Prologue
Execution Dock, London
July 4, 1600
Dressed as a common Londoner, as were two from her crew, Lady Antónia Burke, Captain of the pirate ship, Lady Hook, stood amongst the other revelers at Execution Dock. The infamous spot where pirates were hung was situated on the Thames River, which stunk of rot and garbage in the summer sun.
Shouting obscenities from the back of a barred wagon were the members of her crew who’d been arrested by the bloody English captain in her Majesty’s devil-trained Navy. All six of them. They shook their fists, faces swollen, bruised from where the guards had hit them, heads shaved, and torn clothes dirt-smudged.
Onlookers raged at the barred brigands, tossing rotten vegetables and muck. Shouting their own lines of obscenities. Men and women of all ages, even children. An execution was a sideshow, perhaps the most exciting thing to happen in their mundane, bedraggled lives.
Antónia wanted to grab every one of them by their ears like her grandmother used to do to her and drag them back to their hovels, locking them in the dark until their thirst for blood waned.
Her men had been brought to the dock at low tide, for their execution, where their hung bodies would dangle for the remainder of the day. Not bloody going to happen. Antónia glowered at the nooses already knotted and waiting. Her men would not dangle today. She was going to help them escape and she’d like to take a few lives of the bastard yeoman standing guard. However, that would interfere with her plans and, so, she’d have to save her revenge for another time.
Though if she was being fair, she’d pardon the English captain and his disciples, for they were only following orders and laws they thought reasonable. Alas, Antónia wasn’t going to be fair. Not today, or tomorrow. She was a pirate by blood and she did not make exceptions for fools.
In fact, if she ever came across the bloody captain again, she’d be hard pressed not to pull out her blunderbuss and put a bullet between his eyes.
Antónia tucked her hat lower, shielding her eyes. She’d ashed her hair that morning to hide the red luster of its color and tucked it into a nondescript lace bonnet with a gray feather. Damn her Irish roots for giving her away when she wanted to be discreet. Her two men, who stood behind her, stooped to hide their Viking-Scots height—they, too, were cursed with an appearance that was hard to miss.
She glanced back at them, giving a slight nod. All their plans would soon be underway and this day would either end in death or victory.
Just before dawn, she’d approached the dock, examining the scaffold and happened to come across a man who had death in his eyes. An executioner, though he’d not admit it without his cap on to hide his face. One wayward soul could always tell another. She’d asked the man if he was the sort to end a life, could he be bribed with Spanish coin to look the other way.
He’d told her, politely of course, to bugger off, though his eyes had said something different, and an imperceptible nod had been all the permission she’d needed to accidently drop a leather pouch full of Spanish gold doubloons near the foot of the scaffold. Inside the pouch, she’d tucked a strip of parchment that read simply: Look the other way when we release the Irish. – Her Grace, the Queen of Pirates.
Of course, she’d used her grandmother’s name, but all the same, one did such things when needing to save their crew from certain death.
Now, Antónia saw that man, standing there, his eyes as stormy gray as they’d been that morning, met hers, and again that imperceptible nod. She returned the gesture. Thank the sea gods for Spanish gold.
A man approaching the scaffold caught her attention and she bit down hard on her lip to keep from shouting her anger at the man who’d brought them into this mess. The English captain.
He was more handsome than she remembered in his crisp and starched white linen shirt, blue doublet with gold buttons, white breeches, and shiny black boots. His sword gleamed at his hip, and beneath his captain’s cap, his hair was dark as night—not powdered or wigged like most men of his ilk.
A silent rebellion? If she didn’t despise him, she might have respected that. But she did despise him, so he could take his lustrous hair and shove it up his arse.
Antónia quickly ducked her face toward the ground; her hat shielded her gaze. When he glanced in her general direction, he’d not see her seething, nor did she risk the chance of him recognizing her despite the soot she’d smeared on her face and in her hair to appear inconspicuous.
The captain had no idea what was coming for him.
Waiting at a dock a half-mile north of this spot, was more of her crew, manning a barge large enough to fit them all but not large enough to draw attention.
One of the prison guards had been replaced by a man in her crew. He would be the one to cut the ropes at the right time. Three men near the wagon would overtake the driver and her crew, if they were smart, would hop back behind the barred cart and hold on for dear life as they rode off.
They would meet at the barge, hide them beneath blankets and row quietly from the Thames out to the Channel where her merchant ship awaited them at a small port in All-Hallows, a small village just at the mouth of the Thames that would take them out to sea.
If it all worked…
Which, it must!
For, if it did not, she would haunt the dreaded captain for the rest of his miserable days.
The captain climbed the scaffold, his height at least a head above the executioner, the muscle in his square jaw ticking. She did not remember him being so tall. So broad. Why did he have to be so fine-looking? The feminine side of her, despite her irritation at his gall to arrest her men—even if she and her crew had been in mid-plunder—enjoyed the sight of his fine physique, his ruggedly handsome face.
“The accused stand before you all, charged with piracy and assault on the queen’s property. They are sentenced to be hung until dead.” The captain stood tall as he spoke, listing the names of the men within the covered wagon. Then he signaled to the guard standing by the cart and that was Antónia’s cue.
She flicked the feather in her bonnet and the poor wench she’d paid to scream did so at blood-curdling levels. All in the crowd turned to look and that was when Antónia’s crew knocked the guards senseless and took hold of the horse drawn cart.
The queen’s men shouted. The captain bellowed.
Antónia smiled.
“Come, Sweeney, Tavish,” she said to the two guards behind her. “We must be away now.”
Slowly they turned and headed toward the quay, walking quickly, but not enough to draw attention, a half-mile down river to their newly acquired barge.
They reached the craft just as the cart did. Sweeney hacked at the lock with his axe and her men spilled out, along with two strangers who immediately swore an oath to her. Into the barge they went, climbing beneath benches, blankets and a few into pine crates.
Tavish smacked the horses’ rumps and they took off back toward the city, hopefully leading the guards in a different direction.
Antónia and her men leapt over the rails. “Go, now! Row for your lives,” she hissed.
They pushed off the quay, eight of her crew rowed with all swift speed, knowing that if they were caught it was death for the lot of them.
Oh, but sweet satisfaction would be hers.
A lone rider, suited in white breeches and a blue doublet rode along the quay. Antónia doffed her cap and tossed it into the Thames.
“Until we meet again, dear Captain,” she whispered.