"Sarah Zettel - Miss Underwood and the Mermaid" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zettel Sarah)

Miss Underwood and the Mermaid
Sarah Zettel

As told by Captain Latimer of Her Majesty's privateer Nancy's Pride for the general
edification of all Their Majesties' subjects by land or sea.

First, let me say, she was not the kind of woman one normally saw in the Debauched Sloth. No
mother who produced that straight spine and those squared shoulders should have permitted her
daughter to know that dim, smoky, dockside tavern where unmarried men with open shirts and braided
hair mingled freely with women of the Queen's navy, and the Queen's privateers.

For all that, the young lady in exquisite, but wholly modest, green silk walked a straight and
determined line. She seemed wholly undeterred by the silence that fell like leaden weight around her.
Without pause she approached the table where I sat with, it must be confessed, Jimmy Harte, an
amiable, ample and generous lad employed by the Sloth's mistress-and occasionally by her customers.
The stranger looked right at Jimmy and I swear before Goddess, her eyes flashed with a cold blue light.
Jimmy stumbled to his feet, splashing beer and mumbling excuses, and retreated.

Neither event warmed me to this person.

She turned those eyes to me, and I saw they were huge, ice blue and judgmental in her
fair-skinned, rich woman's face. After the barest instant, I found I had to drop my own gaze to my beer.
This also did not encourage my favor toward her.

The young lady cleared her throat. "You are, I believe, Captain Latimer, of the Queen's
privateer, Nancy's Pride?"

I raised my gaze and straightened my own shoulders. "I am, and you, Miss, are interrupting my
personal business."

I saw it then, the light shining beneath the blue. Without a doubt there was power here. A
witch, then? With those manners and that Dress? Whoever heard of a prudish witch?

"Then I must apologize for my actions, which without my knowledge or intent have been rude
and an affront; but I must say, I believe that when you hear me out, you will both forgive and understand
the reasons for those actions, as I am on an errand of both delicacy and urgency."

"And you, Miss, were obviously traumatized by a grammar book in your youth."

The quip failed to put her out. Uninvited, she sat, and her spine did not bend an inch with the
act. As there was no immediate prospect of a brawl, or a shooting, the noise around us gradually
returned to its normal levels.

The young lady raised her voice. "I wish to hire your ship, your crew and yourself."

I looked again at her clothing in all its silken splendor, and the diamond and sapphire necklace
around her throat. "My ship has a letter of marque and reprisal," I said, a touch reluctantly. "My
commission is to capture, burn, sink, or destroy all of Their Majesties' enemies by sea. I can take no
other work until the war is over."