Stowaway (A Pirate Novel) (Completed)

Chapter 12 By a Slim Margin

Chapter 12

Elle spent the next two hours peeling potatoes. For the first hour she was convinced that Talbot was punishing her. Finally, she convinced herself that if didn't matter. At least she wasn't stuck with nothing to do.

Cook let her use the potatoes to make a thick soup with salt pork, flour and spices. Cook watched as she worked but still managed to get his own work done. She added handfuls of dried herbs to the huge pot before her. Cook pulled pans of drop bread out of the oven. They served the food then ate and cleaned up.

"See ye in the morning." The next morning as Elle searched the wooden spice barrels, oats boiled as Cook stirred. Elle spent the day cooking, cleaning the galley, or getting ready to cook or clean. Sleep came slow because she was used to labor that is more physical, still it was not that bad. It was nowhere near as bad as having nothing to do. She had learned quickly that sitting in her cabin staring at the walls was much worse.

Elle was not allowed at the vote that determined her fate. Harv came and told her the number of votes but not who had cast them. By a margin of five votes, she would sail with them when they left England. She was sure that she knew where two, maybe three, of those five votes had come from. Cook. Harve and the Captain.

Even in this age of 1792 man was very superstitious, most still believed that having a woman aboard was bad luck. The fact that Elle had been here for two years wouldn't sway most of the die-hard superstitious sailors, be they pirate or no. Still she had worked with many of the crew abord the ship. Many knew her.

The sight of the coast was bitter sweet. It was home - yet at the sometime it wasn't. She missed it but the thought of leaving the sea left her cold. Not that she could even had she wanted to. Elle prepared to go ashore with the others.

Surprisingly Talbot had given her a few messages to deliver. Thankfully none of them were for her father. She shared a boat with two other crew members and Harv. Neither she nor Harv spoke a word as the row-man rowed to shore. No one spoke.

On the dock she gave Harvard a look that she was sure informed him she wanted a moment alone with him. Then she continued to walk away from the docks. She waited under a canopy of trees, sure he would arrive at any moment.

After ten minutes she started to wonder what was keeping him. Maybe he had met up with a female. In all honesty she could not remember Harv fratinizing with any women other than the working girls at the taverns.

She tried to think of of every scenario that could have delayed him. 

She didn't dare go in search of him. She knew that there was a chance that she could run into captain Talbot. That was something that she preferred not to do. So she stood patiently and waited, or at least as patiently as she could wait.