Captain England (Post 7)

He held his hand out to me, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You’ve a weak stomach, cailin,” he said.

“You killed him,” I said, taking his hand and letting him pull me upright. “For real. You killed him.”

“Yes, I did,” he replied nonchalantly. “And if I remember correctly, I told ye not to leave the house.”

“Nothing but trouble,” Jameson grumbled behind him, a stream of tobacco shooting from his mouth into the shrubs. “I say leave her be, Cap’n. She’s a mess o’ trouble, waiting to happen. Mark my word.”

“I can’t help ye,” England said, looking me straight in the eyes with his steely blue ones, “if ye don’t do as I say. There are no ladies here in Nassau. Only whores. Only pirates’ women. I may not know what ye are, lass, but I know this: Ye won’t last a second here without protection. Is that plain enough?”

I nodded. I wasn’t just about to argue. I was shaken to the bone. “It’s just that… I wanted… a bath.”

England raised an eyebrow. “How now?”

I rubbed my face with my hands, stumbling a bit in the sand. “A bath. With soap. To get clean.”

The men exchanged glances and England grinned. “Well, now, why didn’t ye say so to start instead of wandering out into the rain and nearly getting yerself raped and killed?”

“I tried… I asked Kat…” I sighed. “That was a bad idea. I’m sorry. I’m so confused… You killed that man…” I was starting to feel dizzy. Jesus, I can’t faint again. Seriously. All I was doing since arriving in 1718 was puking and fainting. 1718. This wasn’t an act if I’d just watched a man die. I’d watched a pirate skewer another pirate dead with a cutlass. Dear God, was it possible? I was in 1718.

As the sun set in a spectacular display of pink, purple, and orange over a placid, shimmering sea, the storm but a cluster of dark clouds in the distance, the men abandoned their work cleaning the hulls of several beached ships and loading cargo onto others to eat, drink, and womanize. England was watching me as we walked past the tents, the pirates laughing and cussing around their fires, mugs and bottles of ale and beer and rum in their hands. The prostitutes giggled and flirted and sat in the men’s laps, their breasts nearly tumbling from their low-cut bodices.  “Yer not going to faint again, are ye, lass?” he asked warily, reaching for my arm. “Ye’re looking a bit pale.”

“Nothing but a load o’ trouble,” Jameson growled, a step behind us.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I’ll be fine. I just need a bath.”

England chuckled. “Do folk wash themselves often in 2009, then?”

I looked at him, finally cracking a smile. “Yes. Yes. Every day. Well, most of us do.”

Back at the house, Kat was gone. I breathed a sigh of relief. Jameson disappeared and England produced a bar of lye soap, a pitcher, and a clean rag. While my hopes of submerging myself in a bathtub were dashed, I was able to wash my face and body to a semblance of cleanliness. I rubbed a bit of soap at the roots of my hair, but didn’t bother washing it. It would have been impossible, anyway, with the amount of clean water I’d been given. This would have to do.

England had also left a stack of dry clothes for me at the door, and this set was quite a bit finer than the worn, smelly rags Kat had given me. The gown was made of fine aquamarine silk that was delicately beaded and embroidered in silver thread, with a petticoat of damask. The clothes smelled of lavender, and a bit of must. Pirate booty. The owner must have never worn them before they were stolen.

As I struggled with the corset, England politely rapped on the doorframe. I was startled to see him in his finery – he wore a rich maroon knee-length coat with wide cuffs that were folded back and gold buttons that gleamed as he moved. His waistcoat and breeches were clean silk, his shoes were buckled, and he wore a large three-cornered hat on his head. Around his neck was a silk cravat, and his red hair was smoothed and tied back with a black ribbon. Best of all, he smelled a little bit less pungent, which meant he’d washed up. I noticed that, despite the sumptuous clothes, he still wore his weapons strapped to him beneath his coat.

England caught my admiring look and went red. Not knowing how to respond – the incident that afternoon had caused me to rethink my initial assessment of him – I turned my back and asked, “Can you lace me up? I can’t do this by myself.” I waited, hearing him shift behind me.

“Eh…Kat’s not back yet…I’m not sure where she went off to…” he said.

I looked over my shoulder at him. “Can’t you help me?” The man had carried me in his arms, watched me puke my guts out, smelled me at my worst, killed a guy for me… and he was hesitating over this? Maybe it was because I finally didn’t look like complete and total shit. I was as clean as I was apparently going to get, and I was wearing some pretty nice clothes. My hair was a wild mess, but there was nothing I could do about that. I had brushed my teeth and applied some of T’s makeup – some powder, blush, and mascara. The small mirror on the inside of the makeup bag wasn’t big enough for a total assessment, obviously, but it did reveal that I was in dire need of tweezers. My eyebrows were getting out of control.

I waited, my head turned away from him, listening to the rustle of his fine clothes as he hesitated. Then I felt the laces tighten, and I straightened, trying not to hold my breath. I was focusing on doing the little things and forcing myself not to think about the big things. I wasn’t ready for that yet. I wasn’t ready to deal with reality yet. I just wanted to clean myself, dress myself, think about the small, trivial things in life. For a change. “So what’s going on between you and Kat?” I asked, dragging my mind away from direction my thoughts were taking.

“Kat?”

“Yeah.” I realized that England was lacing me too loose – he seemed afraid of pulling the laces tight. He was probably afraid I’d faint or throw up. Because that’s all I’d been doing lately. “She seems possessive of you.”

He was quiet for a moment. “Does she now?” I could tell by the tone of his voice he had no intention of answering my question. Which was just as well, since I knew the answer already. Hadn’t he not-so-subtly explained it to me? There were no “ladies” in Nassau. Just “whores and pirates’ women.” I turned to face him, secretly glad he’d gone easy with the stays. He was merely a couple inches taller than my meager five-foot-five-inch frame, but it made no difference: I knew, looking at him, that he was not a man to be messed with. I opened my mouth to say something when Jameson burst into the  house and, in the next stride, into the room.

His hooded eyes darted from England to me uncomfortably, his large jaw working his essentially toothless gums, when he said to England, “That jade ‘o yours, Kat… been making trouble for this one here, she has! Went and cozied up to Charlie Vane, if ye get me drift, and told him we had a witch in  our midst…” Jameson glared at me accusingly. “It was that bag ‘o hers, filled with odd trinkets, and her running out in the rain, like she were mad…”

England froze, his expression unreadable. He looked at me steadily and said, “Now ye’ll be obliged to accompany me on my business this evening, lass, since leaving ye here is no longer an option. If word of ye has gotten out, then yer not safe alone, in my house or otherwise.” He then chewed the inside of his cheek, contemplating something. “For yer safety, ye’ll have to be willing to play a part, ye see?”

The nervous energy of the two men was contagious, and I found myself cracking my knuckles, twisting my fingers in my hands. “What part?”

England looked nervous, and Jameson guffawed. “The cap’n’s doxy, luv!” the quartermaster said.

I looked from Jameson to England, my eyebrows practically at my hairline. “You want me to pretend to be your…your…?” When England hesitated, the flush creeping back up his neck, and Jameson continued to cackle, I took England’s arm, straightened my shoulders. I wasn’t going to fight it anymore. Wherever I was and however I got there, I was in for a wild ride, and there clearly was no getting off.

I took a deep breath and smiled at the blushing pirate captain, now my only friend and ally. I said, “Let’s do this, then.”