Free Capture The Wind by Virginia Brown

inscribed there, mute testimony to the previous owner. Really. This Captain Saber was a dreadful man.
    Emily made a muffled sound, and Angela turned to see that her face had gone from ivory to a distinct greenish shade. Slowly, Emily sank to the carpeted floor with her hands over her mouth. Angela dropped the treatise back to the table.
    “What is it, Emily?”
    “I feel ill,” came the smothered reply.
    Angela sighed. “Again?”
    Emily nodded, eyes welling with tears and desperation. Angela searched swiftly for a bowl, and found one in a lacquered cabinet bolted to the floor beneath a swaying lantern. She looked down at it for a moment. This was no crude metal bowl such as the one she’d had aboard the Scrutiny, but a Chinese enameled bowl painted with blue horses. Not at all the sort of chamber pot she’d expected to find in a pirate captain’s cabin.
    Moaning, Emily made a retching noise, and Angela hurried toward her. The continuous pitching of the ship had increased, but she had been too distraught to notice it until now.
    She shoved the bowl into Emily’s trembling hands just in time, and knelt beside her while the unfortunate girl retched violently. As always, Angela offered what comfort she could, patting Emily’s shoulder and holding her hair back from her face as she bent over the bowl. Concerned, she did not hear Captain Saber’s return until he spoke.
    “What a charming scene. I shall remember it fondly in the days to come.”
    Angela turned to look up at him with a frown. “Emily cannot help it. It’s the ship’s motion that causes her distress. I would think you could be a bit more sympathetic to her affliction.”
    Saber dropped a wooden tray on a table. “I ooze sympathy. I just do it discreetly. Seasickness has never been a particular problem aboard the Sea Tiger, so perhaps you can understand my attitude. Shall I send Turk to you?”
    “Turk—oh yes. The Moorish pirate.”
    “Moorish? Do not suggest that ancestry to Turk. He will debate the accuracy of it with you at some length, and he can become quite tedious.”
    Emily moaned, and Angela gave her another comforting pat before rising to her feet to face Saber. She fought a faint tremor in her voice as she asked, “Just what is Turk’s cure for nausea?”
    “Nothing too painful, I assure you.” His eyes narrowed. “Did you expect poison? Dissection? No one aboard the Sea Tiger has been dissected in several months. We’ve almost forgotten how, and I’m certain our knives are too dull by now.”
    Angela looked at him uncertainly. Her perception of him was undergoing a slight readjustment. Though Captain Saber certainly looked as if he could dismember her with a reasonable amount of skill and efficiency, there was none of the look of a rabid dog about him, as Emily’s pamphlets so faithfully reported. Still, the earlier scene of his impassivity while consigning Captain Turnower and his crew to the watery depths of the Atlantic remained fixed in her memory as a grim warning that Saber could not be trusted to behave as a gentleman.
    She drew in another deep breath. “If you think Mr. Turk—”
    “Turk. No Mr.”
    “If Turk,” she continued, “could be of assistance to Emily, I would be most grateful.”
    Captain Saber’s brow lifted. “Gratitude. How alarming. Next thing I know, you’ll be eating the meal I brought you without first checking for the dismembered portions of any previous captives.”
    Angela flushed, though she could not stop a swift glance at the tray. Saber gave a bark of sardonic laughter.
    “How absolutely predictable you are. I see that I’m going to have to contact the authors of those pamphlets that circulate London and insist upon some accuracy in reporting the details of my depredations. I assure you, the truth is diabolical enough without embellishment.”
    Angela didn’t doubt that for a moment, but she refused to rise to his baiting comment this time. She remained silent while he studied her with a