[Authors Note: The term cunny is prevalent in the anonymous erotic fiction of Edwardian England. It is roughly analogous to the word pussy and is used in this manner. None of my research revealed a similar term that is congruent with the time period of this story, which is late 17th century. If any of my readers know of a less anachronistic term I would greatly appreciate them writing.
- C.T. ]
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The Lady Abigail Rodgers stood at the rail of the sloop of war HMS Indomitable. She was a small woman with flaxen hair and pale blue eyes. The dark dress she wore made her appear even smaller with its wide skirts and voluminous petticoats. She was the very picture of an English Lady out to get some air on a long voyage, but this was no pleasure trip. Each passing moment the fast little ship was carrying her towards an uncertain fate. The deep azure blue of the Atlantic had already given way to the bluegreens of the shallower Caribbean.
Soon St. Eustacius will be in sight and not long after that the end of my world, she thought bitterly. Even the sea seems to pity me. Why must my father do this to me?
Her father was the Governor of the tiny island and had arranged a marriage for her. Abigail and her father had never been close. He was a cold man, stubbornly prideful and very ambitious. When her mother had died in an outbreak of the plague he had left his only daughter in the care of her grandparents and gone over seas. Abby had been seven at the time and was now a beautiful young woman of nineteen. She did not know him, save for the infrequent letters she had received over the years.
She had grown up under the care of her grandparents at a small estate in Yorkshire called The Brambles. Her grandfather had been a vigorous man in his early fifties and had made the family fortune privateering in the Caribbean during one of the many protracted wars between the colonial powers. He had returned to the islands after her grandmother died and Abigail finished her schooling with an aunt in France. She could still remember crying as she left the old manor house, grief over her grandmother's death, her grandfather's departure and the selling of the old estate to strangers all mixed to form one of the saddest days of her life. Now her wedding day would take the place of that day she feared.
She was betrothed to a most horrid little man, the scion of a wealthy family on St. Eustacius. Sir Gerald Abercrombie had come over to personally escort his pretty bride back home. He was a vain, shallow, arrogant man in his mid thirties. Thin and short with milky white skin and a black scraggly beard that grew in patches on his heavy jaw he looked less like a man than one of the mangy hounds her grandfathers neighbor used to keep. He was an odious toad in Abigail's opinion and the lecherous stares he gave her left little doubt that he was anxious to truly claim his bride. Abigail felt her stomach turn just thinking of physical contact with the man.
Her father had no concern for her as a person, for her likes or dislikes. She felt that to him she was nothing more than a pawn to be used to gain advantage for himself as he tried to be elevated to the peerage. She would not be allowed to marry for love and after nearly three months in Gerald's company Abigail had come to believe she would never love any man. The members of the crew were all animals, scum taken from Liverpool's docks and jails. They had seemed nice a first but she had quickly realized they wanted her for the same reason Gerald did. The captain was a fat man, pompous and prideful. He seemed to have more interest in polishing the many brass buttons on his Royal Navy waistcoat than he did in any of the day-to-day things on his ship. Her entire trip had been one of fear and aching loneliness.
Her dismal reverie was disturbed as her betrothed exited the small cabin he occupied and approached her. He wore his sailor's outfit today, the white shirt open to reveal a shrunken chest covered in a patchwork of hair. Lace decorated the cuffs and collar, and the breeches were of velvet. Abigail cringed as she imagined his body close to hers and she looked around quickly, hoping for someone nearby to talk to, anything to avoid him.
"Sail Ho!" the sailor in the crow's nest called out.
The crossing had taken nearly three months and all heads turned towards the distant spec curiously. Gerald went to speak to the captain, mercifully sparing Abigail his presence. She stayed at the rail, watching the spec slowly grow, first to a sail, then to a toy sized ship and finally to a majestic Barque built on the Spanish model. It was beautiful to behold as it danced across the calm sea leaving a frothy white wake behind. The lines were clean and sleek and for a moment she was reminded of the hunting hounds Lord Tort kept on his estate in France. The ship was definitely a runner, built for speed. It was carrying full sail now, the white cloths filled with the gentle breeze that Indomitable had been fighting all morning. She flew the Dutch flag, which Abigail found curious, since the Dutch usually used fat, squat trading vessels.
All hands were watching when the Dutch flag came down and another was raised, a red flag with a black bird of prey on it. Abigail was trying to make out what kind of bird it was when a horrified shriek behind her announced "It's Black Lissa!"
She recognized Gerald's panic stricken voice as the sailors exploded into action around her. Black Lissa? She thought. The notorious pirate? The one they called the Queen of the damned? Even in her sheltered life in England, and later France, Abigail had heard of Black Lissa. She was Spanish or French, no one knew for sure. Brought over to be a "companion" to a Spanish Governor she had been taken by pirates when the ship she was on had been seized. She had proved to be more than the pirate captain had bargained for and killed him when he came to claim her. She was a classically trained swordswoman, and had killed several crewmen before the others backed down. By some obscure rule of pirate etiquette she had become captain.
For the last three years she had been the scourge of the Eastern Caribbean, raiding as far as Trinidad in the South and Bermuda in the north. Horror stories of the way her crew brutally dispatched prisoners vied with stories of how she took captured women to her bed as a man would in the lurid press of the times. Abigail discounted much of what she had heard; no one person could have done so much mischief in so short a time, in her opinion. Still, men spoke the name Black Lissa with a dread that only Lucifer could rival and she had certainly killed many people. Abigail felt the cold fingers of fear clutch at her heart.
She made her way amid the chaos to where the Captain, Mate and Gerald were holding a heated conversation.
"We will stand and fight," the Captain said.
"Fight? You idiot! That's Black Lissa!" Gerald nearly screamed. His face was ashen, the small bit of color drained from it, and he was obviously terrified. Abigail thought she had already seen the worst in him, but he was more afraid than she was and it sickened her.
"Quite right, and that is why we will fight. This is a ship of the line and she is a wanted pirate,"
"She has the deadliest, blackest crew at sea! This ship stands no chance against her. You are supposed to see me safely to St. Eustacius, or have you forgotten?" Gerald whined. The fat captain got mad then and struck Gerald with a backhanded blow.
"This is a ship of her majesty's fleet, not your private yacht! Man the cannons!" he roared.
Gerald ran screaming to his room as the first shots were exchanged, totally forgetting Abigail in his panic. She watched the battle from the rear of the ship, not sure whom she wanted to win. If the ship were lost she would be in the clutches of pirates, but what could they do that would be more loathsome than marriage to Gerald Abercrombie? She thought.
The battle was short and brutal; the Indomitable exchanged a broadside with the pirate ship as the two passed. The guns roared and a thick grayish smoke obscured everything, but Abigail was sure that neither ship had sustained much damage. She felt her pulse quicken and the thrill of it all nearly overwhelmed her. The pirate ship, called the Raven, tacked quickly to bring her guns to bear from the rear.
