waiting until the initial search had died down and were planning to go back and get it themselves. My father convinced them to tell him where the treasure was located.” Timothy shook his head. “He was desperate and destitute, which makes for a dangerous combination. When he left the tavern that night, he alerted two naval officers about the Spaniards. They were so drunk, they were easily overtaken and pressed into service for His Majesty’s Navy.”
