Once more, Cate discovered that the path to recovery was not a smooth one. Too often of recent, the line between reality and imaginary was entirely too blurry, if not invisible. Too often, what she thought to be a figment of her imagination had proved to be real, and what she believed whole-heartedly to be real had been the product of a dream.
Nathan had voiced concerns regarding the kill-devil Creswicke had forced her to drink—she didn’t remember it, but Nathan had been adamant—and the damage to one’s sanity the drink could wrought to one’s sanity. With her grasp on reality so tenuous, her tendency to start at hands and voices which weren’t there, breaking into fits of laughter when alone or at unsuitable moments, her sanity was in serious question. She found herself puzzling more and more on whether she was teetering on the precipice of madness, because of that noxious drink, or if it were all just a result of… everything.
She awakened alone. The images of Nathan coming to her were dream-like, and yet, she was certain he had been there, for there was nothing imaginary about his calling cards: the familiar sting from the friction of his beard around her mouth and several other places, the tingling of her breasts—his beard and other things having been there—and the heavy warm weight in her womb. She need only turn her head slightly to find the smell of him on the pillow. It was all proof—reassuring proof to be sure—that he had been no figment.
But now, he was gone.
The wood and canvas walls of her haven could block the prying eyes of the world outside, but they were a thin defense against sound. The increase noise of activity from the beach had been enough to waken her. She would have been content to lie in a bed redolent with Nathan’s scent, his seed her anchor, but the unusual charge in the air made her curious. Reluctantly, she rose and dressed.
Outside, the buzz of activity was palpable, like a thriving hive on a warm, summer’s day. These bees, however, had been joined by a bevy of gigantic woodpeckers industriously rapping away with adzes, chisels and hammers. Their voices had risen to a feverish pitch and were far more demanding.
She looked around her small yard-like space.
No one.
It was a rare occasion to be alone. Thomas must have been as occupied as Nathan. Over the last month, it happened rarely and only for very short periods. In truth, she found it a relief to not be constantly peered at and obliged to smile, and appear gay as she made small conversation about things of which she had no understanding or interest. A part of her wished the world would just turn its back and ignore her, just for another month or so, just long enough for her to feel a bit more… ready.
Near the head of the path, something caught her eye: two men standing there. Heart lurching, she let out a startled yelp, before realizing they were guards posted. They stood so blessedly still, like two statues. Peering hard, she couldn’t make out their faces, but judging by their coloring and dress, they had to have been Lovelies.
The night’s shadows were already pooling at the feet of the trees and spreading like ink spilled on a blotter. In the Highlands, the sun’s skirts brushing the treetops meant the men in the fields had another hour or two of workable light. In the tropics, night fell like a dropped stone. Cate stoked the fire and prepared the candles, lighting them just in time. Between the two, her small space had a warm, cheery glow which effectively chased back the black void of the surrounding forest.
The wilds weren’t unfamiliar; she had grown up among them, and living in the Highlands had been barely better. Nighttime and woods didn’t scare her… familiar woods, that is. This place had noises, creatures, insects and reptiles; scaled, furred and feathered, which were wholly unknown. Had she been stronger, they mightn’t have even taken notice but, in her fragile state, the least unexpected sound was unnerving. Over the industrious sounds from the beach, she heard a shriek in the woods, more human than a rabbit’s cry. How far away it was she couldn’t tell; forests had a way of distorting one’s sense of direction and space. The shriek was followed by a heavy, scuffling sound, like someone thrashing their way through the brush. And then, there was nothing… Silence, calm and deadly. Logic dictated that it had to have been an owl or some other predator, Artemis perhaps, Cate told herself. As she threw several more pieces of wood on the fire and scooted her chair closer, she cast an eye toward the statuesque guards, now barely distinguishable in the dark. It would have been far more reassuring to see them move sometime… at least a little. Dead or asleep: it was difficult to tell.
She toyed with the dangling bits on her bracelet and then idly plucked at the wrapping on her forearm. As a bandage, it had outgrown its usefulness many days ago, but she couldn’t bring herself to look under it, not yet. And so, Nathan indulged her by dutifully changing it every day.
Supper came, but only one plate.
“Cap’n’s compliments and duty, sir,” said the deliverer. “He bid me to convey his regrets regardin’ supping with you. He’s otherwise engaged.”
Cate nodded and inwardly sighed. The Morganse had him now, she thought gloomily, pushing her food from one side of the plate to the other.
Her idyll with Nathan had abruptly, and inevitably, come to an end. It would be a lie to say that she wasn’t saddened. A part of her wished nothing more than to plot a number of ways to keep things as they were for a bit longer. But, alas, life was a river, not a frozen pond. To love Nathan was to love him for who and what he was. Many captains held a special place in their hearts for their ships, but for Nathan, the Morganse was his heart. There was no survival without her.
The two pasts, Nathan’s and his ship, were deeply intertwined. He had told her much of his past, but it was no great stretch to realize that a great deal more had gone unspoken. And that was often the key to Nathanael Blackthorne: what he didn’t say. These “unspokens” weren’t necessarily lies, but grand omissions. Whether it was out of secrecy or lack of faith in her to either believe or understand was anyone’s guess. There was, of course, the possibility these omissions were merely so insignificant to him they were therefore unworthy of mention.
In any case, Nathan was the Morganse’s now. Cate was relegated back to treasuring whatever increments of his time she was allowed. Like any rare commodity, it rendered that time all the more valuable.
Unlike most beehives, which quieted at night, the one on the beach had grown even more active. The anticipation and excitement which stirred the men out there reached through the surrounding undergrowth and coiled its fingers into Cate. She grew restless, stoking a fire that didn’t need stoking, poking it when it didn’t need poking. Finally, curiosity—and yes, loneliness, if she were honest—drove her up the path.
She stepped out into a moon, now full and hanging near enough to be touched, shining down onto the shore like a beacon. The day’s palette of blues and greens was now one of silver, gunmetal, pewter and black. Torches and fagots set the beach more ablaze than ever. This time, however, the illumination was clustered around the queen bee herself: the Morganse.
The tackles and shoring which had held the Morganse in place were gone; she sat nearer to upright, her new coppers gleaming almost white in the moonlight. The rising tide was already licking at her keel, come to deliver her from the clutches of land. Her people teetered on her rails and bowsprit, rigging a spiderwork of lines which streamed out to the boats bobbing in the bay, their torches looking like gigantic fireflies hovering. The Lovely sat quiet and virtually forgotten, every available hand swarming about the Morganse. Their own brute force and the forces of Nature were the only tools mariners had; they depended on both now, for neither would succeed alone. Cate’s first urge was to go help, and took several steps in that direction, before she realized, crestfallen that, with her splinted fingers, she would be of little use on ropes or oars.
Feeling the water lapping at her feet, Cate looked down to see she had somehow wound up at the water’s edge. As she stood there, watching and listening for Nathan, the water rose. The waves at first barely brushed her feet. Each came in a fraction higher, until the water covered her feet, then ankles and calves. The waves lapped higher at the Morganse’s keel, too, but not enough to float her, or enough to give her life once more and allow her to cast off the last bonds to land.
Scores of men waded out waist-deep and clapped on to the arm-thick hawses. It was the height of bravery, considering a vast majority couldn’t swim.
“Pull hearty and heave!” There was no mistaking Pryce and Hodder’s voice.
In the boats lying further out, the coxsuns bellowed. White water churned at their sides as the men laid into their oars, those in the water pulling in unison. The ropes leading to the Morganse rose slowly out of the water, visibly shrinking in diameter as the tension increased. Pryce and Hodder continued their galley-like chants of “Heave! Pull hearty! Heave!”
At one point, Cate caught Nathan’s voice. She followed it and found him perched near the f’c’stle, astraddle the cathead, one hand resting on the rail more in the way of feeling his ship than hanging on. If anything were to go wrong, he was in a position to be with her. Cate was no mariner, but all of those around her had been more than willing to describe in great and graphic detail the hazards of careening a ship. Land was never a ship’s friend. At this point, the dangers lay in the ship taking a sudden and importune roll far enough to allow the sea in, and hence, swamping her. The ship might roll entirely, shearing everything, including the masts, crushing many a man in the process. The sheer weight of the ship could become her own worst enemy, resulting in sprung knees and ribs or, worse yet, a broken back.
The Morganse sat more upright as she was dragged sideways, reminding Cate of the dead ox seen as a child, being dragged away for burial. Clutching her skirts as the water swirled, Cate silently chanted along with the men, her breath falling into that same rhythm. Inch by inch, the ship moved, the grind of her great weight vibrating through the sand. Inch by inch, the water rose. Inch by inch, her masts grew squarer with the world. Inch by inch, she looked more herself, a ship rather than a beached whale. Her keel, however, was still on the bottom; she was still ruled by land.
There came that point when the water no longer rose. The flood had reached its peak; the sea had offered all the help it could. There was only a small window of time, and then the tide would start its incremental retreat. It was that knowledge which drove the men. An almost-floating ship was of little use; a flood high enough to see their precious vessel afloat wouldn’t come for another month.
It was gut-tearing work, as proved by the strangled cry of someone busting one. Hodder and Pryce’s increasingly hoarse cries were punctuated by the crack! of an oar snapping. The men in the water were now up to their chests, the shorter ones having to relinquish their positions. A swell lifted the Morganse briefly from the bottom, the men lurching backwards like the victors in a tug-of-war. The joy was as short-lived as the passing of the wave, and she settled on land once more.
“Time it with the swell!” Nathan called. “Pull hearty!”
Heartened, the coxuns bellowed louder. The men pulled with the fervor of the desperate, the fear of failure driving them. The next swell, the Morganse rose, hung—perhaps a fraction of a second longer and then settled. The next was the same… The next, the ship rose, hung, bobbled slightly and stayed. Her bow bobbing with the sea, the ship was alive.
“She swims! She swims!”
The cheer had barely died when Cate was grabbed by the arm. Startled, she yelped and whirled around to find Thomas glaring down at her, his fingers digging into her arm.
“Are you well?” he demanded.
“What?!” she asked stupidly.
“I’ve been hailing loud enough to be heard in Cape Town, and you didn’t attend,” he said with an angry swipe toward the beach. “You just stood there hip-deep and staring.”
She looked down. The water had raised considerably more than she had thought. It might have been nearly hip deep on her, but it barely reached his knees.
“I didn’t hear you,” she said with an irritated wave. “I was watching them.”
He made a large show of turning in the direction indicated—where the Morganse had once been—crossed his arms over his chest and struck a pose that he too was looking. He then turned back to her. Hands on his hips, he bent down to shove his face into hers. “They’re done.”
“Yes, I know that,” she said tartly, turning back. “I was hoping to find Nathan.”
“Tach!” Thomas growled, doing a very creditable job of imitating that very person. He bent and scooped her up.
“He’s where every good captain should be,” he said, splashing toward shore. “His ship has been out of the water for a month; her seams will be as dried out as an old milk tub. Which means,” he went on, censoriously glaring down at her, “she’ll be taking on water, hard and fast. It’s either pump hard all night or the only way you’ll find her in the morning is by her masts sticking out of the water.”
Cate looked back over his shoulder toward the Morganse, now being towed further out into the bay. A boat pulled close behind, bearing the Number One anchor being returned to its duty. The ship looked peaceable and quite buoyant.
Thomas’ long legs finally reached shore, but instead of setting Cate down, he continued across the beach, angling toward the path to her cozy abode.
“I can walk,” she pointed out with asperity.
He chuckled, shifting her weight a bit. “Aye, I daresay. I flatter myself to think that chivalry isn’t entirely dead.”
She looked up at him. The moon was behind him, casting his eye sockets into skull-like shadows, his eyes being no more than black pits.
As they passed the two Lovelies posted as guard, Thomas addressed them in another language. “How goes it?” sounded about the same in any tongue. A brief nod and “All’s well,” sounded the same, too.
It took a moment for Cate’s eyes to adjust from the relative brilliance of the full moon to the cave-like blackness of her yard. Compared to the recent fervor out on the beach, it was quiet, almost eerily so, void of life or light. The fire had burned down to no more than a glow in a bed of ash, and the candles had guttered out.
Thomas set Cate down onto legs that weren’t nearly as sturdy as she expected. She stood swaying, weariness hitting her like one of those waves as he struck a light. Bearing it on high, he surveyed the immediate area, including inside the shack and the pool behind. Returning to her, he handed her the lamp.
“All clear.”
“Thank you,” she said earnestly, for she did honestly appreciate his efforts and concern.
“The guards will stand until they are relieved in the morning. Would you still desire me to remain?” He angled his head in the general vicinity of the hammock, where either he or Nathan had spent many a night these last weeks.
“No, I’m fine. Honestly, I am,” she added, over the heavy exhale through his nose at hearing the word “fine.”
And, for the first time, she discovered, she was. She wasn’t prepared to go entirely unguarded, but the thought of no protection no longer gave her a chill.
Thomas’ sandy brows drew down. “You won’t be seeing him until sometime tomorrow.”
Cate winced. Indeed, the Morganse had Nathan’s full attention now.
She rose on her toes to kiss Thomas on the cheek. “I’m fine.”
He hesitated, still unconvinced. An encouraging squeeze on the arm finally convinced him. He turned to take his leave, pausing up the path a couple times to look back and see if she had changed her mind.
She hadn’t.
Exhaustion struck, her arms and legs trembling as if she had been on one of those hawses pulling. Her skirts were so sodden and heavy it consumed her last shred of energy to trudge inside. There she shed her clothes and hung them up to dry. To the sound of water dripping onto the canvas floor, she slipped into bed.
The lamp still burned on the stand.
Dawn was a warm glow on the canvas roof when Cate woke to find Nathan standing next to her bed, swaying with weariness.
She started to rise, to help him undress, but he collapsed onto the mattress next to her. She folded herself around him. Pillowing his head on her chest, she stroked his back, the muscles quivering with overuse.
At one point, he garnered the strength to lift his head enough to kiss her throat and then collapsed. One long sigh, and he never stirred again.
Nathan took his leave the next morning with a brief and broken announcement of packing up, making ready to make weigh, and sending someone to help with her dunnage. The sight of Millbridge and Ben coming up the path confirmed all this.
The structure of Cate’s shack proper was untouched, yet everything inside and out which wasn’t immediately necessary disappeared and at a startling rate into lockers, baskets, crates, and barrels. It wasn’t easy for her to stand by, watching the nearest thing to a home on land she had in years being demolished. Hoping perhaps being active might help soften the blow, idleness never being her strength, Cate decided to “bear a hand.”
A dismayed gasp came from somewhere behind her, and Millbridge came scurrying up to snatch the writing set—one of the many things Thomas had given her—from her hand. “No, sir. Not on my watch!”
“But I’m only—”
“I got eyes,” he huffed, wedging himself between her and the locker she had been packing. “But the Cap’n begs you shan’t strain yourself.”
“I’m not straining,” she said, barely patient. “I’m putting a few things—”
The ship’s venerable crossed his arms over his chest and jutted his chin. “The. Cap’n. Says.”
Cate drew a breath, but her dueña and parents had raised her well, too well. Arguing with someone so much her senior—wizened and dry as an old stick as he might be—didn’t come easily.
“Very well,” she muttered and retreated.
She stood in the middle of the yard, dodging the work detail as they scurried past, feeling as unnecessary as a fifth leg on a dog.
Then she heard the commotion on the beach and brightened. There were plenty of other places she could bear a hand.
Out on the beach, her step slowed. She had seen Morgansers in a hurry before, but this was beyond all measure. To call it a “frenzy” might have been an overstatement, but “fever-pitch” certainly applied. The activity had reached the levels of the wharves at Bristol.
The Morganse sat out on the bay, the queen now regained to her realm. Heavy derricks had been rigged and bringing the great guns aboard. White spouts of water gushed from her scuppers; she was, indeed, as Thomas had predicted, pumping hard. Boats and makeshift rafts, loaded to the gun’ls, plied from her in a steady stream.
The excitement was contagious. Cate felt a certain anxiousness herself to be back aboard, back to a lively deck under her feet, back to the rhythm of life of bells and watches, the grind of holystones in the morning, and grog, and music on the f’c’stle at night. Her hands working with the need to do something, she went to join in and help. She tried several spots, only to be stopped with Millbridge’s same words. Frustrated, but determined, she finally came across a stack of Hermione’s fodder bags. Filled with dry grasses, they were bulky but relatively light and easy to carry down. When those were finished, she set to packing up whatever was to hand, keeping to the niches where she wouldn’t be noticed. All the while, she worked with one eye peeled and one ear canted for Nathan. She heard snatches of his voice now and again, either drifting from his ship or from amid the work details and piles of stores, but was never seen.
Periodically, comments were overheard, although muttered and meant to be out of her hearing, deriding the Cap’n’s mood and driving everyone “like it was a damned galley” or “We’re men, not slaves!” Idle griping, for the most part, but some dispositions were more fertile ground, and the ill-humor took seed and grew. When it grew to the point of threatening to boil over, Pryce or Hodder were there to quash it, sometimes with harsh words, and sometime by sending the perpetrators to sit in the shade. Blessedly few were willing to give heed to the complaints of hard labor from a complainer lying at his ease.
The sun climbed high, the day grew warm. Sweat stung Cate’s eyes, her shift growing soggy under her stays. Someone did take notice of her enough to plunk a hat onto her head, a straw affair with a brim nearly as wide as her shoulders. The shade was a grand relief, but it required an almost permanent hand atop her head to hold it in place. At length, her arm grew weary, working one-handed a great inconvenience, and she flung it aside.
Cate came across some piles of freshly foraged wild onions and yams which needed loading into baskets. She was half-way to the beach with perhaps the dozenth basket-load, when a wave of dizziness struck that sent her staggering. Ears buzzing, the beach tilting, she was vaguely aware of hands grabbing her and being half-carried, half-dragged away. Darkness suddenly befell her, making her think she had lost consciousness.
She opened her eyes into a gaggle of faces worriedly thrust at her. Perched atop bales of canvas, the darkness was due to the dodger overhead. The press of sweating, male bodies cut off any hint of breeze, making her half-ill. Thankfully, someone thought to snatch up a palmetto frond and fanned. A cup of water was pressed into her hand; cool from the spring, it was gloriously refreshing.
Through the slight buzzing that lingered in her ears, she heard the sound of running feet.
“Make a lane. Make a lane there, I say!” bellowed a familiar voice and Nathan popped forward. “What the hell happened?” he demanded, crouching before her.
“She fell out, sir,” came a faceless announcement from deep in the crowd.
“She turned white as a ghost, sir,” said another from the opposite direction.
“Nay, she was red as a whore’s lips—”
“Nay ‘twas more green, like spoilt pease—”
Cate grew more light-headed at trying to follow the voices.
“Nay, ‘twas more the color o’ that weed over—”
“Yes, I get the picture, gentlemen,” Nathan snapped, cutting them all off. “Who the fucking hell allowed this? Thinking with your arses again, no doubt.”
Cowing like whipped pups, the men retreated a step, allowing for a bit more air.
“Put ‘er head a’twixt her legs.”
“Slap her wrists.”
“Pinch her ear…”
The chorus of supposedly helpful suggestions continued.
Orders were barked in rapid succession. More fronds were fetched and fanning increased. Cool cloths were brought, and Nathan pressed them to her neck and forehead. The cup was drained, another instantly being shoved into her hand, that one refilled when it was empty.
“It’s not anyone’s fault,” she finally managed.
“Like hell it’s not,” came back with a vehemence that made her jerk and the men retreat further. “You were supposed to be at your ease.”
“I can’t just sit and do nothing,” she gasped peevishly.
A censorious brow arched at her. “Aye, but you can and will, now.”
She closed her eyes in hopes of thinking cool thoughts, but found things still whirled behind her eyelids. A hand came to rest on Nathan’s shoulder in search of something solid. Alarmed, Nathan snatched a frond from someone and set to fanning, lifting the hair from her neck as he did so.
“The pool is the best place for you, so you might—” Nathan began, rising to his feet.
Cate abruptly waved him off. “Men are working all over back there.”
“Then set them the hell on their way,” he said through his teeth.
She cast an eye toward the path. At that very moment, the beach stretching to it looked like the vastness of the Sahara Desert. She wanted nothing more than to be out of the center of attention, but getting half way across the beach and “falling out” again wasn’t the way to achieve it. Judging by the quiet which had befallen the shore, labor had all but stopped as they all gaped as if she were a two-headed calf.
“When I’m steadier,” she finally said.
At the back of the crowd, there was another commotion, Thomas pushing his way forward. “What the hell happened?”
“She fell out,” Nathan reported, working the fan faster.
“I’m fine.” In the spirit of making her point, Cate made to rise. She was only half-straightened, and the black spots and buzzing returned.
Thomas and Nathan handily caught her.
“For the love of—! Sit!” Nathan growled, pushing her back down.
Cate eyed Thomas. In a moment of weakness and dependency, she wondered if he might carry her back to her yard and the pool. Judging by his sweat-sodden shirt, he had been hard at work, as well, before this rude interruption.
“Chin and Maori would be better served out there loading those guns,” Nathan said, pointing with his chin toward the Morganse. He fixed a hard eye on her, lowering his brows. “But if I have to bid them here, to keep you quiet, I’ll do it.”
A bulllish Blackthorne was a fearsome sight.
“Hell and death! If you’re so bloody-minded set on doing something, I’ll get paper and a pen and you can do what quartermasters do: count boxes.”
Cate winced; now he was getting personal.
Regretting his harshness, Nathan knelt before Cate and found Cate’s hand beside her leg. He squeezed it encouragingly. “Just a little while longer, darling,” he urged in a lower voice. “And this will all be over. I promise.”
Night fell, the work details retreated from Cate’s haven where she had been reverently delivered some hours earlier.
Supper came and went. Neither Nathan, nor anyone else other than her dogged Lovely guards was to be seen.
The day had left her depleted and drained. Her skin was dry, but the heat lingered as if it had saturated her bones. The dried sweat itched under her stays, her hair stiff, her skin grimy with it. Her single thought was to shed her clothes and be cool. With limbs as heavy as if they had been filled with sand, heated sand, she trudged to the pool. A lamp burning on the ledge her only company, she peeled off the layers of clothing like a snake shedding its unwanted skin. She stood with her eyes closed and her arms out to her sides. It was that doldrum time, when the day’s sea breeze had died and the night’s land breeze had yet to set up leaving the air as heavy and still as sodden velvet.
She stepped into the pool slowly, her heated skin rippling with gooseflesh across her belly and up her arms as she submerged. Laying her head back, she floated, watching the stars through the branches, her hair swirling like wisps of seaweed about her shoulders. Her breasts bobbed in the small waves stirred by her entry, the delicate skin around her nipples puckering. A cluster of four or five moths were attracted to the light. Their wings caught the candle’s light, looking like small fairies as they darted and dashed over her.
Her opportunities to do this were growing to a fast end, and she aimed to enjoy every minute. It had happened before: thinking one had time, only to find that it had run out, and was compelled to frantically commit every precious detail to memory. So it had been with homes, and friends, and family… and Brian.
“Are ye well, lass?” came in the deep, soft voice which was so very familiar. It came not entirely from within her head, but neither did it emanate from anywhere else.
Cate sighed, considering. “I am… now.”
And she was. Things would never be exactly as they were before, but they would be normal enough that she could now recognize herself.
“He’ll keep you.”
She closed her eyes, not quite as confident as he. “I hope so.”
Artemis screeched from deep in the forest, and he was gone.
The day’s heat dissipated, the pool’s coolness soaking her bones, Cate rose from the water chilled and pruned. She slipped on the banyan and stretched face down across the bed.
Somnus wasn’t a stranger for long.
Cate woke the next morning on her side, and yet still alone. Her body, however, told her otherwise. It echoed the memory of someone pressed against her back, curled around her like one spoon against another. Turning her head slightly on the pillow, she listened for either a roughened voice or signs of life outside.
Nothing.
She dressed and went out, still in hopes Nathan might be sitting quietly out there.
Nothing.
On an upturned log, now serving as a table, sat a half-drank cup of coffee, proof that it hadn’t been her imagination: Nathan had been there.
But he was now gone.
Cate stood looking around. The yard and shack looked disquietingly bare and impersonal, and worse yet, no longer her home. She knew then how gypsies and nomads felt: home today and gone tomorrow.
Kirkland still had the inordinate skill of knowing when she woke. His emissary, Ben, was coming up the path as she stepped out bearing a pot of steaming coffee and breakfast.
Cate sat and ate or, better to say, went through the motions, Hermione and Beatrice looking on. Hermione did so from her vine-covered nook, benignly chewing her cud. Beatrice, on the other hand, was in a particularly rancorous and foul mood, all rendered louder by having moved from her usual roost to nearly at Cate’s elbow. She went through a rapid and repeating tirade of cursing those who weren’t there. The bird must have been hanging about the Lovelies lately for she had several new turns-of-phrase in new languages.
An Arabic-speaking parrot is a novelty, Cate mused as she sipped. The bird was a polyglot, already possessing a repertoire of English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Lascar. Hackles erect, wings held out to her sides, in between the cursing Beatrice emitted ear-piercing whistles and shrieks which, at one point, loud enough to flush a flock of smaller parrots from the branches overhead.
Shoving the fruit and sausages from one side of her plate to the other, Cate found she had little appetite. She swilled down two cups of coffee and took her third out to the beach.
Cate squinted as she stepped out of the shade. The sun was already high and in its full glory, in a cloudless azure sky. It promised to be another hot day. Feeling particularly sensitive to the glare and heat, she thought longingly of her discarded hat of yesterday. She looked out across the bay at hearing someone hail. There was no missing Thomas’ towering form at the bow of a boat rowing in, waving with his usual geniality. He and Nathan were as different as Able and Cain in many respects, but they were alike in that neither of them ever had a bad morning.
Behind him sat the Lovely. Cate was enough of a mariner to recognize a ship was up-and-down on its anchor and what it meant: the vessel was going to haul said anchor soon, very soon.
From the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Nathan coming toward her, hat in hand—in the literal sense—the one from yesterday.
A heavily accented “Sir? Sir!” caused Cate to turn the opposite way, to find a pair of Lovelies standing there, their swarthy faces vaguely familiar. They bobbed their heads, worrying their hats in their hands.
“The Cap’n desires us to fetch your dunnage,” said the first.
“Dunnage?” Cate exclaimed.
“Aye, mum. He means to make the ebb,” he went on, casting a worried eye toward the bay, a bit dumbfounded that she had failed to realize this. “Which means straightaway, if you please.”
“He wishes you aboard directly,” the other added, pointing with his chin toward another boat, posed at the water’s edge.
They had such heavy accents, Cate ran what they had said through her head several times, thinking surely she was mistaken.
“I give you joy of the morning!”
The sound of Nathan’s voice brought her back around.
“’Tis grand to see you out and about,” he declared in his usual morning high-spirits. “Here, you’ll need this.”
“I could have sworn these men just told me they’re taking my dunnage to the Lovely?” Cate said, ducking Nathan’s attempts to put the hat on her head.
“Good morning!” Thomas declared. He leaped lightly from the bow to shore and strode up to where they stood. “All squared away and ready?” He looked expectantly, and then his smile faded.
“You’re leaving so soon?” Cate asked, peering up at him.
Thomas’ beaming smile fell entirely, and the hardening blue eyes swiveled onto Nathan. “You haven’t told her yet?” he declared with a force that vibrated the air.
Cate turned back to find a frozen-faced Nathan, now as pale as her shift.
“Told me what?” she demanded over Thomas’ stream of cursing. A sickening fist seized her gut, her heart thudding so loudly she could barely hear. “Tell me what?”
Nathan looked caught somewhere between not being able to breathe and thinking perhaps he didn’t wish to do so anymore. He went from round-eyed staring to looking at anything but her. Thomas’ curses grew increasingly vehement, going from berating the heavens and deities, to a lengthy description of Nathan’s heritage and animal anatomy. All combined, Cate’s alarm shot up to near Thomas’ level. Whatever the hell it was wasn’t good, for it had struck Nathanael Blackthorne speechless.
Cate grabbed Nathan in hopes of forcing him to look at her, but he was stiff as a plank. Finally, he relented. Lifting his chin, he took on the appearance of a man about to throw himself over a cliff.
“It’ll only be for a few days, until… everything is squared away,” he said so hoarsely she could barely hear.
“’Everything?’” she echoed dully. She looked between the two, Thomas now silent, but steaming. “What everything?”
From somewhere, Nathan garnered the wherewithal to say louder “We’ve a rendezvous in a few days.” He gulped, taking an odd doomed-man-be-damned expression “You’re to go on the Lovely, and I’ll come up—” He grasped her by the arm, as if that small gesture might either convince or assure.
It did neither.
“Rendezvous? Where? And with who?” she shouted, backing away.
“At Ransom Passage.”
Nathan offered that bit of information as if it had grave significance. She had no idea where the hell that was; he might as well have said “On the moon.”
“For the love of God, Nathan, just tell her!” growled Thomas from somewhere behind her.
“Tell me what?” Cate was beginning to feel like Beatrice: repeating everything she heard. In the meantime, her mind raced at trying to imagine what would be enticing enough to cause such a sudden change of plans: gold, treasure ships…? These were pirates, after all.
Nathan gulped and, in that instant, Cate saw something about him that made her go cold.
Not gold or treasure ships… Revenge.
“Don’t say it. Don’t you dare—” she hissed, glaring. “You said—”
“I know what I said!” Nathan barked. “But this is Creswicke. He’ll be there.”
In the back of her mind, she knew he had made attempts in the last day or so, halting, half – choked, awkward moments, when he seemed to have something to say. He had been distracted and remote, but she had marked it off to preoccupation with his ship, not scheming to be rid of her.
“You’re sending me away, without a damned word—?” she said, vibrating with fury.
“I’m not sending you away. I’ll be there. It will only be a few—” In truth, Nathan looked thoroughly miserable, and just so. His perfidious, sneaking, black-hearted soul could rot.
“Damn you! You gave your word. I can see what that is worth… at least to me,” she spat, her voice trembling. She was caught between the urge to throw her arms around him to stop him, and hitting him.
The latter won.
She flung the cup at him. It skittered harmlessly off his arm, droplets of coffee spraying in all directions. The move served as a good—although unplanned—distraction, however, for he didn’t see her draw back her hand to slap him. The blow caught him unawares and full on the cheek, the force whipping his head back. A momentary flash of shock followed by a glint of guilt, knowing he deserved it, flashed across his face. Then, cheek glowing red, his expression went dark to the point she fell back a step, thinking he might hit her.
“You promised—” Her voice quaked; her entire body trembled at such betrayal.
Nathan balled a fist, but checked himself, stabbing a finger at her, instead. “I promised not to go after him. Nothing was said about him coming after me,” he said, jamming his thumb into his own chest.
Squealing, she balled her own fist and swung. Nathan easily caught it in mid-air. Engraged all the more, she launched at him and pummeled his chest. As they grappled, she was aware of him speaking; cursing or making more of his lame excuses she had no idea, nor did she give a damn.
From behind, a pair of arms suddenly came down over hers, pinning them to her sides as she was handily lifted away. Instead of setting her down, however, Thomas held her so that her feet were several inches from the sand. Writhing, she pounded her head backwards against his chest. A hollow thud and a low grunt marked every blow, but his arms remained firm. She kicked, aiming for his knees, but only succeeded in bruising her heels on rock-like thighs.
“Listen to me. Listen!” Nathan shouted, shoving his face up into hers. “Goddammit to suffering hell, I didn’t say anything, because I knew it would turn into this: tears and shouting.”
Wrenching against Thomas’ grasp, she made low growling sounds to block Nathan out. His mouth was moving, but she only heard snatches: excuses and half-reasons. Her fingers curled at her sides with the desire to claw his eyes out.
“No! You promised!” she shouted whenever his voice threatened to filter in.
“I can’t have you with me, not—” Nathan shot back, his entire face now as red as where he had been slapped.
She arched her back, screaming. It wasn’t just the betrayal and hurt, she was filled with the blind terror of him going off to get himself killed. The chest against her back rumbled, as if Thomas spoke as well, but she didn’t care to hear what either of the traitorous bastards had to say.
Finally, Nathan stood back. Chest heaving, he gave an angry swipe. “Goddammit to suffering hell, get her out o’ here!”
Thomas turned to go, but paused to shout over Cate’s screams “As we planned.”
“Yes, yes, I know… I know!” Nathan said peevishly, batting him away. “As we planned.”
Nathan hunched his shoulders and turned his back to the sight of Thomas carrying Cate off.
“Nathan? Nathan! No! Pleeeaaassseee…. Nooooo!” Her cries, as they shifted from rage to panic, became more broken and choked with sobs.
He stalked away, but only a short way before his knees buckled from under him. He caught himself on the prow of a longboat. Clutching the gun’l, he closed his eyes, hoping to shut out the pitiful sound of her fading with distance. He shook to the point his joints threatened to give way as he fought down the rising gorge in his gullet. He could feel the eyes of every soul on the beach staring, some accusing, but a good many more in sympathy. Few had the courage to walk into the tempest he had just braved.
“Cap’n?” came Pryce’s voice.
Nathan’s grip tightened on the wood, his knuckles going white, the joints crackling. Words wouldn’t come, with his first attempt to speak; he gulped and said in a hoarse rasp, “Give me something to do.”