A Pirate's Ruse Read online

  A Pirate’s Ruse

  Pirate Rogues Series Book 1

  By Camille Oster

  Copyright 2015 Camille Oster

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the work of the author's imagination, or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

  Acknowledgements:

  To Elisabeth for her help.

  Camille Oster – Author

  @camille_oster

  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Camille-Oster/489718877729579

  [email protected]

  Chapter 1:

  * * *

  Liverpool, 1687

  "I fear for your soul," Sister Margaret said, rearranging her habit as she rose from the bare chair behind her worn mahogany desk. They were in Sister Margaret’s vaulted office where peeling plaster created patterns on the otherwise unadorned ceiling. The iciness of the room soaked through Clara’s dress. It always did and she had been in this office more than a few times. "Perhaps if I had whipped you more …" The nun genuinely sounded regretful, while Clara wasn't sure the woman could have whipped her more than she had—considering she still bore the scars of the birch switch Sister Margaret used to discipline and instill order. "It's such a shame. You're such a pretty girl, but your time here is finished." The woman waved dismissively. "Come, it is time. We have tried to do the best we could for you."

  Clara picked up her carry bag and straightened her skirt, refusing to show fear in front of this woman, who had, in essence, been the most maternal force in her life—an exasperated and ashamed mother, because try as she might, Clara did everything wrong. She never managed to be quiet when she was supposed to, or to be demure—she particularly failed with that. It wasn't like she was trying to be horrible; she just missed that part in her that could be quiet and still.

  Her wild dark-brown curls escaped from under her mobcap as she followed Sister Margaret through the courtyard to the main doors of the convent—the massive wooden doors to the outside world, where they rarely got to go. Over the last few years, Clara had longed to be free in the world, free of the convents routine and enforced silence—all in an attempt to make them proper women.

  Clara knew the sisters were disappointed in her in that regard. She couldn't dance, her needlework made the sisters cry and her singing made everyone else cry. She couldn't sit still without fidgeting and she had never truly gotten the hang of prayer, but now that was all over. Her time at the Blessed Virgin Convent and Home for Young Girls was over.

  Sister Margaret opened the small door cut into the larger one, standing back to let Clara through. "May God be with you," she said, but Clara suspected the sisters were glad to be rid of her. “Unteachable,” they had said, and admittedly she wasn't that bright when it came to words and letters.

  Taking a shuddering breath, Clara looked outside, clasping her hand around the silver coins the sisters had given her and stepped through the door.

  "Keep to your prayers and the lessons we've tried to instill in you," Sister Margaret said before slamming the door shut. Clara was about to respond saying she would, but the door firmly closed behind her before she had a chance. She heard the bolt slide in place and then noticed the noise of the street that now assaulted her. Liverpool. She'd lived there all her life, but knew very little of the city.

  Clasping her bag close to her she looked left and right down the street, finally outside the high walls of the convent where she'd grown up. Drizzling rain turned the street to muck, unpleasant odors stinging her nose. "Happy birthday to me," she said quietly to herself, having no idea what to do with herself. She had to find employment of some kind, but she had little idea how. She wasn't bright enough to teach and she struggled to follow direction, which would likely curtail her employment with any respectable family.

  She suspected she would, on the whole, be better off if a convent education hadn’t left her so unprepared to deal with real life. What use was knowledge of saints in a place like this, she asked herself as she stepped out of the way of a cart. The street’s muck sloshed under the wheels and Clara stepped back to prevent the foul-smelling mud from splattering on her shoes. This wasn't even a Catholic country, which made the convent education even more remote from the practical skills she needed.

  "Miss Clara Nears?" a craggy-looking man across the street asked, his voice croaky with a distinct quiver.

  Clara eyed the enquirer suspiciously, aware the man knew her name. A large scar went down the side of his cheek and he definitely fit the bill for the many types of men she'd been warned to stay away from. His hair was long and stringy, a mix between gray and brown.

  He was waiting for an answer, but she didn't want to give him one. Nothing about him looked trustworthy, from his threadbare clothes to the crutch under his arm, supporting a severe limp. But he knew her name. "Yes?" she said carefully.

  "Your father wants a word."

  Clara's mouth fell open in astonishment. "My father?" She had never been told of a father. Throwing a piercing glance back at the convent, she swore to herself. It was just like the sisters to withhold such vital information—typical really. All these years she'd thought she was entirely alone in this world, but apparently she wasn't; she had a father, who apparently seemed to know when her birthday was.

  "This way," the man said, his long, greasy hair shifting across his back as he walked, or hobbled, to be exact.

  Clara considered what to do as the man awkwardly walked down the street. Her indecisiveness would lose him out of sight if she didn't do something. He was taking her to her father. How could she not go? And it wasn't like she had anywhere else to be. Her shoulders slumping, she followed the man, having a feeling this might be a bad idea. What kind of man was her father if he had left her in a convent all her life, never even bothering to announce himself?

  As she followed the hobbling man, she ran through different scenarios in her head that could explain this situation, but the scenarios she was coming up with were ridiculous—a spy for the king, working on secret missions, hence the reason he could never see her. Ridiculous. Not only that, but he sent this man to fetch her, who didn't look far off dead. And why couldn't he come himself? She imagined a scene when a loving father waited for a long-lost but loved daughter to emerge from the convent, running into his arms and being safe. Instead, she was following a man she instinctively knew she should avoid. This couldn't be good.

  Walking down the narrow streets of Liverpool, along the muck, animals and the sellers, she wondered if she should run the other way. But to what? What was there for her to run to?

  Her hem was getting covered in filth and a flash of fear ran through her that the sisters would have her hide for it, but she realized she would never see the sisters again. They would never again beat her for getting dirty, or for fidgeting during prayers, or for being so utterly useless at reading. Although her father might. Belatedly, she held her skirt up to avoid more muck getting on its hem, but judging from the man in front of her, who was seemingly in her father's employ, cleanliness was not a prevailing priority.

  They emerged at the port which was a jumble of masts, sails and rigging as far as the eye could see. It was even noisier and more noxious smelling than Clara thought possible and she nearly lost track of the man. What were they doing down here? Ducking around a horse, she tried to keep the man in sight, tightly holding the bag with her nightgown, spare undergarments and Bible.

  The man stopped after a long walk down the docks and he turned to see her coming up behind him. "Here we are," he said, beaming with pride.

  "Here we are what?" she asked, knowing she'd get quit
e a reprimand for being so direct if she was still in the convent. All she saw was men, ships and cargo.

  She really had to get used to the idea that she wasn't going back. She was free to do as she pleased—and to face all the perils of the world, which she had been duly warned about. According to the sisters, the outside world was simply a den of iniquity. "Is my father here?"

  "No, you twit. We have to go see him."

  "I thought that was what we were doing. Is he not here?"

  "He's in the Caribbean."

  "What?"

  "Come, the tide is favorable. We must sail."

  "Sail? All the way to the Caribbean?"

  "That's right. Now step aboard. Mind your step. Don't want you in the water, now do we? Who knows what's lurking down there."

  Clara looked over the side of the jetty, down into the black, murky water. Never mind what's down there, she said to herself. What's on the other side of that rickety gangplank? She grew suspicious. This man was just some stranger who had turned up at the gate of the convent to tell her some cockamamie story of a lost father. He could just be some person waiting for a girl to be pushed out into the world, but then he'd known her name. "How do I know what you're telling me is true?"

  "Suspicious little thing, aren't you?" he said with a grin showing missing teeth. "I can see your father in you."

  "And why is he not here himself, if he is my father?"

  "Not too popular around these parts. Pirates never are."

  "What?" she said, thinking she didn't hear him correctly. "A pirate? A pirate!"

  "That's right. Not just a pirate—the king of the pirates."

  Clara just stared at him. If she wondered if this man was some looney out looking for a desperate and foolish girl, she was pretty sure of it now.

  "It is your eighteenth birthday, Clara Nears, and it is your time to meet the man who’s been paying your fees for the last seventeen years.”

  Her eyes widened. She’d always assumed she had been there by charity, but apparently not. "So if this pirate is my father, then who is my mother?"

  The man bared his ugly, blackened teeth again. "Now that is a story for another day."

  She looked suspiciously up at the large, wooden ship next to them. "I'm not going on board of that."

  "Believe me girl, you are safer on board here than you are with them lot," he said waving back at the port.

  With narrowed eyes, she glared at him.

  "Your eyes ain't going to kill me, girl. Now, your father sent this ship clear across the Atlantic to collect you, now you best not keep him waiting."

  Clara's eyes softened a bit. The idea of a long-lost father was probably the most appealing thought she could think of. "And what does he want with me?"

  "He needs an heir and he ain't got sons. Just you."

  Clara considered her prospects for a moment. She could well imagine the sisters standing over her shoulder shocked that she would even contemplate stepping foot on that ship. Before her was a promise of adventure and even family—not that she was entirely sure she believed it. Behind her was starvation, then acknowledgement of what she'd have to do to survive. How could stepping on that ship be a worse option?

  Chapter 2:

  * * *

  Clara spent three weeks on a ship called Lady Anne, feeling uncertain what to do, intermittently kicking herself for being so stupid as to impulsively follow a strange man onto a ship leaving England, but her curiosity and sense of adventure overtook her as the weather grew warmer. The convent was never warm and she had trouble believing how warm the days were getting as they traveled southward. What would the sisters say if they knew she was the daughter of a pirate? They may even have known. Not that Clara really understood what that meant. Pirates were awful people, who raided and stole—the curse sailing the Caribbean waters. And one of them was her father.

  For the umpteenth time, she wondered what he wanted with her, why he'd sent to retrieve her now. But the ever-present curiosity kept bouncing around questions in her head, which none of the men on the ship answered. So she'd stopped asking somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic.

  Now, they had to be getting close as they were sailing past lush green islands with beaches so white they blinded in the bright sunlight. Strips of turquoise water surrounded each island, luminous like a band of jewels.

  Very little color had existed in Clara's life, but here there was an explosion of if, like she’d never seen. The birds were bright, the sun was brighter, the sea sparkled and the islands were covered in deep green jungle.

  "Are we far away?" she asked the stringy-haired man. Again he ignored her and anger flared in her chest, but years of discipline had taught her to control it, hiding it away to pretend to be the demure female she was supposed to be—never question, never criticize, never have an opinion in any shape or form.

  Walking up on the quarterdeck, she slipped her legs through the bars of the stern balustrade and watched the foamy wake of the ship and the singing sound the water made around the hull. Wood and ropes creaked and groaned with the pressures of the wind and the water. Sitting like this, she'd seen whales and dolphins, but none of the playful creatures lingered in their wake today.

  *

  "Get ready, lass," the stringy-haired man yelled, knocking on Clara's cabin.

  Clara scrambled out of her cot where she had been lying, staring at the ceiling. What was going on? Had they arrived? She rushed upstairs and stared out into the dark, night-time horizon, seeing an island reflected in the moonlight, along with smoke rising if one looked carefully. If there was smoke, there must be people. "Where are we?" she called back.

  "Tortuga Bay, of course," he said like she was daft.

  The name struck fear and worry in her—the heart of the lawless pirate world. Her palms itch and her mouth went dry. What had she gotten herself into? Heart pounding, she watched as the pirate enclave grew closer, suspecting madness would ensue when they arrived, but perhaps madness here was better than the cold, drab streets of Liverpool where nothing but the gutter was ready to greet her.

  They sailed closer then released the anchor. "Why have we stopped?" she asked as she reached the limping man who’d come to fetch her.

  "We have to row from here. They charge an arm and leg to take the ship to port, and we've got no cargo to unload. Besides, they're all pirates in there; you can't trust anyone."

  Clara bit her lip. That was not the assurance she needed to hear right now, so with dread and excitement she made her way down into the darkness by the rope ladder to the small boat waiting for passengers. It shifted uncomfortably when she stepped in, feeling conscious of her obvious lack of sea-legs in a smaller boat like this. At least she hadn't embarrassed herself by spending the entire voyage leaning over the side, relieving the contents of her stomach.

  "Sit down, girl," one of the men said gruffly as she stumbled around, rocking the entire boat. Crouching down, she sat on the uncomfortable ledge, trying to keep her balance.

  Two burly men rowed, one oar each, pulling the small boat to the shore in total silence, other than the sound of the oars slashing into the water. That was the first time these men has been quiet as far as she could recall. Maybe even they were nervous coming here. Clara suppressed a sigh and bit the nail of her thumb as she waited. Before she was ready, the boat hit the beach to the left of the port, almost knocking her off the ledge. "You need to be carried?" one of the men asked, his face hidden in the shadows.

  "I'll manage," she said with a polite smile that she was sure was wasted in the darkness. She was not about to be carried ashore like a sack of potatoes, but maybe she was expected to be. She didn't know the rules, she realized as she jumped over the side of the boat, feeling the warm water running around her legs. Water soaked her heavy, wool skirt, which grew heavier as she waded to shore.

  It was warm even at night. Sweat ran down her back, making her wool dress itch. The dress was ill-suited to the climate, which she'd known for quite a while now, but she
had nothing else other than her nightgown, which she only wore when alone in her cabin.

  The sand was soft under her feet, giving as she walked on it, following the men toward a jumble of buildings with faint lights shining through windows. At least they had buildings, she thought, but wasn't sure it was all that much of a comfort.

  The men all marched forward and Clara followed, expecting they would take her to her father. This must be where he lived, or one of those ships in the harbor might be his, she thought, looking back at the ships silhouetted by the moonlight. Never in all her life would she have thought she'd end up here a month ago when she was contemplating what to do with herself.

  "Come on, girl. Why are you just standing there?" the stringy-haired man said.

  "Do you even have a name?" she asked, annoyed that he'd never bothered to give it to her. Manners were definitely not a practiced art amongst these men.

  "Tuber."

  "Tuber? That's an odd name."

  "I like potatoes."

  Clara blinked, guessing there was some logic behind the connection. She followed the man as he scuttled down the sand, reaching wooded steps leading up to the port jetty and boardwalk.

  They walked between buildings, clustered without any sense, built on top of each other. There was hardly space for a horse down some of the side alleys, let alone a carriage. Apparently there were no carriages here, but then where would they go? There appeared to be no other habitation around. A donkey stood in the middle of the street, chewing on some grass.

  "Don't dawdle, girl. You might want to do this before everyone gets too drunk. Or maybe you wish to wait—enjoy the merriment."

  "No!" Clara said emphatically. The sisters had warned her to no end of the evils that lay in drink, particularly to young, virtuous girls.

  "Come, then," he said, continuing farther down what looked like a poorly planned main street. The walkway was covered in wooden planks. Clara could hear shouting and laughing inside the buildings as they passed. Her guide was taking her to a building with a flaming lamp outside, which swung with a creak in the warm breeze. The shouting was louder inside and Clara could hear a fiddle playing.