The next morning was remarkable. The sun shone, the sea rolled past, and yet it was a different day, and of epic proportions.
The first shock came with Cate waking to the clatter of dishes and cutlery, and the smell of fried meat and eggs coming from the day cabin.
Thoroughly perplexed, she rose and quickly dressed. She went out around the curtain and froze. There sat Nathan at the table, hovering over a plate full of food, munching away. He nodded and bid her good morning with a gesture of his fork. Seeing her surprise, he had the good graces to look a bit self-conscious, but not so much as to slow him down.
“Gut foundered!” he declared around a mouthful. “Worked up an appetite… somehow,” he added with a lewd waggle of his brows.
The charts which usually occupied the table had been shoved aside. A number of platters, large and small, surrounded him, some still bearing eggs and sausages. One bore the juices of what looked to be ham. Another was scattered with the crumbs of what might have been scones.
At seeing her disappointment, Nathan gulped his mouthful. “I bid Kirkland to make more. You want these?” His fork hovered over the last three sausages.
“Umm… no,” she finally managed, still dazed by the spectacle. Besides, a cup of coffee was always required before any food was possible.
A metallic crash and cursing, in a voice rarely heard, came from the region of the galley. Cate and Nathan exchanged silent, puzzled looks at the sound of another crash, this one louder yet. Nathan opened his mouth to say something, but clapped it shut at the sound of someone coming up the steps, heavy-footed with determination. Kirkland appeared; usually red-faced, he was now flushed to the point of apoplectic. Cate sat higher in her chair. Never had she seen the man in temper; if questioned, she would have thought him incapable.
The man’s whole body quaked, but had eyes only for his captain. “With all due respect, sir, not in my galley,” he said through clenched teeth.
Nathan glanced up, away, and then back, each time a bit more resigned. Finally, he sighed. “Very well, Mr. Kirkland, you can’t be any clearer than that.”
The cook pivoted on his heel and stumped back down to his domain.
From over the rim of her cup, Cate slid a questioning eye toward Nathan. He shrugged, a bit sheepish. “Thought Kirkland might fancy a galley boy.”
Ah, yes. The problem of John and Ben again, or still, as was more the case.
Nathan dropped his fork and glumly propped his head in his fist. “Chips won’t have ‘em. Jimmy Bungs and Petrov threatened bodily harm. We can’t trust ‘em in the tops, nor on the f’c’stle. MacQuarrie won’t have ‘em; he fears for the safety of the ship with gunpowder about. Now, neither will Kirkland, ‘though I’d have to be a double-Dutch muttonhead to be surprised there. We can’t send ‘em to the hold or we’ll be up to our knees in rats. Perhaps loblolly boy!” he declared, brightening.
His gaze swiveled expectantly on her.
“A what?” she asked, uneasily.
He rolled his eyes impatiently. “An assistant. They follow the chirrugeon about, changing bandages or dispensing draughts, or whatever in the hell those drunken sods do,” he finished with an irritated swipe.
“What would that have to do with me?” she asked, now wary.
“Curse and sink me, I dunno! Assist: tote that bloody blood box of yours, roll bandages, mix potions—”
“Get them out of everyone’s hair, in the meantime.”
He sank, discovered.
Cate set her cup down and sighed, rubbing her forehead. It was a stretch to imagine how an assistant would be of any help.
“I suppose,” she heard herself say. “But it would be sporadic occupation at best, and I could use only one, at that.”
“Capital! Oh, hell, belay that. I dunno what in the hell I was thinking. I don’t wish either of those miscreants near you. They cling to each other like wet on a whale.”
“They’re afraid.”
He dropped his hand and looked up. “Of what?”
“You. Them. All of this!” she said, waving a hand.
“Pah! Stuff and nonsense.”
Cate cocked an eyebrow at him over her coffee. “You nearly killed one yesterday.”
“Too damned right! The little muddle-headed heathen insulted you. I shan’t stand by for that.”
From on deck came John’s voice and a stream of street cant and expletives, including supposed ancestry of all aboard and various animal parts. Cate buried her nose in her cup once more to hide her smile, for it was too painful to do else. So much like his father.
“Hark! The Angel of Sweetness and Innocence speaks,” Nathan growled.
“Now you’re being sarcastic.”
Nathan pulled back his lips into what only the most generous could call a smile. “Am I? I hadn’t noticed.”
He glumly ran a tired hand along his mustache as he resumed his list. “Adrift? Maroon? Sharks?” His voice lifted, intrigued by the last.
“Yes, Mr. Pryce?” Nathan called, canting a head toward the mizzenmast where the just-arrived First Mate stood.
Pryce drew up a bit short at seeing the spread of food on the table. Cate buried her nose in her cup once more, lest he might ask to what precipitated such a sudden change.
“Compliments n’ duty, sir.”
Cate’s attention drifted. Pryce’s morning report always came on a flood of technicalities and nauticalisms, all of which rolled off her like water off the proverbial duck. She looked forward to the morning briefings, however, for the sole purpose of seeing Nathan at his most natural state: sailor.
She always found pleasure in watching someone do something at which they excelled. These two men excelled at sailing, while at the same time operated with almost a single mind, communication often going beyond words. Decisions were made in rapid-fire succession, involving the ship, her stores, her course and her people.
Cate drank one cupful and was half through the next when Pryce’s change of tone jerked her from her revelry.
“’Twas another scuffle, a’tween the lad and Burke this time,” Pryce was saying. “Mizzentopsman, larboard watch,” he added for Nathan’s enlightenment. “That be the second in as many days.”
“Suffering Christ! What the hell was that one about?” Nathan growled.
Cate and Pryce exchanged looks. The First Mate arched a grizzled brow in question.
No, he doesn’t know… yet.
Cate tiredly rubbed her forehead, wondering how blind one man could truly be.?
“Disciplining the lads is causin’ resentment,” Pryce said delicately.
Nathan looked up slowly. “Who?”
“Their Bristol mates.”
“God’s my life!” Nathan lurched out of his chair and began to pace. “They really are a bunch of cockle-brained misfits. They really desire to speak up for those two scrubs?”
“They’re speakin’ up more in the way o’ a bunch of sea-lawyers.” Pryce’s observation came advisedly.
Nathan’s mouth quirked sideways. “I thought as much. I never liked the looks of any of them. Ne’er-do-wells and drunks. What the hell they were doing on a Company ship is a wonder? Taverns of Bridgetown must be empty, so now they’re resorting to the gutters? Be lunatics next, for all love!”
Nathan sighed, running a pensive finger down the lone line of his nose. “Be that as it may, we’re stuck with ‘em for now. For all the discontent regarding the punishment, there’s even more rising from listening to the little scrubs. First landfall, we’ll dump their arses, but until then they are our burden, like shipworms and rot,” he finished, with a frustrated shake of his head.
“Stand easy, Cap’n. ‘Tis afore the mast. We’ll handle it.”
“Yes, I daresay,” Nathan said, mildly pleased. After a thoughtful pause, he said “Break ‘em up.”
Pryce jerked. “The Bristols or the lads?”
“Both.”
“Ship’s only so big, sir. We’ve put the young gentleman on opposing watches and at odd ends of the ship, and they still find each other like a compass on north.”
“I have unquenchable faith in you and Mr. Hodder’s genius. Now light along with you.” A flap of Nathan’s hand set Pryce on his way. As the First Mate left, he paused at the mizzenmast to aim a desperate “Do something!” look over his shoulder at Cate.
Nathan stood with his hands braced on the back of his chair, his head low between his arms. “I knew well what before-the-mast means, for I had spent a good deal of time there meself.”
He straightened and smiled tightly. “Rule-by-your-equals, disgruntled and displeased, isn’t always a pretty matter. Ordinarily, it would be a time for the captain to mind his own oars, but how much damage shall be done, before that comes to pass is the worry?”
It was painfully obvious to all that John was a bad influence, Ben like a puppy on his heels. When the two had approached her on deck the day before, however, Cate had noticed reluctance on Ben’s part. John was the definite leader… so much like his father. Someone needed to help Ben see the error in his ways. A tall order and no mistake.
“Perhaps I might catch the younger one alone,” she suggested.
Nathan stiffened and stabbed a finger at her. “Not bloody likely! Not after yesterday.”
“They’re only boys. I can manage them.”
“Yes,” he mused. His eyes glowed with admiration. “I daresay. Perhaps our mistake was in not turning you loose on them straightaway.”
“Cap’n!” came a call from on deck. Nathan glanced outside and then regarded Cate for a moment. He pulled her up from her chair and steered her a few steps aside, out of the line-of-sight, and kissed her there. It was as one might when taking his leave for a long journey, not to the next deck.
Nathan smiled down when he finished. “A man needs something more than food to nourish him through the day.”
The end of the dog watches brought John and Ben’s freedom. It also brought what was the new evening ritual: the rattling out of the guns.
It was a simple enough matter: the guncrew to obliterate the beef-barrel target first was to be rewarded with a full ration of ale. The added challenge was Pryce standing at the quarterdeck rail, stopwatch in hand; time was of the essence.
It was a wonder how men could turn war into sport.
The Morganse had thirty-two sixteen-pound guns, which made for two hundred and fifty-six pounds of ironweight to be flung at every salvo. With each gun requiring roughly six pounds of powder per firing, not to mention slowmatch, triggering powder and the ball itself, it meant the best part of a hundred pound barrel of gunpowder per round.
Nathan shrugged off the expense. “What you spend in powder you gain in plunder.”
No one could argue with that.
“The men swear it keeps the rats and cockchafers honest for the night, too,” he assured Cate.
At the first whiff of slowmatch, Beatrice retreated to the t’gallants; His Lordship disappeared, not to be seen for hours after. The fascination with the flash and boom of guns had long passed, and so the cabin was the best place for Cate. Her meal waited on the table.
Nathan was also a firm believer that one could not always count on fair weather for a battle. And so, that night, he threw in the added complication of violently pitching decks by bringing the Morganse hard about. It put her bow virtually into her own wake, but more importantly, the wind on her nose. Between Nathan’s shout of “Ready about!” and “Helm’s alee!” Cate barely had time to grab her cup and plate to keep it from sliding across the table as the ship swung and the deck pitched on a larboard tack.
Cate finished her solitary meal just in time to go to the door to watch. The first barrage was a rolling sequence from stem to stern, sparing the Morganse’s timbers and knees from the wrenching of an all-at-once salvo. Hermione bolted past Cate into the cabin. At the top of the companionway steps, she stopped to balefully eye the scene on deck.
“Sorry, but it’s not my doing,” Cate said, tartly.
Hermione bleated in goatish displeasure and then clopped below.
“There will be no peace there, either,” Cate called after her. The guns below would be practicing as well.
The Jacobite War had provided Cate her fill of the crash of battle. She had nothing against shooting. True, more than once the sound of those guns had brought great relief and sense of security. All in all, however, she had quite enough of the storm and thunder. But, she could watch Nathan all day. He was doing what he loved, what he excelled at, and it filled her heart to watch him.
He walked the slanted deck as most would stroll a sidewalk. The firefly-like glow of the slowmatch was lowered to the guns’ touch-hole, and the tongues of hot orange licked the dusky sky. Nathan’s outline was dark against the flashes as he moved from one crew to the next. His gravel voice, growing hoarser, rose over the rumble of the trucks and the gut – tearing growl of the men hauling on the tackles, pulling a ton of gun into place. More animated than ever, he moved among the crews, goading or chiding as necessary, slapping them on the back at their success.
Watching Nathan, the smoke curling about his knees, Cate smiled to herself. She liked to think that, deep inside, he was happy. His ship and his men were a large part of it, but she fancied that she contributed a small portion. There was the chance she was reflecting her own euphoria on him, for she was indeed happy, as contented as she had been in years, since before another life, so long ago.
She closed her eyes.
Please, just allow us a little more time.
When she opened them, Nathan was at the scuttlebutt taking a drink. His eyes caught hers over the edge of the dipper. He dashed his mouth with the back of his hand. The flash of a gun caught the ivory of his grin, broad with boyish glee. He ducked a bow to her and turned to disappear into the smoke.
Cate went inside, picked up a book and settled comfortably in the velvet elbow chair at the gallery. With the gun flashes dancing on the cabin walls, it was like trying to read by lightning, for all other lights had been extinguished during practice, a wise precaution with all the gunpowder about. The planks under her feet vibrated with each gun firing. Smoke wafted through the door and coiled up the steps, the smell of salt and tar giving way to the acrid tang of gunpowder, slowmatch, hot iron and sweat. A great deal of hooting and cheering was involved, as well, the practice taking on all the characteristics of an over-sized turkey shoot. She shook her head, curbing a wry smile. Destruction and explosions tended to put the men in high spirits. One had to wonder if it were the noise or the smell of gunpowder?
Eventually, there was another “Ready about! Helm’s alee!” followed by a pounding of feet. Cate braced her foot and shifted in her chair to accommodate the deck pitching the opposite direction as the Morganse swung around on a starboard tack, lest the guns there feel slighted. She resettled to her book with renewed intent.
At last, the guns silenced. A rousing cheer went up, followed by the sound of men racing to the rigging. The Morganse veered, the deck leveled, and Hodder bellowed “Swabbers!” and the evening ritual concluded.
Cate closed the book and rose, for she had a ritual of her own to perform.
Cate ducked around the curtain into the night cabin.
A by-product of the Morganse set in for a long sail was fresh water was more closely attended. It wasn’t tightly rationed, as it had been during her Atlantic crossing, but it no longer flowed with the same freedom. Consequently, the ewer on the washstand was only half-filled and Nathan now shaved with sea water. Undressing, she poured a bit into the basin, wetted the sponge and began to bathe.
The watch bell rang. She had grown more attuned to them. It was an insufferable system of time telling—four rings not necessarily indicating four o’clock—but she grasped enough to know the nearer to eight rings, the near she was to Nathan being hers. There was a reverse effect which came with that, a form of torture meted out in thirty-minute intervals until his appearance.
She cocked her head, counting the rings. Soon.
Nathan had awakened her needs of the flesh, ones long dead. Her heart lurched with new violence at an unexpected glimpse of him. The sound of his voice touched her in places she blushed to admit. Having him so near, and yet so far, was agony. But when he finally came to her, he would be hers for four hours. Four hours of the closest to his undivided attention as could be managed.
Cate was still in the midst of bathing when she heard the clomp of Nathan’s boots, first coming into the salon, and then being cast off. The sound of water pouring was next, followed by vigorous splashing and sputtering. Nathan came around the curtain dashing himself dry with his wadded shirt, weapons in the other hand. His breath was still quickened, his eyes still bright with the soaring spirits of gunfire. The candlelight spangled in the droplets on his chest as he deposited his weapons on the nightstand. He came up behind her and slipped his arms around her waist, bringing with him the smells of smoke and saltwater. He pressed his face into the crook of her neck.
“You smell so good.” His breath blew warm on her neck. The heat of the gun exercise radiated from his hands as they skimmed over the film of water on her skin. He cupped both of her breasts, his thumbs brushing her nipples. He was hoarse with shouting and smoke; it gave his voice an added huskiness which stirred her deeper.
“Not so much, anymore,” she murmured. Conversation was becoming a bit difficult.
“What?” he canted his head, still deafened by the gun practice.
She brought her mouth closer to his ear and said a bit louder, “I don’t smell as good. Prudence used all my soap.”
It was a regrettable loss. Shortly after her arrival, during one of his ventures ashore, Nathan had obtained a bar of soap for her. Barely more than a sliver, it had been finely-milled, with bits of lavender and rose petals, and her most precious possession, not only by virtue of its rarity—it had been years since she had possessed any—but because it had been her first gift from Nathan. “Someone who worships cleanliness as much as you should have something to put upon its altar,” he had said upon presenting it. Lord knew how he had ever come by it, but it had been her greatest treasure. “Had been,” however, were the operative words, for the luxury had been short lived. Prudence, a petulant and spoiled woman-child Nathan had kidnapped, had used it all.
“Bloody hell,” Nathan grumbled against her neck. “Is there no end to the pillaging of that wench?”
She leaned back against him, the droplets of water in his chest hair cold on her shoulders.
“I used to intentionally stand downwind just so’s I could get a whiff of you, like a ruddy dog with his nose in the air,” he said.
Nuzzling her neck, he drew her tighter. He brought her mouth to his and kissed her, a plundering exploration of her mouth.
“You taste like seawater,” she said when he finished. His routine after gun practice was to strip at the scuttlebutt and dump a bucket of water over his head to remove the grime. He had washed off at his shaving stand, instead.
“Aye, the scuttlebutt was out o’ the question what with the admiral already at attention.”
It was no exaggeration; he was hard as a pistol barrel against her rear.
“I’ve been planning this since I saw you sitting on the f’c’stle today; haven’t been able to carry another bloody thought since. I could imagine coming up behind you…” he murmured against her neck.
His mouth found hers again, his kiss demanding and, at the same time, a warning: he couldn’t be gentle.
“…bending you over that rail…” He flicked her earlobe with his tongue, and then did things with it where her shoulder and neck met which made it difficult to keep her legs under her.
“…lifting up your skirts and pleasuring you.” A shift of his hips and the hardness was between her legs.
He sighed contentedly, smiling against her skin. “Damn, you’re slick as kelp.”
A hand braced at her belly, he rocked his hips, a slow, teasing motion at first, using the ship’s motion as an impetus. She curled an arm around behind him, seeking an anchor, but, finding nothing other than the hard curves of his back and clenched buttocks, slipped off.
A jerk of his hips, a small gasp of surprise from her, and he was inside. She was caught between the urge to spread her legs to allow him deeper and the inability to move. A giggle bubbled up in her throat; the angle presented new sensations, flirting with discomfort, but by no means did she wish him to stop. She closed her eyes, her senses spiraling down to the single point of their joining. She braced first one hand, and then both on the washstand to absorb his thrusts.
Nathan growled in dissatisfaction and guided her to the bunk. His weight pressed her down, her face in the quilt. His fingers dug into her hips with this renewed assault. The rasp of his breathing, the clatter of his bells and the rhythmic slap of his thighs against hers filled her ears. Each thrust was like a hammer, reducing her to small, inarticulate gasps.
The ship took a lee lurch; Cate yelped painfully when her hip jammed into the bunk. Nathan lifted her up and flung her onto the mattress. He rose between her legs and slid home. Within a few strokes, her belly tightened like a huge fist coiling a rope. She felt his balls contract, and he shuddered, convulsed, and shuddered again as he spilled into her. A few strokes more and the coiling broke free in a long, racking spasm.
She sank away on a cloud, Nathan floating with her, limp in her arms. Still joined, he moved inside of her, a quick and teasing. She answered, contracting her still throbbing flesh. They laughed softly together, finally coming apart.
Heaving a blissful sigh, Nathan roughly stuffed the pillow behind his back as he propped himself against the bulkhead. Eyes half-closed in contentment, one hand behind his head, he idly fingered a lock of her hair.
There was no sight more appealing than Nathan in his afterglow. She might have just made love to him, but Cate couldn’t keep her hands from him. Braids snaking about his head, he was laid out before her in all his glory. The candlelight gleamed on his ivory skin, shadowing the curves and hollows. The flat angles of his shoulders and chest lead down to the springing arch of his ribs. The long slope of his belly was divided by small whorls of dark hair spiraling down to the dark thatch between his legs.
“I’d forgotten how good it is,” she murmured, following the muscular curve of his forearm. “What it’s like to have a man in bed.” Years of cold and lonely nights had compelled her to wipe it from her mind. It was either that or go mad with need.
He twitched at her touch, his eyes opening to bare slits. “You like it, then?” he asked, half – pleased and half-shy. “Gun play gives me a wicked cockstand.”
“You said that about sword play,” she said dryly. It seemed of late a plucked chicken would do the same to him or her, for that matter. There was no shame in admitting she wanted him every minute and was as wet as that aforementioned kelp at the merest sound of his voice.
He closed his eyes again and re-settled. “Aye, ‘tis true. Anything to prepare me for you.”
“A battle is it?” she asked, suddenly wary.
He smiled complacently from behind his lids. “Nay, garnering courage.”
She stiffened and withdrew her hand. “I’m sorry. I thought—”
His eyes popped open, sharp and alert. “No, it’s not like that.”
His hand found hers and clasped it against his chest, tracing the shapes of her knuckles as he contemplated. “Expectations.” He mouthed the word carefully. “‘Tis a disquieting thought.”
He finally ventured to meet her eyes. “The first time we laid together, you worried of meeting mine.”
“But, of course, I did. It had been years for me, and you’ve been with hundreds…” she stammered. At the same time, her mind strained to recall their times together. She thought him satisfied, but apparently not. Self-doubt deflated her like a punctured bladder.
A wave of his hand cut her short. “One who worries of measuring up to another’s expectations means they nurture expectations of their own, darling. You know what it ‘tis for your pleasures to be met, which leaves me to worry that you’ve been left…” He swallowed. “Wanting.”
“Wanting?” Once again, Nathanael Blackthorne had struck her speechless. If he had meant to disarm her, it had been a grand success.
It was overtly evident that he was virtually bursting with the desire to say something further, but was afraid.
“What?” she urged.
His eyes darted away. “Nothing.”
Touching a finger to his chin, she brought him back to her. “Honesty, remember?”
“Bloody hell,” he grumbled moodily. “I’m going to lose me warm bed over that bloody honesty.”
“No throwing, I promise.”
He eyed her, measuring. “Very well, me pistol’s out o’ reach, so I suppose I’m safe enough.”
Given that, it still took him several moments before he spoke. “I’ve been with more women than ‘tis flattering, but I’ve never,” he went on over her sputtering, “been with one who knows more of what a man is for than you.”
She glared. The not so small detail of his grand “experience” had already been acknowledged, she didn’t appreciate having her nose rubbed in it.
“Aye, there have been those who have taken their pleasures…” he went on blithely.
She reddened, for that was pretty much what she had done, several times.
“But you,” he said, the coffee-colored eyes rounding in wonderment. “You take your pleasures, but you give all the more, all the while. You don’t just like it, you love it!” he ended with a salacious grin.
“I’m not sure if I’ve just been complimented or slandered,” she said, shifting away.
He lunged to grab her by the arm and pull her back. A finger to her chin forced her to meet his gaze. “Compliment, darling, of the highest and most sincere sort.”
She was somewhat chastened. She flattered herself as something of an expert on the facades of Captain Nathanael Blackthorne, but this one was heretofore unseen: earnestness, of the purest strain. It was both new and disquieting.
He sat back, affecting causal, but his shoulders were as wooden as the wall behind him. His lids lowered, his lashes veiling his thoughts as he picked at a seam in the quilt. “Were you like this… always?”
Oh, dear.
Heat surged from her waist to her crown. She didn’t dare look away, though a part of her wished to race from the room. This was one of those moments when the truth didn’t always answer, and yet to lie would be too easily seen and needlessly hurtful. She was a firm believer that there should only be two people in bed at any given time and had been highly successful at keeping visions of Brian at bay… until then.
“Brian and I were virgins,” she began carefully. “But we were never virginal.”
Still looking away, Nathan soberly nodded, his mouth working under his mustache. “Am I…?” He hesitated and then looked up shyly. “Am I much like him?”
Cate clamped her lip between her teeth. Her first urge was to ask whether he meant in general or in bed. She opted for the former, for there was no way to come off credibly answering the latter. God help her, just trying to answer it at all without causing great harm to all involved. It would be a delicate balance to compliment one without over-flattering the other.
She opened her mouth to say “Not in the least” but choked it off, for upon further reflection, she discovered that wasn’t entirely true. In appearances, they were as alike as Abel and Cain. And yet, when one winnowed down to the man inside, there were a great number of similarities, staggeringly so. Both had a sense of pragmatism which could border on ruthless; both were haunted by the violence they had committed and carried the resulting scars.
“Well, you’re both stubborn,” she heard herself say.
“I am not!” Nathan huffed, crossing his arms across his chest.
“Well, then, tenacious. And with an insufferable sense of duty.”
“As every man should.”
“He was fiercely protective of what was his.”
“Good man!”
“And we could laugh in bed.”
Much to her pleasure, Nathan was brought up short by that.
Leaning closer, she narrowed one eye to survey him. “But there is one significant difference.” She’d gone this far; might as well see it to an end. The possibility of losing her warm bed wasn’t out of the question.
Nathan arched his brows expectantly. She made him wait a bit longer, letting him twist on this hook. “I’ve been with—”
“One great love,” he finished for her.
She stiffened at him putting unintended words in her mouth. And yet, to deny what he said would be too much the lie, one she couldn’t carry off credibly.
Instead, she found his hand and pressed it flat over her heart and said solemnly. “Then make me forget him.”
She kissed him then, plundering his mouth as he had so often plundered hers.
When they parted, he drew a breath to say something, but stopped, his eyes rolling up toward the beams overhead.
“What is it?” Cate asked.
“Nothing.” The distraction in his voice belied the opposite.
“Bloody cursed eyes of yours,” he grumbled at her lifting a doubting brow. “Just listening to me ship.”
Her heart sank. Their time together was over. It had been grand, but brief, not even the full four hours. No amount of distractions she might contrive would cause him to resist the call of his ship.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing serious.”
She was only slightly eased by that.
Nathan saw as much and frowned. “Mizzen needs trimming; she’s luffing.” His countenance grew more shy. “Squidge is on the wheel; he has a tendency to hold her too hard to it. She’d give him more, if he would fall off… just a bit,” he added with an equivocating waggle of his hand.
Cate propped her head in her hand. “You know her well, don’t you?”
Nathan nodded, though still distracted. “I’ve held her life; she’s held mine, many a time.” He glanced at Cate self-consciously. “‘Tis the same for any captain.”
“I hardly think so,” she said tartly. “I never had that impression on the Constancy. It’s different for you and the Morganse.”
He laid a loving palm on the bulkhead at his side. “Aye, I’ve surrendered much for her and would do twice the same again.”
Nathan’s adoring gaze and voice sparked a pang of jealousy, for such emotion was reserved for his ship and his ship alone.
“That board just above there sometimes creaks,” she said, angling her head.
He was both surprised and pleased by her observation. “Aye, that means she’s on a larboard reach. She loves that… then,” he murmured, stroking the wood next to him.
“I knew that the first, no second day I was on board,” she said haltingly, “what she was to you.”
His braids splayed like ebony fingers on the small pillow they shared. She toyed with one, biting her lip. “Do you think the Morganse minds me, a woman, on board? Do you think she minds sharing you?”
It was an awkward question. As for herself, sharing was never a natural thing, not even as a child. When she married, the trait manifested itself in jealousy of the most rabid kind, in spite of Brian’s faithfulness, sometimes to the point of being chastised by friends and family. Being with Nathan was no different; she flared at the thought of any woman being near him, let alone occupying even so much as a fraction of his mind. His ship, however, was quite another matter. To try to come between them would be like trying to separate a clam from its shell: to take one meant to kill the other.
Nathan peered down his nose at her. “I haven’t heard her complain.”
Still, jealousy knotted her gut. “Freedom” emblazoned over his heart and swallows on his knuckles for the thousands upon thousands of miles sailed: no hearth would ever hold Nathan. Logic dictated a person who held such a passion for a ship might possess the same capacity of a person, but a very special person it would have to be. He was hers… for now.
Cate settled next to Nathan, possessing him for the moment, at least. “I wouldn’t know. She doesn’t talk to me like she does you.” She bit her lip, for that sounded far too harpish.
A sly smile spread across his lips. “Get dressed.” He rose so abruptly Cate had to scramble to keep from being dumped to the floor.
“What?”
“Just show a leg and get dressed. I realize now you two have not been properly introduced. ‘Tis me own damned fault,” he said, jerking his shirt over his head.
Puzzled, but for some reason compelled, Cate did as he bid. Her shift and skirt went on easily enough, but the stays were a struggle.
“Spread some canvas there! ‘Tis mind boggling what takes you women so long,” Nathan huffed from the doorway. Gasping in impatience, he came back to push her hands away and take over the task.
Cate watched over her shoulder as he deftly maneuvered the tapes. “Where did you learn to do that so well?”
He opened his mouth to reply then clapped it shut. “Nay, I shan’t say, because it could be infinitely counterproductive to me best interests.”
With a final tug at the bow, he guided her out of the night cabin, through the salon and out on deck.
It was a night typical of the tropics, the air having the texture of velvet, heavy yet smooth on one’s skin. The moon was a lopsided crescent, small and low, barely able to cast a shadow. The fly-by-nights were set and reefed. The wind a quarter astern meant only a slight list, the deck rising and falling in a slow rhythmic, rocking-chair motion with the swell. The water passed under the leeward chains in a rustling hiss. With the heat of the day still trapped below, the deck was scattered with the shapeless forms of those who had opted to sleep there. Cate had learned early that, if she were to take an evening stroll as she loved to do, it was best to do so before the deck was littered with bodies. To stumble into one usually meant a good cursing.
With a hand at her waist, Nathan guided Cate up to the quarterdeck, his bare feet padding on the planks behind her. As advertised, Squidge was on duty. His mulatto features pinched at the unexpected appearance of his captain. The latter, wearing nothing more than his shirt, had to have added to the surprise. Nathan waved him away from the helm with a flutter of fingers. The man, nonetheless, hovered near the leeward rail, either expecting to be beckoned back, or in fear of a berating from Hodder or Pryce for dereliction.
Taking a stance at the wheel, Nathan nestled Cate between his arms. “Now, put your hands on the wheel, here and here. No, not so tight.”
She grasped the handles as confidently as she could, Nathan’s hands over them. He bent to rest his chin on her shoulder, his breath warm in her ear. “Catherine Mackenzie, meet the Ciara Morganse.”
While most spoke the name as something closer to “Sara” or “Sarrie,” Nathan pronounced it with an odd lilting “see-hee-ra,” as a true Celt might.
At first, Nathan steered, allowing Cate to master her initial qualms and acquire a feel. No one could have overlooked that, at seeing Cate step to the helm, the crew exchanging wary glances. Tradition held every man aboard, right down to the cook, had their turn at the wheel. In the dim, a few appeared less than pleased at the sight of a woman there.
From the corner of her eye, Cate could see Nathan’s face in the glow of the binnacle lamp, his eyes bright with enthusiasm. He felt her gaze and smiled down at her, winking. “Mind your duties, lass.”
Bringing her closer against him, he held her hands tighter about the spindles. “There,” he whispered. “Feel that?”
She squirmed her bottom against his hips, making a seductive sound.
“Not that,” he scolded, “the ship! Feel that? That’s the sea against the rudder. Wind, ship and water all meet here.”
She did feel something. Not a vibration, but a liveliness, a pulse, the very life of the ship in her hands.
“Feel the wind?” His voice was tight with excitement. “Feel her trying to come to it?”
Breeze buffeted Cate’s cheek, and the ship surged ahead. At the same time, it veered to windward, almost as if on a string. “Yes, I do.”
“Feel her? She’s looking for the wind. Now, here’s a gust. See, she’s found it. Now she’s trying to bring her nose into it.”
Like a lover’s hands, he worked the wheel, side to side, and then back, guiding the Morganse and Cate’s hands.
“Nothing on the rudder means she’s having her way with you. You have to tell her ‘No, keep your bow away,’” he said.
His grip gradually loosened, and then hovered, allowing Cate to maneuver the wheel on her own.
“There! That’s it!” Nathan purred in a low urgent voice. “Bring her back. Not too much; be gentle. If you’re too rough, she’ll be rough with you.”
A stronger puff of wind caused the ship to list further. The moan in the shrouds raised a quarter tone, and the blocks groaned. Cate felt the added pressure and stiffened her grip, the bow fighting like an iron-mouthed horse to come around.
“That’s it, bring her back. Don’t fight her; let her run free. That’s what she wants. Anticipate.” Nathan leaned closer to murmur “She’s just like a woman, wanting what’s not best. Allow her desires to come into the wind, and she’s dead in the water.”
Cate caught his barb, but was too intent on her task to comment.
“Keep her bow away, the wind in her sails, and she’ll boil the water,” he declared.
Nathan eased further away. The power of the ship reverberated through Cate’s hands now, from her fingertips all the way to the soles of her feet, the deck feeling even more alive. The pressure on the rudder was a constant reminder of the Morganse’s eagerness to have her way. With each gust, each push of a wave, the Morganse yielded to Cate’s direction, but with reluctance, always wanting a bit more of her head. Sometimes, the ship showed her spirit, like a capering colt. Only Nathan’s firm hand returning now and again caused her acquiesce.
Nathan lifted his face and closed his eyes. “Ah, the wind’s freshening. Hold ‘er!”
The deck pitched further, Cate bracing her feet wider. The totally bald, as in not a hair anywhere on his body, Mr. Ogden, Captain-of-the-Watch, called for those on the main and foremast to the tacks and sheets. The water raced under the leeward chains faster. Cate’s heart pulsed as it had in her childhood when riding a runaway horse. Nathan’s suggestion that she anticipate the Morganse had been a puzzle, but gradually she came to grasp his meaning: any change in the wind, either up or down, was a precursor to the Morganse response, and she could outwit the ship.
Cate chanced to glance up at the pyramid of sail towering overhead, bowed drum tight, cables and spars straining. As Nathan had said, wind, ship and sea all came together under her hand. Elation made it difficult to breathe. At the f’c’stle had been her preferred place. With the sea racing just below and the wind pressing her clothes against her body, the sense of speed was the most thrilling there, the nearest thing to flying, she had thought. The powerlessness against it had added to the thrill, like a dry leaf at the mercy of a zephyr. Now she was in control of it all; not just a runaway horse, but a six-in-hand team of runaways.
“Fall off, luv. Feel the stays’ls n’ jibs shiver?”
Yes, a low thrumming vibration, emitting from somewhere near the bow.
“You’re coming up too hard.” Nathan’s gentle admonishment brought her back to her task.
Their lovemaking had left Cate’s hair a tangle. Now, with the wind over her shoulder, it whipped in her face. Seeing her toss her head, Nathan pulled the strands away from her eyes, tucking them behind her ear, a temporary measure, to say the least. Finally, he twisted it up in his fist and rested his arm on her back to hold it.
Cate’s laugh was almost a giggle. “This is…!” Her mouth moved groping for a word she couldn’t find.
Nathan’s laugh was as a proud parent. “Never mind the course, luv,” he said, seeing her glance down at the erratic compass. He bent his head next to hers and pointed. “See that star between the foremast shroud and jib clew? Keep it there.”
Cate bit her lip in concentration, for now, it was a double balance: managing the ship and keeping the star aligned. A conversation ran in her head; whether it was with herself, or between her and the Morganse, Cate couldn’t tell.
Yes. No.
There you go.
Come back here.
Not so much.
Oh no you don’t. Please.
Not again.
Damn! Too much!
The task was far more strenuous than imagined. Her arms and shoulders soon began to protest. Time and again, she had seen the helmsman, often two during a good blow, wrestling with the wheel, but now she had a new appreciation for the strength and endurance it required.
“She likes you. She’s got the bone in her teeth now!” Nathan whispered.
Time fell away. Cate’s awareness narrowed down to the pulsing wood in her hands and the star. Vaguely, she was conscious of Nathan removing his headscarf and securing it about her head to keep the hair from her eyes. Only a small portion of her mind could be spared to note the bell was rung, the glass flipped, and then again. The logline was flung over the side. Odgen took a compass reading in the light of the binnacle lamp and then posted it all on the traversing board.
“Come away, darling. Your watch is over.” Nathan urged her away, slipping the scarf off her head.
Cate’s hand lingered on the spokes. “That was incredible!” she gasped, shakily.
Nathan smiled, as he guided her toward the steps. He leaned to murmur in her ear “I’ve something else incredible for you.”