She briefly considered hoisting the bottle she'd just fetched and cracking it over his skull, but instead she shot him a frown and turned toward the bleary-eyed gathering at the whist table. "John, did you ever hear the likes of this one, by my life? He'd have the lot of you drink and play for free."
John Mewes, a Bristol seaman who had joined Hugh years ago after jumping ship at Nevis Island, stared up groggily from his game, then glanced back at his shrinking pile of coins—shrinking as Salt-Beef Peg's had grown. His weathered cheeks were lined from drink, and, as always, his ragged hair was matted against his scalp and the jerkin covering his wide belly was stained brown with spilled grog. Inexplicably, women doted on him in taverns the length of the Caribbean.
"Aye, yor ladyship, it may soon have to be. This bawd of yours is near to takin' my last shilling, before she's scarce troubled liftin' her skirts to earn it." He took another swallow of kill-devil from his tankard, then looked imploringly toward Winston. "On my honor, Cap'n, by the look of it I'm apt to be poor as a country parson by noontide tomorrow.''
"But you're stayin' all this week with me, John." Peg was around the table and on his lap in an instant, her soft brown eyes aglow. "A promise to a lady always has to be kept. Else you'll lose your luck."
"Then shall I be havin' your full measure for the coin of love? It's near to all that's left, I'll take an oath on it. My purse's shriveled as the Pope's balls."
"For love?" Peg rose. "And I suppose I'm to be livin' on this counterfeit you call love. Whilst you're off plyin' your sweet talk to some stinkin' Dutch whore over on the Wild Coast."
"The damned Hollander wenches are all too sottish by half. They'd swill a man's grog faster'n he can call for it." He took another pull from his tankard and glanced admiringly at Peg's bulging, half-laced bodice. "But I say deal the cards, m'lady. Where there's life, there's hope, as I'm a Christian."
"And what was it you were saying, love?" Joan turned back to Winston and poured another splash into his tankard. "I think it was something to do with the new slaves?"
"I said I don't like it, and I just might try doing something about it. I just hope there's no trouble here in the meantime." His voice slowly trailed off into the din of the rain.
This bother about the slaves was not a bit like him, Joan thought. Hugh'd never been out to right all the world's many ills. Besides, what did he expect? God's wounds, the planters were going to squeeze every shilling they could out of these new Africans. Everybody knew the Caribbees and all the Americas were "beyond the line," outside the demarcation on some map somewhere that separated Europe from the New World. Out here the rules were different. Hugh had always understood that better than anybody, so why was he so out of sorts now that the planters had found a replacement for their lazy indentures? Heaven can tell, he had wrongs enough of his own to brood about if he wanted to trouble his mind over life's little misfortunes.