A/N: Hey, everyone! If you're here, that means you have read the first book in this series, The Bastard Girl. If you haven't, please stop now and go check it out on my page! The Cabin Boy is a direct sequel to the pirate romance that I have been working on and researching for many years. I'm THRILLED to bring to you this story and these characters that mean so much to me. If you've read The Bastard Girl, you know the story is told from Constantine Every's perspective. As you may have guessed, The Cabin Boy is told from the perspective of the pirate boy Edmund Hemingway. This story is filled to the brim with gripping adventure, enduring romance, and shocking revelations as we dive deeper into the backstory of our favorite cabin boy. Thank you to everyone who has supported me and given much love to this series! Don't forget to leave some likes, some comments, and follow for more updates. Finally, enjoy The Cabin Boy...
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Chapter 1~ Before William Kidd
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December 1696
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I’d fallen in love with a hurricane of the most perilous, fascinating sort. I’d fallen so deep in love that drowning was an understatement. I was submerged in her—everything of her. And she was a lethal poison in my veins that burned when I drifted too far away. But I couldn’t get enough. I would never have enough. So, I decided to marry her.
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“What’s it like?” she asked, delicate fingers curling around the locks of my hair. Our heads rested on cotton, feather-stuffed pillows. Her raven curls billowed out from under her and rooted into the white pillows like some invasive species. Her skin was light and fair, like an angel’s. And I could hardly recognize her from the ruffled sheets. She camouflaged into them, beseeching me to find her voluptuous body hidden deep underneath. We were bare, and the night air danced over our flesh, raising goosebumps and healing the warm, tender bites on my chest. Her neck. My jaw. And her breasts.
“I’ve already told you,” I hummed, pressing my cheek to her palm.
“Tell me again, Edmund.” She smiled with a twinkle in her excited eyes that she knew I couldn’t resist. “Please.”
I gave up the little game and let my hands fall onto my chest as my eyes drifted up to the ceiling of the bedroom. Every day she asked. She would lie there and listen with the focus of a scholar. Most of the time, I romanticized the story for her benefit. A boring day for me was a boring day for her.
“Well, we started loadin’ the ship today for the weekend’s trip. And I swear Owen gets drunker every time I see the bastard. He nearly fell overboard in the middle of the day! A good, wet smack in the face would be good for the old bugger. Oh, I almost forgot! Guess what I saw?”
“What?”
“A Spanish galleon, big as a whale. Sails as white as sand and puffed up so that I thought they’d burst open. And you could hear the most beautiful Spanish songs comin’ from it. The way it parted the waves was like God splittin’ the sea. You would’ve loved to see it, Constantine.”
Suddenly, just like it always would, the wonder in her eyes faded to a dead gray as she remembered. Sometimes, it slipped her mind—or, because she had blocked it out so much, she’d forget it entirely. Constantine was a cripple.
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Nearly two years ago was when it began—the rest of our lives. We were younger, full of hope, and full of love. And the world could kiss our asses. And perhaps our lives were good for a few months or so. We took ownership of a quaint summer home in the most beautiful part of Bombay. The most that was ever spoken of Constantine’s father was when the monthly payments would arrive. And when they stopped coming, we knew he’d finally fallen from his whisky-tainted ivory tower. No one grieved.
I took a job at a nearby shipping port, doing menial work for as much as I could get. I knew ship work wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life. What I wanted couldn’t be achieved in Bombay. But, the money was running dry. Eventually, I began progressing to better-paying positions where I would take small trips to nearby ports—Muscat, Cochin, Colombo. The like.
Constantine stayed home.
The doctor calls we sent for her ran our money bone-thin. And nothing seemed to be getting better. She could hardly walk more than a few feet without her crutch. The only solution would be surgery, and that kind of expense would ruin us. So, she tried getting a job around the city. But, of course, no one dared to hire a cripple—especially not a crippled woman.
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Constantine pulled the blankets over her body, burying herself underneath the fabrics again. The night sky outside the window suddenly seemed darker.
“Love,” I whispered, “I heard that Ms. Silvia at the inn might be hirin’ soon. Do you want to visit her tomorrow?”
But, she only rolled over, turning her pale back to me. A low, stifled sigh escaped her lips. “I’m tired, Edmund.”
I tried to smile and wrap my arms around her, but she recoiled and pulled the blanket almost entirely over herself. “Constantine—”
“Please…I need some rest.”
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I was not the kind of man who could put a sparkling ring on her finger. I could not offer the world, only myself. And how much did that really amount to anyways? In the late spring of 1696, I spent half of my personal savings on a carriage ride to the seashore. I took her on that excursion and watched her admire the vast jungles and the thriving, unfamiliar wildlife. She hardly blinked, for a single moment missed would devastate her. And when we finally arrived at the barren tan shore, Constantine had found something inside herself. She climbed out of the carriage all on her own, kicked off her slippers, and raced across the sand—desperate and free. I hadn’t seen her like that in years. And the closest thing I could ever compare it to was a swift soaring through the air as if it had just regained its wings. But, she tumbled. And she fell, knees deep in the sand. Her palms barely caught her fall, and her weight fell onto her crippled foot. She didn’t cry out, but I still raced to her side.
When I lifted her up, I felt the heavy, red tears on her cheeks. She wailed and clutched at my shoulder. Constantine was a mother who’d lost her child—her freedom. It had been stripped from her in patches, at first, like dead skin peeling off and floating into nothingness. The fragility underneath had been rubbed so raw that any power she had had before was almost nonexistent.
Constantine pulled away from me and wiped away the tears and the despair. Her face had suddenly gone hard as she faced me again.
And she said, “I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought ‘this is what Mother would’ve wanted me to do. Chase him down, knock some sense into him, and pick up the goddamn pieces of my life.’ I was fourteen, Edmund. How in the fuck was I supposed to know?!…How was I supposed to know?”
I picked up her tightened hand and pressed it deep into my own. She scoffed and turned her eyes to the sky.
“What are you still doing here?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know precisely what I mean. Get out of here, Edmund. I mean it. You have a future. You’re young.”
I smiled and said, “You talk as if you’ve aged fifty years, love.”
She didn’t laugh.
“I didn’t have to,” she muttered.
My smile faded and I held on tighter—more persistent. “What do you think? I’m just gonna leave you?”
“Yeah.”
“Bail when things get rough?!”
“Yeah, I do!”
“Like your father, Constantine?!”
My hands were gripping her shoulders, digging in and almost breaking the skin. Her face was ice-cold fury—mine, as hot as fire. The simmering down was the painful part. This wasn’t what I brought her out there for. Not even close. My hands fell back to my sides while hers covered her face.
We fought often back then. Maybe since her father was no longer in her life, Constantine needed something else to hate. Or maybe she was just as tired as me. Maybe just the opposite.
I gently touched her bad foot. She flinched but let my hand remain.
“I can’t bring back what I never took away, Constantine. I didn’t force you to run away from…him.”
I tried to hold her face, but she pulled away. Instead, I grabbed hold as gently yet forcefully as I could and made her eyes meet mine.
“I am not your enemy. And I’m sure as hell not abandonin’ you. Not for anythin'. Get it through that thick skull of yours, lass,” I said with a little rap on her head. “I love you. How is that so difficult to believe?”
“I’m nothing!” she exclaimed, “I feel like a fish on dry land, Edmund! I’m gasping for air and fighting for my life and no one can save me. Not you. Not myself. Not anyone. And you don’t need to stay and watch. The rest of my life is already written out for me. But you still have a chance at a life—a real life.”
A little smile hung on the edges of my mouth. I couldn’t tear away from her beautiful, bright eyes—the one thing that never would change about her. Her lip quivered slightly, hiding her own anticipation.
“Where would I go?” I said. Afterward, it took me months of thinking about it before realizing I had been asking that to myself. “If havin’ the life of my dreams means not havin’ you, then I don’t want it. I want you and everythin’ that comes with you. And not just for now.”
I finally took her hands and kissed her forehead, letting it linger like an echo on that empty beach. She had this mixture of fear and excitement in her eyes. Most of the time all I saw was boredom and bleak depression.
I was so terrified. I had to clench every trembling muscle so she couldn’t see. I was nothing. She was nothing. But, we were something. And that gave me strength enough to say, “Marry me.”
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The weeks afterward were polar compared to the years before. It was some sort of hypnotic, illusory state that we lived in. The days passed in dreams, in flashes of the best and worst of times. The Bombay springs were warm and delicate on our frail reality. We were allowed to pretend like the future was good without the consequences that would follow. I remember the transparent laughter in her voice—laughter that lasted through each week and ushered in the next. I remember the moments alone we caught when I’d steal a kiss and she’d bring me to my knees—more than a few times. The sunlight was always there, always turning her ebony hair golden, always warming my skin and painting us rich. Like we once were. Any break in our delusion would surely shatter us completely.
Soon, the summer came. The sun became vicious and burned her skin. It shriveled the trees, boiled the sea, and scorched our fantasy into ashes. We began fighting again. I couldn’t sleep most nights. I just watched her curled-up slumber, wishing that, just once, I could fall asleep with her in my arms again.
Working the ship port kept me busy enough. The days were long in the heat of the summer as more and more ships ported and sailed the bay. It was one of the rare times of the day that I wasn’t reminded of the past. The lads at the port were far older than me and were quite doubtful of someone my age working alongside them. But, no one else could deny it. I kept up. I excelled. It helped when you’ve been a pirate your entire life on the same goddamn ship with the same goddamn crew. Of course, no one knew. We kept Constantine’s identity a secret. The reputation of Henry Every still ran rampant, so she was known as Margaret Bellshire. According to the entirety of Bombay, Constantine and I were two kids who ran away from home to get engaged and live it up in some wealthy dead relative’s estate. And, somehow, we became content to keep it that way. For now.
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Constantine was buried under the sheets. I watched her until her breathing softened and I knew she was asleep. Then, I climbed up and off the bed, slipped on my breeches, and walked the halls of our empty home. Every window was open at night. The moonlight poured in and lit the house in an eerie silver glow. The winter wind traveled through the open windows and kept the silk curtains alive with movement. Our house never slept. Although, neither did Bombay. The softness of the Persian rugs underneath my feet tickled my skin before I landed on the polished surface of the stone flooring. No one would’ve guessed by visiting us that we were poor. The house was a practical mansion. This much I could say about Henry Every—he had a taste for the finer things. All the furniture was either imported or antiques. Maintenance was kept by slaves bought by Every. And despite my insistent attempts to release their burden of working the property, the slaveholders didn’t answer to me—only an invisible, wealthy Henry Every.
Some nights, when I couldn’t sleep, I’d look out at the view from our porch—a perfect view of the bay. Ships would disappear hazily into the horizon if I watched long enough. I could only dream of what was beyond. Sometimes, I swear, I could even touch it.
My hand had started reaching out, and I slowly let it fall to the porch railing. The lights in the city below gleamed back at me with a seductive glow, reminding me of the existence of brothels, pubs, and raucous parties. However, I paid no mind to the artificial stars below but, instead, to the more dazzling ones above.
Constantine and I had been engaged for half a year now. Our lives were about to restart; we’d be reborn. I looked back to the open doorway of the bedroom where she slept soundly, thoughtlessly.
And yet it felt like our lives were ending in some slow, suffering collapse. My grip on the railing tightened suddenly. My gaze shifted back to the open sea, where, suddenly, a dark shadow of a ship had appeared. And I then felt her blood in my veins—that thrilling excitement of adventure, that muscle-wrenching need for passion and fire. My nails were digging into the wooden railing. The story we began needed finishing.
My eyes fell to the worn crutch leaning against the wall.
By God, I would finish it.
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But, all that was before the voyage. Before the mutiny. Before the fire. And before William Kidd.
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