“Bennett Sharp,” he called through the speaking trumpet. “Prepare to receive my lieutenants, and I must insist that you cover yourself before they arrive.”

I glanced down at Priest’s white linen shirt, the hem tangling around my knees. In my hurry to the upper deck, I’d foregone trousers, boots, weapons, my hat… The only thing I wore was the jade stone and thin shirt.

Oh, I bet that inspired some horrified blushes and gasps on His Majesty’s Ship. Proper Englishmen upheld modesty in a degree I considered ridiculously excessive. Not to mention, they never allowed a woman aboard a navy vessel.

And here I was, standing half-naked on the gunwale of a fifty-gun galleon, laughing into the trumpet with wicked delight. “Do I offend your sensibilities, my lord?”

He lowered his trumpet, holding it behind his back, refusing to answer. Even at this distance, I felt the heat of his glare. The tenacity in it. The man seemed impossible to ruffle.

“I must insist that you invite me to dinner, Commodore.” My amplified voice crashed into the wind. “A woman likes to be courted and wooed before she gets fucked. Just ask James here…” I gestured at the scrawny, gray-bearded tar behind me. “He thoroughly woos your mother with his tongue in her unmentionables before he fucks her.”

The commodore snapped out his arm, the only warning I got before the whistling hiss of incoming mortar rent the air.

My lungs crashed together as the shot punched through the tafferel of Jade’s stern, taking out the stately panels and railings in an explosion of splintered wood. I tumbled off the gunwale, the deck shaking beneath my bare feet as the boom dissipated in every direction.

I waved the billowing smoke from my face and glared at the jagged, smoldering hole in my ship. Thank God, Priest was held far beneath the broken timbers. No chance of injuries.

Only surface damage.

It was a slap in the face. He could’ve demolished the rigging, toppled the mizzenmast, and blasted away anything that would’ve prevented us from sailing. The fact that he didn’t showed what little confidence he had in our ability to flee.

All eyes fixed on me. Under the bulwarks with daggers, in the shrouds with muskets, behind the long-range eighteen-pounders with lit matches—every man soundlessly asked me the same question.

What now, Captain?

As the pungent gray smog cleared, tension swelled, rolling through the ship. My blood buzzed. My hands flexed and shook.

I knew what I had to do.

Reynolds wouldn’t like it. Priest would positively combust in a murderous rage. But it was our only option. And I needed Jade in one piece for it to work.

Dragging in a breath, I aimed the trumpet in the direction of my gundeck. “Hold your fire!”

Reynolds flashed me a questioning look. “Shall I prepare to repel boarders?”

“No.” I filled my lungs and shouted, “Raise the white!”