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nodded, his eyes sweeping me up and down. “I’ll say,” he replied. “It’s been too long…”
    I bolted. I wasn’t just about to wait for those guys to finish their discussion. I knew, however, that there was no way I could outrun them. Not a chance in hell. Not with my lack of sustenance, my roiling stomach, my inability to run in the sand, in long skirts, wearing really uncomfortable shoes… So as a rough hand clamped down on my arm, I let out a scream to end all screams. A hand came down on my mouth, another yanked on my wet hair. I was back behind the sandfly bushes, lying in the sand, the weight of one of the men holding me down.
    “You’re a feisty li’l slut!” the man atop me said, chuckling as he pinned my arms down. I was convinced I’d never smelled such ripeness on a human being. I was so busy trying not to vomit that it took me a moment before I started fighting against his attempts to pull up my skirts. They were soaked, and therefore heavy and clung to my skin, making it difficult for him.
    The other man leaned against a palm, grinning. “We’ll not ‘urt you, sweet tits,” he said casually. “We only ‘ave need of your – ”
    I thought, for a second, that he’d stopped purposefully, for effect. Then the man lying on top of me abruptly let go of my skirt, his weight coming off of me in a single move. I scrambled away, unable to push myself up quickly enough. My eyes went from the two men to what they were staring at: the glistening blade of a cutlass. I scooted on my bottom so that I could see between the two frozen forms of the men. The cutlass, as I’d desperately hoped, belonged to a very angry, utterly terrifying Edward England. Behind him towered Jameson, his face equally fierce, also holding a pistol.
    England’s body language spoke of a relaxed man, the cutlass held loosely in his right hand and a pistol casually in his left. There were no lines of tension on his face, and his lips were not tight. But there was no mistaking the savage look in his blue eyes. His voice, when he spoke, was not the warm Irish voice I was slowly becoming accustomed to. It was like steel. “If ye enjoy living, my young puppy dogs, ye’ll put yer pricks away and hurry off without a word, am I explicit?”
    One of the young men took an aggressive stance, his hand suddenly at his knife, and before I could make sense of anything, England’s cutlass flashed. As the weapon pierced the young man, England grabbed him by the head and pulled him against the weapon. I heard tearing, dull crunching, and the young man gurgled a scream. The body fell with a thud at my feet, twitching as its blood soaked the sand beneath him. I scuttled back as the other young man, ashen-faced, raised his hands in defeat, mumbling something unintelligible. England’s expression never changed, even as he forcefully drew the cutlass from the body and wiped the blood from his blade with a handkerchief. He looked meaningfully at the other man and said, “Off with ye, before I make fish food of ye.”
    As the second of my aggressors ran off with the speed of a wildcat, the first slowly stopped twitching, his face half-covered in sand, his eyes open and blank. That did it. I turned my head and puked – what little food I had in my gut – into the bush beside me. I then drew a shaky breath, unable to take my eyes from the body. The young man who, just a minute ago, was thinking he’d scored, was now dead. I had just watched Captain England, my rescuer, the man I had come to think of as a kindly historical re-enactor, sink his cutlass into a man.
    I had just seen Edward England, the pirate.
    Chapter Six
      He held his hand out to me, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You’ve a weak stomach, cailin ,” he said.
      “You killed him,” I said, taking his hand and letting him pull me upright. “For real. You killed him.”
    “Yes, I did,” he replied nonchalantly. “And if I remember correctly, I told ye not to