stowaway by lady asha wheeler (best classic books to read txt) 📕

“Stop now.” The men stared over at them.
"Take you and your man and leave without looking back," she ordered. She prayed he didn’t recognize her voice. She lowered the cutlass but kept it ready for use.
With another hand signal, the brute was gone. "I want my money Harve. If i don’t get it you'll die screaming." He jerked in her grasp, Elle released him, and he walked away without looking at them.
Harve shrugged her off as she tried to help him. On the small boat back to the ship, Elle asked. "Do you have a death wish? Sir Reginald Travis is worse than any pirate."
He dipped a cloth in the water and wiped at a cut above his left eye. "Wha ould ye know- boy?" there was a strange tone to his voice.
"I know he made a deal with a sutler that owed him. He wanted the man’s daughter in lieu of gold. The daughter found out that her death was insured for three times the debt. That she was to die the last night of her honeymoon." she broke off before saying more.
Arms on his knees he asked "Wha' 'appen to the dau'er?"
Elle looked at the ship. A ladder was thrown down and the boatman caught it. On deck, Harve asked again. Elle told him almost sadly, "She threw herself off a cliff and was lost at sea."
It was six months before they made English land again. Although they weren’t friends, Harve and Elle no longer glared and spit at each other at every meeting. The night before they weighed anchor he caught Elle again on deck watching. He was as silent as a panther. "I been t'inkin'." he said.
To her credit, she didn’t jump. "Bout what?" she asked as he moved beside her.
"Tha' sutl'rs dau'er. Maybe she net ta go see er pa."
Elle looked at him as if he had gone crazy. "Why would i-she do that?" she asked with a trace of anger.
"That Travis fella's rich maybes HER pappy thought he was doing good fer 'is dau'er."
Elle sighed she said lookin at the moon. "You no, don't ya?"
He nodded. "Bout the time ye glared at me clutching ye blanket and watching the Cap. leave." he gave a rough laugh.
"Why didn’t ya tell tha capt'n?"
"I hoped ta scare ye off but i put ya next to the capt'n case anybody guessed." he explained. He smiled a smile that seemed to say, ‘Ha you see how well that worked.’
"Would you go with me? To see poppa." She didn’t dare took at him as she asked.
"Have to be after your runs and I pay Mr. Travis." He agreed.
Elle nodded and it was set.
Home

Elle knew the command was coming. The "land ho" call had already been made from the crow’s nest. She’d taken her turns up there twice. It was accelerating but you felt as if you would tip with each wave.
"Ahoy! Belay the sails!" the captain called. Elle pulled, walked, and rolled the lines along with the others. Her muscles were well defined due to manual labor the past 7 months on ship. Her hair had grown as well. Like most of the men, it hung just above her shoulders.
The sails down the next order arose. The anchors chain rattled and water splashed. Within two hours, they were on their way to shore. On the docks, Harve and Elle made plans to meet at the Silver Pin. Despite its name, it was just an old tavern.
Elle delivered the eight missives, collected the two sacks of coin and three replies.
Elle found her way to the Silver Pin and found Harve waiting with a black jack full of rum. As soon as she sat down across from him, a woman fell in her lap.
"So handsome and so young." she purred running fingers in Elle’s hair. Elle grabbed her wrist.
Harve laughed. "Leave da boy 'lone Lizzy. 'E aint gots what ye be needin." he slid a copper coin across the scared table. Lizzy grabbed the coin and made her way to another patron.
Face red Elle thanked him. To Elle he looked too delighted at her bashfulness.
"So who’s yer dad, El?" he asked taking a drink of rum.
"Augusta Clifford." she told him.
"Da capt’n done business wit em." he said and pulled a package from the seat beside him. He slid it across the table. "Don open it ere. Is a dress, nutin fan-zy but ye don wan yer dad ta see ye like dat." he pointed to her.
She looked down at herself. Ratty clothes. Boy clothes. Pirate.
"I gots a room at da Hogs Head. Ye kin change dere." Harve said. They made their way to the inn; he waited outside as she changed.
Elle knocked on the door.
There was only one light on in the tiny cottage. Harve waited across the street.
Her dad opened the door. He blinked three times then exclaimed. "Isabella!" he engulfed her in his arms. "Where have you been? What is that smell?"
She should have anticipated the questions. "Inside daddy. Please."
They moved inside and Elle explained how she had wanted to ask questions about wedding arrangements but had overheard Sir Travis and another man talking about her murder.
They had laughed and sipped brandy. They even made jokes about the wedding night. The maid found her outside the study. She had fled. For two days, she had hid and changed her looks. The night she had jumped off the cliff, she had gone back to Sir Travirs' to get the papers for the death insurance. He heard her but didn’t see her. By the time he broke down the door she was gone. He had sent the dogs and a tracker after her.
She told him that she had stowed away on a ship but said nothing about pirates.
"I'll never be safe. He'll kill me. Or have me killed. I have to go back to the ship," she said.
"We'll deal with him daughter. He can’t get away with this." he pulled a locket from his pocket.
"Where did you get it? I thought i lost it in the ocean," she noticed the grief cross his face.
"He told me you committed suicide that he found it on the cliff. I thought you did it because I arranged the marriage." he opened the locket and touched the two tiny pictures inside. Her as a child and one of her mother.
An owl hooted three times outside. "I’m sorry, poppy. I've been here to long." she looked at the mantel. It had been almost two hours. They both stood and she hugged him tight. He tried to hand her the locket. She closed his hand around it.
"Keep it for me. I'll come back as soon as I can." she told him and kissed his cheek. When she walked into the dark street, she felt her anger rise. So much lost. She even felt the growing seeds of revenge.

Learning

It was a month at sea and she asked Harve to teach her to use a sword. She harassed him for a week before he finally grudgingly agreed. The swords were heavier then she expected.
A week into her lessons just as Harve disarmed her she heard the captain laugh behind her. She turned and openly glared at him. It just caused him to laugh again.
"Maybe by tha time your two years er up you may be able to use that thing, boy." he said good-natured humor ringing in his voice. In truth all Elle heard was critic.
Captain James Talbot drew his sword from his left scabbard with his right hand. "Pick it up." he said and looked at hers lying on the deck. She glanced at Harve as she picked up her new sword. The captain parried and thrust she was disarmed again.
"Plant your feet boy," he said harshly. She picked up the sword. "Havre’s too easy on you," he said.
"Capt’n..." Harve said. The captain looked at him; Elle glared warning him to keep her secret. She saw him swallow. "Nutin sir."
Without warning, the captain exploded in motion. "Always expect the unexpected," he said as she glared at the sword that again lay on the deck. An hour past before she deflected a disbarment sweat coated her skin and the hollow between her bound breast felt sticky.
She didn’t have time to bask in her success. "Sail ho!" the call from came from above them. The captain started calling orders and the crew rushed to obey, more booty to be had, a chase to score, a ship to sail, what more could a pirate ask?
That day they took the booty, 70 cask of rum, 100 bolts of silk 20 trunks of gold and gems, 600 pounds of beeswax.
The captain of The Intrepid was allowed to keep his ship and all its crew. Even as he sailed away, Elle found more respect for her Captain.
The other captain left with a liter shipment but his eyes held respect for Captain James Talbot.
Captain Morris had been in a rage when we had captured his ship. His crew had fought but we outnumbered them two to one.
Every one stood frozen in a ready state to fight as the captains met. The men from their crew eyed the men from ours; our crew eyed theirs. The captains kept their voices low. It took longer than Elle had expected.
In the end, the other crew stood in two groups as we loaded their cargo onto our ship.
Elle got little sleep. She loved the sea but in six months eight of the crew perished, some taken by the sea during a storm. Men she knew, some she liked, and those were the hardest.
With less crew, the work was harder, more demanding. Each man had a place. Each job must be filled regardless of the number of men to fill them.
She didn’t let her duties slid but she still learned the sword in every moment available. When she slept, she slept like the dead. When she heard the call, "Land ho," she felt joy.
Before debarking, she grabbed the lather her dress was wrapped in and her coins. She drank less than the men drink and had no use of the wenches in port. Some of the