The Pirate Captain

CHAPTER 9: Paths Cross

They waited. The moon made a steady path, its shadows tracking an arc across the sand, and they waited. Cate paced, Pryce close behind, determined she was not to be out of his sight, and they waited. Several times she tried to persuade him to go find Nathan, but the First Mate was staunch in his determination to obey orders.

She grumbled loudly about men and their silly rules. She stalked the beach, kicking away her skirts, with the sounds of Nathan fighting the guards echoing in her head. She couldn’t rid herself of the vision of him lying in a pool of blood. She cursed men in general. Then she cursed men who insisted on being noble and trying to save others who could—if given enough time—have managed their escape on their own.

The prick of a pin in her ribs broke Cate’s thoughts. The half-hanging stomacher was yanked free and pitched, pins and all, into the darkness. She wished a moment’s privacy to rid herself of the underskirts and attend a more pressing matter brought on by copious amounts of wine. She veered toward the bushes. A glaring Pryce blocked her within a few steps, arms crossed and as imposing as Goliath.

“’N what be in yer head?”

“I need to…umm…” Cate made a vague gesture, and then gathered her poise. “I desire a bit of privacy which cannot be denied.”

She realized too late that Pryce suspected her of sneaking off, which she would have, had she thought of it.

“Yer word on it?”

Pryce saw her hesitation and the complete side of his mouth tucked up grimly. He put out a hand to his side with the authority of one accustomed to having subordinates always near, and said, “A length, if ye please.”

The rope was brought. Pryce knelt at her feet and looked up expectantly. Cate lifted her hem and watched with a sinking heart as he secured the rope around her ankle with one of those insufferable knots that she had never mastered and had no hope of undoing.

“I’m not a ruddy dog,” she said to the top of his head.

“Fair enough, ’cuz the Cap’n wouldn’t give a rat’s ass, if ’twas nay but that,” he said without looking up.

Cate pushed through the bushes, now mindful of not tangling the rope. When she was reeled back in, a pair of underpetticoats were strung on the tether, blazing bright in the darkness. As fearsome as the First Mate of the famed Ciara Morganse was, it was a wonder at how readily Pryce was discommoded by a few women’s underthings.

“You left me little choice,” she said evenly.

Her regained freedom was limited. Her pacing path was confined to short passes, Pryce never more than a stride or two away. At length, he blocked her path and sternly pointed to the sand at the base of a tree. She sat, reluctantly but without protest. He plopped down next to her, drew his knife from his back and set stropping it on his boot.

“Pryce, what is it between Nathan and Harte?”

Intent on his task, the destroyed mouth drew up into what might have been meant as a smile , not wholly surprised by the question.

“Ah, now there be a history, but ’tis likely a matter the Cap’n should be a-tellin’. ’Tis not my place to be a-sayin’. Can’t say as I’m familiar with all the particulars.”

“Ezekiel Pryce, you know more particulars than any man on this ship, including quite possibly Nathan himself. Pryce, please? I need to know. Otherwise, I’m left thinking I’m the cause of what’s between them.”

It was a categorical overstatement—she didn’t flatter herself that much—but it was her best ploy. Pryce snorted, whether in disbelief or at the outlandishness of her assumption being unclear. With a bit more prodding, he gave way.

“Not so sure as t’ how it all come to pass. ’Twas afore I was with ’im. It’s my notion the Cap’n was captured early on. Harte had ’im in the brig, a-headin’ for Fort Charles, when somehow or another the Cap’n contrived to escape. Blew the ship’s magazine, and then waved g’bye as he floated away on a hatch grate. Aye, he’s managed to escape the Commodore’s clutches three, mebbe four times.”

Pryce fell into a considering quiet. Cate tried not to stare at the damaged face, but it was blessedly difficult with it squarely before her.

“Harte chased the Cap’n through a storm the likes of which no man worth his three squares woulda dared. Led the entire Royal Fleet square into a royal disaster. They lost three ships, with a Butcher’s Bill longer than could be counted. Meanwhile, the Cap’n was a-ridin’ out the storm in Tortuga, with a bottle o’ rum and a whore on each hip…beggin’ yer pardon, sir,” Pryce added hastily, swiping his hand across his mouth.

“I seen fer my own eyes, when the Cap’n delivered six street whores to the Commodore’s big birthday doin’s, promisin’ a hundred pieces of gold to the first one what could bring ’im off, beggin’ yer pardon again, sir,” he hastened to add again. Even in the poor light, a dark flush could be seen rising from his collar.

“There was the Commodore with his breeches undone and all his glory right for all to see, all six applyin’ every trick they knew!” he said, laughter fizzing through the exposed and broken teeth.

“I can tell ye plain—bore a hand, I did—in causin’ for a hogshead to be delivered to the Commodore’s ship. Just as it swung over, the thing busted open…” Pryce’s shoulders shook, tears of mirth welling in his eyes. “The Cap’n must o’ looked like Saint Patrick o’ the West Indies collectin’ up them snakes. They spilt out on deck…men runnin’ and screamin’, clambering up the mast and jumpin’ ship whether they could swim or no.”

The mirth overtook him. It took several minutes for him to recover sufficiently to continue. “A little piece o’ paper floated down congratulatin’ the Commodore on his genius on riddin’ the ship o’ rats, signed by the Cap’n.”

He paused to check the knife’s edge with his thumb, and then resumed honing.

“I’ll tell ye plain, to my way o’ thinkin,’” he began over the rasp of metal against leather. “The bitter end was when the Cap’n got the Commodore so arsey-farsey, he was a’firin’ on his own ships—sunk one, in the doin’—a-seekin’ to protect a town. Whilst the Commodore and his men were all a-roil, we slipped in, cleaned it out as easy as kiss yer hand, and then cut out the Commodore’s barge.”

“So, Harte blames Nathan for his setbacks?”

Pryce stopped to regard her through a squinted eye. “Ambition is a merciless master and, as black’s the white o’ my eye, Harte is its slave. The Cap’n has managed to break many a rung off Harte’s ladder to success. The good Commodore wuz set on bein’ Admiral-on-High by now, if it weren’t for Cap’n Nathanael Blackthorne.”

“That explains several things,” Cate murmured more to herself. Old rivalries and jealousies were a volatile mix. It went a long way to explain Nathan’s sudden touchiness.

“Could be part o’ the reason how Harte and Creswicke come to be so tight,” he said, looking off across the water. Lamps doused, the Morganse sat like a serene dark mistress awaiting the return of her lover.

“Mutual enemy?”

“In a manner o’ speakin’. Could be the Fates wuz a-bringin’ them together anyways, and the Cap’n just the happy convenience.”

Pryce checked the blade once more, and then experimentally scraped a patch of the several-day stubble on his cheek. Satisfied, he slipped the knife back into its place.

“Or, he’s managed to make two very devoted enemies,” she said, considering.

“Aye.” He grinned, rubbing the back of his neck. “There be that too. The Cap’n sure and certain has a way about ’im, in that regard.”

It put the kidnapping of Creswicke’s fiancée into a new light, going well beyond lust for money or adventure.

“And then I came along, right in the middle of it,” Cate sighed.

“Y’ll give me leave to say, sir, ’tis nothing on yer account. It coulda been that blessed bird over there,” he said, gesturing toward Beatrice roosted in a nearby tree, luminescent in the starlight, “and they’d go hammer and tongs at each other just the same.”

The moon was past its zenith, dipping behind the treetops at the far side of the bay, when she implored Pryce one more time.

Pryce the Amiable disappeared; Pryce the Bullish returned. “If’n he could have been here by now, he woulda.”

Pryce’s failure to argue further she took as a positive. She shied from the nagging image of Nathan lying in the bushes, injured and helpless.

Pryce glanced toward the eastern sky and a low-hanging Venus. “’Twill be light in a bit.”

“Then, we're going?” Her hopes skyrocketed as she lurched to her feet.

“We’re goin’. Yer stayin,’” he said, rising.

“No, I'm not!” Teeth clenched, her breath came quicker. She tried to hold the fierce pose. Exhaustion and worry weakened her defiance and she wavered. Face crumbling, her chin began to quiver.

“I beg, Pryce. Please. I can’t just wait and wonder. Besides, you need me to show you where I saw him last.”

“Oh, very well. But ye’d best not get hurt! And if ye do, jest keep goin’, becuz we won’t be able to bear ye a hand when the Cap’n goes after ye!”

He had to shout at the finish, because she was already far down the beach.



###



“It’s not a lot,” Pryce said, looking down at the glistening blood, kept wet by the night’s damp. A disquieting number of footprints converged on the churned spot of dirt.

“It’s enough,” Cate countered tartly.

“If’n we’d come sooner, he’d still be gone,” Pryce said with maddening evenness, divining her thoughts once again.

Cate led the small party of Morgansers to Lady Bart’s and where she had last seen Nathan. An internal clock had ticked since she heard him fall. Had he escaped unharmed, he would have met them on the beach. That failing, her best hope was that he was alive and being held. Harte’s “gnat squashed” comment haunted her. It hadn’t been uttered lightly. On the contrary, there had been great intent in those reptilian eyes.

Unbeknownst to her—damn his eyes!—Pryce had dispatched men to check the town, goal, thieves’ hole and garrison. They had returned to the shore with the pink of dawn breaking on their shoulders and empty-handed. It meant Nathan had been taken somewhere else, somewhere that deeds far too heinous to be witnessed could be carried out.

But where?

The garden was heavily trampled. With no clear tracks to follow, there was no way of knowing. Cate tried to take it as an encouraging sign that there was no blood trail, but a thin reassurance it was.

Cate chewed the inside of her mouth. The task of searching each and every one of the plantation’s buildings loomed larger, and the clock was still ticking.

“Hoy, lookit!”

All heads turned to follow Squidge’s point to a nearby tree.

“It’s just Beatrice,” Towers grumbled, waving a dismissive hand.

Beatrice’s head bobbed, markedly agitated. Arching her wings, she squawked, several of the men wincing at her shrillness in the morning’s quiet.

“Cap’n, ahoy!”

They looked to each other, at the parrot, and back.

“Cap’n, ahoy!”

Pryce approached the bird with a narrowed eye. “C’mon, speak up, ya useless pile o’ feathers, or I’ll be a-feedin’ yer carcass to the crows.”

Beatrice rose with a shriek and soared low through the trees, bright against the sky’s pale. Circling back, amid several obscenities, she repeated her cry, and set off. Exchanging puzzled looks, the people shrugged and followed.

The marauding pirates traversed the plantation with shocking ease. Lady Bart’s showed all the signs of having once been a grand place, but it gone to recent ruin. The distant barking of dogs, startled chicken protests, and curious bleats of goats marked their progress, but with no shouts of alarm. Still, with a Commodore and Marines about, extreme caution was required.

Beatrice was their only hope, and a shining one she was. Several times she circled back, seemingly to round them up and hurry them along, repeating her message and coarse remarks. At last, she settled on the rooftree of a squat building. Barrel hoops, wagon wheel rims, anvils, and water vats marked it as the estate’s blacksmith. The Morgansers crouched behind the crumbling stone walls of an abandoned byre. If there any further doubts as to Beatrice’s credibility, the scarlet of two Marines posted at the barn’s double doors was confirmation enough: such security wouldn’t have been necessary if inside was only iron and bellows.

“Smitty woulda been a-workin’ by this time o’ day,” Pryce observed, eyeing the bare wisp of smoke curling from the chimney, a forge yet to be stoked.

“Why the blacksmith?” asked Smalley.

Cate answered before she thought. “Shackles and chains.”

A bitter bile rose. In cold evaluation, the smithy was a wise choice: close enough to the house for convenience, and yet removed enough for privacy.

A low growl emitted from the others.

“Bastard.”

Cate couldn’t disagree with Chin’s assessment.

“Belay, ye bunch o' cod-headed swabs! Wasted hate is wasted energy. Let’s be sure o’ what’s afoot here.” Pryce’s calm was betrayed by his knuckles, white on the hilt of his sword.

So much now made sense. Cate’s suspicions had been correct, but there was little satisfaction to be gleaned. Ambition had its price; someone as advanced in rank as Harte, at his young age, had to be consumed by it. His hunger, however, was not yet sated. Arresting someone as renown as Nathanael Blackthorne still alive would deny him his personal justice. Bringing Nathan in “accidentally dead,” would supply Harte with both his pound of flesh and the prestige of ending the pirate’s reign of terror.

“Now what?” sighed Ogden. The snake tattooed on his head peered down with an equally puzzled look.

At that early hour, neither of the Marines struck an imposing figure: one slumped on a barrel, the other on an overturned bucket. Leaned against the barn, both were asleep, judging by the gaping mouths, oblivious to Beatrice’s boisterous proclamations from overhead.

“Pride o’ the King’s Navy,” Pryce snorted contemptuously. “You stay.” He drilled Cate with one of his most piercing looks. “The rest o’ ye’s watch her, whilst I go see what’s what.”

With a final warning glare, Pryce crept away. He made his way to the back of the barn, his path marked by glimpses of him behind a bush or abandoned cart. Quaking with anxiety, Cate contained herself until he had disappeared around the building. She broke away in a hiss of protest from those left in her wake. Following Pryce’s darting path, she caught him up. He whirled, reaching for his sword, and then gave her a withering glare. She pressed a finger to her lips, smirking at his displeasure.

The back of the building offered no access; no windows or doors, not even a loose board. They separated to investigate further. Cate discovered a crack in the weathered siding and urgently waved Pryce over. He stood while she squatted, and they put an eye to the split. They jerked back at the sight of red coats inside: five, maybe seven Marines, clustered in irregular groups. Judging by their actions, there were more out of their narrow line of sight. Pryce thumped her on the arm and pointed.

It was Nathan. He sat in the straw, slumped against a post. His arms were held high by shackles on his wrists, suspended to a beam overhead. Head lolled between his arms, his body curved in a defensive inward arc, as if expecting another blow, or God knew what else.

Fury shook her and she swore under her breath, Pryce nodding in avid agreement. She vibrated with the urge to tear away the boards, Marines be damned! Pryce’s hand on her shoulder steadied her. A silent argument ensued, a pantomime of gestures and expressions, offering and negating as to what should be done. The only thing they could agree on was to retreat, where they could argue further.

“He’s in there,” Pryce reported grimly upon their return. “Bastards ’ave him strung up like a slaughtered pig.”

“We have to get him out of there.” Cate only uttered what everyone else was thinking. Her hot rush of anger had ebbed, the cold calm of calculation settling in.

The first suggestion was an outright frontal attack; after all they were pirates, and were eager to do what they did best.

“There has to be nigh a dozen o’ them red-bellies in there, plus them what’s posted guard,” Pryce said. “We can take ’em all, well ’n’ good, but one shot and we’ll have the whole mess on us. The Cap’n appears in no condition to show a leg.”

“We need a diversion,” Cate said, more to herself. A few seconds more and she snapped her fingers. “I’ve got it.”

Their lack of confidence was obvious, but with no option at hand, a decoy was necessary.

“Just wait for the cue,” she said, with a sly smile. “I promise, you’ll know it.”

Cate crept away, leaving Pryce to grumble in protest. The men worked their way to the rear of the smithy, while Cate, wrestling with her gown, dodged among the cribs and coops, until she was directly across the yard from the blacksmith’s front doors.

Cate was poised to make her move, but stopped at hearing the rapid approach of hooves and wheels. She dove deeper into the shrubbery and peeked back to see a two-wheeled curate pass, Harte at the reins. The two Marines idling at the door snapped to attention when he pulled up, scurrying to open them for him.

Luck was with her: the doors stood open, the guards attending their commander inside.

Her hair had flung off most of its pins and tumbled free about her shoulders. She ruffled it further, and then slapped herself hard on the cheeks to redden them. Taking a deep breath, she sprung up and raced for the barn. With a siren-like scream, Cate ran, wildly flapping her arms. Skidding up before the doors, she threw her head back and gave another frenzied howl, circling and flailing in apparent hysterics.

From inside came shouts of alarm and running feet. She flew at the first Marine out the door, and screamed, pounding his chest with her fists. She ran to the next, maniacally babbling. Harte appeared, flanked by more Marines. Pitching to a new stridency, now alternating from hysterics to sobbing, she launched at Harte. He touched her arm and she jerked away to run terrorized to the next, clawing at the vermillion fabric as if for protection.

“Dear God, Catherine!” Harte exclaimed. He pulled her to him, and she arched her back to yowl squarely into his ear.

“Stop them!” Cate wailed into Harte’s coat. “Stop them! Don’t let them take me. Not again!”

“Pray, who? I beg of you?”

“Pirates!” she cried in wild-eyed shrillness, and threw a terrified look over her shoulder. “No, no, don’t let them take me. Nooo…!”

While she burrowed against him, the Marines were dispatched inside and in a defensive position around them, as if the pirates might materialize directly. Since there were no tears—she wasn’t that good of an actress—Cate kept her face deep in the crook of Roger’s shoulder as she cried, going louder at the least suggestion that he might move away.

“Commodore,” shouted one of the soldiers, running from the building’s dim. “Commodore, Blackthorne: he’s gone, sir.”

“Noo…! Nooo…!” she screeched, scrabbling frantically at Harte’s coat, the effort made worthwhile by a satisfying ripping sound. “Don’t let him have me, pleeaase! Not again!”

“Don’t just stand there,” Harte cried. “Go get him.”

The hallmark of a good soldier is calm before battle, but nothing in Harte’s training had prepared him for a hysterical woman. Perfect! The longer she could keep him off balance, the better. She thought to throw herself in front of the charging Marines, but Harte’s grasp was too firm. They had said Blackthorne was gone; that would have to be enough.

Roger stiffly patted her shoulder as he held her, with words Cate supposed were meant to be comforting. Murmuring more useless nothings, he guided her to the carriage. He leapt in beside her, a pop of the whip and the horse was off on a high trot. She kept her face hidden. Her performance had opened the floodgates, and she now swung wildly from make-believe hysteria to the real thing. The image of Nathan hanging by his arms was there at every closing of her eyes, and she began to shake with a mix of revulsion and fury at the monster that had put him there; the very one she now clung to. Growling like a rabid dog, she hammered him with her fists, one landing at his jaw, another, his ear.

Roger applied the whip to the horse.

Now at a full gallop, the carriage soon slid to a halt in a spray of gravel at Lady Bart’s doorstep. Harte eased Cate out of the carriage and bustled her into the house. The servants met them in the foyer, the entire house being thrown into an uproar. Leaning heavily on his arm, ostensibly for support, Cate dug her nails into the flesh of his wrist as she was taken upstairs. Lady Bart appeared at the top, clad in a wrapper and a cap, its flounced edge hanging ridiculously low over her nose.

In a confusion of voices, curious faces peeking from behind chamber doors, Cate was ushered down the hall to her room, where she was deposited on the bed. Red-faced at having entered a lady’s chamber, the Commodore quickly exited, leaving Cate to end her performance.

“Oh, you poor dear.” Lady Bart circled the room, clapping her hands to her cheeks. “To think, you were abducted right from our very garden, taken by that insidious, vile, disgusting creature and dragged off like some kind of an…an animal. I don’t know why Diggie refuses to do something about those perfidious, barbaric creatures! We must be rid of such disreputable criminals, right here in our very midst…”

Sally appeared and Lady Bart’s voice faded from Cate’s awareness. After a flash of dismay at Cate’s ruin, the gown a ghost of its former self, she undressed Cate in her confident manner, and snugged a wrapper about her shoulders.

“Here,” Sally said, under Lady Bart’s monologue and pressed a glass into Cate’s hand. “Drink this. It will give you ease.”

It was brandy, and a very good one. Cate’s eyes watered at the first sip touching her throat, raw from screaming. The liquor set off a pleasant glow in her stomach and she began to sag. It had been a very long night. It seemed impossible it had barely been a day since Nathan had set her off for Hopetown.

“Let’s wash you up,” said Sally, in a motherly tone as she set down a basin of hot water. Exhaustion turning her limbs to sand, Cate yielded to her competent hands, while Lady Bart rammed about the room like a ranting bee in a bottle.

Under Sally’s watchful eye, Cate finished the brandy and another was poured. At the senior maid’s silent bidding, the chambermaid intercepted Lady Bart, and crooning patiently, steered her out of the room. The door was pulled shut and blessed quiet befell the chamber.

Sally surveyed Cate critically as she sponged her arms. “Will you be well?”

“Yes, I’ll be fine,” Cate sighed, touched by her sincerity. With some effort, she raised a hand to her head. Surprised to see her hand quivering, she let it fall back to her lap. “I didn’t realize I was so tired.”

“That would be the brandy working. Drink up, and then take your rest.”

Brandy finished, Cate allowed herself to be tucked deep into the quilts. Sally moved in virtual silence across the Turkish rugs to pull the shutters closed, and then left, the latch of the door clicking faintly behind her.

Lying on her side, Cate fingered the knotted pendant at her neck, suffused with the contentment of a goal accomplished. That shining victory was tarnished, however: her plan had only gone as far as providing a distraction for Nathan’s rescue. Escape for her wasn’t an option, not yet at any rate. To do so would be to risk leading Harte and his Marines to Nathan.

She had the sudden sense of being watched. Lifting her head, she was met with a glare of intense accusation from the nameless Dunwoody ancestor on the mantel.

“What?” she huffed at the ancient face. “I’ve done what I might. Nathan’s free. The rest will just have to bide until I can think of something…something…later.”



###



Leaving the town in their wake, Pryce was caught between the need for haste and the burden of a battered and dazed Cap’n. And so they pushed on, as hasty as could be managed.

Confident any pursuit was outdistanced, Pryce called a halt in a quiet glade. With a running stream and good defenses, he figured to bide, until the Cap’n could find his legs.

Pryce wryly smiled. ’Twas a wonder how cooperative a soul could be at gunpoint, and so soon being yanked from his warm bed. Two strokes by the town’s sleepy-eyed smith, and the Cap’n was free of the shackles. A few coins smoothed ruffled feathers and bought the smithy’s silence, but such loyalty would only endure, until the arrival of someone with a larger coin, and make no mistake.

Watches posted, Pryce hunched down next to where the Cap’n laid, head pillowed on a log, and gave him a critical eyeballing.

“How bad is it?”

The Cap’n’s voice was a start, figuring him either asleep or out cold.

“If I may make so bold, I’ve seen ye worse, but more oftener I’ve seen ye a damn sight better. ’Pears they had their way with ye,” Pryce said judiciously.

“A bit,” came with effort and a sigh.

An outright blatant exaggeration on the skipper’s part, it was. It was Pryce’s notion a fair job of beating had been done. Eye swollen shut, split lip, scraped cheek, nose bleeding—not busted, just bleeding—he promised a sight by the morrow. The raw wrists told the tale: they’d taken their time. It had been a beating, but a careful one: not to maim or kill, just inflict pain, and a good deal. ’Twas a sorrow not heeding Mr. Cate’s pleas. Might be the Cap’n could have been spared considerable abuse.

The Cap’n grunted as he shifted. “Stand by and allow me to get me head clear.” In the spirit of that thought, the one eye that could open did so, squeezing shut in rapid succession. “How the bloody hell did you find me?”

“A little bird told us,” Pryce said dryly. He directed the Cap’n’s attention toward a feathery flash of blue perched overhead.

“The bugger’s been a talkative sort, lately.” The Cap’n groaned and closed his eyes.

Pryce rose and searched out a suitable leaf. Folding it into a cup, he made several trips from the stream with water for the Cap’n. The first few sips were swished and spat, the next drink drunk as if God’s milk.

“Mr. Cate gonna be near apoplexy when she sees you,” Pryce mused.

The Cap’n began a grim smile, but was checked by a split lip. Probing his face and working his jaw, he said, “Might be well-advised if I were to stand off out here for the while. You’ll be obliged to keep her shipped. Otherwise, the bloody woman will track me down. Most determined woman I’ve ever met.”

“’N no bones about it,” Pryce agreed heartily.

The Cap’n saw something that didn’t serve. “She is aboard, is she not?”

Pryce looked to the ground between his feet. Damn! Now there was what he dreaded most. Eyes like a hawk, the skipper had, able to see into a man’s soul better than a witchy-woman. Failing orders was galling enough; failing the Cap’n like some fond and feckless scrum was worse.

“She made it aboard, did she not?” the Cap’n repeated, the battered face clouding ominously.

“Well, d’ye see—”

“Where is she, Pryce?”

“Well, ’twas like this, you know how she can be—”

“Where is she?!”

“We needed a diversion, and so…”

“Where the goddamned hell is she!” Blood set to trickling from the Cap’n’s nose.

Pryce drew a deep breath. “Harte’s got her.” The Cap’n would never hit him, but he braced for the storm in the offing.

“How the…?” He blenched and rolled away to puke.

Pryce winced in sympathy. He’d suffered stove-in ribs, knew the agony what would come with each retch, and bore a hand at the finish. Alternating between gasping and swearing, the Cap’n clutched his sides, while Pryce fetched more water. Much to his relief, this time it stayed down.

“I’m glad it’s you, Pryce,” muttered the Cap’n at one point, fondling the makeshift cup. “If it were her, she’d insist on that damned honey water of hers.”

“Aye, she would, at that. Sets a great store by it, she does,” Pryce heartily agreed. “And sure as a cock’s crow, you'd be drinkin’ it, and the Devil take ye.”

“No telling her ‘no’, is there?”

“No, there ain’t. Nathan, I beg yer leave. She wouldn’t hove to. Hell, you know how she is.”

“Don’t I, though.” The Cap’n sighed, that small movement causing him to wince.

“Ribs broke?”

“Nay, just tender. Me stomach took the worst. I’ve the impression they weren’t quite done with me, yet.”

“Aye! Ye wouldn’t be a-drawin’ breath else.”

The Cap’n took on a dogged look. “I can’t leave her, mate, not with him.”

“Aye.” A blind man could have seen that coming. Getting the Cap’n to stay put whilst the rest went to fetch Mr. Cate: now that looked to call for a fair bit of doing. When the skipper set his mind, one might as well try to turn the tides.

Pryce squinted up from under his brows. “Don’t suppose you could mebbe stand off a bit, do ye? Won’t do ’er or anyone else much good, if yer laid out in the bushes somewheres.”

“Always the pragmatic.” The Cap’n grinned as much as he dared. It didn’t go unnoticed that the question went unanswered. “Might you spare a bit of that rum you hold so dear?”

“I’m speechless as to what ye be implyin!’” Pryce said, feigning ignorance.

“Buggering hell, man! You’ve toted that flask since the day you shipped. You fancy it more than you fancy a fat widow. Now, give over.”

In grudging good humor, Pryce fished the flask from his shirt and they shared, the Cap’n in careful increments. No sense in wasting it, if the Cap’n was just going to puke it. While they awaited the rum’s restorative powers, he regaled the Cap’n with Mr. Cate’s performance in front of the blacksmith’s. He laughed, clutching his sides.

“She’s one brave lass,” Pryce said admiringly. “I ain’t never seed the likes.”

Considering the tales she told and the scars she carried, the woman had endured what would have broken many a man. Instead of slinking—and not a mother’s son would blame her and she did—she looked the world square on and told it to go to hell!

“Aye, it’s a rare attribute,” the skipper said, looking off. “’Tis is likely to get her killed by and by.”

“Likely to get you killed. She’s near as crazed as you.”

The Cap’n struggled to his feet and swayed. He took several steps, as if unsure of where the ground was. Finally, he folded to his knees at the stream’s bank. He dipped a hand, like he was of two minds. Then he crumpled to the ground and rolled to land face down in the water. Grasping a rock, he floated like a corpse, the water swirling reddish-brown in his wake. In the time a normal soul would have foundered, he rolled over, hair streaming like kelp. Pryce rubbed a tired hand over his face. The man was always half fish.

Eventually, the Cap’n stood in midstream and shook off like a great dog. The blood and filth gone, he was white as a ship’s biscuit, but nearer to decent. The eye once matted shut stood open. He sat next to Pryce and put out a hand for the flask.

“What’s in yer head regardin’ her?” Pryce asked, smacking his lips in satisfaction after his own pull.

It took the Cap’n so long to reply, Pryce allowed he mightn’t.

“I’m on beam ends on this one, mate.” The Cap’n lifted a hand, then dropped it in surrender. “There’s not much I can do. She’s married.”

Pryce squinted, thinking perhaps he’d been hit in the head harder than credited. “Never caused ye to set yer sails aback afore.”

“I don’t know. Scupper and burn me, if I know why, but it does this time.”



###



Cate floated between the delicious netherworld of sleep and the harsh reality of day, knowing it necessary to leave the one, but unwilling to cope with the other. At length, she let go her desperate grasp and allowed the day to drag her up to join it in all its glory.

She had no idea of the time. The sun blocked the shutters, the room too dim to see the clock. She contemplated the benefits of lying abed and waiting for it to chime. Reprimanding herself for such decadence, she rose. Wrapped in a corner of the quilt, she shuffled to the window and pushed back the shutters. Squinting, she shielded her eyes against the brilliance and checked the sky. Brooding clouds gathered in low behind the trees, but she determined it to be well past midday. As if on cue, the clock chimed a delicate “two.”

Cate groaned aloud. Tea was not far away. Soon Sally would burst in to prepare her for another session with Lady Bart and her guests, including the ever-impressive and omnipresent Commodore Harte. At the moment, she couldn’t imagine how she could look the bastard in the face, let alone speak, pleasantness being in the realm of impossible. She pinched the bridge of her nose, and measured the prospects of pleading a headache, illness…better yet, insanity. Given her earlier performance, the latter would be readily credited.

She looked up into the judgmental stares from the room’s faces.

“I beg your leave, but I’m fresh out of answers,” she said crossly to the circular curia.

A light scratch at the door was the only warning before Sally burst in, arms loaded. Spreading her burden on the bed, she propped her hands on her hips and regarded Cate with a critical eye. “You appear rested.”

“I feel much better, thank you.” Physically, sleep had been rejuvenating; emotionally she was spent, thought and conversation coming only with effort.

A gown—and all its accompanying accoutrements—had been brought, another pass-down, no doubt. In a surge of defiance, Cate declined and insisted on wearing her own. If she was to meet Lady Bart’s guests, it would be as herself. Sally put up a fair protest, but Cate’s doggedness prevailed. There was some turmoil regarding the whereabouts of said clothing, with the off chance they had been disposed of. At length—and to her great relief—they were found. Carefully spread out in place of the gown, Cate’s skirt and stays were barely recognizable after a transformational laundering and pressing, the apron as pristine as the day Billings had crafted it.

“You don’t have to go,” Sally said.

The cogs of Cate’s mind ground slowly, dimly wondering if perhaps she had voiced that wishful thought without realizing. “Excuse me?”

“Tea,” Sally enunciated, as if Cate might be a trifle dim.

“I thought attendance was compulsory.”

Sally waved that off. “I could give your compliments, and then your regrets. I’ll tell them you’re too distraught and not at your leisure.”

Cate bit her lip. Sally’s directness was both unique and refreshing. The offer was tempting, deliciously so. She could play the overwrought victim, but to do so would run the risk of missing word of Nathan’s welfare. If he had been captured or found dead, heaven forbid, it would be the highlight of the afternoon.

No, she would go.

Cate was ushered to a stool before a dressing table. Mesmerized by the rasp of Sally brushing her hair, she closed her eyes. It was a luxury, one life rarely allowed. Sitting on a tufted satin stool, before a table laden with toiletries befitting of a lady of substance, she felt decadent.

The brush abruptly stopped. Cate snapped from her reverie to find Sally solemnly staring at her through the mirror’s reflections.

“Did Blackthorne hurt you?” The maid’s voice was sharp and abrupt, but rooted in earnest concern.

Cate had given it no mind, but the ruined gown, hysterics, and a tear-swollen face would have given the impression she had been ravished, or at the least, used rough.

“No; I appreciate the thought, but no, he didn’t hurt me,” Cate said, smiling faintly.

“You love him, don’t you?”

Cate looked again into Sally’s steady gaze, the hairbrush poised in mid-stroke. “Beg pardon?”

“You love him,” Sally repeated evenly. Romanticism softened the stern features. “You have been on that ship with him all that time, and now you love him.”

She set to brushing once more, muttering under her breath, “Some women have a way of picking the wrong man.”

Cate shifted gaze to the weary, turquoise-eyed image before her. Did she? Had she fallen in love with Nathan?

A pang of guilt knotted her gut. Since losing Brian, she had never considered the possibility of another man. For years, it had seemed traitorous to think of another man in her bed. But the cold hard facts were, she was ready. It was painful to look into the mirror and admit it: Brian was gone and Nathan was there; he was most definitely there. For the last weeks, her world had been suffused with him.

Did she love Nathan, though? Did she feel for him as she had felt for Brian: the stirrings of the heart that came with an unexpected glimpse, or stirrings of the flesh at a smile or coffee-and-cinnamon-colored look…or the emptiness that came when he wasn’t about? Was she willing to do all the same things, take the same risks and instill the same trust, in hopes of the same in return?

“Yes, I love him.” The admission smacked of the desperate fantasies of a widow, probably past her prime.

“I thought so.” Sally brightened with fanciful speculation. “Is he dark? I’ve heard he’s dark, with eyes that can stop a woman’s heart and lead her to destruction.”

Cheeks heating, Cate bit her lip. “He is that.”

“I had me a man once,” Sally said after a protracted silence. She applied the brush with renewed industry. “I loved him so much it hurt. Then one day he up and turned pirate; left me with barely more than a by-your-leave.”

The heavy hair was brought up from the Cate’s neck and pulled a ribbon around her head. Sally gave a wistful sigh. “They’re a difficult lot to love. Heaven help the woman that falls in love with a pirate.”

Tying the ribbon off with a flourish, Sally bent enough to find Cate’s reflection once more. She smiled with a spark that rendered her years younger. “Ah, but they’re worth every bit of the pain, aren’t they?”

This time, Cate felt better prepared as she went down the stairs to take on Lady Bart and her guest-filled parlor. Sally’s prescriptive dose of brandy had stiffened her spine and dulled her senses sufficiently to render the prospect of the afternoon tolerable. After all, what could they do that hadn’t already been done? Embarrass? Stare? Ignore? Pity? Whisper behind their hands, or for that matter, behind her back?

In the foyer, Cate’s courage faltered—more like shattered—at seeing Roger Harte step out to intercept her path. It took every bit of resolve to keep from recoiling when he pressed her knuckles fiercely to his lips.

“I’m so pleased to see you have regained yourself,” he said. The green eyes burned with intensity. “I was so very concerned for your welfare and peace.”

In other words, you believed I had gone completely around the bend.

It was a testimonial to her acting ability. Harte’s belief that she was a faint-hearted, quailing rabbit, ready to fall in prostration at so much as a coarse word was more than annoying.

Keeping her eyes averted, until her glittering hatred was mastered, Cate murmured a polite, non-committal something. She tried to retrieve her hand, but he clasped it firmly, stroking the back of it with his thumb.

“You have nothing to fear,” Harte said.

She cringed at his big-brother-watching-over-the-defenseless-woman tone.

“Every precaution has been taken: extra guards posted and two Marines at your chamber door. So you see, my dear, you have nothing to fear,” he went on.

Behind a frozen smile, Cate inwardly groaned. If no one could get in, neither would anyone be going out. A sword now hung at his side, a pistol—so laden with gold and ivory, it looked more ceremonial than practical—was tucked at his waist, presumably all for her protection.

Voices from the drawing room echoed down the hall. Roger cleared his throat loudly, either to warn of their approach, or as a chivalrous but ineffective attempt to cover what was being said.

“It is unfortunate when one must face the outcomes of a weak decision,” came a male voice.

“She should have done the honorable thing, to be sure,” said another.

Cate knew the remark for what it was: a thinly veiled reference to the common premise that a woman, caught in such a compromising circumstance as a pirate hostage, should kill herself. She looked up into Roger’s sympathy verging on pitying gaze; he was of the same mind. The rationale behind that conclusion always left her wondering: was the woman to do so to save herself from being subjected to the horrors, or to save those around her the social horror of having to face her?

This from people who wouldn’t have the courage to do as much themselves, she thought bitterly.

Their entry brought an uncomfortable hush. All would be aware of all her earlier performance. Now, as the cowardly hostage, she was not only fallen, but deranged. A wave of unsteadiness swept her. Not as before, when struggling to regain her land legs; this was more like the condemned awaiting their fateful hour. Misinterpreting her unsureness as delicacy, Roger saw her seated, and then took up a shepherd-like position at her elbow.

The cool reception absolved Cate from the necessity of idle chat. She was avoided as if she was a refugee from Bedlam, apt to launch into hysteria at the least provocation. It was an effective shield and she augmented the impression with an occasional eye roll or twitch. The men regarded her with more reserve; Fordshaw must have related her threat. At the same time, they were intrigued, challenged as to whom among them possessed the manly fortitude to tame the wildcat, the prospect of losing said manhood if they failed their restraint.

She wasn’t without experience in drawing rooms and the higher life; quite the contrary. It wouldn’t be an empty boast to announce that she—this pitiable wretch—had been at both the French and Spanish Court. To declare that Brian’s clan had been well connected with both royal houses through business, political, and religious avenues would surely be met with cold disbelief. And if she were to let it slip, not overtly, but in a quiet, by-the-by manner, that her maternal grandmother was a Hapsburg, the royal house currently sitting the Spanish throne, she would be thought to be completely around the bend.

To see their shock was a grand temptation, but she kept her counsel.

As Cate scanned the room, there was the chance Sally’s brandy dosage might have been a bit of overmedication, for determination was giving way to stubbornness. Lady Bart’s hospitality wouldn’t be without limits; there were ways of getting oneself literally shown to the door. Her lowly stature was being tolerated only in deference to the good Commodore, but that umbrella would stretch just so far. Given the matron’s long-suffering inclination toward charity, however, it would have to be something grandly stunning, an offense of the highest degree to provoke ousting.

So what was it to be: aspersions at 10 paces? Spitting? A belch? One of Nathan’s colorful curses? A cry of “Long live Prince Charlie?”

No, that could get you arrested.

A woman sat in the chair opposite the tea table and arranged herself. It took a moment to recognize her as Mrs. Big Wig—Mrs. Devaynes, that was it!—now wearing a semi-normal sized wig, a pink bird perched ridiculously at the crown. She allowed Cate a hollow smile, and then pointedly diverted her attention to a woman opposite. Cate continued to sip her tea, wishing it were something stronger.

Conversation droned. Roger the intransigent sphinx at her side, Cate sat transfixed on the corner of a rug several feet away. A floral, its green leaves recalled the churned ground where Nathan had fallen, its red flowers his blood. Hatred surged. Unwittingly or not, every person in that room was a pawn in Harte’s insidious game, including Lady Bart.

At one point, Roger was drawn away—Lady Bart, with some household detail—and Cate heard a polite clearing of a throat from Devaynes’ direction.

“Tell me dear, if you don’t mind—?”

Cate stirred, startled at being addressed. “Excuse me? I beg pardon?”

Mildly flustered, Devaynes hesitated, and then leaned over the table to say under the conversation, “I pray you don’t think me forward, if I were to inquire…?”

Cate nodded, cautious of where on earth this line of questioning might lead.

“Well, I was wondering…? Can you tell me, my dear, what was it like…to be with that pirate…you know, when he…?”

Thinking surely she had misconstrued, Cate leant nearer. “When he…what?”

“Well, all night…” Devaynes said, dismayed at being obliged to expand. “All that time, for that matter. What was he like? I saw him once, you know, in Port Royal. He looked so deliciously barbaric. Was he…different? Did he, well…you know…?”

Cate gaped. The woman looked like a cat being offered a dead mouse.

“I don’t believe it’s a matter which bears discussion,” Cate said coldly. The woman’s boldness deserved the embarrassment of a blunt denial.

Devaynes stiffened, the bird in her hair impudently peering down. “Oh, come, come, my dear—”

“Harper. My name is Catherine Harper.” Her voice rose as her patience faded.

“Yes, of course…Mrs. Harper. It will be just between us.” A wrinkling of the nose was given in affirmation. “Just tell me if—?”

Cate looked to Mrs. Green-Dress-Now-Wearing-Yellow-With-the-Ridiculous-Child’s-Voice—Killingsworth—and another woman, heads canted in avid interest. It was too ironic, and not a little repugnant: they thought she should have killed herself, but since she hadn’t, the vicarious vultures wished to be entertained, brutal rape to become parlor chat.

“I hate to disappoint, but he didn’t do anything,” Cate insisted.

Mrs. Killingsworth sniffed, her disapproval mitigated by her childish tenor. “Oh, come now. Everyone knows the pirate character.”

“What would you like to know?” Cate demanded, now of a volume to end all other conversation. “Would you care to hear how I was bound spread-eagle and he screwed me, again and again, until I begged for more? Or would you be more interested in the size of his cock, or his prodigious appetite that required feeding, over and over…”

Cate’s voice quavered as she began to recite: “…a maypole of so enormous a standard, that had proportions been observ’d, it must have belong’d to a young giant.”

There was no shame in having read Cleland’s outlawed novel. Judging by the scandalized gasps, several present had read it, as well, to the point of recognizing the passage.

“Its prodigious size made me shrink again; yet I could not, without pleasure, behold, and even ventur’d to feel, such a length, such a breadth of animated ivory…”

Somewhere to Cate’s left there was a intake of air, Lady Bart on the verge of fainting. Looking from face to face, she saw everything from Roger’s shocked rigidity to round-eyed horror, pity, and finally bemusement. Amid nervous throat-clearing, two or three women sat eager for more. Now on her feet, but not sure how she had come to be there, Cate glared.

“I hate to disappoint any of you, but nothing happened, not last night, or last week—not ever!”

She gripped the folds of her skirt lest they see her hands shake. “You can think anything you want. But just for the record: I was treated with more civility by a gang of pirates than the likes of you.”

Cate raced out, determined none would have the satisfaction of seeing her cry. Once in the hall, she leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. She felt being stared at and looked over her shoulder into a blue-eyed cherub on the wallpaper.

“Well, after all, I did mean to be excused.”

The painted gaze grew more accusing.

She thumped the wall with her fist. “I don’t know what I’m to do next”

Overcome by the need for fresh air, she ran down the hall and out the garden doors. She followed the path, until she came upon an arbor. Bracing against its post, she deeply inhaled the night air, heavy with the smell of greenery and damp earth, hoping to quell the tears brimming so very near the surface.

Dammit! Get hold of yourself!

Cate straightened at hearing the crunch of approaching footsteps on the gravel pathway. She turned to find Roger coming toward her, wearing a look of severe consternation.

“Catherine,” he murmured huskily, clasping her hand. “I’m so sorry. How you must—”

“Please, don’t!” She pushed him away, choked by his nearness. “I don’t wish to be touched just now.”

It was more excuse than lie. Harte inched away, nonetheless, with hideous understanding. “Yes, just so. Of course, my dear—”

“Don’t call me that!”

“Yes, I’m sorry, Catherine—”

“Don’t call me that either,” she cried, clutching her fists until her nails gouged her palms.

“Yes…yes…Of course…how thoughtless. I beg your leave; I should have allowed how you would be feeling.”

“How am I feeling?” she flared. “You think Nathan banged me too, don’t you?

Harte stiffened at her vulgarity. Unable to meet her gaze, he looked to the ground and nodded.

“We all know what corrupt creatures they are, and there is no reason to conclude Blackthorne would behave differently.” He kicked at the stones, then looked up. “It’s common knowledge what happens when a woman is taken by…” He clamped his eyes shut at the thought.

“He didn’t do anything!”

“My heart swells to think of the bravery and courage you’ve shown,” he said over her protests. “You’re a widow. I can provide for you, protect you. I’ll see Blackthorne hanged for what—”

“He didn’t do anything!” she shrieked. A little while ago, he thought she should have killed herself. Now, he was professing his affection, whatever the hell that meant.

Disbelief flickered, but he was too much the gentleman to call her a liar. “You only did what Blackthorne forced upon you. You’d never play the whore.”

“A desperate person can do desperate things. You know nothing of me.” Cate swiped at the wetness on her cheeks, anguish giving way to anger. She wanted nothing more than to throw in his face all the times Nathan had bested him. To do so, however, might well be to her own detriment. Harte wasn’t a man to be trifled with.

His demeanor hardened; the engaging graciousness dissolved. The menace, suspected to have existed just beneath the surface when first they met rose, to the surface like oil on water. “You need not protect him.”

“You only want me because I was his. You only seek an excuse to kill him.”

Harte flinched at her insight. The reptilian gaze fixed on her and his mouth took on a cruel curve. “What difference is it, so long as he is dead? He’s a vile pestilence which should be swiped away.”

“Then do it on your own cause, not mine.”

He inhaled, as one did in preparation of a sudden move, and his hand flexed, either to make a fist or draw a weapon she couldn’t tell. Either way, he thought the better and exhaled through his nose, long and slow, as a parent does with an unruly child. His hand settled on the ivory pistol butt at his waist, instead, the middle finger tapping its lento rhythm once more.

Harte forced a smile, which through tense lips, was more the baring of teeth. “Clearly, you’re distraught,” he said coldly. “You’re hysterical. You require rest. I’ll pass the word for your maid to see you back to your room.”

Harte pivoted on his slippered heel and stalked away. Furious, she picked up a stone and hurled it after him. Missing by a ridiculous margin, she snatched up several more, firing them off, squealing at each toss. Whirling around, she looked for something to break, something that would shatter into thousands of satisfying little pieces. Finding nothing, she crumpled next to a bench and wept.

Cate cried the tears expected with frustration and anger. Along with those came the unexpected ones of anguish, rejection, hopelessness, and isolation, all brought on by the pain of being forced to admit to a roomful of despicable people that Captain Nathanael Blackthorne, pirate and rogue, ravager of women extraordinaire, wouldn’t have her.

In long, wracking sobs, she cried until it hurt too much to do so anymore. Hitching and snuffling, she blew her nose without heed on the hem of her skirt, knowing Sally would have it clean by the morrow. Cradling her head in her arms, she pressed her cheek against the stone of the bench and cooled her heated face.

She traced a finger along her arm, and thought how long it had been since she had been held. She missed being loved: the sense of belonging, having a reason to wake or draw breath. For the most part, her most treasured memories of Brian were of in bed: long, swirling nights of limbs entwined, or lying quietly together reviewing the minutiae of the day. It led her to wonder if it was Brian or the lovemaking that she missed most, holding and being held, looking forward to nights, anxiously awaiting for that heart-stalling moment when he blew out the candle and rolled to her. Who would have thought that the corporeal joys of marriage could lead to such despair? The higher the mountain, the deeper the valley, and she had toured them all. It had been said memories kept one warm; she could attest with all certainty that was a categorical fallacy.

It was appalling to think she had degenerated into one of those pitiful widows desperate for a man’s body and shelter. Over the years, she had taught herself to ignore the yearning, desire’s rush that tightened her belly, leaving her full and moist. That was the past. She longed for the warmth of a body next to her when she woke in the desolate void of darkness.

But Nathan didn’t want her; she reminded him of someone else. That was wrenchingly evident every time he walked past, every time he turned away when she spoke, every time he scurried from the cabin when she entered. She had seen the don’t-make-me-do-this expression, averting his eyes far too many times.

You remind him of her.

No more chilling or damning words had ever been spoken.

So why does he keep you aboard? Why doesn’t he set you ashore and be rid of you?

It was a bafflement, which endless hours of pondering in the dark couldn’t solve.

Nathan’s precious Hattie was like living with a ghost, haunting from the ship’s every nook, often driving her from the bed, obliging her to walk the decks, until weariness cloaked her mind. In those playground-of-loneliness hours of the night, her imagination ran rampant. She couldn’t look at the bunk without seeing two writhing bodies, one with snaking black hair. She couldn’t help but wonder if he had ever kissed her there, in front of the gallery, or over there, pressing her back against the gun, urgent and needing. Did he ever hold her in his arms here, or in his lap in that chair over there? Did they ever gaze at the stars from the forecastle, or lay together watching the moon through the porthole?

Her mind knew he didn’t want her, but her body paid no heed and prepared for him anyway, waking breathless and pulsing. Living unwanted and alone for years had been easy. Unwanted before someone who made her heart race: that was indescribable misery. What shreds of pride she still possessed prevented her from throwing herself at him. Be damned if she was going to become some pitiful wretch groveling for whatever scraps of affection he might fling her way.

But it was no matter: Nathan was gone. Of that she had no doubt. Between his injury and suspicion, her failure to attain any significant information, and the proximity of a Commodore and the Royal Navy, he would be far away by then.

Pirate, as he had often reminded her.

Leave him to his precious Hattie, she thought moodily.

Angrily batting away tears, stubbornness surged. This was the West Indies, the New World, which meant a new life.

Cate had a feeling Harte was not done with her; he had something more in mind. She needed to distance herself from him and the authorities, and soon. It was a pity, for Hopetown was sizable enough; she might make a living as a seamstress, as she had done before. The best hope was someplace that was not under King Georgie’s rule. In Europe, moving from under one flag to the next meant long, arduous journeys. Here in the West Indies, it was a simple matter of from one island to the next, a new flag overhead and a new life.

A Spanish possession was most promising. She spoke the language, and was familiar with the way of life. Nathan had unwittingly become a benefactor in her new life, his coins in her pocket her means. Those would have to be saved for passage, however. Food and shelter would have to be found other ways. She had done it for years in the squalid streets of London, she could do it again.

In a convoluted way, Cate felt she had a plan—in desperate need of further development granted, but a plan, nonetheless. The first step was to get away from Harte.

Flashes of red wool were visible through the greenery and on the paths in every direction.

…extra guards have been posted…

Yes, Harte had been quite thorough. There would be no going anywhere today.

Sally stood waiting a discreet distance away. Cate rose and allowed herself to be taken inside and back to her room.



###



Feeling quite drained, Cate sat in a chair, staring out the balcony doors. The sun arched its path. The porcelain clock chimed the hours. The hall bell rang: time for everyone to shift their clothes for supper. Almost physically ill at the thought of facing anyone, Cate sent Sally to deliver her compliments and regrets, pleading a headache. The little chambermaid brought a tray. It was untouched when she returned to retrieve it and light the sconces.

The hour grew late, the house quiet. Cate remained at the window. The eerie, mournful call of a screech owl recalled Artemis’ hunched shape in the topgallant yards.

At last, she was alone. Peace.

Voices at the door stirred Cate from her torpor. She groaned aloud.

“…her some dinner. The poor child didn’t eat, so I’ve brought a tray,” came Sally’s voice. “Pray pull the door? Just so. Thank you,” she called over shoulder to the guards.

Still seated, Cate tracked Sally’s path through the room by the clatter of china and silver on the tray.

“I appreciate the thought, but you didn’t…” Cate rose stiffly and stopped as Sally set the tray down and press a finger to her lips.

“‘Twas but a ruse,” Sally hissed, creeping closer. “I’ve come with word: he’s waiting for you.”

“Who’s what?” Cate flared, thinking it was Harte.

“Your pirate, he’s outside.”

Cate watched dumbfounded as the bed’s coverlet was thrown back and, in a few economic jerks, the sheets pulled free.

“I told him you would come directly.” The maid dragged sheets toward the window and set to knotting the ends.

“What are you about?”

“Shh!” Sally flinched at her own volume then gave Cate a meaningful glare to remind her—as if she could ever forget—of the guards outside the door. “He desired you to meet him at the same place. Does that answer?”

Cate nodded, though thoroughly confused. This had to be a dream. If this was a jest, it was entirely too cruel.

“I understand now what you see in him. He certainly knows how to please a woman,” Sally said, with a dreamy roll of the eyes.

“What on earth are you talking about?”

Peering into the darkness to check the garden, Sally went out onto the balcony and knelt to secure the sheet to a spindle. “After you said you loved him, and then when he—well anyway, I couldn’t help myself.”

She stood, flushed with excitement. “So, on your way!”

Cate gawked from Sally to the garden and back. This had to be Harte’s doing, or nothing but a rude jest. In spite of that, the lure of Nathan waiting was too strong.

Sally seized her by the arm and prodded her toward the rail. “Go!”

Heart racing, Cate swung a leg over, pausing to say, “Thank you.” It seemed grossly inadequate, but so very necessary to say.

“Have a care!” Sally’s eyes rounded with import. “The guard should be busy for a bit longer, but several more are roaming. Now be away, and take care of that man.”

Casting an uncertain eye toward the ground below, Cate worked around until she could grasp the sheet. The last time she had done anything similar, she had been 10 years old, sneaking out of her brother’s room. She fell and broke her arm, as she recalled. Working her hands until she felt confident, she started down. Her grip wasn’t strong enough, and she plummeted down, the knot affixing the sheets the only thing stopping her. Past that, she plunged to the fabric’s end—a good distance above the ground—and landed in an unglamorous heap in the bushes.

Biting back a pained oath, she took quick inventory of her limbs. Finding everything intact, she crouched under the shrubbery. Through the next row of hedge, she caught a flash of red of a Marine’s coat, deep in an embrace. Sally had said the guard would be busy. She made a hunched sprint across the path and into the bushes.

The moonlight banded the garden in thin shafts. Engulfed in bushes and darkness, she lost her bearings straight away. She tripped on invisible hazards, and stepped needlessly high over non-existent ones. Every rustle of shrubbery or gasp she feared was a broad announcement of her whereabouts.

“Hoy! Who goes there?”

The shouts from behind were cut short by the sound of heavy footsteps running toward her. Cate dodged at a right angle, meaning to dive under the shrubs. The moonlight flared on a red sleeve as it shot out and caught her by the waist.

“Got ’em!” her captor called out.

“Where?”

“Over ’ere!” called several voices together.

Half-carried, half-dragged away, Cate struggled, scratching where eyes might be. She kicked at his knees, but her shoes skidded harmlessly off his leggings. He chuckled at her futile attempts, infuriating her all the more.

“You’re a feisty one, aren’t you?” he said. A hand clamped on her breast and squeezed, eliciting a protesting yelp from her. “Oh-ho, and a soft one, too. Got a ripe peach here, gents!”

Against every instinct, she forced herself to fall limp over his arm. As hoped, the grip at her waist loosened, thinking she had fainted. Sagging further, she waited for when her feet touched the ground and his head came directly behind hers. The moment came: she whipped her head back, the sound of smashing nose and teeth indicating she had found her mark.

Bellowing in agony, he clutched his face, blood spurting between his fingers. Now free, Cate scrambled for cover. More guards converged, with a great deal of swearing and shouting, snapping of branches and trampling boots. A burst of flame stabbed the dark, a musket fired. Under that protective chaos, she slithered away.

The grounds were now on full alert, with voices and running coming from all directions. Now horribly disoriented, wisdom advised she should stop to regain her bearings, but exertion and fear pulsed too high. Cate inched back, feeling with her foot. It bumped into something: another foot. A hand swept from behind to clamp over her mouth and pulled her away.

“Hist. Quiet, luv.”

Hushed and abbreviated as it was, she knew the graveled voice instantly.

Nathan’s hand remained, until Cate nodded in recognition. Arm still at her waist, his chin was at her shoulder as he listened. The shifting eyes slid her way, the corners crinkling with a reassuring smile. Heart racing, she managed only a wobbling one. With a faint nod, he withdrew, taking her with him. His hands, solid on her hips, steered as they ran in a half-stoop through the trees and undergrowth. The commotion was soon left behind. They were left with nothing but the pad of their feet in the soft earth, and the reassuring creak of Nathan’s leather and swish of bells.

Hopetown lay directly on their path. Nathan took her darting through its streets and alleys with startling familiarity. The town slept, but its nightwatch was astir. They ducked for cover while two gangs of night charlies raced past in the general direction of Lady Bart’s estate. Halfway down another street, heavy footfalls and clatter of musketry of a larger contingent of men came toward them. Nathan dove into the shadowy protection of a doorway, yanking her with him as a cluster of Marines jogged past. Two more gangs passed shortly behind.

Nathan's arm flexed at Cate's middle and his mouth came close to her ear. “We’ll hold a bit.”

A dog barked from somewhere near and a male voice bellowed it quiet. Her heart raced with more than running. Nathan had come for her! He hadn’t left with his men. He hadn’t thrown his hands up in disgust and left her to Harte. He had come for her! The whys and hows didn’t matter just then. He had come back!

His body, heated by exertion, and the thump of his heart against her back were proof it was no dream. She leaned into his taut strength, pressing her head against his shoulder, his breath stirring her hair. It was the longest she had ever been alone with him. His arm flexed at her waist and his cheek pressed to the side of her head.

Nathan straightened and cleared his throat. “Best away.”

By the time the town was behind them, the moon shone bright, painting everything in either flares of silver or swaths of impenetrable black. Nathan spoke only as necessary, but whether it was in the spirit of stealth or that he had nothing to say, a rare occasion indeed, was unclear. His breath came far more ragged than walking would account, his usual cat-like step hitched and uneven. His face was either turned downward or slightly away, unseen at any angle.

They stopped at one point, Nathan claiming perhaps she might desire a rest, although he seemed the tired one. Gesturing her atop a rock, he lowered himself to the ground at her feet, and with a muffled groan, leaned back. They sat quietly, each retreating into his or her thoughts. Near enough for his sleeve to brush her leg, she felt a distance between them, nonetheless, of a far different sort than the physical boundary so carefully maintained.

“What did you do to Sally?” Uttered as a whisper, it was still startling amid the chorus of night creatures. Cate instantly regretted broaching the subject, the answer quite possibly inviting far more than she desired to know, but the silence was torturous.

Nathan glanced up. “Eh?”

“Sally, the servant woman back there; what did you do to her?”

“Oh, her.” He smiled faintly and rubbed his arm, wincing. “Nothing…much.”

“You made quite the impression, whatever it was.”

“Oh, aye?” The smile grew devilish. “A gentleman never—”

“Gentleman?”

Looking away, Nathan shifted as one does when in search of a comfortable position when one wasn’t to be had.

“Did he hurt you much?” Cate curbed her concern, knowing he wouldn’t appreciate being smothered with it.

Nathan jerked, and glanced up to discern how much Cate knew of his capture, the moonlight flashing on the bells in his mustache.

“Not much,” he said at length to the ground between his feet. “A good lick to the head brought me down, but no…I’ve been worse.”

He fingered the raw marks at his wrist. The sight of the twisted and torn flesh spurred her disgust for Harte another notch.

“I could have sworn I heard a woman screaming.” Nathan looked up at the end, his lilt alluding to her performance outside the smithy.

“You must have been delirious,” she said, batting her lashes in overt innocence. “Why did he do it?”

“Who? Harte?” His mouth pulled down, weighing that. “Don’t rightly know.”

“You’re lying, Nathan,” Cate said in quiet evenness. “I can tell.”

Nathan threw up a look of exasperated irritation over his shoulder. “Seems I vex him, a bit…maybe.”

“There’s more to it than that. You hate each other enough to want to kill each other?”

He was both surprised and intrigued by the question. “Nah. Could have several times over, if was all that simple. Nothing more admirable than a dedicated enemy, eh?”

Nathan grinned at Cate’s puzzlement. “We give each other purpose: if he kills me, the last great pirate ship of the West Indies is gone. Then what ladder would he climb to his success?”

“He needs you?” The line of logic was astounding, and yet in keeping with what Pryce had said.

“Exactly,” Nathan said, pleased by her quickness.

“And what do you gain out of this?”

A shrug was cut short by a wince and a pain-laden grunt. “Can’t be the greatest pirate without the greatest escapes, now can you?” he said, with a square-toothed grin.

Cate gaped at him. “That’s it? To perpetuate your fame?”

“There’s worse motivations.”

“I suppose that would be in the eye of the beholder. He will have you hung, you know.”

Nathan looked off into the forest. “He’ll try, at any rate.”

“You say that as if he’s tried already.”

Nathan nodded. Two fingers at his knee stirred.

“And you’re here to tell of it, so I’m obliged to assume he failed,” Cate said, growing annoyed with his coyness.

“Barely, the last time.” He winced at the recollection then brightened. “Who knows, maybe third time will be the charm.”

“But, if he needs you, why did he try to hang you twice?” Cate asked, bracing her head in her hands.

“I’m still alive.” It was said as if that simple point explained everything.

“That doesn’t make any sense.” She buried her head deeper; exhaustion was settling in worse than she thought.

“Doesn’t have to. Are you worried for him?”

Cate made a disgusted sound deep in her throat and shuddered. “God, no. The man is unsettling.”

Nathan snorted and chuckled dryly. “A categorical dismissal, if ever one was heard. No worries, luv,” he said over her protests. If the pat on the leg was meant to be reassuring, it wasn’t. “Your secret is safe with me.”

Nathan rose, grunting with the effort of straightening, and extended a hand. “C’mon. Pryce will be cataleptic by now, the ol’ shellback.”

Nathan’s taciturnity didn’t improve, making a long walk an endless one.

By the few glimpses the moonlight allowed, he had taken a beating, one that would have put many a man to his knees. Cate’s eyes brimmed and her heart wrung. Bleeding and battered, putting his distrust and disillusionment aside, he had single-handedly braved a commodore and Marines to come for her. And yet, now he would barely look at her.

The man was blessedly confusing.

They had been apart for just a short time, but it seemed more a decade, someone so familiar now a stranger. Conversation that had once come so easily was, now strained, neither able to find something to say. Speaking came with great discomfort for Nathan, but there was a larger discomfort: a tall, blue-uniformed and gilded one who stood between them. There was so much to be said, and yet neither could bring themselves to it.

Pride is the mask of one’s own faults. The Old Hebrews had it right. It would seem both of them suffered from a hearty dose of protectiveness of their dignity. In dire need of a distraction from Nathan’s bristling silence and her own darkening mood, Cate took the opportunity to relate all she had learned at Lady Bart’s table.

“How do you know of all this?” His surprise quickly melted into suspicion.

“Roger—Commodore Harte—he and Lady Bart said as much. Don’t give me that look!” Rounding in front of him, she jammed the finger into his chest, not sorry to see him wince.

“What look?” Nathan asked.

“You know exactly: the what-did-you-do-to-learn-that look? I didn't do anything you wouldn’t have done.”

“That’s hardly a recommendation,” he muttered, rubbing the spot.

Cate propped her hands on her hips. “Would you have bedded him?”

“No!”

“Well, see: neither did I!”

“That hardly proves anything,” he grumbled as he brushed past.

“Is this what we have to look forward to for the next…whatever,” she shouted, striding to catch up. “You’re accusing me of bedding everyone in breeches to come along?”

Nathan wheeled around, the moonlight flaring on his thunderous glare. She pulled up in front of him, and crossed her arms.

“Mebbe,” he mumbled. He pivoted away, picking up his pace.

“Oh!” Vibrating with frustration, Cate followed close on Nathan’s heels. “Shouldn’t you be more concerned with what you know, rather than what you think you know?”

“You don't know what I know,” he barked over his shoulder, bells jangling in the heavy air. “You only know what you think you know, because that’s what I want you to know, because you don't need to be knowing any more than what you already know.”

Cate skidded to a halt. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I don’t have to make sense.”

“Well, it would help those of us around you, if you did,” she called to Nathan’s fading image as he stomped away, puffs of road dust spurting with each step.

Shoulder to shoulder they walked, huffing in silence. The sparkle of the bay was finally visible, the relieved face of Mr. Pryce soon after.

Cate made a point of sitting next to Nathan, but he moved to pose at the bow, his image a dark blot against the gunmetal of sky and water. He turned once, directed a terse nod to her, and then turned away, his expression lost in the darkness.

As the oarsmen pulled in rhythmic strokes, she looked up at the Morganse’s yards, spreading overhead like welcoming arms. Whether the welcome was for her, or reserved for the returning lover who stood at the bow was unclear. A dash of azure brilliance marked where Beatrice roosted on the mainyard. A soundless press of air and a dark arrow-shape were the only indications of Artemis swooping past. She arched a steep curve and dove down below deck.

Exhaustion settled in Cate’s limbs. It was visible in Nathan as well, his shoulders sagging, his movements sluggish. The joyous relief of stepping back on the Morganse’s deck was tempered by a heavy feeling, as though wading upriver.

She stumbled past Nathan and Pryce, deep in conversation, to the cabin, where she collapsed into a chair. Eyes closed, she basked in a glorious sensation: home! The walnut walls curved around her like a mother’s arms, the creak of the board overhead as soothing. The voices of the ship and her people were as familiar as a family, the smell of pitch, wet wood and salt-soaked canvas more enticing than pies baking in the kitchen.

The brush of leather and a jingle announced Nathan’s arrival. Eyes still closed, Cate tracked his progress through the cabin by the changing sounds of his step: a light clump on the wood, muffled thud on the Turkish rug, and finally, a soft scuffing as he stopped somewhere very near. Feeling the weight of his stare, she opened her eyes directly into his, bloodshot and swollen.

“You look bloody awful,” she said.

Uttered in jest, it was true. The cabin’s light, revealed the damages incurred at Harte’s hands. The smudge of several days’ beard melded with the bruises and dark circles framing swollen eyes. Nathan’s nose and mouth were puffed. A split spanned the width of his lip, up into his mustache, the bells there crusted in dried blood. One cheekbone, abraded and distended, caused the eye to pull oddly at the corner.

“Thank you,” he said grimly, bobbing a mocking bow. “Always look forward to meeting an admirer.”

Dropping his hat on the table, Nathan sat with the slow-motion of a person who thought they might never do so again. He gingerly rubbed his face, the stubble of his beard rasping on his hands. He went still then, staring catatonically at a spot on the table.

“When was the last time you slept?” Cate asked.

Stirring from his torpor, Nathan opened his mouth to reply then stopped, his brows nearly touching in puzzlement. “Day before yesterday,” he said slowly. Straining to think, he finally gave up and shrugged. “Mebbe.”

Struggling against her own tides of weariness, she grasped for a lucid thought. Exhaustion often led one to cleave onto the smallest of minutiae, as if that one last grain of thought might keep one from slipping into oblivion. “That shirt will need washing.”

Nathan peered down at the reddish-brown stain that spread over one shoulder and down his chest. He gingerly plucked at it with two fingers, mouth quirking. “Then it would appear your life will have purpose.”

He squirmed in the chair in an attempt to find a comfortable position, wincing at every movement. He finally heaving a hitching sigh, and fell forward like a toppling tree onto the table. Head cradled in his arms, his braids were a glossy snarl about his shoulders.

Cate pushed up from her chair and fetched her blood box from atop a locker in the corner. Sitting it on the table, she took out a jar, marked Number Thirty-seven in Roman numerals, containing the ointment professed to “cure anything from pox to palsy.” A tap on the arm was signal enough for Nathan to extend it. Under the swinging light overhead, the puffed and scabbed knuckles told the tale: he had fought the Marines, until he was down to nothing but his fists. His right wrist had been protected by the strip of cloth that secured his palm protector. The left, however, was raw, the skin torn. He had fought against the shackles that had held him, as well.

Cate cupped Nathan's hand in hers, his pulse just under her thumb, and scooped a bit of ointment. Jelly-like at first, the warmth of her hand soon rendered it spreadable, and she dabbed it on the abused skin. An eye ticked, but he remained otherwise immobile against the stuff’s sting.

Nathan stirred at the clatter and rumble of the kedge anchor being hauled in. The ship shifted and gained weigh. He reached for the rum bottle in the middle of the table, took a pull, and then settled his head on his other arm.

Her purpose was twofold: tend his wounds, but more in hopes of a physical connection. It was a desperate bridge and a thin one, but a spoonful of soup was a feast to a starving soul. The deep chasm still yawned; Cate wondered what steps would be necessary to make amends and regain his trust.

“Thank you, Nathan,” she said. A first step.

“For what?” he asked into the folds of his sleeve.

“For coming to get me.”

“Twice.” He hissed sharply when she touched an especially sore spot. “I had to rescue you twice.”

Nathan’s reference to his deeds as “rescue” brought a smile; a knight in shining armor wasn’t quite the image she carried, but the intent had been much the same.

“I enjoyed it so much the first time; I thought we might try it again.”

He made a disgusted, guttural sound in his throat. “Bloody woman. Shan’t be surprised if you did. Torture me to me dying days, you will.”

Cate bent to reach the backside of his wrist and recoiled. “What is that smell?”

It took a moment, but then she recalled where she had smelt it before, twice: once in the bedchamber at Lady Bart’s, and again, while hiding in a doorway in Hopetown.

She pressed her hand to her nose, the ointment’s rosemary, camphor, and alcohol masking it somewhat. “What is that?”

“I told you, it’s from a whore,” Nathan said evenly.

An inadvertent turn of the head and gap of his collar revealed the scratches on his neck. There was no mistaking the claw marks left by a woman’s fingernails. Cate stiffened as several images flashed through her mind.

“You shouldn’t be going with whores.” A flush of embarrassment heated Cate’s cheeks at having broached the subject. There were no secrets as to how a sailor filled his time ashore.

A blood-shot eye peeked over his sleeve, a smile curving the split lip. “No better than commodores, eh?”

Face blazing, she dropped his hand. “I didn’t—“

“Neither did I,” he said evenly, sitting up.

Cate fixed Nathan with a steady gaze, looking for the familiar mirth that usually accompanied his sarcasm. She found none. “You don’t believe me.”

“Neither do you.”

She closed the blood box’s lid more forcefully than was necessary. “I’m not in the habit of apologizing for something that I didn’t—“

“Neither am I,” he said, rising. She flinched as each barbed word found home.

Nathan could be caustic, but his barbs were usually blunted by a quirk of the mouth and a teasing glint in his eye. His voice too broken by exhaustion to be of any guidance, she searched his face. The ravaged features were those of a stranger, contorted not only by swelling and bruising, but things never seen before: disgust, suspicion, and worst of all, disappointment.

“I had four older brothers; I don’t need another—“

“From all appearances, you do,” he said with irritating levelness. He pressed closer. Determined not to give way, she fell back a step, nonetheless.

Hot tears pressed behind her eyes as hurt, anger, and resentment collided.

“I will not be owned by anyone,” she said, balling her fist. She was not about to be used like a piece in one of his circuitous games. He was assuming to set himself up as her lord and master, as if she needed shepherding to prevent her from bedding every man encountered. It was as she had suspected and feared: he wanted no part of her, but neither did he want anyone else to have her, most especially Harte.

The small hopes she had nurtured popped like bubbles in a boiling pot. The warmth of home dissolved into no more than a foolish whimsy of a desperate mind.

“Payment comes in many forms.” Nathan's distorted lips curled to reveal a flash of gold.

“How dare you! You presumptuous bast…!” Cate sputtered, fury striking her speechless. “I keep myself to a higher standard. Rest assured, it is a matter which will never be of your concern.”

“Never?”

“Never!”

Something flickered on the battered face, flinching as if Nathan had been poked in the ribs. He spun away to the window and stood, one hip cocked, an arm braced against its frame. The sea breeze lifted the tails of his headscarf and curled them about his shoulders as he scanned the gunmetal-and-silver nightscape. He glanced over his shoulder, his gaze settling on her wedding ring, gleaming dully. Looking back to the night, he nodded vaguely, as if concluding a private conversation. He pivoted on his heel and headed for the door. There he paused to give an elaborate, but hitched bow.

“I bid you good e’en, fair lady,” he said, baring his teeth. “Have no cares. Your sanctitude is safe.”