Claiming a Pirate: A Swashbuckling Historical Romance by Brown Em

Author:Brown,Em [Brown,Em]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2016-10-06T04:00:00+00:00

* * * * *

Unable to take her mind off Dominic and finding the confines of the cabin stifling, Adanya decided to walk the ship.

She went about and greeted the familiar faces among the Phantom’s crew, somewhat expecting to begin old friendships where they had left off. But while the men greeted her with nods, it became clear that she was no longer the Adanya who would steal biscuits from them as a little girl or the fellow crew member who sang bawdy songs as badly out of tune as they did. Instead, she was Captain Mbwana, a stranger. Only Mr. Withers, now with strands of grey streaking his beard, regarded her without the gulf forged by five years of absence.

“Me arse, but if it ain’t little Ya-Ya,” Mr. Withers said, throwing a gruff arm about her shoulders and smashing her into his ample chest.

“A little too much breadfruit and rum of late?” Adanya asked, indicating his rounded belly after he had released her.

“Our latest pillage has turned up as much victuals as gold,” Mr. Withers admitted. “No sense in lettin’ it go to waste.”

He looked her over. “Ye grown prettier since I saw you last. Cap’n Mbwana, is it? Yer father woulda been proud.”

Adanya sat down on top of a barrel of ale. Every time she raided a slave ship, she thought of her father. He had never said specifically why he chose to join the Phantom instead of returning home with the other slaves, but she knew that she lived the destiny he had aspired to for himself.

“Cap’n Bold, too,” Mr. Withers added.

“Eh?”

“Cap’n Bold—he be mighty proud as well, though he cursed you through and through the day you left.”

“He curses me still,” Adanya said.

Withers shrugged. “But he was fair burstin’ his stitches when he heard the bounty the English set on your head. Said you set free some thousands of slaves.”

Adanya had stopped counting, for she had raided ships that carried as many as eight hundred slaves at a time. It disconcerted her that she was less interested in what Withers had to say about her achievements than his insights into what Dominic thought. Dominic had introduced her with flourishing words, but she yearned to know what he really felt.

Only it was senseless to care what he thought. She wasn’t about to do anything different based on the sentiments of one man. A man she hadn’t seen in five years. And whom she would be relieved not to have to see for another five years.

Supper proved uncomfortable enough. Miss Wrenwood, sitting to Dominic’s left, had flushed cheeks, her hair in slight disarray, her gown wrinkled. Adanya had no doubt that Miss Wrenwood had recently lifted her skirts beneath Dominic, and since she could not wholly blame Miss Wrenwood for wanting to lay with the captain, she directed her unsavory feelings at him while shocking Miss Wrenwood with tales of her exploits. Storytelling was in her blood, and Adanya had everyone at the table entranced.

“A terrible abomination,” Mr.

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