Snippet #2670137

As soon as the navigator left, Jacqueline cursed his name.

“Auntie what is wrong with you?” Angelique rushed over to take the still dizzy Karena from her aunt. “I had him in my palm!”

“Angelique, the man is merely baiting you so you'll sleep with him,” Jacqueline said, working her way around the cell.

“I would never sleep with a man I barely knew,” Angelique frowned, helping Karena to one of the bunks. “And besides, I was flirting with him to get him on our side.”

“Your side, mon ange,” the older woman replied in her search. “The captain despises me, and as much as his lieutenant likes me, that man is far more dangerous than she.” Finding nothing of interest, she sat on the opposite bunk. “After all, cooks are expendable. A good surgeon is not.”

“I barely know anything about doctoring, though,” Angelique frowned.

“You learn fast, and you know more than you realize.” Jacqueline gave a start before pulling her pack into her lap. Her frying pan’s handle still stuck out of the top, and the scent of fresh clove immediately filled the room. She scowled. “Mon diu, do they have any idea how expensive clove is?”

“Auntie, you can just get more at the next port. It'll be okay,” the younger Thuron told her, then focused on keeping Karena conscious. It would do the girl no good to pass out from the blood loss, and it would be easier to move her if she was awake. “I need you to stay with me, okay? Gotta keep your eyes open,” she told the assassin.

Jacqueline put aside her frustration with the clove a second time and took the pan out of her bag. Then, she switched into her breeches.

“Can't you pout just as well in a skirt?” Angelique said. “We're going to be stuck here until they decide what to do with us.”

“Angelique, you've not been on a ship since you were little, and you've never been on a pirate ship,” Jacqueline replied, relacing her boots. “If you're locked in a cell, you either try to bust through the door, or you rush the guard when they come bring you food. Besides, I can fight far better in this.” Jacqueline stood up and brandished her frying pan, first in her right, then in her left.

“Aren't you right handed, Auntie?”

“I've always felt better with this pan in my left,” Thuron noted, giving a few experimental swings with the pan. She pulled her coat out of her bag and donned that as well. Now, she was ready to go on the offensive.

Now, if only she could pick locks.