by Eris Adderly
It had been on one such afternoon that young Edmund had his first fateful encounter with Benjamin Till.
Edmund looked up from the illustration of a Portuguese sailing ship he was admiring in time to see out the filmy window, where a fat wool merchant was being relieved of his purse by the deft hands of a roughly-clothed boy.
The thief darted away from his mark and a second later the door to the bookseller’s cracked open just wide and long enough to admit the same crouching young man, not much older than Edmund himself. The blonde boy ducked below the ledge of the window, in a clear attempt to avoid discovery. Once the merchant wandered off, unaware still that he was lighter by a few coins, the little cutpurse’s face split in a grin.
The other boy turned to stand and Edmund was there to meet his eyes.
“I saw what you did,” Edmund pointed out, his tone noncommittal. He was not yet sure whether he would expose the thief by calling Mr Ivey from the back room or not. He knew of stealing—he wasn’t that naïve—but he’d never seen it done in front of him, aside from the dogs at his father’s table when no one was looking.
“Shhh.” The boy put a grubby finger to his lips, mischief in his clear green eyes.
“Why did you take that man’s purse?” said Edmund in a whisper, stepping closer to the other youth so he wouldn’t have to speak so loudly.
“There isn’t so much to go around at the monastery, Friend. We all of us boys lift a bit of coin and the like. ‘Specially us older lads. The young ones haven’t got a chance, elsewise.”
The little burglar gave Edmund a sly wink and, as fast as he’d arrived, slid back out through the door into the street again, disappearing off into the bustle of bodies and carts just before Mr Ivey returned from the back room with his meal.
The monastery. Yes, that made sense. The monks found many a babe left at its gates in the night, and they would do their best to bring up the abandoned boys until they were old enough to learn a trade. There was hardly enough in the coffers for the monks themselves, and Edmund imagined what the other boy had said was so: there would be little to go around.
The next day Edmund found himself not at the harbour, his usual haunt, but peeking around the open edge of the monastery gate, trying to catch a glimpse of the activity inside. He was not entirely sure why he’d bothered to come to this place, but the events of the previous day had sparked something in him he could not quite name.
“Well that didn’t take long.”
A youthful voice from behind Edmund surprised a gasp out of him and he whirled to find the fair-haired thief from the day before leaning against the stone wall behind him.
The boy grinned. “Found us, did you?”
Edmund blinked at him, not sure how to respond. He was not accustomed to dealing with anyone his own age, at least not very often.
“Yesterday, with that man’s purse …” Edmund started, but then trailed off, not certain how he should continue.
“You want me to teach you?” The youth quirked a brow at him, so much more experienced than Edmund, despite seeming to have only a couple years on him.
“Yes,” Edmund said, putting paid to the thought that had nagged him to sleep the previous night.
“Benjamin Till,” the other boy said, thrusting out his hand.
“Edmund Blackburn.”
After that day, the streets of Kingston only saw the two of them apart when the duties to his household required Edmund elsewhere. An unlikely pair the two of them made: the son of a wealthy man who had his learning from books and the ward of a monastery whose education came from the alleys and docks. They proved a capable team of pilferers and inseparable friends.
In the logic of Edmund’s eight-year-old mind at the time, thievery seemed a simple way to come by some coin on his own. He hadn’t needed the money: his father owned one of the most productive cane plantations in Jamaica and young Edmund had wanted for nothing, save the acknowledgement of a father he was never going to get.
He remembered thinking, in his childlike way, that if he could show his father he’d learnt a way to make money on his own, the man would be proud of him. Profits seemed to be the one and only thing that made Nathaniel Blackburn smile.
Edmund knew stealing was wrong, but he rationalised, even then, that his father wasn’t paying the slaves that worked his fields for their labour, and that was a sort of stealing, in its way, and so how could fault be found with theft of another sort?
He saw, of course, as he’d grown older, the reasons why such logic was unsound, but by then he’d been at his dishonest work for far too long—it was the only trade he knew—and he had little interest for much else.
Edmund and Benjamin grew from gawky boys into grown men together, stealing and conning, sharing their take and the rewards it bought them. From sweets in their youth to whores as they came of age, the two divided all their spoils into fair portions between them.
Unfortunately, shortly after his seventeenth birthday, Edmund had managed to get into a scrape with a mark, and the whole business was brought to the attention of his father, who after that had wanted even less to do with his illegitimate son than he ever had. Edmund’s hopes for parental approval had withered to a dry husk, with little chance for renewal.
Leaving Jamaica seemed like a welcome escape after that, and the War of Succession offered an opportunity. Had he been on better terms with his father, the man might have bought him a commission in the Royal Navy. Since that boon was no longer in the cards for him, and since Benjamin would be having no such hopes at all, the two of them had signed on as privateers instead.
The pair of friends took well to a life at sea, or as well as could be expected, considering the hardships involved. With Edmund’s finer education, it had been easier for him to rise through the ranks, but Benjamin’s talent for making men want to work for him had the young man following not far in his friend’s wake.
A few years at sea, however, brought them both to realise that, much as when they were boys, the biggest prizes were to be got via unscrupulous means.
Edmund almost preferred not to remember some of the more unsavoury deeds he’d done to first acquire The Devil’s Luck, but he was pleased to recall Benjamin standing with him the day he’d watched the beginnings of his crew file aboard, and he’d named his one true friend as Quartermaster. The two of them came to find they had just as much success with the larger scale theft at sea as they’d had when they were boys in the streets and alleys of Kingston, and in not too many years the name Black Edmund was being circulated in port cities like a dirty currency.
The creak of door hinges broke the chain of his memories, and his eyes refocused into the room. Benjamin slipped into the cabin, the only crew member aboard who had permission to enter unannounced. The man had to bow his head to pass beneath the door frame.
Edmund noted the ruddy quality of light filtering in through the windows at the back of his stateroom and realised he must have been swimming in his own thoughts for the better part of an hour.
“Is it time?” he asked his friend.
“It is.” Benjamin shut the door behind him.
“Brilliant,” he said, lowering his boots again to the floor. “Bring her.”
The bald man crossed his arms over his chest and thinned his lips. “She should have water, Edmund.” Benjamin met his eye and he could tell the other man had debated whether to speak his mind. “And we should wait.”
“Wait?” He sat up straighter. What had she said to him out there? “I’ve waited half the day to pick up where we left off. Don’t tell me you were tired of grinding your ‘long gun’ into her aft side. I saw you back there, you weren’t complaining.”
Benjamin made a face, seeing the point being wrestled away from him. “You know I had to pull Graves off of her.”
Ah, yes. There was Benjamin Till. So much warmer than Edmund. So much more affected by wide blue eyes and trembling lips. Of course he’d be a damp cloth on the only entertainment they’d stumbled acr
oss in months. He made a dismissive gesture, but he knew the quartermaster would see the resignation in it.
“You’re growing soft in your old age, my friend.”
He saw the other man brace for an argument. “She’ll pass out, Edmund,” he said, “and we both know that isn’t what you’re after.”
Edmund gave his friend a long look before exhaling through his nose. It was not necessary for the man to be right so often.
“Very well,” he said, “we wait. A short while,” he added when he saw Benjamin’s expression relax. “Have Hawke or Reeve bring a pitcher of water around.”
Till nodded at this, his frame relieved of some tension at having been heard without a row, and turned to leave in search of the deckhands.
There are times, Blackburn, when your own determination seems to cloud matters right in front of your nose.
“Perhaps you’re right,” Edmund said as his old friend opened the door. “Perhaps I’ve been remiss. We’re capable of a much warmer welcome for our toothsome little guest … aren’t we Benjamin?” He wore half a smile now, and the quartermaster matched it with one of his own, shaking his head as he moved back out through the council chamber.
The captain of The Devil’s Luck would need to decide now how to proceed with his unexpected passenger, and in a way that would least upset his quartermaster.
The one thing he did know for certain, he thought, quirking the corner of his mouth up in the dimming light, was that he would do as he’d ever done whenever a prize had been taken and portion out an equal share to his oldest friend.
Hannah Collingwood likely thought him to be quite the brute, but he would dispel any such notions by showing her what a perfect gentleman he could be. Much like the formal dinners he remembered from the years on his father’s estate, guests were always served before the host. He found his smirk growing at the idea. Edmund would oh-so-politely allow the first delicious slice of Mrs Collingwood to go to his esteemed friend and colleague, Mr Benjamin Till.
* * * *
As Benjamin predicted, time to recover had been somewhat necessary for the nude woman Edmund had ordered lashed to his foremast. Mrs Collingwood was wedged into a corner of his stateroom when he came back to check on her, cringing against the wood of a low cabinet with her arms clutching her knees to her chest in a futile attempt to secure herself away from him.
He’d left her with the pitcher and mug of some of the ship’s precious fresh water Reeve had brought. The woman was fortunate they’d only left Bristol that morning, where they’d just replenished their supply. The amount of time she’d gone with nothing to drink had left her lightheaded and weak, and he knew she’d need to shore herself up a might further before she’d be able to endure the sort of diversions he had in mind.
Five hours in the sun had left her pale skin a warm pink in places that had likely never spent time outside a shift or stockings exposed to the free air. Her forehead, the tip of her nose, her shoulders, the tops of her breasts, and even some portion of her thighs glowed with the angry kiss of the sun. Unfortunate, he thought, considering where she’d find herself not too much longer from now.
She seemed more alert now, and tense. The water appeared to have sharpened her senses and brought her back to the former tight wariness he’d seen while he made his earlier “inspection” of her wares.
He smirked to himself at the thought of her outraged sense of propriety. Edmund was accustomed to the casual bawdiness of prostitutes, spreading out their goods for his perusal and opening their painted mouths to offer intimate thanks at the first sound of coins clinking together. He’d forgotten, for a time, the amusing challenges presented by the more respectable women of society.
Hannah Collingwood was correct when she’d protested that she was no whore. But what had intrigued Edmund was the way his blood boiled at her scalding indignity, and even more at the discovery that, despite her vocal objections, his fingers had found her wet as the sea beneath her skirts.
Yes, it would take all of his willpower and etiquette to be polite and allow his friend to taste her first, before he tore into her with both hands like a holiday feast after nothing but weeks of bland tack. He wanted to chew on her flesh and lap up the juices.
Gather yourself. You sound like a madman.
Edmund straightened the sleeves of his coat and composed himself. He was not in the usual state of icy calm that served him so well.
The door clicked open and then closed behind him, and his quartermaster came to stand in the cabin at his side. Edmund nodded to his friend and received the same silent acknowledgement in return before the both of them turned again to take in the cowering Mrs Collingwood.
Her blue eyes were narrowed in suspicion and her lightly freckled nose had the slightest wrinkle over its bridge, hinting at her disgust for the men. The dark blonde tangle of her hair was in more of a disarray now than the neatly pinned arrangement she’d worn before he’d used her locks as a handhold to drag her onto the deck. He couldn’t decide which made his cock harder: the prim Mrs Collingwood held in place by Mr Till while he groped her, or the bedraggled and exhausted Hannah, burnt by the sun before him now.
Edmund made his way around the table in the centre of the room and pulled a tall stool from under the side that faced his unlikely passenger. He removed his hat and laid it aside on the table, taking a seat on the stool and crossing his legs at the ankle, his arms over his chest in consideration. Her eyes had no trouble meeting his and he could see as she held them that she was more furious than afraid. She looked every bit the bristling, cornered cat.
He watched her gaze flick briefly to Benjamin before returning to him, and seeing her considering the presence of the two of them, he knew he was ready to begin his amusements.
“I heard you had another spot of trouble with our surgeon, Mrs Collingwood,” he began in his usual dry manner. “The man seems to be rather taken with you.”
“If you can call him a man.”
Despite her unladylike sneer at this, her eyes broke from his and she hugged herself tighter at the mention of Graves. He didn’t blame her: even a whore would be hard-pressed to service that man without a grimace on her painted face.
“It was a blessing then, that Mr Till happened along when he did, yes?” He waited for her response but she remained silent, refusing to look at him.
“Mrs Collingwood,” he said, “I’ll be expecting answers to my questions. Now, are you not grateful to Mr Till?”
“I am.” Her response came out clipped and in a low voice, trying to give as little to Edmund as possible. Mirth awakened in him as he thought about how much more she would be giving up in a very short amount of time.
“And have you thanked him for his timely intervention?”
“I thanked him at the mast,” she said, suffering her gaze to return to Edmund now.
“Bah! Words, Mrs Collingwood! Do you think, my lovely, that Graves intended to molest you with words alone? No doubt that forked tongue of his would’ve been involved somehow, but no—I’m sure that even when Mr Till arrived he’d already taken his advances beyond a lewd suggestion or two.
“No, Mrs Collingwood, I think you owe my quartermaster here more than just a verbal token of gratitude. Don’t you agree, Mr Till?” Edmund was in the habit of addressing his friend formally in front of others to maintain a healthy respect for rank among his crew.
“She was grateful, Captain,” Benjamin said in assurance, not rising to Edmund’s obvious prompting just yet. The two of them had shared women many times before—why was his friend being odd today? First the petition for delay, and now this. But the man’s words wouldn’t deter him. Edmund had already been thinking about this for too long.
“Well I think she could be a bit more grateful. Stand up, Mrs Collingwood, and come out of that corner.” He jerked a commanding nod at her. She made no move to comply.
Since the moment he’d taken command of his own ship, Edmund Blackburn had grown unaccustomed to disobedience, and h
e frowned, popping a knuckle in irritation. He tried to remind himself that this woman wouldn’t have the ability to withstand the same level of punishment as his men when they didn’t jump to obey him.
“Up, Mrs Collingwood. Now. Unless you’d like another turn at the mast tomorrow morning as well? Perhaps I should lift the ban on my crew’s handling of you …” He let his suggestion trail off, allowing the power of her own imagination to wring compliance from her on his behalf.
After a long moment, in which much heated glaring flew at him, the woman before him stood. The angry colour at her cheeks was not from the sun, and she covered herself as best she could with only the two hands at her disposal.
“Over here please,” he said, extending one of his hands and waggling impatient fingers in her direction. Her jaw clenched in stubbornness and she took a single step closer. Edmund raised his brows, showing her by his expression he did not intend to tolerate her hesitation. She rolled her eyes and made a noise of irritation in her throat, but moved forward the last steps that brought her directly before him.
His extended arm reached out and grabbed her by the wrist—it seemed he was ever required to do so if he wanted to bring her near him—and drew her with some force around to stand by his left side. With one of her hands in his now, she had only half the means to cover herself as before, and she chose to hide her sex with her free hand and leave her pretty, upright breasts bare to him.
Contain yourself, man, she’s not going anywhere.
Fighting down his overbearing urge to plunder her on the spot, the share for his friend be damned, he set her captive hand on his thigh and held it in place with his. Her delicate fingers were warm through the fabric of his breeches and he held back a grunt of arousal.