The Pirate Captain

CHAPTER 20: Something

Cate lay quietly in the bunk the next morning, listening to the ship awaken.

It was as many mornings: Pryce and Hodder bellowing the men from their hammocks; the smell of wood smoke and cooking—most significantly, coffee—rising from the galley; the distant growl of holystones working their way aft; and the low rumble of male conversation and laughter, subdued by the presence of their superiors, but jovial nonetheless. The ship’s momentum picked up with the shifting of the sails, the heavier daytime versions bent in place of the fly-by-nights, the song of water and rigging raising a full chord.

From the salon came the gusty slurp! of Hermione taking her morning tea, a sound so close to cloven-hoofed ecstasy as could be imagined. Millbridge’s footsteps were interrupted by a colorful burst of cursing, a boot hitting a small furry body, and the high-pitched, puppy-like squeal of a rat.

“Goddamned varmint-eater slouchin’ again!” cried the ancient voice.

One could only hope His Lordship possessed the wisdom to remain scarce.

Weighted by Nathan’s seed still heavy in her womb, Cate idly watched a gecko scurry among the beams overhead.

It had been a long time.

Cate had never considered herself to be a woman who needed a man to justify her existence, and had little understanding of those who suffered lack of purpose without one. On the other hand, it was a grand feeling to have one in her bed.

“Properly,” indeed. Just the word, uttered in Nathan’s husky graveled voice was enough to cause a warm flush and her belly to tighten.

She had been nervous, at first. Patient and gentle, Nathan had eased her out of her protective shell, across the chasm of unfamiliarity, and then coaxed her to take a leap of faith. Yes, there were pangs of guilt, whispers of betrayal to pledges made before an altar over a decade ago. It was imperative for her to move on. Nathan was an unexpected gift, literally a lifeline to a drowning soul; the Fates or Providence rarely provided such opportunities.

It had been a leap of faith into his arms. He had been there to catch her the night before, but could she count on him to be there again? Her hand drifted to the space next to her on the narrow bunk. Empty; he was already gone, his spicy sharpness lingering on the pillow, and the musk of their lovemaking his only trace.

Her afterglow spiraled quickly into the cold pit of reality, where it tangled in the muddled morass of the uncertainty of the last few weeks. There had been Nathan, the elusive and evasive; and Nathan, the teasing and mocking. Nathan, the sincere and passionate had been a fleeting phenomenon, to say the least. Which one was she to believe?

His numerous conquests being well known, she was seized by a crawling sensation that she had just become the latest in his tally book. An achievement through the oldest trick: the You’re-So-Special-I-Care-For-You-As-No-Other story. And she had fallen for it like an innocent maiden. It was easy to imagine the laughter overhead was him, exchanging smug glances and jests with the afterguard. She had been very young—15 or 16—the last time someone, a boy, wooed her with such nonsense. Seeing it then as the ruse it was, she had escaped unscathed.

Unscathed hardly described her now. Her lips were puffy and her breasts still tingled; Nathan had been very attentive there. Between her legs felt full and sensitive; he had been more than gentle, but five years had left her constricted. A flush of heat spread through those same softest tissues again at the thought of him in the candlelight, hovering over her, so dark and seductive.

What came even easier to the imagination was that it had all been an act, a ploy—a skill at which Nathan exceeded—aimed to attain what he needed: relief from a pair of aching balls. Wild versions of strange Pirate Codes raced through her mind, the crew being obliged to wait until the Captain finishes, and lines of men now forming just outside the curtain, awaiting their turn. Bizarre, true. Ridiculous, certainly. Ludicrous, probably. But self-doubts and second thoughts were powerful demons.

Brushing a strand of hair from her face, Cate felt the cool of metal brush her cheek. She held up her hand to see her wedding ring. That and her memories were all she had of Brian. She had taken vows, given herself to one man, just as he had given himself only to her. Her subsequent chastity had been a tribute to what they had shared. Now that was shattered.

Cate rolled onto her stomach and buried her face in her hands.

“What have you done?” she groaned aloud. “Stupid. Stupid!”

She heard a sound and raised up on her elbows to find Nathan standing at the curtain, a cup and coffee pot in one hand, and a plate of orange slices and scone in the other. Something flickered across the otherwise frozen expression, too brief to be identified.

“Joy of the morning,” he chimed. He swaggered to the bed stand to set down his burdens. “I fancied you might desire a bit o' sustenance.”

An inexplicable surge of modesty caused Cate to snatch the quilt up around her. As Nathan poured coffee, she watched his hands, and reddened at the recollection of the marvels they had worked so very recently.

“I know how much you like this, first of a morning.” Nathan flashed a smile that ended far more quickly than usual. He met her gaze with difficulty as he handed her the cup.

Cate covertly watched him as she drank, wondering if he had heard her just moments ago.

Of course, he had. No secrets on a damned ship.

She thought of how appropriate a kiss might have been about then, but Nathan showed no inclination. Her most recent line of thought grew in veracity.

“There’s cinnamon in it,” she said, if for no other reason than to break the strained silence.

“I recalled you liked it,” Nathan said to the floor.

His lids hooding his eyes, it was impossible to know what was going on in that raven-colored head. It was doubtful anyone would ever be allowed that privilege. Someone so very, very special, to be sure.

“Well, on to it, then.” he declared abruptly. Pausing at the curtain, he ducked a stiff bow. “By your leave, m’lady.”

And he was gone.

She closed her eyes and dropped her head back against the bulkhead with a hollow thud.

Well, that didn't go so badly, but it certainly didn’t go well.

While she dressed, she tried not to look back at the scrambled bunk. Contrary to popular opinion—and her mother—there was a drawback in being virtuous: lack of experience, knowing how to conduct oneself after a night of surrendering said virtue. She had but one such morning as her reference, and it barely equated: it had been her wedding night. Brian had greeted her with smothering kisses and…Well, they didn’t rise until they were so sore there was nothing else to do. Ah, but that night…!

What the hell were you expecting?She fumed as she fumbled to fasten her skirt. You’re a big girl now—and damn you, don’t you dare cry!

Exasperated, she halted from struggling with the elusive ties. She drew several deep breaths, loosened her shoulders, and set to it once more.

One learns by observing a master. In her case that would be Nathan. Judging by him, blasé seemed to be the word of the day. Urbane, sophisticated, or worldly were never her strengths. The damned French do it all the time, if she was to believe what she had frequently heard.

Dammit! Face it like a man, or at least this man, and ignore it. Wipe it away, like…like…

She angrily dashed at the wetness on her cheek. The thought of looking at herself in the mirror set the sip of coffee in her stomach into a nauseous swirl. She blindly jerked the brush through her hair, twisted up the sides and shoved in the combs. Snatching up the pot and cup, she drew a deep breath and went out.

The salon was empty, Hermione’s empty dish still on the floor. Nathan had been there, as evidenced by a half-drank cup of coffee. The breakfast of oranges and scones sat untouched. Neither were there any of the tell-tale dribbles of honey from him having dipped his finger in the jar. Apparently, Nathan had no appetite. With no taste for food either, she refilled her cup.

Beatrice marked a brilliant dash of color amid the room’s walnut walls. Perched atop a spice chest on the gallery sill, she paused in her preening to regard Cate. Well aware of the irascible creature’s preference to not be crowded, Cate sat on the sill at a respectable distance. In a rustle of feathers, the parrot hopped down and crab-stepped closer, her interest focused on Cate’s cup. She held it out for Beatrice to peer over the edge. Hackles rising in protest, Beatrice sidled away.

“I could have told you, but you always require to see for yourself,” Cate said to the accusing look she was given.

Head canted somewhat, Beatrice appeared as apologetic as a bird might. Cate tentatively reached to stroke the hyacinth-colored chest. To her surprise, Beatrice allowed it.

Nathan’s footsteps passed overhead. Through the open skylight came the sound of his good-natured railing with the afterguard.

Insufferable man!

“Hang the bastard,” Beatrice croaked with her customary clarity.

Cate smiled faintly. “Not quite what I was thinking, but a good flogging might answer.”

Shortly after, Nathan burst into the cabin. Amiably shouting back over his shoulder to someone outside, he came only so far as the desk near the doors. There he rummaged through several drawers, grunting in satisfaction at finding what he sought. With a curt nod in Cate’s general direction, he left.

“Although a hanging might answer to put one of us out of our misery,” Cate said in consideration as his voice faded down the deck.

“Plague and perish the maggot,” said Beatrice.

“Have a care. You’re beginning to sound like him.”

Cate’s humiliation bloomed in the wake of Nathan’s most recent performance, the horror of her predicament multiplying to near-paralyzing proportions. She was stuck: no escape, no options, and no reprieve in sight, a captive audience to Nathan’s gloating, and gloat he certainly would. It brought her to seriously question her judgment and the long list of assumptions she had made—and yes, they were clearly assumptions, now in the glare of day.

“Where were you last night when I needed you?” she said accusingly to the sun.

There was no surprise. This was Nathan; no more need be said. Home had just turned into a floating hell.

Cate looked with longing out the windows at the ship’s wake, its V-shape stretching into infinity, and wondered where Thomas might be.

Not much later, Nathan reappeared, stern and mute. Cate was on the sill, now feeding Beatrice bits of orange from breakfast. Stopping at the table, Nathan kept his attention fixed on the cup as he filled, and then took a drink. Setting it down, his gaze drifted her way and darted back. Shortly, his eyes crept back, and for the next few minutes, she and Nathan played a silent game of eye tag: looking and dodging away, the silence punctuated by a random cough or clearing of the throat.

He can’t even bring himself to look at me. Is this the what-have-I-done phase?

There was the chance that he despised her now. As always, the man was lauded for his prowess, while the woman was scorned for failing to be virtuous. A more rational voice pointed out that the picture of Nathan she pieced together in those few glimpses was other than expected. He lacked the much-dreaded vaunt, the braggadocio of the conqueror. If anything, Nathan was quite the opposite: reserved. She considered rearranging her countenance into something more benign, but dismissed it directly. Her edges were beginning to fray. He was a considerably better actor than she, and her resolve was withering quickly.

From the corner of her eye, Cate saw Nathan square his shoulders and assume an overt casualness as he came toward her. She fixed her attention on the sill, wondering if she should flutter her lashes or throw the plate. His boots scuffed to a stop and two luminous eyes came around into her view.

“Silence can be a deafening thing, don’t you think?” Nathan smiled, thin-lipped and brief. “Somebody should say something, or we’ll be obliged to start passing notes.”

He shifted and cleared his throat several times. Beatrice’s “Thrice-damned princock,” startled him, apparently not having noticed her prior.

“Must she be here?” he asked.

“I’d say she has a reasonable grasp of the situation,” Cate said, jerking her hand back to avoid a truculent clap of a beak.

Nathan narrowed an eye, willing the creature to leave. Parrots could be quite stubborn. True to her heritage, Beatrice cocked her head in acute birdish angles to peer at him.

Opting to ignore Beatrice, Nathan tucked his hands into his belts, his arms working triumphantly at his sides. “Open and honest, that’s me motto.”

Cate nearly choked. Caught so off-guard, she lost every thought—that, quite possibly, his purpose.

Something was on Nathan's mind, however, obvious in the furrowing of his brow and severe erosion of his customary amiability. His mouth worked under his mustache, struggling with some inner debate. He frowned and shook his head as he dismissed one unsatisfactory thought after another. He prepared to speak, then grimaced, changing his mind. After several more false starts, he clenched a fist and closed his eyes, looking much like a man commending himself to a firing squad.

“I require to know if…if…what we…when we…?” He gritted his teeth and forged on. “Pray tell if it was to be the once or…or no,” he finally burst out.

Nathan inhaled sharply, as if to suck it back in. Failing, he gathered pressed on. “’Tis not beyond me comprehension, if you were to invite me to your bed, just for the use of me.”

He assumed an off-handedness—as false as ever witnessed—as he began to pace before her. “God knows, I’ve been in much the same sorts meself. More than once—oh, very well, many a time—I’ve felt the dire need of someone warm, only for the sake of the having.”

“So if, as you say, it’s been a long time—a very long time.” His eyes rounded, mystified yet by the extent of her celibacy, “I would be more than sympathetic of you wishing—needing—to have…a source of said warmth, so to speak, long enough, at any rate, to render the necessity no longer necessary.”

Nathan's parody of affecting inconsequence might have been successful had it not been for the pained wince and a white-knuckled grasp on the butt of his pistol. There was another nagging contradiction: he had shaved. Even in the dim of the sleeping quarters, she had noticed his brightly gleaming cheeks. He had gone to the effort of making himself presentable.

“Pray tell, how many men do you fancy I’ve been with?” Cate asked, rising to her feet.

Nathan faltered and smiled tenuously. “You desire a number?” he asked, clearly hoping Cate would say “no.”

She crossed her arms. “If you please.”

Nathan winced at what he obviously had not wanted to hear. He looked to the ceiling and floor, as if the answer might make itself known. She knew she had put him in a no-win situation, for there was no good answer, and yet there was great joy in watching him squirm.

Fingers flickering, his mouth worked. “Maybe?”

“One.”

“One?” came out in a strangled wheeze, his mouth failing to close.

“If all I was looking for was a warm bed, I could have found that long ago.” The backs of her eyes began to sting. “I saved myself for one man, and when he was gone, I saved myself again, only to discover that I’m no more than…than one more on a long list of conquests.”

Head bent, Nathan turned and took several pensive steps. Spinning around, he came back at her, stabbing an accusing finger at her. “So then, just what, exactly, were—I mean, are—you looking for?”

“I thought we were both looking for the same thing.”

“As did I!” He stalked the room with a flurry of hands. “Until I heard you in there beating yourself in the head for it, fool that I was. But don’t mind what I say: I’m known to be a little balmy! Balmy Nathan, that’s me, and getting balmier by the minute!”

“So, fill me full of lies, get me in bed, and then plead insanity? What’s next, Captain, throw me to the crew?”

Nathan stormed toward her, driving her back several steps. His eyes narrowed menacingly. “Mayhap you shan’t be so fortunate. I fancy keeping you here, torture you with me presence.”

Cate choked back a number of retorts. She turned her back as the tears of self-loathing began to well.

“I can’t believe I was so stupid, and so gullible!” She dropped her forehead in her hand with a soft smacking sound. “A few sweet words and I melt like a maid.”

“Go ahead, beat yourself in the head some more! You seem so much the better for it!”

“It must have been a bare challenge: tell her what you think she wants to hear and she’ll melt.”

“I thought you did want to hear it.”

“Fool that I was, I couldn’t wait to hear it from you.” Closing her eyes, she tipped her head back. “I wanted you so badly, for so long.”

“No longer than I, dear woman. No longer than I.”

“Lickspittle,” called Beatrice.

“Stow it!” they cried together.

From opposite ends of the gallery, their parallel soliloquies stopped abruptly. Cate looked to Nathan for affirmation that he had actually said what she thought she had heard, but found only the same look on him.

Cate sagged against the sill, propping her head in her hand. “Nathan, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…I mean it wasn’t…I thought last night was because you were bored or…something. Never once had you given the slightest hint you were even remotely interested.”

“Never once?” he echoed, gaping. “Suffering Jesus, I made every overture known to answer on seven continents. Seems me efforts were wasted then,” he sighed, ruefully. “Then what the bloody hell is all this huffing about…about?”

“This morning, you were so…so…gone,” she finished lamely. Her arm dropped limp at her side. “I thought you were done with me.”

Nathan sidled closer. “Pirate, eh? Naught more to be expected from such a blackguardly dog.”

There was no recrimination in his voice, but his barb was deadly accurate. Nothing hurts more than the truth, especially when it’s used against you.

“You said you didn’t wish just once,” she pleaded, looking up. “You said…I mean, I thought…? Didn’t you say…?”

Nathan cocked his head interestedly. “You claim there were negotiations, a parlay?”

Cate closed one eye, trying to recall. “That could be a word, I suppose.”

“And pursuant to said parlay, there was an accord?” he queried, sliding nearer.

“It could be said.” Suddenly she wished she had paid far more attention to the finer rules of piracy recited her first day aboard.

“I see.” Nathan's jaw twisted sideways in thought as he came nearer. “A pirate is either bound by his word, or be seen as a swivel-tongued mountebank. In consideration of said parlay, might you enlighten me as to what exactly were the terms to which I agreed?”

He batted his lashes at the end, the charmer!

“You said ‘treasure’ and ‘cherish.’ That’s what you said.”

Her breath caught as he stalked her, his eyes, dark and avid.

“Only a base-souled dog would fail to comply,” he said.

“You said more than once,” Cate repeated with as much conviction as could be managed. Damn him, he was doing it again, rendering her as palpating and breathless as that aforementioned maid. “I distinctly remember.”

“Then I must keep my word, or lose me honor as a pirate.” A finger tracked up her arm, pausing to brush the delicate skin at the inside of her elbow as he asked, “Two?”

“That’s more than once.” Things were moving much faster than she was prepared for. Hoping to slow things down, she fell back a step, only to come up short against Merdering Mary.

“Twenty?” Nathan was next to her now, close enough to feel the heat of his body radiating. His breath blew across her neck and she shivered.

“It’s…that’s…more than once.”

An arm slipped around her waist. His hips pressing insinuatingly against hers, as he said, “I imagine, then, I shall be obliged to defer to your meticulous expertise to keep an exact record of how many more than once is managed.”

“An exact count,” she said with effort, those same enchanting fingers now following the curve of her ear.

“Lovely,” Nathan purred against her neck. “And exactly where, then, are we?”

“One.”



###



The night before, they had been tentative, shadowed by doubts and fears, afraid to disappoint and of what might be discovered. Now, they rushed in eager anticipation of what was to come. Nathan undressed in snatching motions. Leaving a trail of boots and accoutrements across the floor, he bore Cate, stumbling out of her skirt, back through the curtain. In his haste, he abandoned shedding his clothing in favor of ridding Cate of hers, his fingers scrabbling at her laces. With an impatient grunt, he jerked the shift’s ribbon and lifted her to take her breast in his mouth. In one more final surge, he swept her onto the bunk. She giggled in delight as he came down on top of her.

Hungrily devouring her mouth with his, Nathan paused long enough to blindly fling aside his breeches. Weeks of pent-up frustration and desire manifested as they tore at each other, demanding restitution for their mutual anguish.

They briefly retraced paths explored before. Beguiling fingers sought again her most sensitive places, preparing and opening. He came up hard and quick, a silky stiffness to her touch, writhing and cursing through clenched teeth. He rose over her as she opened to him, stroking and guiding him to her slippery cleft.

“I’m sorry, I…I can’t be gentle,” he gasped and plunged to the root.

Nathan clutched her close, his body straining and taut. A quick move of her hips gave him the permission he sought. Bracing a hand at the small of his back, she helped him set his motion, riding each thrust, absorbing the shock with her own need.

Two. Three. Four…

His breath became more ragged. Each drive was felt all the way to her womb. She buried her mouth in the hard cords of his shoulder to stifle her cries. He sought to pull away just before his release, but she held him as he shuddered, her flesh stroking him to his end.



###



Nathan reclined on the bunk with his eyes closed, a sheen of moisture glistening on the bridge of his nose. His hand resting on Cate’s back, he contentedly twirled a piece of her hair between his fingers. She lay with her head pillowed on his chest, toying with one of his braids. It was what she had dreamed: to lie with him, have him to herself, touching and holding.

Together.

“Why didn’t you come in last night?”

Nathan twitched at her question, but his eyes remained closed. “I did.”

Cate ran a finger down the slope of his belly and watched it ripple with gooseflesh, delighted in seeing his body respond to her. “I didn’t hear you.”

“Aye, well, I was there, nonetheless,” he said in quiet affirmation. His head stirred against the pillow. “You were sleeping.”

She rose on her elbows to better see Nathan's face. “You should have woken me.”

One eye cracked open in stern observation. Weighted by his afterglow, the lid closed again. “I tried…twice.” One hand stirred enough to partially exhibit two fingers.

“I must have been more tired than I thought.” She laid her head on his chest, the soft curls of hair tickling her cheek. “I’m sorry, Nathan. I never—”

Nathan pressed the same two fingers to her lips. One brow lifted as an eye slitted open. “Is this how we are to spend our days: apologizing?”

“But I—”

“Hist! Belay.” He bent to kiss her, and then re-settled, closing his eyes once more. “Sorrows come in legions, luv. We’ll face them another day, together.”

There was merit in what he said. Over the last weeks, words had failed them. Words had spoiled and clouded, dammed and barricaded, confused and falsely pledged. To add more would only add fuel to a fire one sought to extinguish.

“Take your shirt off; I want to see you,” she said, sitting up.

One dubious eye barely opened. “You’ve seen me before; I had it off last night.”

“I must have been distracted,” she said, peevishly, tugging at his shirttails. “I don’t remember. Take it off.”

Huffing and bearing a suffering look, Nathan sat up. When the garment finally cleared his head, he leaned back against the bulkhead. Cate tossed it aside, then arranged herself on her knees before him.

Nathan reclined before her, one leg bent. A band of daylight through the port fell across his torso. She had seen glimpses of him, moving under the fabric of his clothing when he twisted or turned. She had thought him slight when first met; he was anything but. He was solid and beautifully made, with long taut muscles drawn across an elegant frame. Even then, in his relaxed state, his shoulders and forearms were tightly corded. There was an air of quiet strength about him, cured and hardened by years of ship and sea.

She splayed her hands across his chest, sliding up and over his angular, well-set shoulders to push back the heavy fall of braids. Any part of him touched by the sun was tanned to a tawny bronze. Elsewhere, his skin was ivory, not milky but with the antiqued patina of mellowed ivory. She was familiar with the woad tattoos at his neck, ankles, and wrists, but was surprised to see that another belted his waist. Older and faded, but still bright blue against the pale skin, its design was the same, yet more simplistic. It was a warrior’s body, marked, but victorious. Life had taken its swipes and shots, and he had sidestepped them all, his spirit undiminished and indomitable. The tattoo over his heart said it all: “Freedom.”

She slid her hand sideways to a long scar. Old but still vicious, it followed the curved of his well-sprung ribs. “This one?”

“A boarding axe of Malacca,” he said in a near whisper.

She traveled a little further down. Whorls of fine dark hair led from the mat on his chest, down the long slope of his belly, to the ferocious thatch between his legs. A shorter, thicker scar lay just above the jut of his hipbone.

“Sword.” A hooked end of his mustache tucked up grimly. “Hiriam Maubrick.”

She twitched at the name. Maubrick had been Nathan’s First Mate, and one of the pair who shot Nathan and cast him adrift to die.

Cate continued her journey over his body, halting at each mark, while Nathan gave his quiet litany: sword fight in Madagascar, a slave trader’s knife in Singapore, a bullet’s graze pirating off St. Augustine, stabbed by a whore, or bitten by an enraged boar. Splinters, knives, pikes, fragments, and blades; glass, metal, fire, and bullet. The list of places was a world’s atlas: Algiers, Goa, Puerto Cabellos, Mocha, Guayaquil, Havana, Campeche. Fights, battles, beatings, tortures, and imprisonment, every variety of calamity, wreck, and ruin that could befall a body was there. Some were old and faded, virtually erased by time. Many were interlaced, one over the other, over the other. Some appeared to have healed well, while others showed the ravages of infection. One such rested on his upper left arm.

“Broken arm; fell from a tree, trying to fly. I was six,” he added as an all-encompassing explanation.

The tattoo on his forearm she knew: a swallow carrying a stabbed and bleeding heart. The swallow a mariner’s symbol for thousands of miles traversed, she had seen it often, but it was still a wonder if it had been the heart that was stabbed, or the spirit? His hooded lids precluded her inquiry; it was a confidence Nathan wasn’t willing to share. Nor did she inquire as to the squarish patch of corrupted skin over his heart, just below the “Freedom” tattoo. Thomas had told her of it, for it the scar had been by his hand, when he had cut away where Nathan had been branded.

His right hand laid palm up on his leg, the “S” brand in plain view.

“Lord Breaston Creswicke, of the Royal West Indies Mercantile Company.” Otherwise detached, that came through a set jaw.

Nathan looked to see Cate’s reaction. He had told her of how he had come to be branded, but it had been a half-truth. His eyes hardened, desiring to know how much she knew. She dropped hers to the space between them.

Everything.

The corner of his mouth tucked up, and he sighed, displeased, but resigned.

Years at sea were revealed in the tattoos of the swallows on Nathan's knuckles. The harshness of that life could be seen in his fingers, the off-angled and enlarged joints from multiple fractures and dislocations. Violence showed in the lacework of scars and the severed tips of the last two fingers of his right hand.

On the fat of his underarm was the rounded mark of a musket ball, its twin directly across, where the ball had passed through. There were two more—on his side, another on his upper leg—in which he hadn’t been so lucky: their rounded shape distorted by whatever implement had been used to dig them out. High on his right breast was another. The margins were blackened, however, the result of a weapon fired at very close range. He flinched when she touched it, not from soreness, but a sensitivity of another sort. She placed her hand lightly over it and met his gaze. Nothing further was necessary, unless he was so inclined.

He wasn’t.

Even in such a moment of intimacy, she either hadn’t sufficiently gained his confidence—or he couldn’t bring himself to speak of it.

Nathan's thighs and calves were curved and dipped with muscle. The hair there was like that on his arms: nearly as fine on his head, and not near as dense on his chest. Down the length of his left thigh ran the wickedest scar of all, thick and gnarled, cleaving deep into the muscle. She didn’t have to ask; Thomas had told her. It had nearly cost Nathan his leg.

His toes curled slightly in self-consciousness, the tip of one considerably shortened.

“Frozen rounding the Horn,” he said. “Lost part of me ear on another.” He lifted his hair to show that a goodly portion of the top curve of his ear was missing.

“And here?” she asked.

It was the first time she had dared to touch the scar at his neck. It lay in the soft notch of his neck, between his Adam’s apple and the notch. The delicate skin tortured into a thick gnarl, it was a reverse branding of sorts, the curving arcs of a rope’s twist permanently etched in the skin.

“Were you hung?” Cate bit her lip at her boldness.

The amber and cinnamon eyes held hers for the briefest bit, and then fell away. Nathan smiled grimly. “Aye, but dancing the hempen jig of a different sort.”

Nathan was hesitant, taking time to form his thoughts, deciding how much to reveal. “A cabin boy I was, as fresh and hairless as a lass. You’ll mind of me stowing away?”

She nodded. Living in Matelotage—a pirate haven and a place he loathed—driven by the death of his mother and a deep-seated hatred for the man who assumed his custody, he had left.

“Mark me, I’d made precious sure it was a merchant and not a pirate ship,” Nathan said, with a wag of a finger. “I’d seen enough of that pestilent hellhole to know what it was about. Captain Pope was known to be fair-minded; one can’t desire better than that. As for the hands, months at sea can put thoughts into a man’s head, ones what can be readily seen for anyone who cares to heed. I managed to cat-and-mouse about the ship, dodging them for the first while. I took a right hazing for clinging to the captain’s coattails. But then, he was taken with a fever.”

Thomas had told her of Nathan’s nickname, “Scupperbait.” Being so small of stature at that age, he had been easily swept away by the waves that washed the decks, leaving him stuck in the scuppers.

Nathan fell quiet, a number of thoughts tracking his features.

“They were thorough, I’ll give the bastards that,” he said in grudging admiration. “I was blindfolded, so as unable to accuse, and a rag in me mouth…”

He clamped his lip in his teeth, the muscles in his jaws flexing. “They bound me. I fought…” The hand resting on his leg curled into a fist, the knuckles going white as he shook. “God help me, I fought, but…”

His voice grew raspish, tightening with the memory, as if the rope was still about his neck. She sorely regretted having said anything. It brought back too many of her own memories. It called to mind too easily her story: the bite of the ropes, the desperation of helplessness, the struggle…

As disquieted as he was, he pressed on, as if the telling gave him ease.

“’Twas a blessing, I think” Nathan said frowning slightly. “I was fair out of it through most of it. I have no idea how many…”

The last was choked off.

She blinked back the rising shimmer of tears when she thought he wasn’t looking. “What…?” She cleared a suddenly constricted throat. “After…? I mean, what—?”

“The report to the Master was I’d tangled me foot in a sheet and tumbled down the companionway, which answered well, since I’d been thrown down it. Broke me arm in the doing,” he said, meditatively rubbing a spot just above his elbow.

“Cap’n Pope didn’t credit a word of it. A fall doesn’t leave a lad bleeding…And me neck…” Nathan left the thought to finish itself.

“Didn’t he ask…? Couldn’t you tell…?” she asked.

Nathan smiled, tolerantly. “No man before the mast betrays another. A brotherhood of silence it ’tis on the f’c’stle. I couldn’t speak for nigh on to a week, and a broken arm prevents one from writing. I couldn’t eat or drink. I just…cried. Made nothing more than little squeaking sounds like a half-drowned kitten,” he said, looking away. “Ripped breeches, a bleeding bum, and legs slick with spunk…not much to be said. He knew.”

Nathan stared off for some time. Then he shook himself, as one did to rid oneself of a bad dream.

“No charges could be made, because there was no proof, other than a lad’s word against those willing to speak for the bastards’ character,” he said. “I knew the ones what nabbed me. As for the rest—at least some—I knew by the looks after; gloating they were. And the smell of them I’d never forget,” he finished in a flood vehemence.

Her stomach clenched, as the ghosts of smells rose in her nose. The sense of smell could be the most damning. No matter how valiantly one tried, one sniff, and it all came tumbling back.

When Cate had first come aboard, she had inquired as to why there were no cabin boys aboard, a time-honored tradition at sea, as she had been given to believe. Nathan had turned away, mumbling something under his breath. Now she understood.

“By some strange coincidence, the pair what nabbed me died within hours of each other,” he said, brightening somewhat. “The ship’s chirurgeon declared it bad beef.”

The lilt in his voice suggested something more.

“You?” she asked.

He gave her a sidelong look, the light sparking on the burnt-molasses orbs. “I only said I was fresh, I didn’t say I was innocent. There are benefits to be had from living in that festering hellhole Matelotage. The chirurgeon knew, and ’tis a good chance he told the Cap’n as much. The Cap’n put a pallet on his cabin floor; like a dog sleeping at its master’s feet, but I slept sound, at any rate. Me voice hadn’t changed before, and after I sounded like…like a man old before me time.”

She wondered what the ravaged voice might have been: as soft and gentle as he, or deep and melodic, a clear tenor which might have carried from the forecastle on the night air, instead of the labored grate heard on those rare occasions when he was taken with song?

“It still bothers you, doesn’t it,” she said.

“Me throat? Aye. As for the rest?” he mused. “Ancient history, darling, the trials and travails of a lad growing up is all.”

It was spoken with the pragmatism of a mariner with regard to anything bad: since the worst obviously hadn’t happened—death—then it couldn’t have been so bad.

Nathan probed his neck, grimacing slightly, but it was unclear if it was from physical discomfort or the recollection of it all.

“Eating doesn’t come so easy,” Nathan finally admitted. “Something hot to drink, or rum helps ease the ache of a night.”

As often as Cate had seen him in drink, never had she considered the physical comforts it might be affording him from the residual aches and pains of so many years at sea.

“The Cap’n knew. Those sorts can’t help but brag, and there are no secrets on a ship,” he said with a wry twist. “Pope wasn’t one to often let the cat out of the bag, but he did so then: fifty lashes, and I the first stripe, had I wished.”

“Did you…wish?”

He made a caustic noise. “To what point and purpose? Flaying their skins wouldn’t heal mine.”

She couldn’t argue that. Nothing reversed time or undid what had been done.

What color is hope when it fades?

When the innocence of youth is dissolved by the reality of life, it is rarely gentle. The question might be whether or not it was compulsory for such lessons to be particularly brutish, or otherwise go unlearned. Earlier in his boyhood, Nathan had seen his mother beaten. Had he learned the lesson of the treachery of men then, could he have been saved from the classroom of this harsher lesson? Hindsight. Regret. Remorse. One could starve if they sought sustenance on those.

Cate touched her lips to the twisted skin in benediction for all that had happened, at the same time giving thanks that he had survived to be there now. Nathan's arm tightened around her in acknowledgement.

“S’all right, luv,” he said into her hair. His fingers brushed the back of her shoulder and the thick scar there. “Only bloody fools brag in Hell, and St. Peter shan’t pass fools through his gates.”

Coming from many, it could have come across as quite cavalier, but he bore the marks of experience to give it wisdom.

She urged him to sit up and moved around in order to see his back. Pushing his hair out of the way, she gasped.

“You’ve been flogged!”

It had once been a beautiful back, wide-shouldered and carved with muscle, tapering down to a narrow waist. The deep curving groove of his spine ran between the sculptured shoulders, the hard curve of his buttocks half-buried in the folds of the quilt. The once-smooth skin was marked with claw-like grooves of silvery-white against the antique ivory.

Nathan grimly nodded, a dark eye over his shoulder looking mildly surprised. “You recognize the marks. When I was a cabin boy; it was me first and second voyage. The handiwork of that blighter, Beecher.”

He had told her of it one day by a hot spring, and she had been shocked then. Still, knowing that he had been whipped and seeing the marks was two entirely different things.

“They flogged a cabin boy?” Cate asked in disbelief.

He looked off, squinting in calculation. “Three, no four times, all told. First was only two strokes, and then five, the second,” he rationalized then shrugged, mirth lurking around his mouth. “I was mouthy and brash.”

“The mind strains to imagine,” she mused.

“The others were…” Nathan looked off, his mouth working for a word, “indiscretions” being the one he finally landed upon.

What Nathan didn’t say Cate could see. He had been whipped as a lad, but there was a vast difference in the age of the marks. Some, the faintest and oldest, had been applied with care, light and even, meant to punish and no more. A vast number more were vivid with relative newness. Their thickness revealed the savagery with which they had been applied, their criss-crossing meant to maim and destroy, breaking the spirit if not the body. Creswicke’s hand, again.

Amid all that ruin, just below Nathan's shoulder blade, laid the divot of another musket ball. The margins blackened like the one on his chest, this one was from a smaller caliber weapon, the sort a woman might carry.

How does one go about asking if a man’s love—his precious Hattie—had been the one to shoot him in the back?

Overwhelmed by the horror of it all, she pressed her lips to the slope of his shoulder. His hand came to rest on hers, and squeezed in silent acknowledgement.

Nathan lounged against the bulkhead once again. He looked down to scrutinize himself with an odd look. “Seems to be the map of me life,” he murmured, with a mystified smile. He looked blandly at the brand and sobered. “Only a few I really mind.”

She pressed her hand over the “S,” as if somehow that simple action might erase it. “I wish I had been there for you.”

His hand closed around hers and squeezed lightly. “Nay, lass. You couldn’t have stopped it, and there was bloody little to be done after.”

“I could have helped you heal. I could have helped you…with all of those.”

Nathan clasped both of her hands between his. Holding her eyes with his, he stroked the backs with his thumbs.

“No regrets, darling. Those can cut worst than any blade. If you can’t control it, you can’t help it, and if you can’t help it, then there’s nothing to be regretting.”

Nathan angled his head toward Cate's stomach, and then her shoulder. “Wear your marks proudly. If they are to be seen, it’s because you have survived. There’s no shame in living. And if it’s to be laying on of the hands, I’d rather it be here in me bunk than on some wretched deck, with some cod-handed cove stitching me up.”

He kissed her lightly to emphasize his point. He then ran a pensive finger along her jaw, setting off trails of goose flesh up her face and down her neck. “Come to mind, I may just have something those hands could do well by, if they were so inclined.”

A warm rush flooded her cheeks and several other places. “Well, I do like to keep my hands busy.”

“Ah, a woman after me own heart,” he said with a gold-glinted grin, pulling her with him down onto the mattress.

“Why, Captain Blackthorne, I didn’t think it was your heart we were speaking of.”

He ducked his head lower, and began doing things that made her shiver. The clanging of the watch bell shattered the quiet.

“Suffering Jesus on the cross! Goddamned—!” Nathan checked himself, and shifted into another language, still swearing, for the spirit of it was still to be heard.

He braced his forehead against hers. He heaved an exasperated sigh, and then watched as she struggled to interpret the seven rings.

“’Tis nigh the end of the forenoon watch,” he said at last, putting an end to her suffering. “I’ve courses to lay and a glass to check, before I report at eight bells. They do say duty…”

“Is a heartless master,” she finished. “You’d best go. We don’t want anyone thinking we’ve been up to something.”

Nathan sat on the bunk’s edge, angling his head to admire the view as she bent to search through the pile of discarded clothing on the floor.

“They already know what we’ve been up to, darling.” Sighing, he rose and began his own search.

“I’ll never get used to that.” Handing him a sock, she pulled on her shift.

Scrutinizing the sock for a moment, he pitched it over his shoulder. He rummaged further, making a little sound of discovery at locating his breeches.

“Used to what?” he asked as he pulled them on.

“Everyone knowing everything; eyes always on you, seeing everything.”

“You get used to it,” he said through the folds of his shirt. Settling the linen on his shoulders, he worked to free his braids and scarf tails from the collar.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it,” she said.

Sitting on the bunk again, his grin was a bright flash of ivory as he pulled on a stocking. “You learn to keep up a front; never let them really see.”

She sat next to him and studied him intently. “That’s what you’ve done, isn’t it? A front, a mask?”

He sobered, his eyes searching hers.

“Aye,” he answered softly, touching her cheek. “And you, and those cursed eyes of yours, have seen through it. You’re the only one who ever really has.”

“Does that bother you?”

Nathan thoughtfully examined her face further, taking in every detail. “No,” he said softly. “No, I’m safe with you.”

She pulled her stays free of another of Nathan’s stockings and tossed it his way. He adroitly caught it one-handed.

“What do you suppose they’ll say?” she asked, struggling into her stays.

“Who?”

“The crew. You said they know what we’re doing.”

He considered while he stuffed his shirt into his waistband. “I should imagine they’ll say ‘‘‘’Tis about time,’ and settle their bets.”

“Bets!” she gaped. Her arms dropped to her sides. “Bets? They’ve been betting on when we…I mean, if we—?”

“From the day you were brought aboard, I should imagine.”

Nathan chuckled at her startled look as he pulled on a boot. “Darling, these are men who bet on whose spit kills the spider first, or which way a goat turd will roll. Betting on when I bedded you is a minor thing.”

“Well, it wasn’t minor to me! Didn’t I have any say in it?”

Stomping his foot into his boot, Nathan grinned. He came around to cup her cheek in his palm.

“Darling, you had all the say. I wouldn’t take you, until you’d have me. It was never going to be any other way, ever.”

“Why, Nathan? Why did it take so long…? I mean, before you…? Why didn’t you say…?”

He reddened and smiled, grim but tolerant. “Because you’re his, darling.”

“His?” Cate echoed stupidly. She had expected any number of excuses but that.

“You’re married,” Nathan said with the eloquent patience of one dealing with a child.

“He’s dead.” It wasn’t to be ghoulish or cold. It was but to state a simple fact.

“As you keep saying. You don’t know that.”

Cate brought his face around by the point of his beard in order to look into the coffee-colored orbs. “Yes, I do.” The thought of Brian returning was ludicrous. She bit back a rising smile, lest she wound Nathan’s already delicate pride.

“Darling, I’ve a lifetime of men declared dead—gunshot, lost at sea, fever, or sea monsters, or whatever you desire to name—and the next thing I know, they are buying me a drink. Hell, I was given up for dead meself, and yet here I am in all me charming glory.” He spread his arms in display.

To argue to the contrary would have been disingenuous, for she too knew people who mysteriously died and mysteriously reappeared. And yet, on Brian’s death she was firm: she had woken screaming the night it had came to pass, had felt the stab in her heart and had awakened the next morning with a part of her gone. For Nathan’s part, she couldn’t argue either. She had heard many and widely-varied versions of him being cursed, blessed, resurrected by the hand of some sea goddess, even allusions to immortality.

“I thought it was because I reminded you of…her.” She said, looking away. It was her strong belief that there should be only two in a bed—or bedchamber, as it were—at a time. But so long as it had been opened to three, it might as well be four.

“Her?” Now he was the one to sound stupid.

She willed herself to meet his gaze, but failed. “Yes, her. Pryce claims you said I reminded you of…of…Hattie,” she finally squeezed out through a constricted throat.

“Did I now?” Nathan mused, a bit too innocently for her money. “Bloody awkward, that.

“God help me, I was a spineless coward,” he said on a sudden surge of self-loathing. “I was scared, mortified you’d confound and burn me for the accursed, driveling, maudlin milksop I was. And when those cursed eyes of yours failed to see, well…I knew it had to be because they didn’t desire to.”

“You always looked like it was torture to be in the same room—”

“And it was,” he said with hearty conviction. “To have you right there…” Nathan's hand raised to her shoulder and hovered. “To have you so near, to hear your voice and smell you, and not be able to…” His clamped his lower lip between his teeth, eyes clouding and filling with anguish.

“And then, there was the fear if I was to say something, you’d jump. You damned near did, twice, nay…three times,” he added to her dubious look.

Nathan had made mention of that same worry before, although for the life of her, she couldn’t fathom what or when he was referring. Still, whatever the fabrications, they were real to him.

The poor man and the tortures he had suffered, so much like her own.

“Misery enjoys company, it would seem,” she said.

“And ’tis no finer company in which one could wish to suffer.”

Nathan's eyes softened to the color of warm molasses. He touched his lips lightly to Cate's forehead as a parting and swaggered to the door.

“By the by,” he said, pausing there. “Shall you be desiring to know who won?”

A hurtled shoe, harmlessly hitting him in the shoulder, was his only answer.