Pirate's Bride (Liberty's Ladies) by Lynette Vinet Page B

her head and wiped away her tears. “You had other matters on your mind.”
    “Yes, silly and stupid pranks to gain my husband’s attention. I feel like I’ve failed you, my dearest childhood friend.”
    “Never, Bethlyn. I wish only for you to discover the beauty of love. My time is past now. I must live on my memories.”
    Bethlyn replied nothing to that. She hoped that Mavis would find true love again and that Mavis’s wish would come true for herself as well. However, she couldn’t dwell on love now. If her husband was involved with the doxy scheme, then she’d lose her dream of a home and family. She could never love a man who transported women across the sea for soldiers’ amusements. Because of him, she might never know how it felt to belong to a man, to melt with desire when a man looked at her, touched her. So, after all these years, the time had come to make Ian Briston pay for what he’d done to her … or, to be more exact, for what he hadn’t done to her.
    ~ ~ ~
     
    The hour was long past one in the morning when Bethlyn quietly left her bunk and reached for her plain gray gown. She dressed in the darkness, and then as she had done weeks before, she opened the cabin door . The squeaking of the hinges practically reverberated through her head, and she waited for the inevitable sailor to appear and caution her to return to bed. No one came.
    Mavis’s steady breathing was the only sound she heard, other than the gentle swishing noise of the waves against the hull. She opted to go barefoot but disliked the grimy feel of the wood floor, She doubted the interior of the ship had been properly cleaned in years, and this was one other thing she must remember to tell her father in her letter to him. Keeping to the shadows of the walls, she silently made her way to the small storeroom she’d seen during her tour of Nightingale with Captain Montgomery. Luckily the door was ajar and allowed her to slip quickly inside when a man’s voice came from the other end of the hallway.
    A murky darkness enfolded her once she was inside, and a damp chill penetrated her flesh. Adjusting her eyes to the dim light, she saw various-sized crates which contained supplies for the soldiers in Philadelphia. But it was the closed doorway leading to the room where the women stayed which held her interest. She very nearly made a move for the door handle but froze when the door began to open.
    Self-preservation propelled her to take refuge behind one of the crates none too soon. The sailor who usually guarded her cabin appeared, and a woman clasped her arms around his neck.
    “You were real good tonight, pet,” the woman crooned to the burly seaman.
    “Aye, me girl, I was. What did you say your name was again?”
    “Pearl, I told you,” the woman ground out.
    “Aye, I had forgotten.” He chucked her chin. “Now don’t pout because I ain’t one with names. Here’s a few shillings for you.” He reached into his pocket and handed her the money which she took and dropped into the front of her blouse. Bethlyn waited to hear the clink of the money on the floor, but another look at Pearl proved to Bethlyn that the money was quite safe and not about to fall as the woman’s bosom was extremely large. “Now how about a farewell kiss?”
    Pearl accommodated him, and after he’d playfully smacked her backside and left, another woman, quite young with long dark hair, appeared with a tall sailor. After a few moments of wet kisses, he then paid her and left her standing by the auburn-haired Pearl. The woman looked down at the few coins in her hand. “How much did yours give you, Pearl?”
    “Cheap bastard!” Pearl cried. “I’ve had more sportin’ fun with fifteen-year-old lads who paid me better. That’s the last time I let that silly fool get a piece of me, Della, I tell you that.” The two women disappeared into the room’s confines, Pearl slamming the door behind her.
    Bethlyn rose from her haunched position, legs straining