Nathan sprawled on the bowsprit, its cap his pillow. An arm hung, a bottle of rum dangling between two fingers.
It had been a dirty day, and it had all the makings of an even dirtier night.
The Morganse shifted and bobbed with the making land breeze. The wood under his head creaked.
“You, too, eh?” Nathan muttered grumpily. He gave the spar beneath him a soothing pat. “I know, I know. I’ll try to get her back tomorrow.”
The ship rocked, sharper.
“Aye, well, it’s not going to be all that easy, you understand. I swear you females all stick together.”
A wave slapped the hull, and the ship pitched violently enough to make him grab for a stay.
“I did try me cabin,” he huffed, resettling. “Can’t bear the place; it’s all… empty.”
He twisted to peer over his shoulder toward the Bristol. Her lamps were aglow, most notably, the gaping stern window ablaze.
“She’s over there, doing God knows what.” He nestled his head again and stared skyward. “And I’m over here.”
“Oh, very well, I confess, I was going to use the spyglass, but I put it down. Upon me honor, I never looked, so stand off,” he finished with a warning finger to the rigging above.
One foot idly waggled, his fingers drumming his belts.
“So, this is what it’s like, eh? Remorse? Bloody awkward.”
The Morganse dipped her bow.
“Thank you, luv,” he murmured, resting a hand on the wood once more. “I’m sorry, too. Don’t know what came over me. Never been like that before.”
A nearby shroud groaned in the freshening air.
“Aye, but that was different. Provoked, I was, and not that I’m not without provocation now. Every man has his limits and that… woman pushed me to mine. I’m allowed that much, aren’t I?”
Squirming in righteous indignation, he drummed his fingers on his belts faster.
“Did you see the looks from the men? Was that you or Pryce what put them up to that?”
He waited.
“Not sayin’, eh? Figures.”
He raised the rum bottle. It was barely to his lips when he made a disgusted noise and flung it into the darkness, a faint splash marking its landing.
“Even ruined the rum, she did. Bloody stuff is tasteless; no comfort a ‘tall.”
The ship pitched again.
“And you’re no comfort either, if all you can think to do is criticize. I’ll have you know even me own bunk is no comfort, either. Can’t bear to go in there. No man can think in all that silence. ‘Tisn’t natural.”
The breeze puffed. The Morganse leaned, the shrouds creaking, loud and long. He jerked up his head, batting one hand irritably.
“Yes, I know, I know. I’ll get her back… somehow. But I shan’t grovel,” he announced, a finger stabbing the air. “Well, not much, at any rate. I have me pride. None of this was my fault, you understand.”
Nathan jerked a self-satisfied nod. “Someone has to be civilized. Never done this before in me life, but for her, I’ll do it. Not sure how, what with no rum to allow me ease.”
He cocked his head toward foret’gallant mast. “Do you think that will answer?”
In spite of wave and breeze, the Morganse went quiet.
“Thought so,” he said, dropping his head. “You two are sticking together. Conspiracy, that’s what it ‘tis. Men are flogged for that, you know.”
Twisting again, he looked across the bay once more, the Bristol’s lights still gleaming.
“Aye, she’s over there…” He turned back and focused on the sky. “And I’m over here.”
So lost in thought, Nathan had no notion of the passing of time. Surely the moon set, for it always does, but he bore no witness. He knew the sun rose, for he felt its warmth on his back; sometime in the night he had rolled onto his stomach, limbs dangling on either side of the jib-boom. The wind ruffled the water and the ship’s hum of activity was of no more consequence than a distant working of bees. The bowchaser on the f’c’stle, less than a half-biscuit toss away, could have gone off and he mightn’t have noticed.
Aimlessness was an unfamiliar burden. How did one go about combating nothingness? It was like swatting at the air, fighting a ghost; neither blade, ball nor fist would answer. There had been that time when his ship no longer lived…
That was different.
Yet so very much the same.
Miracles had been his salvation then.
Not bloody likely now.
Biblical tales told of men wandering off into the desert—or had it been the wilderness? Never could keep that straight—never to be seen again. The Greeks—well, aye, the Romans had their share, as well—told a great number of such sagas. He strained to recall if any of those heroes had ever gone to sea? There was the Odyssey. Unfortunate bit o’ business there. Still, disappearing over the horizon had its appeal.
He peered toward the Bristol again, her stern to the Morganse’s stem, and the gaping hole which was once the stern gallery. He had boarded more ships than Mother Clary had chickens in his time. A boat under the counter, swing up, snatch Cate—
If she’s there.
Aye, well, she damned well better be.
—Then clap a hand over her mouth and away.
If she doesn’t unman me in the process.
Hmm… have to rig some kind of gag. Quiet when in distress is most certainly not her nature.
He had seen her head-whip a man in Hopetown and again in the alley in Charles Town. Very effective that.
Have to bear that maneuver in mind.
Once she was aboard, shackles or barricade her in was the next question? Neither prospect was appealing when it came time to cut her free, for she would come out like a caged she-cat. Might be best to allow Pryce do that or Kirkland. Aye, Kirkland! She fancied him. She wouldn’t injure him… not as much, at any rate.
A plan!
A spark of life bloomed in his chest, a first in days, too many days. It was better than any elixir, potion or charm from a witchy woman.
He eyed the Bristol’s shattered stern with renewed interest. Like his own ship, the Bristol’s people were ashore, naught but the anchor watch aboard. Between the sunset and moon rise, there would be several hours of very accommodating darkness. A downpour would be an even better cover.
If only the gods would be agreeable just the once.
He checked the sky.
Not bloody likely.
You’re as twisted up as a double-crossed hawse. First you want her then…?
Tach!
That damned Thomas hovered over Cate like a f’c’stleman over his grog. He’d meant to snatch her up long before this. Thomas’ infirmity presented a whole new set of opportunities. He might could slip a bit o’ poppy syrup in his drink. Could take his whole damned ship, and he’d never raise a finger. Taking one woman would be a minor thing…
Hmm…. Perhaps a dose for her would be better placed.
“Cap’n?”
Pryce’s voice jerked him from his reverie.
“Suffering Jesus on the cross! What the fucking hell is it now?” Nathan growled over his shoulder.
“By yer leave, a word, if ye please?”
Muttering a dark curse involving several farm animals and their ancestry, or lack thereof, Nathan pushed to his feet, picked his way down the bowsprit and leapt to the head rail. Walking it like many would travel a lane, he vaguely acknowledged the two men on the seat of ease who touched their topknots at his passing. It was a small effort to clap on to a sheet, swing up and he was in front of Pryce, astraddle of the f’c’stle rail.
“This had best be good, or you can jolly well wear around and haul your sorry arse away else,” Nathan said.
“The Bristol’s Cap’n’s compliments and duty, sir,” Pryce chimed as Nathan alighted on the deck.
“What the devil does he want?”
“Dunno, sir.” Pryce clasped his hands behind his back. “He just said as the Cap’n of the Bristol—that bein’ him—begs a word with the Cap’n of the Morganse—that would be you… sir.”
“Aye, it would be, wouldn’t it,” Nathan said under his breath and then louder “What in bloody hell does he want?”
Pryce lifted his shoulders as he rocked on his heels.
Nathan regarded his first mate with an eyeball which throbbed in tempo with his head. The damned, ill-beseen scrub was positively brimming, but with what he couldn’t tell. Rum was involved on some level or another, that was an odds-on favorite, but curse and burn him, if he could fathom how.
His first impulse was to prepare for the worst. As infirmed as he was, Thomas could still be a treacherous bastard when he wished. He turned to eye the Bristol. The wind had shifted; naught but her stern quarter to be seen now. There was no way of knowing what mischief or goings-on was to her windward.
Too goddamned difficult to think.
Nathan angrily swiped the air and then headed aft, Pryce on his heels. “Tach! Might as well go see what His Highness desires now.”
Barely half a glass later, Nathan stood at the gig’s bow, pondering what in the hell Thomas could possibly want. Pryce had repeatedly assured him they were not to go to the Bristol; which was all well, for it would be on pain of death should he ever step foot on those decks again… to anyone’s knowing, that is.
“He desired to wait upon ye yonder.” From the tiller, Pryce pointed with his chin toward one of the bay’s lesser islets. Supporting perhaps a score and a half of palm trees and some scrub grass, it was barely more than a dry spot in the ebb.
Curious, that, Nathan thought, but then the island was considerably nearer than shore. For all his shortcomings, Thomas had always been the practical sort: why go all the way there, when here is so much closer?
Nathan had no intention of so much as looking toward the Bristol. As much as he willed it, however, he couldn’t help but slide his eye that way. At the same time, the thought of seeing Cate brought a renewed wave of ire he couldn’t explain. By all appearances, she had made her choice. Godspeed and good riddance! He wished her and Thomas joy and luck, for they were going to be in dire need, especially Thomas. A sobering thought occurred: perhaps this summons sprung from Thomas’ discovery of the error in his ways and meant to beg Nathan to take the thankless vixen back.
Not bloody likely!
Thomas had made his damned bed, and if it had proved to be made of thorns, then so much more the better. Salt was all he had to salve those wounds.
As the boat neared, Nathan scanned the island’s beach. Deserted. If not for its whaleback, one could have seen to the other side. Craning his neck, he thought he saw movement there. His hand flexed toward his sword, but then fell away. Thomas could be a pain in the arse, but he wasn’t a dangerous pain, not in that way, at any rate. Two friendly ships, an isolated bay: what could possibly go wrong?
He narrowed one eye, considering. This might be opportunity knocking. He might could waylay Thomas somehow. As infirmed as he was, stumping about on a crutch, it shan’t be too large of a task. Then get back to the Bristol, snatch Cate up and be off.
Brilliant!
By the time the keel nudged shore, Nathan leapt from the prow feeling quite full of himself. He turned, expecting to see Pryce close behind. Instead, the gig had pushed off, her sail already filled.
“What the bloody hell? Pryce!” he shouted.
“By yer leave, Cap’n!” Pryce called back, with unseemly smugness.
“What the goddamned hell do you think you’re about?”
Pryce cupped a hand to his mouth. “No worries, Cap’n. You’ll do fine.”
“Pryce, you son of a double-poxed, Dutch whore!”
A wave and a genial nod was his only response.
Nathan stood knee-deep in the water, seething, his head pounding with renewed force. He considered swimming, not to escape the island, but to catch up the boat, snatch that motherless bastard out by the collar and send him to Jones’ Locker. But the gig had already gained too much weigh. A number of inner alarms sounded. Suspecting skullduggery or mischief, he looked to his ship.
Nothing.
Not a mutiny, so then what? He reached for his pistol, but to what point and purpose, unless he planned to shoot the island?
Not an all bad thought.
Voices drifted from the island’s far side. Pistol firm in his fist—Thomas wasn’t usually the treacherous sort, but life had taught him a prepared pirate was an alive pirate—he stalked toward them. His step slowed at hearing another voice, the harpy-like shrill of a peeved woman.
Cate!
He sped up over the island’s crest, in time to see a Bristol’s boat push away, Thomas—the devious bastard!—waving from the bow.
“Good luck, Nathan!” His deep voice boomed across the water. “We’ll be back to pick up the pieces.”
Building up an acid reply, movement caught his eye. Nathan came about to find Cate a short distance away, arms stiff at her sides.
“What the bloomin’ blazes are you doing here?” he demanded, with perhaps a bit more edge than intended. He ventured nearer, dodging a water gourd lying in his path.
“I could ask you the same,” she shot back hotly. “Is that to shoot me or yourself?”
Nathan looked down at the pistol still in his hand. Grumbling under his breath, he shoved it back into his belt.
Suffering hell!
With considerable reluctance—and to which he would admit only on pain of death—he observed her maddening tangle… well, was quite orderly, damned those blessed hair combs of Thomas’. She wore the same new stays he had seen on her in Charles Town, with the same shapely affect. The gauzy, blousy thing had been replaced by a shift, a new one, by all appearances. As he came closer, however, he was pleased to see not all was as it had seemed. Looked like the Wreck of the Hesperus, she did, wretchedly tired, with lines along her mouth and dark circles under her eyes. What the hell had she and Thomas been doing all night? Couldn’t the man give her a rest?
Feeling his stare, Cate fell back a step and glared. “Was this your doing?”
“Hardly. Yours?”
“Hardly.”
Cate batted a strand of hair from her face and looked away. They stood making a great point of ignoring each other, neither willing to give the other the satisfaction of being the first to break the silence.
At length, Cate hunched her shoulders and wrapped her arms around herself. “So, what do they intend for us to do out here?” she finally asked, in a slightly more agreeable tone.
Nathan shrugged, hazarding a step closer. “Talk, I should imagine.” She shot him a dark look, the angel-wing brows jamming together. “Don’t look at me. I told you this wasn’t my doing.”
Kicking at the sand, she cut him a look. “How long do you think they’ll leave us out here?”
He looked to the Bristol. Her longboat and the Morganse’s gig lay alongside, that treacherous Pryce slithering up the side like the worm that he was. “I should imagine until we start speaking again.”
Hand on her hip, she rounded on him with a determined jut of her chin which he found neither surprising nor appealing. “I’m prepared to spend the night, for I certainly have nothing to say.”
He cocked his hip, mimicking her pose. “Nor do I.”
“Fine.”
“Fine!”
“You remain on your side and I’ll do the same.”
He swept a mocking bow. “Say no more, darling. In fact, I’ll make it bleeding easy, lest there be any confusion.”
Nathan plunged his boot heel into the sand and dragged it from the water, across the beach to half over the rise. He finished with a flourishing kick. “There! No man shall pass!”
“Fine!” In a flare of skirts, she spun and stomped away.
Kicking sand after her, he stalked to a bit of shade under a tree and threw himself down.
“What are they doing now?”
Pryce lowered the spyglass, shaking his head in dismay. “He’s drawin’ a line in the sand.”
Braced on a crutch, Thomas slammed his hand on the rail. “Damnation, those two are stubborn. What the hell is it going to require to get them together?”
“Dunno, sir. I thought for sure by now she’d ‘ave taken his head or worse.”
“Well,” Thomas sighed and looked skyward. “We’ll give them ‘til dark. If they aren’t speaking then, we’ll go out and shackle them together for the night. Maybe that will answer.”
Pryce rolled his eyes and shuddered. “I’m hopin’ ye’ll be the one plannin’ on a-shacklin’ her.”
“How bad can she be?”
“You’ve no idea.” Pryce cringed. “A demon is that one.”
Thomas suppressed his own shudder. “She-cat” was the word which came to mind, spit, hiss, claws and all. “That’s about what Nathan said.”
“He would know, sir.”
The afternoon wore on, the impasse firmly in place. Amid the dry rattle of palm fronds, Cate thought she heard the tinkle of Nathan’s bells. Several times she looked over her shoulder expecting to see him coming over the rise, but nothing. Sitting in the spot of shade, leaning against a tree, she stared, wondering what she ever did to deserve any of this. By some convoluted fluke of ill-begotten fate, her side of the island faced the Morganse. At length, Cate found looking at the black ship was too much like looking at her captain. She considered rising to move, but emptiness proved to be too heavy. Instead, she squirmed around on her rear to a far more pleasing sight of a monotonous line of palm trees and water, a thin line of white sand in between on shore.
She ground her feet in the sand—her shoes had gone down with the Griselle—trying to scrub away the several days’ accumulation of grime. During the last week, a benign numbness had settled over her, an impervious shroud which deflected every emotion. There was no pain, but neither was there joy. She ate without tasting, listened without hearing. She clung to that protection like armor, however, loath to disrupt it lest it fall away and expose the rawness underneath.
Thomas’ betrayal plucked at that shroud’s hemline, threatening to creep under. He could bleed to death for all she cared. He had claimed the rocking of the ship aggravated his back, represented he desired solid land under his feet. An odd comment from a man of the sea, she had thought, but had agreed to his invitation, thinking only of his welfare, the two-faced, double – tongued bastard. One of Thomas’ men had lifted her ashore. She had turned, expecting to see Thomas behind her. Instead, the boat had pushed away, with him waving farewell, the sneaking fiend.
And now, she was stranded—nay, marooned with the very man Thomas had seemed so set on protecting her from. To what purpose was the grand question? Had he been so displeased at her shoddy treatment of his best friend, he had left her there, until she made amends? It didn’t seem likely, she thought moodily. Thomas owned her; he could have just bid her to be nice. The success of that was dubious, but she would have been obliged to try.
Or, had Thomas already tired of her?
As she toyed with the oddments dangling from her bracelet, a small voice screamed that Nathan’s—Damn his black soul!—hand was in this, how she couldn’t tell. Pryce’s involvement was another puzzle. As for making amends, Nathan could rot in hell. She was not about to lower this glorious shield for him. He was done with her. The question of why still glowed like a hot ember in her gut, but the vast unlikelihood of a straight answer ever coming from him prevented her from asking.
The shadows tracked across the sand as Cate counted the number of passes a lonely plover made. With the heat of the day, however, came thirst, strong enough to eventually overpower her stubbornness. She recalled a water gourd left on the beach. She rose stiffly and went to look for it.
As Cate tip-toed across Nathan’s Line-of-Demarcation, she bore an eye for him. The gourd was readily spotted in the sand. The problem was it was at Nathan’s knee. Ankles crossed, hat low over his eyes, he lounged under a tree.
Mustering her nerve and taking a tight curb on her anger, Cate crept closer. She was but a few paces away when he jerked up. He shoved his hat back, eyeing her bulldoggishly.
“What? Your half isn’t big enough?”
She pointed. “You have the water.”
“Oh.” He snatched at the gourd and handed it up. “Well, here. And stand easy; I shan’t speak.”
Cate took a drink, considering him from one eye. “You look like hell.”
And he did, worse than yesterday. There was no shame in the vast satisfaction she found in the sight. He was haggard, gray and drawn, his cheekbones threatening to poke through his skin. The smudge of a day’s growth of beard on his jaw echoed in the circles under his eyes. Earlier, she had seen him sway, his speech slightly slurred. She didn’t think him drunk, however; there was no smell of it about him. High living, as witnessed on Nevis, and worry for his ship was taking its toll.
Cate took another sip of water, jammed the wooden stopper in and handed it back. A nod served as “Thank you.” As she turned to leave, she paused to stare down at him.
“Is my very existence that distasteful?” She bit her lip; she’d already said far more than intended. It wasn’t necessarily the question foremost in her mind, but didn’t regret having said it.
Nathan jerked, but recovered smoothly. He lifted his chin in prim defiance. “I had the distinct impression you were of the same opinion of me.”
He rose lightly to his feet coming up directly before her. He made several false starts. With a strained look, he licked his lips and drew a deep breath.
“I’m sorry,” he blurted. He exhaled explosively as if the weight of the world had just been lifted. “I said things I shouldn’t and I’m sorry for it.”
Cate gaped at him, a flush of heat surging to her face. “That’s it! ‘I’m sorry?’ After all you accused me of and nearly strangled me, all you can say is ‘Sorry’?”
“Well, there’s blessed few other words for it. Tell me what you’d prefer to set this all arights and I’ll say it.”
“You sold me.”
“I never…!” he sputtered righteously. “A lot of things were exchanged, but money was most assuredly not one.”
“You traded me like a horse then.”
“No, I gave you over to where you apparently preferred to be, since you suddenly found my company so abhorrent.”
She touched her throat, feeling to squeeze the life. “I wonder why?” she said tartly.
He smiled, the crooked one which came with uncertainty. “Might we consider that water over the decks?”
“No,” she said coldly. “I don’t forgive nearly being killed, nor being called a lot of ugly names nearly that lightly. If you were so anxious to be rid of me—”
“You left,” he said, narrowing his eye.
“No, you threw me out.”
“You appear to be where you prefer.”
“No,” she said in measured patience. “I’m where I have to be. Complacency isn’t always a privilege; it’s often a necessity. You washed your hands of me, but then why are you still hanging about? What do you want from me?” she pleaded.
Having Nathan so near was disquieting. He had been the object of countless hours of sleeplessness and anguish, furor and yes, staggering loneliness. Here he stood: the reason for her being cast out from her only home in over five years. It had been a place to belong, to have purpose and most of all, people who would notice if she lived or died.
I’m sorry.
It was stunning the power those two small words carried, especially when delivered with such earnestness.
Cate closed her eyes, the backs of them beginning to sting. She careened from marrow-deep revulsion, to digging her toes in the sand to keep from flinging off her clothes and throwing herself at him.
God help me, I still love him.
“I’m sorry, too,” she said to her feet. “I said a few unfortunate things myself. It’s just… it hurt, Nathan.” She looked up. “It hurt to know you think so little of me. I’m not Olivia, who tricked you years ago.”
Nathan grimaced and dropped his gaze to his feet. “Ah, Thomas told you. Aye, well, he always fancied himself as the town crier. ’Tis a true weakness, thinking you know everything; it’s always been one of his flaws.”
He turned away and gazed across the bay. A flash of sun, as if off glass or shined metal, shot from the Bristol, her rails lined with men. The Morganse was the same, the beaches too. They were surrounded, with no place to hide. It would seem there were no secrets on islands, either. His bronzed profile sharp against the sky, Nathan went very still, the tails of his headscarf curling about his shoulders the only movement.
“Trust.” He mouthed the word like someone searching for a bone in a bite of fish. “Disquieting word, is it not? Seductive and intoxicating it is, and yet doubly more lethal than any other. It can stab your heart, tear it out, leave you bleeding, and never a warning. ’Tis stronger than any blade. Most women—with a few minor exceptions, of course,” he said, with a deferential glance toward her, “could do no harm with a sword. A man is stronger, should see it coming, fend off, parry in his own defense—win—maybe—in the end.”
He fell quiet for several moments, the hiss of the waves on the sand and rattle of the palms overhead to filling the silence. The sun flashed and darted on the silver bells in his braids.
“I trusted… years ago; natural tendency for a boy. I trusted me father to come back— eventually—but he didn’t. I trusted Mum to be about, at least until I sprouted hair on me face, but she didn’t. Foolish child’s innocence.”
A wave of the hand erased it all.
“At thirteen, on me first voyage, I learned the price of trust as I was bound and gagged, and dragged to the hold, where all those I trusted lined up to buy it back for a copper a turn.”
He hung his head, in mourning of the demise of youth.
“At twenty, I learned trust could be turned against you, used like a blade to the gut. Since then…” He swayed and clamped his lower lip between his teeth. “And a few years ago, the woman I had just taken to me bed looked me square in the face and shot me, whilst the man I trusted with me ship shot me in the back.”
Inhaling, he expelled the unpleasantness in an explosive burst. “There’s trust by choice and there’s trust out of necessity. I’ve done both, and I’ve learnt me lessons well.” He coiled a fist and clenched his teeth. “And I vowed never again.”
Compassion urged Cate toward him, but his vehemence stopped her. “But, Nathan, I never—”
He turned toward her with a casual flip of his fingers. “Trifles, darling. It doesn’t signify. I’ve come to terms; I’ve made me peace. And during that personal introspective process, I’ve learned another lesson, one even more eloquently significant than all others combined.”
Nathan paused to formally square his shoulders, a man commending his soul, and took her hand. Her heart skipped a beat. It was a shock; a few days of togetherness hadn’t erased the weeks of carefully measured distance. The familiarity of the gesture stirred all the emotions she had struggled to tamp down, like a simmering pot. The press of his flesh against hers made him so alive and real. The joy of being touched raced up her arms with the blood in her veins and bloomed in her chest, leading to some very unmaidenly urges.
The walnut-colored gaze found hers and held it. “I need you, Kittie, with me, and there’s the truth of it. You can trust me on this one.”
It was lucky he held on to her, for a passing bird might have knocked her over. As she gaped, Nathan’s confidence built, his words coming faster.
“I need you, Kittie, as God, or whoever else might be staring down, as my witness. I’m half a man without you about. I’m banished from me own cabin day and night, because I can’t bear to so much as walk into that cold, empty hole. I’ve not eaten, slept or drank—”
Cate jerked free of his grasp. “You were drunk on Nevis.” And a grand show of it he had made.
“Drunk on loneliness, I was,” he said bleakly.
The facades fell away, and he allowed her to see the wreck before her: a destroyed man, wretched and dejected. He smelled of sweat and the acrid sharpness of despair. He swayed, but not from drunkenness; he was on the verge of falling over. The red-rimmed eyes, and labored rise and fall of his chest weren’t from rum, but exhaustion. In his face she found a kindred spirit, a mirror of the hope and longing. He had suffered as she, thrice over, from nights of sleeplessness from a hunger which no food would sate, ravished by worry, desperation, self-loathing, and worst of all, fading hope.
He drew a deep breath, a man bracing for his sentence to be delivered. “If you chose to refuse me from your bed, then very well. ‘Tis me sentence and I’ll serve it. I’ll do whatever you require. I’ll fall on my knees here before all,” he said, with a sweep of his hand toward shore and ships, “and beg, if I must.”
By then he was to the point of almost babbling. She drew a breath to respond several times, but he cut her off, apparently afraid to hear what she might say.
“If I can’t have you, I still need you… with me. I need to see you skulking over your coffee of a morning, to hear you laughing with the men and quarreling with Beatrice, to hear you snoring—”
“I don’t—”
“Aye, but you do,” Nathan said, with a tolerant smile. “A wee purring sound, far back in your throat.”
He glanced up from the corner of his eye, where she stood stricken, open-mouthed. Her first days, nay weeks she had wakened in the night, terrorized by the sense of being watched.
Nathan ducked his head, a blush rising from his collar. “Aye, I admit. Yes, many a night I watched you sleep, when I couldn’t do so meself. When I needed to just… be near you, see you. Aye, a wretched wretch am I. I need you to talk to—”
“You have the Morganse.”
He dismissed the suggestion out-of-hand. “Aye, she’s there, but bloody lacking in conversation. I need to know I can speak my heart. ‘Tis been that way since the first, when I saw you puking on me deck.”
“You bastard! You’ve felt that way all this time, and you didn’t say anything?”
Nathan shrugged sheepishly. “Must allow a man a bit o’ his pride.”
His desperation surged anew. “If you won’t have me, then here’s me pistol. Put me out o’ me misery as you would any suffering dog.”
He jerked the weapon from his belt and held it out with a hand which shook slightly. He grimaced at seeing it, realizing she saw it, too. When it became clear she had no intention of taking the weapon—although sorely tempted she was—he stuffed it back into his belt. He reached again for her hand, but she twisted away. Confused and befuddled, all coming too quick. Weeks of nothing and now everything she had longed to hear pouring out.
“I need you, Kittie,” he went on determinedly. “And be damned the goddamned consequences. I don’t care whose child it is. I’ll claim it as mine, if you desire, even if it has blue eyes and blond hair. I’ll give it me name, and any cross-grained, craven cove what claims else—”
She stiffened. “What makes you so damned sure I’m carrying a child?”
His confidence faltered and his smile faded. “Because you are. Why do you keep insisting—?”
“I’m not lying!”
“Dammit to buggering hell, woman, yes you—!”
“How goes it?” Thomas inquired anxiously over Pryce’s shoulder.
“Well,” he began, peering through the spyglass. “They were talkin’.”
“Praise the gods! It’s about time.”
“Belay that. Now they’re a-squabblin’.”
“Dammit!” Running a hand through his hair, Thomas squinted toward the island. “Has she hit him yet?”
“No, but ‘pears near it.”
“Shoulda taken his weapons,” Thomas muttered. “You don’t s’pose she’d shoot him?”
“Nay, he offered his pistol, but she refused. Might aim to just run him through. Ho! She just punched ‘im!”
“He said she was a handful. Guess he was right.”
“I’m sorry, Nathan! Did I hurt you?”
“Nay, just stand off,” Nathan said through his hand. He jerked away from Cate’s attempts to console him and carefully probed his nose.
“Is it broken?” she asked, shaking her hand. She had forgotten to keep her wrist firm like her brothers had taught.
Holding his finger under his nose, he glared accusingly. “Nay, just made it bleed a mite. Can’t you warn a soul, before you do that?”
“I’m sorry.” Nothing in her voice supported the claim. “I can’t just stand and listen to someone call me a liar. Why do you keep insisting?”
“’Tis no matter,” he declared, with a wave. “’Tis by the board. Who needs trust? If it ‘tis the reef between us, then it doesn’t exist.”
Cate pressed her fingers between her eyes where a dull pounding lurked, worsening by the moment. “I can’t live like that, Nathan.”
Just as a thief couldn’t imagine honesty in a person, Nathan saw her through his own tainted lens. The thought that he didn’t know her well enough to think else was what really hurt. “You still don’t believe me.”
Smiling with gentle patience one would allow a simple child, Nathan took her hand. The gesture was a surprise. From the time she had boarded, they had lived like an old married couple, nearby, familiar and yet separate. When they finally did come together—less than a day—it hadn’t been enough to overcome the habit of carefully maintained distance. The warmth of his grasp as he interlaced her fingers with his, tracing the shapes of her knuckles, sent a prickling up her arm. It raced like the blood in her veins, then bloomed glowing in her chest.
Head bent over their hands, his lashes fanned dark across his cheeks.
“You have been aboard for over six weeks, luv,” Nathan said quietly, choosing each word with great care. The walnut eyes held hers when he looked up. His throat moved as he swallowed. “And in that time, you’ve not had your courses the once.”
Cate yanked away, stunned. “How…? What…? You’ve been counting!?”
“Well,” he began evenly, “I know the passing of a fortnight, and then another, and then the next. The moon went through its phases, and yet you didn’t. The storm allowed me to get thinking as to how long you’d been aboard, and then…” He lifted one shoulder and let it drop.
“And the more you thought, the more convinced you became. And so, since you assumed I had a child, of course… somehow… by some inexplicable and completely devoid of any rational reason, you leaped to the conclusion that I was trying to pass it off on you, so I could get… who knows what, once… if ever, I was able to coerce you into bedding me.”
“Can’t say I agree with your logic, but I can’t argue with the outcome.”
A menacing calm came over him.
“Deceit.” Baring his teeth, Nathan hissed the word, his eyes glittering with bitterness. “It’s a dangerous toy, not to be played with lightly, and I’m an authority on that. Olivia… Hattie… too many others lived by it. I thought you were different. That would be my mistake.”
He closed his eyes, and in a jangle of bells, shook off the mood. When they opened again, they were the coffee-colored warmth she had known. “It’s immaterial. I don’t care—”
Cate’s heart leapt and sunk at the same time. So that was it: trust. Something so many take for granted, and yet it was an insurmountable barrier for him. A small voice pointed out there was a positive in all this, a most touching one.
Any tenderness, however, dissolved under her cold fury of him thinking so lowly of her.
Cate spun away. She needed space to think, to breathe, to find courage which didn’t exist. Nathan shadowed her step for step, however, until she was cornered at the water’s edge. She wrapped her arms about herself and braced for what was about to be unleashed. If Nathan’s accusations had hurt, what loomed before her would be excruciating. It was like opening an attic chest, dusty and long-forgotten, and digging down through the layers of memories which constituted a lifetime. For this, however, she needed to dig and dig deeper, until her nails scratched the wooden bottom. Then tear up the slats to the secret compartment, long stricken from her mind.
It wasn’t fair!
She trembled with the injustice of it, feeling as exposed as one of those crabs scuttling about in search of a shell. These were things she had scarcely spoken of to Brian. Now, she was to display it before Nathan like dirty laundry, allowing him to see what she could barely face herself.
And all because of a miserable assumption.
God, how could she do this? Had he no idea what it was for her to drag it out and then pray she might stuff it back before she was consumed by it once more?
Silently cursing, Cate summoned her courage and plunged over the edge.
She pressed the flat of her hand to her belly, and asked hesitantly over her shoulder, “You’ve seen my marks.”
Puzzled, Nathan cleared his throat. “Aye, I recall them well.”
She balled a fist. There were few options. Which would be the higher price? Say nothing and lose Nathan to distrust? Or, tell him everything and lose him to disgust? Brian’s reaction was still vivid; how Nathan would react was anyone’s guess, but it had to be done. Nothing short of the whole story would be sufficient to allay his insufferable assumptions.
You can do this! Do it, or lose him… lose everything!
“When… after we—Brian and I were married, I got with child. Brian was ecstatic. In the Highlands, children are important and he loved them so much. He wanted one more than anything.”
Nathan’s discomfort was palpable. Any references to Brian always put him ill at ease.
Well, damn him! He’s going to be a lot worse before this was over.
“When I was three or four months gone, I was taken… by two men; they were deserters, I think.” She swallowed down a surge of bile, thinking for a moment she might be physically ill. “Later, a third joined in.”
Hunching her shoulders, Cate sidled away, but Nathan pressed close behind her. She could feel his gaze, but couldn’t bear to see his reaction. Disgust? Revulsion? Pity? Which one would she have preferred to see? There was no reason to believe he would react any differently: Brian, his family, the tenants, they had given her all of that and more.
She wanted nothing more than to be held and yet, felt so fragile she might shatter at the least touch. She sensed rather than saw Nathan’s hands hover at her shoulders and then fall away, unable or unwilling to touch her.
Cate balled her fists tighter, until her nails dug into her palms, hoping the pain would keep her in the present. She closed her eyes. Now free after years of being locked up, the faces of those men, slavering and panting, shot forward like a coiled spring. She jerked and snapped her eyes open to the brilliant glare of reality.
“They kept me for over two days, or so I was told. I don’t remember.” Her voice quavered in rhythm with her shaking knees. “Brian said he went near crazy searching. He had every servant and tenant on the estate looking—”
Her breath came in a choked half-gasp from their weight on top of her once more. Her teeth began to chatter. It had been cold, so very cold in that abandoned cottage.
“They used me.”
The first time had been violent with lust.
“As time passed, I was no more than something to stick their cocks into, and then I was beaten because I didn’t moan with pleasure or admire their prowess. One of them liked knives, so… so he cut me. He said he would cut out the child, one slice at a time.”
Cate batted away the tears.
Damn you, don’t cry!
Her hand floated to her abdomen, tracing the curve of a child no longer there, the scars detectable through the folds of her skirt.
“He’d lay the knife on my belly, so I could feel its chill. Sometimes it would be just the back of it… and other times he’d…”
She drew a shaky breath. “Have you ever noticed, when you can’t see it, a mere cut and a slice to the bone can feel almost the same? I had to trust them when they told me I still had my child.” She choked at laugh the irony of using the word. “My only thought was to be grateful when they used me, because surely they wouldn’t if my belly hung open.”
Cate dashed the sweat from her face, something she hadn’t been able to do then. Their stink cloyed in her nose, rising from her body and the slick between her legs every time she stirred. She rubbed a wrist where the bindings had torn at her skin, her ankles burning from the same. Battered and bound, she laid in the blood and semen, choking on her own vomit, wishing to die, but even Death couldn’t save her.
Cold, thirst, hunger, fear and pain all congealed into an impenetrable haze. She had been days back in her own bed before she could allow herself to believe it, or that it really was Brian at the bedside. Pale and stricken, he appeared and disappeared like some damned ghost, in spite of her crying out for him.
“There might have been a fourth; Brian said he killed four. He brought me their cocks and balls in a bag. He made a great show of roasting them and then feeding them to the pigs.”
“I should have died—” She spun around, tears stinging her eyes. “I should have died. My child did. I wanted to; I tried to. But, I didn’t!” she shrieked at the end.
Cate drew a ragged cleansing breath and dashed at her face with the heel of her hand. “I didn’t,” she said, much quieter. “I fought, and I lived. But there was too much damage; I’ll never have a child, never. I don’t have courses like other women, either. I was never regular, but now once, maybe twice a year, if all.”
His image blurred by her tears, Nathan stood wide-eyed, frozen… and so very quiet. There was no shock or disgust, as Cate had feared, just blank. Eyes which could have gone hard clamped shut. She felt as hollow and fragile as a bubble, unsure whether she would dissolve or shatter, if he were to touch her. At the same time, she knotted her fists into her skirt, fighting the urge to throw herself into his arms, desiring nothing more than to be held. She glared, willing him to look at her, daring him to speak, hoping to see he suffered as much as she, hoping for restitution for the pain he had caused.
Nathan’s shoulders slumped. His chin sunk to his chest and he slowly shook his head. “Christ, Kittie,” he said in a hoarse rasp. “So that’s why… All of the crying out in your sleep, the panic, the—”
“I don’t—”
He peered up at her from under his brows, wetness glimmering in his eyes. “Ah, but you do.” His hand came up and then fell limp at his side. His mouth moved, searching for words. “I’m sorry,” he finally landed on. “I knew… ‘twas something, but… but I had no idea… I mean, had I known…” The rest was left to hang in the air.
With a certain satisfaction, she saw his anguish. Misery did indeed flourish in company.
Cate choked a nervous laugh. “It’s not the kind of thing you gab about. What was I supposed to say, ‘Oh, by the way, perhaps you’ve noticed I’m not bleeding?’”
She ran a self-conscious hand across her midriff. “Sometimes, I almost forget. Brian, he never spoke of it; he couldn’t bear to hear it and I couldn’t…” The rest of the thought caught in her throat.
In the aftermath, Brian had been gentle and attentive; he never rebuked nor questioned. And God help her, he was patient, sufferingly and agonizingly patient.
He said he understood, time and again.
He said he didn’t blame her, time and again.
He claimed time and again, with the bastards dead, she should feel vindicated.
Repetition only made hollow words ring hollower. What was done was done. The smell of roasting balls changed nothing. The only way to survive was to bury it, so deeply her mind could never retrieve it, no matter how hard it tried. Time crept, weeks turned into epochs, but eventually an idle thought or quiet moment became worthy risks. As for sleep? Well, that was quite another matter.
She and Brian’s love had been only slightly shaken; it could have well torn them apart, mourning not the loss of her virtue, but the loss of a child—another one—but somehow, they were stronger for it. Brian became more protective than ever; when war came, it was the most pressing reason he chose to take her with him, that and knowing full well she would follow him anyway.
Cate drew a quivering breath. “I couldn’t bear to think about any of it. I tried to pretend it was only a bad dream and that someday I would wake up, but I never did.”
Nathan reached for her again, but she hunched her shoulder and sidled away, afraid his touch might dissolve her resolve to see it through.
“Finally, I made myself wake up. I made myself, forced myself to believe it never happened, that the marks were from a childhood accident, bizarre birthmarks, or something… And I had forgotten, until… until—”
The shaking seized her in full fury, so hard her joints threatened to give way. She swayed and crumpled into Nathan’s arms.
It was impossible to know which of them shook the worst. They clung to each other like two souls drowning in a sea of loneliness, neither willing to let go. She sobbed, tears of anguish and pain, tears of relief and above all tears of unrestrained joy. Nathan seemed much of the same mind. She became vaguely aware of an increasing dampness on her shoulder, too much to be from the warmth of his breath.
“S’all right, darling. I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Nathan chanted. “Hist, now, hist.” He gently swayed Cate, buttressing each surge of grief as it flooded out.
At length, exhaustion settled over Cate like a heavy shroud. Her breath coming in hitches, she clung to Nathan still, his braids soft against her cheek. The thump of his heart steady under her ear, waves of relief washed over her. The worst was over; she had told him, and he was still there. That was enough for now.
Nathan chuckled, his breath warm on her neck.
“What?” she sniffed.
“I’m becoming quite accomplished at this… this holding thing.” He paused, considering. “Not bad, actually; I’ve rather come to enjoy it.”
He stood back in order to wipe her eyes with his sleeve and smoothed the hair from her face.
Cate drew in a quavering breath and blew it out in a final cleansing. “You must think me a simpering idiot.”
“No, luv. You’re one of the strongest people I have ever met.”
She instinctively leaned toward him and put her face up to his. He gently placed his mouth over hers and kissed her.
A male cheer erupting from all around broke them apart. With a joyous whoop, Nathan picked Cate up by the waist and whirled, her skirts flaring. He hooted with a glee which verged on giddiness. He lowered her back down into his embrace.
They stood that way for a good while. Finally, Nathan held her at arms’ length. He looked skyward and then down at her, the dark dashes of his brows drawing together. “You need to be out of this sun.”
With an arm around Cate’s shoulders, Nathan guided her to a patch of shade. The tails of his coat swirled wide as he spread it at the base of a tree and saw her seated. He snatched up the water gourd from nearby, smiling self-consciously as he wetted his sleeve. He dashed at his face first and then knelt to swab hers.
“I’m a wreck,” she said, when at last sufficiently composed to speak.
“You’re beautiful.”
He leaned to kiss her with an unutterable tenderness of which she might have thought him incapable, first between her brows and then her cheek, plucking away a tear as it tracked down.
Nathan leaned back and sobered. Seeing him do so caused her to do the same. His jaw flexed as he contemplated with far more intent than the sleeve he fondled should have warranted. It was barely an arm’s reach between them, yet the space suddenly yawed like a chasm. She deliberately slowed her breathing, her heart thudding dully in her ears. This was where he told her it was all a jest. This was when he announced she still belonged to Thomas, she thought, her spirits plummeting.
Finally, Nathan cautiously looked up from under his brows, the sunlight catching the lingering wetness in his lashes. He smiled crookedly. The corners of his eyes crinkled with dread, a man about to fling himself off the topmast.
“I couldn’t venture to hope that you might allow me to your bed once more?”
His gaze dropped away. He squared his shoulders and, with obvious effort, faced her again. He attempted a smile, but failed miserably. “Again, give me me penance and I’ll serve it, but mind, I’ve already suffered as any soul in Lucifer’s or Jones’s hand might.”
Cate bit back the initial impulse to assure him there was nothing which would cause her to refuse him. But then calmer, more rational thoughts prevailed. He wanted her so badly he would accept her as a sister, if necessary. His earnestness was almost boyish. And yet, he was still so damnedly charming, even when dying inside, and he was indeed dying. She could now see what she had been unable to see before. The simple fact he allowed her to see was the strongest indication of all of his desperation.
She took no shame in delaying her answer, allowing him to suffer just that bit more. “Very well, two things.”
Nathan settled interestedly back on his heels. “Ah, negotiations, is it? Very well, name your terms.”
His confidence bordered on smugness, a man fully prepared to agree to anything in order to achieve his goal. She could ask for the riches in the Morganse’s hold. She could ask for a home, a plantation, hell, an estate, and it would be hers. All she need do was ask…
Alas, if it were only that simple.
“Never call me that… that… name again.”
Nathan’s smile faltered and then fell. “Eh?”
His eyes shifted uncertainly from side to side. She recalled then that, in the heat of their argument, he had called her several ugly names.
“Hattie,” she said coldly.
A speechless Nathanael Blackthorne was a rare sight.
“Hattie?” he echoed dully.
“Yes Hattie.” The mere mention of the name shot a frisson through her, like a goose trodding her grave.
“I never… I mean…” Nathan sputtered. “I don’t recall ever being so cod-brained as to—”
“It was while you were ill.” The poor man was in desperate need of a life line.
He heaved a sigh, one of a little relief and a lot frustration. “Anything a man utters in fever, drink, or when he’s… he’s… at those certain moments, when…” He audibly gulped, reddened and forged on. “Shouldn’t be held against him. Hell and furies, I’d have to be an incarnate, witless buffoon to do that again,” he added with a rueful roll of the eyes.
“And you have to trust I’ll never hurt you.”
Nathan’s countenance softened. A flash of gold and ivory under his mustache marked a gentle smile. “Treachery is not in you, darling. I know that now, as I knew before, had I not been too boggle-minded to see. Although, I did have cause to wonder when you threw that knife at me.”
Cate was the one to redden now. She brushed at a non-existent smudge on her skirt. “I was in a scarlet mood. I’ll admit, at the time, I would have taken great satisfaction at seeing it stuck in your leg, or elsewhere,” she added, with a significant glance.
He broke into a dazzling smile. “Very well, agreed. We have an accord!”
Nathan leaned to kiss her, his hand slipping up under her hair to curve the nape of her neck. It might have been intended to be only a brief touching of the lips, but it grew more ardent. Need and longing contained for weeks, and the joy of no longer having to do so, caused her to lunge at him, and they toppled over, Cate on top. They tumbled from side to side, groping and snatching at each other’s clothing. At one point, he came up over her.
“What?” he cried, startled by her pained yelp.
“Pistol!” she huffed, rubbing a wounded rib.
“Suffering Christ! Thought you were dying caterwauling like that.”
The remonstrations continued in an inarticulate rumble as Nathan yanked the offending weapons free and plunked them aside. He then resumed where he had left off, somewhere near the delicate underside of her earlobe. His hair fell in a black curtain around her, blotting out the world. She opened her mouth, inviting him to explore deeper. They sought to consume each other with a hunger which had gone unsated far too long. His body taut against hers, she clawed at his shirt, fighting the urge to let him take her right there, the on-looking crews be damned. It would only take a moment; he was already a brass rod against her thigh. A flick of the tongue, a clasp of the hand…
“Enough!” Nathan gasped and rising up, dodging Cate’s attempts to pull him back down. “If we keep going like this, we’re going to kill each other.”
She wormed her hips enticingly under his. “Why, Captain, have you no restraint?”
Nathan braced his forehead against hers, his back heaving. “Suffering Christ, woman, you’ve no idea the restraint I’m asserting; I could do damage.”
Her first urge was to say “Let them watch.” She didn’t care. There were no secrets on a ship. What was one bit more of revelation?
He slid an eye sideways at her. “Nay,” he said, reading her thoughts. “I’ve done it with a crowd cheering on, but not with you.”
Making low, disgruntled noises in the back of his throat, Nathan sat up. Settling with his back against the tree, he gathered Cate against him, bringing her head to rest on his chest. Their breathing slowed and their bodies loosened, molding to each other. Their racing hearts grew more regular and found a unified rhythm. Nathan’s arm around her was in perpetual motion, stroking, following the curve of her hip, twirling a strand of her hair or fondling a lock, as if he were in constant need of assurance that she was there.
Of the same mood, Cate splayed her hand over his chest, his shirt warm and damp from exertion, fingering a braid, or occasionally lifting her head to kiss him where the pulse throbbed above the woad-colored tattoo at the base of his neck. Just above the tattoo laid the reddish dash of dried blood of a sword slash during the fight on the Bristol.
Almost lost him.
A fraction deeper and he would have been dead, and she would have never known his feelings for her. She knew all too well how quickly Fate could strike: accident, illness… and argument… or boarding a ship, and he could be gone. The scar, twisted and gnarled, at the notch of his neck marked another near death, another moment when his life would have been squeezed from him and she mightn’t have ever come to know him.
In spite of the tropical day, a sudden chill seized her at the thought of that void. She snuggled closer to him, his arm flexing about her.
The palm fronds overhead rattled in the breeze overhead; the lace patterned shadows moved over them. Voices, either from ship or shore, periodically drifted past, a reminder that they weren’t alone. They both kept an ear cocked toward the shore, expecting Thomas to appear at any moment and break up their haven. A sea gull landed a short distance away and eyed them with interest. A rustle of feathers marked Beatrice’s arrival. She roosted in the crown of the palm above them and squawked. With a shrill protest, the gull flew away.
“When do you suppose they’ll come and fetch us?” Cate asked at length.
Nathan snorted. He cracked an eye open to peer down at her. “Probably when they think one has killed the other.”
She settled contentedly; she was in no hurry. They were alone, relatively, at any rate. The crew looked on, but from a great enough distance she could pretend they didn’t exist. They lay exhausted by nearly a fortnight of anguish and the strain of their newly found reunion. In that fog of weariness, one thought tumbled in her head.
Nathan wanted her…
Badly enough to overlook another man’s child. Badly enough to exist in the celibate state of “companion.” Noble and gallant were not the first words which came to one’s mind when describing Nathan, but there it was.
Nathan’s devotion to his ship was as natural to him as breathing. As to how much room was left in his heart for another remained to be seen, but he was willing to allow her to fill whatever space there was for now.
Tears welled several times at the impact of that.
“I shouldn’t have said what I did about you having been with so many women,” she said haltingly. “It wasn’t my place.”
Nathan’s shoulder moved in a dismissive shrug. “’Tis the truth,” he said bluntly. “I’ve lain with many, too many. I’ve performed and been performed upon, often with a passion on their part which revolved about their coin in one hand and daily tot of gin in the other.”
His brow narrowed as he reflected. “For some reason, women have always been easy to come by; maid, hag, matron or else, they came. Sometimes, ‘twas for the bedding; sometimes, it was the challenge of the conquest. And many times,” he added in a lower voice, his arm tightening around her shoulders. “It was just to feel another human being, someone warm and alive, to warrant that I still lived. Doesn’t make any of it right, and I’m not proud, but there it ‘tis.”
“How many, Nathan?” she asked, after a few moments. “How many have there been?”
“That’s a hell of a thing to ask a man!” he grumbled, shifting uncomfortably. “The truth?”
He tensed. It was a tenuous union they had just constructed; the least disruption could destroy it. “Scores, no, hundreds.”
Cate twitched. The actual number wasn’t the issue; she had been prepared… somewhat. Hearing it from his lips was the startlement.
“Nearly every port,” he continued matter-of-factly. “Sometimes two at a time; once, even three. No, twice, maybe three times; I don’t really remember.”
He twitched moodily. “I confess: I walk down any street and I’m infatuated a dozen times over. Every woman I see—with perhaps a few significant exceptions—I can find the beauty. And no more than I see one than I desire the next.”
“And the special ones; the ones you were with longer?”
It was an awkward question, but one which had to be asked. Logic dictated there had been those who had touched his heart. Nathan was too charming and too passionate not to have loved. Olivia, for one, Hattie, for another that she knew of for sure, but it was certain there had to have been more.
Nathan considered for some moments. “Four, five—no, six,” he added quickly. “Most were for but a few months, some perhaps a bit longer.”
“What happened… with… to any of them?” It was a self-serving question. If she might learn the cause of the demise of those, she might know how to make his infatuation with her last a bit longer.
“Time, tide; they wearied of me; I wearied of them. I think for many, it was mostly a fascination with a pirate, famous and all.”
Dismissing it with a shake of his head, he held her closer. “If it’s any consolation, luv, I’ve not gone with a woman since the day we pulled you from the water. I’m a ruined man; I rise to no others. A couple had me by the balls, but nothing.” He pressed his cheek to hers. “And yet, when you’re about, I can barely walk about decent.”
“Who had you…?”
Nathan looked away, feigning interest in Beatrice. “I was afraid you might ask that.”
“Sally?”
Desperate to gain Nathan’s appeal, a few weeks after her arrival, Cate had gone ashore to Hopetown in search of information. It hadn’t been an entirely successful endeavor. She had contrived to get herself taken up by one of Nathan’s arch enemies: Commodore Roger Harte. Thinking her to be a freshly escaped pirate hostage, and concerned—overly so, by her measure— for Cate’s welfare, Harte had taken her to a friend’s house, Lady Bart, the island’s grande dame. There Cate had been coddled and under the watchful eye of Lady Bart’s handmaid, Sally.
Nathan angled his head to look down the long line of his nose at her. “How did you know?”
“Well, it does explain several things,” Cate said tartly.
Initially, Sally had been defensive of Cate, sheltering her from what was assumed to be rampaging pirates. And then, the evening came when Sally suddenly pitched all caution aside to help Cate escape to the waiting Nathan.
“That woman took an instant liking to me,” he exclaimed in wonderment. “She had me cornered; either I serve her, or she wouldn’t tell me where you were.” He wagged a cautionary finger at her. “As I said, she had me lads in her hands, but nothing, limp as an old sock.”
“So, what did you do?” The vision of Nathan held helpless by the onslaught of a love-starved woman was just too precious.
“Come now, luv,” he said with a reproachful look. “Surely you know, as well as I, there are any number of ways to put a smile on a woman’s face.”
His face clouded as he touched her neck where he had nearly strangled her. “I’m sorry for that. Doesn’t take much of a man to do that to a woman.”
“The bruises are gone.”
“Are they?” With a pensive frown, he cocked his head. “Will you ever forget that—what I did, or rather, what I almost did? Do we ever forget our injustices? And that,” he continued with conviction, touching her neck again, “was a great injustice.”
Laying her hand over his, she gave it a gentle squeeze. “Then I suppose I’ll have to exact my revenge.” She leaned forward staring into his eyes. “And I charge a high price for injustice.” She kissed him, just enough to absolve him of his wrongs, but not enough to further entice. “And I’ll expect that price to be paid in full.”
He slipped his arms around her and rolled. In one smooth motion, she was on her back, he lying atop, his hips between her knees. He sighed in deep contentment, once… twice, a little less… His head grew heavy on her chest as he slept, clutching her as a child does its mother. Like a mother with that same sleeping child, she carefully brushed a braid away from his face so she might see him. The slow rhythmic breathing didn’t change. The deep lines of worry which had creased his face smoothed. The thick curve of lashes on his cheeks hid the dark circles. Beneath his mustache was the faint curve of an almost angelic smile.
It was the ultimate proof of his trust: he slept fully and deeply in her presence.
Smiling faintly, she closed her eyes and did the same.
“What are they doing now?”
“Just layin’ there.” Pryce lowered the spyglass, frowning in puzzlement. “Been a-layin’ under that tree for the last while, not movin’.”
Taking the glass, Thomas checked for himself. “Think she killed him? Or maybe they’re doin’ something else,” he added, with a lewd smile.
“Nay,” Pryce said, taking the glass back. “I’m none so old as to not know couplin’ when I see it. Think we should fetch ‘em?”
Thomas glanced skyward. The sun hung low and hot from behind a thundercloud “Not yet. Let’s make sure, first.”