The Pirate Vortex: Elizabeth Latimer, Pirate Hunter (Book One)

CHAPTER 23: If You're In Danger, How Can I Leave You?

Captain Barnet allowed Liz to take her domestics and the mare to his vessel. Barnet didn’t know about CJ, so Liz left CJ in Rackham’s cabin. Liz gave the cabin a quick once-over before she left it, but she couldn’t find Rackham. The important thing was to get Barnet and his men off the Curlew. Barnet’s men scoured the sloop and found it empty. They decided not to leave a sentry to guard it. They intended to capture Calico Jack Rackham before he returned to his ship from his alleged bout of drinking.

     What Liz proposed to do with Fancy right now, she wasn’t sure. But whatever happened, in the end, Fancy would have to be freed. Barnet’s men took Fancy below the hatches. Liz refrained from objecting even though it would seem like prison to the skittish mare. Once they docked, Liz would get her out.

     Aboard the Tyger, Daniel was invited to tour the ship with the captain. Could Daniel remain mute? She giggled at the predicament she’d landed him in.

     The Tyger’s first lieutenant showed her to the captain’s quarters where she could freshen up. Liz curtsied in her bone lace gown. The lieutenant bowed. His face was completely deadpan. Did she look that bad? Liz requested that Mary accompany her and sent her men away. Liz stared into a gilded mirror that hung on the wall opposite the captain’s bunk. Yeah, okay, she looked pretty bad. She looked like a cat had wrestled a bird in her hair. The contrast between the messy hair and the ostentatious gown made her look like one of Madam Molly’s prostitutes. Liz sat down at a small table beneath the mirror and combed her fingers through the tangles.

     “I need help,” Liz said. She swung to face Mary, scraping the chair on the floor. “Help me do my hair.”

     She needed a chroma-shine fix and only Pantene Pro-V shampoo would do that. Too bad she hadn’t thought to bring any with her. But who was thinking of silky, shiny hair when time travel was involved? Liz sighed. When on shipboard, improvise. But how?

     Mary waited, jeeringly, for orders. Failing to get any, she shook her head impatiently. She stepped out of the cabin and returned fifteen minutes later with Wang and a bucket of water.

     “No shampoo?” Liz asked.

     “I beg yer pardon?” Mary said.

     “You know, soap?”

     “Soap will dry yer hair and make it sticky,” Mary said.

     We couldn’t have that.

     Liz washed her hair in plain water and dried it with a cotton cloth. Then she sat in the sun, where it shone through the captain’s window at the stern of the ship. She fluffed her hair up with her fingers. Wang waited at the door grinning at her in her girly-girl costume, doing girly-girl things to her hair. Shut up, Liz informed him with a perfectly razor sharp glare. Wang pinched his lips together and tried not to smile. Mary watched Liz return to the mirror, braid her hair into a single long rope, then wind it into a pretzel-like figure eight behind her head. Mary brought Liz some hairpins and helped Liz to fasten her do.

     “What is this?” Mary asked, touching the flying dagger earring on Liz’s left lobe.

     Only my lifeline, Liz thought. Or was it her deathline?

     “An ear bobble,” Elizabeth said.

     “I have never seen anything the likes of that. It looks to be a pirate’s token.”

     And so it was, Liz thought.

     “It is pierced through your ear.”

     “Yes.” Was there a problem with that? Didn’t eighteenth century women have pierced ears?