The Pirate Captain

CHAPTER 18: Twisted Fate

Cate stood at the cabin’s table, her honing basket and all its contents spread before her. She concentrated on the flat, even strokes of Stubbs’ knife across the honestone’s oiled surface. She heard the clump of Nathan’s boots come in and the scuff of when he stopped.

“You’re upset.” Nathan spoke from somewhere near the mizzen, she thought, for she didn’t look up.

“I’m fine.”

“No,” he said carefully. “I think not.”

“I’m fine.”

“I see.” Sighing as one resigned to an inevitable battle Nathan inched closer. “Then why are you in here, when you’re usually out there?”

From the corner of her eye, Cate saw a thumb jab over his shoulder toward the door.

“Beatrice represents that Hodder, Squidge, and the afterguard didn’t banish you from the afterdeck because of your charmingly gay company,” he said reprovingly.

Cate winced. Once the exchange for Prudence had been completed, and the Resolute’s masts had dipped the horizon, the Morganse had wore around through the Straits, spread her studdingsails, and ran before the wind to her rendezvous with the Griselle. In retrospect, Cate mightn’t have presented herself in the best light since. The hands’ eye-rolling and grumbling behind her back hadn’t gone unnoticed. Several things had weighed on her mind, none of which she was willing to put a name to.

“I’m fine,” she said, sounding more bullish than was flattering.

Nathan twisted his jaw sideways in consideration. “Uh-huh. Then what are all those?”

He nodded toward the floor. A small, bristling array of knives, from rigging to pocket, were stuck in the wood at her feet, as if someone had been playing mumblypeg. Cate winced, vaguely recalling having flung a few things…maybe…

“I’m fine. I…Ouch! Dammit!” she said, plunging her finger into her mouth. The honing oil, combined with an untimely lurch of the ship, caused the knife to slip and sliced her finger.

Nathan drew the wounded digit out. The blood welled, but didn’t spurt. He sucked the blood away and frowned intently as he inspected it.

“You’ll do,” he said.

“Since when you do carry a handkerchief?” Cate asked at seeing him pull one from his sleeve.

He cocked an eyebrow as he dabbed her finger with it. “Since I’ve been ’round you. I find an inordinate need for one, heretofore never experienced.”

Cate's gaze fixed on his right hand as he tended hers. The cut, inflicted by Thomas’ blade, was now bound in a bit of rag from heavens knew where. “Your hand should be looked at.”

Nathan's mouth quivered with the effort to not smile. “It’s fine.”

While she knotted the cloth around her finger, Nathan collected the knives from the floor, depositing them in the basket. He stood back to regard her with an expectant fatherly look that she found altogether disquieting.

“Very well, let’s have it,” he finally said.

“You need to sit.”

One eye narrowed, thinking it to be a jest. A scowl came with the realization that she wasn’t.

“Very well.” In exaggerated steps, Nathan went to his chair and sat.

Cate stood over him, looking down. “I need you calm.”

“I am.”

“No, you’ve a fist, and your lip is doing that little thing it does whenever you’re upset.”

“I’m not upset, I’m—” Nathan checked himself then made a made a great show of opening both hands, and then strained to rearrange his face.

“You’re still tense.”

“I’m not—”

“Sit back and relax.”

“Goddamnit, I am relaxed. See!” Nathan drew back his lips into a smile that resembled a skull’s grimace.

Cate stood back, but on second thought, pulled Nathan's pistol from his belt. A defiant gaze fixed on her, he reached across the table to slide the sharp-edged objects away from her.

“Now, promise you’ll stay there.”

“I’m not a ruddy dog…oh, very well,” Nathan said over her objections. “Like the damned Number One anchor I’ll be. On to it, then.”

So overtly serene, Nathan was more a caricature and less at ease than ever. Cate took a deep breath. She had come this far; there was no turning back now.

“I need to beg a great favor.”

The false smile faltered and Nathan blinked, thinking there was a trick in there somewhere. “I’ve bid you welcome to anything you desire,” he said with measured caution.

Cate surreptitiously crossed her fingers in the folds of her skirts. “Yes, well, in that spirit…I wish to go fetch Prudence.”

“What!” Nathan launched to his feet. “What the goddamned hell…? Are you trying to put me in an early grave?”

Her glare reminded Nathan of his pledge, and he sat heavily. He exhaled through his nose several times, and then scrubbed his hands tiredly over his face.

“Explain to me again, why we should be so all-fired concerned with this girl? Arranged marriages happen all the time. Why are you so fixated on this one?”

“I’ve told you.” Unable to stand still, Cate set to stalking the cabin. “There’s something about Prudence. I can’t leave her to a hopeless marriage with a—”

“Bastard,” Nathan finished, shrugging a half-apology. He leaned back in his chair and drew his fingers down the curve of his mustache. “Aren’t you being a tad over-dramatic?”

“No.” She paced the gallery. “Well, maybe a little. I sympathize.”

His frown deepened. “I thought you said your marriage wasn’t arranged.”

“It wasn’t—sort of. We probably would have married…eventually…if Brian’s uncle would have allowed it.”

“Then what has all this have to do with anything?”

“Her father, my father…Her family, my family…” she ended, lamely.

Nathan exhaled heavily and closed his eyes as he rubbed his forehead. “You’re not making any sense a-tall.”

“I had a particular friend in school—you recall me telling you about it the other day by the pool?”

He nodded.

“Her Uncle Naecel was the head of the Mackenzie clan, one of the biggest in the Highlands. It was through her that I came to live there. Marriages there are often arranged when the participants are very young. Mairi was six when she was promised to a cousin of the laird of the neighboring clan. There had been a border dispute of some kind or another, and she was part of the settlement.”

“Tangled webs.” Nathan rose and came around the table. “Here, I fear Defoe is not up to the task.”

Nathan gently pried a book from Cate’s hands, one that she had no idea of having picked it up, nor that she had been worrying it to the point of threatened destruction. He pulled a length of cord from his pocket and her heart sank, fearing another lesson was in the offing. Knot-tying lessons were always tedious, Nathan a dogged instructor. To her surprise, he left her to work it in her hands.

“You’ve no idea,” she went on grimly. “He was a monster: nearly thirty years older, and looked and smelled like an old bear. He lived in a house with his prize bull on one side and his bed on the other. He treated the livestock better than her, beat them less, too. Several of Brian’s uncles tried to intervene. Even Brian tried to bargain, and then outright threatened the man, but nothing helped. They found her frozen to death in the bottom of a burn. She had run away…again.”

Nathan considered for several moments from his chair, his expression growing grave.

“No, I’m not buying it.” He rose to circle her. “You’ve been at loose ends since Prudence was shipped, before, come to think on it. It’s not the ladyship, nor a churlish father, nor some damned arranged marriage something or other. It’s something else…”

Cate bristled, for no one liked their motivations questioned.

“It’s the kidnapping.” She drew back at her outburst. At first, she wanted to reject it out-of-hand, and yet at the same time, was relieved to have it off her chest.

“It’s wrong. I was uncomfortable with it from the first, especially for someone so young.”

“And how were we to have known that?” Nathan said, leaned against Merdering Mary’s barrel.

“You didn’t, but it doesn’t make the deed any less,” she said peevishly. “You have no idea what it’s like for a woman to be taken: the terror and cold dread, being frozen with fear of what’s to happen next.”

Nathan reached to seize her by the arm and turn her to face him. “But it wasn’t like that for you…was it?”

“The first time…well, both times, yes,” she said to the floor.

“First?”

“Oh, umm…” She sidled away.

Dammit! It was the hazard of giving way to one’s emotions: the inadvertent inevitably tumbling out.

“I was taken once before, a year or so after we were married. Deserters…I was…It was…”

Cate's voice caught and she waved Nathan away, the handkerchief on her finger like a flag of truce.

“Here, at first, yes, I was scared beyond words.”

Weeks had passed, but the anguish was fresher than she had imagined. Her heart picked up that same pounding rate once more, and a cold sweat prickled her spine. That terror must have shown on her face, for Nathan came round to stand over her. So caught up in the emotions once more, she cringed.

“You were never in danger.” His voice quaked with fury.

“I know that.”

“No one was going to lay hands—”

“But I had no way of knowing that, did I,” Cate said levelly. “It was the Ciara Morganse, the dreaded Captain Nathan Blackthorne. Anyone would wish to escape,” she said, glancing toward the windows.

They had fought her first day aboard. Thinking Nathan sought to violate her, Cate had bitten him and tried to jump. It had been folly, but hindsight always came through a clearer lens.

“It was either stop you, or watch you kill yourself,” Nathan said, following her thoughts. He studied Cate, regret knitting his brows. “You were that afraid?”

She forced a smile. “Water over the decks, as you like to say.”

He was barely appeased.

“I didn’t object to the kidnapping at first,” she said, returning to her initial point. “Because I knew there was little danger. I knew I would be here to aid and protect, save whoever it was from what I had to endure.”

“Endure, eh?”

The glumness in Nathan’s voice caused her to stop.

“Please, I don’t mean to reproach you,” Cate pleaded. “You’re doing what you must. It’s me. I can’t…I can’t—”

“Bear to be brought so low,” he said, sinking further.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Not quite, but so very, very near,” he said, bitterly.

“I understand why you loathe Creswicke, and I am in fullest sympathy why you want to do everything in your power to make his life a misery.” God, she was making such a hash of this. “But I’m uncomfortable with—”

“Being drug down and obliged to wallow in the gutters with the rest of us.” Nathan thumped his fist on the brass back of the great gun. “And so this is what I’ve done: made you do what you wouldn’t else, until your conscience won’t allow you peace.”

“No, no, I don’t mean that it’s your fault,” Cate said, clutching his arm.

“Aye, but it is.” The walnut eyes were sharp with hurt. Nathan made a caustic noise. “Pirate, darling. Not much more to be said. It’s what I am. It’s not a pretty world, but ’tis the hand I’ve been dealt, and by the Great Lucifer’s horns and tail, I’ll do what I must.”

Nathan's shoulder slumped. He raised a hand and dropped it to his side in surrender. “But you…you didn’t choose this. You don’t deserve…this…”

He moved to the window and stared out. “I should have gotten you away from all this,” he said, more to himself. He looked over his shoulder toward her. “You tried and…”

Nathan clamped his lower lip between his teeth and shook his head with a rustle of bells.

“I said I wanted to stay,” she said evenly.

“You should be where it’s…”

“I’m where I want to be.” Fears began to rise that he meant to send her away. “And I’ll suffer anything to…” Cate checked herself, for she was on the verge of making a confession which no one wanted to hear. “You declare yourself guilty of allowing me to be where I desired? That’s a strange Court of Justice your running, Captain Blackthorne.”

Cate touched Nathan's arm and gazed earnestly up into the dark, troubled eyes. “I’m exactly where I want. There is no place else.”

Nathan smiled faintly, somewhat appeased.

He shook off his mood to say, “But Prudence is back, safe and sound amid the fold once more. You should be skylarking in the rigging with joy. Instead, you’re skulking about like we’d just sent her to Jones’ Locker.”

“I have to help her.”

Nathan slumped in his chair and propped his head in his hand. “You’re making no sense a-tall.”

“You know Creswicke better than I. Can you honestly say you’re comfortable with leaving her to a man like him?”

Nathan shrugged, looking off. “I can sleep with it.”

“Well, I can’t.”

Looking up, he smiled crookedly. “So you propose to right the wrong, by doing another wrong, to save her for her own good from something which she might well desire to do. You’ve been tying too many knots, darling. That’s positively convoluted; it has as more turns in it than a Spanish bo’lin.”

“I’m not talking about taking her again, but what’s so wrong with allowing her a choice?”

Nathan rolled his eyes to the beams overhead and said under his breath, “Where have I heard that before?”

Cate winced. A few days earlier, she had indeed uttered those same words in the fervor of offering a different kind of plea on the girl’s behalf.

“You think I’m as half-crazed and misguided now as I was then?”

Nathan regarded her balefully. “’Tis but a strake one way or t’other.”

Heaving a sigh, Nathan closed his eyes like a man commending himself to the gallows. “So put a name to what’s in your mind.”

“I have no idea.”

With an exasperated gasp, Nathan buried his face in his hands.

“Well, have you always gone into every action, with your every move planned to the letter?” Cate demanded defensively.

“Of course!” Both knew that to be a blatant exaggeration. “A man without a plan is a man what plans to fail, or get himself killed, as the case might be. Be warned, you darling, best intentions are often not appreciated. They can be a sour fruit.”

Cate dropped into a chair, tiredly rubbing her temple against a headache, which for a week seemed to have taken up a permanent residence. “All I know is I shan’t be able to live with myself, unless I’ve at least tried to do something.”

“Fancy it will allow you to sleep, do you?” Nathan asked. “Allow me to be so bold as to say it will help precious little. I don’t expect a place in line at St. Peter’s gate all for the cause of a few ‘I’m sorry’s’ But for you.” The walnut eyes grew gentle. “For you there shall be a golden pass, for there is no badness and you shall go to the front of the line. I’ll put in a word, if you like, should you think it might help, but mum might be best, all things considered.”

Another crooked smile appeared; the one which came with uncertainty. The sight of it tugged her heart, as it was meant to do. It was one more coin in the price of being with him.

Nathan narrowed an accusing eye. “Putting the curse of your perpetual happiness on my shoulders, eh? Bloody heavy burden, that one. Could haunt me the rest of me days.”

Drumming his fingers on the table, Nathan slammed the flat of his hand. “Oh, very well. Deliver me from well-meaning, good-hearted, meddlesome women. They don’t call me Daft Nathan for nothing. I just hope they don’t call me Dead Nathan.”



###



The late afternoon shadows of the trees crawled like fingers across the stilling water, as the Morganse slipped into the back bay of Hopetown. Under jibs and staysails, she passed through the reef and stood in with a familiarity that almost rendered the lead lines a formality. Cate paced the forecastle while the longboat was roused over the side, for only one would be going ashore. To be there and gone before even the fish took notice was the plan.

It was a dark night, the moon yet to make its appearance. Nathan seemed unmindful. He made his way down the starlit road like a cat, never stepping a wrong foot, while catching Cate as she stumbled. There was none of his customary breeziness or witticisms, however. He had been quite open with his disapproval of this entire endeavor, but he was now quite closed, resolved to see this through.

Hopetown lay in a direct line between them and Lady Bart’s. The line of his mouth growing a little grimmer, Nathan led Cate on a darting path through the town’s outskirts to the road that led to the estate. Once there, he found invisible paths through the bushes and into the gardens, presumably the same ones he had used to find her shortly after Harte had brought her there.

The dark hulk of the house could be seen ahead. It and most of its inhabitants were at rest, a majority of the windows dark. The sight of a guard caused Nathan to jerk back, pushing Cate to the ground behind a dense rosebush. Standing over her, his hand poised over his sword, Nathan peered around. A dance of fingers indicated she was to stay low and quiet; the guard was coming their way.

Seeing no other option, Cate tugged at her neckline, pulling the edge of her bodice low across her bosoms.

“What are you doing?” Nathan hissed.

“Going to take care of a guard,” she whispered back. Cupping an arm under her breasts, she gave them a plumping lift. “I’ll be right back.”

To a hoarse rasp of Nathan’s objections, she stepped out into the gravel path. She tousled her hair, and then set to huffing, as if she had been running a long distance, and spurted down the path in the direction of the guard.

“Please!” She ran up to the guard, his musket brandished. She leaned heavily on his arm, while she gulped for air. “Help!”

“Ma’am?” He was startlingly young, his voice breaking in an uneven timbre between lad and man.

“Help me!” She braced her hands on her knees. Bent ostensibly to catch her breath, the position put the full of her cleavage on display. “I need to see Lady Bart.”

“No one’s allowed in or…”

“Please! I’ve just escaped from those pirates. They could be right behind me. I need to see her about her niece.”

“I heard she was returned.” Somewhere in his mind, that bit of coincidence seemed to add to her veracity.

“No! Pray, I beg, I have word. I need to speak to Lady Bart, please.” She gave his arm a familiar squeeze and, through the heavy breathing, batted her lashes.

He glanced into the darkness, uncertain. “Very well, then, this way—“

“No, no!” She rounded her eyes, as if in fear. “The pirates, they’re chasing me. Someone needs to be here to protect us.”

Torn between duty and a woman in distress, the former won. The lad straightened and squared his thin shoulders.

“Very well, ma’am,” he said, striving to keep his voice deep. “Follow that path; it will take you ‘round to the servant’s entrance.”

“Thank you, and please, have care. Those pirates are dangerous.”

As advertised, the semi-familiar path led to the house. Cate made her way around through the cooking wing and inside. At such an hour, there were few servants about. Some recognized her and bobbed a bow, or dipped a curtsey, but most paid little attention as she made her way through the scullery and service areas. Most servants knew what to see and not see, when it came to the comings and goings of a household, and she banked on that now as she made her way up the servants’ stairway. On the second floor, it opened into a room-sized linen closet, dark and smelling of cloth and starch. Groping her way along the shelves, she found the door and slipped out.

The hallway was deserted, most of the lights snuffed for the night. She knew Prudence was there, the question was where? As Cate crept down the hall, she heard a door open, and froze. Silently chanting, “The best way to fit in, is to look like you belong,” she straightened and forced her feet to move. The door closed and a woman looked up. Her eyes flew open as Cate recognized Sally at the same time.

“Mistress Cate, you shouldn’t be here. The Commodore is still here—”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Cate cut in. “I’m looking for Prudence. Which is her room?”

“Just there,” said Sally with a tilt of her head toward the door across the hall. “Her nanny is there now, I believe. Miss Prudence downstairs with Lady Bart.”

Cate’s stomach griped at the thought of the salon filled with Lady Bart’s guests. “How many are there tonight?”

“Only Miss Prudence and Her Ladyship; the rest have left, for now, except the Commodore. God knows, they’ll return soon enough to live off her good graces!” she declared, rolling her eyes. “We’ll check her room first, just to be sure.”

A scratch at the door, and Sally pushed her way in, Cate close behind. She recognized the room as the same she had occupied, flounced and laced within an inch of its life. A small woman, clad mostly in black, rose from a chair, a bit of mending dangling from her hand. Her eyes matched the fine wisps of gray hair that escaped from under her cap. Cate hung back as Sally surged forward.

“Miss Fran, do you know where Miss Prudence might be?” asked Sally.

Round-faced and well past middle-age, the top of her cap barely coming to the level of Cate’s chin, the woman bobbed a curtsey while regarding Cate with suspicion. “The young Miss is downstairs with Lady Bart, in the parlor, I believe.”

Brushing past Sally, Cate moved closer to Miss Fran. “Are you Nanna?”

The woman blinked, taken back. “Why, yes, how did you know?”

“Prudence spoke of you a great deal and quite kindly,” Cate said.

Nanna stiffened, rearing back her head to glare down her nose. “Are you Cate?” She almost spit the name.

“Why, yes—”

“A fine lot of good you did the poor girl!”

Cate jerked back as if bitten.

“You’ll mind your tongue, you old biddy,” hissed Sally.

“I’ll not!” Nanna advanced on Cate, the little body rigid. “The least you could have done was protect the child from the…the…the horrible ordeal!”

“I know being kidnapped was a trial,” Cate said, scrambling to recover. “I…I mean we meant to see to her comforts, but—”

“Hogwash!” Nanna burst with a withering glare. “We all know what has been done. And now the poor girl has been ruined by that…monster!”

“I beg your pardon?” Cate flared back.

“She’s been violated!”

The very idea was so astoundingly absurd, Cate’s first impulse was to laugh, but found she couldn’t.

“No,” Cate wheezed. The air seemed to have suddenly been sucked out of the room. “No! You mean…No, no, no. That’s not right. That’s impossible—”

“There’s no sense to be had in lying to protect the blackguard,” Nanna fumed. “She’s been examined by a doctor. There are no doubts!”

The room took an odd tilt.

“That’s not right,” Cate implored to Sally. Of all people, she would agree. “You know it’s not. Nathan wouldn’t…I mean, he couldn’t have—”

A guilty pang stabbed high under her ribs. She had asked Nathan to do that very thing, and yet, he had—they had—agreed it was out of the question. But this…this hadn’t been her intent. Had he done it anyway?

Sally patted Cate’s shoulder, crooning like a mother hen, “I know, I know. You don’t have to make excuses for him. We all know how they are.”

“They are!” Cate yanked free. Confusion fell away, and to a cold calm. “Where is she? I need to speak to her, now!”

“I’ll not have you upsetting her by—” Nanna began.

Cate whirled around on her, her hands balling into fists. “She’s upset things quite enough. I came here—Nathan came here—to try to help her out of this marriage.”

“Is the Captain with you?” Sally ran to the window, pulled back the curtain and craned her neck.

“Yes, he is.” Cate glanced nervously toward the night, and then the clock on the mantel, painfully aware of Nathan watching the house, waiting. “I mustn’t keep him waiting; he could be caught—we both could be caught. Do you really think Nathan would have come, if any of this outlandish nonsense were true?” she asked, rounding back on the au pair.

“What purpose would the child have in lying?”

“She’s no child.” Instantly regretting her outburst, Cate drew a calming breath, and began again. “Miss Fran, I beg—”

“Why are you so willing to help her?” Nanna demanded coldly.

“I’ve been worried for her, as should any person with any sensibilities.”

The rebuke wasn’t lost on Nanna, who sputtered in indignation.

With considerable effort, Cate collected herself, and ventured toward her. “You must tell me what your feelings are regarding Prudence’s impending marriage. Please, be honest. Look past what may or may not have happened, if you possibly can, look to the child’s future, and tell me what you think.”

Cate held her breath. If Nanna agreed, something could be done for Prudence, if not…it could be a long walk to the awaiting longboat, and there would be no living with Nathan.

Like most domestics, Nanna wasn’t accustomed to being asked her opinion. That shock gave way to indecision, her lips pursing into a tight bow shape.

“Trust her, woman,” Sally hissed from the window. “She’s only trying to do what’s right for your girl.”

Nanna’s features compressed tighter, to the point of resembling a small black teapot set to explode.

“I think it’s reprehensible the way Master Collingwood has shipped that glorious child away to marry a total stranger, knowing nothing of his family or character, and without so much as a by-your-leave,” Nanna finally burst out.

Cate expelled a rush of relief. “Then we must help her. I’m not sure either,” she said to their questioning stares. “But we have to think of something, and quickly. Please, can you take me to her?”

The journey through the halls and down the stairs gave Cate time to formulate a plan, and then count the near-dozen holes that perforated it. Prudence stood as the next obstacle. Up until a few moments ago, it had been a struggle to imagine why the girl would object, but now, what she would do was anyone’s guess. The last and biggest obstruction was Lady Bart, grande dame and dowager mistress of the island. If she chose to go along with Cate’s plan, her word would rule. If she chose not…

Cate found herself wondering what the garrison’s cells would be like, since they promised to be home for her remaining days.

She swallowed down a bilious lump, only to have it rise again. Coherent thought came with difficulty, her mind being so filled with images of Nathan’s fingers entwined in Prudence’s glossy curls, and his hands on that milky bosom.

I never took a woman unwilling in me life.

Charm her, she had begged him. She had felt the power of those eyes and that smile, inadvertent as it might have been on his part. She could barely imagine the affect of those charms when he meant it.

He wouldn’t do it!

She clung to that thought like a talisman, while riding a downward spiral of doubt. She had lived elbow to elbow with him for nearly two months. Nathan was no predator. He was no knight in shining armor, but neither was he a goatish, rapacious brute. There was no denying that he was the king of deception, but he wasn’t that good, not on that count.

Prudence was the greater puzzle. She had been on the verge of tears at the prospect of leaving the Morganse. A girl who had been violated wouldn’t offer to tell everyone of Nathan’s kindness. It defied all reason that the girl could manage that in the aftermath of something so horrific.

Damn you! she thought, without really knowing who it was meant for.

At the bottom of the stairs, Cate was surprised when Sally veered in the opposite direction of the salon, and instead led them down the hallway to another room. It was somewhat smaller than the salon. The tall windows and rows of shelves that lined the walls suggested it had once been the library or a man’s study. It had been emasculated, however, with layers of frill and flower. Legions of porcelain figurines and framed silhouettes had replaced the books on the shelves. Delicate-legged velvet and crewel-worked chairs looked to be on their tiptoes on the floral-patterned carpets and polished mahogany floor. Satin and lace pillows dotted chairs and settees.

Prudence and Lady Bart sat on either side of a lamp when the small parade of women entered. Prudence was quick to rise. Freshly frocked, her hair neatly arranged underneath a pert cap, its lappets drawn under her chin, she looked considerably refreshed from the last time Cate had seen her.

“Cate, I’m so pleased to see you.” Prudence lunged forward to hug Cate, but then stiffened and backed away, muttering to the floor, “Whatever are you doing here?”

“I came to help you.” As Cate looked at the down-turned head, she saw something about the small shoulders she hadn’t expected to see: guilt. Then she realized what she had never seen: shock, nor anything near it.

If Prudence had been brutalized as she claimed, then where had been the shock or the trauma? The attacker might well have hidden it—Nathan was indeed the master of deception—but the victim, especially one as young and naïve as her, could not. She had seen the aftereffects of such an attack: the incessant sobbing and shaking, or the dazed, stuporous look, or the wild vacillation between them. Where had been the torn shift or petticoats, the stains from struggling on the ground, or even tousled hair? A woman violated—no matter the age—would not be the picture of well-being, bright-eyed and pink-cheeked, the next day.

Cate eyed Prudence with new suspicion and grudging respect—or was that contempt?—for the child was far more diabolical than previously credited.

“I should have thought the time for help would have been on the ship,” Lady Bart said harshly from her chair. “There’s blessed little to be done for the girl, now. I was shocked to learn you were on that ship with her…and all those…men. Shocking! I should have hoped common decency would have compelled you to do…something.”

“There was nothing to do, because there was nothing done, was there? Prudence,” Cate said, swiveling back around, “What did you tell everyone?”

Prudence tried to pull away, but Cate held her firmly by the arm.

“Just the truth,” the girl whimpered, the picture of virtue shamed. “What Captain Blackthorne did…one night…near the waterfalls…”

Tears dotting her lashes—How did she manage to orchestrate that?—Prudence turned beseechingly to Nanna and Lady Bart.

“But, he…he drug me away, into the dark and he…”

Oh, she was good! She was so very, very good!

Prudence extended her arm—appropriately trembling— and tipped her chin to display several bruises. “I fought, but he forced me.”

Cate was almost sick with relief. The girl might have been violated, but there had been no violence. The incriminating bruises on her arms were from the ordeal of Harte and his men trying to get her off the Morganse. Those on her chin were by Cate’s own hand. It meant everyone was to believe Nathan had spirited Prudence away—quietly, for the girl had slept but a few yards from Cate—and then led her through the jungle, at night, for over an hour’s walk, in order to ravish her by a waterfall?

The girl had been on a beach with over 300 men, and yet she had chosen Nathan to target in her hoax, because it was what everyone expected to hear.

The cunning behind that virtuous façade was stunning.

“That’s not true and you know it, you stupid, silly fool. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

A perfectly timed pearl of a tear slid down the china-doll cheek and her lower lip quivered.

“I only thought…” Prudence whimpered.

The bilious lump rose once more in Cate’s throat. “No, that’s just it, Prudence, you didn’t think at all. Do you have any idea of the consequences of this?”

Prudence looked to the floor once more, her hands twisting at her middle. Nanna had sidled protectively closer. Sally stood teetering between who to believe.

“I was so afraid.” Prudence’s voice pinched to a small squeak, and she reached out a tremulous hand. “I didn’t wish for you to be upset.”

“Upset doesn’t begin to describe it.” To Cate’s pleasure, Prudence flinched at the bite of her tone. “Lord Creswicke is not a man to be trifled with. He’s dangerous and you’re playing childish games with Nathan’s life. This will give Creswicke the grounds to have Nathan hung, or worse.”

And yes, where Creswicke was concerned, there were most certainly things worse than a quick death.

A number of unkind thoughts and words bubbled up, many which would have made Nathan proud and her mother blench.

“But he took me—” Prudence went on determinedly.

“Stop it!” Cate cringed at her volume. She lowered her voice to quaking growl. “I don’t need to see any more of your crying, nor your theatrics.”

“He’s only a pirate!” Prudence burst out.

Rage surged, blinding Cate to everything except the cornflower-eyed face before her. Cate drew back her hand and slapped Prudence. She heard the crack!, then Prudence’s squeal, and then saw her tumble backward, patent leather slippers and petticoats to the air.

“You little selfish bitch,” Cate hissed.

Lady Bart gasped, scandalized. Nanna and Sally rushed to help Prudence up from the floor. Once righted, hat askew and hair straggling, Prudence rubbed the offended cheek, now brilliant. Her accusing look was accompanied with a perfectly rounded, pouting lip.

“How dare you!” Nanna cried, rounding on Cate.

“How dare you!” Cate retorted down at the diminutive nursemaid. “How dare you raise…”

“You have no right! You’re nothing but a—!”

“—a child who doesn’t lie just to save—!”

“I’m sorry!” Prudence shrieked. She fell against Cate and wept. “I had to do something! I can’t marry Creswicke. I can’t! I was so scared. Papa said I had to leave Boston, because no one else would have me. Lord Creswicke was so far away, he wouldn’t know—”

The delicate pearl-tears dissolved into a cascade as she clung to Cate. Fighting back tears of her own—of anger or relief, she wasn’t sure—Cate put her arms around the quaking shoulders and woodenly patted her on the back.

“Prudence, please, time is of the essence—” Cate pleaded.

“There was a young man.” It was Nanna who spoke. She closed her eyes with pain of the admission. “He and Prudence…well…they did what young people do.”

“I loved him, Cate,” Prudence moaned into her shoulder. “I honestly loved him, with all my heart.”

The grey eyes going soft, Nanna lovingly stroked the back of Prudence’s head. “But the boy didn’t have the prospects or connections Master Collingwood sought. So he was sent away.”

“Papa meant to send me away, because I was ruined: no one of any position would have me.” Prudence sniffed hugely. Fumbling, Lady Bart produced a handkerchief and handed it to her.

“Then, a letter came from Lord Creswicke,” Prudence went on, after blowing her nose, her voice thickened with crying. “A business offer, I believe. Papa said it was perfect; Lord Creswicke was too far away, and had no way of knowing. So he…”

“Sold you to Creswicke,” Cate said flatly. “Damaged goods.”

Lashes quivering with tears, Prudence looked up. “I knew if I had been with a man—spoiled—no other would want me. Papa had said as much. So, I thought if Creswicke knew I had been, then he wouldn’t want me, and I wouldn’t have to marry him. So I told everyone—”

“That it was Nathan, and the doctor confirmed it.”

The sickening knot seized Cate’s gut. It was virtually her own plan, but Nathan had dissuaded her, pointing out the multitude of flaws. She regarded Nanna, wondering how much she knew. Worse yet, how long Nanna would have played along: before, or after Nathan was hung?

Cate closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, hoping the pain might wake her from this nightmare. Opening them, she instead found reality staring her in the face, and now a dull headache.

“Prudence, you silly, silly girl,” Cate groaned. “Don’t you understand anything? Lord Creswicke doesn’t give a tinker’s damn about you, or your worthiness, or anything else. He seeks connections, nothing more.”

“It’s true dear,” Lady Bart said, tight with emotion. “Your father has been a reprehensible, money-grabbing cad most of his life.”

Humored by her aunt’s blunt evaluation, Prudence stifled a nervous snicker.

“What am I to do?” Guileless in innocence, Prudence looked to the surrounding women.

Lady Bart’s eyes welled. “Marry Creswicke; there’s aught else.”

“Perhaps not.” Cate pensively chewed the inside of her mouth. “What if there had been some kind of a mistake?”

Lady Bart pivoted to ask blankly. “What kind of mistake?”

“What if,” Cate began haltingly, still playing it out in her mind, “since you had never seen your niece before, she had been able to put one over on you? What if she told you she was your niece, but wasn’t…really?”

Cate looked from one to another, hoping for them to grasp her point quickly and save precious time. She had been in the house far too long; every minute more increased the chances of herself, or worse yet, Nathan, being discovered.

Sputtering, Lady Bart slumped in her chair and threw up her in abject surrender. “Of course, she’s my niece,” she muttered, more to convince herself. Rocking in agitation, she pleated and re-pleated the fabric of her dress. “But you are Prudence, aren’t you, dear?”

“Yes, of course, Auntie.” Prudence knelt to clutch her aunt’s hand. “But Cate means to help.”

Lady Bart’s mouth took a severe downward turn. “How is it helping, when she’s trying to convince me you’re not?”

“Not convince you,” Cate explained, patiently. She angled her head toward the parlor door and the unseen world beyond. “We just need to convince all of them.”

“Convince them of what?”

“That Prudence isn’t…Prudence.”

“Then who is she?” Lady Bart asked, her distress increasing.

“A girl on the ship.” Even as Cate heard herself say it, she was struck with how desperate it sounded. The pain in her temple pounded in rhythm with her pulse. She glanced toward the window, and then the corner clock.

“That’s ridiculous,” exploded Nanna. “Everyone knows who she is.”

“You know that,” Cate said, facing Nanna, “because you were on the Capricorn. But how does anyone else know, I mean, really know? Have you ever seen a likeness of Prudence before now?” she asked of Lady Bart.

“Hardly,” Lady Bart said with an unladylike snort. “My brother would have never spent that sort of money on the child. Her mother sent me a silhouette she had made, but that was years ago.”

“Then how do you know this is really her?” Cate pressed.

“Why on earth would she lie? For heaven’s sake,” Lady Bart declared, her hands going to her face. “Will you stop being so circuitous!”

Cate turned to Prudence. “What if, while you were on the Capricorn, you made friends with a girl named Prudence Collingwood, and she had told you about the rich and powerful man she was to marry, the head of the Royal West Indies Mercantile Company? It sounded like a dream come true. Then she died, and so, you decided to take her place and no one would be the wiser.”

Prudence scowled. “But what about Nanna?”

Cate turned. “What about it, Nanna? How badly do you wish to see her married to a reprehensible man? Agree, and Prudence is free.”

The clock’s pendulum ticked off the seconds as Nanna looked first to Cate then Prudence. Her expression softened and her shoulders fell. “Tell me what’s to be done.”

Cate clasped a fist at the small victory. “Nanna should be the one to start: she used to be your niece’s nanny and will be the one to suffer a sudden sense of conscious, and reveal Prudence—this one, that is—as an impostor. Then, with a little convincing,” Cate went on, exchanging a sly smile with Prudence, “she could finally admit to not being your niece.”

“Then, who is she?”

“Does it matter?” Cate shot back. Her patience and time was running out. “Pick a name.”

The wheels of realization were beginning to turn in Lady Bart’s head, albeit slowly, too slowly. “What happened to my real niece?”

“She died. A terrible sickness took her along with this girl’s parents.”

“But the passengers on the Capricorn would know,” Nanna said haltingly.

Cate winced. This was the weakest part of her plan, and where it could all fall apart too readily. “We can only hope they have spread across the West Indies and are all very far away. And how would any of them actually know?” she said, crossing her fingers in the folds of her skirt.

Lady Bart rose. Each tick of the clock was a stabbing reminder of time passing, while she paced. Hands writhing at her stomach, she made little, indecisive puffing sounds, her tiny feet clicking on the polished floors.

“Why is she telling the truth now?” Lady Bart said. “She could still marry, if she didn’t say anything.”

“She’s had time to learn what sort Lord Creswicke is,” Cate said carefully.

“He’ll certainly write Father.” Prudence’s expression clouded as she grew to understand the implications of the plan. “He’ll think me dead.”

“And well enough,” sighed Lady Bart, bracing her head in her hand. “For what little good that man has done you over the years.”

Prudence clouded with the slow realization that the terms of her salvation: she would never see her parents again. It was the part that pained Cate the most. In saving the girl from a miserable fate, she had doomed her to the same one she had lived: losing family and home.

“And Mama?” Prudence barely squeezed out.

By then, Lady Bart, as well as everyone else, had come to the same conclusion. The matron clasped Prudence’s hands. Her chin wobbled, but conspiracy touched her eye.

“Where there is a will, there is a way. Perhaps we can have a note secretly delivered.” Eyes brimming, Lady Bart smoothed the dark, glossy curls at Prudence’s shoulder. “Where will you go, dear?”

The question hung in the air. It was another large—perhaps the largest—hole in Cate’s plan. Prudence would no longer have to marry Creswicke, but neither would she have an identity. The backs of Cate’s eyes stung. She knew the paralyzing aimlessness of having no name, no family and nowhere to go. With no beginning and no end, it was like a leaf riding a gyre of pointlessness and futility: down seemed the only direction to go.

Prudence slumped. “I don’t know,” she said in a small voice. The red-rimmed eyes turned to Cate. “Mightn’t I go with you?”

It was a painful admission—and one Cate could never share with Prudence—but she had been obliged to make a pledge to not only Nathan, but the entire crew: under no circumstances would Prudence step foot aboard again…ever!

“We can’t take her on the Morganse,” Cate said, firmly. “It would be too obvious; the entire Royal Navy would be after us by tomorrow. Besides, a pirate ship is no place for a young lady.”

“You’re living there,” Prudence said.

“I’m no young lady,” said Cate, dryly. She looked hopefully to Lady Bart. “Are there any other relatives or friends in these waters?”

Lady Bart shook her head. “There’s no one. There’s a nephew on St. Kitts, but he’s an idiot and trying as desperately as he can to gamble away every penny he has.” She hesitated. “Would you like to stay here, dear?”

Prudence’s face lit, the blue eyes rounding. “Can I?”

“How?” Nanna demanded, with a pugnacious scowl. “We just agreed she isn’t your niece.

“I’m Lady Bart Dinwoody,” she announced, grandly. “I can do whatever I please! As far as anyone is to know, I’m just a silly old widow looking for companionship. You’re welcomed to say here for as long as you wish.”

“Are you sure?” Cate asked warily.

“Well, well, look what we have here!”

All five women jumped, startled at the unexpected male voice. Spinning, they found Roger Harte standing in the doorway, pistol in one hand and sword in the other.