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It was Sharkhead who intrigued her the most. Whose glare felt the most potent.

Rebecca knew what he wanted, but she didn’t think he knew.

In the course of only a few days, she had learned much about him from the crew: he was called Sharkhead because he had once, in the shallow waters off an island, been attacked by a shark and won the fight by punching it in the head; he looked Chinese but hailed from the middle of England; and—most interesting to Rebecca—he didn’t take on lovers.

The elder de la Cruz swore Sharkhead was a virgin.

Fred argued that Sharkhead had taken a vow of celibacy in reverence to some Chinese god.

Long Tale Lee—who, it turned out, was from some kingdom called Joseon, not China—insisted it wasn’t a choice at all but rather an order from Captain Boukman that Sharkhead act like a neutered dog.

Rebecca didn’t know what to think of it.

She had never heard of a man outside the priesthood taking a vow of celibacy, nor could she believe a pirate would remain a virgin.

All she knew was if Sharkhead wasn’t looking at her, then he was intentionally not looking at her, as if he were a young boy who only knew how to express his interest by insisting he hated her.

Offering her arm to Liberty, Rebecca allowed herself to glower right back at Sharkhead.

He was a stocky man with thick broad shoulders above a narrower, muscled waist, supported by legs as wide as the masts.

Rebecca had known he had a tattoo—the head of the shark emerged up the back of his neck, jaws open as if it were about to eat him—but she hadn’t expected to see the shark snake around his chest. When he had lifted off his shirt, she had to bite her lip to keep from gasping aloud at both the brutal artistry and the sheer strength of his torso.

Rebecca didn’t know what she would do if Sharkhead ever admitted to himself that he wanted to fuck her, but seeing that tattoo spread across his muscled shoulders, Rebecca had realized for the first time that she might want to fuck him, too.

Which didn’t have to mean anything at all.

Sharkhead grimaced as Liberty Johnson’s fingers curled around Rebecca’s elbow, pulling her into position.

The tattooist, a Black carpenter from South Carolina, was a young man, his skin smooth and body still taut; ten years ago, Rebecca might have lost her heart to him, but he was too baby-faced to interest her now.

Now, she couldn’t seem to stop gawking at the quartermaster hovering over them, as if he personally would supervise every movement of Liberty’s needle.

“It get hot like this where you’re from, Miss Rebecca?” Liberty asked as the needle poked into her skin.

It hurt—but no worse than a horsefly in the New Jersey summer. “Depends where you consider I’m from.”

Sharkhead, still shirtless, crossed his arms, and the tattooed tail that stretched around his ribs flexed.

Rebecca decided to elaborate: “It got hot in the almshouse in New York City. When I got hired into a family in New Jersey, it didn’t feel as hot because of the breezes on the farm.

But then I got myself a place in the kitchen in the senator’s household in Rhode Island, and he took us all to Washington.

That was a summer like I had never experienced before. ”

“Not as hot as South Carolina, I reckon,” Liberty replied.

“If it’s worse than this, I wouldn’t like to try it.” They hadn’t had a breeze all day. The air was as thick with humidity as with sunshine, pressing unrelenting heat on Rebecca’s skin.

“How about you, Sharkhead?” Liberty asked.

The man flinched as if he had thought himself invisible.

“It get hot where you’re from?”

Sharkhead cleared his throat. He snapped his shirt, which had been crushed in his fist, into the air, as if he were about to put it back on. “I didn’t know hot until I started sailing.”

Rebecca asked, “How long has that been?”

He looked at her in response, and their gazes locked. His cheeks and forehead were wide, making his face too round to be handsome, yet still, she wanted him to toy with her.

He replied, “Ten years, more or less.”

“And were you a pirate from the start?”

He ducked his head through the neck of his shirt.

“I began as a passenger, until about twenty miles off the English coast when the East India Company decided to force me and the other Lascars into service. Lucky for me, a pirate ship attacked, and I switched crews. Otherwise, I might still be roaming the seas transporting cotton and tea.”

“And you have been on the Ghost ever since?”

Sharkhead wasn’t looking at her, yet Rebecca still saw emotion darken his face like a shadow.

“No, I began on a different ship. It was almost a year later that Captain Boukman took me on.” Then, straightening his shirt around his torso, he added, “I am grateful to still be on his crew after all this time. I wouldn’t want to be any other kind of pirate. ”

Liberty let out a whistle in agreement. “Wouldn’t mind a little more gold in my pockets, of course, but I’d rather give slavers hell than bury a treasure chest on some godforsaken island I’ll never find again.”

There was a strange defensiveness to the way they both spoke, as if following Captain Boukman was a suspect choice.

Rebecca was sure she hadn’t put that idea in their heads.

She had convinced Julio de la Cruz to bring her to the Ghost precisely because she knew it was Boukman’s ship.

Boukman—the free Black man who devoted his life to fighting slavers.

Boukman—the captain who, it was said, called on voodoo spirits to protect his ship.

Boukman—the pirate with a moral code even preachers could praise.

Rebecca wondered who had begun to doubt Boukman—and why—in order to make both Sharkhead and Liberty so defensive.

Sharkhead’s eyes returned to her arm, examining Liberty’s work, as he asked, “And what makes you want to be a pirate?”

Rebecca had wanted to join the Ghost , to be sure, but that was because it was the only place on Fortune Island that she trusted not to decide she was a runaway slave.

Now that she was a part of the crew, though, she found being a pirate had a certain appeal.

“My employer took me to New Orleans as part of his household. Louisiana being a slave state, and me looking as I do…” She held out an arm, unable to find the words to articulate that her whole life, people had seen her as Black or not, depending on their preference.

And she—she didn’t know the truth, except that it was a lot easier when she decided to be a white woman.

“Things got complicated. He put me on a ship back to Rhode Island. But we were shipwrecked a month ago in that hurricane. I ended up on a longboat with two of the crewmen and Mrs. Adams. I don’t have my papers or even any money.

I suppose being on the Ghost is better than being stuck on this island forever. ”

“Wait until Captain Boukman hears that!” Liberty said, pausing his work in excitement. “He loves to save a pirate. I myself only had to say that I was a runaway before he said I could be on the crew as long as I wanted. You’ll have a home here for life once you tell him that story.”

“A home for life doesn’t sound so bad, even if it does mean I’m surrounded by randy pirates,” she teased.

“I haven’t heard you complaining,” Liberty retorted.

Sharkhead, watching them, said, “Even if Captain wants you to stay forever, you need only stick with us for an excursion or two. Then you’ll get your share, and you can afford to go wherever you want.”

He was being kind again—that was plain from the softness in his voice as he made the promise. Yet Rebecca felt herself shudder as if another hurricane were about to blow through.

All she had ever wanted was for someone to ask her to stay forever. The idea that she might finally have found it in the Ghost made her almost feverish with delight.

She wouldn’t let Sharkhead scare her into turning away from a home, now that she might have it.

“You’d better get used to me,” she said, “for I intend to stay.”