A head appeared on the other side of the Mary Catherine. It was George Greene, Josiah’s oldest son, an angry young man of twenty-six who’d been cheated of his inheritance.
Jessica turned to him.
“You saw it, too,” George said softly, then louder, “I hear you have shrimp to sell, Mistress Jessica.” His eyes told her that they were being watched.
“Aye, George, that I do. Let me get you a bag.” Jess tore down the steps below and pulled out a burlap bag, stuffed a length of frayed rope inside and ran back up the stairs. “Will that be enough?” She stepped close to George. “Do you know anything?”
“Nothing. Father is afraid to hope. He wants Pitman dead.”
“I’d like to sail under her,” came a voice from above them.
“You’d better go,” Jess whispered. “I wish you enjoyment of the shrimp,” she said for the sailor’s benefit.
“I’ll stay with his horse. He may need me.”
Jess nodded and turned away.
Suddenly, above them came a shout and then the sounds of unfamiliar ruckus.
“It’s him!” George said and the hope in his voice was what would usually be reserved for the second coming.
“Go to his horse,” Jess commanded. “He may need help.” She ran up the short ladder to the upper deck, put her foot in the rigging as if to climb but never got the chance.
From the high ship rail of the Golden Hind, the Raider swung down on a rope tied to the top of the mainmast. The sunlight flashing off this man, a bound chest under his left arm, effectively stopped all movement in the vicinity.
For a moment everything seemed to stop moving. The tall Raider lithely swung across the ship, slipped down the rope and came to land in front of Jessica on the upper deck.
His eyes caught hers.
“You got the money,” she breathed, her eyes happy and alive.
He caught her to him with one strong arm and kissed her half-open mouth.
Jessica was too startled to be able to move away from him, but stood there while he kissed her. But when he pulled away from her as quickly as he’d come to her, she no longer thought of why they were there. She was aware only that this stranger had dared to kiss her. She drew back her hand to strike him, but he caught her wrist and boldly kissed her palm. “Good morning, Mistress Jessica,” he said, his lips smiling in a knowing way.
The next minute he was gone, heading toward the rope slung over the side of the ship.
But she had no precious time to waste on anger. She had to help the Raider escape. If the Golden Hind’s sailors were dumbfounded, her captain was not. Jess could hear orders being shouted and above her was movement as four men prepared to board her ship.
She wasn’t fool enough to try to stop His Majesty’s sailors, but perhaps she could delay them. She grabbed a coil of rope at her feet, rope as big around as her arm, and tossed an end to George who’d reboarded at the first sound of excitement. The Raider disappeared over the side of the ship.
Four sailors came scurrying across the deck of Jessica’s ship, close on the heels of the Raider.
George pulled his end of the rope, Jess half-hitched hers to the railing and all four sailors went sprawling just as they heard the sound of hoofbeats on the wharf.
“Take them!” she heard the captain shout from the ship above them and the next moment rough hands eagerly clutched her body. The men grinned when their hands brushed against her breasts and buttocks.
She was pulled off her ship, onto the wharf and across the gangplank of the Golden Hind, then shoved to her knees before the English captain, with George beside her.
The captain, a short, heavyset man in his fifties, looked down his nose at her. “So this is how the ladies dress i
n the Colonies?” he sneered. “Take them below.”
Jess was separated from George and thrown into a filthy little room in the hold of the ship. There were two inches of slimy water on the floor and she was sure the room had once been a repository for pig manure.
Within five minutes, she felt as if she had always been in this dank, dark place. She couldn’t move without kicking up the sediment on the hold floor. There was no bench to sit on, no way to get out of the filth.
She stood there, the water quickly seeping through the leather of her boots, and waited. She didn’t regret helping the Raider but now she thought of the consequences of her actions.