by Eris Adderly
He sighed in irritation and turned to the quartermaster. “Mr Till? Let’s have ourselves a drink or two before we sail. I can’t speak for you, but I could use some liquid distraction this evening.” The bald man stepped up beside them to flank Hannah on her right, and nodded in agreement as the captain led the way toward the sounds and scents of the port city proper. Blackburn called over his shoulder to the remaining crew who’d rowed them ashore.
“The rest of you know when we meet back here. Don’t make us wait like last time or we’ll leave you standing here, cocks in hand.”
Hannah flinched a bit at his language as they moved off into the fading twilight. Pirates, she had to continue to remind herself. If she’d only borne that fact in mind this whole time, she might never have given such a portion of herself over to them.
“If only, if only.” Useless speculation, all of it.
Blackburn walked the street on her left and Till on her right, making it clear to passers-by she was otherwise claimed. It set her teeth on edge when her mind supplied her with an unhelpful string of images of another time the two had claimed her, one on either side.
Swine. Bloody, pirate … swine!
And what are you, for enjoying it?
A fool. That’s what I am.
There should not be more than one voice with more than one idea speaking in her head. Her time aboard the ship was changing her, and not for the better. She’d never harboured thoughts of violence before, either, but now Hannah had no trouble picturing herself gripping someone by the hair and introducing their skull to the floor with repetition and vigour until the attached body gave up its twitching and flopping.
She had no idea at all to whom she might do such a thing.
Her glare burned into the infuriatingly handsome side of Blackburn’s face at this thought as they walked along.
No, no idea whatsoever.
The trio were working their way back through the warren of streets, which lay like loose netting over the port. Boisterous sounds of merrymaking poured from glowing windows into the evening air, punctuated by the occasional drunken shout or snatches of argument.
“Here,” was all the captain said as he shouldered his way in through the open door of a noisy, crowded inn’s common room. Till pushed in behind her and she had no choice but to thread her way through the busy space on Blackburn’s coattails.
The Fallen Purse was a far cry from the inn she’d lodged at back in Bristol. The patrons here were loud and mostly male. The few women she saw were either serving food and drink, or brazenly perched on the knees of potential customers. Someone was playing a stringed instrument somewhere she couldn’t see, and it was either of a kind she’d never heard before, or so badly out of tune she couldn’t recognise it for what it was. There was singing as well, of the sort that spoke of someone emboldened by an empty bottle.
Blackburn took up one end of a long table near the back of the room and motioned for her to sit beside him. Again, this was not the time to fight the man. She sat, stiff-backed and as far away as the end of the bench would allow. Till took up a seat across from them both and gestured for one of the serving girls.
Drinks were ordered all around, whether she wanted one or not, and though she barely touched hers the men kept their own coming. Several others joined them at their table, and it seemed the captain knew some of them, though they were not part of his crew.
The laughter got louder and the jokes cruder as the evening wore on, cheeks and noses beginning to redden under the warmth of drink. Hannah sat quietly, making herself as small as possible and trying to block out the worst of the innuendo the men were throwing her way.
Blackburn was unusually expansive after a number of mugs had been drained, and Till was goading him into recounting tales of their early days at sea. The crowd of men was particularly amused to hear how the quartermaster had come by his first tattoo, which he refused to show any of them. The table was thumped soundly, knees slapped and beer sloshed over fists as they crowed at the story.
A week ago, she might have enjoyed hearing such a thing, and would surely have demanded Till show her the tattoo straight away, while in his cabin for good measure. At the moment, however, Hannah was paying little attention to their talk.
While the low chorus of male laughter went on around her in a drunken storm, Hannah had become the calm eye at its centre. No one was paying her any mind just now. The door to the kitchen was just behind her.
Closer and closer she inched her bottom toward the end of the bench, making no move so swift or obvious it might attract the notice of her captors. Blackburn faced away from her now, his interest engaged by a broadly gesturing man with blond hair and a wide, meaty face who was spinning some yarn that involved a serpent or some such nonsense. Till was rapt as well and not looking in her direction. Just one more inch …
Hannah rose from the bench and backed toward the swinging kitchen door, eyes wide with fright that someone would turn back at any moment and see what she was attempting.
A step further. Another. Another.
Oh please, please …
When she bumped into the door, it was a tap on the shoulder from God. She was free.
“Can I help you, Miss?”
She whirled around at the female voice to find a confused serving girl eyeing her while wiping at her hands with a rag.
“Umm … no. That is, I … I thought this was the door to the alley,” Hannah said, improvising a flimsy excuse for her backing into the inn’s kitchen. She silently cursed herself.
That’s the best you could do?
“Oh no, Miss. That’s just through there.” The woman pointed over her shoulder at a second door behind her. The clouds parted once again over Hannah’s head.
“Yes. Right. Of course it is. Thank you,” she said to the other woman, cutting a swift path to the only exit that wouldn’t put her back in Blackburn’s sight.
Hannah slid out of The Fallen Purse without a single backward glance for the serving girl in the kitchen or the two knaves she was leaving behind. A weight lifted from her shoulders as she stood there in the alley considering which way to go in the darkness.
She took a deep, liberating breath of the sweet night air. How Hannah would find a way out of Nassau, or where she might hide in the meantime when the inevitable search for her ensued, she didn’t yet know. But just like her uncle, ten years earlier, she was determined to rid herself of a noose around her neck that bore the name Blackburn. It was time to put this entire harrowing business behind her once and for all.
* * * *
“Edmund.”
His quartermaster hissed at him from across the table, tone urgent and incongruous with the raucous laughter rippling around the common room. He turned an eye to the man in mild irritation, giving him a questioning toss of his head and a shrug of one shoulder. What was Benjamin worried about now?
The tattooed man angled his head and arched a meaningful brow at the space on the bench next to Edmund. He turned, shaking his mind out of the warm comfort of the drink, trying to put together a reason for his friend’s odd behaviour.
The space.
“Where is she, Edmund?”
His eyes darted around the room from table to table. The widow was nowhere in sight.
“Fuck!”
The vehemence of his expletive startled even the rough men he’d been laughing with seconds ago, and several turned to stare at him. Edmund swept his empty mug aside and scooped up his hat again as he stood, sobering at the speed of fear.
Till came to his feet and followed Edmund as he pushed through tangled groups of inebriated men and out the door to the street.
Which way, which way?
“The docks,” Benjamin said, following his thoughts as always.
The two men set off at a run in the direction Till pointed. They needed to find the Widow Collingwood, and quickly, before she was lost to them in more ways than she already was.
* * * *
Hannah kept to the alleys in her att
empts to avoid being seen in the most obvious places Blackburn might come looking. She was trying to move as far away as possible from the inn, making haste to put as much distance between her and the two men as she could. The amount of time she’d have before her presence was missed was likely very short.
There was no thought that the captain might simply count her as a loss and leave her. No, he needed her as leverage to draw out her uncle. Pursuit was as certain as sunrise.
Staying in Nassau would not be an acceptable option, she thought as she scurried between sheltering pools of darkness. The only way to escape capture now would be to flee the port entirely and, if possible, on a ship pointed elsewhere before Blackburn came to realise what had happened. If he had any idea where her next destination might be, Hannah was sure to see the sails of The Devil’s Luck on the horizon in short order.
Something made a gritty, crackling noise ahead of her. Hannah pressed herself into the shadows against the rear wall of the closest building, holding her breath and praying for her body to be still. The sound became more vigorous and then stopped, along with her heart in her chest. Interminable seconds later, a bony dog went trotting past and she nearly collapsed with relief.
As soon as Hannah felt sure the dog had been the only other occupant of the alley, she took up her stealthy retreat again along with her urgent scheming.
How could she make her way on to another vessel? The captains of other ships of the same nefarious ilk as The Devil’s Luck would be about as interested in transporting passengers as Blackburn initially was. There was always the possibility of stowing away, but she tossed that idea as soon as it came into her head with a quiet snort of disgust. Hannah was only fooling herself if she thought she could hide in an enclosed space like a ship for some undetermined amount of time without the crew detecting her. And upon discovery, they’d likely throw her overboard or worse.
Even if, by some odd stroke of chance, some other captain were to take her on as a passenger, what coin did she have to pay her way? And none of her skills or the knowledge she’d earned from years with her nose between the pages of books would be useful for earning her way as a part of a crew, like Brigit with her cooking. If any of the servants at her father’s estate had seen Hannah in the kitchen, they would’ve asked her if she was lost.
Oh, you’ve learnt a new skill or two in the last few weeks that might be useful, Hannah. Why don’t you bargain with that?
The idea was appalling. Was she not disgraced enough?
But what other means did she have, if not the only coin that a woman carried with her all the time? She remembered the captain’s crude words from that very first day.
Let’s see what coin you have brought to pay for your passage, my dear…
Mr Till, it appears her purse is overflowing indeed…
To have to endure such acts again? Could she possibly? But this time she would be under no illusions. If she could convince herself of the necessity of such a transaction, she would not be seduced this time, nor tricked into thinking the men involved cared for her as anything more than a bed warmer.
Desperation was driving her to contemplate the unthinkable. Could it be done? Her body was just another object, was it not? She would cast it off one day when she left this world in death. The flesh was not the person, not the soul. Her hands were but tools to convey food into her mouth, her legs to move her from place to place. If she could properly divorce her higher faculties from her earthly self, would she not see that the traitorous pink between her thighs could be used to her advantage, for her survival as well?
Perhaps she could, if only—
“Come to dance for Big John, have you?”
The damp cough and deep voice startled Hannah, but not as much as the ground rushing up to meet her.
She let out a yelp of alarm and brought her hands up to prevent her face from smacking into the hard earth. One of her wrists twisted upon impact and sent a blinding lance of pain up her arm. She tried to push herself up with her other hand to see who or what had tripped her, only to find the evening stars blotted out by a hulking form.
A meaty hand made a fist in the neckline at the back of her dress and hauled Hannah to her feet. She’d landed in a puddle and the front of her was now soaked in stagnant water. The bear of a man seemed to appear from nowhere, though it was more likely he’d been concealed in the shadows. Her own thoughts had distracted her enough to miss the shape of another person haunting the alley.
“Aren’t you just fresh as a daisy?” he said, moving his grip to her arm as he yanked her around to face him.
The shock of her fall wore off and Hannah realised the amount of trouble she was about to be in. She screeched and twisted under his coarse hand, making to jerk herself free and run for all she was worth. But in response to her flailing, her attacker took hold of her other arm as well and gave her a jolting shake for good measure, rocking her head back on her neck. For a man who appeared to be drunk, he surely had a firm grasp.
“So you do dance, then!” he said in rotten amusement, his breath making her insides churn and want to retch. The stinking beast of a man thrust her against the wall, and her teeth clacked together, the blow to the back of her head making a blue flash across her vision.
The world spun and everything was happening at once.
She was pinned against the wall and a thick knee was wedging her thighs apart. For some reason command of her voice was gone and she couldn’t make a scream rise in her throat. A sickening wet tongue lapped at the side of her face and fabric was bring tugged at and rumpled aside amid the grind of male hips and moist, heavy breathing.
“Big John’ll have you hopping about, just you see here.”
More than the blunt, filthy fingers trying to force her apart, it was the insistent slur of the man’s words that snapped a reaction out of her.
This was not happening again. Absolutely not.
No.
“NO!”
* * * *
The shriek of denial he’d just heard was not far off, and Edmund stopped mid-stride, his hand reaching out to splay in front of Benjamin, halting the other man in his tracks, as well.
He knew the exact pitch and flavour of that outraged ‘No’. He’d wrung it from her himself the day she’d come into his life.
Hannah.
Spitting a jagged round of curses in to the night, he sprinted in the direction of the cry, Till barrelling along behind without question. The quartermaster had recognised her cry, as well.
He’d told her not to leave his side. Did she think he’d meant it lightly? And now she was in trouble, precisely as he’d warned. This woman would be the death of him yet.
* * * *
Hannah continued to yell and snarl in vain. She’d spat in his face and been soundly slapped for her troubles. Her one wrist was useless for fending him off now that she’d twisted it, and the only thing still keeping the beast from his aims was that he had enough drink in him to prevent his manhood from obeying his desires.
The sheer absurdity of the situation overcame her. She’d escaped one rapist only to be caught by another, and this second one could not even do the deed properly. At the thought of her miserable fate, Hannah did the worst thing she could have possibly done to a man in his position.
She laughed at him.
At first it was a single giggle that escaped, but as is often the case when a person finds humour where they shouldn’t, she couldn’t contain herself. She threw back her aching head in a throaty chuckle at the profound joke that being played on her.
Her assailant stopped his fruitless tugging at the sound of her derision, his sleepy prick indifferent to any attempts to rouse it. The alley was dark, but Hannah could see that a new menace glittering in his eyes.
A short cudgel appeared in his hand, and he hoisted her chin with it, tilting her jaw upward at a painful angle.
“Is it wood you want, whore? Not so fancy as I thought, but Big John’ll give it to you either way.”
> Before, he’d sought his own enjoyment. Now he wanted her to hurt.
The tip of the cudgel trailed down over her bodice and lower. She knew now what he intended and thrashed against him, useless, her head turning to the side in a refusal to look at him when he violated her with the blunt weapon. It was beginning to seem possible that she might not live through this.
Hannah stared with blank eyes down the alley, avoiding the foul picture in front of her, trying to pretend the feel of wood seeking entrance between her thighs was merely a nightmare.
A dark silhouette was approaching the grotesque scene taking place in the shadows and she numbly thought perhaps Death himself had come to take her with mercy before this drunken fiend could hurt her the way he wanted.
The growing apparition became two and the nearest one clarified into a familiar shape.
“Edmund!”
Her wild cry to the man she’d only just escaped from was humiliating, but there was no one else who might help her.
She wasn’t sure of the exact order in which the next events happened, because they seemed to occur all at once.
The self-named ‘Big John’ started and looked up at her scream and the arrival of the two other men. A violent crack of sound split the air. Hannah’s face and neck were sprayed with warm liquid. Her attacker slumped to the ground. Edmund stood with a pistol still pointed in her direction, a chilling look of calm on his face.
Benjamin Till came from behind the captain, loping toward her, grabbing Hannah by her injured wrist to pull her over the body now lying at her feet. She yelped in pain at his grip, but he’d already let go and was wiping what she realised was blood from her cheeks and forehead with a kerchief he’d produced from Heaven knew where.
Hannah stood there in shock at the improbability of it all, but Captain Blackburn, ever a man of action, broke the gruesome spell of the moment with his words.