The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue

by Mackenzi Lee

  “Why would you want to help us?” he asks.

  “Because we are good Christians who extend charity to those who have done us wrong?” I try not to make that a question but the little bastard peaks at the end.

  The lie doesn’t stick for long. “Are you running from the navy?” Scipio asks.

  “We might be. Look, we’ve as much need to avoid being caught by them as you do. But if you trust me, and if you let them board, I think we can get away from here.”

  “Why should I trust you?”

  “Because you’ve got no other choice.”

  Above us, one of the high sails drops with a muted crack.

  “You can still ransom us at the end of this,” I say. “But you’re not going to be free enough to do said ransoming if you run now.”

  Scipio looks from me to Percy and Felicity, his face unreadable. Then abruptly he tosses down the trunk and calls across the deck. “Bring her around. We wait for the navy.”

  “Scip—” someone calls down from the rigging, but Scipio interrupts.

  “Montague’s right—we’ll be outgunned and outmanned, and standing to fight will condemn us. Pull in the sails and drop the anchor, now!” Then to me he asks, softer and more anxious, “What is it you’re planning?”

  “Well,” I reply, keenly aware that everyone is paying me attention, “could I have a look in that trunk?”

  24

  The French have, indeed, spotted us and they do, indeed, fly a flag of parlay, which we ignore so that they’re forced to drop their longboats and come to us. We extend only the barest accommodation in throwing down a ladder for them to haul themselves aboard.

  A few of the lower ranks come up first—presumably to absorb any bullets we might be waiting to rain upon them—before their commanding officer appears. He’s a man about my father’s age, with skin as sea-whipped as the pirates’ but with considerably more polish about him. The tails of his coat flap against his legs as the wind rips at them, tangling around the scabbard dangling from his belt. He swings himself aboard, then struts across the deck to where the crew is assembled, his hand behind his back and his chin thrust in the air—it doesn’t seem a far distance until you watch a cove really make a meal of walking it. Behind him, more navy men are swarming onto the deck. Our pirate hosts are outnumbered at least three to one.

  Scipio steps forward to meet the commander, his hat in his hands. “Sir.”

  The officer pulls up short like he’s spotted a rat underfoot. “How dare you address me.”

  Even across the deck, I swear I can hear Scipio’s teeth grinding. “I’m the captain of this vessel.”

  “That seems unlikely, unless this is some kind of pirate operation.” The officer wrinkles his nose. “Where is your commanding officer?”

  His gaze moves to the crew—he’s clearly looking for someone else to present himself. Then his eyes fall upon Felicity and me, standing in the fine clothes we plundered from the trunks of the xebec. It was damn near impossible to find a coat that fit me in the sleeves—I’m hoping the fact that I’ve cuffed them twice and am still swimming won’t give away our ruse. But in a miracle worthy of the New Testament, amid all the men’s wear in the trunks was a fine silk dress wrapped in thin paper—probably a gift for someone’s sweetheart back home. It’s scooped far lower than Felicity’s usual necklines, and as the officer’s eyes sweep us, her hands twitch at her sides, like she’s desperate to hold them over her chest. She’s one strong breeze away from creating a diversion of an entirely different variety.

  “Who the devil are you?” he demands of us.

  “We could ask you the same question,” I reply, as cheerful as I can muster considering my not-unsubstantial distress. “What cause have you to be boarding our ship?”

  “Your ship?” the man repeats.

  “Well, my father’s ship,” I amend.

  The officer’s eyebrows seem to be climbing to his hairline. “Your . . . father’s?”

  “I certainly wouldn’t be sailing a ship belonging to my mother.” I flash him a bit of the dimples posthaste. He frowns.

  “You fly no colors.”

  “Beastly storm winds whipped them right out from over us. Thought about running up my most English-looking coat as a stand-in to avoid precisely this sort of brush, but didn’t want to sacrifice one of my fine jackets. I had them all tailored in Paris and they’re positively macaroni.” I step forward—nearly straight out of my shoes, which are as large on me as the coat—and hand him the leather skin dug up from the selfsame trunk from which Felicity’s dress was plundered. It’s full of travel documents, much like the ones my father bestowed upon Lockwood for the three of us before we departed. It was a gamble, hoping the luggage would yield such, but Luck apparently realized she owed us a good turn after sticking us with these son-of-a-bitch pirates.

  The French officer takes the papers from me and shuffles through them. “James Boswell, ninth Laird of Auchinleck,” he reads.

  I spread my hands. “That would be me.”

  “You’re Scottish.”

  “Do I not sound it? Must be all these months in France.”

  “And this is . . . ?” His eyes drift to Felicity.

  I had been hoping he wouldn’t ask, so I say “Miss Boswell” in a tone that reeks of of course.

  “And this is a ship of . . . your father’s?”

  “Not entirely—he chartered it for our travel across the Mediterranean. We’re touring, see, and I put up a fuss about being made to travel on a common ferry between Dover and Calais—all those people, you know, utterly filthy and so cramped you can’t breathe, I was positively gasping the whole way and I had no intention of tolerating those circumstances again for weeks on our way to Italy.” Keep talking, I think as he stares at me, his gaze glazing. Keep talking and tell him so much that perhaps he won’t notice it’s all a crock. “So I wrote to Da and positively begged him to charter me my own vessel and as I’m the eldest and he’s never been able to say no to me—I could ask that man for anything, honestly, there was a rug in the king’s palace in Paris and I swear to God I told my father to write to the king himself—”

  “That’s enough,” the officer snaps, bundling up my papers and thrusting them back at me. “We will be searching the ship.” He signals to his men, but I step in his way.

  “On what grounds, sir? We are a legitimate operation.”

  “These waters are thick with Barbary pirates. By order of the French king, we have a right to make certain that you are not among them.”

  “You have no such right. We are not French citizens, and most certainly not pirates, and we have provided you with the necessary travel papers to verify our identities. You hold no jurisdiction over us.”

  “Have you something to hide?” he challenges.

  A good deal of stolen cargo, no papers verifying our charter, and also there’s Percy lurking back there with the crew, I think, but I raise my chin and play the small-minded tourist. “My father told me before I left I was not to bow to the whims of foreigners who would endeavor to take advantage of me because I was a young man far from my homeland. Of Scotland.”

  The Frenchies haven’t moved. They’re all looking to their commander, and he’s still looking to me like he can’t quite work out this nonsensical tableau. The silence stretches like taut, fraying rope. “And tell me, Mr. Boswell,” the officer says at last, “when your father charters you a ship, does he always enlist such a filthy colored crew?”

  That gets a chortle from his men. At my side, Scipio seems to rise a few inches taller, hands clasped behind his back.

  “Please apologize to my captain, sir,” I say.

  Now it’s the officer’s turn to laugh. “I won’t apologize to a colored man.”

  “Then you’ll leave my ship, please.”

  “Don’t be absurd. We’re servants of the crown.”

  “And I’m an Englishman—Scotsman—and have no obligation to comply with French seizure. You board my ship with wea
pons drawn, accuse me of piracy, and insult my upstanding crew. I’d like you to apologize, or leave this ship at once.”

  The officer makes a rather grand sniff, then extends a gloved hand to Scipio. “My apologies . . . sir.”

  Scipio doesn’t take it. “Thank you. Now please leave my ship.”

  The officer looks like he’s ready to give Scipio a telling-off, but then he remembers we are not his men. His mouth curls; then he gives us both a curt bow. “Apologies for the trouble, Mr. Boswell. Thank you for your cooperation.”

  I don’t dare believe we’ve gotten away with our ruse until the navy frigate is nearly as far away as it was when first spotted. Scipio keeps his spyglass trained upon it until it’s out of sight, then at last calls all hands to stations.

  I expect a word of thanks from him, or at the least some sort of manly, approving nod, but instead he calls to Ebrahim, “Stow our prisoners below.”

  “Prisoners?” I repeat, but Scipio doesn’t hear me. Ebrahim reaches for my arm, but I pull away from him and shout after Scipio as he pulls himself up onto the ratlines. “A bit of thanks would be good.”

  He stops and looks down at me. “For what?”

  “For saving your skins.”

  “You were saving yourselves, not us.”

  “You’d be captives of the navy if it weren’t for my sister and me—” I start, but Scipio jumps back to the deck and faces me.

  “There is nothing good about watching another man claim your ship because your skin is too dark to do it yourself,” he says, each word a glancing wound. “So in future, you needn’t demand apologies on my behalf. Now, you’re underfoot.”

  Before I can speak, Ebrahim grabs me with one hand and Felicity with the other—she gives a bit of a yelp when his fist fastens around her wounded arm, and he lets go, then grabs Percy instead—and drags us away from the captain.

  Prisoners once more.

  It’s clear solely from the absence of a proper prison on board that these men are not pirates. We three are taken to the gun deck and ineptly knotted at the feet to one of the long-nosed cannons, which seems like a bad choice for several reasons. Ebrahim doesn’t even stand guard—he stays just long enough to toss a leather skin of surgical tools at our feet with a grunt of “For your arm” at Felicity.

  And then he leaves us to our own devices beside a store of gunpowder and flint and a cannon, thereby solidifying our captors’ reputation as the worst pirates in the history of the Mediterranean.

  Felicity falls upon the surgical kit, withdrawing a curved needle and a skein of black thread. “That was a rather good plan, Monty,” she says, and I’m about to swell with pride, but then she adds, “Except we’re still hostages.”

  “Well, now it’s your turn to come up with something, darling. I’ve rather pulled my weight for the day.” I tug at the ropes keeping Percy’s feet bound to the cannon and they loosen. The tar-dip on the ends is sticky from the heat. “That prick of a captain would be on his way to the noose if it weren’t for me.”

  “He’s been rather decent to us, considering the situation,” Percy says. “He trusted you.”

  “And then told me off for it. It was good of me to help him!”

  “Maybe so,” he replies. “But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t hard for him to witness.”

  “What’s hard about it?”

  “Well, do you think I enjoy being mistaken for your manservant everywhere we go?”

  “But you’re not my man, so what does it matter?”

  “If he doesn’t understand it, don’t explain it to him,” Felicity mutters. I glower at her, though she’s focused upon getting her needle threaded and doesn’t notice.

  But Percy says, “It’s good of you to stand up for me when I can’t do it for myself. But it’s difficult that you have to. And I’d expect the captain feels the same. Especially when it’s his prisoners who have to come to his rescue.”

  Which still doesn’t entirely make sense to me—perhaps it can’t. I tug at the knot again, and it comes undone with little fight. Percy kicks his feet free, then gives me a weak smile. “Nowhere to run.”

  “We could lead a mutiny.”

  “Against pirates?”

  “We’re quite piratical ourselves, Captain Two Tooth. And now we have a cannon.”

  “And some length of rope.”

  “And with your brains and my brute strength and Felicity’s— Dear God, Felicity Montague, are you sewing yourself shut?”

  Felicity looks up, innocent as a schoolgirl. She’s got the bloody cravat unwrapped from her arm, sleeve pushed up, and that wicked needle buried in her own arm around the gash left by the splinter—already sewn half shut while Percy and I were distracted. “What? It needs to be done and neither of you knows how.” She dips the needle out and pulls tight so that the ripped edges of her skin meet. I slump backward against the cannon to keep from keeling over in earnest. “See if you can find Henry a couch before he’s overcome,” she says to Percy, though he’s looking nearly as horrified.

  After two more neat stitches, she knots off the thread and cuts it with her teeth, then gives her embroidery an examination, looking pleased as Punch. “I’ve never actually done that on a person before.” She glances up at us—Percy looking very obviously away and me swooning against the artillery.

  And rolls her eyes. “Men are such babies.”

  25

  After some time alone with the guns, the sound of boots on the stairs announces our benevolent captain’s approach. We all three look up as he halts a few feet away and gives us a peery up-and-down. None of us stands. It’s a gesture that passes for defiance but is mostly exhaustion.

  To my surprise, he sinks down too, elbows resting upon his knees so our faces are level. He looks very young in that moment, though he’s got at least a decade on Percy and me—perhaps more. He looks, also, profoundly weary. Ferocious pirate gone again in an instant.

  The first thing he says is, “Thank you. For helping us get away.”

  After the snappy retort I received on this subject before, this feels like a trap, so I just nod.

  “Perhaps we can come to an agreement,” he goes on. “Explain why you’re running, and I’ll tell you about us.”

  “You first,” Felicity interrupts, though I was ready to spill. “Every book I’ve ever read has taught me not to trust a pirate to hold his word.”

  Scipio’s eyes flit to her, and her chin rises. “That logic would be sound,” he says, “except you were right—we’re not pirates. We’re privateers. Or we were, until recently. My crew and I were employed by an English merchant during the war with Spain. He had us issued letters of marque so we were legally permitted to seize Spanish vessels that attacked his ships in the Caribbean.”

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “The English crown withdrew all letters once the war ended, though we didn’t know that until we were arrested for piracy when we tried to make port in Charleston. Our employer wouldn’t pay for us—he freed his captain and the other officers, and left the rest of us to rot. We were there for a year when pirates raided the town and we were able to escape. We took a ship. This ship. And since we had no letters of marque and needed funds and had a difficult time finding legitimate work for . . . obvious reasons, we thought we might take up the piracy we’d been accused of. We’re . . .” He scrubs a hand over the back of his neck. “New at it.”

  “Was ours the first ship you’d ever seized?” Felicity asks.

  “Piratically? Yes.”

  “Why not return to your employer and get the letters reissued?” I ask. “He doesn’t need to bail you from prison any longer.”

  Scipio doesn’t say anything to that.

  “You weren’t employed, were you?” Percy asks softly.

  “No,” Scipio replies. “We were enslaved. Even though he wouldn’t pay for our return, we still belong to him. And I’d take a noose as a pirate before I’d go back to living a slave.” He rubs his hands together before him, then
looks up at us. “So, where is it that you run from?”

  “There’s a French duke who is after us,” Percy replies.

  “Have you offended him?”

  “We’ve stolen from him,” I say.

  “One of us has stolen from him,” Felicity amends.

  “Well, that one of you sounds as piratical as us. Why were you stowed away upon the xebec?”

  “We need to get to Venice—truly,” I say. “We’ve something to be done there.”

  “Do you expect us to take you?” he asks. “If you aren’t to be ransomed, Venice is off our route.”

  “We could compensate you,” I say.

  “Your ransom would similarly compensate us.”

  “My uncle,” Percy says suddenly.

  I look over at him. “What about your uncle?”

  He’s sat up straight, brow furrowed in thought. “He could issue you letters of marque, as payment for your taking us to Venice. That’s far more valuable than ransom.”

  “Who’s your uncle?” Scipio asks.

  “Thomas Powell. He serves on the Admiralty Court in Cheshire.”

  “No. Thomas Powell? Are you in earnest?” Scipio laughs—a deep, resonant rumble. “You look nothing like him.”

  “There’s a reason for that,” Percy replies with a small smile. “Do you know him?”

  “Our first ship made berth in Liverpool and he was one of the magistrates that oversaw our charters. He was always good to us, your uncle. Some of those admiralty men are bastards to Negro sailors, but he was kind. Makes more sense why now. Damnation, Thomas Powell’s ward. What are the chances?”

  “He wouldn’t care that you were a colored crew—he’d get you the letters of marque,” Percy says. “Valid ones, in exchange for transporting us.”

  “Don’t you think he’d be less inclined if it was asked as ransom for his nephew’s return? He’d withdraw them as soon as we’d left the harbor.”

  “What if we offer it as a reward instead of a ransom?” I suggest, and Percy nods. “If you get us to Venice, we’ll write to our families and tell them how you rescued us. From pirates, even, if you really want to go for the drama. They’ll be so grateful they’ll offer you anything, and all you need ask for is letters of marque to sail as privateers under the protection of the English crown.”