Will looked at her carefully. ‘You saw it, didn’t you? You saw your brother beat this boy to death.’
Mia nodded, the tears coming to her eyes. ‘I still remember his pleas and his screams. They were only kids.’
Will moved closer. His instinct was to comfort her, but it would be inappropriate. No matter how much he didn’t like it, he was still her captor and she his prisoner. He might want to hold her and stroke her hair and murmur in her ear, but he couldn’t.
Mia turned towards him, her face wet with tears. For a long moment their eyes were locked together and Will felt some invisible force pulling him towards her. A few seconds longer and he wouldn’t have been able to resist, he would have taken her in his arms and devoured her with his lips, but Mia turned away and broke the spell.
She looked out into the distance and continued. ‘The soldiers came looking for him. Normally they wouldn’t bother when one pickpocket kills another, but it was an excuse to rid the area of the whole gang.’
The wind whipped another strand of hair loose and this time Mia let it dance in the wind.
‘Jorge talked his way aboard a ship and started his career as a pirate.’
‘It must have been hard for you to lose your brother.’
‘I hated him for a while,’ Mia said quietly. ‘I hated him for killing that boy and I hated him for leaving us.’
‘And now?’
‘I don’t hate him,’ Mia said, ‘but I don’t think he’s the same boy I once knew.’
She shivered a little. Will suspected it was an emotional response as the night was hot and the air humid.
‘I hear the stories of the atrocious things he’s meant to have done and I remember the cheeky little boy who would entertain me for hours with his antics.’
‘So what happened to you after your brother left?’ Will asked, wondering how she’d survived.
‘My mother cried for a week when she realised Jorge was gone for good, but then she pulled herself together. She met a carpenter and they fell in love. He was always kind to me. He died six years ago and Mama followed him a few days later.’
‘So you’ve been on your own since?’
Will wondered just how old she was. She only looked twenty-two at the most, but that would mean she’d been on her own since she was sixteen. He didn’t want to think of what she’d had to do to survive.
‘Not entirely. Until six months ago I worked for Mr Partridge, one of the shipbuilders, in his kitchen. The other girls there were my family.’
‘What happened six months ago?’
‘They found out who my brother was.’
Will could just imagine Mia’s torment of once again having her life ripped out from under her feet.
‘I went into hiding. My stepfather had kept a small cabin on the east coast, not far from where I found you. No one knew about it. It was lonely, but at least I was alive.’
‘So have you actually committed any crime?’
He knew the answer before she said it.
‘No. But what does that matter?’
‘It matters,’ he said firmly. ‘It matters to me.’
‘Surely you don’t mean to take her ashore?’ Lieutenant Glass asked disapprovingly.
Will smiled serenely at the Lieutenant and nodded.
‘She has invaluable local knowledge.’
Mia suppressed a smile. She’d never been to Jamaica in her life and Will knew it.
‘Shall I at least retrieve the shackles for you?’ Glass said hopefully. ‘Stop her from running away?’
‘Are you going to run away, Miss Del Torres?’ Will asked.
‘No.’
‘You believe her?’ Glass looked as if he were about to explode.
‘I believe her.’
The Lieutenant mumbled a few incomprehensible words under his breath. As Will turned away Mia had to suppress the childish urge to stick her tongue out at the military man. That certainly wouldn’t endear her to him.
‘We shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours,’ Will informed the Captain.
‘We need to take on fresh supplies but we should be ready to leave as soon as you return, if necessary.’
Will offered Mia his arm and she placed a hand on the fabric of his jacket.
‘Where are we going?’ Glass asked as he followed them off the ship.
‘Miss Del Torres and I are off to meet a contact of mine in the less salubrious part of Port Royal. You are staying on board the ship.’
Glass actually choked with indignation.
Will let Mia’s hand drop and spun to face him.
‘I am meeting a secret contact who does not want it to be known he is helping the authorities catch pirates. I can hardly walk in with a Naval Officer at my side.’
Glass looked down at his unmistakable uniform.
‘I could change.’
‘Even in civilian clothes you have Navy written all over you. So if you don’t want to jeopardise our mission I suggest you stay out of sight.’
The man looked as though he was about to protest, then turned without another word and disappeared below decks.
‘I think you’ve just made an enemy,’ Mia said.
Will shrugged.
‘You need to be careful. The Lieutenant is a powerful man.’
‘He’s also rude and so far up his own...’ Will trailed off.
Mia giggled, ‘You forget I grew up with prostitutes and sailors and gutter rats. A little bit of bad language isn’t going to offend me.’
Despite what she said, Mia was quite pleased Will had stopped himself. She might be used to foul language, but she wanted his respect. It wouldn’t be a bad thing if he treated her like a lady rather than the commoner she was.
‘So where are we going?’ Mia asked cheerfully. She was pleased to be back on dry land. It wasn’t that she didn’t like the sea, but like many who lived in the Caribbean she was wary of the sudden changes in temperament. One minute the sky could be blue and the sea calm, the next the clouds would roll in and the sea would swallow anything and everything.
‘I have a source, an acquaintance of a friend of a friend of a friend, who might have some information.’
‘What kind of information?’ Mia asked.
‘He was once a member of your brother’s crew, got thrown out a few years ago for some transgression or another.’
‘How do you know he’ll tell you the truth?’
‘I don’t. But apparently when they threw him out they were actually trying to kill him, so he has little reason to stay loyal.’
They walked in silence for a minute or two. Mia enjoyed the lively sights and sounds of the port. Women in brightly coloured dresses flirted with the sailors. Voices shouting instructions for the unloading of the ships merged with the shrieks