I trembled as I watched him go, my gut queasy at his words. He was a blackguard if ever I knew one. Jewels or not, he just might gut me at the end of this either way.

  * * *

  At sundown, Izra brought my dinner to my cabin in a basket. After the upset of the previous evening, the captain seemed to think I’d prefer privacy, which was more than fine with me.

  As Izra set dinner out on the table, he sniffled and hardly looked my way. I knew he felt terrible for letting Hackett in that morning, but I held my tongue. Frannie might apologize to a cabin boy, but Miss Coates surely wouldn’t—mute or not.

  Soon as he left, I went over to the cuddy and stood before it, trying to shore up my nerve. I had finished Miss Coates’s journal entries earlier, and now I had only one hope left: Lane.

  A little while ago, I’d overheard the hands chattering about him. For speaking against His Majesty King George and inciting Hackett to violence, Lane had been punished with a day of confinement and lost his food ration.

  That had given me an idea.

  I snatched a knife off the table, shot the bolt back, and swung the door wide.

  Lane jumped to his feet and bumped his head on the low ceiling. Then he stood, crouching in the darkness and blinking. His gaze fell to the knife in my hand. “You don’t need that. I’m no danger to you.”

  “Why should I believe you?”

  “You shouldn’t.” He shifted his weight. “But it is the truth.”

  I didn’t know what to make of that. I didn’t fear him. But I felt breathless and jittery, like when I dove a new wreck.

  Though Lane’s hair fell loose to his shoulders and the cuddy was dark, I didn’t miss the scratches on his neck nor the bloodstains on his collar from his fight with Hackett. His right sleeve had been torn, and I could see the curve of his shoulder. The cuddy itself was cramped and spare, with a porthole against the far side, and a pitcher and folded blanket in a corner. A ladder rose to a hatch, which had to be how he came and went when not being punished for brawling.

  Before I lost my nerve, I drew a breath and pushed out the words I’d been practicing. “I heard the hands talking this afternoon about you losing your food ration, for fighting Hackett, and I can help with that. There’s dinner enough for us both on that table. I’ll share it with you. All you gotta do’s answer my questions, as many questions as I have to ask, and don’t ask any back. Not one.”

  His dark eyebrows pulled together like it was the strangest thing he’d ever heard.

  Maybe it was.

  Maybe my vulgar speech offended his genteel ears.

  “Very well. I accept your terms.”

  I blinked. “Well, come on, then.” I stepped aside. That had gone easier than I’d expected. “There’s a basin over there if you want to wash. And don’t worry. No one’ll know you’re in here. The door’s bolted. The main door, meaning.”

  He entered and swept a slow gaze round the cabin, then crossed to the washbasin. “I’ll dirty this,” he said over his shoulder.

  “It’s no trouble. Izra brings fresh water and a clean towel every morning.”

  As he washed his hands and face, then pulled his dark hair into a knot, I caught myself watching him like he was doing something interesting. I shook my head and set the knife on the table. Then I lit a candle off the ship’s lantern, as night had fallen, and sat.

  Somewhere above, the Ambrosia’s crew danced to a jaunty fiddle, their steps thumping like the beat of a wooden heart. My foot jiggled nervously under the table, making everything shake even more, but I stopped myself as Lane came over.

  He settled into the chair across from mine and placed his napkin on his lap, so I did as well. I hadn’t thought this far ahead in my planning and I couldn’t think at all now. As he poured wine, my only thought was to watch his hands and not his face, ’cause Sewel said I had owl eyes that always stared.

  He set the wine down. “I am ready whenever you are.”

  “What’s your name? Your Christian name. I forgot it,” I added. Then I felt my face warm for no reason I could understand.

  “Asa. Asa Lane.”

  “How old are you, Asa Lane?”

  “Nineteen.”

  “And why are you on this ship?” I said, in spite of myself. I needed his help, but I couldn’t bring myself to just ask for it. I didn’t want to appear like a grasping girl trying to rise above her low station—which I was. The clever glint in Asa Lane’s eyes only added to my reluctance.

  “This was a condition of my release,” he replied.

  “Your release?”

  “Aye. I am a privateersman. I was a marine guard on the schooner Stalwart, out of Marblehead, until a few weeks ago. We were cruising to the West Indies, having good success seizing British merchantmen until we grew too brazen and chased after a seventy-four—that’s a very large ship.”

  “I know.” I sat up, my curiosity instantly sparked. “How many mounted guns on it?”

  “Thirty-two.”

  “That must’ve been a sight. Was your schooner coppered?”

  “Nay. And she was sailing sluggish, too.”

  I shook my head. “Teredo worms, probably.” In my mind, I was underwater, running my hands over the whorls of a worm-eaten hull. “You never stood a chance.”

  His lips tugged up. “You’re remarkably familiar with naval affairs, Miss Coates.”

  I felt the pull of a smile, too. “Well, my father—Nathaniel Coates? He’s a shipping merchant. This is his ship—the Ambrosia. This table right here’s his table.” I patted it for good measure.

  “Of course.” he said, playing along. “I apologize and offer my condolences for your loss.”

  “Thank you,” I said, swallowing past the pinch in my throat. I wasn’t mourning Nathaniel Coates, but I was mourning. “What happened after the Stalwart was seized?” I wanted the entire story now.

  “Most of my fellow crewmen were sent to Fort St. Mark—a prison in St. Augustine. Some were sold into bondage. A few were pressed into the Royal Navy. But as I bear the name Lane, and the privilege it accords, fate was kinder to me. My father and uncle pooled wealth and power to apply pressure on the magistrate overseeing my imprisonment—or I should say my situation. That was his term, because there was some confusion over whether I was in fact a prisoner.

  “To charge me with war crimes, the courts would have needed to recognize America as a sovereign and independent nation. The magistrate chose to view me as an errant British subject instead. But in that view, I couldn’t be detained without being charged with a crime. Thanks to that neat riddle, I was pardoned of any wrongdoings and ordered home.” He tipped his chin toward the cuddy. “That luxurious little hovel is Old Jansen’s idea of ‘private quarters,’ as provisioned for in my release papers. I shall be holed up in there until I reach Massachusetts, whereupon I’ll be officially free again.” He smiled—a real smile. “You seem appeased, Miss Coates. I hope I’ve earned the right to a few bites.”

  “Yes—eat,” I said, feeling like I’d snapped out of a daydream. Never had I been spoken to so openly about the war, but that was only part of it. It was no hardship to look at him, I was realizing. Asa Lane was handsomer than any boy I’d ever seen—by leagues and fathoms, really—and sitting across the table from him, I hadn’t a prayer of ignoring it. I couldn’t tell whether his eyes were blue or brown. Brown, I thought, ’cause his hair was dark and wavy. But they were beautiful-shaped eyes, whatever their color. Set a little wide and canted at the edges, like under the weight of his lashes. It gave him a solemn look—or a determined one. I couldn’t decide.

  He picked up his spoon and waited.

  “Oh.” I picked up mine.

  Our dinner was fish and mashed turnips—smash, as we called it in West End. It was overcooked and runny, but I wasn’t complaining. In West End, I worked sunup to sundown hoping I’d end up with enough peas and rice to cure my hunger. I had no problem at all with baskets of food showing up at my door.

  As we ate, it occurred to me that Lane had kept his word so far, answering my questions and not asking any back. That began to put me at ease.

  I could do this. All I had to do was keep on asking questions without overthinking my motives or worrying about looking greedy or covetous. I swallowed a bite. “What would I need to learn if I wanted to become more refined? More ladylike, I mean?”

  “Movement,” he replied right away, like he’d been waiting for the question. “Your manner is too sharp. You’d need to modify the way you walk, the way you sit, the way you use that spoon.”

  I sat up straighter. Relaxed my grip on my spoon, holding it more like he held his. “How should I do those things?”

  “With elegance and reserve, but also naturally. Gracefully.” He glanced toward the stern window. “That music you hear—that is how you ought to move.”

  The jigging had ended and now the fiddle played a slow, wistful tune. It made me think of seaweed swaying with the tide. I nodded. “I can learn that. What else?”

  “Your nose is peeling from the sun. Wear a hat. Keep to the shade. And try to appear a little less hardy. Feign seasickness or heat exhaustion, for instance. Pretend offense when the hands speak coarsely near you. That sort of thing.”

  They were the same sorts of things Mama had been telling me for years. As Sewel had turned me into una niña salvaje, she’d tried to keep me feminine. “What else?”

  “There are rules of propriety.” He tipped his head toward the cuddy. “A lady would never, in all her life, have opened that door for me. Her virtue would be her top concern. There’s etiquette to consider as well, such as proper table manners.”

  “I got plenty of virtue, Lane,” I said, suddenly feeling unvirtuous and more than a little wicked. I shoveled a huge spoonful into my mouth, letting the smash dribble out. “Tabuh murmurs, too,” I said through my chewing.

  He laughed. It was a different sound from his speaking voice. Husky and loose. “Skip those, then. The real work would be improving your conversation. Reading will strengthen your expression. Words have power. Learn them and that power becomes yours. You’ll also need to consider the quality of what you say, which ought to convey modesty, amiability, and elegance.”

  “Saints…” I sat back in my chair, daunted at last. “I’m none of those.”

  “With respect, Miss Coates, I disagree. I’ve just discovered you are amiable.”

  I fussed with the edge of my napkin. Never had I been complimented by anyone but Mama or Mercy. But he hadn’t really complimented me. “Well, I hate to disappoint you, but I’m not Miss Coates. My name’s Frannie. Francisca Tasker. Frannie’s fine.”

  “I’m not disappointed. Not at all. Glad to meet you, Frannie.” We fell quiet and sat smiling at each other as the fiddle finished its tune and began a new one. Nothing changed, but suddenly everything felt different. The darkness outside seemed darker. The creaks of the ship, softer. Even the air inside my lungs felt lighter.

  “Frannie, if you can pretend that cut doesn’t hurt,” he said after a while, “then I think you can pretend anything.” I touched the spot above my eye, where his gaze had moved. It felt wet and crusted. Hot and sore. “You really ought to close it with a few stitches. And soon, or it’ll scar badly.”

  “A few stitches? It’s skin.”

  “Skin can be sewn.”

  I cringed. “A horrid thought! I could never do such a thing.”

  “I could, for a trade.”

  “A trade? Saints, Asa Lane. You talk like causing pain’s a favor.”

  “I’m good with needle and thread. I was a sailmaker’s mate for a time.”

  “Now I know you’re lying. No gentleman would ever do that.”

  “As it happens, I’m no gentleman.”

  I frowned. “Then why are you so…so…” He was educated and mannered, that much was plain, but then again, I’d seen him brawl with Hackett and speak boldly toward the captain. He had tears in his sleeve. Scratches on his neck. And that lean sort of stare. Truth was, I didn’t see where Asa Lane fit.

  “My father is the gentleman. I’m only his misbegotten son.”

  “Misbegotten? So you’re…”

  “His bastard. Aye. That’s what I am. His ‘great mistake,’ as he likes to say. The consequence of an affair he had in Paris one year with a young mademoiselle. My mother was only fifteen when she had me. She died soon after I was born, so I was sent to my father’s home in Rhode Island. There, he raised me with just enough polish not to shame him any more than I do by existing. I left his home at thirteen and took to the sea, where amongst other things, I’ve learned to suture gashes.” He paused. “I’m no gentleman, Frannie. Nor am I a surgeon. But I do have sure hands.”

  I’d been trying to understand something about Lane—why he had a separateness about him, like a ship at sea—and now I finally did. He’d never had anyone but himself to depend on. I wanted to know more about him, but he seemed desperate to poke my head with a needle. “I’m not saying yes—I’m not—I just want to know…what’s the trade?”

  “I put two points on it. Three, if needed. And in recompense, tomorrow I ask the questions and you answer them.”

  I laughed. “Tomorrow, you say?” I couldn’t seem to stop shaking my head. But I couldn’t say no, either. My forehead throbbed. I’d felt like a leaking boat for days. And I’d seen ladies in Nassau with perfect skin; I knew my life as Miss Coates would be easier without a bad scar.

  I got up before I could change my mind and went for the sewing kit I’d seen earlier.

  Asa chose the finest needle and then tore a strip of material from the sleeve of my gown, tugging a thread loose. “Silk is best,” he said. As I watched him lean over the candle and thread the needle deftly, I wondered when this night had gone sideways on me.

  “Should I sit or stay standing?” I asked, my voice wobbling. The point looked so sharp.

  “Stay standing.” He stood and came over.

  I found myself staring at his chest; it seemed a better spot than his eyes. “You should do your sleeve next, since you’ll already be sewing.” Words were spilling out of me. He smelled like ocean and sweat. But a clean sweat, not sour like Sewel.

  “Good idea. Tilt your head up.”

  I had no choice now, so I did. His eyes were blue, but deep blue, like the sea just after dusk, and so heavy that he looked downright sleepy, though I knew the truth was the opposite. He handed me a towel. “Hold this here for the blood.”

  “Why are you helping me?” I blurted out as I pressed the towel under my eyebrow. I couldn’t catch my breath.

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure I should be.” He rested a hand on my forehead, lightly pinching my skin, and brought the needle close with the other. “Ready?”

  “Yes.”

  The needle drove in. Tears sprang to my eyes and my heart began to bang a slow beat.

  “You all right?”

  “Mm-hm.” But I wasn’t entirely sure. “Why shouldn’t you be helping me? You think it’s wrong for me to take Miss Coates’s life?” I had to keep talking. Anything to take my mind off the pain.

  “If your plan is to truly become her, then yes. I do think it’s wrong. Dangerous, too.”

  “Dangerous how?” I knew what I worried about. I might never be polished enough to pass. If I was caught in my deception, I imagined I could be sent to a women’s asylum. Or perhaps punished severely. But I wanted to know what Lane thought.

  “To begin with,” he said as he tied off the string, “you’re heading directly into war. Captain Jansen was right. Manhattan is the center of conflict. The island is in American hands, but the British have totally surrounded it. They will lay siege any day. Here we go, Frannie. Once more.” The needle bit again, but I breathed through the worst and it passed quickly. “Well done. We’re almost there. War aside, you’ll be meeting a guardian who might’ve met the true Miss Coates, and no amount of practice at etiquette or decorum would help you then.”

  I hadn’t given the doctor much thought. Antigua and New York were worlds apart and I hadn’t read a single thing about the doctor in Miss Coates’s journal entries. But what if Asa was right?

  I couldn’t let it stop me. Alone, knowing nothing and no one, I was vulnerable. And I had to honor my promise to Mama. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life existing hand to mouth.

  “There’s risks no matter what I do,” I said, “but the only chance I’ve got at a good life is this—by being her.”

  He fell silent as he tied the thread again. His fingertips were covered in my blood, but he didn’t seem to mind. Right then, I already knew no other conversation in my life would be as strange or memorable. “You’re thinking something. I can tell.”

  The corners of his mouth tugged up. “Aye. ’Tis the problem with having intelligence.”

  “Well, tell me. What is it?”

  “There’s a contradiction in your plan. You say becoming Miss Coates is the best chance you have at a good life, but if you become her, then you will no longer be you.”

  “That’s the idea. I don’t want to be me. I’ve got nothing, Asa. Not anymore.”

  He stilled, meeting my eyes. “I understand that. But…have you truly thought this through?”

  “I don’t have to think it through.” Frustration bubbled up; I just wanted him to agree with me. “I can’t go back. I won’t live the rest of my life married to my own stepfather—a drunk who wants me dead!”

  Soon as the words left my mouth, I regretted them. I didn’t want Asa’s pity, nor his disgust. I stood, my brow throbbing, my breath trapped inside me. Hating Sewel. Even now, he could cause agony in my life.

  “All done.” Asa set the needle down and washed his hands in the basin. He came back and drew the towel from my forehead. “That’s my best work yet.”