Excerpted Inspirations #220Linda Odhner, with photos by Liz Kufs7 hours ago0 min readUpdated: 14 minutes ago
![[Jade’s old fencing master has come to her rescue, posing as her grandfather, and she and notorious pirate Anne Bonney won’t have to hang after all. Anne Bonney has given up piracy and is reformed, married, and pregnant. Jade, her partner Rory MacDonald, and her two former slaves, Joshua and Domino, are contemplating what to do with their freedom.]
The quartet were looking at each other with sudden secret amusement. Some decisions didn’t have to be spoken at all – one of them being that they wouldn’t be going anywhere that Joshua and Domino couldn’t be free. They glanced speculatively at Monsieur Maupin, who twinkled back as irresponsibly as a boy. He didn’t much care what they decided, so long as it was adventurous; and he could trust his wicked Jade for that.
“Where is it that we take ourselves, then?” he asked contentedly.
“Och,” said Rory. “I like that one bit of Michael’s idea well enough. We’ll have that wedding a double one. Triple, if Joshua and Domino want a church one, too. After that –” He looked like an Indian delightedly off on the warpath again.
Anne jerked herself bolt upright. “You wouldn’t!” she cried.
“Yes, we would,” said Jade with her bared-teeth smile. “We’re going to Africa and harry the slave-raiders. It’s what we’ve wanted all along, to be a kind of pirate that just attacks slavers. We can get some crew in Trinidado, even if we have to pay some of them. They can have all the incidental loot.”
“You’re mad!” Michael was aghast. “You’ll be killed or caught again and hanged sooner or later. Probably sooner.”
“We know,” said Rory.
“You won’t let them, sir!” Michael appealed to the old man. “It’s your ship; you won’t lend it to them for such a purpose!”
Monsieur Maupin was fixing an extremely long and penetrating look upon Jade, who returned it unflinching. He looked at Rory. Then at Domino and Josh. He nodded.
“I am a crazy and wicked old man,” he confessed impenitently. “I should take the petite Jade back to her family, sans doute. But I think, me, that this would be even more wicked and crazy. Besides, I also would very much like to be a pirate against slave traders, who steal human freedom. And I am a master swordsman. Behold, then, how we go to Africa.”
Anne looked almost envious. “It was you taught Jade to fence, wasn’t it?” She sighed. She remembered her reformed state and leaned contentedly against Michael. “Good luck,” she said.
Jade chuckled. “We’ll need it. So,” she added ominously, “will they.”
Sally Watson, Jade (1969), pp. 266-267](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/6feacf_76737396b2554475ad44eb82c363715a~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_980,h_1767,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/6feacf_76737396b2554475ad44eb82c363715a~mv2.jpg)
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