The first thing the two self-proclaimed "physicists" did was to appropriate any manner of tools aboard Penny's ship to recreate the equipment she had sent to the bottom of the sea. Then they started asking Kurt, who also served as the ship's blacksmith, to make them specialized pieces. Kurt was not at all amused, and Penny found herself running interference between them even as she cursed the scientists at length. While Howard and Raj dove into their tasks with a cheerful willingness, Sheldon and Leonard constantly bickered with each other and anyone else who questioned their work. She was amused to see that Leonard capitulated to Sheldon's high-handed demands almost all the time, but every so often, he would dig in his heels and Sheldon would give way instead. Despite their strangeness and the chaos they brought to her ship, Penny found herself growing rather fond of each of the four men.
Of all the scholars, Sheldon was the one most likely to clash with her. He simply had no respect for rank or status. The positive side of that was that he never treated her differently because she was a woman, apart from a few snide comments about her large, mannish hands. In response, she spread them out in front of her and told him how they had helped her pass for a young man when she was first learning to be a sailor. She found herself spending more time with him than anyone else aboard. She was especially delighted to find that he was a decent fencer. The two of them would often practice on the aft deck, and the crew members loved to gather to watch them. They all agreed that Sheldon fought like a gentleman, and that was why he always lost. Penny had any number of dirty tricks up her sleeve, and she never fought fair.
She spent hours talking to him while pouring over charts in her cabin. Sheldon seldom spoke about his own past, only occasionally letting slip the tiniest morsels of information. One time, in a rare candid moment, he told her about a time when he had slipped past the guards at the Royal Treasury in Copenhagen. He explained that he needed a diamond that was larger than twenty carats for a telescope he was building, and that was the only place to find one. Amused and skeptical, she asked what happened.
"I got caught red-handed," he confessed glumly. "They dragged me before the king, who agreed to drop all charges if I would swear an oath of fealty to him."
"And did you?" she asked.
He nodded while a muscle twitched under his right eye. He clapped a hand to his face and then confessed, "But I crossed my fingers behind my back as I said the oath."
Penny laughed delightedly. She didn't believe his stories for a minute, but she loved that he could come up with such crazy inventions on the spot. He claimed to be a genius, and the more she got to know him, the more she could tell he was right. When he was seized by one of his ideas, there was no telling what mad thing he would do next, but she liked that side of him.
Sheldon was clearly enthused about his task, charting ocean currents and writing algorithms to predict the movement of ships and cargo. He threw himself into his project with the same enthusiasm with which he approached any of his experiments at university. Raj and Howard also seemed to be enjoying their time aboard ship. Raj especially had become very close with the ship's cook, a slender, curly-haired man named Stuart. Only Leonard still fretted about the ethics of his work.
"I just don't know if I feel right about all this. I mean, we're working for pirates. They're outlaws, even if the captain is the most beautiful woman I've ever seen," Leonard commented to Sheldon as they were trying to fashion an astrolabe from the primitive tools on board the ship.
"The captain is quite aesthetically pleasing, but I fail to see how her appearance relates to her legal status," Sheldon commented.
Leonard squinted suspiciously up at his friend. "Wait, did you just say Penny was pretty?"
Sheldon sighed. "If you insist on paraphrasing my words, then yes, I suppose I did. Now hand me that lathe."
Leonard let the matter drop, but he didn't forget his friend's words. I saw her first, he thought sulkily to himself. Sheldon wouldn't know what to do with a woman even if one threw herself at him. He had seen women do just that-make fools of themselves over an oblivious Sheldon. There was even one woman who was auditing classes at the university. Sheldon had seemed partial to her. Seeing this, his parents had thrown them together at every opportunity, and the woman, Lady Amelia, soon acted as if Sheldon was hers. When she attempted to kiss him, however, she earned herself a blistering lecture from the outraged physicist. From then on, Sheldon assiduously avoided her, leading Leonard, Raj and Howard to speculate that he had no interest in any woman, nor did he show the slightest preference for men. Science was his only passion, but now his interest in Penny, however slight it would be for any other man, had Leonard sweating. For Leonard, Penny's unconventionality was a deterrent to his romantic fantasy, which involved her falling so hard for him that she would leave her life of crime to keep his house and bear his children. To think that Sheldon might actually like her because of those qualities, or at least not in spite of them, made Leonard acutely uneasy.
Sheldon ground his teeth as he attempted once again to explain to the captain exactly why she was so wrong. Every time he thought he had made his point, she seemed to slip around his logic and come at the argument from a different angle, which often had nothing to do with the original premise. The woman so aggravated him that his heart began to pound in his chest every time he saw her. Her masculine attire was so startling that he couldn't help but notice the way the fabric of her trousers clung to her hips and buttocks. With no more than a glance, the images were seared into his mind. They reappeared, as if to torture him, at the most inappropriate times, like now in the middle of an argument. Yet he couldn't help but also find her lack of deference refreshing. His birthright caused most people to kowtow to him and hanging on his every word. He would have appreciated the deference if the reason for it had been his intellectual genius. The fact that most of the people he encountered were sycophantic ninnies who cared more for a hereditary title than any accomplishment infuriated him. Perhaps that was why he continued to find excuses to seek Penny out, even if only to argue with her.
They had been on the Queen of the Seas for just under a month when Sheldon announced that they were ready to test their predictive model (that was what he called it). Penny didn't care what big words he used, as long as it got her the results she wanted. She was eager for a prime catch, and even more eager to see if these crazy men were of any use to her. Howard and Raj had blended in with the crew better than she thought possible. She even suspected that there was something going on between Raj and Stuart, the ship's cook. Leonard, however, was beginning to become a problem. Working in close proximity with him seemed to reinforce his notion that given time, she would succumb to his dubious charms. His delusions she could handle, but the way he treated her as if she were some delicate, helpless female set her teeth on edge. He offered his hand to steady her when they were on deck together. He opened doors for her and paid her flowery compliments. So far, she had decided to just ignore his semi-insulting attentions, but a day of reckoning might be coming.
So when Sheldon proudly told her that his formula was ready, she headed as quickly as she could for the nearest port. For a few pieces of eight, she bought information about the Mariposa, a Spanish galleon whose cargo was rumored to be gold bullion. She would have taken a fierce pleasure in raiding a ship of the East India Company, since they were dedicated to eradicating piracy in the Caribbean. But the lure of gold was too tempting to resist. Her crew had been chomping at the bit for a decent prize, ever since their capture of the merchant ship had gained them very little profit.
Back on her ship, Sheldon spread out the maps and in a few minutes, showed her where they could intercept the Mariposa. Once again, she frowned in confusion and began shaking her head.
"You must have done your numbers wrong. Why would a heavy-laden ship risk sailing so close to the coral reefs? If the wind came around, they'd find themselves run aground in an instant."
"Doubtless that is precisely why they chose that route, because it is the last place anyone would look for them," Sheldon said haughtily. "And I'm never wrong."
She grinned. Far from annoying her, his attitude actually excited her. It was so similar to the confidence she had to show her crew all the time, even when she really wasn't sure of her decisions. She allowed her imagination to wander, picturing him as part of her crew. She could see him, perched high aloft in the rigging, the wind molding his shirt and breeches to his wiry form. She swore quietly under her breath as she realized the direction her thoughts were taking her. He wasn't classically handsome, but his intelligence and self-assuredness had clearly caught her fancy. She couldn't afford to be attracted to him. He was still technically her prisoner. Eventually, when they made their way to a larger port town, she would have to send off those ransom letters to their families. That prospect was becoming less appealing to her as the days passed. Yet Sheldon was clearly from quality, maybe even nobility. What would he want with a ragtag pirate wench, even one who was a captain?
