Of course, I woke. Life was too cruel to grant me a permanent reprieve from the pain. I lay face-down, my body a single pulsing ache wrapped in the welts of my mistakes.
I’d failed, and my shame took on a horrifying new meaning in the silver light of dawn.
With my cheek pressed to the leaf-littered ground, I blinked the grit from my eyes, disoriented by the view before me.
A pair of dirt-coated slippers peeked out from a hem of lavender silk. I twisted my neck, following the wrinkled skirt of a gown, up, up, up to the glaring visage of the countess.
She stared down at me, hands on her hips, scrutinizing the remains of a dress she’d worked so hard to make.
Guilt crushed my chest.
“Mother…” My voice burned in my throat, raw from screaming and parched from dehydration.
“Don’t.” She simmered in her stillness, her jaw quivering in unholy rage. “I don’t know what I did to invite such vile disrespect and hatred, but I will not hear your excuses. Not this time.”
“I don’t hate you.” “Not another word!”
A brown mare whinnied behind her, and the sight of it confused me.
That horse didn’t belong to the marquess.
Had my mother ridden it here? This deep into the woods before dawn?
Alone?
I returned my attention to her face, her complexion drained of color in the frame of fallen, untamed hair. She looked so disheveled and tired, nothing like herself. And she was still wearing the gown I’d last seen her in yesterday morning.
“You came for me?” I rolled to my back and regretted it instantly.
A violent burst of pain blazed through my body, plaguing every muscle and joint. Dizziness mottled my vision, and I gasped through the torment, squinting at her ghost-white expression.
“Whose blood is that?” She pointed a trembling finger at my chest. “Not mine.” I sat up sluggishly and scanned the thick grove for the
Marquess of Grisdale.
How much could I tell her? Had news already traveled to the house about the arrest of Edric Sharp? I’d never so much as mentioned his name in her presence. If I told her everything now, would she stop me from rescuing him?
She stepped over me in a rustle of silk and made a beeline through the shadows of the trees, ducking under branches and yanking her skirts free from thorns.
A few paces away, she stopped with a gasp. Her hand fell to the bodice at her stomach, and she bent at the waist, heaving for breath.
I pushed to my feet, swaying through a bout of wooziness, but I didn’t follow her. I could see the body well enough from here.
With the dagger protruding from the torso and the breeches unbuttoned at the waist, no words were needed. Comprehension glowed in her clever eyes.
But understanding didn’t beget compassion. I’d ruined her chance at returning to English society and stood before her as a murderer, covered in the blood of my crime.
Locking my knees, I braced for her condemnation.
“I would’ve done the same.” She lifted her chin and turned away from the body.
“Truly?” Shock stuttered my breath.
“Any man who meets with a prudent woman and offers to meddle with her, without her consent, shall suffer present death.”
“Even at her own hand?” My pulse raced.
“Even so. No matter the laws of man.” Her expression turned to stone. “Tis our law. Yours and mine.”
I stared at her, thunderstruck. Never had I felt a connection to another woman as I did to my mother in that moment. She met my eyes with more confidence and conviction than any titled lord. Her stubbornness was the bane of my existence, but I realized now that same ferocity would be used to protect me.
For the first time in my life, I saw what my father saw. A woman who was brave enough to cross the Great Western Ocean alone and pregnant. She was beauty and strength in her own right, a force to reckon with. If anyone could help me rescue him, she could.
I tamped down my rioting nerves and treaded carefully. “Has there been word of an arrest?”
“No one has discovered the body.” Returning to my side, she gripped my arm and guided me toward the horse. “I’ll send someone I trust to collect the remains. This will be our secret. One we’ll take to our graves.”
“No, I mean…” I stepped back from her grip, stumbling on shaky legs. “Someone else was arrested.”
“I’ve been searching for you all night. I haven’t been home to hear of any…” The blood drained from her face. “Who was arrested, Benedicta?”
“A seafarer.” I swallowed, and my eyes burned with tears. “A buccaneer.”
She went still, and her voice trembled to a whisper. “What have you done?”
“He’s…” I shook my head, faltering over the confession. “My father…” “No.” She staggered backward and tripped on a branch. “No, no, no. He promised me.” With an ungraceful spin, she flung herself toward the horse.
“He promised he would never get caught when he visited you.” “What?” A fist clamped around my heart. “You knew?”
“Of course, I knew.” She fumbled in her urgency to mount the horse, her skirts tangling around her legs. “He always sent two hounds. When one passed, the other showed the replacement how to find us. They were his couriers.”
“That’s how he sent you his letters?” My eyes bulged. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I needed you to fiercely guard that secret. As long as you hid it from me, I trusted you could hide it from those who would harm him.” Her slipper caught in the stirrup, and she swung up onto the saddle, her features distorted with an emotion I’d never seen there before.
Fear.
“When was he arrested?” She turned the horse about, facing the opposite direction.
“Before dusk.” I floundered after her, my pulse tripping in my veins. “There will be a trial.”
“Not for a pirate, you foolish girl. And certainly not for Edric Sharp.
Don’t you get it, Benedicta? We made him weak.” “No, he loves us!”
“And I gave him up because I… I couldn’t be the reason for his demise.” She turned away and signaled the horse to move. “Go home and burn that gown.”
“Mother, wait!” I grabbed the bridle, halting her. “If there’s any love for him left inside you, you will save him!”
She bent down and slapped my hand away, her lips pulling back in a sneer. “I love him so viciously I would die for him.”
Her declaration slammed into me, knocking the wind from my lungs.
She lunged the horse forward and dashed into the gloom of shadows.
I staggered after her, but she was already gone.
My father would be in the town gaol, so that was where I needed to go.
But not drenched in blood. And not without a horse.
Stripping out of the gown, I found only a few stains on the petticoat and bodice of my stays.
I stuffed the dress inside the hollow of a dead tree, retied my father’s compass to my waist, and turned in the direction where the sky was the lightest. East. The beach. Once I reached the sea, I could follow it south to the port of Charleston.
As I walked, I pushed through the pangs in my body and listened for the neigh of a horse.
Thirst was the most gnawing ache. And hunger. The throbbing in my face, backside, and feet dulled in comparison. But when I spotted a horse through the trees, all physical pain gave way to exhilaration.
It took me several minutes to mount Grisdale’s horse, and several more to race to the beach. When I emerged from the woods, the sun was already cresting the horizon.
My father’s boots and cutlass still lay in the sand, but I didn’t stop to collect them. I galloped south, eyes on the water, searching for his ship as I followed the shore to town.
If I had a spyglass and climbed one of the tallest trees, perhaps I would spot Jade.
I sped onward, spurred by images of a noose around his neck. Would they hang him at dawn? Or force him to attend Sunday service, preach to him about his sins, and hang him after?
Tears stung my eyes, and my entire body shook in the saddle.
My mother would stop them. She loved my father. How had I ever thought she didn’t? She would save him, and we would sail away.
We would be a family.
The thought was so comforting I let it play out in my head—my father standing at the bow of his ship with his hands on the railing and the wind in his hair, the countess and me flanking his sides and sharing joyous smiles. He would sing off-tune, and we would laugh and join in. The destination wouldn’t matter because we would already be home, together at sea, as we were meant to be.
I choked on tearful laughter and propelled the horse faster. Chest tight and fingers clinched around the reins, I abandoned the fringe of forest on my right and approached the edge of town.
Piers stretched like fingers out to sea, and buildings scattered along the walkways that lined the beach. The sun sat just above the water, and a few townsfolk meandered from one place to the next.
The gaol wasn’t visible from the beach, and I questioned the wisdom in entering the town half-dressed and guilty of murder.
In the distance, a bell tolled, signaling the start of Sunday service. Most of the residents would be gathering there.
With a shaky breath, I searched the buildings for a sign of the countess or her horse. My gaze darted over pathways, faces, shadowed alcoves, and… An ominous structure. One that didn’t belong on the beach.
I urged the horse closer, squinting at the wooden platform that appeared to have been moved from the center of town.
Two uprights towered over it, and something hung from the crosspiece. Not something.
Someone.
A cold sweat swept over me, and sickening dread muted everything around me.
My mind fractured, and I didn’t recall dismounting the horse. One moment I was in the saddle. The next I was standing at the foot of the
gallows, staring up at a dead man.
A tide of tears warped my inspection of his face, so I focused on the feet that dangled at eye level above the platform.
Feet that were covered in deerskin shoes, decorated with porcupine quills and glass beads. And splotches of blood.
Numbness spread across my skin. The shoes weren’t real.
Not real. Not real. Not real.
None of this was real.
I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes, rubbing away the blur of a nightmare. Then I forced my gaze back up.
Broad shoulders. Wide mouth. Sun-bronzed skin. Gold earring. Red hair.
No. It wasn’t possible. Captain Edric Sharp was invincible.
“Father?” My arms reached for him, and I willed him to lift his chin, to open his eyes, to give me a smile. “Father, please!”
Sunlight cast his body in stripes of gold and shadow. The rope creaked, but the wind seemed not to stir.
Nothing stirred. Not his arms in the restraints. Not the lashes fanning his cheekbones. Not a twitch on his lips.
He floated above me, suspended, unreachable, unmoving. Dead.
Gone.
He was gone.
My mouth hung open, but no sound came out. No scream. No breath. He would never hug me again.
He died alone.
I gripped the back of my head and curled around the anguish in my chest, rocking, shaking, unable to stem the onslaught of pain. It gathered in my throat, throbbed along my teeth, and broke the air in a wailing, guttural howl.
I didn’t know how long I lay bent over the platform, sobbing in a pool of loss and heartbreak. I didn’t lift my head until voices sounded in the distance.
Cupping cold fingers over my mouth, I captured the cries that tumbled out.
My legs turned to water, and I collapsed beside the gallows, unable to mute the sounds behind my hand.
In the back of my mind, I knew I couldn’t stay here. Not without being questioned about my inappropriate attire, the stains on my undergarments, and the disappearance of the Marquess of Grisdale.
I thought of my mother. She’d ridden off in this direction and would’ve found him, same as me.
She needed me as I needed her.
I needed her strength, her wisdom, her arms folded tightly around me. I just…
I desperately needed my mother.
Moving through a fuzzy, grief-leaden trance, I peered over the platform and spotted a group of redcoats gathered on the road that led through town.
My only escape was back the way I’d come.
As I rose to my feet, something caught the men’s attention. They turned away to greet the approach of a loose horse.
The horse I’d stolen from the marquess. My chest tightened. I’d lost my ride.
I lost my father.
With the soldiers distracted, I stared up into his face and choked, “I love you with everything I am, and I don’t want to leave you. But I think…” I stole a glance at the redcoats. “I think you would be angry if I didn’t run now.”
Drawing in a tear-soaked breath, I forced myself to turn away. Then I ran.
My feet pounded the warm sand, and my arms pumped with the motion.
I didn’t look back, didn’t slow, no matter how shaky my legs became.
Seashells and rocks sliced the soles of my feet. Labored breaths scorched my dry and thirsty throat. The pain pushed me harder, faster, and when I reached a stretch of barren shore, I screamed.
Tears streaked my face, and I kept running. Crushing sorrow strangled my insides, and I quickened my pace. Muscles tore in protest, and I cried louder, sobbing brokenly from a bottomless well of pain.
Every kilometer was a just punishment, the abuse on my body a price for my failures. No one deserved a beating more than me, and I absorbed that pain until my bones buckled upon the beach.
The sun’s heat burned my back, and I lifted my pounding head, squinting through tangles of hair.
A towering cliff rose before me, and the shore curved inward, forming a crescent that spanned sixty paces.
The beach where my father was arrested.
I crawled to the shade of the nearby outcropping of trees, and my ears perked to the sound of buzzing.
Swarms of flies hovered over the brush, and as I drew closer, I saw the blood-soaked fur.
My father’s dead hounds.
With a nauseated cry, I pushed to my feet and staggered along the inlet in the direction of his cutlass and boots. I summoned just enough energy to gather his belongings before crashing to the sand.
My heart pulled toward my mother, and my desperation to find her seemed to conjure her out of the sky.
Lying on my back, I gazed up at the cliff, and there she was, floating on the edge of the precipice.
Golden hair whipped around her head, her arms stretched out to the sea. She was an apparition of unearthly beauty, screeching fiercely into the wind.
“Edddddric!” A loud shrill cry shattered her voice as she chanted his name over and over.
She didn’t look down at me, didn’t move her attention from the sea.
How was she in the sky? Soaring over me like an angel? I must have been dreaming her.
Because I needed her.
But something didn’t feel right.
I curled my hands in the sand, testing the scratchy grains against my skin. Would I be able to feel that in a dream?
Why was she on the cliff? Had she floated there? Or climbed?
Panic stitched through my chest, and I fumbled to my feet, clinging to my father’s possessions.
Seagulls swooped and cawed around her, and she mimicked their form. “Edric, my love!” Arms open like a bird, she stepped off the cliff and
took flight. “Edric!”
Her gown rippled around her, and the bellow of her cry broke with the tide. But instead of gliding out to sea, she plunged to the rubble of boulders
below.
My entire body jerked as she hit the rocks.
I would die for him.
Numb paralysis spread through me.
Not real.
My feet carried me forward, but there was no feeling. No breath.
Muscles failed, and I used the cutlass for support, stabbing it into the sand and stumbling closer. Closer. Until her broken form filled my view.
I didn’t feel the surf batter me into the cliff as I climbed the moss-slick boulders. The ocean would’ve been frigid this time of year, but I couldn’t feel the water as it soaked into my clothing.
With fingers locked around the boots and cutlass, I made it to my mother’s side.
She lay on a rock twice her size, her neck twisted at an unnatural angle. I curled up against her chest and touched the red skin around her open eyes, collecting the tears there.
“I loved him, too, Mother.” Agony unfurled in my breast. “Why did you leave me? I needed you.”
Blue eyes of glass stared back.
She doesn’t see me.
I tucked the boots and cutlass between us and pulled her arm around me. A trickle of blood fell from her mouth. I wiped it away and burrowed closer, burying my face in her neck.
The soft silk of her hair fluttered against my lips as I sobbed. Her delicate frame lay like twisted driftwood against me. I pulled her closer, straightening her skirts, arranging her limbs, and clinging to her embrace.
There was only so much suffering a person could endure before they broke. Sometimes, broken things couldn’t be put back together.
My body wasn’t broken like my mother’s, but I was empty all the same.
And tired. So very tired.
Closing my eyes wasn’t hard. They pulled shut on their own. When I opened them, I was greeted by nightfall.
Moonlight sparkled over my mother’s skin, giving her an ethereal glow. Eventually, someone would find us and take her away from me. Or maybe the crabs would take her. I leaned up to flick one from her hair, and a pair of jackboots stepped into my view.
Craning my neck, I looked up to find Charles Vane standing over me.
I licked cracked lips and rasped, “My father…”
“I tried to rescue him.” He crouched beside me, his expression unreadable in the moonlight. “They hanged him at dawn. Moved the gallows to the beach and did it right there to send a message to us. His crew.”
“You were there?”
He nodded stiffly. “So was she.” He glanced at the countess. “Your mother?”
“Yes.”
“She arrived as it happened and…” His brows furrowed as he gazed up at the peak of the cliff. “She went mad.”
I followed his gaze. “Did it take her pain?” “I suppose it did.”
“This day took everything from me. Everything I loved. Everything I had.” I studied the rocky face of the cliff, wondering if I had the strength to climb it.
“Not everything.” He bent over me and scooped up my mother’s body from the rock. “I couldn’t save Captain Sharp, but I can save you.”
As he strode away with her, I pondered his words with a sluggish mind.
Did I want to be saved? What was left to salvage?
Moments later, he returned and lifted me into his arms. I’d never felt so weak and lifeless. I didn’t even have the will to struggle as he carried me into the sea.
Muscles flexed beneath me as he lowered me into a jolly boat. My father’s boots and cutlass joined me.
And I wasn’t alone.
Two dead bodies lay at my feet, and the sight of them together breathed life into my heart.
“How?” I crawled toward my parents and gripped their cold hands, lacing their fingers together in the squeeze of mine.
“I stole his body from the gallows.” He climbed into the boat behind me. “Captain Sharp deserves a burial at sea.”
“Thank you.” I lay down beside them and wrapped my arms around my father’s chest. “What will happen to me?”
“That’s up to you.” He stabbed the oars into the black water and pushed out to sea. “Jade is yours. The captain was very clear on that point the night he took her.”
“I’m only fourteen.”
“I’ll captain her until you earn the crew’s trust.” He tipped his head, studying me. “I was younger than you, orphaned like you, when I chose this life. I have no regrets.”
“I’m a girl.” A broken, empty girl. I tightened my hand around my parents’ entwined fingers. “The crew won’t accept me without my father.”
“Don’t give them a choice.” His gaze flitted over me, and a smirk touched the corner of his mouth. “I saw a fearless fire burning inside you yesterday. Get that back, Bennett, and naught will stand in your way.”
I felt it. A spark of something beneath the cold, heavy weight of pain. Something to live for.
My hand fell to the compass that hung from my waist.
When you’re ready, you will follow it and claim what’s rightfully yours.
I closed my eyes and cried.
