The tears stopped when exhaustion would allow no more. No one came, but not because she was confined. This isolation rose out of the male reticence to deal with a crying woman, quite possibly one gone mad, judging by the screaming fits, thrown objects and pounding a door which door wasn’t locked.
Cate had been physically hauled aboard the Lovely for she had neither the strength to manage on her own, nor did Thomas trust her not to throw herself into the water. He restrained her further until they were well out of the bay, claiming he didn’t wish to see her attempt another run for the rail. She strongly suspected Nathan was the one responsible for putting such strong notions in Thomas’ head regarding her propensity for jumping ship. From the confinement of Thomas’ arms, she had turned her head, unable to bear seeing the Morganse and then the island disappear, her hopes and aspirations of ever finding happiness sinking with it. Nathan had been nowhere in sight.
Wanting no part of Thomas, she refused to share his cabin. From her previous time aboard, she knew that the Lovely was a small and crowded ship, cabins at a premium, but she was beyond caring. Just for now, for however long she was to be on this voyage of doom, someone could jolly well be a bit inconvenienced on her account, damn their black souls, every one of them!
Now, Cate lay in the dim, huddled on the bunk, curled into a ball, with no will to rise. Drawing the next breath was an experience in pain, often causing her to wonder why she should bother? Sunlight through the scuttle came and went. The bells rang. She had a vague sense that time was passing, but as to exactly how much she had no notion. Meals were brought and sent away, the door never opened. Her only will was for the world to go away. The desolation of Nathan discarding her like an old hat was devastating, leaving a hollow, cold hole in her chest.
The bastard was a masterful actor, I’ll give him that, she thought ruefully.
Damn, him! The perfidious, sneaking, two-faced, underhanded lout had played her like Mr. Fox’s fiddle. He was a better performer than ever credited for it had been quite the performance: making her believe that he cared, sweet words, telling her what she obviously wanted to hear, building her up just as high as he might, so he could watch her fall all the farther.
Compared to her cabin on the Norwich, the Lovely’s cabin was airy and cheery. It had a scuttle, lamps and no reek of bilges. The bunk was decent; it smelled strongly of male and sweat, but was as sweet-smelling as a garden compared to the other. The time did come, however, when the walls started to press in and she couldn’t breathe. On that score, it was too much like the Norwich. It was that sensation of captivity and entrapment that brought her to throw the bolt and open the door. She stood there, looking up and down the passage, expectantly waiting.
No one noticed; no one cared.
She retreated back inside and threw herself back down on the bunk, hoping perhaps the door open might answer. The air stirred through the scuttle—the cabin being to windward—but the walls were still closing in. Every time she closed her eyes, she was back in Creswicke’s cells, entombed in stone, the cold seeping in, the dankness filling her head, until she snorted through her nose striving to clear it.
Cate lurched up and sat on the edge of the bunk, her fingers digging into its edge. The bells had just rung, but she hadn’t attended. Seven? Eight? Who knew? Who cared?
She rose and went to the door again. Just outside, the gloom of below decks was shattered by a shaft of daylight coming down the main deck’s companionway. If she leaned a bit, she could see blue sky appear and then disappear behind a pyramid of white canvas. The sky wasn’t the brilliant azure of midday, but a darker hue, verging on the indigo of impending darkness. Voices came from down the passage; the crew having their supper. She turned the opposite direction, toward the Great Cabin. Bracing against the leeward bulkhead, for the Lovely was sailing hard, as she made her way, she nodded to those she passed, recognizing some from her previous stay.
At the cabin’s door, she stopped and drew a deep breath. This wasn’t going to be easy, but it was inevitable. Then she stepped over the coaming and inside.
She recalled from her previous stay that the Lovely’s Great Cabin was considerably smaller than the Morganse’s, but after so many weeks living in larger quarters, it seemed particularly confined and low-ceilinged. The last time she had been there had been after the Morganse’s great guns had smashed the stern gallery. Now, it had been returned to its former splendor, perhaps even better, for Thomas was a man who enjoyed his luxuries: deep turkey rugs, soft elbow chairs, lamps, gilt and silver, paintings, velvet curtains and navigational instruments gleaming in their brass racks.
Thomas was at the table, eating. He jerked at seeing her, but then stood, ducking his head under the low beams. Tear-sodden, puffed and swollen, cotton-mouthed and cotton-headed from crying, she had to have been a fright to behold. She ran a self-conscious hand through her hair and tugged at her skirts in a vain attempt at vanity.
“Come to assassinate me in my sleep?” he asked, grinning like a damned fool.
“Don’t tempt me,” she said narrowly.
He seized the decanter from the table and held it up. “Truce?”
“You’re not getting off the hook that easily.”
“Then come, sit.” He came around to see her seated. “Violence always comes easier on a full stomach. You have to be hungry,” he added, eyeing her as he fetched a glass and filled it.
Maram, the Lovely’s cabin boy, appeared at the galley door. Thomas nodded and waved, and a bowl was soon plunked down before her. Strong with the smell of clams and fish, it had to be some sort of sea chowder, with onions, rice and spices.
“Youssef was beside himself with glee to learn you were aboard. He’s outdone himself today,” Thomas said around a mouthful. He had the appetite of a big man. Alike in so many ways, he and Nathan were opposites on that score.
Go away, Nathan! she thought crossly. You’re done with me, so just go away.
“I’m not hungry,” she said, delicately pushing the bowl aside.
“Well, that’s a pity,” Thomas said barely pausing, “because the poor man has been cooking himself into a frenzy since yesterday.”
“Yesterday?”
He arched an admonishing brow at her. “Aye, you… eh… Frittered away a whole day and then some.”
Her gaze settled on the hamper. Her sewing basket and some of her other dunnage now sat there.
“I’ll bid to have it all moved to your cabin, if you wish, but keep it in mind you’ll barely have time to unpack before you’ll be aweigh again,” he said.
“Am I going somewhere?” she asked, suspiciously. Not wishing to hurt Youssef’s feelings, she pulled the bowl before her and peered into it.
Thomas looked at her, long and steady, as if surely she were jesting. “Aye, back to the Morganse.”
She made a skeptical noise. “Tell that one to the parrot,” she said glumly, poking at the chowder.
A strained silence fell between them. Cate had the odd sensation of having fallen through a hole in time and had just been returned to where she had been weeks ago: back with Thomas, the whole affair with Nathan just a dream from which she had finally awakened.
“You were fairly rough on the poor man back there,” Thomas finally said.
“He schemed behind my back and lied to my face, after he promised. He went around for God knows how long, pretending—”
Thomas waved his spoon. “It was only a day or so.”
“What?”
He gave her a level look across the table. “It wasn’t until the day the Morganse swam that I told him about it.”
“This was your idea!” she cried, not caring if the entire Caribbean heard her. The quarterdeck overhead certainly did, for a hush fell over it.
“It was,” he said, grinning.
“You planned this?”
He demurred, a blush rising from the opening of his shirt. “Well, I arranged for Creswicke to be waiting.”
“Of course, he’s waiting,” she huffed, half under her breath. “He’s been laying for Nathan for years.”
“But only from inside that fortress of his.”
Just the mention of it brought it all back to her—the room, the smell—with startling clarity. She grabbed her glass and took a drink in hopes of washing it away.
“This time,” Thomas went on with great relish. “Creswicke will be sticking his neck out, and we’ll be there to chop it off!”
Cate sat back. Balling her fists into the folds of her skirt, she said through a set jaw “But Nathan promised not to go after him… or his precious Hattie.”
It hadn’t been an idle request on her part, one designed by some scheming woman to make a man jump through hoops. This had been a sincere and heart-felt request—well, very well, demand—springing out of her morbid fear of Nathan going out and getting himself killed.
“Aye, he made mention of that, stood by it square on… at first.” Thomas leaned forward, staring, willing her to look up. “But this isn’t him going after Creswicke. This is Creswicke coming after him.”
Cate curbed a bitter smile. “Now you sound just like him.” She vaguely remembered those same words being shouted on the beach. She hadn’t been in the mood to listen then, and she really didn’t wish to hear them now.
“Exactly!” he said, sitting back. “Because I’m right, and you know it.” He ended with the stab of a victorious finger.
“It’s just a lame excuse to get what he wants.”
“Not lame.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Besides, how the hell can you expect a man to surrender his principles, his need for revenge that’s coming to him?”
“It changes nothing. He’d only manage to get himself either killed or caught,” she sighed tiredly. This helplessness was taxing, and the helplessness to do anything about it only heightened the problem. They were all just excuses, men being men, doing what they jolly well wanted and damn whatever the consequences to either themselves or those around them. More often than not, it was the latter who suffered the most.
“All of you keep saying he never comes out,” she said.
Thomas paused in swiping the last bit of broth from his bowl with a wad of bread. “Never.”
“Then how did you manage it this time?”
He shrugged and said around a mouthful “’Tis simple. I offered up what he wanted most: Nathan.”
“Damn you!” Cate launched up from her chair, nails curled for Thomas’ face. Not being as swift as she had hoped, he saw her coming and easily fended her off, catching her arms in mid-air. Cursing, she wrestled to be free of the iron grasp, but to no avail.
“Listen to me. Listen!” he growled, shaking her, until she quieted. She turned her head, unwilling to look at the traitorous face. She sniffed, not crying outright, for the tears had long been used up.
“Aye, it’s a trap, but only for His Lordship,” Thomas said, raising his voice to be heard over her protests. “If anything, Nathan is just the spring to the trap. He comes in, we swing around, and we have His High-holiness in a cross-fire.”
He gave her another hard shake until she finally relented and his grasp loosened. She jerked away and stood back, chest heaving and rubbing the twisted skin of her wrists.
“Creswicke will be out-gunned, out-manned and out-maneuvered,” Thomas went on, breathing a bit hard himself. “It will only be a matter of how many wish to die with him.”
“He’d sacrifice them all to save his sorry arse.”
Thomas’ mouth twitched. “Ah, then you do know the man.”
Suddenly in bad need of a drink, she snatched up her glass and took a large one. Too agitated to sit, she stalked around the room. Maram appeared bearing a second steaming bowl. He delivered it, his eyes dutifully fixed before him and left. As Cate continued to pace, Thomas ate with unflagging gusto. It was irritating that he could eat like that at a time like this.
Finally, she drew up before the window. “You’re using Nathan as nothing more than bait, leading him right in to a trap. For what, is the grander question?”
Cate turned to eye Thomas. “How did you manage this?” she asked again.
That was the greatest curiosity. Creswicke is no one’s fool and was a shrewd judge of character. It would have required quite the performance to fool him.
Without looking up, Thomas lifted one shoulder and let it drop. “We go way back. I’ve known the sniveling, little scrub long before Nathan.”
Turning back to the window, Cate wrapped her arms tightly about herself. “You don’t know what he’s like,” she said, shivering. To her dismay, she discovered she wasn’t near as sanguine as she would have liked to think about having the man so near. The thickened skin of the scar on her arm had a crawling sensation, like Creswicke was under her skin, now a part of her.
…again… and again… and again…
The voice echoed so clearly she jerked around, thinking Creswicke was directly behind her.
Exhaustion always rendered her imagination all the brighter and, just then, it was in full flame. An empty stomach and wine only fed the fire. She couldn’t shake the mental picture of Nathan walking, eyes closed into Creswicke’s waiting arms, those reptilian eyes fixed on him like a snake with a mouse, bright with the anticipation of Nathan his captive, Nathan his slave, his property.
She went back to her chair and seized up her glass. Instead of drinking, she buried her nose in the opening in hopes the wine’s sharp vapors might help clear her mind. That failing, she took another gulp, closed her eyes and waited for the effect.
Nothing. It didn’t work.
Thomas paused in his eating to watch this display. “I know exactly what he’s like,” he said, determinedly. “No, I can’t presume to know what it is to be tortured by him, but I do know how his mind works, what he wants most.”
She glared, for that seemed painfully obvious. “He wants Nathan.”
“Nay, Nathan’s just another acquisition, one more to master.”
Cate bristled at Nathan being dismissed so handily.
“He wants something far more: to be better than everyone else, always one step ahead.” Spoon poised, Thomas grinned up at her. “Control is our dear man’s demon.”
Cate winced. She had observed the same thing of His Lordship, and had put it to voice, as best as she could recall. She pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose. Sometimes it all seemed crystal clear, and other times it was all a fog.
“His Lordship wants Nathan only because Nathan bested him, and now he has to prove he’s the better man,” Thomas went on.
“It struck me that there was a little more to it than that.”
Thomas glanced up, looking to confirm that she was indeed referring to what he suspected.
“Lust isn’t easily confused,” she said with a knowing lilt.
Clearing his throat significantly, Thomas tore off a piece of flat bread. “Oh, aye, there’s that. He’s always been a perverse little worm, sniffing around, using his sisters to lure in his catch.”
“Nathan said something about Creswicke’s mother and sister.” She and Nathan had been sitting on a beach when she had inquired as to why Creswicke disliked him so. It came out that, through a sequence of circumstances, which weren’t entirely of either his making or control, Nathan had bedded both Creswicke’s sister and mother.
Thomas nodded casually. “Aye, because he wanted Nathan badly enough to troll them both around.”
Cate tried to sort out the logic of seeking a man who preferred men by using women as bait.
“But then, he called Nathan out for it,” she said. Nathan’s story on the beach that morning had gone on to include Creswicke doing that very thing. Being the challenged, the choice of weapons was Nathan’s. He had chosen swords, and wisely so. It ended with Creswicke’s manhood being wounded, in more ways than one.
“Only after his father shamed him into it,” Thomas said dryly. “His liaisons were stacking up; word was going around. Breaston had to appear the man somehow or another.
“The day finally came when the youngest sister stood up for herself, and told him to go to hell, or in so many words. She had the fire—like you,” he added with a deferential glance. “But she had the sweetness to slice a man to ribbons and never raise her voice. The poor sod would be standing there bleeding and have no notion what had just hit him.”
Thomas lapsed into a stare, the spoon gone forgotten in his hand. Seeing the lake blue eyes go soft and distant with recollection brought on a surge of jealousy. Cate checked herself, for she had no right. She had seen him with so few other women, she had come to think of him as her own.
Finally, he blinked, returning to the room. “We spring this trap, Creswicke is captured and Nathan can go off wherever the hell he desires and have his way with him. Hell, I’ll even hold the bastard down, if he wishes!”
Were she to be honest, the thought of Nathan returning the favor, of doing to Creswicke the same as had been done to him was intriguing, and yes, so very, very, very pleasing. But, even after all that, the brand would still be on his palm, the stripes still on his back. She worked the fingers of her right hand, feeling the press of the thick scar under the bandage. A certain part of Nathan’s revenge would be on her behalf, and yet, her arm would still be the same. The terrors would still visit, the memories always there. Nothing could erase those. Her hand came to rest over her stomach, feeling the scars through the fabric, her womb cramping. There had been revenge wrought for that wrong, violent and final, and yet the haunts and the scars… none of it had gone away.
“It’s all because of me…”
Thomas smiled up at her. “Don’t flatter yourself so much, lovely. It’s you, aye, but there’s been a whole host of things which would make me more than pleased to see our Lord Creswicke suffer a nice, long, slow, painful death.”
“It won’t change anything,” she heard herself say.
“Change anything?” Thomas looked down at his spoon, considering. “No, there’s no changing the past.” The regret in his voice suggested that, had that been possible, there were a good number of things he might change. “But a man can go into the future with a damned site clearer mind and heart.”
“I’m not quite sure revenge and torture is what the Bible had in mind with ‘Do unto others.’” She observed.
One shoulder lifted and fell again. “Then listen to the Mohamedans; their scripture is even clearer on the subject, as are many others.”
“And pirates?”
Thomas drew up sharp at that. “A barbarian deserves his justice no differently than a saint. And that justice from either hand will look just the same.”
He shifted restlessly, stabbing his spoon into the chowder. “Aye, a pirate’s world is built around fairness and justice, so yes,” he said, with an unpleasant set to his jaw.
“No, you don’t change what’s done, but you can sure as hell change the lens you see it through.” He jerked a final nod, declaring the subject closed.
In the meantime, the bells rang, life aboard outside the captain’s cabin went on.
Maram appeared to remove the supper plates, setting plates of dried fruits and nuts before them, a decanter of port replacing the wine. Thomas was pouring her a glass when the great hulk of Mr. Al-Nejem filled the doorway, beckoning his captain. In Thomas’ absence, Cate sipped. The port was good—very good—but her stomach was raw from not eating, and the liquor burned. The drink also, however, supplied a pleasant, light – headedness which she wasn’t willing to abandon, so she picked apart figs from the plate and nibbled. The sweet, pulpy meat absorbed the liquor quite nicely.
She was beginning to feel a pleasant glow of her own. The butterflies, which had been heavy-winging around like corbies—the angels of death on a battlefield—in her stomach had begun to ease along with a good many other worries, and she basked in a divine, albeit temporary, oblivion.
Thomas eventually returned, mumbling an apology.
“Why aren’t you drinking?” she asked, holding out her glass for a refill.
“I am drinking, just not as much as you. I’ve the watch in a bit.”
He cocked an eye as he poured. “You know, this is very expensive stuff.”
“It’s not as if you paid for it,” she sniffed. The thought of the liquor having been stolen suddenly made it all the more appealing, forbidden fruit as it were.
“True enough,” he sighed, his pride slightly wounded. “But it did take a bit of effort: it was part of the captain’s private supply when we took this ship.”
She raised her glass. “My compliments to your efforts.”
Cate followed Thomas with her eyes as he sat once more. “You spoke to Creswicke directly?”
He jerked a complacent nod. “Face-to-face.”
“Then why didn’t you just kill him then?”
Thomas made a skeptical, throaty noise which sounded so very much like Nathan, she had to smile. “Because I’m not the suicidal sort, and straight out dead serves no one.”
“You’d rather just let Nathan kill him for you.”
“No,” he said unperturbed. He plucked a date from the plate and popped it into his mouth. “I’d rather allow Nathan to have his moment or a chance at it, at any rate.”
There was so much of this she didn’t like. She had one bad feeling after another. She felt as if she were some kind of a pawn, a piece in a much larger game, one in which she had no control, no word.
“You’re not afraid of him, Creswicke,” she observed.
Thomas blinked, considering. “I suppose not, not like others. Aye, I respect very well what he’s capable of, what a vile, conniving monster he can be. But, it’s blessed difficult to be afraid of someone you’ve known, since both of us were still having our noses wiped by our nurses.”
Cate started at that revelation and then stared. Her life had been in Thomas’ hands, he had been responsible for her safe-keeping, and yet she realized just then that she knew blessedly little about the man. He had been more successful at evading an unveiling of his past more effectively than Nathan.
She leaned forward. “How did that come about? Where were you born, anyway?” She had always detected a hint of an accent, but had never been able to quite put a finger on it.
The lake blue eyes held hers, measuring and considering. Finally, a slow smile curled one corner of his wide-mouth. “I was born in Java.”
She blinked, at first thinking perhaps she had misunderstood. “You don’t look… Javanese.”
“My mother was Dutch.” He was pleased at his success at catching her surprise.
He paused, his humor fading. “Lord Creswicke—senior, that is—and my father were with the East India Trading Company in Sarat. His Lordship was my father’s senior, something Breaston took great satisfaction in reminding me of. That, and my… ehh, dubious parentage.”
Cate raised a brow expectantly, knowing full well that could only mean one thing.
“My father was a man of high aspirations, but with none of the position or connections required to deliver him. So he married the daughter of one of the most prestigious Dutch trade families and, hence, ingratiated himself to the Company and its investors. The imperfection in that arrangement was my father had an insatiable love of the skirts.”
“You said you had four sisters.”
Thomas glanced up and then away. “Even a cad occasionally enjoys the marriage bed,” he said grimly. “With time, however, my mother had her own amour. That liaison resulted in a child that my father, through a sequence of circumstances, knew for sure wasn’t his.”
“You?”
He nodded, looking away, the light catching the straight line of his profile. “She took my two older sisters and went back to her family in Java until her time came.”
“So, he disowned you?”
Thomas chuckle dryly. “There was no way he gracefully could; I was the only son. Since he and my mother were married, I was legally his, unless he said otherwise. Even as I grew a foot taller, he kept up the façade; appearances and position were everything to him,” he added with a heavy note of irony. “Luckily, I resembled my mother enough to deflect a lot of the gossip and suspicion. But, the Company is a very small world.” He fell quiet, examining his blunt-tipped fingers splayed on his legs. “He never allowed me to forget it, not for a moment.”
Cate sat in full sympathy, for she was all too familiar with the pain which could be inflicted by a resent-laden father. Hers could never forgive her for being a girl.
“So that’s how you wound up at sea: sailing for the Company?” she asked.
Thomas snorted. “Not exactly. My father was as much of a hard horse as old man Creswicke. There was no pleasing either of them.”
He took several nuts from the plate and cracked them in his hands, munching as he spoke. “About that time, there was a little… indiscretion, involving one of Creswicke’s daughters and me. It wasn’t what it sounds like,” Thomas added quickly in his own defense, flushing red. “Well, not quite, at any rate. Perhaps the acorn hadn’t fallen far from the tree after all.”
Cate closed one eye, trying to follow along. Thought—the lucid sort, at any rate—was becoming more and more difficult. “Was that the same sister that Nathan…?”
“Nay, that was the older one. She was a hell-raiser—raised her skirts, too, for that matter—from the get-go.”
“Did you love her?”
Thomas glanced at her and then away, pensively working the uncracked nuts in his hand. “Before we were found out, I pledged myself to her. And, after, I pledged every way I could to his family and mine. Lord Creswicke, senior, however, didn’t fancy his pride-and-joy being associated with a bastard. He insisted I be taught a lesson. It was a prime opportunity for my father to do the very thing he had been longing for: to be rid of me. That’s how I wound up at sea. Funny thing was, it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“And her?”
He winced, his jaw working. “She was sent off to England, presumably to care for an infirmed old aunt. We were forbidden to communicate, but the mail ran regardless what part of the Empire you were in.”
Meditative, Thomas fell quiet for so long, Cate thought perhaps the story was over. “Her letters came as regular as the phases of the moon, until one day….” He shrugged, his mouth pressed into a firm line. “They stopped,” he said so quietly she could barely hear.
He blew a long, weary sigh. “When my ship finally made England, I found the aunt’s house, but everyone was gone. The people living there had no notion.”
Feeling her throat beginning to tighten, Cate threw back her head and emptied her glass. Thomas attempted to fill it as she held it out, but it kept moving. Cocking an eye, he plucked the glass away. Filling it, he and then carefully set it back in front of her, seizing his own as he sat back.
Cate leaned on the table and propped her head in her hands. “If Nathan is so noble and blameless in all this, why was he so anxious to be rid of me?” The hurt of being sent off like an unwanted pup hadn’t eased.
She wholly regretted her reaction to learning of all this, but on the other hand, neither had it been totally out of line.
Dammit, Nathan should have just spoken up.
“I knew it would end like this…”
She regretted their last words, their last moments being wasted. Their last time they had lain together, she had been drowsy and too fixed on him to notice.
I will make it up to you, she vowed privately.
Thomas smiled at her, slightly sad, but with a glimmer of his usual geniality. “I told you months ago that he was smitten.” he added, eyeing her. “I had thought, I might… somehow…” He groped for a completion to the thought and then let it die. “Anyway, I could see it was no use.”
She started to say something, but it faded from her mind the moment she opened her mouth.
Thomas scowled expectantly at her as she struggled to recall.
“You two have been at odds with each other before… over women, that is… haven’t you,” she finally said.
Shifting in his seat, Thomas buried his nose into his glass. “A few.”
He sat back, rolling the glass between his palms. “I won a few times, but he won most. But now, ‘tis different,” he said looking up, earnest and bold. “I’ve seen Nathan in every stage of fascination with a woman I ever thought possible, until now.”
It took her a few moments to find the courage for the next question. “Did you ever see him with Hattie?” she asked carefully. Even at that, the name caught in her throat.
“Who? Oh, her,” he said, waving her off. “Nay, never laid eyes on the woman, but can tell you just from knowing Nathan, what that was all about.”
She leaned forward, intrigued.
Thomas leaned his head back, staring at the blackened beams overhead, the multitude of charts stored between them. “Let me guess: he laid eyes on her—probably as she was killing someone, judging by what I’ve heard of her,” he added sliding her a look from the corner of his eye. “And he bedded her by that night. It would have been like two ships coming together in a heavy swell: lots of slam and grind and scrape… nothing gentle about it.”
Cate felt her face redden at that picture. “He would have never done her violence.”
Thomas brows shot up. “Violence? With that woman? He might to the men around her, but nay, from what I’ve heard, she wasn’t one to suffer it, unless she liked it,” he mused, as an afterthought. Then he shook his head. “But even at that, Nathan doesn’t have it in him… And how do I know that, you ask?” he asked, cutting off her retort. “Most of us have no idea what goes on between two people in bed, but we sailors are a different lot. We do everything elbow-to-elbow, and I do mean everything. Land or sea, we’ve seen each other at the best and the worst. I know what he wouldn’t do, as well as he knows me.”
“In the wrong hands, that could be some very damaging information.”
Thomas sobered, considering. “Aye, in the wrong hands, it could mean the other’s end.”
He took a drink, closing one eye against it. “Hark ye. You two are bound together by some strange power I’ll never understand, probably no one else, on Earth, at any rate. Suffice to say, it’s there. I’ve seen enough in this world, and heard enough about Nathan and his mother, to know not to question.”
“He’s never said anything about…” Cate swallowed hard. Her mouth worked, but the word wouldn’t come. She had forbidden the word, refused to allow herself to even think it, lest it inadvertently slip out. To do so could have led to an ugly scene, either Nathan being obliged to another grand performance saying things which he didn’t feel, or him disappearing, chased off by another grasping woman.
“That he loves you?” Thomas asked, leaning to catch her eye. “Does he have to?”
“It would help,” she said bleakly. “I wish I could believe—”
Thomas’ loud snort cut her off. “Believe it, my dear,” he said with a magnanimous wave. “There’s a stone tablet somewhere on this earth or at the bottom of the sea with it written. You’d be best served,” he began, pointing a misguided finger at her, “to accept it, because Nathans not going to give up, ever. He never gave up on that ship of his, he sure as hell is never going to give up on you.”
His watch complete, Thomas went back to his cabin with the intentions of finishing his log entries and then sleep. He thoroughly expected Cate to have been abed long ago, and so was startled to find her sprawled across the table, with one arm flung out, the other cradling her head.
Moving closer, he inspected the decanter at her elbow. Empty. He brought the watch lamp he carried nearer and listened.
“Drunk as a fishwife,” he murmured. “Maybe living with Nathan has proved a bit more the tribulation than she can handle.”
Sitting in the chair next to her, he propped his chin on his knee and watched her sleep. It was a wonder if Nathan ever bothered to appreciate her in moments such as these. Her wild tangle of hair was fanned across the table, partially obscuring her face, but he could still see one angel – wing brow, and the corner of her mouth which always tended to curl into a smile, even as she slept. In spite of that smile, the smooth space between her brows creased by a frown. The light caught on the silver tracks of dried tears and snot on her cheek and lip. The metal of her wedding ring shone, a bright reminder that another had already staked his claim.
Damn well have to get in line for her.
His fingers curled with the urge to bury themselves deep into that coppery mass of hair. With some effort, he stuffed his hand into his belt, removing temptation. Muttering several oaths— waking her didn’t strike him as a worry—he scooped Cate up. Her head lolling against his shoulder, one arm swung loose as he carried her to his bunk and laid her out. He turned to take his leave, but paused, considering. Blowing an exasperated sigh, he perched on the bunk’s edge. With her propped against his chest, he loosened her stays and pulled them off. She stirred, mumbling then quieted. Easing her back down onto the mattress, unhooking her skirt and sliding it off was an easy matter. Clamping his lower lip between his teeth, he tugged down the hem of her shift, his fingers lingering on the curve of her calf. Such temptation.
Turning to leave once more, temptation overcame wisdom, and he bent to kiss her on the cheek.
“Another day, lovely.”
Given the Lovely’s smaller Great Cabin, the captain’s sleeping quarters was no more than an alcove, a bit of curtain the only concession toward privacy. Cate woke there with a muddled sense of her whereabouts while at the same time annoyed for she had wished to have no part of either the Lovely’s captain or his bunk. The recurring sensation of time having been altered had returned; she was back where she had been weeks ago. The more pressing question was how she had gotten there.
She cracked one eye open. The stabbing glare of light made her clamp it shut again. Groaning, she carefully rolled up to a sitting position. There, legs hanging over the edge, she sat swaying. The spinning sensation wasn’t just from time being altered; it truly was spinning, the cabin floor sloping like the ship was in a full gale. Her roaming eye came to rest on some clothes atop a stool… her clothes. Peering down at herself, she plucked at her shift. Perhaps the greater question might be how she came to be undressed.
Probing through a cottony head, she recalled drinking the night before. Wine, port or alcohol of any sort, didn’t ordinarily affect her so, but it hadn’t been an ordinary night. The oblivion the liquor provided had been a welcomed escape, but it had come with a price: a queasy stomach, a tongue that had grown too large for her mouth, and a headache, the remedy for which might include the removal of one eyeball. Getting dressed was a challenge, bending over not in her realm of capabilities.
Cate rounded the curtain to find Thomas at the table with Al-Nejem, stabbing a finger at a chart and speaking in Arabic. Seeing her, Thomas dismissed his first mate with a nod. Scrutinizing her for a moment, he filled a cup from the porcelain urn on the table and shoved it before her as she gingerly lowered into a chair.
“Good morning! Or should I amend that to ‘Good noon’?” Thomas hair was tightly pulled back and tied with a leather thong at the nap of his neck. His cheeks shone brightly from the recent application of a razor, and he wore a clean shirt. Cate ran a hand over her hair, painfully conscious of her tousled and rumpled state.
“Youssef remembered how the honorable sayyida preferred her coffee,” he went on. “It’s a welcome relief to his usual Moroccan brew. Vile stuff! I’ve been drinking it for over ten years, and I still haven’t gotten used to it. Have to be born to it, I guess. Maram!”
The cabin boy materialized at the head of the galley companionway. A tumble of Arabic from Thomas sent the lad back to where he had come from. Thomas poured his own cup and sat across from Cate looking quite smug. He was proud of himself about something; she didn’t care to hazard a guess as to what.
“I’ve ordered toasted soft-tack directly. Thought it might help what’s ailin’. I would have thought a woman of your experience would have known her limits,” he mused. The battle to keep from smiling was a lost one.
Hovering over her cup, Cate braced her head in her hands. “A gentleman might have given a soul a bit of a warning.”
“I tried. You didn’t attend,” he said mildly.
“Oh, here!” He rummaged about in a pocket and produced a few bean-sized seeds in the palm of his hand. “Chew some of these.”
She slid a skeptical eye, curling her nose. “What is it?”
He gave her a perturbed look. “Ancient folk cure. If I told you, you wouldn’t do it, so just pretend it’s something else. Don’t swallow, just chew,” he urged, shoving them closer. “It will help that bloody headache.”
Giving him a wary look, Cate finally relented and put three or four pods into her mouth, chewing carefully. They were sour and green-tasting, but not unpalatable. It might have been her imagination, but her headache did seem to ease already.
An awkward silence fell over the table. Their eyes found the others and then darted away, only to trail back again. For Cate, it was a painful exercise, for any movement of her eyes made them throb.
Finally, she buried her face in her hands. “Is there any chance that you might be willing to tell me what happened last night?”
“You don’t remember?”
Cate peered at him between the fingers splayed across her face. “Can you please wipe that smirk off your face long enough to tell me?”
“I would have thought that headache would have been clue enough.”
“That part I’m quite aware of. It’s just the other…?”
His silence and overt innocent stare showed he had no intention of elaborating until she had suffered a little longer.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” She slammed her hand on the table, wincing at the noise. “All I remember is sitting here.”
“Oh, that!” The blue eyes sparked with tease. “Not so easy waking up not knowing where you are, is it?”
“I’m not like you and Nathan. I knew where I was, I just don’t remember how I got there,” she finished lamely.
Thomas threw his head back and laughed, loud enough to rattle the cups in their saucers. “Fear not, m’lady! Your virtue is intact.”
Maram appeared bearing a plate of toasted soft tack.
“You can spit that out now,” Thomas advised.
Cate started to do so, but stopped, uncertain as to what she would do with the macerated mass. Thomas rose and put his hand out, tossing the wad out the scupper.
Along with the toast, butter and some variety of marmalade had been brought. The first had a disagreeable, oily shimmer to it; the latter had bits of rind or something which looked far too much like worms swimming. Cate nibbled on a corner of a piece of dry toast, instead, washing it down with sips of coffee. Her stomach cleaved onto something solid. The spinning stopped and her world righted, giving her hope that she might actually survive the day.
“Captain?” a beckoning voice at the door brought Thomas to his feet.
Cate rose and followed.
Cate climbed up to the main deck, Thomas behind her, guiding her feet on the steep, narrow rungs. On deck, she was met by the all too familiar commotion of a ship preparing for battle: the rap of hammers chipping shot, the grind of the honing wheel and the gun crews hovering over their beloved charges.
Thomas stepped abaft to what appeared to be an inspection and interview of a cluster of men gathered near the capstan. At length, he pointed to three or four and set the rest on their way.
Cate took the opportunity to get her bearings. Ransom Passage was squarely before her. It was actually formed by three points of land, two defining the bay in which they sat. The island behind them bore the familiar lushness typical of the Caribbean, rising steeply from the water to a jagged ridge which ran its length. To the north, on the other side of the passage, was a sheer face of rock. The island behind it was no more than a jumble of barren rocks. Tall and flat, some nearly as tall as the Lovely’s masts, they looked like broken tombstones tossed there by giants. The sea broke against the headland, shooting high, and making a low rumbling sound. The rocks and white, turbid waters stretched north and east of the passage well out of sight. Even to her unpracticed eye, it looked ominous.
Cate turned and inhaled sharply, caught unawares by the sight of another ship sitting bow-to – bow with the Lovely. Stumbling backwards, she came up hard against someone. She let out a small shriek and whirled around squarely into Thomas.
“Stay back,” he hissed and pulled her further aft. In the protection of the mainmast, he stopped, her back still to the ship.
“Is that—?” she asked. One’s heart in one’s throat made it blessedly difficult to speak.
His eyes fixed on the ship over her shoulder, Thomas’ lips compressed into a thin line. “Aye, Creswicke’s ship. They tell me she’s the Gosport.”
“Is he there?” In truth, it was a futile question. She could feel Creswicke’s presence, as one might know the Devil was nearby.
“Aye, he’s here, or damned well better be,” he added under his breath. “I expected him to be early, but damn—!”
“I would have expected him to have something more…”
Like a flash of lightning, Cate had only caught a glimpse, but the Gosport was firmly etched in her mind. It was larger than the Lovely by a considerable margin, a double-decker with towering masts. Her ornateness was the next impression, with vast amounts of scrollwork, carvings and fretwork, and gilding on every surface which could possibly support it. In a show of force, the portlids were opened, the brass guns gleaming as if they had been gilded, as well.
“Grander? Larger?” He looked away from the Gosport long enough to cock a wry brow at her. “He has one damned near the size of an Indiaman as his personal barge. It would never make it past that reef out there, however.” He angled his head toward the island to the west and the open sea presumably to its other side. It was then that Cate became aware of the thunderous rumble of surf on a distant reef.
The corner of Thomas’ eye narrowed in contempt. “As it is, the nervy son-of-a-bitch brought a forty. That captain has to either be crazy or-”
“Creswicke bullied him into it.”
His eye darted toward her, pleased by her acuity. He fixed his attention on the Gosport once more. “His Lordship and his fair captain fancy, what with the prevailing wind and the land blocking it, they have us in their lee.”
Everything in both his voice and body suggested that was not quite the case.
Thomas leaned to bring his mouth closer to her ear as if the Gosport might overhear. “Lying just out there, roughly in line with their mainchains, is a kedge we’ve already set. We slipped enough hawse so they’ll never see it. We tied it off over there,” he said, nodding to leeward and away from the Gosport’s prying eyes. “We’ve set one astern, too, just in case we need to break off quick-like.”
Cate peered cautiously forward, but saw nothing of significance. Still, she nodded as intelligently as she could.
He stood staring at the vessel, pensively running a finger along the scar on his chest. “I had hoped when the time came, I might yaw up for a broadside.” The regret with which that was spoken indicated said maneuver was no longer possible. “But, we can still give her hell with our bow chasers, then haul up on the kedge and board in the smoke.”
The corner of his mouth quirked. His hat cut a sharp shadow across his angular features. “On the other hand, do you see how the grass-combing scrub lies?”
Cate rose on her toes and studied, again seeking to appear knowledgeable.
“In Creswicke’s fervor to block us in, he snugged himself nice and cozy, looking for a nice clear shot at the Morganse when she rounds that west point, where I told him Nathan would be coming from.”
The conspiratorial waggle of his brows suggested that there was more.
“But?” she prompted.
“But, he’ll be coming from behind the headland against which they are so tight,” he said, nodding toward the east. “By the time they spot the Morganse, she’ll be on top of them.”
“But, he could put lookouts up there,” Cate said, looking up at the island’s backbone. “They could spot her well in advance.”
“Aye, he’s posted them already.” The lake blue eyes cut sideways at her. “And we’ve served them out, already.”
“Won’t he just send more?”
He snorted. “They would need first to take notice of the silence. The only way they will realize their men are dead is when the Morganse clears the point without warning.”
Thomas chuckled to himself.
“You’re smiling,” she said warily.
He made a conscious effort to not do so as he looked down at her. “Aye, I told Creswicke Nathan would be here on the fifteenth. I knew that bastard would be early. Today is only the fourteenth.”
She nodded, trying to follow.
“Nathan will be here tomorrow.” He spoke with the formality one might use to announce royalty.
Cate’s heart leapt with a number of emotions, the primary one being the joy at the thought of seeing Nathan again. He had said their separation would only be a few days, but she hadn’t believed him. Now, all that seemed a lifetime ago. Dread settled in next, because his arrival brought the ultimate outcome of this all the more eminent. She had been playing a mental game of trying to convince herself that something unforeseen would happen, and this confrontation could be avoided. Now, Nathan was right in the middle, damn him!
Cate squinted one eye, recalling the last time she had seen Nathan and his ship. “The Morganse looked barely able to sail.” It was her one last, great, final hope that might prevent Nathan from showing up.
Thomas nodded equitably. “She wasn’t, then. But between Nathan’s seamanship and that crew of his, they can knot-and-splice like demons, while they sail like smoke-and-oakum. Initially, we’d thought to make Creswicke wait, but we fancied rushing him, instead. C’mon, you need to get out of this sun.”
Weaving their way through the scurrying men, Thomas guided Cate further aft. A dodger had been rigged over the quarterdeck, its shade extending onto the maindeck. It was there that they drew up. Cate felt better, the relief not necessarily from being out of the sun—although, it seemed to weigh particularly heavy on her of late—but being further away from Creswicke. Albeit she hadn’t seen him, his presence still beat down like that very sun. Having Thomas next to her was a comfort, his size and genial confidence a shelter in which she happily hid.
“It’s difficult to imagine His Lordship coming with only one ship,” she said, casting a worried eye toward the Gosport. The ship was behind her, but she still couldn’t help but look, half-expecting Creswicke to leap out at any moment.
“He probably didn’t. I’d wager my ship that there’s an even bigger one waiting just over there.” Thomas pointed with his chin to the unseen open sea. “There’s a reef out there that would make even the saltiest dog blench. They’ll be hanging there, waiting to catch the Morganse, either coming in or trying to escape.”
“How long can they hold out there?”
The corner of Thomas’ mouth quirked again. “Their nerves and patience will probably give out long before their wood and water. We can avoid them altogether by going out that way.”
He directed her attention toward the jumbled maze of towering rocks and turbid seas, the tombstones awaiting whoever might be foolish enough to dare those waters. “That’s the way Nathan will be coming in.”
More and more, she was obliged to concede the genius behind this particular location.
“In the meantime,” he said, squaring himself like a man bracing for a fight. “Nathan desires that you be out of the way.”
“Which means?” she asked, her suspicions rising. How the hell could she be any further away than she already was?
“You’ll be ashore.”
“Ashore!” Her first urge was to break and run, but run to where? Fury rising out of frustration found a vent: she doubled her fist and swung. Thomas knew her too well and was ready. He caught her arm in mid-air and pinned it along with the other to her sides. Infuriated at being so easily corralled, she growled and swore as she struggled against him, useless and helpless as ever. Finally, she collapsed against his chest, gasping and defeated. When he thought it safe, he released her, but stayed close, keeping her cornered.
“Stand easy. You’ll have guards, good men watching you. You shan’t be alone.” He ended with a companionable pat on the back, apparently meant to make her feel better.
It didn’t.
Alone. A chill scampered down between her shoulder blades and a cold sweat broke out. The thought of guards was only slightly reassuring, for it felt more like being abandoned once more, left in the company of strange men. Granted, she had lived among these men for nearly a fortnight, she thought looking around. As of that very moment, however, she couldn’t find a single friendly face.
“Dealing with Creswicke will be like dealing with a wounded bear,” Thomas said. “Nathan needs to be able to think and fast. He can’t do that with you to worry about.”
“But I—”
“But nothing, lovely.” Bracing his hands on his hips, he imposed himself over her, forcing her to tilt her head back in order to see him. “For the love of all that’s holy, can’t you see? You’d get the man killed.”
“I never thought—” she stammered. Her face heated, for that was the furthest from her wishes.
“God’s wounds, then start thinking!”
Thomas softened at seeing her flinch. “The minute we stand down, you’ll be fetched. Hell, Nathan will probably come get you himself.”
The thought that Nathan might come through all this well enough to fetch her was reassuring. She would hang onto that thought for it was the only way she was going to get through this.
She numbly nodded, thoroughly chastened. “Very well, I see your point.”
Ducking a nod, Thomas stepped abaft to the group of men he had singled out earlier. Head bent, as if listening, Thomas toed the pile of gear at their feet. At length, he gave the nod typical of a pleased commander. A few additional comments were made, and he returned to Cate. Seeing him square his shoulders and sober gave her an uneasy feeling.
“Won’t they see the boat going ashore?” Cate asked.
“Not if we keep the Lovely between the boat and them,” Thomas said evenly.
“You fancy yourself to have all the answers,” she said, eyeing him.
Thomas demurred, but touched wood, nonetheless. “God willing.”
Seeing her worried look, he hooked an arm around her and gave her an encouraging shake. “You’ll be… fine.”
The possibility of “fine” seemed impossible. Her only hope was being cast ashore might somehow put her closer to the Morganse and hence, Nathan.
“I don’t like it,” she said, when Thomas finally released her.
“Neither do I. But I promised Nathan, and I’m not willing to risk either my word or you getting hurt. That’s a forty-gun frigate sitting over there with eighteen – pounders, by the looks of it. Only a fool would fail to assume those gun crews don’t know their way around those guns. A few slight turns of bad luck… and, aye, it could get ugly… very ugly.”
Smiling gently, he cupped her cheek in his palm. “I’m no different than Nathan: worrying about you could get us all killed.”
The thought hit like a fist, driving the wind from her lungs. Her hands had gone to ice, and yet sweated to the point that she had to wipe them on her skirts.
“I’ll have you ashore and safe, thank you very much,” he said, chucking her lightly under the chin.
He gestured toward the group he had been speaking, now near the accommodation. “Those men over there will be your guards.”
Cate eyed them dubiously. Not a face did she recognize. Cast among strangers once again. Sun-beaten, black of eye and beard, they might as well have been quadruplets, they were so alike.
“What?” she said, vaguely aware of Thomas speaking.
“I said, these are my best men. They’ve sworn a pledge to both me and this ship. Your protection falls under both of those categories. I’ve instructed them to take you up over that ridge and set up camp.”
Cate looked up at him, wondering when this nightmare might end. “Camp? You represented Nathan will be here tomorrow.”
“Aye, but there’s no way of knowing how long this will last. When it comes to it, this could a few minutes, a few hours or a few days. There’s fresh water on the west side and, with the ridge, it won’t have to be a cold camp.”
She peered up at the jungle-like hillside. “I’d rather be on this side and able to see.”
“Are you sure about that?” he asked with a jaundiced eye. “That would mean watching, without being able to do a damn thing about it.”
She winced. He knew her too well.
Another nameless battlefield popped into mind: watching Brian being surrounded. Helplessness had only been temporary then; she had taken action, done something. But there would be no fields to cross, no horses to ride. This would be ships bashing away at each other with their guns, boarding parties slashing their way across. She had seen enough of sea battles to know what it would be like: shattered wood and bodies, limbs smashed or severed, a deck bright red and slippery, blood streaming from the scuppers. Nathan’s need to have his revenge would push him to be reckless and rash. She couldn’t shake the feeling that this would all end in one of two ways: those limbs on the deck being Nathan’s, or him being shuffled away in chains, following Creswicke to a life of slavery.
No, not for long. I’d get him out. Somehow, some way… just like he rescued me, I’d get him out.
She reached into her pocket and grasped the piece of paper wrapped around a lead shot. The “Never” written on that bit of paper worked both ways. She’d never give up on him. It would only be a matter of the “how.”
Now who’s being foolish?
The lead ball grew warm, far warmer than the head of the day allowed. It grew warmer, yet, a hot, heavy presence.
No, she wasn’t alone.
Thomas loomed over her, making it painfully evident that he would brook no argument on this point.
“Very well. When?” she said dully.
Thomas’ shoulders dropped, this small battle won.
“The bastard has been here for hours. I’ll have to go speak to him directly. After all, I have to keep up appearances,” he added dryly. Then he sobered. “I’ll pull over as you go ashore. That should provide a fair distraction.”
“Do you trust him?” The thought of herself or anyone going willingly into Creswicke’s hands made her toast and coffee form a cold knot in her stomach.
Grinning, Thomas lifted one shoulder and let it drop. “Absolutely not, but I have what he wants.”
He strolled toward the accommodation gate, leaving Cate to stare and wonder.