Pirate's Prize by Stephanie Flynn

Author:Stephanie Flynn [Stephanie Flynn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Small Fish Publishing
Published: 2022-05-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Emily dragged a hand through her short hair. She’d laid out everything she wanted, and the captain said no. If she couldn’t convince him to hand over her freedom, the pirate code demanded her death for simply being a woman onboard. Her betrayal would be made public to the whole crew, but the only one whose trust she wanted was the captain’s.

“What do you mean?” she asked with an edge to her voice.

“I can’t do that,” he repeated, softly.

The anger returned. “Can’t kill me for being a woman who broke the articles, or can’t let me go home?”

“Five and twenty years I’ve sailed these waters, twenty as a captain.” Captain Lemoine still stared at his palms. “My crew turned over more than once in that time. Some accounts were more successful than others. Happening upon your merchant ship at that precise moment saved my position. The crew’s been on the edge of mutiny for months. You witnessed their divide regarding the lack of rum. It’s been worse.”

Intrigued at the captain opening up to her, she asked, “How did you pacify them before?”

“Promises. My ledger of promises has been red for some time. When you saved me from mutiny, I had no promises left to give. Price’s actions were inexcusable. He and I have dealings to discuss, but I cannot thank you enough.” He turned to her with a wince, gentle and vulnerable, breaking her heart.

Emily’s first response was to dismiss the praise. “It was nothing. Really.”

“Why must you do that?” he asked with a soft voice.

Emily touched his wounds as if the contact could heal him faster. “Do what?”

“Disregard compliments.”

Emily exhaled, relieved to give the man some truth. “I spent many months with a man who I thought I would marry. We got along alright. Sex was…” Emily glanced at the captain and thought better of those details. “The relationship, I knew, was not exceptional but normal. Turns out, it wasn’t.”

The captain said nothing, just held her eye contact, waiting for her to continue. Not being interrupted was strange, too.

“It started slowly. I didn’t notice it at first. Then I thought his words were just a result of a bad day. Those bad days became more and more frequent. When I questioned how his day went, he’d snap at me. Eventually, the snapping was all the time, and his anger was my fault. Every time I tried to do something nice for him, it was never enough, always wrong, or could’ve been better. Never a thank you or appreciation for what I did.”

“That man is an imbecile.” Captain Lemoine’s hand touched her thigh, and her veins sizzled with heat.

Emily wanted to laugh at his accurate insult. Instead, a crushing sadness weighed her down. “A couple months ago, his personality switched from angry and aggressive to happy and excited, and I thought I’d done something right for a change. He said all our problems would be solved if I helped him out. He explained he needed money to get his

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