"Of course I know you are not the true Governor's daughter. Do you take me for a fool like the rest?" Seth chuckled darkly.

Raven stared at him in the dim glow of the lamp, contemplating her dwindling options.

"So, do you plan to expose me to the Captain, then?" she inquired.

The man shook his head and laughed. "And what would that accomplish? I am a man seeking to gain, Miss, not one who seeks useless death."

She glared at him with confusion. "Then what is it you are seeking?" she asked.

His eyes sparkled with excitement and his grin turned mischievous.

"How’s about a kiss as payment?"

*

Raven remembered this conversation all too well. In fact, she could never seem to forget it. It had been one of her first and most despicable encounters with Seth, the pirate Captain's witty second-in-command. He was a handsome sort of fellow, but his manners were far from charming. Still, somehow he’d managed to steal a bit more than a kiss from her during their encounters together.

Raven was born a simple orphan, a poor and unwanted child who grew up on the streets of London. She had imagined her name, which was oddly elegant for a street rat, had originally been picked out by her parents before giving her up as their child. She supposed it was also possible that the name had been chosen by one of the nurses who had merely based it on her black hair and deep violet eyes. It probably didn’t really matter, though, since she had never seen her parents, and had long since run away from the hell that was that orphanage.

For years Raven had been raised on the streets by the other homeless children, learning how to steal and run in order to survive. However, at the very ripe age of ten years old she, along with a small group of her fellow friends, was finally caught and arrested by the police. The popular punishments for such crimes included imprisonment or execution, but an unusually kind judge ruled for them to instead be sent away and put to work. The girls were carted off to serve as maids in the countryside, while the boys were taken away to farms and factories to work. Their new jobs were hard and tiresome, filled with beatings and cruelty, but at least they were better than death. Raven, for her part, had actually been one of the lucky ones, as her life quickly changed for the better after just one year of servitude.