The Dust of 100 Dogs - A. S. King [82]
Emer thought of all the marines she’d killed on board supply fluytes. Eyeballs of such men stared at her from her embroidered cape. “That’s dangerous work,” she said.
“Not half as dangerous as being a feared legend of the sea, I’d say.” He motioned toward her foot.
Emer didn’t want to tell him about her missing toes. “Oh. I guess I have a long story too.”
Seanie had stared at her long enough. He’d watched her face make familiar expressions in the yellow glow as her eyes sparkled at him. Something told him to kiss her, then, and he did. It was a long kiss. It was a mature kiss—how parents kiss—how grandparents kiss. He moved onto the bed and twisted to face her, and held her so tightly she was uncomfortable. Uncomfortable, but didn’t care—just as she didn’t care all those nights in the Connacht cave, when her arm went numb beneath her from lying on his chest.
They lay down to face each other. Seanie propped his head up and Emer cuddled into her pillow. “And what’s your long story, then? How did my sweet Irish girl turn into a frightful pirate?”
Emer smiled. “I’m not that damned, am I?”
“It’s not so bad, to be feared out here.”
“Well, it is if you’re just a nice Irish girl like me.” She giggled. “Oh, I don’t know! Where do I begin, Seanie? Paris? The horrible man who my uncle sold me to? I never had the chance to see him twice, I ran so fast. After a year begging the city streets in snow, I took the boat to Tortuga. They needed women to breed.”
She shifted uncomfortably and looked away from Seanie’s stare. “No different from Paris, really,” she added. “I ran so fast, and then ended up here. And now it’s the bloody Spanish. Have you heard the stories of how they torture the natives? What they do to their slaves? Worse than anything we’ve seen, and how can that be? I tell you, it will be quite a day when I sink the whole bloody fleet to the bottom of the sea! Quite a day!”
Seanie kissed her again, for her enthusiasm. He remembered the day she first spoke to him, how excited she was and how her eyes beamed with the same zeal. Funny how things change, he thought. Funny how the same childish eyes could be so brutal, those eyes that once burned with marriage dreams—funny how now, although they pictured something completely different, those eyes somehow seemed just as sweet.
Emer remembered her foot and pointed. “That, I got in prison. It’s only because I’ve spent the last year in a dark cell that I look so like a ghost. I lost two toes. Just gone. Now I’ve only three there and a limp for life. I’m lucky I didn’t die, though, or so the doctor tells me.”
“I really can’t believe it’s you,” Seanie said.
She smiled and caressed his bare arm. “It’s really me. God, I missed you, Seanie Carroll. I never thought I’d see you again.” Tears welled. “And now we’re about to make history! The biggest robbery on the high sea!” Emer reached over him for the rum bottle and took a swig, then passed it to him.
“And what do you think they’ll have on board?” Seanie asked.
She stopped to think and then shrugged. “I don’t rightly know, but I expect it will be worth it anyway! So far, the Spanish have given me some rare and wonderful things, so I have high expectations.” She reached under her bunk and slid her chest out to where she could open it. She pulled out a black pearl. “You know, these are more precious than diamonds.”
Seanie rolled it between his thumb and fingers. She had always been so clever and headstrong. He was glad she’d landed here and not in a place where none of it would matter, like as the owned wife of any man. He even half wondered if his own intentions had been reasonable. His faraway dreams of marriage and children seemed more like a prison than paradise for her now.
When he didn’t speak for a while, Emer turned to him. “Are you all right, Seanie?”
“It’s the biggest thing that’s ever happened to me, it is. I never once thought that joining a fleet of pirates would actually bring me to you! Can you believe I half considered leaving