Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 26 Read Online Free PDF

swam in restless circles, trying to free itself of a placenta that it chewed with crystal teeth and rubbed with silver-threaded fins. As Settle watched, it finally broke loose, as all its predecessors would have done, and startled her with an upward leap of freedom, before plunging down the passageway.
    The water’s churning fell back. The timbers around her groaned with familiarity. Settle recognized the sound from the childbirth rooms of Spithampton’s midwife.
    The dead tried to distract her afterwards, but it was too late. The Ship’s secret was hers.
    The Captain warned her to hold the secret as close to her as breath, but she scoffed him, sending him back to his termite queen with a puff of scorn. He came back contrite, presenting her riches and the world, but like the souvenirs of a discarded affair, Settle rejected them. She was tired of geegaws. She wanted something new. She told him, why did she need the whey when she had the curds, and brazenly pulled apart her shirt to show him the pearls, her breasts, her pluck. Sending him away set a part of her smouldering, a part that could not be put out, a heat that stayed with her but flared each time he came back and her heart combusted.
    Outside of these dreams, that fire would not leave her, and Settle had no shame in stoking the flames whenever she passed the other sailors at their chapel rest. Hunting for the wedding roast, the Ship had fastened onto the whale’s spoor. The wedding day had been named and festivities had already started. The hull was coating itself in a fine golden fur that rippled in the sun. The crew tied bells to the masts to invite every breeze to the celebrations, delirious that something had broken the long slog of their days.
    Down below, the Ship’s sweats supplied a potent grog. Waiting for their next shot of electricity from an adventure, the sailors licked the timbers and reeled to songs of wedding-night bawdiness. Hazily, they all tried to give Settle predator looks now, but she hastened them on with the wild fury in her own gaze. She was not afraid of anyone taking her ship now.
    Even the Judge did not look at her anymore, but for that, Settle was grateful. These days he only regarded her with a clock’s face, sadly counting down the days.
    One morning, as the Ship completed a slow turn, the Judge sucked in, rubbed the air between thumb and forefinger, and said, “Whale waters.”
    “Yes—and I won’t be there to enjoy the feast, will I?”
    They worked on in silence. She could see that the Judge was working on a response, but it took him to the following night.
    He left a wrap of supplies—tack, a water flask and a pocket compass in a warm fearnought—just outside the open door. He had no lantern, so he spoke as darkness. “One soul can man the lubber boat,” the dark said. “Track west-north-west, four nights should bring ye to the darkie coast.”
    Settle took the bundle but did not yet step across the threshold. “If you’re doing this because I could have been your—” She almost said daughter. “—child, then I’ll always remember you fondly as a parent.”
    The shadows coughed, then in a low voice, “I thought ye might ship and crew. Ye have spirit sparks about, an eye for adventure. I thought ye would have shown us an escape from the world’s prison. But I’ve seen the way ye’ve mooned the Captain, and I’ve seen how impatient ye are with yer own noonday and how ye want to blaze her Majesty.”
    The air stirred with sighs. “No, I never wanted to save ye. I wanted to save our beauty.”
    After that, it was true darkness again. Settle was alone.
    She buttoned on the fearnought and prowled through the sleeping quarters until she came out on deck. A prayer of night. Slow-sucking water, only a tease of wind. The moon was away, leaving just enough glow for her to pick a way across the ropes and between the wedding streamers as the two duty crew smoked crackers and played checkers.
    Settle found the lubber