It had been years since Thomas had traversed from the back bay to Bridgetown, but the path, well-worn by the tradesman-of-the-night, had changed little. Realizing that over two hundred men—pirates, no less—marching would set off every kind of alarm, looking far too much like a damned invading army, not to mention scaring off his contact, he and Nathan bid their men to disperse and “blend in” with Bridgetown’s waterfront. At the same time, they were warned to stand by and be at-the-ready, for it would be all hands once they knew where Cate was. Strength was always being found in numbers, the two captains bid Al-Nejem and the Morganse’s equivalent, Mr. Pryce, along with a handful of men from each ship, to stick with them.
Eden’s Garden was their destination. Ducking his head under the lentil, the air inside met Thomas like a torrid, muggish wall. God’s teeth, how many of these places he had frequented? And yet, they were all the same: dark and stinking. The only difference from one ocean to the next was the language heard, and the swill poured. Like all of them, the long pigtails, weathered faces and voices accustomed to being heard over wind and water marked most of the patrons as sailors. He tensed at the sight of the green-and-gold uniforms. Companymen, but there were only a few and thinly clustered. After all, it was the waterfront; not a pub, tavern, alehouse, pothouse or rum shop was to be found in Bridgetown that wouldn’t sport at least a few. Of more interest was the lobsterback-red, brilliant against the mariner’s drab. That was a rare sight, but again, there were only a handful and those looked to only be there for the same reason as everyone else: drinking.
The place was crowded, every table and seat occupied. Their minds working in much the same way, Thomas and Nathan wove their way through the jostling press of bodies toward a table in a corner, putting a wall at their backs. Glassless, shuttered windows lined this one. A trio occupied the table, and so the two captains stood over them.
“By your leave, friends,” Thomas said amiably, “but my friend and I desire to sit.”
“Sit on this,” growled one, with his back to Thomas. To the general pleasure of all present, he grabbed his cock.
One facing Thomas and Nathan, hence possessing a stronger sense of who he was dealing with, gestured off-handedly. “Plenty of room at the end.”
“Aye, so I see, but our business demands a bit more privacy,” Thomas pressed with a significant lilt.
“Go to hell,” grumbled the third into his drink.
Nathan’s hand rose to one of his pistols; Thomas stopped him with a sharp look. He clapped a hand onto the shoulder of the cock-grabber as if to brace himself, as he leaned to pitch several coins on the table.
“For any inconvenience,” said Thomas. At the same time, a low threatening growl emitted from Nathan, one befitting of an annoyed mastiff. The performance was rendered all the more effective by bugging eyes and baring of teeth.
Cock-grabber turned his head to glare at the offending hand on his shoulder. His courage faltered at seeing its size and breadth. His eyes slowly traveled up the long arm to Thomas’ smile, one calculated to both charm and intimidate.
“If you please, gentlemen,” Thomas said through his teeth.
Mariners they all were. With a long-entrenched habit of reflexively responding to any voice of authority, they rose, knuckling their foreheads, and gathering their drinks and new-gained wealth as they took their leave. Nathan settled next to Thomas on the bench, their backs to the wall.
Al-Nejem and a handful of Lovelies came in directly, moved through the bawdy crowd and found themselves a table nearby through much the same bribery. Pryce and his Morgansers stepped in a bit later and wove their way through the crowd. Looking like no more than more sailors seeking drink and women, they took up a stance a short distance from their captain’s table.
A sullen wench delivered Thomas and Nathan’s drinks. She bumped Thomas’ shoulder familiarly with her hip and winked, but to little avail. Whores approached, parading their wares. They were handed a shilling and sent away, leaving the two men to themselves. Thomas sipped his drink, while Nathan stared sightlessly into his, his boot heel rapping a rapid tattoo on the floor.
“I don’t see him,” Thomas said, squinting. The air was so thick with tobacco and candle smoke, one could barely see a biscuit toss. “But he’ll be here.”
Seeing Nathan for the first time in something more than twilight, he stopped in mid-drink to scowl. “You look like hell!”
Nathan hadn’t shaved since god knew when; his face was no more than two dull eyes peering out over a black scruff. The circles under those eyes were nearly as dark. He was drawn, with a sickly pallor that made him look like morbidity had already set in. Spattered with blood and smeared with filth from the battle, he looked the right tartar. Passing a hand along his jaw, Thomas reflected he mightn’t have looked much better himself. Certainly, he looked a damn sight nearer to alive, however.
A smile was attempted, but failed. “’Tis fitting, because I feel like hell,” Nathan said dully. “Can’t sleep, can’t eat.” He pushed his tankard away and made a face. “Can’t drink, either.”
Thomas slid the battered mug back. “Drink it. You need it. You’re not going to be much good to Cate shaking like that.”
Nathan lifted his hands as if seeing them for the first time. “Not sure when that started.”
Two Morgansers strolled past and sat a few tables away; soon after, a Lovelie did the same. A group of four drifted in, Morgansers and Lovelies, and settled. More of their men straggled in, alone or in pairs, blending into the other patrons. Music broke out from an unseen corner, a mouth harp and a flute playing some kind of a jig. Which one was precious difficult to tell. The confusion wasn’t only on his part; a number of voices raised in hearty song, but all to a different tune. A few were trying to dance, judging by the rhythmic stomp of feet.
“How’d the lad work out?” Thomas finally asked.
It took Nathan a moment to smoke his meaning. He grinned, slow and reluctant. “You diabolical bastard, you knew who he was and sent him over, anyway.”
Thomas shrugged. “Have to be both blind and a fool not to know who he was. Hell, I called out twice to him on deck, thinking it was you.”
“A bit o’ warning could have answered nicely, old friend.”
Thomas blinked in overt innocence. “You mean Cate noticed?”
Nathan regarded him narrowly over his shoulder. “She’s neither blind, nor a fool, which you knew damned good n’ well when you sent him over. Hopin’ she’d fly off on a rage and go running back to you?”
The thought of Nathan slowly twisting on a hook with a natural son, the fruit of his dalliances with another woman parading about in front of Cate had been delightfully pleasant. And, if Cate had came running back to him, she would have done so into open arms. Thomas winced and shifted at the uncomfortable thought of Nathan returning the favor, a not impossible possibility. Hell, no man lived a monk.
“Can’t blame a man for tryin’.” Thomas buried his smile in his drink, but then spit it out. The stuff tasted like pig piss. “With other women, it would have answered.”
A spark of pride touched the black pits which were Nathan’s eyes. “As you so eloquently have pointed out, she’s not other women.”
“If she’d been with me—”
Nathan’s face darkened, and he lurched to his feet, balling a fist. “Don’t say it!”
“Sit down, you bloody damned fool!” Thomas hissed, yanking him back down. He glanced across the room, but the green-and-gold uniforms remained seemingly oblivious.
Nathan sat heavily, but several inches further down the bench. The muscles in his jaw worked under the growth of beard. The dip-light on the table cast deep shadows in his face. The skull on his flag looked less forbidding.
“If she had been with me,” Thomas began anew, “it would have never come to this.”
“Because you know how to better care for her?” Nathan asked sourly.
Thomas made a rude noise. “No surprise there. You’ve never known how to care for a woman, any woman. I meant Creswicke would have never looked for her with me.”
Nathan cut a sideways glare. “Throw her to the snake to save her from the shark?”
“It’s not that way and you know it,” he shot back heatedly. This wasn’t the conversation he wanted to be having, but the silence had been mortal. “Sure, I’d have her in a minute, but she won’t have me so, there it is. Hell, you more than anyone should know having what we want is a privilege neither of us enjoys.”
Under the din of the carousing crowd, they fell into a brooding silence. The board under Nathan’s boot vibrated as the tempo of the tapping heel increased, his fingers working around his otherwise untouched drink. Thomas found himself wishing he hadn’t sent the whores away. Anything would be a grateful distraction.
“Where the hell is this man of yours?” Nathan finally grumbled.
“He’ll be here. He got a whiff of my coin a couple nights ago. He’ll be sniffing for more.”
“What the hell business did you have with His Lordship’s clerk?”
Thomas met Nathan’s surly glare blandly. “I despise the man as much as you, or nearly so,” he was quick to qualify when the glare hardened. “I’m game for anything that might add a bit more misery to his life.”
Too preoccupied with his own misery, Nathan lifted and dropped one shoulder in vague acknowledgment. A gypsy wasn’t required to read what was going through Nathan’s mind. It was a struggle, and a vain one, for Thomas to think of much else. Time was a friend to neither of them, every moment a torment, every passing second an extension of Cate’s captivity. Once again, Thomas found himself tempted to beckon the whores back. The idea was dismissed almost as soon as it formed; neither of them were fit company, even for a strumpet.
Thomas clapped a steadying hand on Nathan’s shoulder. “Stand easy! We’ll get her back.” He said it more for his own benefit.
Nathan slowly lifted his head to look at Thomas as if he were feeble. “Of course, we’ll get her. There’s bloody, damned no question of that!”
“And how do you figure?”
The hand around Nathan’s mug lifted in a vague, dismissive wave. “’Tis a simple matter of giving His Bumptious Lordship the one thing he wants most: me.”
Thomas hunched forward, thinking, nay praying he had misheard. “He’ll kill you or, worse yet, make you wish he would.”
“One way or another, I’ll make sure I’m dead.”
It wasn’t an empty threat; a man determined to die wasn’t easily refused.
“He’ll make it Hell until then,” Thomas warned.
“I’m already living that,” Nathan shot back, looking quite miserable. His hand on the table drew into a fist, tightening until the cords stood out in his arm. “That bastard has attempted to take everything I’ve ever had. No more!”
Pensively rolling the leather mug between his palms, Thomas considered. “I never asked what happened when he had you,” he began slowly. “One look and my imagination could fill in the rest.”
Hovering over his drink, Nathan snorted. “Imagine your worst and you’d have it by half.”
It took several moments, but finally Nathan was able to look at him. “All I ask is that you see her safe,” he said with far more patience than Thomas would have thought possible. “You’ve been doing everything in your power to contrive to have her with you. Here’s your chance; consider it my gift.” The last came with far less magnanimity than Nathan seemed to have intended.
Thomas flinched. He buried his nose in his drink, pig piss be damned. How the hell did one go about acknowledging that civilly? A mere “Thank you” sure as hell didn’t answer. True enough, his desires regarding Cate were no secret, but it was disquieting to have them not only acknowledged, but answered and so damned open-handedly at that. The thought of that good fortune coming at the price of his friend’s death, however, only gave him more disease.
He slid a glance toward Nathan only to find him staring back.
“Promise?” Nathan pressed. “Say it; I need to hear it.”
“Oh, very well. God’s wounds, must you always have to have it your way? I promise,” he said, with as much sincerity as his annoyance would allow.
He eyed Nathan. It might be the stuff of literature, but there was nothing romantic in what Nathan was about to face. There was nothing romantic in humiliation and abuse of a level one wouldn’t wish upon their worst enemy. Every fiber of his being screamed “No! There had to be a way around it.” And yet, that was the hell of it: he would do it because there was no other choice. None.
“You can’t just march in there,” Thomas warned. God help them, if that was his plan. “Then he’ll have you and her.”
“I know that! I have no intention of showing myself, until she’s safe away,” came back evenly. “That’s why I need someone to negotiate, someone who knows His Lordship and his underhanded deviousness.”
“And who the hell might that be?” Thomas asked, dreading the answer.
Nathan turned sufficiently to find Thomas’ eye and hold it, long and hard. “Get her out and get her away. ‘Tis all I ask.”
Running a weary hand down over his face, Thomas heaved a sigh. “Lord ‘n’ evil, deliver me from noble men.” The last came with a baleful eye over his knuckles.
There was nothing to be gained in arguing. He had known Nathanael Blackthorne since they were barely more than boys. The look of Nathan with his mind set was all too familiar. The Rock of Gibraltar would be more yielding.
Thomas stared pensively into his drink and broke into a smile. “There is the chance we should be feeling sorry for His Lordship. Right about now, she’s probably giving him hell.”
That brought a little life to the otherwise dull eyes. “Got him backed into a corner, giving him a round turn because the place isn’t clean enough. Maybe she’ll curse him with those eyes,” Nathan mused.
They managed a strained chuckle. Nathan immediately lapsed back into himself. Thomas was stirred from his own private musings a few moments later by the fine tremors vibrating through the seat under him. He looked over to see Nathan’s body had gone rigid, his eyes round and staring, seeing something far different from what was before him. His chest rose and fell, as if he had been running, his face gleaming with sweat.
“Nathan. Nathan!” Thomas finally shook him. Like someone wakened from a nightmare, Nathan jerked, gasping and then glared. “Where were you just then?”
He knew it to be a stupid question the moment he uttered it. Hell and death, he’d bathed the torn and battered body, oiled the lash marks, and salved the raw wrists and ankles, raw and bleeding from the manacles. He’d held Nathan while he screamed and shook, and had done a fair bit of it himself as he did so. And then, they had sobbed together. It had been hard enough to look at it; living through it and then living with the memories he couldn’t imagine.
Nathan drew a shaky hand down his face. “I’m… fine.”
Both of them winced at the unfortunate choice of words, both recognizing them as Cate’s favorites in her moments of denial.
Thomas glanced across the room and froze. “There he is. I knew the little sea worm couldn’t stay away.”
Thomas pointed with his chin at a Companyman standing just inside the door, scanning the room. The word “worm” fit perfectly, for Hodges was the personification of one should, through some quirk of magic, a worm become a person. Somewhere in his twenties, he was long and narrow, with a round, mostly bald head and elongated, flattened features. With small quick eyes, he squinted into the dim, obviously looking for someone. Upon spotting Thomas, he wove his way through the crowd and sat across from them.
Hodges jerked at recognizing the one sitting next to Thomas. “Well! Well! As I live and breathe, Nathan Blackthorne,” he declared under the drunken singing.
Frowning, Nathan leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms. “Have we met? Can’t say I recall the displeasure.”
“I heard you were dead.” Hodges fixed his eyes on Nathan. The loutish bastard had the nerve to smirk. “I can guess what you want.”
“Good, then we can skip the niceties, Hodges,” Thomas cut in.
“His Pompousness has something of mine and I want it back… now!” said Nathan in a low growl.
Any man who had shipped with Nathan for more than a month knew the look of danger, but Hodges had neither shipped with him, nor had the sense to realize it.
“My hands are tied—” Hodges began with a shrug.
“You don’t have to do a goddamned thing except tell me where the hell she is. I’ll be more than happy to oblige you and do the rest meself,” Nathan shot back.
Hodges and Nathan locked stares. Finally, Hodges shifted his attention to Thomas. “And what of our other business?”
Thomas coughed and said into his chest, “Later.”
Hodges was clearly disappointed, but had the discretion to only nod. He straightened in an attempt to impose himself. “I’m not doing this for free.”
Thomas made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. “You know I’ve always paid and very generously, I might add.”
The wormish eyes nervously flicked about the room. “It’s growing more perilous,” Hodges said, tapping a finger on the table. He leaned closer, lowering his voice. “Every time I come here, I double my chances of being discovered.”
“So, ou’ll be thinking you’re worth double?” Thomas asked dubiously.
“Well, I—”
Nathan lunged to grab Hodges’ lapel. At the same time, from under the table, came the metallic click of a pistol being cocked. “If I shoot straight,” he said, through clenched teeth, “I only remove your knee. If I miss, then ‘tis right between the legs. Any preferences, mate?”
Startled, Hodges’ mouth moved, but nothing came out.
Thomas slid a cautionary eye toward Nathan, and Hodges’ coat was reluctantly released. The pistol, however, remained in place.
“I wouldn’t cross him, if I were you,” Thomas advised placidly.
Hodges regarded Nathan and broke into a nervous smile. “Always heard you were mad, claiming to have already visited Hell.”
“I have,” Nathan declared. “Want to go with me next time?” His mouth drew back in an evil grin and the heel of his boot sped up its tattoo. Combined with the several day’s growth of beard and the dried blood spattering his face, he looked quite the maniac.
“I wouldn’t keep him waiting,” Thomas said. “I can’t vouch for what he might do. Somebody could drop something…or cough…anything could set him off.”
As if on cue, the cackle of a woman’s laugh broke out and a hand banged on a table at some unknown joke. Nathan’s shoulder twitched and his boot heel rapped harder, reverberating on the floor like a beat-to-quarters drum.
Thomas fished into his coat pocket and took out several coins, careful to keep as to how many or what they were hidden as he palmed them onto the table. Hodges’ eyes fixed like a hawk on a mouse as the hand slid the coins forward. He glanced at Thomas then Nathan and shied.
“She was there.” Hodges audibly gulped. “But she’s gone.”
“Gone? Gone where?” Nathan blurted. His arm jerked. The pistol pressed harder; Hodges convulsed.
“I don’t know. Honest! I don’t know!”
Arching a minatory brow, Thomas produced several more covered coins and added them to the others.
Small beads of sweat on Hodges’ brow glittered in the candlelight. Eyes fixed on the hand covering the money, he licked his lips. “She was there, until nightfall. I heard she was roughed up proper. It’s you he wants,” he said, looking at Nathan. “His Lordship doesn’t give a bloody damn about the whore, he just—”
Nathan’s free hand shot across the table, seized Hodges by his shirt front and lifted him from his seat. Goggling, Hodges made startled, strangling noises.
“Mind your tongue when you speak of the lady,” Nathan ground out between his teeth, twisting the cloth tighter.
Thomas eased Nathan back, allowing Hodges to slump down onto his bench where he strove to recover himself.
“The lady happens to be someone of vast importance to both of us,” Thomas said levelly.
“Beg pardon, sir, for my ignorance,” Hodges said, without sympathy. He wiped the perspiration from his brow and swiped it on his breeches. “His Lordship just kept representing that she was Blackthorne’s whore. I just assumed—”
“Where did they take her?” Nathan barked.
Hodges jumped. “I don’t know!” He recoiled when Nathan made another lunge, Thomas stopping Nathan with a hand on his arm.
“Honest. Honest, I don’t know!” Hodges said, in an almost girlish shriek. “His Lordship—actually it was Spears, bid the guards to dispose of her. That’s all I know.”
Nathan’s eyes shifted from Hodges to Thomas, puzzled. “What the hell is His Pompousness at?”
“Damned if I know,” Thomas said, distracted.
He scanned the taproom. The back of his neck prickled; something was amiss. Hodges was being far too forthcoming. The tavern suddenly felt more crowded. Most of all, it was something in the air. Nathan tensed, taut as a bowline. His hand rested on the table; a finger twitched toward the lobsterbacks a few tables away, casting anxious glances in their direction, muskets in hand.
Nathan stiffened further at seeing three more green-and-gold uniforms come through the tavern door, weapons at the ready. They paused to survey the room and then began to weave their way straight for them.
“We’re not alone,” Thomas murmured then shot Hodges a black look. “You sodding, double-crossing—”
“His Lordship pays three times what you do,” Hodges sneered. “I brought enough men to arrest you. I didn’t plan on such a grand bonus as Blackthorne.”
“Arrest me! You pompous little, bilge-sucking arse-wipe,” sputtered Thomas.
“I can see what you value in that whore,” Hodges directed to Nathan. He rolled his eyes dreamily. “With that round arse—”
The thought went unfinished. Nathan struck like a snake. A knife—the pig-sticker strapped to his leg—in hand, he lunged, seized Hodges by the ear and skewered him through the throat like the pig that he was. He gave the weapon a viscous twist and then jerked it free. Blood, deep and scarlet, welled in a pumping flow from the wound. Eyes rounded in shock, Hodge’s gasped, making garbling sounds as he drowned in his own blood.
With the pounding feet, pop of pistols and crash of glass, a roar went up like boarding a man o’ war as the Company and lobsterbacks charged. The cries of “That’s Blackthorne! Get ‘im!” rose over the turmoil and the crush of uniforms shifted toward him, trampling Hodges, slipping in his blood.
The tight quarters made no room for swords. Thomas drew a pistol in one hand, a knife from his shoulder scabbard in the other. He and Nathan kicked the table onto its side, providing barrier enough to at least slow down the onslaught. The first to come at him was shot, the next pistol-whipped, an elbow to the mouth of the next, his blade up and around into the gut of the next. Ducking one vicious stab, Nathan seized a stool and hurled it, hitting a scarlet coat square in the chest, knocking him backwards into another.
One after another came at them, often in pairs and trios, Nathan frequently disappearing from sight. Where the hell were they coming from? Pryce and his Morgansers, Al-Nejem and his men to the other side, were tearing at the tight-packed Companymen, peeling them off one by one and dispatching them.
In the close quarters, the lobsterback’s muskets were more of a hindrance than help. Thomas snatched one away and swung it like a club, the vibration going up his arms as it connected with heads, jaws, noses and teeth. Like a scythe, he mowed down the first row, the reverse motion doing the same for the next. Several more fell on Nathan and he went down. Pryce and the Morgansers finally reached him and pulled them off. Three more leapt on Nathan and he disappeared under a tumult of thrashing bodies.
Enough!
One of Nathan’s assailants fell away, spitting blood and teeth. A final murderous swing of the musket butt to the mouth serving out his own attacker, Thomas reached down to lift up one of the two scrubs still on Nathan, drove a fist into his face and flung the limp remains aside. Nathan rammed his elbow into the throat of the remaining one as Thomas seized him by the collar and bodily lifted him up off the floor.
“Nathan, go!” Thomas bellowed. “It’s you they want, not me.”
“But, I—” Nathan’s protest was cut off by a bottle whizzing past his head. He dodged a bayonet next.
With a vicious roar, Thomas finished his opponent with a savage slash to the chest. “Goddammit it to hell, Nathan, don’t you ever do what you’re told?” He grabbed Nathan by the coat collar and belt, took three steps, and hurtled him through the window’s slats, outside.
“Now, go get her!”
Thomas shoved Pryce in the same direction as Nathan. “Get him outta here!”
Pryce glanced dubiously toward the press of men against the table barrier and then dove out the window, two more Morgansers after him. Al-Nejem leapt over the overturned table and shoulder to shoulder they fought.
Having been small for his age, and lads being what they are, Nathan had learned how to roll with a fall many years ago. Still age had taken its toll: he didn’t land quite as gracefully as he would have wished, a shower of the shutter pieces landing around him.
He sprang to his feet and looked back to see Thomas through the gaping hole. He then disappeared into the heaving mass of bodies. The sound of heavy breathing and rushing footsteps brought Nathan around to meet a Companyman’s headlong charge. Nathan twisted sideways, avoiding the oncoming rush; the momentum carrying the attacker into one of his own, both bowling to the ground.
An arm swept around Nathan’s shoulders, grabbing him from behind. A hard kick backwards, aimed at the villain’s knees answered well. An elbow to the nose stopped the next cove, but he was grappled from behind again. A man now on each arm, Nathan could do nothing as a third brute came at him, cocking back a massive fist. Nathan kicked out, but missed, and the fist hit him in the gut, driving the air out of him. Sagging, he braced for the next blow, when Pryce, Chin and Maori helped him break free. Nathan drove his head into the brute’s middle, both of them tumbling to the ground.
Hands snatched at him, jerking him to his feet, and they were aweigh.
They ran down the waterfront, past the taverns, closed shops and brothels, Nathan knew the town well enough to turn up a lane that wasn’t a dead end; where exactly it came out he had no notion. Darkness and a ten-year absence had taken that bit of information from him.
The moon had risen, but the buildings blocked most of the light, and it was treacherously dark. They stumbled, slipped and skidded over a number of unseen obstacles. It was a part of town too poor to afford a light burning. Nor could they afford night-charlies, so no worries there, but patrols—Company and Marine—were still a worry. Dogs barked periodically at their passing, one tenaciously nipping at his heels until Pryce cursed and kicked it aside, sending it off yelping.
The sound of running men and clatter of weapons kept him going. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw the bobbing heads of what looked to be a near mob coming hard after them. He sped up until he heard a familiar call of “Cap’n?” A second look found Pryce, Chin and Maori had slowed considerably and looked expectantly for him to do the same. The closing-in mob turned out to be his and Thomas’ men.
Dashing the sweat from his face, Nathan braced his hands on his knees and gasped, waiting for the burn in his lungs to subside.
“What’s to do, Cap’n?” Pryce asked, blowing like a racing bull.
Nathan looked up into a circle of intent faces peering at him. They were poised and eager to do something, anything, wreak havoc, whatever was necessary.
“Bastard barely knew a damned thing,” Nathan sighed. He wasn’t about to repeat what else the treacherous scrub had said. “His Lorship tossed her off somewhere.”
“What the fucking hell—?”
Nathan waved off Pryce’s expostulations. He straightened, breath somewhat regained.
“What the hell is he about?” Pryce demanded. Nods and rumbled agreements from the men around.
“Stand easy! I’ve wondered the same, but I don’t have the time nor inclination to fathom the mental workings of the demented. We have to find her,” Nathan heard himself say. A part of him realized he was overstating the obvious but, damn him for a mumbling dawcock, could the other part find any other words.
Nathan set to pacing. “We need to search every pub, pothouse, privy and pig sty. We can’t leave a goat shed, cow byre, rabbit warren, house, shed, shack, shop or lean-to unturned. Every corner, every niche, every attic and every cellar. Find her!”
He carefully watched their faces change as the enormity of that task settled in. Bridgetown was the biggest in the Caribbean. Pryce glanced to the sky, judging the time. Darkness would be their ally in this. Granted patrols and night-charlies were everywhere, but come daylight they wouldn’t be able to move about half as freely as night allowed.
Nathan wiped the sweat from the side of his face, pausing to note that his hand no longer shook. The profit of combat: the reward of finally being able to hit someone. What he really needed was to shoot something… someone, one name, one face coming most particularly to mind.
“D’ye believe the double-poxed scrub, Cap’n?”
It was the question Nathan had avoided asking of himself. “I have to,” he said, suddenly feeling quite tired. It had been a hellish day and promised to be an even more hellish night. “He swore to it on pain of having his balls blown off.”
Pryce had the grace to look away before he grimaced. Yes, he had seen many a man lie most vehemently in the face of far more dire threats than that.
“Could be he was tellin’ the truth. Could be Creswicke paid him to say that.” Nathan gazed speculatively at the lighted buildings. “She could still be up there.”
The Company compound sat across the harbor. Its balconies overlooking the harbor, the lighted windows glowed in tempting defiance. Nathan tried not to look up, but couldn’t help himself. It was a virtual fortress; sided by either water or stonewalls, in many ways it was more imposing than Fort Charles, which bordered its fourth side. If he were going to have to get in there, it wasn’t going to be easy, but it could be done.
Pryce stopped him by the arm. “Cap’n, ye can’t be goin’ runnin’ about! How are we to get word to ye if yer off chasin’ the town?”
“You expect me to just stand here!” he sputtered, jerking away.
“Well, ye’ll have to!” Pryce moved closer, making good use of his inch or so height advantage. “Cap’n, we desire her back, too. Now, you go runnin’ off, and we could well spend an hour findin’ her, and another two a-findin’ you.”
“Damnation and seize my soul, Pryce! You can’t expect me to—” he pleaded, nonetheless. His gut pitched at the thought of standing helpless again!
“Can n’ will,” Pryce said solemnly, although not without sympathy as to the hell to which he was dooming his captain.
Nathan looked to the faces behind his First Mate. No solace there, either. Nothing but equal determination. Glowering, he bit back a number of counterpoints, none of which held a drop’s worth of water. Sad to say, as odious as the prospect might be, remaining there, doing nothing, was his only choice.
Between them, Pryce found Nathan’s arm and gave it an encouraging squeeze. “We’ll find ‘er, Cap’n. By the horns ‘o the Devil ‘n Satan hisself, if she’s on this island, we will find her. All you need do is help us by a-knowin’ where the hell to find ye, when it comes to it.”
God’s my life! Suffering Christ, he was right.
Nathan slumped, every voice in his being screaming else. “Very well,” he said dully. “I’ll be right here.”
“The signal will be two shots.” This directed not only to Nathan, raising his voice so that many more would hear.
“Two shots,” Nathan repeated, cleaving on to that thought, that promise, that hope like flotsam to a drowning man.
While running, his unwitting path had taken him nearer to the Company headquarters. The building loomed up, visible between the sharp-pitched peaks of the immediate buildings.
“I’ll be right here, thinking,” he said, intent on the turrets and roofs.
Pryce followed his gaze and turned back to scowl and say severely, “Don’t be a-thinkin’ too hard. ‘Tis nothin’ but trouble on that path, trouble that not a tar or jack a-standin’ with ye needs. Don’t you dare go a-bustin’ in there.”
The arch of the grizzled brows said, yes, he had overheard his captain’s conversation with the Lovely’s in the Garden, and therefore, knew exactly what he had been thinking.
“He’ll kill you a’fore you could—” Pryce went on.
“Not straightaway.” On this Nathan was confident. “He’ll have other business with me, well before he allows me that blessing.”
Pryce found his arm again and gave him a gentle but admonishing squeeze. “Don’t do it, Nathan. If it comes to it that ye must, then we’ll do it together.”
Pryce’s fatherly concern was touching. Having never had one, Nathan could only suspect this must be what it felt like.
Nathan found the wherewithal to smile and clapped a hand over Pryce’s. “Then find her and remove temptation.”
Pryce hesitated, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of leaving Nathan alone to his own devices. Duty prevailed, however, and he ducked a salute before disappearing into the night, leaving Nathan alone… to think.