The Unbinding of Mary Reade

by Miriam McNamara

  “Come back at the end of the day then, and I’ll give you work for the week,” said Molly.

  So long as you stay in your skirts? Mary laughed to herself as she walked away, imagining how Anne would have responded to that. At least Molly had given her work. Fine. She’d keep the skirts on to please Nat and Molly and everyone else if it meant things kept going her way.

  The smell from the stalls selling pasties and puddings was making her hungry, but she hadn’t any money. She was just deciding to retrieve the jolly boat from where she and Anne had stashed it and take it out to fish until it was time to come back for her piecework, when Anne’s unmistakable auburn curls caught Mary’s eye from across the market. Her heart lurched, but she quickly shifted direction and headed toward her.

  Anne was sitting at the foot of a tree, head bowed. “What do you think of me new togs?” Mary asked with false bravado, crouching down and nudging Anne’s arm with hers.

  Anne raised her head, and Mary gasped. Anne’s lip was swollen and crusted with dried blood, her cheekbone bruised, her eyes red-rimmed. “Oh God, Anne.”

  Anne’s lip started to tremble. “I was hoping to find you here, but I’m trying to stay out of sight.” Her voice was meek. “I—is there anywhere we can go?”

  “Follow me,” Mary said quickly, helping Anne to her feet. “Come on, I’ve got just the spot.”

  “Old Nan’s place?” Anne asked with a sharp laugh when Mary pulled open the sailcloth at the door of her masthead hut. “Jimmy better not find me here, else all his vile ideas about me will be confirmed.”

  “He won’t think to look for you here.” Mary checked to make sure no one had followed them, then let the cloth drop. “Here, let me see your face.” She took Anne’s hand and led her to the wall of windows. She tilted Anne’s chin up and studied the gash in her lip as a tear slipped down Anne’s cheek. “Nothing to do but clean it up,” she said, gently wiping the tear away. “Jimmy did this?”

  Anne squeezed her eyes shut and nodded. “I ran into him last night. I was fuming from what Jack had done, and I wasn’t thinking—”

  “Slow down,” said Mary, gesturing to a chair. “What did Jack do?”

  A spark of fury lit Anne’s eyes as she sat, and suddenly she looked herself. “Jack can bloody well go to hell. We needed all the money he had left to buy the annulment—he owes me that, and then last night I find him spending the very last of it—well, where do you think he was?”

  Mary pulled up a chair next to her and sat down, making sure they didn’t touch. “I’m guessing he wasn’t handing it over to James.”

  “A bloody punch house, with a bloody whore sitting right there on his lap!”

  Seeing Anne’s sadness turn to righteous anger was reassuring. “Maybe it wasn’t what it looked like. Maybe she was just a barmaid resting her feet.”

  “Me arse she was! Resting her tits on his face, more like.”

  The laughter bubbled up in Mary, irrepressible, and Anne began to cackle too. She dashed the tears from her cheeks. “Come to find out he’d spent his last pennies on her, just the way he spent them when he first was after me. I told him he could bugger himself, and the floozy too, for all I care.”

  Mary reached out and touched Anne’s arm. For a moment she wanted to trail her fingers up to her shoulder, run them along her jaw—she let her hand drop. “He’ll come around. He’s got to.”

  Anne’s smile faded. “I don’t know about that. He shipped out on some privateering mission this morning, and before I told him off last night he swore he’d use the money he comes back with to pay off James. But I don’t know, Mary. Now I’m not sure what he’ll do.”

  Jack had shipped out on a privateering mission that morning—it must be the same one that Nat was on. “So then what happened with James, after you left Jack?” Mary asked.

  Anne’s jaw set. “Well I stomped out of there, boiling mad—and I ran into Jimmy.”

  “And you laid into him?”

  “He was drunk, came right up to me and tried to run a hand up me skirt. I told him he had no right to touch me, that he was no husband of mine and soon I’d have the papers to prove it. You can see where that got me.” Her voice went rough again, shoulders curling in as she scrubbed her face with her palms. “I’m so tired, Mary. I haven’t slept at all. I didn’t know where to find you. And Jack’s gone; he doesn’t even know what happened.”

  “I wish I’d been there,” Mary said softly, and found that she meant it. “I’m sorry no one was there to protect you.”

  Anne curled into Mary abruptly, grabbed fistfuls of her skirts, and pressed her face into her shoulder. “I missed you so much,” she whispered. She smelled of salt and rust and Mary was sure Anne could hear her heart hammering in her chest. “It’s been terrible, not seeing you.”

  Mary lifted a hand to pull Anne against her—but then, quickly, she drew away. “Here now,” Mary said. “Before you get blood on me new dress, let me get some seawater to clean you up.” Anne released her and Mary stood up quickly, examining her dress, which appeared to be unsullied. “I’ve got a clean chemise you can put on. You can sleep here. I’ll make sure no one bothers you.”

  When she returned with a bucket of water Anne was already stripped to her dirty shift and lying on her back on a cot. Mary ripped a strip of fabric from her old, threadbare shirt and wet it, then set about wiping the blood and tears from Anne’s face. “You’re going to stay here with me from now on,” Mary said definitively. “I’ll make sure Jimmy doesn’t lay hands on you again.”

  A faint smile appeared on Anne’s lips. “Thank you,” she said. “I can’t tell you what that means to me.”

  Mary had a flash of inspiration. “I have another idea. This governor is supposedly a Godly man, right? And James is violent with you, and he’s never gotten you pregnant, has he?”

  “That’s right,” said Anne, closing her eyes.

  “Well, both of those things are grounds for annulment, so long as we can prove it. And just look at your face!”

  “It’s a desperate idea,” said Anne. She sounded exhausted. “But I am a bit desperate.”

  “You shouldn’t need a man to pay for you.”

  “And yet, Mary”—Anne inhaled sharply as the rag caught the cut in her lip—“experience has led me to assume I do.”

  Mary dabbed more carefully. “I’ve got this new dress—” she started.

  “Which you look lovely in, by the way,” Anne interrupted, opening her eyes. “The cut is just right for you.”

  Mary smiled despite herself, and continued, “And I’m going to make you one, too, once we can figure out how to afford some fabric. We’re going to get cleaned up and respectable looking. And then I’m going to vouch for you, as your friend, to Governor Rogers, and we are going to get that annulment.”

  Anne watched Mary’s face as she gently wiped the cloth against her lips one last time, until the blood was gone. “You’d do that for me?”

  “Aye.” Mary set the rag in the bucket, where it tinged the water the palest pink.

  Anne caught her hand, threaded her fingers through Mary’s, and pulled her in, gently but firmly, as she curled away toward the wall. Hesitantly, Mary let herself be pulled—just for a moment. She settled in against Anne’s curved back and let Anne guide her arm around her waist. They fit perfectly, Anne’s curls tickling Mary’s chin, their knees pressed together. “As me friend,” Anne said drowsily. She lifted Mary’s hand and pressed her lips to it briefly before she pulled it snug around her waist again. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  Mary squeezed her eyes shut, breathed in Anne’s warm, familiar scent, and decided friendship would be all right.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  NEW PROVIDENCE—1719

  “HE TOLD ME HE DIDN’T LIKE THE IDEA OF ME WORKING, CAN YOU IMAGINE?” Mary crouched at Anne’s feet, pinning her skirt up. Mary had returned her first batch of piecework and somehow convinced Molly to give her some fresh underthings and a bolt of printed c
alico that she would work off. She was turning the calico into a dress for Anne. “I thought I might be ready to forget about him, but then he put his hand on me thigh, like so.”

  “Oh, he’s mad for you!” Anne said brightly, twisting around to look at her. “One look at you and he doesn’t know which end is up. I know the feeling.”

  Mary flushed. “Hold still, for Christ’s sake!” Mary swatted her leg with a scowl. “Every time you move, the hem shifts.”

  “I never hold still anyway, so what does it matter?” Anne giggled. “No one will get a good enough look to know it’s uneven.” But she faced forward again and folded her hands demurely.

  Mary moved a few pins, then stood and stepped back to consider the shape. “There, I think that’s it.” Mary had to admit that she’d done a better job than she thought she would. It had taken her the better part of a week to get the angles right; the shoulders, in particular, and the bodice had been tricky. But she’d figured it out. She’d studied the lines of Anne’s old dress for a start, but then she’d started thinking about how she could make it better. She imagined Anne’s body like wind in a sail, and left room for every gale-force laugh, every blustery curse, her doldrums and pleasant breeziness and seconds of stillness. She imagined the perfect dress for Anne, and then she tried to make it real. And when Anne tried it on it fit wonderfully, only needing a little adjustment. The skirts and sleeves were light and open, breathing with her in the island heat.

  Anne whirled around and hugged her. “You’re an absolute genius! I’ve never had so nice a dress!”

  Mary laughed and pushed her away. “Well, it’s not finished yet! I should be done with it soon. Now that I know what I’m doing I’ll have to do a bit of tinkering with me own dress as well.” Her dress. Ugh, her stomach still sank every time she looked down at it. She’d thought she’d get used to it by now. It fit well enough, of course, but when she wore it, it still felt so much more like pretending than being Mark ever had. But maybe there was some way to tailor it, to make it feel right.

  Anne watched Mary smooth her hands down her skirts. “Stop looking so pained. You look lovely. Definitely not like a molly, I swear. And that color matches your eyes exactly.”

  Reade blue. How fitting, that the color of her girl-disguise was the same as the color of her boy-disguise. “Thank you,” Mary said, grudgingly.

  Anne nudged her. “You should make a pair of britches out of the extra material to wear around the house. I still think nothing suits you quite as well.”

  Mary flashed Anne a look. Her hair was clean, finally, curls nearly tamed into a braid hanging over one shoulder. She looked guileless. Girlish. She was good at pulling that off.

  “The new Mary doesn’t wear britches.”

  “Well, make me a pair then, the new Anne does.”

  Mary grinned reluctantly. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, the dress ain’t even done yet. Take it off so I can finish—” Mary cocked her head. Anne’s dress fit comfortably enough, but Mary knew how slender Anne’s waist was. “Wait, hang on—I think I’ll take it in at the waist just a tad. Hold still while I pin—”

  “Quite the perfectionist, you are.” Anne stepped close and held out her arms. Mary leaned in and pinched the fabric together. Anne smelled so clean, her hair scented with the coconut oil she’d smoothed through to tame the curls—whenever Anne was close, whenever it was quiet between them, Mary’s stomach still turned over. She tucked a pin in, then pinched the other side and did the same—but too quickly, and she dropped her pin.

  “Can you imagine if this works? If Rogers gives me an annulment, and I don’t have to chain meself to Jack?” Anne asked. “What if we could just stay here together, just the two of us?”

  Mary glanced up. The swelling was going down on Anne’s bruised jaw, but her lip was still fissured and puffy. “You think we could make it on our own?”

  “We wouldn’t need much,” Anne mused. “There’s fish and turtles, and it’s easy as anything to grow potatoes and yams, that sort of thing. We won’t starve. And no one seems to mind us setting up house in here. Maybe we could just stay here forever.”

  Mary’s brow furrowed as she looked away. “Sure, you’d get sick of me eventually.”

  “That’s hard to imagine,” Anne said.

  Mary fixed her eyes on the floor and dropped to her knees, searching for the dropped pin. She forced her thoughts to Nat. The sweetness of his kiss, his hand on her thigh. He couldn’t get back soon enough. “Well, let’s get you that annulment first, and then we’ll see what happens.” She finally spotted the pin and reached to pick it up.

  “You like it like this, just the two of us,” Anne pressed. “Admit it.”

  Mary stayed on her knees, eye-level with the waist of Anne’s dress as she pinched it again. They’d been together constantly the past few days. In between sewing her piecework and Anne’s dress, Mary helped Anne clean most of the filth from the hut with rags soaked in seawater and a makeshift broom. They beat the dust out of the pallets on the beds. They hunted cassava in the jungle and made a pile of it, and Anne had showed her how to properly boil the tubers so they wouldn’t paralyze or kill you. Last night they’d sat up for hours, watching giant turtles as big as their own torsos lumber onto the land, scoop sand tenderly with their flippers, and lay piles of eggs big as pheasants right outside their door. Nothing spectacular had happened. But Anne was right, that feeling of being the only two people in the world—Mary had loved it.

  But it had been just the two of them once before. No. Anne would draw her in, make her feel adored—and then move on without a backward glance. “I’m glad I can be here to make sure you’re safe,” Mary said shortly, tucking in the second pin.

  Anne’s hand glanced over Mary’s hair. “Come on, Mary,” she said softly. “Surely there’s more to it than that.”

  Mary stared at the dress. The hem was even. The waist fit perfectly. Her gaze traveled up, her breath catching as her eyes met Anne’s.

  Remember, she told herself. This wasn’t real—it wasn’t right—and it never would be, no matter how much she wished it. “There. You can take it off.” Her voice was uneven.

  Anne held her gaze as she unbuttoned the bodice. Button by button. Mary couldn’t look away until the last one was undone. “Here, help me,” Anne said, raising her arms.

  Mary lifted the hem. She shook it a little, so Anne’s chemise would drop down instead of riding up. She gathered the skirt at the waist, then carefully drew it up, over Anne’s ribcage, the swell of her breasts—it tangled up around her head and arms—Anne started to twist, and her hip bumped against Mary—

  “Stop,” Mary ordered, her temperature flaring. “You’ll mess up the pins.”

  Anne went still, and Mary pulled the dress free. Even in the chemise, in the dimness of the hut, there was too much for Mary to see, or to imagine she could see—

  Dammit. She wanted Nat. She wanted to be Mary. She wanted to be done with this ridiculous desire. She averted her eyes and turned away. “It’ll be done tonight,” she announced, carefully spreading the dress across the table. “We can call on Rogers in the morning.”

  Anne sighed shakily—or maybe it was just Mary’s own unsteady exhalation. She refused to look at Anne, fussing with the thread and her needle. After a long moment of stillness, Anne picked her filthy red dress up off the bed. The velvet was sun-bleached and salt-stained, crusty in spots, threadbare in others. The bits that saw the most sun had faded to pink, and sparks from various fires had burned holes all around its edges. “Thank God it’s almost done,” Anne said, her voice irritated. “I think I might burn this old rag right this moment.”

  “Go ahead,” Mary said, bending over her work. “I don’t care a bit what you do.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  ROTTERDAM—1717

  THAT NIGHT, AFTER THE GAMES AND DRINKING, THEY SLOPPED BACK TO their ship and sprawled on the floor in the hold. Nat fell asleep quick and hard.

  Mary had finished the
game with the boys, saying little. Robbie had given her some sideways looks, but had been too busy making crude remarks to the serving girls to say much to Mary. The food had been good, hot and salty, but she wasn’t able to finish it. She’d kept her jaw set, taking great swigs from her mug each time it was refilled. She’d made sure to stare after the yellow-haired maid every time she passed, and hardly looked at Nat at all.

  But now that she was alone she hugged her arms around her waist, taking huge, unsteady breaths. Nat snuffled next to her in the dark. She could feel the heat along the side of her body where he lay. The air was close and stifling. His thigh touched hers. A few of his knuckles grazed her hip. She pictured his lips parted in sleep, his lashes thick along his cheek.

  All that ale was making her head spin. She rolled away from him, put her hands over her ears, and tried to forget he was there.

  She dreamed about him. Restless, warm dreams without words. She didn’t have to tell him, he knew what she was. He knew what to do, how to touch her to make her feel like she wasn’t such a mess.

  She woke up, aching and breathless, to pale early morning light coming through the porthole above them. He was turned away from her, still asleep. She exhaled quietly and reached out, very nearly touching the back of his neck. She let her fingers hover for a moment over his straight black hair where it cowlicked into two almost-curls. His neck was smudged and dirty around the collar of his shirt.

  He sighed and flopped onto his back, head rolling toward her. She pulled back her hand. His breath was slow and heavy. She studied his face, its perfect familiarity, all of those memorized freckles and curves.

  She wasn’t the only one who thought he was beautiful. She saw how girls looked at him. It was the way she looked at him, the look that had caught Kit and Robbie’s attention.

  She’d never get her fill of looking at him.

  He had a little crease between his eyebrows, as though he worried about something, and his lashes twitched. His skin looked warm. She leaned in a little closer and inhaled the smell of salt and sleep, and something else she couldn’t name.