Unbinding of Mary Reade

by Miriam McNamara

She knew now that really falling was nothing like the dream of it.

  Mary swallowed her sadness. “I’d like to think she found the pluck to leave, once I was gone.”

  It was dark in the hut, after the sailcloth dropped. Mary pushed the cloth back up and tucked the end beneath the lean-to roof, to let some moonlight in.

  “What would me mum say if she could see me in this uniform, eh?” Nat asked. “That’s what I like to think of. She always thought I’d end up a good-for-nothing pirate like me da.”

  Her smile faded fast. “Oh, aye. You call it privateering, you get your signed bloody paper and go off and do the same thing but swear it’s something altogether dif—”

  “It is different!” he growled, grabbing her wrist. “I’m nothing like him, what he was.”

  “Oh, sure—”

  Nat silenced her with his mouth, quick and hard, and pulled her into the darkness.

  She tried to be soft, at first, like Anne had told her, but it left her stiff and awkward, Nat’s heat deadened by her hesitation. She tried to melt, she tried to be delicate—but she was so angry about Anne, about Jack and Nat and their money and how she couldn’t go home and how home wasn’t here—and next thing she knew she had him up against a wall, she was meeting his heat with equal intensity and that felt good, much better—there was something about their not-softness, him getting hard, her fighting back instead of giving in—

  He had her binding off with rushed fingers and quick as he had it off she had him down on the pallet, she had his hands against the table leg with one fist, looping her binding tight around his wrists with the other. It was a heavy table, rough-cut logs for legs. Maybe she was stronger than she’d thought because his struggling only tightened her grip, only made her binding knot tighter against his skin until he was helpless beneath her.

  She felt her anger ebb. She paused and leaned back on her haunches, breathing hard.

  He looked beautiful. Soft, in shadow. Lashes, a slick lip. Bare chest rising and falling.

  “Please,” he whispered, longing clear in his voice.

  This wasn’t how she’d dreamed it would be with Nat. But it felt as heated as her old dreams had been, him begging beneath her. It felt good to stand and drop her clothes because she wanted to, instead of them being lifted from her.

  Mary crouched, tucked her fingers into his britches. His hips lifted to let her pull them down, his breath sucked in. She kissed him, and didn’t kiss him, as she liked. She ran her hands all over, and he had no hands to touch her. The air grew warmer and warmer, their skin sticky, then wet, their bodies harder and softer at the same time, then harder and softer still—

  The smell of him, of them, alcohol and sweat, heat and salt—

  He breathed heavily, making soft sounds in his throat. Her hair slipped free of its pigtail and slicked to her shoulders and neck. Her body was wiry and strong and he wanted it. It didn’t matter that she was so hopelessly in-between.

  She pressed her body into his, hands splayed against his chest, mouth on his neck. He shuddered, his groaning turned to gasps, the muscles in his arms bunching as he arched and strained against his restraints.

  The knots held. He never touched her.

  He was asleep in moments afterward, his arms still bound above his head, his face tucked against a shoulder.

  She sat up for hours, night air drying her skin, and stared at his trusting, sleeping shape. She wanted to feel like this forever.

  Finally she stood, pulled her shirt and britches on, and left, leaving her binding tangled around him.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  NEW PROVIDENCE—1720

  AS SHE SLIPPED OUT NAT’S DOOR, MARY LOOKED UP TOWARD THE BATTLEMENTS of the fort and saw a man staring down at her in the early morning light. She knew who it was. She would always remember that silhouette staring down at her.

  She imagined him squinting, trying to puzzle out who was leaving Nat’s hovel at this hour, wearing britches. She didn’t try to hide. She waited until she was sure Robbie knew it was her.

  He had taken Nat from her in Rotterdam, but Mary had taken him back. Even when Nat belonged to someone else, even when he married Livie, she’d still have a bit of him.

  Robbie disappeared from the battlements. She was sure he’d seen her.

  He could wonder what she’d done.

  Mary ran down to the water and shed her clothes. She slipped beneath the waves and swam with powerful strokes until she was far out. She floated face up in the early morning light and watched dolphin fins slice the surface a few yards away, everything around her silver and glimmering as the sun began to rise.

  Remember when we used to play at Captain Avery and his mates, down on the docks? An’ I was always captain? Mum and Granny bossing her around as a child, then the kapitein, then Jack. Robbie and James. Even Anne. All of them using her to further their own games, taking the captain’s share of the prize while she risked her neck. Always, leaving her with nothing.

  Hog’s Island shone on the other side of the harbor, its skirt of ships sparkling in the sunlight.

  Her arms began to ache, her eyelids growing heavy. The sky was getting brighter. She could see all of Nassau huddled along the shore, the fort hulking above. Guarded and shadowed. Too small for her—too small for Anne—though they’d tried to bind themselves enough to fit.

  What if she saw Jack from Anne’s perspective—as something like she’d seen Nat last night? Not home, but something close enough. Safe harbor in the storm. Anne, beaten back every time she tried to claim a haven of her own. It was easy to seek refuge in open arms. She thought of a lighthouse, its strong beam of light. A clear path to follow in the confusion of darkness.

  She hadn’t known, until last night, that it could be so easy to claim what she wanted. Her body went hot—she’d wanted Nat. But it wasn’t what she wanted most.

  She wanted a ship to sail away in. One of those brigs, anchored at the island. She even knew which one she’d take. But that wasn’t all she wanted, either.

  She let pure longing rise up like a wave inside her. Anne’s dark gaze, the heat of her skin, the quickness of her laugh. Tangled up in her, fitting so perfectly. They’d had so little time, just the two of them, that hadn’t been marred by desperation and distrust. Mary could spend every moment with her, explore every inch of her skin, every nuance of her emotions, hear every story and opinion, memorize every motion and expression, and never be done wanting more.

  Her strokes grew sloppy, her head bobbing under the surface. It made her so tired to think of what she wanted. Quiet enveloped her underwater, a soothing blue. The ocean was big. Big enough to hold her and hide her, no one down in its depths to deny her. Paddy was down here, somewhere. Perhaps the father she’d never met was down here, too, another hapless tar lost in the confusion of a storm.

  She breathed out and sank slowly, watching bubbles spiral to the surface. She looked out at the endless, brilliant blue. This is what the heaven they promised must be like. A place where He will surround you in quiet, beautiful oblivion. He will get rid of your wanting. He will make the struggle go away.

  She looked down, where the blue went dark and deep. She was so tired.

  But the water was vast and lonely. She didn’t want the ocean holding her, or God.

  She wanted Anne.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CARIBBEAN SEA—1719

  MARY SQUINTED AT THE LOW RIBBON OF LAND SLOWLY MATERIALIZING against the unimaginably blue water as Paddy finished cinching a knot beside her. The view from the mainsail yard was incredible. A spit of green curved out of a gentle slope of mountains, and the promise of a city—a warm, deep harbor surrounded by alehouses and markets and blessed dry land—lay just beyond that.

  Willemstad, Curaçao.

  After near three backbreaking, brine-soaked months at sea, she would not sail back to Europe on this ship. Apparently the captain and officers had ways of keeping the crew on board. Padlocks and keys, pistols and bayonets. But Mary knew from e
xperience that there were ways to jump ship that the kapitein might not have thought of.

  First bell, afternoon watch, clanged from the quarterdeck. She guessed the ship should be passing the tip of the island by third bell, no more than an hour from now.

  An hour from now. And after that—might they make port by tonight?

  Mary’s nerves jumped as she thought of dropping anchor. She looked at Paddy. “What do you think, is Kapitein Baas-tard letting us off the Vissen tonight?” she asked, legs dangling on either side of the yard.

  Paddy shook his head with alarming resignation. “Speaking from me own experience, I’m inclined to doubt it.” He didn’t care; all he wanted was a way back to Wapping with enough coin at the end of it to woo his Katie. He’d given up on the notion of debarking. “A bit of fresh meat and water is the best we can hope for tonight,” he said. “The likes of us won’t be seeing the insides of an island alehouse, mark me words. Standard practice, it is.”

  “I’m getting off this ship tonight, Baas be damned,” Mary said, then wished she hadn’t. She sounded petulant, defiant, like a child thinking she was entitled to something a wiser sailor knew he’d never get. “I have to get to Nassau.”

  “So you’ve told me.” He gave her a sad smile and reached up to grab the ratline. “Believe me, son. I hope to God you get your wish.”

  Mary followed him as he swung himself up the rungs. Paddy knew she planned to jump ship once they reached shore. It hadn’t worked for any sailors he’d known. But still, he was willing to entertain the idea that it might just work for her.

  It had to work. She wouldn’t leave the Indies before finding Nat.

  She couldn’t believe it had been over nine months since she’d seen him last. She’d wasted so much time in Rotterdam, working the docks, holding tight to her secret. Earning next to nothing mending sails and running messages, afraid to return to London. She’d met Paddy at a tavern one particularly maudlin night, and he’d convinced her it was worth it to sail west in October with him on a Dutch trader, the Zilveren Vissen.

  Paddy turned once he reached the topgallant yard. “I never did tell you how I got me these tattoos, did I?” Paddy gestured to the faint nautical star on his left bicep, one of an almost-matching pair. They were said to protect those who inked them on their bodies from all dangers at sea. “Did I tell you about the time Katie was giving me the second one here—”

  She rolled her eyes. “Why yes, I’m afraid you’ve bored me to tears on a number of occasions.” Mary swung herself onto the starboard side of the yard and reached for a handful of sailcloth. Once they climbed past the mainsail yard the wind picked up, and it was good to have an extra grip.

  “I swear to you, she hadn’t a chance to finish the second tattoo when the press gang busted in.”

  Mary couldn’t believe it; he was truly about to launch into this story again. Paddy settled on the far side of the topgallant yard, a leg hanging on either side. “You can see here where the line ain’t quite done—” He pulled his skin tight so that she might see the tattoo he’d shown her a thousand times. Mary did her best to look entirely uninterested, peering around for something more entertaining. Sea birds crowded the rigging all around them, screeching and roosting on the yards. The birds had colonized the Zilveren Vissen soon after they entered the islands, and they were disappointingly similar to the gulls back home, all black and gray and white. Not the promised swarms of rainbowed parrots—but they had thrilled her nonetheless. They’d signaled that she was almost there, where she’d longed to be ever since Nat had left her on that dock.

  “I was yelling over me shoulder about how I’d be back for her, and she was crying, screaming that she’d wait for me—” Paddy shook his head and dropped his arm. “Sure, you don’t know what it’s like, do you? You’re too bloody young.”

  She turned back to him. “What what’s like?”

  “Love. Being in love.”

  “I do, though!” What had carried her halfway around the world?

  “No, you don’t. Whoever she was, she was a child. Just like you.”

  “At least she wasn’t a loose woman,” Mary taunted.

  Paddy narrowed his eyes. “Careful now.”

  “I mean, how can you know it’s love with Katie? She lays with other men.”

  He shrugged. “She may, but it’s different with me.”

  “Sure, that’s what you tell yourself.”

  Paddy rubbed his starred bicep absentmindedly. “Well, it’s not any different, mechanically speaking.”

  Mary smirked. “So what makes you think you’re special?”

  “See, this is how I know you haven’t been in love before.” He winked. “It’s how I know you haven’t lain with a woman, neither.”

  “Hey now,” Mary protested.

  “The mechanics—that’s part of it. But there’s all these other bits to it. And all those bits are different with everyone, and that’s what makes it beautiful, and that’s what makes it hurt, and that’s what makes it feel like there’s a point to everything—not the bloody mechanics. You’ll know the difference when it happens to you.”

  “So you never felt anything like that before Katie.”

  “No, I felt it before Katie. It doesn’t happen with just one lass ever, or even just one lass at a time. But it’s different with each person, and you only feel it if it’s something special. Otherwise—it’s just a transaction, and it doesn’t worry me none.”

  The way Mary had longed to touch Nat—the heat of her dreams about him—she knew what she felt for him was special. Her feelings just hadn’t been enough. Nat didn’t feel the same way. She hadn’t given him the chance to. “What if you get back and you’re too late, you made a mistake, and now she’s married to someone else?”

  “I can’t worry about that.” Paddy closed his eyes and lifted his face to the sun. “It feels good to believe I’ll make it to her in time. It keeps me going, thinking about how it is when I’m with her. How I’m going to settle down with her one day. It makes me feel like it’s worth it. All this shit.”

  Sweet Paddy. Nothing had ever gone right for him—but still, he always had hope. He always thought things might just work out. “So it doesn’t matter that she might be engaged to some other cove? She’s just a nice idea that makes you feel a little less cold at night?”

  “Jaysus, no, it matters.” He opened his eyes and gave her a piercing look. “Believe me, son. I might not worry about it now, seeing as there’s nothing I can do about it. But if I got back and she was promised to some other man? You better believe I would fight like hell for her.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  NEW PROVIDENCE—1720

  MARY STOOD OUTSIDE THE HUT, THE AFTERNOON SUN BRIGHT BEHIND her. She’d returned there early in the morning, wet and shivering, but it had been empty. She’d collected her piecework with shaking hands and returned it to Molly. She’d taken her payment and bought hardtack and some fruit. She’d asked around about the new sloop she saw docked in the harbor. Robbie never crossed her path, though she kept an eye out for him.

  And now she was back at the hut, dim movement visible through the windows. She stared the mermaid and dolphin sentinels down, willing herself to be brave enough to confront whatever lay inside. They stared back, impassive.

  Mary walked to the door, her steps measured. One bare sole in front of the other. She pushed the weathered cloth aside and ducked into the room beyond.

  Anne sat on the bed, still wearing that terrible dress, her eyes huge and glittering in the dimness. “You came back,” she said. “I was beginning to think I’d never see you again.”

  “Jack left you here alone?”

  “He left me his pistol.” Anne shrugged. “And Jimmy wants his money. I don’t think he’ll be after me now.”

  “Has Jack made an honest woman out of you yet?” Mary asked, bracing herself.

  Anne bowed her head. “He’s gone with Jimmy to talk to the governor.” Anne’s hands, twisting in her lap,
looked like a wild animal that she was trying to restrain. When she raised her head, her face was drawn. “I know you think the worst of me,” she whispered, “but I never meant to hurt you.”

  Mary strode across the room, speaking before she could lose her nerve. “I don’t think so little of you.” She knelt and took Anne’s hands. “I think you’re incredible.”

  Anne squeezed her eyes shut. “I wish things could be different between us. But you were right. There’s no way this could work.”

  “I was wrong, Anne.” Mary took a deep, shuddering breath. “There is a way.” This was so hard. Every fiber of her body screamed—she’ll refuse you again, you’ll hurt again.

  But this was it. She needed to be bold. A clear light, when everything raged all around. Otherwise they’d both drown in darkness. “I’m leaving Nassau,” Mary said. “And I want you to come with me.”

  Anne’s head snapped up. She put her hands to her throat. “No,” she whispered. She sounded strangled. “Don’t ask me that. They won’t let me off the island, remember? They’ll catch the both of us trying to leave.”

  “I love you so much, Anne,” Mary whispered. “I won’t live without you.” Anne’s eyes clenched shut, a tear sliding down her cheek. Mary wiped it away, hand clumsy with nerves. “That’s why we have to leave.”

  “We’ll never make it.” Anne began to shake. “We might get to Eleuthera in our jolly boat … but what would we do once we get there?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Florida or Africa, there’s a whole world we haven’t been to, that they won’t find us in.”

  Anne pulled away. “The jolly boat won’t get us to Florida.”

  “You’re right. We need a ship of our own.”

  Anne stared at her. “You can’t be serious.”

  “We’ve got no choice. There’s no safety for you, and no life at all for someone like me. But I sailed across the ocean once.” Mary started talking fast, excitement surging through her. “It wouldn’t be so hard if we had the right ship. John Ham’s ship is docked at Hog’s Island as we speak. And I heard it’s the fastest ship in the Caribbean. Fast enough to get us far away from here, and quick, to somewhere we can start over.”