The Pirate Captain

CHAPTER 12: Hot Baths

Sometime later, Cate woke. Eyes rolling, she lay wondering through a sleep-fogged mind what had woken her. Then she heard the soft rumble of male laughter very nearby. Moving her head slightly, she could see Nathan and Thomas through the flames, sitting amiably, a bottle of rum stuck in the sand between them. Their voices were loud enough to be identified, but not so much as to make out their words.

Moving her head a bit further, she could see Nathan more fully. His features gilded in a molten glow, his smile was a brilliant slash amid the ebony of mustache and beard. The darkness and distance sanded harsh lines and years from his face, providing a hint of what he might have looked like in his youth. Thomas’ presence had taken years off him. Nathan was always quick with a smile, but never had she seen him laugh with such sincerity or seem so at peace.

Still prickling from humiliation, she couldn’t help but smile. Their words weren’t important. At this hour, they would be speaking of matters that were meant only for the ears of a friend.

Nathan reached for the bottle, and his eye caught hers. Uncertainty hung for a moment, and then a corner of his mouth twitched. He winked and turned his attention to Thomas.

Settling deeper in her nest, Cate slept with Nathan’s laughter soft in her ears.



###



From the corner of his eye, Thomas observed his friend, idly poking a stick at the fire that didn’t need tending.

His conversation with Cate had opened Pandora’s box. Now, it weighed heavily. It was a matter he kept well-stowed, tucked behind a lifetime of badness. Hell, a full list it was: brutality, violence, shame, regrets, horror, much of which was too vile to revisit. By his years, any man had his share, but living at sea—as a pirate—provided a soul an inordinate supply.

If he had known then what he knew now, he would have physically carried Nathan out of Creswicke’s office years ago, kicking and screaming, to be sure. Instead, he had carried Nathan from a stinking pen, naked, beaten, flogged, and branded, to a stolen skiff—his first act of piracy—and spirited him away.

He doubted Cate would have believed him, if he had told her a mysterious current had swept the skiff across the waters to an island where none had existed before, and to a strange hovel, with an even stranger woman inside.

At least, he thought it was a woman.

Even now, he shuddered, chilled in spite of the fire. Bordered on evil she did. But she did right by Nathan, hovering over him like a hen over a chick, murmuring all manner of chants and incantations, rattling her cup of bones and bits, anointing him with unspeakable potions. He’d seen many a sorceress in his day, but this one…

He shuddered again. In spite of the woman’s spells, Nathan screamed like a tortured man losing his soul, in an agony rooted far deeper than torn flesh. By his judgment, if it hadn’t been for the ogress, they would have buried Nathan there.

She sent them away. Several fortnights later, Nathan showed up, big as you please—never did figure how he knew where they were—with a ship and nearly a full complement of crew. He had only asked once in how it came to pass, and knew Nathan well enough to know the outlandish tale was the only answer he was going to get.

The first months after, those had been the most difficult for all of them. Nathan was burdened the most, knowing it was his hand that had delivered them to that fate. Garrick had been their savior, showing them the pirate’s world. Nathan rose like the proverbial phoenix, and typical Nathan, had thrown himself at the bad situation, determined to make it the best. Each day, however, with each piratical deed, Nathan had withered, withdrawing behind beard and hair.

Thomas squinted to the night sky as he tried to recall the last time he had seen Nathan: 10 years, at least. He hadn’t been prepared for what he saw. He had heard the fantastic tales, believed less than half, but now, was obliged to reconsider. The pirate had devoured him, eaten away the real man, leaving only a façade.

He stared across the fire, in search of the man he remembered. There were glimpses: a look, a turn of phrase, a gesture. But so much was different. The eyes were more haunted. After what Creswicke had done, it didn’t seem possible there could be worse, but apparently the Fates had chosen something more for Nathan. Injury, torture, mutiny, and death: how much of the tales was one to believe? Miracles of navigation and survival; battle and luck; where did one draw the line?

And now, he was seeing something else, something not seen in decades, but there it was, before his very eyes: Nathan Blackthorne pining over a woman.

Who’d have thought? No one, if they knew only the pirate. Anyone, if they knew the man.

Lounging against a puncheon, Thomas took a swig from the bottle. He looked through the flames to the tousled mahogany head peeking from under the quilt.

“What’s in your mind to do with her, Nathan?”

Nathan jerked from his reverie. He followed Thomas’ line of sight toward the sleeping form, and then cut him a cold look. “Sniffing around, is it?”

Thomas winced. It came as no surprise they would eventually circle around to contentious partings of many years ago.

“That wasn’t my idea,” Thomas said levelly. “’Twas Camilla’s choice.”

Nathan snorted. “Tell that to the parrot. Not much I can do,” he sighed. “She’s married.”

Thomas frowned. “That was all by the board before.”

Nathan’s mouth took a grim twist. “Isn’t now.”

Fingers drumming his bent leg, he studied Nathan. Over the years, he had seen Nathan in any number of moods, to all the extremes life could bestow. Broody was a rare trait, defeated unfathomable.

This was strange, very strange.

Aside from the bruises of a recent beating, the fire shadows sharpened Nathan’s features, hollowing his eyes and cheeks. No one ever really knew what was going on in that mind, not anymore. There had been a time, but…

“This one’s bad, eh?” he asked.

Nathan nodded, pointedly avoiding Thomas as he took a long pull from the bottle.

“Is this Rebecca bad or Olivia bad?” Thomas pressed further.

Nathan swished the mouthful from side to side, swallowed and croaked, “Worse.”

Thomas closed his eyes and dropped his chin to his chest. “Damn, Nathan, I’m sorry. Have you told her? I mean, have you said…anything?”

“Aye,” Nathan said, contemplatively tracing patterns in the sand. “Several times.”

“And?”

Nathan made a frustrated sound and batted at the sand. “And, she says she wants to be friends.”

“Ouch! Jesus, Nathan, I’m sorry.”

Nathan acknowledged the empathy with a half-lift of one shoulder and a vague nod.

“Is that how you would have it?”

“Hardly me choice,” Nathan said sullenly.

Unable to sit still, Nathan rose to fetch several pieces of wood to stoke the fire. He dropped back down on the sand, a shower of sparks spiraling skyward.

He felt Thomas’ stare and spread his arms. “What?”

Cate stirred at the sharp sound. Grimacing, Nathan waited. “What would you have me do?” he whispered hoarsely once she had quieted.

“Force the issue.”

He shot Thomas a skeptical glare over the flames. “And what if I scare her off? What if she hauls her wind and leaves?”

“She wouldn’t.”

“Aye, but she would,” Nathan said evenly, his shoulders jerking. “Bloody damn near did and but a day since. Damn near jumped ship, too.”

“Stop her.” He saw the folly in that as soon as he uttered it. With eyes that saw right through a man, Cate didn’t strike him as a woman who was readily cowed. Bodily harm would ensue for anyone foolish enough to try to bend her to his will.

Nathan made a disgusted noise and waved the suggestion away. He took a drink, and then hunched forward to prop his chin on his knees.

“She still loves him; not much to do about that,” Nathan said, staring owlishly into the fire.

“Him?”

“Her husband.”

“Oh.” Thomas took a drink and wiped his mouth of the back of his hand.

“I swear, if I ever find the bastard, and I will,” Nathan emphasized with a stab of his finger, “I’ll kill ’im straight away.”

Knowing Nathan’s bent, it was a credible threat. Conviction or provocation could precipitate such an act, more so of recent, if there was any grain of truth to the stories he’d heard.

Nathan pitched several bits of shell into the fire as his agitation grew. “Any man what takes a woman through war—nigh on to a goddamned hero, as I hear it—and then leaves her to suffer God knows what alone, deserves a blade to the gut. God protect us from noble men,” he intoned to the sky.

Thomas frowned but nodded interestedly. It explained a good deal of the woman’s hardness—not in the way of coldness, for any man could see an internal fire of spirit and flesh—and wisdom. The woman was a mystery and a wonder.

“And you would never do that—leave her, that is?” Thomas mused.

Nathan twitched. They both knew he had left a good number of women in his wake and not always with a proper taking of his leave.

Nathan swiped away the thought. “That was different different…’cuz she’s…she’s different.

“Charm her.”

Nathan rolled a dubious look from the corner of his eye. “Charm her, how?”

“I don’t know, like you always do. Hell, Nathan, I’ve seen you charm the scales off a fish. Flash her that smile of yours and she’ll be clay in your hand.”

Nathan’s bells—God knew where the hell those things came from!—tinkled when he shook his head in disbelief at Thomas’s failure to comprehend the delicacies of the situation. “She’s different.”

“C’mon, Nathan, if you can’t be honest with her or me, at least be honest with yourself for once.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I think you know.”

“Goddamned taskmaster, aren’t you?”

Sputtering like a reprimanded schoolboy, Nathan pointedly fixed his gaze on the fire. Within seconds, his eyes crept back to find Thomas still staring. “You know, you remind me of me dear old, aged aunt. You’d best hope your face doesn’t freeze like that. Fancy yourself me keeper, eh?”

“Someone needs to; you do a damn poor business of it yourself.”

“I’ve made it this far, haven’t I?”

“Aye and how much further had you been else?”

Nathan held his ire for a moment, and then slumped. “Aye, true enough.”

Thomas’ attention drifted back to Cate’s sleeping form once more. The fire sparked gold and orange in the tumble of copper hair. “She's too beautiful to be kept in limbo waiting for no one. If you’ve designs, fair enough. But if not, you’d oblige me to say as much and step aside.”

Jaw working, Nathan’s gaze settled on her and lingered with a sudden tenderness. “Sad thing is she hasn’t the slightest idea the effect she has on men. All she need do is look at you with those cursed eyes and…”

“And what?”

“And, nothing.” Nathan picked up a bit of driftwood and hurled it into the fire. “That’s what happens: nothing.”

Nathan turned into himself, mired deep in his own murk. Silence fell; the fire’s hiss the only sound between them.

“So, I’ve wore ’round to my original question,” Thomas said at length. “Put a name on what you’re at with her?”

Snatching up the bottle from at his feet, Nathan meditatively rolled it between his hands. At length, he took a drink then blew a tired exhale. “Only one thing I can do: keep her safe, until I can find her husband.”

Now there was a novelty: finding a husband?

Thomas’ mouth sagged.“Safe, as on the Morganse safe? You think it's safe out here?”

“Well, it's safer than anywhere else. Well, it is,” he bristled at Thomas’ dubious guffaw.

Thomas burst out a laugh, only to clap a hand over his mouth when Cate stirred.

“Sure, Nathan,” he whispered, still fizzing with mirth. “You just keep believing that. What makes you so sure she wants to find her husband?”

Nathan gave him a level look from under his brows. “She. Still. Loves. Him.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure. I could have sworn I saw something different, but you’d know better than I. You’d best be careful with her, Nathan. That woman could wipe the decks with your carcass.”

Nathan snorted. “As well I know!”



###



Cate woke again much later. The moon had set. The air had the feel of being nearer to day than night. The fire was down to mere coals, glimmering red hot under their blanket of ash. Aside from the rattle of palm fronds, the rush of surf on the reef, and the snoring of over 300 celebration-worn men, the beach was still.

Twisting her head around, she was startled to find a dark form laying barely an arm’s length away. Peering closer, she saw it was Nathan. Sprawled on his stomach, braids snarled about his shoulders, an arm pillowed his head. Hearing the throaty rasp of his breathing, she resisted the urge to touch him. Instead, she enjoyed the connection that came with seeing him sleep. Like the coals, her anger had burned out. She sought to rekindle it, but found she couldn’t. Irritated and annoyed, yes, but angry at him, no. It had been Nathan being Nathan. How could she expect anything more?

As she turned, something caught her eye. Next to her head, her shoes sat neatly arranged. She looked back, half-expecting to see Nathan watching, but he remained asleep. And so, she settled back into her quilt-lined nest and did the same.



###



The next time Cate woke was not so delicate. She was jerked into the new day by a blaze of sunlight in her eyes, and Mr. Hodder’s expostulations—which would cause many a woman to blush—in her ears. At first thinking she was still aboard, she burrowed deeper under the blanket. At last able to assimilate her whereabouts, she peeked like a turtle from its shell. It was no surprise to find Nathan already gone, a faint depression in the sand his only trace.

The beach was alive with activity. Absent were many of the usual sounds of morning—the grind of holystones, pounding of feet to breakfast, or the hails from the tops as the day sails were bent or reefs shaken out—but enough was present to lend a air of normalcy. Pryce could be heard in full vent, prodding some poor unfortunate deemed too laggardly. A baleful complaint came from Hermione. Beatrice was having a bit of her morning parroty say, her vulgarities blending seamlessly with those from the humans. It led one to wonder what a contended parrot sounded like, or if finding her a companion might sweeten her disposition. In that there was, of course, the risk of two irascible birds.

Cate pushed up and knocked the hair from her face in time to see Nathan striding toward her. Sash jouncing at his knees, his attention was fixed on the steaming mug he bore.

“I give you joy o’ the morning, luv,” Nathan declared brightly as he folded down to the sand next to her. “I assured Mr. Kirkland I would see you got this the instant you showed a leg. Upon me word, the man takes your thirsts as a personal challenge. He represents to have put cinnamon in it. Have a care. It’s hot.”

He held out the mug for her to inhale the aromatic brew, and then carefully sip. His warning was needless. Kirkland’s pride in the temperature of anything produced in his galley was well-known, his coffee ready to blister the first unsuspecting soul.

“It’s wonderful. Have you had yours, yet?” Cate asked as she arranged herself more comfortably and took the cup.

Nathan nodded as he watched her drink. “Oh, aye, before the sun was o’er the gun’l. Could use another bit, though; can’t seem to hit me stride yet.” He blinked widely in example.

She held the cup out in invitation. At first, he refused, but then relented. They spent the next while sitting in companionable silence, sharing and observing the flurry of activity on the beach. As soon as the mug was empty, Nathan passed the word for another. Ordinarily, she would have been reluctant to infringe her needs on others, but somehow on that particular morning, sitting next to Nathan, she was content to be waited upon.

Cate waited with considerable apprehension for Nathan to say something about the night before, but he blithely ignored it to the point she wondered if he remembered. Perhaps, he had been more in drink than thought, or it was just the Captain of Denial in full command of his realm.

They were nearly to the bottom of the second cup, when she realized they had been carrying on an entire conversation and not a word was spoken, a tip of the head, a gesture, the quirk of a mouth, or the cock of an eyebrow communicating every thought.

It was Thomas who finally interrupted their amiable silence.

“Good morning!” he chimed as he crossed the beach. Barely acknowledging Nathan, his full attention fixed on Cate. “Just as lovely under the morning sun as she is under the light of the moon!”

Shielding a hand to the sun, she looked up smiling. “And just as good a liar in the light as he is in the dark,”

Thomas laughed loudly enough to cause several of the nearby hands to give pause. Nathan’s cheerfulness faded as he darted suspicious looks between them.

“I thought we’d linger here for the day, Nathan,” Thomas said. “We need to water and wood, as well. Allow us the day, and we’ll ride the evening tide to take our position abaft the Straits.”

Still casting sharp-eyed looks between them, Nathan nodded distractedly.

“We’ll be setting the kedges and making ready,” Nathan announced at last and rose. “We’ve every reason to believe our prey should pass within the day or next.”

“Fair enough. Much to do.” Thomas removed his hat and sweep a grand bow. “M’ lady.”

“What's he got to be so cheerful about this morning?” Nathan muttered, watching as Thomas strode away.

“Maybe he has a particular relish for mornings,” she suggested lightly, hovering over her drink.

Nathan twisted around to peer suspiciously down the sharp edge of his nose at her. “Maybe he had an extra good night.”

She batted her eyes with exaggerated innocence over the mug’s rim. “Why Captain Blackthorne, whatever are you implying?”

Narrowing one eye threateningly, a precursor to a retort, he suddenly brightened. “I’ve a surprise.”

“What?” Skepticism seemed the better part of valor, at the moment.

“Have no cares,” he replied, with a flip of his hand. “Allow me to attend to a few matters with Pryce, and we’ll aweigh.”

He scurried off, hailing the First Mate. Coffee finished, Cate rose, wincing. Romantic as it might sound, sleeping on a beach did not provide the best night’s repose. Sand was surprisingly hard and had a nasty trait of shifting into shapes unaccommodating to the body.

Cate was rigging a drying rack for the herbs collected the day before—a task slowed by being obliged to pause to scratch Hermione’s head every time she was butted on the hip—when Nathan found her next. A haversack over his shoulder, he hooked her by the arm and led her away, snagging up the quilt as they passed. He resolutely declined to offer a hint as to their destination, answering her inquiries with no more than a dramatic roll of the eyes.

Down the shore a short way laid a broad creek, which they followed inland. It was early in the day, but the walk was still warm. On New Providence, she had been a distracted observer of the new world before her. And yesterday, she had been too preoccupied. Now, following Nathan, braids swinging with his bobbing gait, she walked in open-mouthed amazement.

Going from the saturated blues of sky and water to the vibrant greens almost hurt the eyes. There were vines as thick as an arm and head-high ferns, and trees whose towering heights dwarfed the Morganse’s masts. Each step brought the damp, earthy smell of fallen leaves and dying vegetation, which mingled with wafts from the flowers, at times so heady and sweet as to nearly bowl one over. Cate kept close on Nathan’s heels; a few paces too far apart, and she feared losing sight of him. The going wasn’t rough, but the footing did require constant attention.

Cate wondered what had brought to Nathan this sudden urge to go off into the jungle, when there seemed to be so much else to occupy his time and mind. It could have been an innocent desire to show her some local point of interest, or a gesture of atonement for his behavior the night before. The latter seemed highly unlikely; fits of conscious weren’t his burden. Her moonlight walk with Thomas was another possible motivation. Out-of-hand, she ruled that out; outright jealousy an even less-natural state.

The terrain took an increasingly upward slope. In spite of the canopy of shade, the atmosphere was heavy and still. Wiping the sweat from her face, Cate kept climbing, accepting Nathan’s hand to navigate rock tumbles or steep banks.

“A bit more,” was her only hint, as he stood in a nearly knee-deep creek to hoist her from one bank.

A patch of brilliance in the verdant shadows finally came into view: the sun’s reflection on the surface if a broad pool. Flat rocks stair-stepped down at random angles to form a natural basin. The pristinely clear water made the depth deceptive; it could have been a few inches, or it could have been several feet to the crystalline glitter of the black sand bottom. As she came closer, her nose was met with the sharp smell of sulfur.

“Well,” Nathan exclaimed, spreading his arms out. “Here ’tis!”

“It’s beautiful. How did you ever find this?”

He gestured with the bearded point of his chin. “Stick your finger in.”

Kneeling down, Cate dipped her hand in and jerked back. “It’s hot.”

“Aye. Hot springs, from the volcanoes.”

“Around here?” She looked, half-expecting to see lava flowing through the greenery.

“Oh, aye. The Caribbean is full of them; most every one of these islands is some kind of a volcano, either now or before. These springs abound. I thought you might appreciate the chance at a hot bath.” He grinned, his eyes sparkling with anticipation.

“I’d love it.”

“Have a care. Go in here and you’ll be boiled to the bone.” He put out a warning arm, as if she was going to jump in that very moment. He pointed to a waterfall at one end. Barely waist high, it gurgled over a multi-tiered tumble of the rocks. “Go in over there. The falls cool it a bit; you’ll be able to linger.”

“Oh, Nathan!” Cate threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek. Her cheeks burning with embarrassment, she stepped away. “Thank you,” she said considerably subdued.

“No worries,” he mumbled, waving a dismissive hand. “God knows why anyone would want a hot bath in this foundering heat, but…”

Nathan shifted on his feet and cleared his throat. “There’s a fair stand of fern over there, if you’d wish a bit o’ privacy. I’ll be…I’ll just be over there.”

Nathan moved to a respectable distance. Turning his back, he folded his hands behind his back and rocked on his heels, while whistling a nondescript tune. She undressed behind the indicated ferns and slipped into the water.

The water at the hotter end had been clear, but the water tumbling over the falls was tinged brownish-green, making the depth of the ledges deceptive. She crept in, lurching in unexpected shallows and stumbling in surprising depths, until her toes sunk into the sandy bottom. A champagne-like effervescence of tiny bubbles boiled up, giving off minute bursts of sulfur as they broke the surface.

She dived to the bottom and hung like a trout on a hot summer’s day, and then pushed up, surfacing with an explosion of air.

“Oh, Nathan, this is heavenly.”

“I imagined you’d fancy it,” he called from amid the greenery.

“Why don’t you come in?”

He chuckled. “Can’t pass up the prospect of cleaning the whole world, can you?”

“One must have their dreams,” Cate mused. Leaning her head back, she swished her hair from side to side, the heat brushing her temples. “C’mon. It's wonderful.”

“No…I think not.”

“C’mon,” she urged, treading water. “I’ll stay here, and you can come in over there. It’s plenty deep; no one will see anything.”

“You’ll look.” Now he was being coquettish.

“I had five brothers and was married; I've seen everything and far too many times over.”

“I’m shy.” Nathan’s path could be tracked by glimpses of his headscarf through the leaves as he made his way around to the far side.

“Oh, come now. Modesty from a pirate? How many women have you undressed in front of, Captain? What’s one more?”

His mutterings and flashes of movement revealed he was shedding his clothes. “Turn ’round.”

“Oh, very well.” She sighed and did so, closing her eyes for good measure. “I had no idea you were such a prude.”

A splash marked his entry into the pool, a sputter when he broke the surface. Not wishing to injure his pride, she kept her eyes closed while she blissfully floated, shivering with delight as the heat swirled through her joints. Over the years—and yes, it had been years—of dreaming of a hot bath, it had involved visions of endless luxuriant soaking.

Tired but unwilling to leave, Cate found a place where she could sit on the rocks and still be immersed to her neck. Modesty was never her burden, but feeling her breasts bob, she was relieved to see her hair fanned out enough to cover her. In the discolored water, the rest of her body was but an amorphous blur.

A surge of water against her calves was a precursor of Nathan’s arrival. His head broke the surface sleek as a seal at her knee.

“How is it?” He beamed with boyish anxiousness.

“It’s heavenly. The water feels like it’s alive.” The small stirrings of bubbles had felt like tickling little fingers.

“Aye, that would be the spirit of the spring.” He swiped the dripping water from his face. His lean arms braced on the rocky ledge, his braids coiled like water snakes around his shoulders.

“The natives say the bubbles are the breath of the gods of the underworld. Bloody rotten breath, I’d say.” He cast a disdainful glare toward the sulfur-laden corner. “Anyway, they believe it’s the breath of life.”

“How can the gods of death give you life?”

“Trifles, darling,” Nathan declared with a flick of his fingers. The bells in his mustache sparked in the sunlight. “Don’t argue with the powers, luv, just bide and reap the benefits.”

“I hadn't realized how much I missed hot water. Come to think on it, I can’t remember the last time I had a hot bath.”

“’Tis yours for as long as you desire.” He pushed off from the ledge. The tattoos at his neck and chest were distorted by the wavelets as he tread. He gestured with his head toward the path they had taken. “Mind, I’d rather not navigate yon hill in the dark, but the day is yours, luv.”

Arching sideways, Nathan dove out of sight in a flash of brown breeches. Perched on her rock, she visually followed his image as he cavorted like an otter, his bells twinkling in the bands of sunlight. He shot off to a corner, and then curved back. Spouting to the surface, he swam several passes before submerging again. He circled the bottom and rose once more at her knee.

Nathan grinned, droplets of water diamond-like in the ebony of his lashes and mustache. “I believe I’ve seen never you smile so grand.”

“It doesn’t require that much.”

“Not that much, but rare difficult. You deserve all the fineries what could ever be bestowed.”

“I’ve been fairly happy since I’ve been on the Morganse,” Cate said in all earnestness.

Nathan beamed at that, and then sobered. “’Twould be better if we could dispense with that fairly bit.”

“A feast fit for a queen, a romantic fire on the beach, coffee in bed, and now a hot bath; you're going to spoil me.”

His eyes held hers, as deep and luminous as the pool itself. “One can only hope.”

Nathan pushed back and disappeared to the depths. Arms sweeping at his sides, he swept off around the rocks. A slosh of water marked his exit.

Reluctant to leave the blissful heat, Cate slipped off the rock and sank to the bottom, spiraling up only when the need for air required. The heat, however, began to take its toll, her limbs going loose-jointed and heavy.

“C’mon, luv!” Nathan stood on shore, his voice muffled by the quilt held before him. Peering over the top, he shook it in offering. “Let’s get you wrapped up before the meat is boiled off.”

Cate rose from the pool and her legs buckled. Nathan adroitly caught her in the quilt as she crumpled. Bracing her up, he guided her to a sun-dappled spot amid the ferns and moss. Lowering her in the patch-worked envelope, he knelt in the greenery next to her.

“I’m as wobbly as a new colt,” she giggled.

“Stay wrapped or you’ll take a chill. Give yourself a few minutes,” he said, chafing her legs between his hands. “Get the blood going again and you'll do.”

Jelly-limbed and flushed with heat, Cate lay as Nathan fetched her clothing and spread them on the grass nearby. From the haversack, he produced a stoneware bottle, cold roasted meat wrapped in leaves, and discs of flat, unleavened bread from the Griselle’s cook fires. His shirttail haphazardly stuffed into his waistband, he sat cross-legged before her blue-and-yellow cocoon and fed her bits of meat and bread.

With Nathan's arms resting on his legs, Cate noticed there were tattoos encircling his ankles. Their pattern was identical to the woad-colored ones at his wrists and neck, a complicated chain-like interweaving, very reminiscent of Highland designs.

“Where were you born, Nathan?”

He jerked at the unexpected question, but answered amiably. “Dover.”

“England?”

A vague nod was his answer.

“Pryce said you were conceived in a tempest and born in a maelstrom.”

Nathan grinned crookedly, the asymmetrical bells in his mustache drawing nearly level, as he did whenever he was self-conscious. “Good story, isn’t it?”

“And the real story?”

He gave her an amber and cinnamon look as he considered how much to tell.

“Mum was Black Celt, but born in England; some said she had the way of the Ancient Ones about her, as did her mother before her. Her father was a merchant; imports from the Indies and thereabouts. When she was seventeen, he took her on a purchasing trip to see the world. She met me father then.”

“He was a pirate?”

“No.” Nathan was amused by the thought. He popped a piece of meat in his mouth, licking the juices from between his fingers. “A seaman, though. By the time they returned to England, she was with child and her family disowned her. Me father lingered long enough to see me born, and then was aweigh.”

“Didn’t he ever come back?”

“Oh, aye,” he said with a half-smile around the mouthful. “Three visits, three proofs.”

“Did they marry?” Cate regretted the question as soon as she asked. The shortcomings of a parent were rarely an easy thing for a child to admit, no matter the age.

“No.” Nathan took no such umbrage. “Once—when I did inquire—she just said something about ‘finally home’ and that was all,” he said, resigned to the vagaries of a sailor’s lifestyle.

He fed Cate another bite of meat and bread, wiping his fingers on his pant leg.

“You have brothers and sisters? You’ve never made mention,” she said.

“Aye, two brothers and a sister. Nothing to be gained in making mention; I haven’t seen either of the boys for years, and me sister died near twenty years ago.”

A shadow crossed his face as he chewed. The shoulders of his shirt were darkened by his wet hair. The neck gapped open to reveal the banner emblazoned with “Freedom” over his heart.

“Father left money, the few times he came, but there was never enough, and what with four bastards, Mum’s family wouldn’t help her…” Nathan fondled a bit of bread, the corner of his mouth tucked up in disgust. At length, he shook himself free of that line of thought.

“Finally, she obtained a position as a chambermaid on an estate in the country. Lord Horatio Sidwell,” he announced grandly. “Life was good there: plenty to eat, warm beds, and lots of country to play in.” He smiled, his distant gaze growing soft. “Mum actually laughed during that time.”

Pulling the cork, he helped Cate to a drink from the bottle. It was filled with yesterday’s rum punch. Compared to the heat of the day and the pool, it was refreshingly cool. As delicious as before, time had allowed the flavors to mellow further, the fruitiness overshadowing the spices.

“One day, Mum suddenly announced that we were leaving,” he said, popping the cork back into place. “I think there was a falling out of some kind, between Mum and Lady Sidwell. I recall a lot of shouting. Indiscretions, as it were. Unfounded poppycock really, but we left, nonetheless. She had enough money to buy us all passage to the Indies, in search of me father.

“I loved it!” Nathan hunched forward, his long toes curling with excitement. “The ship, the sea; something had always called, I just hadn’t known what. Mum said the Old Ones told her I was born for it. Rather figured, I thought,” he added dryly, “seein’s how me sire was a sailor, but she put great store in it.”

Cate forbore asking what his mother had meant by “Old Ones.” Living in the Highland, a land of isolation and strong superstitions, “old ones” came in spirit and living forms, often a fine line separating the two.

“Oh! Umm…a little…something…!” Nathan rummaged in the bag and brought out a small piece of lightweight canvas. Unfolding it, he drew out a length of knotted cord. Cate inwardly groaned, dreading another knot lesson. Surely not now!

“Wrist, if you please,” he said.

He waited as she worked a hand free. Jelly-limbed as she was, finding her hand was almost too much to ask, let alone move it. Ultimately she produced one, the left, as it turned out. He passed the bracelet around, his fingers brushing the underside’s tender skin as he affixed it with an intricate knot. It was identical to her necklace, except the ends were long, and adorned with bits of shell, beads and tiny silver medallions.

“But why…? She asked, fingering it.

He rubbed his finger thoughtfully along the side of his nose and finally said, “The Morganse desired you to have it.”

There was no part of that which she believed, and yet couldn’t find the words to point that out.

“Somehow, I think Mum thought she would find him, somehow,” Nathan said, resuming his story, a obvious effort to change the subject. “What little money we had ran out quickly. She started taking odd jobs, taverns and laundry and such, while I took to fishing or stealing, whichever came first, to help keep us fed.”

He drew his fingers meditatively along the drooping curve of his mustache, his eyes darkening. “Eventually, Mum took to whoring. It paid better than the other work,” he said pragmatically, “’though I don’t think it was any easier on her. I was left to watch the little ones.”

He helped Cate to another drink, took a long one of his own, and then stretched out next to her. Cradling his head in his linked hands, he exhaled deeply several times and rocking in languid contentment. As he gazed up into the trees, his chin was lifted enough to reveal the jagged scar at his throat.

“I was too young to really know what was going on, but I knew enough to know it wasn’t right,” he said the branches overhead. “I could see it in Mum’s eyes; hear it in her voice, when she’d ask me to take the younguns away for a bit. One night, I came back early, caught some drunken bastard beating her. Ran him through the leg with his own sword, I did. Then he started after me.”

“Did he beat you?” Cate gaped.

Nathan lifted one shoulder in a dismissive shrug. “Nah, he was too drunk; between Mum and me, we chased him off.” He sobered. His mouth pressed into a grim line. “Other times, I wasn’t there; I’d come home in time to help wash the blood from her face.”

Her heart pinched at the desperate picture he painted. “Did she ever find your father?”

“No,” he said, with a distant look that revealed his mother hadn’t suffered that failure alone. “Heard about him a few times over the years, but she never found him.

“Sometime along about then,” Nathan said, brightening, “she met up with a man named Beecher; a customer he was, I think…originally.”

A walnut eye peered over his arm and narrowed. “Now there was a pirate. Buggering, old, spawn o’ the devil, he was.” He swore. “He took a special liking to Mum; took us all in, found us a decent place to live—better than the shack, as I recall, at any rate.”

“How old were you then?”

“Umm, eleven or twelve.” Nathan shifted, arranging himself more comfortably. “Beecher took us all in—treated us like we were his own—and was good to Mum. I should have been more grateful.”

“Except?” she asked, picking up the lilt in his voice.

His shoulder twitched as he avoided her gaze. “Except, I took exception to him; thought he was trying to be me father. Since I already had one…” His throat moved as he swallowed. “Then one day, Beecher announced he was taking us all away. Seemed like a great adventure, at the time. I always wanted to go to sea, again; I’d loved the trip from England so much, I couldn’t wait for the next time.”

“Except?”

A smile quirked a corner of his mouth, pleased by her quickness.

“The bile-laden, old blighter decided to make an example of me. Granted, I was wild and filled with rebellion, by then,” he conceded reluctantly. “He tried to bring me some discipline; a few times it caused arguments between him and Mum. The other two boys were too young to remember Father, and took to Beecher, but not me; I was determined that the scabrous bastard wasn’t going to replace him. Maybe he thought that seein’s how I wanted to go to sea, he’d teach me a lesson, or something, I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head, as if still baffled. “He made the trip every kind of hell imaginable.”

“Did you learn anything?”

A large flock of orange and yellow parrots flying over, chattering and squawking momentarily distracted him.

“About ships and sailing, everything, aye. About Beecher?” Nathan asked, angling his head toward her, pursing his lips. “Just that I didn’t want to be around him, the old barracuda. Then, we finally arrived at Matelotage Isle.”

“Where?”

“Matelotage Isle,” he repeated, each syllable with a hiss of disgust. Too agitated to be still, he sat up, bits of moss and twigs clinging to the damp linen of his shirt. “A delicate sounding name for the damnedest, most godforsaken, wretched place me young eyes had ever seen.”

With a derisive snort, he shook his head in dismay. “A place that’s on the way to everywhere, but near to nothing. But, ah!” Nathan said displaying a warning finger, “you’ll not find it on any map. It’s a place where pirates go, when nowhere else will have them.”

He reached for the bottle and took a drink.

Cate struggled to imagine the place he described. “A pirate penal colony?”

“Hardly, but of sorts,” he said, setting the cork with his palm. “There’s the ones what are too tired, but not so tired as to die. And there’s the ones what are too lowly and vile to be had anywhere else, including hell.”

“Sounds rather hellish.”

“An understatement, to be sure. Such a place would need someone from the right hand of Satan to rule it, and that would be none other than Beecher.”

“And that’s where he took you?”

“Like he was delivering us to the Garden of Eden,” he said grimly.

“I thought I heard once of a place something like that near Africa.”

“Madagascar? A pirate haven to be sure. Ranter Bay, Fort Dauphin, and Isle Sainte Marie; Baldridge, Welsh, Samuel, and Plantain had their share of running it, Ol’ Avery and Tew sailed out of it, but that was nigh a half century ago.”

A hand clenched a fist on his leg. “I hated that place,” he rasped, with a soul-felt vehemence. “Every variety of degradation you could imagine was there, and hell-hound Beecher was the Master of it all.”

Nathan’s eyes closed as he fought to quell the memories. When they opened again, he cautiously glanced sideways to see if she were looking. A blush rose from the collar of his shirt as he averted his gaze overhead.

“Shortly after we arrived, Beecher announced he was going on a venture and I was to go with him. I begged Mum to allow me stay, but she insisted, sayin’ as it would be good for me, a chance to meet me calling and go to sea under the guidance of an expert.” He heaved a long sigh and added, grimly: “Took me first and second flogging on that voyage.”

“He flogged you?”

He gave a rueful smile as he stretched out on the grass once again, one knee bent. “Became a bit recalcitrant I did, I expect. He had to make an example of me, and he did. I swear, he enjoyed every stroke of it. First time, it was two strokes—just with the lash—and second time, it was five with the cat. Bloody unpleasant on a scrawny, bony back. Taught me I never wanted to be a pirate, that’s for bloody damned sure. I hated every one of those men with a passion what penetrated clear to me bones.”

“Where’s your mother now?”

“Dead.” The answer was blunt, but laden with loss. “Shortly after we returned, she died in childbed with Beecher’s. I remember crouching in the corner, hiding behind a chair, listening to her scream. There was so much blood.” His eyes clamped shut as he bit his lower lip. “I hated him even the more. Shortly after, I left, stowed away; swearing I’d never go back to that hellhole and never to sink as low,” he added vehemently.

An awkward silence fell between them as the irony and tragedy of that twisted in the air. She sought in vain for something to say that wouldn’t sound like hollow platitudes.

Unable to witness his pain any further, Cate swallowed hard and asked, “Then what?”

“I stowed away on a merchant, and I’ve been at sea ever since,” Nathan finished lightly, as if announcing the “happily ever after” ending to a child’s story.

“Have you ever seen your father?” As contentious as her relationship had been with her father, she still couldn’t imagine never having one.

Re-crossing his ankles, he resituated his head on his hands.

“No, never have. Not bloody likely, either. The sea claims many a soul and no one the wiser. Maybe I’ll run into him in the hereafter, whatever that is,” he finished on a slightly brighter note.

“And your brothers?”

“Charles and Michael?” His jaw twisted sideways as he considered. “Last time I saw them, they were standing at the end of the wharf at Matelotage, waving good-bye.”

Having said more than intended, he withdrew into himself, and faded from the poolside glen to somewhere distant, where he wrestled with awakened ghosts. He possessed the maddening ability to stretch out and be comfortable anywhere, from a beach to the tar-caked deck of a ship. His eyelids grew heavy and drooped, and his breath slowed. An infinitesimal sigh, and he was asleep.

Nathan’s head lolled toward her, his hair a spidery black tangle about his head and shoulders. The furrows between his brows smoothed and his lips parted slightly, blowing out gently with each breath.

The heat of the pool glowing inside like a small furnace, Cate fondled her new bracelet as she studied him, as she so often did. It was rare opportunity to see him near and so still. There was a time, not that long ago, when she had only seen him as the total man. Now he was the sum of dozens of little oddities and details: the small scar at his temple that ran up into his hairline; the clump of three bright copper hairs in his beard at the corner of his mouth, or the single silver one in his left brow. The hooks at the corner of his mustache, the ones she had seen lift the corners of his mouth into a smile so many times, were not a matter of trimming, but a natural phenomenon. Under his mustache, his mouth tended to curve downward from its sharply peaked center, giving him a certain somber sadness when at rest. At the moment, however, it drew up at the corners in a faint smile. His right hand rose and fell where it rested on his stomach. She could see again the severed ends of the last two fingertips, the nail corners nicked away.

Cate resisted the urge to touch him, trace the curve of his lip, run her fingers through the ebony mat of hair at the opening of his shirt, or touch the vein throbbing at the base of his neck. She rolled toward him as near as she dared and inhaled. Amid the crushed grass and the pool’s sulfur, there was the smell of him, with the ever-present undertone of cinnamon, orange oil, and rum.

Dampened shirt clinging to his body, in his own barbaric way, Nathan was beautiful in spite of the lingering effects of the beating he had taken. Barefoot, fine-boned, and elegant, he bore a heretofore-unseen innocence, as if allowing her to see his truth. He slept, and therefore was saved from facing rejection, if she chose not to accept him. Lying there amid the moss and fern, dappled by the lacy shadows of the leaves, he could have been a creature of the forest, but the sea wouldn’t relinquish its grip, as proven by the swallows on his knuckles and tattoo over his heart.

She still stung with the mortification and hurt of the night before. The wall between them seemed a brick higher. Looking at the thick fan of lashes—copper-tipped by the sun, long and curving to the point of almost girlish—she wondered what it was which allowed him to be so malicious and cruel one minute, and so boyish and attentive the next.

Numbness was going to have to become a permanent state of being, if she was to be around Nathan. She was learning how to keep her heart locked away, and to desensitize herself against the constant barrage of moments when her breath caught and pulse raced. She had found a small corner in which to keep her heart, close enough so that, if the occasion should arise, it could be readily retrieved, and yet not so convenient as to be inadvertently exposed. It meant living a half existence, wooden and cold, the feelings she had thought to be essential, now dangerous liabilities.

Cate contemplated the risk of throwing herself at him, right there, right now. Only fear of the devastation of being repulsed stopped her. Restraint meant there was always a chance; succumbing could mean all hope would be lost.

The gnarled scar at Nathan's neck called to mind the one on her shoulder blade. She could feel press of the thickened slab when she thought about it. Time did have its benefits: the pain had long passed, though some days the bone beneath ached. She moved her hand under the quilt to her stomach and lightly traced the network of scars there. Most were but hairlines, though some were nearly the width of her little finger. Older than the one on her back, these were from another time, another place.

So much damage; proof time couldn’t heal everything.

Limp of limbs, with no strength or inclination to move, she closed her eyes and dreamed of seals in bathtubs afloat with pirate ships.