The Pirate Lord Read Online Free PDF

trick, Miss Willis. Queenie showed it to me yesterday. You can take a body’s things off him without him even noticin’.” She turned to the boy. “Hand it back, Robbie. You can’t keep it. That would be stealin’.”
    Suppressing an irritated sigh, Sara shot a stern glance beyond Ann to Queenie, who suddenly became very engrossed with organizing her cloth scraps, mumbling all the while about “naive country girls.”
    Sara softened her tone as she returned her attentionto Ann. “Yes, well, I suggest you avoid using such ‘magic tricks’ from now on. They’re liable to get your sentence lengthened.”
    When Ann merely looked at her questioningly, she shook her head. She certainly had her work cut out for her, trying to keep the incorrigibles from corrupting the innocents.
    Some of these women could become contributing members of society. It just wouldn’t happen in a day.
     
    Night had fallen by the time Sara ended her first day with the women. Though lessons had long been over, she’d lingered below decks, trying to find out as much as she could about the convicts. They’d hesitated to tell her much at first, but after some coaxing she’d gleaned a few tidbits about them and their children.
    There was Gwen Price, a Welshwoman like Ann, except that she spoke so little English Ann had to interpret for her. There was squirrelly Betty Slops, who seemed a slave to her wretched surname, for she constantly sported the remains of her last meal on her coarse cotton gown. And there was Molly Baker, who’d been convicted of selling stolen goods and was pregnant with her second child. Her first child, Jane, was the daughter of her husband, but the baby had been conceived in Newgate after she’d been “seduced” by a guard. More like rape, it was. And it was infuriating to think that the very same system that had gotten her with child had punished her for something that wasn’t her fault by following through with the sentence of transportation despite her very advanced pregnancy.
    Sara had tried to spend a few moments with all of them. By the time the women were locked in for the night and she’d climbed the steep steps from the hold to the ’tween decks, her head ached and all her muscles were sore. She’d left the prisoners only twice to take her meals in the galley, and now all she wanted was to climb into her berth and sleep.
    Then she opened the hatch to find a sailor standing beside it in the cramped ’tween decks. Bother it all. It was the same sailor who’d sought to go down to the women the night before, and he looked as surprised to see her coming up as she was to see him standing there.
    Taking advantage of his surprise, she clambered up quickly and closed the hatch behind her. “Good evening,” she said in her sternest voice. He was alone, of course. The ’tween decks were used as storage. Seldom did anyone come down in them, which meant he was probably there for all the wrong reasons.
    Feeling a tremor of uneasiness, she sought to hide it by glowering at the sailor. “What are you doing down here?”
    The sailor was of the most unsavory sort. His beard was unkempt and he stank of stale sea water and grog. Too much grog. “Look here, missy,” he retorted. “Queenie’s expectin’ me, so don’t you be interferin’.”
    The thought of this man having relations with a woman in front of everyone in the prison appalled her. Donning her most severe expression, she crossed her arms over her chest. “Surely you realize I can’t allow you to expose young children to such debauchery.”
    He scowled. “Young children? Nay. I’ll be bringin’ her up here with me, I will.” He drew out a ring of keys that had been tucked into his grimy breeches and dangled them in front of her. “I’m sure the lass and I c’n find a private spot to do our business, not that ’tis any of yer concern.”
    She stared at the ring of keys he was twirling round and round on his grubby forefinger. “Who gave you