Christine Dorsey - [Sea 01] Read Free Page B

finger lovingly along the pistol’s muzzle. “I’ve a mind he was telling the truth.” He gestured toward Don Luis. “This ain’t the one, is it?”
    “Nay.” Jack turned toward the door and Phin, whose mouth gaped open.
    “God’s teeth, what happened to ye? Yer carved up like a Christmas goose.”
    Glancing down at his arms, Jack gave a snort. “These two.” He jerked his head in Miranda’s direction. “Decided to put up a little fight.”
    “They must’ve been a handful,” Phin cackled. “Never known ye to get so much as a scratch.”
    “That’s about all I have now,” Jack insisted, though the cuts stung like hell. But he didn’t want the woman to know that.
    “If’n ye say so, Cap’n. So what ye want me to do with these Spaniards?”
    “Nothing.” Jack had turned back to see the fire flash into the woman’s eyes when she heard Phin’s question.
    “Nothin’? We ain’t doin’ nothin’ with them?”
    “Them or the entire ship.”
    “But, Cap’n —”
    “We’re leaving, Mr. Sharp. Gather the men.”
    Calling him Mr. Sharp was a sign the captain meant business. But that didn’t stop Phin. “The crew ain’t goin’ to like this none, Cap’n. We’ve captured this here boat fair and square, we have. And she’s as plump as a pigeon.” Phin’s gaze swung around the cabin. “Just look at them crates. Could be filled with gold and jewels.”
    “Don’t you touch these boxes.”
    She moved so quickly Jack didn’t notice until she stood in front of a crate, her stance protective.
    In truth he had already decided to leave the cabin and the ship the way he’d found it—regardless of what Phin or the crew thought. But now, the way the woman acted, his avarice was titillated.
    He folded his arms: “What’s in the crates?”
    Her chin notched higher. “Nothing you’d understand.”
    Not nothing of value, or nothing you’d want, but nothing you’d understand. The woman was daft to speak to him so. Again he considered tossing her over his shoulder, but this time his imagination had him dumping her over the rail into the sea. He pushed the thought aside. When he spoke his voice vibrated from the overhead beams of the small cabin. “I asked what was in the boxes. In that box?” Jack pointed to the crate she shielded with her body.
    Blood drained from her face, and Jack suppressed a smile of satisfaction. He frightened the wench but good. Yet her next words made his brows draw together in a frown.
    “It’s one of Leeuwenhoek’s microscopes.”
    For a moment Jack figured she was speaking Spanish again. But then he realized he understood a few of the words: “it’s one of,” and the word “microscope” sounded familiar... he thought. He had no idea what it was, of course. Educating him hadn’t been one of de Segovia’s priorities.
    “For studying animalcules,” Miranda supplied as if she could read his mind.
    Jack’s eyes snapped from his contemplation of the wooden crate to meet the deep blue of the woman’s. “I see,” he said, though in truth he didn’t understand at all. His jaw clenched. “And where do you find these animalcules?” She must be talking about some kind of animal he’d never heard of before. Probably something that lived in the jungle or—
    “Oh, they’re everywhere. In a pond, the ocean, even the water you drink.”
    “God’s teeth, what’s she sayin’?” Phin exclaimed. “We got maggots in the biscuits true enough. But I ain’t never took a gulp of nothin’ with animals swimming in it. I’d a seen and fished ‘em out.”
    Miranda laughed despite her predicament. The smaller pirate seemed so appalled that she had accused him of drinking animals. “No. You don’t understand. We can’t see animalcules.”
    “Then, how does ye know they’re there?”
    Excellent question, Jack thought, exchanging a smug smile with his first mate.
    “Let me explain. You can’t see them with just your eyes. But with a microscope, one of Antonie van