The meeting at the rendezvous point went according to Jacqueline's plan. Constance remained aboard the
Falcon
, with a skeleton crew, as the longboats carrying the captain, her first mate, and an armed contingent of pirates escorted Lady Beatrice ashore. Marie, too, stayed behind.
They used the spyglass to witness the exchange. Beatrice, her bruises bearing testament to her cruel handling, was nonetheless pretty in her gown of cobalt blue. She gave no outward sign of being the same woman who'd eventually yielded to the persuasion of Constance's fingers whilst in the bath. That climax, and the ones which had followed when the two of them forsook the tub in favor of the heap of blankets that comprised Constance's bed, might have happened to someone else entirely.
She left her captivity as a woman who had been sorely used but was recovering, not as one who had allowed Constance to bring her to release again and again, with hands and mouth and ultimately with the careful insertion of a well-greased candle. Her head was held high as pride demanded, and she did not look back.
Marie was overjoyed with the way all had gone. So, too, were the pirates when they returned laden with gold. Jacqueline instructed the helmsman to set sail for Port Royal, where the crew could shed their money in a wild spree of rum and whores.
Later, when they had reached the harbor and most of the men were ashore in the teeming lively town, Jacqueline sent for Constance. She eyed her pensively when Constance entered her quarters.
"I understand you have been making free with Jean-Pierre again," Jacqueline said, tapping her foot. "And that you were most attentive to our erstwhile guest, Lady Beatrice. You've quite the appetite, haven't you, Constance deGranville?"
"I meant nothing by it –"
"I am not angry with you. Sit down."
Constance did, smoothing her skirt around her legs.
"You only prove what I've long believed," Jacqueline said. "It's widely known that lust can turn any man into an animal. Codes and vows, friendship and taboos, none can stand in the face of the lure of sex, given the proper provocation. We saw that with Jean-Pierre, did we not? His best intentions notwithstanding, when presented with a chance at a hot cunny, he became a beast."
"Yes," Constance said, thinking of how Rob and Enrique's lifelong friendship had shattered under the strain of their rivaled passion for her. Too, the fact that she was his sister had most certainly not stopped Rob from sinking his cock into her.
"But women, ah, Constance, are women any different? Take yourself, for example. Mere weeks ago, you were a demure and proper young lady who'd never so much as seen a man naked, whose primary ambition was to remain pure for your husband. True or false?"
"True."
"Yet now, look at you. Wild for a good fuck, absolutely frantic for it, to the point that you'd seduce a would-be priest, and engage in all manner of activities of which you might never otherwise have even dreamt. You've taken a great black Moorish prick up your arse, you've diddled a woman with a candle, you've learned to lick cunny to the point that Marie gives you high praise indeed."
Constance could only nod, and flush warmly. It was true, all of it, and the girl who'd once stood on a Veradoga villa balcony looking out at the sea was a vision impossibly far distant, a stranger to her.
"What wouldn't you do, Constance? Where would you call a limit, and say 'no more!' What perversity would be too much for one such as you?"
Warily, she studied Jacqueline. The blonde pirate woman lounged sideways in her great leather chair, swinging her long legs over one armrest, apparently enjoying Constance's sudden discomfiture.
"I do not know what you mean," she said.
"Oh, but you do."
"I shouldn't want to do anything … painful," Constance said.
Jacqueline's golden brows arched. "No spankings, then? No birch rod applied to your rosy cheeks, no pinching of the nipples?"
"No."
"What of dogs, horses?"
"No!"
"But men aplenty, and women too."
"Well, certain of them."
"Aha!" Jacqueline laughed. "So you're choosy, are you? Not just
any
cock will do. If I brought in some hideous hunchbacked dwarf, you'd turn him away?"
"Yes, I –"
"Even were he hung like a stallion?"
"That does not matter."
"Suppose that your brother were here. Rob, wasn't it? Robert deGranville. Would you fuck him again?"
Constance roused with a heated anger. "I would sooner see Rob made to suffer. Whatever I am now, 'tis what he made me. He stole my innocence, used me as his whore, and when he caught me with Enrique, he beat me and raped me. I should like to see the same happen to him."
"Would you truly?"
"I would! Let Rob be strapped over a bench and have his bottom striped with lashes, and then let someone stab an enormous cock up his arse and fuck him until he bleeds!"
The vehemence of it astonished her. That she could think and feel such things, that she could
say