“If you don’t mind my asking, sir, how do you intend to become a pirate anyway? I suppose you’re just sitting here waiting to be thingamajigged or whatever you call it?” asked Smee, brow furrowed above his red face. The poor man was sweating as if he had run the entire way there.

“It’s called shanghaied, Smee,” James said under his breath, hoping the pirates at the large table would lose interest if they could no longer hear his conversation. “Smee, my good man, why are you in such a state?” asked James, changing the subject.

“Looking for you, Master James. I’ve been running around London searching for you,” he said, wiping the sweat from his brow.

“Leave it to my parents to send you out into the dark of night, on foot. They could have at least provided a carriage,” said James, shaking his head. But Smee’s focus was still on James.

“So what is your plan then, getting shanghaied?” asked Smee loudly, making the large group of pirates laugh.

“Of course not; don’t be ridiculous,” James said, wanting nothing more in that moment than the ability to make himself disappear. He hated that Smee’s theatrics were drawing the wrong sort of attention from the very men he was there to impress. He had played this night out in his mind so many times over the years, and this was not what he had imagined. He hadn’t even started on his journey and it was already a failure.

The ginger-haired pirate at the other end of the room was paying particular attention to his conversation with Smee, having been making mocking gestures and pulling faces since James arrived. “Lord Fancy Breeches here wants to be a pirate!” said the man, playacting like he was a great lord and not a battle-worn pirate. He had a long ginger beard and small, round intense eyes, and the gash that ran across his face looked as if someone had tried to cleave him in half. “Good luck finding a captain who will let the likes of you on his ship. I wouldn’t let the son of a biscuit eater like you swab my deck!” he said, making the other men at his table laugh so hard some of them spit out their drinks.

James had been raised in the same fashion of others of his rank, to never show emotion, and to always keep calm no matter the situation. But this pirate bruised his ego, and it sent a surge of anger and pride through him that he had not expected. Because he knew he was a better pirate than any of these men. Even if he had never put it into practice, he was a man who knew what he was about.