Penny leaned her elbows against the deck rail and watched the waves churn past the sleek sides of her ship. Their hold was full of pirated gold ingots, and they were headed to a nearby port. The men were due for some highly-prized shore leave, where most of them would doubtless blow their entire share of the gold on grog, dice and women. It was what pirates did, but this time, Penny had no intention of joining them on land. She was still smarting from Sheldon's rejection. Knowing that meant that she had somehow developed genuine feelings for him only increased her melancholy. The only bright spot in the past few days was getting Leonard off her back.
There was a soft, hesitant tread behind her and a soft voice inquired, "Cap'n?"
She recognized his voice. "Is there a problem, Stuart?"
"Not with the Queen or the crew," he said, and then paused.
"Then what is it? she asked, a little more sharply than she had meant.
"It's you, Cap'n. You ain't been yourself since we took the Mariposa. Not that I think the rest of the crew even noticed, but I could tell. You've always been good to me and didn't treat me any different when you… when you could have found reason to. You don't got anyone else on board you can really tell what's botherin' you, so I thought…" he trailed away sheepishly.
"So Raj didn't send you? Or Sheldon? Or Leonard?" she asked, with a scowl at the last name.
"No, ma'am, this just comes from me."
She looked back out over the water. "I've made a fool of myself," she said quietly after a long pause.
"Yer talking about Sheldon, right?"
"How do you know?" she asked, her cheeks instantly flushing red.
"Every time I seen you together, there's something between you. It's like the eye of a storm. Don't look like much, but you know something big's just a stone's throw away," Stuart said.
Penny shook her head. "I'm not so sure about that. You see, I… I kissed him and he acted like I just slapped him in the face with a week-old fish."
"Did he, or was he just startled? I don't think he's used to people much. Have you noticed how when any of the crew hails him or claps him on the back, he looks all spooked. It's like he expects everyone to hate him. Mebbe he never had a girlfriend neither."
She was looking at him with a dawning expression of comprehension on her face. "Leonard said he's never been interested in either men or women. Maybe that part at least was true."
"Consider the source, Cap'n," Stuart said sagaciously. "Leonard must've done something to make you pretty mad, given what you did to him."
Penny blinked at him in astonishment. "As soon as he finished telling me Sheldon couldn't possibly be interested in me, he tried to kiss me himself. I punched him," she added in smug satisfaction. "Do you think… do you think Sheldon might like me?" she asked, sounding uncertain for the first time Stuart could ever remember.
"Go talk to him. It's the only way to find out," he said with an encouraging smile.
She nodded, took two steps away, and then rushed back to give Stuart a very quick hug. "I'll keel haul you if you tell any of the other mates about that," she said with a twinkle in her eye, and then hurried away.
Sheldon tried to concentrate on the charts, graphs and calculations spread out before him, but it was no use. Ever since Leonard had gone to talk to Penny on his behalf, she had been assiduously avoiding him. He had tried to ask Leonard if something had gone wrong, but Leonard still wasn't speaking to him after Penny publicly humiliated him. With a sigh, he rolled up the nautical charts and placed them neatly back into the cubbyholes under the desk. He reached for the cabin door, intent on searching for Penny, but it flew open before he could take hold of it.
"Penny," he said in surprise. He swallowed hard. "Good, I was just about to go in search of you. Come in."
She gave him a strange look but came in shut the door behind her. She was twisting her fingers together in a way that he hadn't seen her do before.
"What did you want to talk about?" she asked.
"You've been avoiding me," he accused.
She shrugged. "I really did need to examine the reinforcements Howard made to the bulwarks, especially since we've taken on such heavy cargo, but aye, I've been keeping my distance. I thought it was what you wanted."
He studied her face carefully but as usual, could get no clue about her feelings. He had always been hopeless at reading expressions. "No, I did not want that at all. Your absence has been a great inconvenience."
She took a couple of steps closer. "To your work, or to you?" she asked.
"Both, I suppose," he replied honestly.
They gazed at each other silently for a moment, then both of them started talking at once. After another awkward pause, Penny broke the silence.
"What Leonard told me about you… I never asked you if it was true. I just took his word for it, which I now realize was a crazy thing to do when he obviously had such a huge crush on me."
"I did ask him to speak for me, but it also occurred to me that he may not have relayed my message accurately. I wanted him to explain that I was not adverse to your display of ardor, but I simply had no previous experience in such matters. I had hoped that perhaps, at some point in the future, you might be induced to duplicate the event?" Sheldon asked, his nervousness causing him to retreat into verbosity.
"You mean you didn't mind that I kissed you, and you want me to do it again?" Penny's eyes lit up as she puzzled out his meaning.
His throat tightened, and all he could do was nod. It was enough. She took one more step toward him until their bodies were almost touching, then slid her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his.
Penny wasn't sure how her crew was going to react when they found out about her and Sheldon. Since he was still sleeping in a hammock below decks with the rest of the men, it was clear that she was actually "sweet" on him, and not just using him for a good time. She found she didn't have to worry. Sheldon had already won enough of her men's respect both by his part in the capture of the Mariposa and by the fact that he treated everyone on board equally. Since Penny had always avoided any romantic entanglements among her crew, no one was jealous, with the possible exception of Leonard. He had been careful to stay away from Penny ever since the mock flogging.
Using Sheldon's system, they were able to accurately pinpoint another cargo ship and seize its contents. The crew now treated him like one of their own, although Penny was sure that most of their ribald jests about his relationship with their captain were lost on him. The only crew member who wasn't happy was Kurt. Deprived of the limelight, he was jealous of how easily the crew transferred their loyalties to Sheldon. He never considered that they responded better to rewards than to the time-honored method of keeping order with his fists. Penny fretted over the situation even as her relationship with Sheldon grew closer and more intense. She wished she could just put Kurt off at the next port, but he had always been a good first mate. He deserved better, and besides, who would she then promote to first mate? Her crew consisted of twenty-four men, all excellent sailors, but she didn't feel any of them were leadership material yet.
As she was musing over this issue for what felt like the hundredth time in the last few weeks, there was a hail from the crow's nest: "Ship ahoy!" Grabbing up her spyglass, she peered through it. "Run up the flag for parley," she called. "It's the Medusa."
As the other ship glided closer, Penny swapped out her spyglass for a bull horn. "Ahoy the ship!" she yelled. Soon, a familiar figure with close-cropped curls appeared. With a smirk, the captain put out a plank and gestured Penny aboard. Penny trod confidently over to the second ship and looked down her nose at the captain, who was several inches shorter than she was.
"Princess," drawled the captain insultingly.
"Hag," Penny countered.
The other captain glared at her for a moment before they both burst out laughing. "How d'ye fare, Leslie?" Penny asked, her eyes dancing with merriment. Captain Winkler was a long-time acquaintance of hers and the only other female pirate captain in the Caribbean. They weren't exactly what Penny would call friends, but they had forged a relationship that was equal parts cooperation and competition.
"Can't complain, although rumor is you've seized a rich prize recently. I know it's not your usual sort of job, so I thought I could take them off your hands," Leslie said offhandedly.
From her casual tone, Penny knew that Leslie must actually want something from her pretty badly. "Nice try, but our gold is buried somewhere where you'll never find it," Penny shot back. She already had plans to spend most of her share on improvements to her ship, but pirates were supposed to bury treasure on some obscure little island, right? It wouldn't do to let word get out that money just slipped through her fingers.
Leslie raised her eyebrows. "Gold? So you've already collected the ransom money?"
"Ransom money? Wha… what are you talking about?" Penny asked.
"Three wealthy men, all nobility, were traveling in disguise aboard a merchant ship. The ship disappeared about a month ago, and the scuttlebutt says you're the one who captured her. You didn't toss them overboard, did you? Those three men were a prince, a duke, and an Indian ambassador's son. The gold you could get for their safe return could buy your leaky tub twice over."
Penny bristled at that slur about her ship, but a cold knot was forming in her stomach. Raj's ethnicity alone confirmed Leslie's story, not to mention Sheldon's arrogant, high-handed behavior. She knew instinctively that he was the prince. All this time, he'd been pretending that he cared about her, winning the trust and respect of the crew, when he could have the most pedigreed princesses in Europe for his bride. For all she knew, he was married already. Had it all just been a game to him? Had he been toying with her affections for his own amusement? Recalling his initial disdain of her entire ship's complement, she could well believe it.
All this flashed through her mind in a heartbeat. She knew she had to brazen it out with Leslie. "I did shanghai a few new crew members recently," she said nonchalantly. "But there were four of them, not three, and they were scholars from Berlin. I put them to work swabbing out the hold, but you can make me an offer for them if you want."
Leslie's face fell. "Never mind," she muttered sullenly, obviously fooled by Penny's bluff. "Maybe that merchant ship just went down in a storm."
"Better luck next time," Penny said facetiously as she swung back to her ship. Her carefree smile dropped the instant Leslie's vessel disappeared from view. She turned to the man standing closest to her. "Go get Sheldon, and bring him up on deck amidships. Make sure his hands are bound," she growled.
His eyes widened at the savage expression on her face. "Aye, Cap'n," he said, backing away quickly.