Kit Black Read online

  I pulled away before he could kiss me. My God, I wanted him to kiss me. I craved it. His taste, his texture. He hadn’t shaved so closely as the night we’d been together, and his beard prickled my skin.

  “If anyone sees us, they’ll think you’re something else. I’m supposed to be a male.”

  He laughed.

  “I’ve got to go in now. I wish you well.”

  “And I you. I wish things could have been different, Kita.”

  I just nodded.

  “God be with you, Kita,” he said softly.

  “And with you, Armand Etienne Dupuis.” And with you, my love.

  Chapter 2

  In a little less than three weeks, I had set sail on The Black Moon. Roger had joined with me, to my great anger, and there was nothing I could do to stop him. Captain Gareth was glad to take him. There were few men who were stupid enough to join his crew.

  As members of Gareth’s crew, we sailed for the flag of England. And in doing that, I became, for all intents and purposes, the enemy of the man I loved, who sailed for the crown of France. Privateers appointed a Captain, one named by the sponsor, the country of origin. Pirates elected their captains, but he was easily ousted by another vote if he proved unfit for the job at hand. Privateers looted and killed in the name of the country that armed them, their actions condoned by that very same country. Pirates brought mayhem and destruction at will, flipping a coin to select which ship they would attack next.

  I could see little difference between the two, really, but in my eyes the life of a pirate was better in many ways. And I rather wished for Captain Gareth to go down in history as a privateer, because he gave pirates a bad name. I hated him on sight. He was one of those small, puffed up little men, who ruled with brutality and no brains or heart. I suppose it made up for what he lacked in size. I’m sure his manly parts were no larger than my baby finger.

  Many of the men on board the ship had once been in the Royal Navy, and had joined in order to make more than the usual ten pounds a year. Gareth did not make them much happier than the Navy had. The rum was scarce, the rations, too. Most of the men had left to escape the punishments inflicted by the British Naval officers, but Gareth’s were worse.

  I had not been flogged, yet. It seemed that Gareth had been in a good mood of late. I had done all I could to avoid making myself known to anyone as a troublemaker. I kept my head down and slouched a lot. I spoke only when spoken to. I found being on the ship the closest thing I could imagine to being in a jail, except in jail one wasn’t tossed overboard in a storm as had happened to three of the crew the week before. We never saw them again. Jail was likely safer.

  I had thought I’d be a swashbuckler. All I had signed on for was hard labor. But I loved the sea, I loved the smell of the air, and the blue of the sky. I was born for the sea. Sometimes, while lying in my hammock with my face stinging from sunburn, and my hands oozing from raw cuts and blisters, I remembered that I could have had a wide straw hat, a dress with real lace, and looking forward to nights in a high bed beneath Armand Dupuis.

  There was someone I liked as my friend aboard. His name was Terry Norwell. He was quiet, almost mouse-like, an orphan from London a few years younger than myself. He had dreams of being a navigator. Instead, his job was to help Roger, who had signed on as the ship’s cook. Some said he had run a way to avoid the workhouse. Roger was Captain Gareth’s cook, who was the only one eating decently. He would come to deck burping, the remains of his dinner in his beard and down the front of himself. For the rest of us it was hardtack and cabbage soup made from salt pork. I think I lost a stone in weight the first week. I almost didn’t have to bind my breasts anymore.

  Terry used to look at me strangely in the beginning, so I asked him why he peered at me like a mouse.

  He grinned. “I can’t see well. I once had some spectacles, and they helped a lot.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “I did something the master didn’t like, and he crushed them under his foot. I have part of one of the lenses left.” He showed it to me looped on a string around his neck.

  “Bastard.” So many bastards in the world to abuse the poor. So few men like Roger. And Armand.

  “Has the captain ever touched you?” I asked him one day.

  He seemed perturbed, “He likes lads, he does. But not me. Thinks I’m too ugly.”

  “Thank God.” I said with a pat on his shoulder.

  “Heard him talk about you, though, Kit. He says you’re pretty for a lad. He said he liked you hair and your eyes.”

  I felt my meager ration of food rise up and choke me.

  “Watch out for yourself.”

  “Aye.” I decided I was going to cut off my hair first chance I got.

  “If I ever get the chance, I’m going to jump this ship and join Jean Laffite. He’s said to be a good man, Kit. A fair man.”

  “Jean Laffite? A Frenchman?” The word Frenchman brought Armand to my mind. I spent nights dreaming of him. Sometimes I thought I would moan his name aloud and wake Terry and the other men. I thought about him a lot. Once, I dreamed that we looted a French vessel. I shook with fear when I saw that he was on it. I saw myself strike him down with his own sword and kill him. He lay face up on the deck, staring at me with those smoky jade eyes. I woke in a sweat.

  But Gareth was such a lousy captain, and the ship so rife with wormholes, we couldn’t catch a French ship if it pinched our butt. The ship was nothing more than a rat infested, dank smelling dungeon. We would sail to Jamaica empty handed.

  Meanwhile, Terry went on about Laffite. Every day he would give me some new bit of gossip. “Laffite’s a privateer. He calls himself an American, for what that’s worth, and sails out of a place called Barataria Bay, south of New Orleans. He was arrested by a certain governor and failed to show up at the trial. The governor set a bounty for him in return. Laffite offered to double that price for the capture of the governor.”

  “He sounds like a good man.”

  “Aye. Has a fleet of twenty ships now, Kit. None of his men starve, and they all get a good share in any loot taken.”

  I smiled at him. “Maybe things will improve. Maybe some day we will share the loot, a fine island, and a hundred ships.”

  But things got far worse before they did improve.

  ***

  I spent a week below decks coating the insides of the leaking ship with oakum, a mixture of tar, sulfur, and tallow to repair the damage done by the teredo worms. It was slow going work, and the fumes made me sick. The concoction stained my face and my hands black. I couldn’t strip to the waist like the others did to apply it. I had to wear my clothes to protect my identity. I was glad I couldn’t look in a mirror to see the reflection of the girl Armand had once referred to as beautiful. At night in my hammock, I would touch the frazzled ends of my hair and cry.

  Things changed somewhere near the middle of the return leg. I was exhausted, as were many of the crew. We had lost three men to fever and had to throw the bodies overboard. It was a bad day, but it was to end even worse.

  Gareth had been drinking rum all day and was drunk by nightfall. He was angry with Terry, because he had made some sort of charting error. He had taken over for the ship’s boatswain and navigator who had succumbed to the putrid sore throat. Terrified, Terry crouched on deck as a red faced, slobbering Gareth berated him. I thought he’d be lashed for sure, but his fate was to be something far worse. It was a heinous punishment. One of the men was to stuff Terry’s mouth full of rags and oakum, the caulking compound. The disgusting substance would be set aflame. Few survived the burns. Others just choked to death.

  I stared at Roger. “You can’t let that happen.”

  “How do we stop it? He has it in for the lad,” Roger hissed. He took my arm and squeezed it hard. “Leave off, Kit. If you interfere, you’ll get the same.”

  I tore out of his grasp, glared at him, and went over anyway. My legs were trembling, but I cared little then. Death did not s
eem such a bad thing at all. “This animal brutality is against the Articles.”

  “The lamb speaks,” Gareth laughed drunkenly. “And he knows the articles.”

  “Aye,” I said, sticking my chin out. “You’ve gone too far, Captain.”

  “I have, have I, pretty laddie?”

  “Aye.”

  “And you’ll be willing to take his place, then.”

  Roger cried out my name, but I looked at Terry and at the tears flowing down his small face.

  “Aye, I’ll take his place.”

  Gareth laughed. “Good. I’ll take ye below to my cabin, then. We’ll discuss this. We’ll discuss the Articles of Piracy.”

  He pushed me hard and I fell to my knees. Then he kicked me in the rear and sent me sprawling across the deck. Some of the men laughed heartily at his antics, but for the most part, they stared after us in grim silence.

  His quarters reeked of urine. There were papers and unwashed articles of clothing everywhere. One of his pistols lay on a pile of maps.

  “So, laddie, you think yourself a brave man, then?”

  “No. I’m not much of a man.”

  He laughed. “Aye. We’ll see.” He came up behind me and fondled my buttocks.

  “Very nice…rather soft for a lad. I like that.”

  He groaned and reached between my legs, looking for something more, looking to undo my britches. The shock was what did him in. The fact that there was no penis on me to fondle. That’s when I killed him.

  ***

  Being the captain of a pirate ship is not the same as being the captain of a ship in the Royal Navy. Even the most successful pirate Captains had to endure a host of things from stealing food and drink from his own stock to his men bringing whores aboard ship. A Captain only assumed absolute power in battle or in a crisis like a storm at sea, and was allowed two shares of the booty and nothing else.

  So I found myself a pirate captain once I commandeered The Black Moon. I was now the enemy of the English for having killed Gareth, and the enemy of all others because The Black Moon was now a pirate ship. A few of the men objected to a lady Captain. They were asked politely to leave at the next port, and I hired on some new crew. Terry was appointed quartermaster. We purchased spectacles at the next large port. He no longer had to squint through the broken shard around his neck. Roger became my boatswain, in charge of all maintenance and naval stores. I learned as I went along.

  I think I made a fairly nice picture after I cleaned myself up. Sometimes I would catch the men gaping at me as I strolled the decks in my uniform of tight black breeches, long linen shirt, and vest. My boots from Armand were polished to a high shine. I had kept them safe in the bottom of my sea chest. His sword, long hidden in my bunk, was now strapped to my side. I still had the nightmares of meeting him and having to use it on him. Those were interspersed with dreams of him that were of such an erotic nature I’d wake up crying out and drenched with sweat. My hair had grown back to shoulder length and I kept it tied back with a black ribbon. I had a bath every week, even though the men would laugh at me. They shook their heads at the lengths I went to clean up Gareth’s mess, but I was not about to risk putrid fevers again.

  We set sail for the Barataria Bay where I would meet the great Jean Laffite and change the course of my life once again. I had just turned twenty-two and found myself living the dream I had held for so long. I was Kit Black, and I was a buccaneer. And yet, I was still in love with a man I’d thought I’d likely never see again.

  Chapter 3

  Jean Laffite was a handsome man. He was tall, even taller than me. He wore his jet-black hair to his shoulders and had his beard trimmed close to his face. His eyes were grey, a light wolfish color. I was terrified at first when he came on board The Black Moon, but he was impressed with me. He was a little surprised that I would draw my sword to protect myself. Instead of fighting, we shook hands and he invited me to his villa. He made me several interesting propositions over dinner, just as we toasted with the finest of French wines.

  I was just ready to call it a night, a very late night, when Roger knocked on my cabin door.

  “Roger, come, my friend. Come,” I said, feeling a little tipsy. I’d consumed a lot of wine with Laffite and even smoked one of his fine cigars. Truth be told, those things turned my stomach a little. I had little interest in making drink and cigars a habit. But the food had been sumptuous, the pie for dessert made with real cream. I had never tasted anything so wonderful.

  “So, how is it to be keeping company with the likes of the gentleman pirate?” Roger raised his eyebrows.

  “He’s a real gentleman.” Well, for the most part. I wasn’t surprised at all when he asked me to warm his bed. I held him off at arm’s length with a teasing retort. “Do you ask that of the male captains who sit at your table?” He was shocked at my audacity, but he laughed. I had no intention of sleeping with Laffite. Unless I lost our wager.

  “We set out next week for France,” I told Roger excitedly. “And not in the likes of this leaky sponge. We’ll be sailing in a schooner of Laffite’s called The Dark Jewel.”

  “His ship?”

  “Aye, one of his best. And if we beat him to France, I shall be made captain of one of the best in his fleet. If I do well, Roger, I will be given a share in the company.”

  “And why is that? Because you have a pretty face? “

  “Because I’m skilled and because I took this ship from Gareth. Why do you keep giving me those looks, Roger? Is my face dirty?”

  “Did you know there’s a price on your head?”

  “The English have better things to worry about,” I laughed. “They’re likely glad I rid them of the little pervert.”

  “I think you’re too cocky by half, girl. I think you need someone to take you down a peg or two. Perhaps that Frenchman. What was his name?”

  “Don’t mention his name to me. I’ve forgotten him completely.”

  “Ah, tell yourself that. And what happens if you lose this race to France?”

  “I have to sleep with Laffite. But I won’t lose.”

  “I want to ask you something. I thought you were the one always bragging about your high ideals, Kit. About not wanting to transport slaves.”

  “I won’t be doing it, Roger. Goods. Goods only. Laffite has agreed.”

  “Yet, he does it. He makes most of his money on the illegal slave trade. I assume you noticed his servants. Did you notice the keeping huts?”

  “They’re well treated.” I flushed with guilt. I knew he was right, but I was too ashamed and caught up in my change of luck. I just threw any doubts to the back of my mind.

  Roger sighed. “Such a nuisance, lass, these high ideals. I wish you well on the race.”

  “You’ll be with us, won’t you?”

  “Aye. I’ll be with you, lass. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  ***

  I shall not give all the details of the race. It was close. The wind was favorable, and Terry, for all his lack of stature and steel, has a mind like no other for finding a good course. We came through every storm with our sails intact and met no Navy frigates, which had been my greatest fear. Laffite had a run in with some Spaniards. I met him with days to spare.

  We danced on the decks, a wild jig of triumph. Terry and I howled with laughter, dousing each other with champagne. Roger just stood by and smiled at us, a benevolent father.

  If Laffite was disappointed, he didn’t show it. He lifted me up and twirled me in a circle, telling me that I was as fine a Captain as any he’d ever had.

  “I have an invitation to a ball in Paris in two days time. I want you to accompany me,” he said as he placed me down.

  A ball. Me at a ball? My heart started to race.

  “It’s being given by the Marquis de Balzaque. I knew his sons when I was a young man in Marseilles. The toast of Parisian society will be there.”

  “Would we be welcome?”

  “We’ll be most welcome. Rogues, such as u
s, are celebrated in society. And I am making a grand name for myself. The funny thing is that the Marquis de Balzaque’s younger son is a Navy man. But I’m sure he will be quite civilized. He always has been before.”

  “If you want to take me, I’d be honored, Captain.”

  “Jean will do, my dear.”

  I was fitted with a dress at a Parisian couture house a day later. It was a rushed affair, but I could not imagine anything turning out more beautiful. I looked at myself in the ice blue satin gown, my hair drawn up into a love knot on my head with tendrils of hair escaping in wisps. The hairdresser had surrounded the love knot with tiny roses. She said it was a shame about my tanned skin. A lady’s skin should be pale as cream. She wondered how I had become so brown. Just to shock her, I told her that it was hot on the ship, and that sometimes I took my shirt off and went naked like the men. It was true. They barely noticed any more.

  I wished that Armand could see me like this. What would he think? Would his heart pound wildly as it had that day when we said goodbye? I was to find out sooner than I thought.

  ***

  I will never forget looking up from a sip of my champagne, my gaze locking with a pair of jade green eyes that stared at me from across the crowded room. It was him. Armand. Even in my dreams he had not looked this good, this vital, graceful and overwhelmingly masculine. He was not dressed in his Navy uniform. He wore civilian formal wear like Jean and the other men, and though he should have appeared plain and unadorned, the cut of his clothes made him seem far more desirable and elegant than anyone else in the room. I think he was the only man, other than Jean, who did not sport powder or a wig.

  Instead of shiny colored satin and tumbles of lace, he wore a severely tailored coat of deep midnight blue velvet and a cream silk shirt with high collar and cravat. His shirt ruffles were plain below the wide cuffs of his coat, his breeches black. His only bow to fashion was his vest made of black and silver brocade. He wore little in the way of jewellery, just a diamond stickpin, and a signet ring on his left hand. His face was every bit as handsome, even more so since he had entered his thirties. He was paler than he had been in Ajaccio, his eyes seeming darker green and more velvety. His lips were just as beautiful, though, most incongruous framed as they were by the heavy quality of his beard shadow.