The older man turned back to him, blocking Etta’s view of his expression. When he faced her again, he winked. “Don’t mind him. He’s allowed one day of good nature a year and he’s already spent it.”
The other man gave a curt nod, an abbreviated little bow, and said, “Nicholas Carter. Your servant, ma’am. This is Captain Nathaniel Hall. May we have the pleasure of knowing your name?”
Etta hesitated, looking between them again. Captain Hall clasped his hands behind his back, never once losing his pleasant smile.
The situation was so past the point of being strange, and Etta was still not totally sure she wasn’t dreaming or having a nervous breakdown, that his question gave her pause.
Perhaps you should take a moment to think through your course of actions. The memory of Nicholas’s words made her grip the coat again. She straightened slightly, making her decision.
Whatever this was, she needed to keep herself alive; and, at that moment, the best way to do it might be to cooperate.
“My name is—”
“Henrietta!” a voice called. “Where are you? Henrietta?”
“Henrietta?” Captain Hall repeated.
“Etta,” she corrected, searching for the source of the shriek. “Etta Spencer.”
The girl appeared in a cloud of rustling green fabric and stormy dark hair. An already pale face went chalk white, then green, as she braced herself and took in the scene. She took slow steps through the gore that hadn’t yet been scrubbed away by the small boys with their buckets.
Her. Etta hadn’t imagined her, either.
“Madam,” the small young man with glasses said. “Has your stomach finally settled?”
Etta smelled the sick on her, saw the sheen of sweat coating her forehead and upper lip. The girl’s bloodshot eyes locked on Etta.
“You had me so very worried!” she gasped out.
Etta had to throw her hands out to steady them both—and to keep her from getting too close. The girl was shorter than her, but her presence was made larger by the coiled hair piled on top of her head, now drooping off-center. Her dress’s full skirt enveloped Etta’s wet one, and the shade of ivy green only deepened the queasiness of her complexion.
I don’t think so. Etta struggled out of the girl’s grip and felt her nails dig into her hand. The girl’s brown eyes were framed with full, dark brows, her lips set in a thin line—a smile that was as mocking as it was unforgiving.
The warning was clear: Don’t say another word.
Etta struggled to hold on to her composure. She opened her mouth, with sharp, wild words already poised at the tip of her tongue, before she clamped it shut again.
Perhaps you should take a moment to think through your course of actions.
This girl knew what had happened. Where they were. Information would start and end with her, and the only way Etta was going to get it was if she shut her mouth and listened.
You know what happened. She pushed you. Etta exhaled loudly through her nose, turning to look out at the sea. She didn’t trust herself not to give away her discomfort.
“Really,” the girl said, keeping her voice light and airy, “you must not panic that way. I told you that everything would be perfectly fine! Surely these gentlemen mean us, as passengers, no harm.”
“Battle can rattle even the steadiest of nerves,” Captain Hall said. “Miss…?”
“Oh—Sophia Iron—erm, Spencer.” She gave a little curtsy. Etta watched without a speck of sympathy as the girl straightened and swayed, her eyes clenched shut, her fist pressed against her stomach. “And…this is…my sister.”
She’s seasick, Etta realized.
“Indeed?” There was a wry twist to Nicholas’s mouth. “I can see the resemblance.”
Etta was glad she looked back then, not because he deserved a laugh, but because she caught Sophia’s reaction as she saw him for the first time. Her thin mask of pleasantness slipped into revulsion. It lasted only a moment, but the impression of it stamped itself into her memory.
Captain Hall gave Nicholas a wry look before turning to the young man in glasses. “Perhaps you’d be so good as to tell us your name, as well as this ship’s?”
“Oh! Certainly. This ship is the Ardent,” he said. “I am Abraham Goode, the surgeon’s mate, and now, sir, your most obedient servant.”
“Looking to stay out of the hold, eh?” Captain Hall chuckled. “You’ll serve the prize crew without complaint?”
“It would be my pleasure,” Mr. Goode said bravely, setting his shoulders back in such a way that Etta caught Nicholas rolling his eyes.
“Where is Captain Millbrook?” Etta’s “sister” asked, glancing around. “Are you now in possession of the ship?”
Her accent wasn’t British. More like an old movie starlet’s, with her careful cadences; so different than how she’d sounded at the Met.
“I’m sorry to say he’s dead, ma’am.” The diminutive man in glasses stepped forward from the rail, where he’d been hanging back. He had to raise his crystal-cut voice to be heard above the clanging from the men on deck.
Nicholas and Captain Hall exchanged a look.
“I suppose that makes your job easier,” the older man said.
Nicholas shrugged, but his eyes drifted back to Etta. “Would you like to return to your cabin and rest? Today has been an ordeal, I know.”
“Yes,” Sophia said hurriedly, before Etta could speak. “A good course of action. May we continue to use the cabins near the great cabin?”
“Well, I certainly won’t put either of you in the forecastle with the prize crew,” Nicholas said. “That will be fine.”
Etta turned toward him, surprised. So…he was in charge of this ship, not Captain Hall? Then that meant…Captain Hall led the other ship they’d mentioned, the Challenger, and they’d captured this one, installing Nicholas in command. The men that had been marched down into the hold must have been whatever was left of the original crew of this ship.
Sophia looped her arm through Etta’s, drawing her attention back to her.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Mr. Goode said.
Etta must have looked as confused as she felt, because Sophia dug her ragged nails into her arm.
“Captain Millbrook was the young ladies’ uncle,” Goode said, scratching at his scalp. Sophia, as if suddenly remembering she needed to be devastated, dabbed at her eyes as the surgeon’s mate continued, “He was escorting them back to England following the death of their father and the sale of their plantation in New Providence. We departed from Nassau a few days ago.”
Nassau? New Providence? Why did she get the feeling they weren’t talking about New York or Rhode Island?
“Ah, how terribly unfortunate,” Captain Hall said, strangely unsympathetic.
“Forgive my rudeness, but I”—Sophia swallowed hard—“will take my sister below, and leave you to your work. Perhaps…” She swallowed again, squeezing her eyes shut as the winds picked up and batted at the ship. “Mr. Carter, you would be so good as to accompany us?”
Nicholas looked like he found the idea of pulling out his own fingernails more appealing.
“It would be my pleasure,” he said stiffly.
Sophia smiled tightly and nodded, bidding Captain Hall and Mr. Goode a pleasant afternoon. Etta steadied her legs enough to trail behind her. Nicholas lifted the hatch’s cover, a lattice of dark wood.