The Pirate Captain

CHAPTER 17: Desperate Measures

Cate woke to a pair of worn suede boot toes staring her in the face. She blinked away sleep, the canvas beneath her rough against her cheek. The boots bent and Nathan’s face came into focus bare inches from hers.

“Joy o’ the morning, luv!” he declared brightly. Wide-eyed with enthusiasm, he held forth a steaming cup. “Kirkland was already in a snit, worried you might be going without. I swear, the bloody cove fancies you drink this in your sleep.”

Groaning with stiffness, Cate sat up. Clutching his coat around her shoulders against the morning chill, she reached for the cup, only to have it taken beyond her grasp.

“Have a care. ’Tis extra hot this morning,” Nathan warned. “I think the man has discovered a new temperature for boiling water. Pray, allow me to hold.”

Face contorted with concentration, he guided the cup for her first sip. Nathan was correct: the liquid was viciously hot. She jerked back, touching her tongue to her scalded lip.

Nathan clucked his tongue, scolding. “Let me blow on it for a bit.”

Balancing the cup well to the side, he lowered onto his buttocks on the sand and industriously applied to the task.

Yawning, Cate shook out her hair. She finger-combed the larger snarls, and then set to working one of the tortoise-shell combs through it. Nathan cocked a scornful eye, dubious of the likelihood of her success, but oddly said nothing.

“How long have you been up?” she said.

Nathan stopped blowing long enough to say, “Ages,” and then resumed.

“Where’s Prudence?” she asked, craning her neck.

“Huh?” Nathan paused in mid-blow to look disinterestedly about. Finally, he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “Over there, still abed.”

Surrendering to the reality that there was little more to be done with the mess, Cate twisted up the sides of her hair and shoved the combs in place. Settling more comfortably, she hunched the coat higher about her shoulders and scanned the beach, taking in the new day.

The scene before her appeared more a battleground, the casualties of war strewn where they had fallen to the artillery of revelry and rum. Some of the sea rogues still rode the momentum of drunkenness: staggering and stumbling over the still bodies of their fallen comrades. Cup, mug, or tankard in hand, the survivors milled about the cook fires, their lazy curls of smoke melding with the bluer ones of tobacco to spiral into the azure sky. Towering flat-bottomed, anvil-headed clouds, dark and heavy with moisture, hung threateningly far on the horizon.

“Enjoy land while you might,” Nathan said between blows. “We’ll be leaving on the morrow tide.”

“I thought the terms were four days. It’s been barely three.”

“Aye, but the first what arrives is the best positioned.”

“You expect foul play?” Cate asked, growing uneasy.

“Duplicity is a common middle name,” Nathan said sagely.

“Including you?”

“Jonathan Edward,” he said at length, and then added at her puzzled look. “Me middle name, or names, as it ’tis.”

A brow arched expectantly under the edge of the faded blue headscarf.

“Maureen,” she finally said. “Family name, from my father’s side.”

Nathan nodded interestedly and stopped blowing enough to say, “Then you are Scots.”

“Not that they would admit to,” she said smiling faintly. “Nathanael Jonathan Edward Blackthorne.”

“A bit grand for a tyke what wasn’t expected to live.”

“You?” she asked, canting her head. Any morsel of his past she eagerly devoured.

“Aye. Small I was. Mum claimed it was because I came early, but it was a full moon,” he added importantly. “The midwife claimed I was black when I came out—had a headful of black hair, for one thing. She announced me cursed and the Devil’s spawn. Mum had to do everything she could to keep them from killing me straight away. She put charms all about me basket and named me Nevan.”

“Nevan?”

He shrugged indifferently. “’Tis Celt for ‘little saint’ or some such. As I grew up, everyone kept getting it wrong, calling me Nathan. She knew well how burdensome a Celt name might be, so she changed it…for everyone but her, that is. She called me Nevan until her dying day.” The corner of his mouth drew up on a crooked smile of such tenderness it seemed a violation of his privacy to say anything further.

Nathan gave the cup a final puff, and then tested it. “Aye, ’tis ready.”

“Thank you for sacrificing your safety for my pleasures, Captain,” she said teasingly, and batted her eyelashes.

She sipped cautiously, then closed her eyes as she blissfully moaned. “Oh, that’s good.”

“Is there anything else what causes you to make those noises?” he asked with a suggestive waggle of his brows.

Cate posed careful consideration. “Come to think on it, there are a few other things which cause me to groan.”

A devilment sparked Nathan's eyes, but his response was cut short by Mr. Hodder’s hail. With a crooked smile and a playful roll of the eyes, he sauntered away, scarf tails wafting in the breeze behind him.



###



Daylight and time having resuscitated the most of the stricken, the scene on the beach was much the same as the night before, although in the glare of daylight, the festive mood gave way to something appearing more in the way of drunken revelry, occasionally breaking into an outright brawl when tempers flared. There was a portion of the men whose only purpose seemed to be to achieve the same level of drunkenness as the night before. A goodly number, however, could not suffer the idleness of drinking and found other pastimes.

There were chess games, although cards and dice were more common. Betting was prohibited aboard, but ashore the pirates were free to lose or win their money at will, with ensuing arguments and fights breaking out regularly. Competitions, however, were what the men did best, and there were a number of them, from arm wrestling, to story-telling—a panel of judges in place—to spitting.

At one end of the beach, an impromptu play reenacting a mutiny trial was presented. Something akin to talent shows were at opposite ends of the beach: singing, magic tricks, juggling, mime, and dancing a few skills on exhibit. From one of those erupted a knife-throwing contest. Distances were paced off, and a cask top, with concentric circles drawn with a charred stick, was set up as a target.

The spectators were unabashedly partisan, Ciara Morganse vs. Griselle. The best from each was pressed forward, odds shouted, and coins collected at every toss of the knife. Through a process of eliminations, it came down to Pryce against the best Griseller. To no surprise to any Morganser, Pryce handily won. The third place winner was a huge surprise: Mr. Stubbs, missing fingers and all.

Cate was called away to tend the third sliced limb of the day, a nasty-looking slash running from the inside of the man’s arm to nearly his wrist. Not deep enough to require stitches, by the time she finished binding it, the knife throwing had evolved into sword fighting.

The rules were roughly the same as practices on board: a circle heeled in the sand; the first to knock the other over was the winner. Again, the best from each ship was pressed forward. Cate watched in fascination as the men lunged and parried back and forth. The sun flashing off the steel blades, and the metallic clash and grind of the metal stirred primeval blood. The carnage that could be wrought by those razor edges was a fearsome thing. But today was all in fun. At least, that is what she privately chanted.

“No worries, luv!” she growled under her breath in a graveled imitation of Nathan.

On a fervent cloud of one-upmanship, the Morgansers set to bragging that they possessed something unique to any other ship on the Caribbean, hell, the world: a sword-fighting woman. Under Nathan’s watchful eye, a reluctant Cate was dragged into the ring. His dark-framed eyes scanned the Grisellers, and then glanced to Thomas, who barely lifted one shoulder in consent.

The Grisellers eyed her speculatively. They knew her only as the Captain’s guest. A woman pirate would have been a novelty; that she could manage a sword expected. On the surface, however, she bore the aspects of neither, and they placed their bets accordingly.

So consumed by her apprehensions, Cate was only vaguely aware of Pryce coming up at her elbow. Grey eyes bright with the excitement of combat, he pointed with his chin toward her first opponent sidling into the ring.

“Mind what ye’ve lernt, lass. Keep yer elbows down and yer wrist firm. Watch them eyes; ’tis the window to his soul. Ahh, look at ’im! Scairt of ye already, he is. Two-thirds of the battle ’tis won already. But mind, he’s more afraid of embarrassin’ hisself. Take ’im quick, else ye won’t be takin’ him a-tall.”

Pryce was correct. If Biggins had been the ship’s baby, then this one was but a month older. He’d most likely been chosen on a wave of skepticism and reckless male pride, which meant they thought her a joke. To be dismissed so out-of-hand stirred her determination to prove them wrong. Dark of hair and eye, sweat rolled down the lad’s olive skin: he was as nervous as she. It was a good sign.

The sword shoved into Cate’s hand wasn’t a familiar one. This one had a thicker grip and was rough against her palm. The blade was heavier, a weapon built for labor, not finesse. She worked it in her hand, gripping and re-gripping, trying to gain familiarity. She struck her stance, feeling grossly disadvantaged as she touched her blade in salute.

Nervous and nearly frozen with self-consciousness, the startling swiftness of her foe’s—Rafa, according to his supporters—first move took her by surprise. Within seconds, she had been driven back, until her hem brushed the line in the sand. Irked by his temerity, and determined not to be embarrassed, she counter-attacked. Rafa’s eyes widened, caught unawares. She countered harder, pushing him further back. A twisting slash on her part, and his weapon fell to cheering approval.

An enthusiastic slap on the shoulder broke Cate from the astonishment of winning.

“I knew ye could do it,” Pryce exclaimed, vigorously rubbing her arm and shoulder. Tucking her sword under his arm, he massaged her hand. “Well, done, sir. Yer the pride o’ the Morganse, to be sure.”

Exhilarated by the flush of battle and success, Cate dabbed the sweat from her face. She saw Nathan at the circle’s margin, hip cocked and arms crossed, displaying a gold-bedecked smile of approval.

“Watch ‘im,” Pryce said, pulling her attention to her next opponent: a grizzled but wiry one. “Arabie, he is. He be a crafty cove. Mind his eyes; the sneakin’ scug is a-tryin’ to intimidate ye already.”

Pryce was correct. Her new opponent’s ferret-like eyes were stonily fixed on her.

Pryce nodded in affirmation as he massaged her upper arm. “I’ve seen his sort a’fore. He’ll be desirin’ to go high ’n bring ye up, so’s he can cut you low.”

Her abdomen knotted at the word “cut.” “I thought this was supposed to be in fun.”

“Aye! It ’tis! And don’t be a-worryin’ about the difference in swords.”

Cate blinked, only then noticing the weapon: a vicious-looking instrument, with a sweeping curved edge similar to the scythes used in the hayfields.

“They fight just the same,” Pryce assured, judiciously. “The curve’s the better to slit yer gut in tight quarters.” He patted her in a confident dismissal. “You’ll do fine.”

As she took up her position, the onlookers grew feverish, the hunger for battle etched on every straining face. These were pirates, blood and mayhem their bread and butter. The blood drawn in earlier exchanges had only piqued their hunger, and anticipation was a heady nectar.

Again, the Griseller took the early advantage. As predicted, he slashed high, the tip of his blade whirring past her ear. Angered at being played, she parried back. Her height was an advantage, providing a longer reach. Her opponent tried several more ploys, mostly intended to break her concentration, but to no avail. The spectators’ shouts merged into a unified, multi-lingual din. Pryce’s bass rang the loudest, with pointers and encouragements. At length, she drove her rival backward and over the line to win again.

As the cheers went up and winnings were collected, Nathan stepped forward and gently took the sword from Cate. Good-naturedly taking the jibes, shooting back a few of his own, he took her out of the circle and sat her down under a tree. Thomas was there, leaned against a cask, arms loosely crossed over his weapons.

“Watch her,” Nathan said to Thomas, and then to Cate, “Oh, and here.”

He fumbled in his pocket to extract a small leather pouch and dropped it in Cate’s hand with a metallic clink.

“What’s this?” she asked, still gasping for air.

Nathan sighed at her thick-wittedness. “Your share of the wagers.”

“I didn’t bet, especially on myself,” she said as Nathan artfully dodged her attempts to give it back.

“Aye, well, ’tis a good thing at least one of us—two, actually,” he qualified, with an acknowledging nod to Thomas, “have the savvy and good sense to know a sure thing when they see it. One is obliged to answer the door when Opportunity knocks, for she rarely returns.”

Cate gaped at Thomas. “You bet on me against your own men?”

The lake-blue eyes narrowed to knowing slits. “No man shall ever get the best of you.”

Nathan made a rueful snort as he pivoted and swaggered back to the circle.

“You’re not bad. Nathan’s been teaching you, hasn’t he?” Thomas asked after Nathan was out of earshot.

Still thoroughly winded, Cate lifted the hair from her neck to cool it. “A little. How could you tell?”

Thomas pursed his lips as he regarded Nathan, now exchanging jibes with the spectators. “I recognized a few moves. He never had much formal training. It’s always been a matter of survival than style.”

He chuckled quietly at a memory. “There was a time—a short one, mind—when we had an opportunity to study with a master. He was on a ship we raided off Tenerife. We convinced him to trade instructions for his life.”

Thomas assured himself of Nathan’s location, and then leaned very near her ear. “I said it before, and I’ll say it again: if that damned fool ever hurts you, I will not abide it.”

Cate stared up at Thomas, puzzled by his low-voiced vehemence.

“If he is that blind or damned stupid then there’s no help for him,” Thomas went on. “But I can save you, and by the gods, I will not watch him destroy you the way—”

He was cut off the rise of voices chanting his and Nathan’s names. The latter now stood in the circle, with his arms spread in invitation.

“Seems they shan’t settle for less.” Nathan called over the voices. Grinning, he gave a dramatic shrug. “It would appear I’m obliged to best you again.”

Thomas straightened to sketch a formal but mocking bow. “A votre plaisir, Monsieur,” he said, in impeccable French.

“Le plaisir est à moi,” came Nathan’s equally fluent reply.

As Nathan approached, Thomas turned back to her. “By the gods, I mean it.”

The two men threw off everything, until they wore only shirts, breeks, and boots. The rest was piled it into Cate’s arms, Nathan’s hat poised haphazardly on her head. The two captains were virtually carried to the circle on a wave of enthusiasm. There, under a barrage of outcries and adulations, they drew their swords and squared off.

“Morganse! Morganse! Morganse!”

“Griselle! Griselle! Griselle!”

Neither man was above a little showmanship. Slowly circling each other, they allowed the suspense to build. These were pirates, who lived and died by the sword, in the most literal sense of the phrase. There were no formal stances here, no address or salute. They stood loose armed, eyeing and waiting. Cate had never given Thomas’ sword much notice, before. Standing side by side, as he and Nathan often did, she had seen the hilt was heavier and more ornate than Nathan’s, but little else. Now, she could see the weapon in its full glory—and a glorious weapon it was, with a basket-style grip of carved silver and intricately detailed guards. It was larger in not only breadth but length by a good third. Nathan’s sword was stoic in comparison, a layman’s weapon, made to impress with its lethality, not looks.

Nathan’s eye imperceptibly twitched; a corner of Thomas’ mouth quirked. A plan offered and accepted.

It began with such startling swiftness Cate didn’t see who moved first. As they lunged and parried back and forth, the contrast between the two was striking. Thomas was big and powerful, but amazingly graceful for his size. Nearly a head shorter, Nathan was lithe and athletic, virtually gliding over the sand. The two’s advantages were counter-balanced, the larger man’s reach neutralized by the smaller’s agility, strength countered by guile. Like their chess matches, they knew each other’s game, countering effortlessly, sometimes laughingly, sometimes with a grunt of surprise and a flood of cursing.

The sun flaring on the blade edges, their steel voices rang clear, with an underlying hiss of threat. Calm and intent, each bore a faint smile. Both captains knew what the audience desired and gave it with a flair. It might have been all in fun, but neither held back. Cate was afraid to look, but unable to look away, gasping at moves which would have been fatal had it been anyone else. If there had been the slightest error in judgment, the force of their swings could easily have sliced the other from gullet to craw. She had seen such exhibitions before, but in this setting, surrounded by sea rogues cheering for blood, it took on a new lethality.

Breathing heavier, shirts darkening with sweat, they fought. Their expressions sobered as they grew more absorbed and focused. Caught up in the fervor of the battle, the pirates brandished their own weapons as they clamored for victory, in a myriad of languages. Bets were made, the odds fluxing with the fight’s ever-changing momentum.

With a loud grunt, Thomas riposted with a vicious slash, forcing Nathan to scramble backwards. A flick, and the back of Nathan’s right hand bloomed red. Thomas lunged with a curling downward swipe, knocking Nathan’s weapon away. An upper cut with his fist sent Nathan onto his rump. A victorious uproar erupted from the Griselle’s crew and bets were settled.

Thomas pulled Nathan to his feet, and they heartily clapped each other on the back, accepting adulations as they departed. In the shade, where Cate waited, they hung onto each other, bent and gasping for air. Faces streaming with sweat, mutual compliments collided in mid-air. Cate tried to inspect Nathan’s bleeding hand, but was genially waved away.

“’Tis nothing. No more than a scratch,” Nathan said. He mopped his face on his sleeve and licked away the blood. “I thought it was my turn. Remember Cartagena?” he directed to Thomas.

His head hanging between his arms, Thomas’ broad back heaved as he gasped for air. “Eh? Oh, forgot, I suppose.”

The false tone in that caused Cate to turn just as Thomas straightened. With a steady blue look, he stabbed a finger at her. “By the gods and make no mistake.”

And then Thomas stalked off.

“Wonder what put the twist in his jib?” Nathan said, more to himself. Then he said louder, “Pay him no mind, luv. The ol’ grandmother, he always thought he knew more than he ought.”

After several minutes of persistence, Nathan at last relented to allow Cate to tend his hand, and perched on a puncheon. The cut ran nearly the width of its back, its edges as cleanly sliced as if with a razor. The blood welled in a steady flow, but slowed with pressure. A bit of salve and a hastily tied bandage were all that was possible before Nathan’s patience was exhausted.

After, they sat in the shade and watched the ensuing matches.

Several bouts later, the swordplay gave way to knife fights. The circle was erased with a kick of boots and replaced with a smaller one, opponents paired up and the competition began. A goodly amount of bumboo had been consumed by then and skill gave way to brute force. Split lips, gushing noses, gashed brows, torn knuckles, and swollen eyes becoming badges of honor, Cate’s blood box coming in fast demand.

She had just finished bandaging an arm when she heard her name being called. The Morgansers had put her up as a contender. In soaring spirits, they wheedled and catcalled to encourage her, while at the same time placing their bets. By the Grisellers’ measure, a woman might bear a sword, but could never handle a knife, and they relished the easy wager. The implication that she was incapable stirred her blood. It was an affront that couldn’t go unanswered. Nathan intercepted her at the circle’s edge. Seizing her by the arm, he steered her through the crowd and away, in spite of her attempts to pull away and go back to the ring.

“I could take that little one,” Cate said, bouncing at the end of Nathan’s grasp.

“Did you see the looks on their faces?” he asked, steering her away by both shoulders. “All they desire is to grope and maul you. Absolutely not. Bye the bye, have you seen Princess-Pain-in-the-Ass of late?” He craned his head with exaggerated interest.

Nathan’s intent to distract was poorly executed but effective, for drew Cate from the ring. Prudence was spotted straight away, her bright yellow dress a beacon against the lush tropical growth. She sat with a newfound suitor, notably not the noble Biggins. Cate couldn’t help but wonder if this one had also been paid for by Nathan, or if this was nature taking its course.

Nathan steered Cate to the water’s edge. They strolled. The pirate revelry faded behind them, until there was nothing but the lap of the waves at their feet and the cries of shorebirds. It was late afternoon. The bay had gone to glass, reflecting sunset and ships in perfection. The sun’s final flare gilded Nathan in a molten glow. At first, Cate reveled in having him alone. That faded, however, as he grew more preoccupied. Nathan had guided her down the shore like a man with a purpose; why or what was the question?

As they walked, Nathan drew a breath as if to say something, and then thought better. There were several such false starts. Cate glanced at him, waiting, growing more restive herself. She could think of but one reason that could have caused him to bring her there, one thing that would cause him such perturbation: he meant to tell her that he had taken Thomas up on his offer. She now belonged to Thomas. Given Thomas’ sudden concern about her welfare—or whatever that outburst had been about—seemed contradictory, but what else could it be?

While she and Nathan had watched the competitions, Thomas had stood across the circle. She had felt his gaze fixed on her, grave and intent, far from his customary geniality. It was more than a little unsettling to think that Thomas had been observing her with the same keenness as she had of him. She had often caught herself gaping at him like a love-struck schoolgirl. She ruffled at the thought of the two men bartering over her like she was a prized pistol. There was little flattery to be found in knowing one was considered worthy of a “king’s ransom,” as Nathan had put it, although he was known to exaggerate.

What are slightly out-of-their-prime widows going for these days?

With a pang of remorse, Cate wondered what she might have done to keep Nathan from selling her, knowing all the while the answer was, “Nothing.”

You remind him of her.

Nothing to be done about that,she thought moodily.

All that only added to her irritability, which had been building since she saw Prudence cowering on the floor: there had to be a way to help the child. Granted, the child was meddlesome and had caused an inordinate amount of disruption, but that didn’t mean she deserved to be banished to a hellish marriage. Seeing Prudence with her young man had set Cate to thinking anew.

There was the argument that Prudence was about to live a dream: marrying a rich and influential man. A louder voice dwelt on the hell into which the girl was about to be flung: a cold, loveless marriage to a man who, by all accounts, possessed few admirable qualities. Granted, many marriages had started with less. On the whole, to marry for love was a romantic notion. It was a luxury few enjoyed and it was considered folly by many. After all, love faded and died; only money and position endured. At least, that was the argument Cate had been given at Prudence’s age.

The exchange was the day after tomorrow; Prudence was running out of time.

“Nathan, we have to help her,” Cate said into the silence.

“Help who?”

“Prudence. We have to help her.”

He flicked a sidelong glance. “Help her how? She’s not starving. She’s not drowning—although I’ve been fair tempted—nor she’s fallen off a cliff—another temptation resisted. What help could she possibly need?”

“Get her away from Creswicke.”

“Hold off!” Nathan halted to squint at her in confusion. “We took her so Creswicke would pay to get her back.”

“I know that, but I was thinking—”

“Do I want to hear this?” he asked, warily leaning away.

“I was thinking after he paid, perhaps we could take her back.”

Nathan’s face screwed. “Ransom her again? Isn’t that a bit redundant?”

“No, we could take her…I don’t know, somewhere.” Cate was painfully conscious of her lack of thorough thought, which only weakened her proposition.

Shaking his head, Nathan resumed walking. “Creswicke would be burning these waters apart searching for her.”

“But you said he doesn’t really want her,” Cate said, striding to catch up.

“Possession, darling,” he said tolerantly. “’Tis all a matter of the having.”

“Would he look for her, or for you?”

Nathan looked off, smiling whimsically. “’Twould be a quandary, to be sure. There’s no way she could be on the Morganse. One couldn’t spell ‘assume,’ before he was upon us.”

“Then, we could find somewhere else, the Griselle, perhaps,” she said. That Nathan was discussing it she took as a good sign: he hadn’t dismissed her out of hand.

“That would be a matter to take up with Thomas.”

So lost in thought, Cate looked up to find Nathan well down the beach. Running to catch up, she fell in step next to him.

“Do you realize that her first…? That Prudence is going to have to—” she said.

“Give up her maidenhead to Breaston Creswicke?”

“That’s not quite how I would have put it, but, yes. It’s not right; it’s not fair.”

“And pray who do you fancy would be better?” Nathan asked conversationally.

So deep in thought, Cate slowed and eventually stalled. Noticing she wasn’t at his side until several steps away, Nathan came back into her considering look and a growing smile. He scowled then his eyes rounded in horror.

“Me? Oh, no!” he cried, scrambling backward. “Not in life!” He pivoted on his heel and sped away.

“Why not?” she pleaded, running to catch up.

“I haven’t…done…that, with a sixteen-year-old—that I knew of—since I was sixteen meself,” he sputtered as he churned down the beach. “My luck, I’d get her with child, and then there would be hell to pay.”

“She’ll be married in less than a month; no one would know the difference.”

Nathan skidded to a halt and swiveled back. He planted his fists on his hips, and glared. “Lord Creswicke is blond-haired and blue-eyed. Need I say more?”

An outright laugh seemed unwise, and so she choked it down. “You think every child of yours is going to come out with black hair and a tattoo?”

Nathan built up to say something, then thought better. “There is no talking to you.” And he spun away.

With an exasperated gasp, Cate hitched her skirts and raced after him. She pivoted in front of him and skipped in reverse before his hasty pace. “Do you know what that poor girl is expecting? Her mother told her to close her eyes, and it would soon be over.”

Nathan made a face. “That’s what she thinks? ’Course with Creswicke, it probably will,” he added under his breath.

“I wouldn’t know.” Breathless, she stopped, hoping he would, as well.

“Well, I do,” he said, brushing past. “And no woman should have to go to bed with the likes of that princock just because her father desires connections. Bloody bastard!”

“Who, Creswicke or her father?”

Nathan whirled in a clatter of bells, his hair fanning wide behind him. “Both!” He pirouetted and marched on.

“So you’ll do it?” Cate called.

“No!”

“Nathan!”

Cate waited, but when he didn’t, she swore under her breath and jogged to catch up.

“This is madness!” Nathan’s voice cracked with acrimony. He spun around with a suddenness that caused her to skid to a halt. “Have you completely left your senses? You’re more daft than I. Why are you so anxious for me to do…this?”

“Because I suspect you would be good at it.”

“At what?”

Winded from running, she braced her hands on her knees. “Being a girl’s first.”

“Gentle and attentive” had been the kind of man toward which she had advised Prudence. She had every reason to believe Nathan could be all that and more, if he was of a mind. In his less guarded moments—few and fleeting as they were—she had seen flashes of gentleness. She had seen him lovingly caress the wheel, run his hands along the rail as if it had been a woman’s calf. She had felt the benefit of his charms and had seen eyes that could go to liquid, turning her every thought to mush and tighten her belly. Any man capable of such devotion to a ship had to be able to give the same to a person.

His jaw dropped. “You’ve been thinking on how I bed a woman?”

“Well, yes.” Thankfully she was bent over, effectively hiding her flaming cheeks.

Vividly and extensively, nearly every night.

He grappled with several responses. Ultimately, he slumped and said dully, “You know nothing about me.”

Nathan made to turn away, but was halted by her hand on his arm. “A girl’s first time should be special,” Cate said. “She should be with someone who knows how to make it wonderful—give her something to remember all those nights later, laying next to a snoring husband.”

“It could be said this is a time where ignorance might be bliss,” he said wryly.

Cate eyed Nathan dubiously. “And to which side of that equation would you rather find yourself?”

She ventured closer to toy with a braid at his shoulder. “I suspect under all those trappings, there is a very tender and adept lover.”

“Adept?”

She winced. “It was meant as a compliment.”

“Oh, certainly didn’t sound like one.”

“I beg your leave. Out of all those women in your life, surely there have been times when it was more than just filling a need. Surely there were times—with certain ones—that were…” She groped for a word, finally landing on, “Remarkable.”

“Must we talk about this?” he asked, looking thoroughly strained. “This is a subject for neither a lady nor the genteel.”

She made a rude noise. “That’s all well, because I am neither. Don’t you dare go priggish on me now.”

One hand falling to rest on the pommel of his sword, the tails of his scarf fluttered about his shoulders, Nathan stared at the water and the Morganse resting on her mooring. The sun flared bright on the angles of his profile.

“What makes you so sure she’d be willing?” he asked finally.

“Surely you don’t question your powers of persuasion. Charm her.” Cate batted her eyelashes for emphasis, at the same time hating herself for resorting to such feminine wiles.

Nathan snorted, cocking a sardonic eye. “It would seem me charms haven’t been working, lately.”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed. Mind, I’m not suggesting you should throw her down and take her—”

Nathan made a caustic noise. “Praise God for small considerations.”

Nathan rounded on her and propped his hands on his hips. “And you see this as a fantastic idea? You’re daft, completely and irrevocably, and more so than I, if that’s at all possible.”

“Is it so unthinkable she should have a choice? If she prefers Creswicke, then very well, but at least she had a choice.”

Nathan ruffled at the suggestion Prudence might find Creswicke preferable. Then he batted a dismissive hand and continued down the beach. “No, I’ll not. Get someone else.”

“Who?”

“Get Thomas. He’s fair with the ladies and he’s younger,” Nathan shouted over his shoulder.

Cate stopped to gaze thoughtfully at the water. “I never thought of him.”

“You can’t be serious,” Nathan implored to the sky and raced back. “He’s old enough to be her father!”

Thomas was indeed a consideration. He was amiable and possessed the quiet confidence many a large man possessed. Any man who was willing to arrange a woman’s hair was sure to possess great sensitivity in many other aspects.

Cate then shook her head. It would be too much like seeing Brian go with another woman.

“Maybe he has someone on the Griselle,” Cate said aloud.

There was Prudence’s current young man, or the noble Biggins. Cate instantly negated both. Youth is fine for energy, but couldn’t be depended upon for the skill or finesse required. Prudence needed to experience something more than a furtive tussle in the bushes. And to foist Prudence off on someone else would be too much like selling her.

“Will you clap a stopper on it!” Eloquent with frustration, Nathan spun and stomped away. “Stop meddling! You’re worse than she is.”

“But, Nathan…!”

“Suffering Jesus on the cross, now, what?” he whimpered, scuffling to a halt.

“Maybe you might think of it as an opportunity,” Cate said coming around Nathan, who now stood with his shoulders slumped and his head hanging.

“Opportunity?” he said blankly, looking up. “What the bloody hell does that mean?”

“I mean, let’s take the pragmatic approach: when was the last time you were with a woman?”

For the second time in as many minutes, she rendered him speechless.

“I will not stand here and discuss this,” Nathan hissed and brushed past.

“C’mon, Nathan. There’s no secrets on a ship,” she called to his back.

When she saw that he had no intention of stopping, she jogged to catch him up.

“I know it’s been a while,” Cate said, now a bit breathless. “Unless you really did stop for a whore while you were looking for me last week. Are you used to going this long?”

He vacillated at an alarming rate, from blenched to flushed and back. “Enough!”

She fell back a step, now thoroughly offended. “I was only trying to help.”

“I don’t want to hear it!” Hunching his shoulders, he strode away, the sand spurting from under his heels.

“We still haven’t decided about Prudence,” she called after him.

Wheeling, he stormed back to loom over her.

“I am Captain of this ship, and as Captain of this ship, I decide, and I’ve decided the subject is closed.” He jerked a conclusive nod and spun away. “Bloody woman!”



###





"Any reason why Nathan is avoiding you like you have the French pox?”

Cate looked up at Thomas with a tentative half-smile. “Has he? I hadn’t noticed.”

Thomas laughed and gave her a teeth-jarring brotherly pat on the back as he passed. “You’re not near as good o’ liar as he, by half.”

Still chuckling, he ambled away, leaving Cate sitting on a log. As much as she wanted to deny it, he was correct: Nathan had been avoiding her. He had not spoken, nor looked her direction since their conversation on the beach. An odd sort of avoidance-hide-and-seek-eye-tag had been transpiring all evening. Several times, he had brushed near enough for her to attempt to catch his attention, but had sped by, pointedly ignoring her. A few times she thought to have him cornered, but he slithered away, feigning rapt fascination in a crewman sharpening a stick or a bird flying past.

She was miserable.

Every variety of regret and self-remonstration ate at her as she wondered what on earth had possessed her to suggest Nathan deflower Prudence. Impulses can be horrifying things. Heaven knew, no one should be more familiar with that phenomenon than Nathan, but that didn’t render him more forgiving. That he might never speak to her again clawed at her, the prospect of being sold monumentally increasing. If it was to be the case, then fair enough, but it wouldn’t come to pass without first having her say. If he wished to toss her from the ship after, there would be nothing to stop him. As miserable as she was, marooning, and a slow death from thirst and starvation would be a blessed end.

It was later that night, when Cate finally caught Nathan in the undulating margins of the firelight, perched atop a cask. At seeing her approach, he intensified his attention on the orange he was peeling with his knife, but for once he didn’t take flight. Cate sat on a puncheon at his knee and waited. At length—long enough to cause her to think her ploy might not serve—he lowered the orange and his guard.

“What?” Nathan's tone wasn’t churlish, just unsure, with a tinge of wounded little boy.

There had been plenty of time for Cate to think what she might say, if the opportunity arose. Now, with Nathan’s dark-framed eyes on her, every word and sentiment she had collected became woefully inadequate. With a cautious sidelong look, she wondered what it would take to make amends. Recollections of her apologies to Brian came readily to mind. Those, however, had required long nights on the floor before a fireplace. Not much guidance there.

It brought Cate squarely before the motive behind her latest blunder: ruffled feelings. She had wished to inflict the same hurt Nathan had dealt her when he had trifled with her a few nights earlier, and then suggested she might be sold, again toying with her. That had been her intention, but her darts had been far less accurate than his.

Love could erase so many hurts.

Dammit! Why can’t I stay angry with him?

She had agreed to remain on the Morganse, but it had been a deal with the Devil, her Purgatory at her elbow every day. It was torture to have Nathan so near, and yet so very far: the smiles, the glances, or, as at that moment, his leg brushing her arm, his fingers caressing the smooth skin of the orange. Very briefly, she allowed herself the luxury of visualizing what else those fingers might be capable of.

“Are you well?”

She jerked. “What? Huh? Oh, certainly…why?”

“You had an odd look, like you’d swallowed a bug.”

Cate hoped the darkness obscured her flaring cheeks.

“I’m sorry, Nathan. I didn’t mean to put you in such an awkward position.” They were vacuous words, but the only ones available.

The bells in Nathan's mustache flared in the firelight. He made a face, acknowledging her apology, while at the same time asserting his own disapproval.

“I’m sure in all that blithering madness, there were good intentions. Most insane proposition I’ve ever heard.” His hands stopped in mid-motion so he might regard her. “What in all that is holy ever possessed you?”

“I don’t know.”

Go ahead. Allow him his revenge. Your atonement is nigh.

Time can sometimes be a burden, and time was exactly what she had to realize what a blundering dolt she had been.

Absolute lunatic!

She belonged in Bedlam for such thinking, which was the very place she was likely to land, if he didn’t forgive her.

“I just…I just wanted to help her…somehow. I thought maybe…I mean if she…”

“Go ahead, say it: if I bedded her, Creswicke wouldn’t want her.” Wielding the knife in deliberate strokes, Nathan chuckled. “Soiled goods, is it?”

The realization was a gut punch: the dirty and vile pirates, sullying the pristine innocent. She had fallen into the same pre-judging and misjudging as those detestable people in Lady Bart’s drawing room.

“Something like that,” Cate mumbled to her lap.

Nathan posed indignation, with enough exaggerated flair to rub salt in her wounds that bit more. “I’m not sure if you’ve complimented me charms or insulted me morals.”

He was toying with her now, a good sign.

“I’m sorry, Nathan. I never meant…I mean, I never thought…”

Nathan bumped her with his knee. “No worries, luv.”

He slipped a section of orange into his mouth. “With all due respect,” he began, cheeking the fruit. “There are only a few flaws, minor oversights in your grand line of thought.”

He paused, ostensibly to chew, but in fact to inflict further revenge by causing her to wait. “First and foremost, what you are suggesting might happen, will already be assumed.”

“Just by virtue of being here?” She groaned at her dumbness. She had personally experienced that very phenomenon in Lady Bart’s parlor. “The benefits of a reputation: no woman is safe when you’re about?”

Nathan bobbed a bow from his seat, accepting the mantle.

Cate had heard the stories, not only from those on the Constancy, but from Nathan himself. Rampaging, pillaging, plundering, and ravishing—indeed!

“But Creswicke wouldn’t think that, because…Oh! I forgot: his mother and sister.”

The oversight left her feeling even more foolish. Nathan had indeed done—and openly admitted—to that very thing, with two Creswicke women; a third would be readily assumed.

He straightened to peer down the long edge of his nose. “As I’ve said, I’ve never taken a woman unwilling in me life.”

“Just used your charms,” Cate mused, wincing. It seemed everyone had experienced those benefits, except her.

Nathan popped another orange segment into his mouth and offered her another. She took a piece and pensively chewed.

“The other error in this tangled thicket of thought is that Creswicke doesn’t care a rat’s ass about social standings, nor welfare of the love of his heart. She could be pricked as a witch or branded a traitor, and it wouldn’t make a wit’s bit o’ difference. Money and power is the motivation in this evil,” Nathan added with a sage nod.

“So, darling, it would appear your little escapade would have been unwarranted. Thank God I didn’t act on that one!” he finished with dramatic roll of the eyes and a mirthless chuckle.

Thank God, indeed!

Cate couldn’t begin to imagine the damages that would have been wrought if Nathan had pursued her suggestion. She knew herself well enough to know that she could never forgive him for doing something so calculated and crass. And yet, it would have been by her hand, with enough blame to endure for a very, very long time.

“So, I was wasting my efforts,” she said.

Nathan waved a casual hand, exonerating her with that single motion, the dance of the flames catching his rings. “Not wasting: misdirecting. You were only doing what you do best, luv: caring. ’Tis a bloody rare commodity in these waters,” he added softly.

The compliment was his peace offering, and she accepted it with grace.

“Caring doesn’t feed the dormouse,” she sighed. “But I can’t help but feel the need to do something to help her.”

Nathan leaned to brace his elbows on his thighs to peer at her more closely. The firelight caught in the cinnamon flecks of his walnut orbs. “What is it about this girl? Arranged marriages happen all the time. What’s so different about this one?”

His question wasn’t any different than what she had been asking herself for days. From the moment she had seen the cowering soul in the corner, she had experienced a maternal surge heretofore unwitnessed.

“I don’t know,” was all she could manage. “I just…”

Their heads turned at the sight of Prudence, strolling past at not great distance. At her side was a young, tow-headed Griseller—most notably not the noble Biggins. Smiling wistfully, Cate looked up into Nathan’s ironic smirk.

“It would appear you’ve been replaced,” Cate said.

Nathan scowled as he considered his competition. “Revered and copied, darling, but never replaced.”

He paused for a second inspection. “Not exactly up to me high standards.”

“I would say she is willing to suffer the deficiencies.”

They watched Prudence and her new suitor stroll away. Heads tilted together, the two youths were a stark contrast: blonde and dark, bright and faded, refined and barbaric—but, in spite of it all, bonded by the exuberance of youth.

“Young love,” Cate mused.

“Nothing like it.” Nathan’s countenance darkened. “Should she be going off like that ? You said she doesn’t know anything about lads.”

“Watch; she knows exactly what to do.”

As if on cue, Prudence coquettishly tilted her head and laughed, the delicate sound drifting on the breeze. Her hand fluttered to the neckline of her bodice and her hips swayed in a measured increment.

Nathan made a rude noise. “Aye, I see your point. A real man-eater that one, and the poor bugger doesn’t have a clue.”

Shaking his head, the frown returned. “Still don’t like the idea of them going off like that.”

Cate turned to give him a curious look. “Since when do you sound like the protective father?”

Growling under his breath, he lurched to his feet and stomped away.

Cate shifted in discomfort. Since the incident with Bullock, in spite of his intention to be covert, she had been aware of Nathan’s increased vigilance. If there had been no secrets before, she had even less privacy now. A watchful eye was on her every move, as evidenced by Nathan’s relieved look when she came out of the privy—err, roundhouse—and a “I was wondering where you were.” The concern was touching, but it was a bit tiresome and extremely constraining.

When they had first landed, Nathan had been forced to tip his hand when he insisted that she was not to be alone, ever…even when answering the call of nature. It was irksome, not to mention embarrassing, to have to announce her needs, and then be watched over the while. Given Nathan’s precise personal barriers, it was a level of intimacy for which she was not prepared, not to mention the difficulty of trying to time when she needed to go with intervals when he wasn’t otherwise occupied. Granted, there were no secrets on a ship when it came to bodily functions, the seat of ease right off the salon, but having someone waiting within a whispering shout away was altogether too awkward.

Feeling the need just then, Cate checked up and down the beach. At the moment, Nathan was occupied, as was everyone with the raucous festivities. And so she rose, confident she could sneak off and return before she was missed.

The moonlight shafted through the forest, reducing its verdant palette to tones of silver, grey, and black. As Cate picked her way through the bushes, she ran through a mental litany of the do’s and don’ts as given by Pickford and others. It was a delicate balance between finding the proper seclusion, while on alert for poisonous plants, insects, and reptiles, and yet not venturing too far. Since childhood, she had possessed a strong sense of direction, but was still careful to keep the bonfires within sight.

The snap of a twig was her only warning, before a hand shot around and clamped over her mouth. She was driven forward to the ground with a whomph!. The force of her assailant coming down on top of her knocked the air from her.

Stunned, her clarity of mind returned with the wind rushing back into her lungs. The two tumbled and thrashed, the fingers at her mouth gouging her face. His wild eyes inches from hers, he seemed roughly her size, but wiry and considerably stronger. His breath hot on her neck, she was engulfed by the smells of rum, arousal, and fish stew.

The knife in her pocket was unreachable in her tangled skirts. She clawed, gouged, elbowed and kneed. The hand drew back and clouted her across the face, and then clamped back over her mouth. She was punched once, and then again in the stomach. She drew up her knees and curled into a defensive ball. The hand at her mouth gave a cruel wrench and flipped her on her back. He rose up and drove a knee into her gut. The pinpricks of light swirled before her eyes and her ears buzzed.

The hand loosened a fraction, and Cate bit down, until she felt the grind of bones between her teeth. He yanked free and swore. It was enough of a distraction for her to slam the flat of her palm against his ear. He yelped and swung out, his fist catching her in the jaw. Her vision reduced to a tunnel, the pinpricks now a beehive as oblivion loomed.

Don’t pass out! Don’t pass out!

He came down on top of her. His hips grinding against hers, his eager hardness prodded against her legs. With limbs gone as heavy as sand, she shouted at herself to do something as he pried at her knees. She wanted to scream, but like in a dream, couldn’t. Against bands of iron that seemed to have seized her chest, she drew a breath and forced it out through frozen jaws. The result was but a pitiful mewling moan.

A shadow fell over them. Thinking it was another one came to join in, Cate tried again to cry out, but with the same pathetic result. The shadow shifted and a human form separated from the trees. She caught only a fleeting glimpse, but there was no mistaking Nathan’s outline as he loomed over them. He moved and a band of moonlight fell across his face to reveal an expression of somewhere between black rage and dead calm. So preoccupied with fumbling with his flies, her assailant didn’t look up, until Nathan drew back a foot and drove it into his belly.

The force sent the man tumbling into the dark. Nathan kicked again and again, rolling his victim, until he flopped like a rag doll. Standing over him, Nathan calmly drew his pistol, aimed, and fired. There was a crack, a blue spurt, a faint retort, and the acrid smell of gunpowder. The body bucked once, sending leaves and dirt scattering, and then went still.

So effortless, so quick, so clean, and a man was dead.

Heavy running and crashing brush marked Thomas’ arrival, pistol in one hand and sword in the other. In one glance, he assessed the scene. Stowing his weapons, he moved to the lifeless form, and poked it with the toe of his boot, until the face came into the moonlight.

“He’s one of yours,” Nathan observed dispassionately, stuffing his pistol back into his belt.

“Aye, pity,” Thomas sighed, equally impassive. “He was my best f’c’stleman. Leave him lie.”

Nathan came back to where Cate huddled on the ground. He helped her to stand, steadying her by the waist when her legs wobbled dangerously. Too stunned to cry, she stumbled next to him as he took her back toward the friendly light of the fires, Thomas’ heavy step behind them. She was sat on something—a keg or an up-ended log—near enough to the gangs of men for comfort, yet far enough for privacy.

“Get something to drink, now!” Nathan bellowed.

A water gourd arrived shortly, filled with bumboo. She hated rum, but the spices made it palatable, and she was most definitely in need of a drink. Cate fumbled, nearly dropping it, obliging Nathan to hold it while she sipped.

“I’m fine.”

Nathan’s mouth quirked. “Aye, as you keep insisting.”

Nathan steadied Cate by the arm as she continued to sway. Blinking stupidly, she probed through her fogged mind, trying to recall having said anything. She felt, more than heard, people speaking, their voices no more than dull thuds in her ears. She could hear Thomas fuming somewhere near, pausing periodically to peer over Nathan’s shoulder at her.

The bumboo went to work in short order. Cate’s head cleared sufficiently to put one thought in front of another. With it, the numbness gave way to sensations. The night air grew fingers of ice. Shock jolted through her body in rolling waves. Her face throbbed. The muscles in her abdomen spasmed at every breath. She twitched and jumped at hands that weren’t there. Nathan’s coat was wrapped about her shoulders, but she continued to quake. She hunched it higher and drank deeper, in hopes the blessed numbness might return.

In jerky, abrupt moves, Nathan plucked leaves and twigs from her hair and clothing. His inscrutable mask firmly in place, he checked her over again and again, confirming for himself that she was indeed fine. While he saw to her physically, it was notable that he didn’t look at her directly. The most unnerving, however, was his silence. Swearing, chiding, berating; anything would have been better than nothing.

“I’m sorry,” she said. At last, two different words.

“No worries, luv.” Nathan intently snugged the faded coat about her. “It would have been now or it would have been later. If a man’s taken a notion, there’s naught to be done about it.”

“I knew he was a treacherous bastard, but I had no idea…” Thomas said, looking on over Nathan’s shoulder. “Hell, I would’ve killed the son of a bitch ahead of time, had I known.”

“It’s all right,” she said, mechanically. It seemed almost laughable to kill someone for what they might do.

Cate reached for the gourd with a quivering hand to take another drink. “I’m sorry.”

“There’s no sorrow for a man’s beastliness. Put your mind to now you’ll be safe. No better protection than a dead suitor,” Nathan said bitterly. “I’ll represent you were the one to kill him, if you like. No better insurance, aye?”

Fuzzy as Cate might have been, it still seemed severely wrong to take advantage of a man’s death. Yet, from the moment she had been knocked to the ground, she wanted nothing more than for the bastard to be dead, and had taken cold satisfaction at seeing him prostrate in the leaves.

“Tell them what you will,” she said shakily. Weariness struck her like another punch from her assailant.

There was a protracted silence. Thomas churned back and forth in the wavering margins of the firelight.

So much like Brian.

Eloquent with fury, Thomas snatched at his pistol, and then his sword, driven by the need for action. Finally, he picked something from the ground and hurtled it into the night. Swearing, he did so several times more, and then resumed steaming back and forth.

“Dammit to goddamned f*cking hell! I knew this would happen,” Thomas extolled to the night sky. He spun around to stab an accusing finger at the two of them. “This wasn’t the first, was it?”

Nathan looked to the ground. “No,” Cate finally said.

Thomas swore in something like Germanic. He stalled to glare down at Nathan. “And it will happen again.”

Nathan looked briefly up into the voice of doom. Not unlike herself, Cate could see him mentally calculating the odds of that very thing. Twice in less than a month she had been attacked, and twice he had been obliged to kill, four other men dying in conjunction with the first attack. A man had died just now, only because she had needed to pee. She scanned the throng of men scattered down the beach, rendered faceless by distance and darkness, and wondered how many more she had doomed to their deaths when she had agreed to remain on the Morganse. How many more would Nathan be obliged to kill? Only a few hours ago, he had said something about the price he had been paying since her arrival. How much longer, before he said “Enough?”

Thomas looked to her, the blue eyes gone to steel. “By the gods, I will do it,” he said with the same vehemence as earlier that day. Then he rose abruptly and disappeared into the night.

“You can yell at me now, if you like.” Cate spoke in the spirit of precipitating the berating she knew was to come. How could he not blame her?

Fondling the gourd, which she still couldn’t manage, Nathan looked up from under the dark dashes of brows and snorted. “Would it help? Would it make any difference? Which would you prefer to hear: what the hell were you doing; silly woman; why don’t you do as I say? Which one?”

“How about ‘This was your fault?’”

The corner of Nathan's mouth tucked up grimly. The firelight glinted on copper hairs in the plush of his beard as he looked to the ground.

“No, not that one. ’Tis another I’m saving that for.”

“You?” Cate looked down at the crown of his hat. There was no room to place any more blame. Nathan had taken it all and was thoroughly flogging himself.

“Do you see another? You aimed to be away from all this, and I—” he said.

“I said I wanted to stay,” she said levelly. “It’s not your fault.”

She winced inwardly. It was so unfortunate that the most sincere sentiments come out as hollow-sounding platitudes. And yet, in many cases, there was wretchedly little else which wouldn’t sound equally false.

Thomas appeared again, considerably more composed. He squatted next to Nathan and peered up at her. “You gonna be all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine.” It had been dubious earlier, but now she was coming around to actually believing it.

Thomas quizzically looked to Nathan, who shrugged in deference and said, “A gentleman never argues with a lady.”

Thomas rose, leaving Cate and Nathan alone once more.

“Don’t tell Prudence,” she said.

Nathan made a face. “Why?”

“There’s no call to alarm her.”

He made a sarcastic noise. “Bloody high time she learned what the world is about.”

“Not this. Not yet.”

Nathan carefully searched Cate's face. His eye twitched, perceiving much and opting to question none. There were many lessons that awaited one so young and naïve. What it was to live among the predators was a lesson best left for another day.

Cate considered her own future, and a glum one it was. It was easy to envision Nathan shackling her in the most literal sense of the word, lest she wander, and justifiably so. Independence came at a price.

She felt hollow and fragile, like a soap bubble, likely to shatter at the slightest touch. And yet, she wanted nothing more than to be held; she needed the solid firmness of safety, to know not every touch was to be feared. The one she needed it most from sat hunched at her knee, much of the same condition: in need of assurance that he had done right. And yet, the gap between them was too vast for either to reach across and give what the other so desperately needed.

And so, they sat together, and yet so very apart.

At length, she shifted in discomfort. Nathan scowled with renewed concern. It was the ultimate embarrassment—the ultimate payback—but it couldn’t be helped.

“I really need to go to the privy.”



###



As Nathan had forecast, the next day was fair and the Morganse made weigh out of the bay. She pressed on to the designated exchange point on a t’gallant breeze, her bow wearing a collar of white froth against the deep blue water.

The Morganse arrived at the Straits with the last rays of the retiring sun gilding her sails. Following at no great distance astern, the Griselle veered off to take up her post on the opposite side. It was a large cove in which the Morganse settled on her kedge to lay in wait, crouched like a great cat. Stealth, however, was neither vessel’s intent: both desired to be seen.

As such, the two ships spent the night and the largest part of the next morning, waiting…and waiting.

The tension aboard the Morganse was palpable. Her people moved mechanically, their conversation brief, laughter forced. Nathan paced circuits around the quarterdeck, calling frequently up to the lookouts on the mastheads, “I’ll slit the eyelids of the first slaggardly lout found napping!”

There was another source of tension, however, a source even more daunting: Prudence.

The girl ricocheted from pacing the cabin and staring for protracted periods out the aft gallery, to breaking into verbal tirades about everything and nothing. The impatience and intolerance of youth being what it was, she went outside. Advancing down the decks, her prattle parted the men like a prophet parting the Red Sea.

In the peace of Prudence’s absence, Cate sat before the stern windows idly fondling her embroidery. Her thread was gone. Now, she could only dream of what she would stitch next.

The determined clump of boots broke her thoughts. She looked up as Nathan, Pryce close in tow, skidded to a halt at the cabin door and planted his hands on his hips.

“Do something!” Nathan cried.

Thinking he had been injured, Cate leaped up, looking for blood. Finding none, she assumed it must have been one of the crew. She reached for her blood box, but her path was blocked by Nathan.

“You’ve got to do something about the Plaguing Princess,” he said. “The men are fit to start jumping ship before the glass runs out.”

“Aye, sir,” Pryce chimed over Nathan’s shoulder. “She’s babbled since afore the sun’s cleared the gun’l, with nay so much as a breath’s break. Not a moment’s peace fer anyone.”

“Except one,” Nathan dryly interjected. “Beatrice had the wherewithal and good sense to escape; hasn’t left the crosstrees since. The hands are cross-eyed in pain what with holding their water.”

“Aye, sir,” Pryce put in eagerly, looking a bit strained himself. “Yammers away she does, right afore the pissdale.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Cate said. “You do it every day before everyone.”

“Not amid a dozen questions,” sputtered Nathan, eloquent in his indignation. “A man needs to concentrate.”

A shriek, female and of a pitch that could only be attained by the young, came from outside. It was the piercing sort, which stabbed the temple straight through to the back of one’s eyeballs.

“Thar she blows,” cried Pryce, wincing.

“What was that?” Cate asked.

“God knows,” Nathan sighed, looking thoroughly haunted. “She could have just met Mr. Squidge or noticed Pickford’s ear collection. Hermione looked cross-eyed, or Beatrice said something untoward. Her skirts could have flown up, or she might o’ scuffed a shoe. Suffering Jesus!”

Cate was in no position to argue. She had experienced much the same scream when His Lordship had ambled past. Come to think on it, the mongoose and Hermione had been conspicuous in their absence.

“Clap ’er in irons, I say, ’n’ pitch ’er in the hold.” Pryce’s eyes rounded with delicious anticipation.

An appealing thought at first, Nathan waved it away. “Nay, allow the rats their peace. We’d be up to our knees in them in no time.” He turned to Cate, beseeching. “Do something!”

“I’m not her mother.”

“And I’m not her father,” retorted Nathan. “There, we’ve settled lineage. Now, pray, might we move on to more important and pressing matters? Do something!”

“Oh, honestly, very well.” Cate brushed past, painfully aware of her own testiness. The waiting had taken its toll on her, as well. “Upon my word, I can’t fathom why a bunch of grown pirates can’t manage one young girl.”

“Ever seen a rat terrier?”

Pryce’s query stopped her in mid-stride. Her blank look prompted him to explain.

“A wee beastie, no bigger than yer foot, what can kill a wharf rat with a single shake. Saw one near tear a man’s hand off…well, nearly,” he qualified under Cate’s dubious stare.

“I get your point, Mr. Pryce.” Chastened, Cate looked to the floor to hide her smile. “I beg your leave, gentlemen.”

Cate found Prudence, cornering Diogo between the foremast and the scuttlebutt. Portuguese-born and with little English, he stood clutching a sheet with a stunned, quizzical look as Prudence babbled. With promises of hair ribbons and hot chocolate, Cate lured the girl away. Amid the audible sigh of her people, Cate thought she heard the Morganse expel the same relief as she ushered Prudence into the cabin.

Several turns of the glass later, came the cry “Sail ho!” Cate was on her feet and out on deck.

“Where away?” Nathan shouted to Damerell, on the masthead. “Can you make her?”

“She’s the Resolute, sir.”

Cate was met with droll smiles from Nathan and Pryce as she mounted the quarterdeck. “I take that’s good news. What is the Resolute?”

Pryce folded his hands behind his back and rocked on his heels, fat with smug satisfaction. “Eighty guns. ’Tis the largest what the Royal Navy plies in these waters.”

The news struck Cate as alarming, and yet neither of the men, nor anyone else aboard, showed concern.

“You’re pleased they sent their biggest ship?” she goggled.

“That ship,” Nathan began patiently, “being the biggest, consequently and most significantly, carries the deepest draft.”

Cate followed his pointed look toward the mouth of the bay, still puzzled. In her three to four months at sea, she had gained considerable knowledge of sailing, but many of the finer points still escaped her—as now.

“Soo, if they require deeper water…” she began, slowly.

“She’ll not clear the reef,” Nathan finished. “She draws a good four feet more than we.” He draped his hands on the heels of his weapons, tapping his belts, preening in the luck. “Providence has smiled!”

“Then where are they to go?” Cate asked, still confused.

“Nowhere,” Nathan and Pryce chorused.

With a flip of his fingers, Nathan yielded to Pryce. “There be no other anchorages here ’bouts, not for a ship of her draft. She can set a hook, aye, but ’twill be a fair rough go, what with wind and wave, and land in ’er lee. They’ll be a-stowin’ topmasts and yards in no time.”

Cate nodded. It was common for topmasts to be swung down, in order to ease the weight overhead and the overworking of the planking. Wind and current funneled into the Straits’ narrow space resulted in very rough seas. Both the Morganse and Griselle had ducked their heads into the waves, throwing off great sheets of water over their shoulders and waists as they came through.

“We are at liberty to move about as we please,” Nathan said, with a sweeping gesture. “They’ll be stuck, on their hooks, riding hard, whilst worrying where the Morganse might pop up next.”

“’Tis smaller and faster we are; we can out-maneuver her in these tight waters,” Pryce added with pride. “We could up anchor and be on ’er afore they could beat to arms.”

“We could rake her, broadside to stern. What with yon Thomas laying abeam, they would be at our mercy, if we’re of a mind,” Nathan said.

“Are we of a mind?” Cate felt quite dense by this point.

Nathan waggled his eyebrows with smug glee. “They don’t know, do they? We can worry them to death and never stir a hand.”

Time crept. A week seemed to have passed with each bell, until the Resolute’smasts finally peeked over the treetops lining the distant arm of land. Cate watched the ship round the headlands and draw up at the cove’s mouth. Sails aback, waves breaking high over her forecastle, the ship’s bow rose and fell at a sickening rate. She sat with her guns presented to the pirate ships that flanked her, but distance pulled the teeth of her threat.

Towering triple masts, brilliant in her regal blue, gilded fretwork gleaming, the vessel bore a presence, as if accustomed—nay, expecting ships to shy in her presence. The Union Jack in prominent display at her backstay, a number of other banners and pennants stood out in the stiff breeze. One was glaringly plain and white: the flag of truce.

“Well, well, well,” Nathan declared, peering through the spyglass. “Dash me buttons and rip me jib. His Pompousness has blessed us with his presence.”

“Commodore Harte is aboard,” Pryce explained over Cate’s shoulder. “’Tis his flag there, the blue with the star.”

“A status achieved only through the good graces of the fair Governor of the Royal West Indies Mercantile Company, and a wholly unholy alliance it ’tis,” said Nathan, the glass still to his eye.

“The Commodore’s convinced he would have made Admiral several times over had it not been fer the Cap’n,” Pryce sniffed.

“If it hadn’t been for you?” Cate asked of Nathan.

He shrugged. “The Commodore’s hubris can be of epic proportions, betimes.”

“It’s cost ’im promotions in spite of Creswicke’s endorsements,” said Pryce

“And through no fault of yours, of course,” Cate said, looking to Nathan.

A muscle twitched at the corner of his mouth. “I’m just a poor pirate, doing what I might in the way of making a living.”

Nathan slapped the glass closed. “She’ll lay in irons. They shan’t desire to be mucking about with anchors. Sharpshooters aloft,” he shouted over the quarterdeck break to Hodder. “Gun crews, Mr. MacQuarrie, at the ready, but don’t open the lids. Loose the t’gall’nts and stays’ls, but don’t set the braces. Let’s give them every cause to believe we’re at the ready.”

He rounded on Cate and sobered. “You’ll need to be out of sight. They may suspect you’re here, but seeing would be believing, would it not? No arguments, luv,” he went on over her protests as he steered her toward the cabin. “Rest assured they’ve spyglasses and are fixed on us as we speak. If all goes pear-shaped, I can’t be worrying about you. Now stay inside.”

His walnut eyes held hers, searching for the assurances he needed. “Please, luv, allow me to know you’re safe.”

Now at the cabin’s door, Cate nodded woodenly. He winked and strode away. The cold realization of how much her presence burdened him pricked the nape of her neck.

Deep in the cabin’s protective shadows, Prudence wrung her hands. “They’re coming, aren’t they?”

“It will be a while before they arrive, but yes, they are.”

“Is Lord Creswicke with them?”

“I think not.” Wishing to ease the girl’s anguish, Cate fingered one of the curls at her shoulder. “Your hair is very pretty.”

The sun-reddened cheeks deepened. “Thank you. I did it myself.”

“And you did a lovely job of it.”

Beaming under the praise one moment, Prudence threw her arms around Cate and clutched her tightly. “I don’t wish to go. I’m afraid.”

Cate gently pushed her back and brought the tear-streaked face up to hers. “Don’t you remember how afraid you were a few days ago? And now, look.”

Prudence had the grace to be ashamed. “Of the Captain most especially. He’s been so kind; I’m sorry I said those bad things about him.”

She brightened with the enthusiasm of an inspiration. “I’ll make it up. I’ll tell everyone how wonderful and kind he was, and—”

“No, no, not that,” Cate blurted. Nathan could forgive a lot of things, except telling everyone what a wonderful person he is.

“Then what shall I do?”

Cate bit her still-sore lip. Lady Bart’s had taught her how drastically one’s story could be misconstrued. “Just represent that you were treated well. If experience is any indication, they won’t credit anything else.”

She tried to see Prudence through the eyes of those very same people. The glossy black hair was brushed and arranged, but the long curls, achieved only through hours with an iron, were gone. The porcelain skin was bright red from sun, the rounded nose glowing. Ripped, hem hanging, and slashed across the back where Nathan had spanked her with his sword: the dress was still yellow, but streaked and soiled. Her stockings, shoes, and kertch all gone missing, through some eyes, the damage could be seen as the result of rough handling. As Nathan had forecast, the worst would certainly be assumed.

The hollow thud of boats hooking on to the Morganse’s hull and Hodder’s cry of “Watch the goddamned paint, you f*cking whoresons!” broke Cate’s thoughts. Footsteps scurrying on deck and climbing the ship’s side announced the Resolute’s boarding party had arrived. Cate slipped nearer the door to peek through its sidelights.

The Royal Navy came aboard with a flourish. The Morganse had run up a square of white on her jack-staff at the bow, but it was nowhere near the huge one displayed over the heads of the boarding party. By the time Cate took up a position, to peek from behind the door and through a sidelight, a double-file of officers—blue-coated, white breeched and laced hats— Marines and sideboys flanked the entry port. It was sobering to see the red-coated uniforms on the decks of the Morganse.

With a clash and stomp, the Commodore was piped aboard with all the flourish befitting his rank, and the Morganse—predictably—had failed to provide. One could almost hear their snap to salute. Harte came up the side ramrod-stiff. Like his ship, the Commodore’s uniform was meant to impress, and it did. A ceremonial sword and a gold-laced, cockaded hat had been added to his resplendency. In honor of the moment, Nathan had squared his hat and donned his coat. Even in its infancy, the burgundy could never have equaled the naval splendor, but it was worn with the same élan, as if it did.

The sea rogues had their own theater. They had on their masks: familiar faces were now contorted into the barbarous expressions she had first witnessed on the Constancy. With blood-dripped sails overhead, the same symbolically drooling from her deck, the Morganse had no goldwork, but the sun shone even brighter on the fresh-honed edges of cutlasses, boarding axes, pikes, gaffing hooks, and hatchets. Chin, Mute Maori, and Hodder stood at the forefront, brutish and menacing, Churchill’s maniacal, cackling laugh in the background.

The Navy’s brilliance only served to exemplify the pirate’s sun-drab, rendering them that much more the Tartans. Several took great pleasure in singling out a Navyman, their tension evident in rigid jaw muscles and white-knuckled fists on their weapons, and fixing him with a sinister glare. Even at Cate’s distance, “Steady” was quite readable on the mouths of several of their superiors.

Harte surveyed his surroundings as a warrior surveys a possible battlefield. It was done more out of habit than a precursor, for an outbreak of violence was unlikely. The odds were not in the Navy’s favor—a little over a dozen among nearly 200—and their hands were bound by the white flag.

Harte drew up before Nathan. The green eyes that fixed on him were even more reptilian, like a hungry snake with its favorite meal dangling before it. The prize Harte sought most was within arm’s reach, and it might as well have been a league.

A hush befell the deck, only the creak of the ship and the flap of the two white flags, with a cough now and again to break it. Harte’s patent-leather, silver-buckled shoes took a step forward. As distasteful as it obviously was, Harte was a slave to the Rules of Procedure: he swept off his hat and executed an overly proper bow. The obligatory “Your servant, sir,” uttered through white lips, was barely audible.

The poor man probably can’t help it.

So noble and honorable. She had seen men much like him before, so insufferably honorable and noble they would watch their own mother hang if duty was thought to require it. Harte might rescue her from scurrilous pirates, if she so desired. He would also arrest her, and then with that same nobility, watch her hang.

Harte stiffly gestured toward the Griselle across the Straits. “Might I inquire as to the identity of your accomplice?”

Nathan snorted. “You may not.”

“Oh, come now, Captain. I am not without my resources. It will only be a matter of time, before I learn of her and her captain’s identity.”

“Then, I suggest you use your time more remuneratively, because that ship will be naught but a wake.”

The corner of Harte’s eye ticked, conceding. “Lord Creswicke sends his compliments.”

“Me aged aunt’s ass he does,” Nathan sputtered. “And where, pray tell, is our fair Lord Pompous? Has he not chosen to honor us with his presence?”

Roger sighed imperiously. “The distances were too great, as you well know. You were the one to so brilliantly engineer this entire sordid affair within a timeframe which did not allow for word to reach His Lordship, intentionally rendering him helpless.”

“Too bloody damned right. But, I pride meself on being an amicable and co-operative sort.” Nathan sauntered back and forth in front of Harte with an extra flourish. “If you prefer, the Young Miss may linger to allow His Insuffurrableness the time to evaluate his options with regards to the future of his intended.”

The Commodore again scanned his surroundings, measuring and assessing. It couldn’t be missed that it provided time for the pirates to be duly impressed, and no doubt, in hopes second thoughts might prevail, allowing intimidation to take root.

“I demand you produce Miss Collingwood at once, so I may verify she is well and unharmed.”

His impertinent smile growing to devious, Nathan waited a lengthy interval before calling with lilting affection, “Prudence, darling. Pray, will you join us, luv?”

In the cabin, Prudence’s cornflower eyes rounded with dread. She swiveled to Cate, who waved her forward. Gripping the folds of her dress, Prudence went out with the levity of the doomed.

“Ah, there you are, luv. Come out and meet the nice man,” Nathan said.

Those in official blue did an en masse intake of air at seeing Prudence’s tattered and barefoot state. Harte’s eyes narrowed to a contempt-laden glare. Nathan put an arm around Prudence’s waist and drew her close. The insult of the act sent a shockwave of indignation through the Navymen and they lurched forward. An equal reaction came from the Morgansers, poising their weapons higher. The sight of the plumed and cockaded hats on the deck had been chilling. That, however, was erased by the warmth brought at seeing Harte’s eyes bulge at Nathan’s arm trailing higher to the girl’s shoulders.

“Pray tell the nice man, darling, of your wonderful time,” prompted Nathan in sugary tones.

“I had a wonderful time.” Prudence failed miserably at a convincing smile.

“Ah, see there. From the mouths of babes.” Nathan regarded Prudence and licked his lips. “And a babe she, is she not? It would appear our illustrious Lordness has been particularly fortunate, wouldn’t you say?”

“Get on with it, Blackthorne.” Harte ground out through his teeth.

“Captain Nathanael Blackthorne, if you please, sir. I thought we might bide our time—have a bit of a chat—what with your long journey and all.” Nathan clucked his tongue in mocking sympathy. “You have come so far. Would you care for a spot of tea, perhaps, and rest your weary bones?”

“Thank you, no,” Harte said in measured patience. “I imagine Miss Collingwood would prefer to retire to the Resolute, where she will be among the civilized, as opposed to this vile and barbarous lot. I’m confident her delicate sensibilities have been accosted.”

“Accosted?” Nathan rolled the word in his mouth. “Prudence, luv—?”

“Miss Collingwood, to you,” Harte hissed.

“Prudence?” Nathan began again. “Have your sensibilities—stipulating, of course, that they are indeed of a delicate nature—have they…have you been accosted in any way?”

Prudence stammered. “Well, no, I—”

“I thought not!” Nathan pulled her closer in the nearest thing to a hug. “So, you see, my dear Commodore, your concerns for the safety and welfare of this fine young lady have been categorically unfounded.”

“We’ve brought the sums demanded,” Harte said.

As if on cue, a pirate cheer went up, with a suddenness and ferocity which caused Marines, sideboys, and officers alike to fall back.

Nathan touched a finger to his chin and thoughtfully rolled his eyes. “Have you now? I was having reconsiderations—second thoughts, as it were—as to just how much our beloved Lord might be willing to pay. Just how much are fresh, young fiancées going for these days?” he mused, toying with a lock of Prudence’s hair.

“There was an agreement.” The muscles flexing in Roger’s jaws were visible even at Cate’s distance.

“Was there? Hmm…I don’t recall that bit.” Nathan counted off on his fingers. “I recall taking her. Do you recall that, Master Pryce?”

“Aye, sir! Recall it well,” the First Mate called from nearby.

“Yes, I thought so. And, I recall making a demand.” Nathan twisted his face with the effort of recollection. “No. No, I don’t recall an accord after that.”

Nathan stood back to take in Prudence and gave his brows a salacious waggle. “I don’t know; I might decide to keep her for meself. Bunks can be cold this time of year, but you would be more aware of that than I. And I shouldn’t have to tell you how unlucky a woman on board can be. Insufferingly bad luck, is it not, Mr. Pryce?”

“Foul-black and terrifying, sir.”

“Although,” Nathan said, swiveling back on Harte, “come to shed a light on it, perhaps we’ve just struck upon the source of your less-than-fortunate fortunes of recent. One too many whores secreted away, eh?”

Harte went even more rigid—if that was at all possible—his knuckles whitening on the hilt of his sword. Cate felt a brief surge of sympathy for the man. The man knew Nathan was provoking him. Propriety wouldn’t allow him to do a blessed thing but take it as a gentleman.

Gentleman. It was Harte’s banner and his burden. He wore it for all to see, like a little girl with a new dress. And, like that little girl, the possession was an instant confinement, imprisoned and handcuffed by the thing they loved most.

The Commodore’s nostrils flared. “You would certainly be more familiar that than I.”

Nathan made an unsavory face and clucked his tongue reprovingly. “Why Commodore, jealousy is certainly not a becoming color on you, a-tall!”

The green eyes sharpened to pinpoints. “Do. Not. Test. Me.”

Harte gestured and a large leather pouch was tossed at Nathan’s feet, landing with the clatter of coins.

Nathan regarded Harte, and then turned to Prudence.

“Very well, then, darling,” Nathan said in a fatherly tone. His hands fluttered about her person, arranging curls and straightening ribbons. “We must take our farewells then, my dear. Be a good girl, and remember what I told you about strangers.”

He shook a parental finger, while Prudence nodded, intent on his every word. “Mind your elders, say your prayers, and never eat dessert with your fish fork. Now, do you think you can remember all that?”

“Then, this is good-bye?” she asked meekly.

“Aye, luv, adieu it ’tis.”

Her lower lip began to quiver. “Will I ever see you again?”

Nathan slid Harte a taunting leer. “One never knows, does one?”

Nathan barely had time to pat the girl on the head and nudge her forward before Harte seized her by the arm to tuck her safely behind him.

Nathan ducked a mocking bow and bared his teeth in a contemptuous smile.

“’Tis been a pleasure doing business, Commodore.”

Harte’s gaze travelled the deck and fixed on the cabin door. “I am in a position to offer the price of freedom for whomever else you might be harboring against their will.”

Cate jerked back, clapping a hand over her mouth against her gasp. Since their parting, Harte would have had time to learn of her identity and the warrants for here arrest. Or, was he operating in a fog of chivalry, only intending to save her?

“Can’t imagine what you’re referring to, mate. You suggest we are running some sort of vessel of iniquity. Anyone here is so because they wish it. There be no other hostages. Right, mates?”

The crew heartily sounded their support.

“And, as we have already so succinctly and eloquently discussed, women on a ship are bad luck, or have you forgotten, already?” Nathan asked.

“Then our business is complete.” Harte ducked a bow and pivoted on his heel. Taking Prudence by the elbow, he headed for the accommodation gate, his boarding party in close order behind.

“By the by,” Nathan called to Harte’s back. “Have a care unshipping her, mate. Her welfare is in your hands, now.”

Nathan swaggered toward the Great Cabin. Roosting atop a cask near the doors, he lounged against the bulkhead.

“I would have paid admission to watch this,” he said low enough for only Cate’s benefit.

Together, Cate pressing her eye to the doorjamb, they watched a commodore and men of the Royal Navy grapple with the gargantuan task of removing a 16-year-old girl from the Morganse.

“Harte doesn’t appear pleased,” she said.

Nathan made a caustic noise. “He always appears to have his breeches on backwards or something.”

A screech pierced the air, another of the temple-stabbing nature, and Cate gasped. “They aren’t actually going to do what it looks like, are they?”

Nathan cocked his head consideringly. “It’s been me personal experience—humble as it may be,” he added, touching a hand to his chest. “That a kicking and screaming woman doesn’t pass well from hand to hand, under any circumstances, down the side, while at anchor, or at any time, actually, truth be told. Doesn’t go well, a-tall.”

Pryce sidled closer, unable to tear his eyes from the spectacle unfolding. “Shouldn’t we be offerin’ a hand, Cap’n?”

Nathan contemplated briefly. “No, Master Pryce. ’Tis been me perpetual experience the Royal Navy is best left to its own devices. Bloody resentful they are of interference, especially from the likes such as us.”

Pryce swiveled an incredulous look. “Even if ’tis the path of destruction?”

“More’s the sweetness of the result,” Nathan said, with a complacent grin.

The pirates stood in a mix of sympathy and disbelief at the two Marines bellowing in pain as Prudence clawed for a more secure hold on their necks.

“Not sure they’ve enough skin for this task,” Pryce observed, struggling to preserve his straight face.

Nathan lolled in half-lidded contentment. “Aye, Mr. Pryce, we can all tell our grandchildren of the day Royal Navy blood was drawn and spilled on the decks of the Ciara Morganse, and never a blade was raised.”

He was correct; blood was being spilt, albeit in fine droplets, from nails raking cheeks and necks of the souls who lowered the screeching Prudence over the side. Her head eventually disappeared below the gunwale, leaving only the sound of her screaming and frantic shouts. At length, there was only the coxswains’ call to the oarsmen as they pushed away.

“Ah, well,” Nathan sighed. “The show is over. Prepare to make way, Master Pryce.”

“Is it over?” Stepping over the coaming, Cate could see the recessional of longboats trailing toward the warship.

“Not until they’ve sank the horizon, but from all appearances, I’d say aye. The Griselle on their flank will help keep them honest.” Nathan rocked on his toes, his hand resting on the butt of his pistol. “I shan’t fancy they would try anything, what with Lord Creswicke’s beloved betrothed aboard.”

“That was cruel, you know.”

He struggled to hide his satisfaction, but finally surrendered and broke into a full-fledged grin. “Only because Commodore Stick-Up-His-Britches wouldn’t deign to ask for help. Besides, no two people deserved it more.”

Towers ambled down the deck. He bent to pick up the leather pouch, his eyes rolling in pleasure at the heavy clinking sound inside. “What’s to do with this, Cap’n?”

Nathan waved a vague hand. “Pass the word for Mr. Pryce. ’Tis his affair.”

“After all that, you’re not interested in the money?” Cate asked.

Nathan cocked one hip as he leaned on the rail. He scanned the horizon and smiled crookedly. “Pryce is the quartermaster: shares are his task.”

“My rewards come in other forms.”

“Creswicke doesn’t strike me as the type to be trifled with. What will he do when he finally finds out?”

His cheeks rounded with a grin, white laced with gold. “Everything he can, darling—everything he can.”





End of Part Two