Free Fortune Trilogy 1 - Fortune's Mistress by Judith E. French Page A

badly that he ached with it.
    “Ye want a woman to cook your food and spread her legs whenever you say.”
    “No. I’m not saying that I don’t find you desirable, but right now I want a shipmate.”
    “A partner,” she suggested.
    “I said I’ll give you a fair portion.”
    “Share and share alike.”
    His face grew hot. “Now, wait a minute. The treasure’s mine. I’m cutting you in—”
    “Half or nothing,” she insisted. “And no sex unless I agree to it.”
    “You drive a hard bargain, woman.”
    “Swear,” she ordered. “On your mother’s soul.”
    “I swear.”
    She held out her hand. “Give me the knife.” He did as she asked, and she nicked her left thumb with the point, then held out her hand expectantly. He gave her his hand and she cut his right thumb in the same manner. Then, solemnly, she pressed the two together, letting their blood mingle. “Shipmates,” she said. “Share and share alike.”
    “Agreed,” he said, and wondered what in the hell he’d let himself in for. And then, to his wonder, she threw back her head and let out a shout of utter joy.
    “To hell with Newgate! To hell with England!” she cried. “We’re off to find a bloody treasure. You, me, and Harry!”

Chapter 5
    “W ho the hell is Harry?” James demanded when Lacy had finally ceased her prancing, dropped down on the deck, and drew her knees up under her skirts in a distinctly unladylike pose.
    “Why ...” She stared at him as though he were slow-witted. “Harry’s the ship’s cat, of course.”
    “Cat, hell! I hate cats. We’ll have no cats on this voyage.”
    “If Harry doesn’t go, I don’t go.” She folded her arms across her breasts and regarded James with an imperious air. “A cat for luck. And God knows this venture will need all the luck it can get.”
    He glared back at her. “I’ll toss it overboard first chance I get.”
    “Try it. Touch a hair on Harry’s head, and you’ll find yourself swimming back to land with a cracked skull.”
    “You’d mutiny—murder a man—over a swiving cat?”
    “Try me.”
    A heavy silence hung over the deck of the Silkie for long minutes, then James grudgingly relented. “Have your cat then,” he muttered, “but keep it away from me. And ...” His eyes narrowed. “You’ll feed the thing from your rations, not mine. We’ll see how long you stay sentimental if our biscuit runs low in the Sargasso Sea.”
    “Don’t say such things!” Lacy threw up her hands and made the sign against evil. “You’ll jinx our voyage before we begin,” she warned him. Every deep-water sailor was full of tales about the Sargasso, a haunted place that stretched for hundreds of miles in the center of the Atlantic—a stretch of water covered with stinking brown weed. “They say the winds die there,” she said, “and that nothing lives in the sea, no fish ... nothing at all.”
    “I’ve crossed it before, I can cross it again.”
    “So ye say.” Sailors’ tales were always more rum than fact, but there were dangers enough on the open water without tempting fate. “You’ve sailed the route we’re going to take?” she asked.
    “Four times. We’ve lain there with slack sails for days, but we always caught a wind and made it through.”
    She nodded. “I suppose.”
    “Did you think you could get to the New World and a fortune without danger?”
    “I’m no coward, James Black,” she answered sharply. “I can face anything you can. But ... but I see no sense in borrowing trouble.”
    “A woman’s trepidation.”
    She pursed her lips. “Trepi ... trepi what?”
    “Trepidation.” He smiled condescendingly. “It means fears.”
    She flushed. “Throw all the big words ye like, but there’s times when fear can keep ye alive.” Straightening her shoulders, she turned away from him, then paused and glanced back. “I only hope you’ve steel for a backbone, sir. For if you’re all talk and yellow under the bluster, we’ll know soon