Pirate Code Read Online Free Page B

hulk to me? Before you stole her she was a pristine, new-launched ship. You have ravished her, turned her into a stinking, rat-infested pirate menace.” He swiped his hand sideways, dismissive. “She is naught but a violated whore. Utterly valueless to me. Worthless.”
    Feeling his hand inching towards where his cutlass would have been, Jesamiah swallowed a curt retort. The Sea Witch was as much a part of him as an arm or a leg – more, she was his life and livelihood. He could survive without a limb but not without a ship. As a counterbalance, though, he could not survive without Tiola. The pain would be unbearable were he to lose the Sea Witch but he could, somehow, replace her. He could never replace Tiola.
    Van Overstratten failed to mark Jesamiah’s bitter silence. With sneered contempt added, “As, of course, you have also prostituted and poxed my wife.”
    The insult went one fathom too far. Jesamiah half rose, his face a curled mask of fury. “Then you are no judge of ships, you bastard, nor women!”
    Alarmed, Rogers patted the air with his palms calling with authority for the younger man to stay seated. “Gentlemen, gentlemen! I will not have insults traded at my table. Calm yourselves.” As a diversion he sent the brandy around again. “If you cannot control your emotions Captain Acorne, I will be obliged to ask ye to leave m’hospitality.”
    Ignoring him, his hands flat on the table Jesamiah tossed another challenge at the Dutchman. “If Tiola is of no worth to you why will you not accept my offer? I have made it in good faith before eminent men as witnesses; you will lose no honour by accepting.”
    Van Overstratten poured himself a refill of brandy, leant back in his chair, his arm draped over the curve of the mahogany back, his leg crossed over the other at the knee. He inhaled his cheroot, sent a waft of aromatic smoke billowing from his lips; said, tapping ash from its tip: “Because, pirate, it is you offering it. I do not make a habit of dealing with poxed cockroaches. I prefer to step on them and crush them beneath my boot, without a second glance.”
    Twice now the Dutchman had called him poxed. Jesamiah stared at the white linen of the tablecloth beneath his palms, a stain of wine to the left had spread into the shape of a sea turtle. His head tilting downward he raised his eyes, menace flaring within the darkness of his dilated pupils, spoke very softly as his right hand went almost imperceptibly to one of the ribbons tied into his hair.
    “But I am fully prepared to deal with a snivelling coward, van Overstratten. A coward who would strip a defenceless woman naked to the waist for the degenerate men of this island to ogle, rather than fight the man he really wants to punish.”
    The ribbon was between his fingers, a knot tied, fast, efficient, at its centre. An innocent-looking strand of blue, silk ribbon. In the right hands – Jesamiah’s – a weapon that was strong enough to choke and strangle; to crush a windpipe.
    “Jesamiah!” Henry Jennings shouted coming to his feet also and laying his hand on the younger man’s arm. “This will serve no purpose. You have signed the pardon and like it or no you must now obey the law. Do not be a fool. Sit down, boy.”
    Jesamiah shook him off, leant further over the table. “Come outside you worm, settle this in the way a man would. Or are you too shit-scared to face a better man? A pirate?”
    Rogers slammed the table with his fist. “Acorne! I will not have you insulting my guests. Apologise or get you gone!”
    Coiling the length of ribbon around one hand, Jesamiah turned to Rogers, his stare unblinking and formidable. “I apologise to you, Sir,” he stated, giving a small, polite bow, “but not to this bastard who would see a woman flogged.”
    “I have no necessity to soil my hands on scum such as you, Acorne,” van Overstratten interjected with a bark of scorn. He had not moved, although his face had drained ash pale. “I