The Pirate Captain (11 page)

“I can’t say I entirely trust the man. He sought to have my clothes cut off,” she said, suppressing a shudder.

Nathan chuckled. “Can’t say as I blame him. I’d wager not a man aboard hasn’t fancied that.”

The man she assumed to be the earlier-beckoned Kirkland came up the steps from below, bearing a tray. The apparent cook was a round man with an even rounder face. Like many others, he wore a kerchief around his head, this one being so small it clung precariously to his bald, sun-scaled crown.

“Would the lady care for a bit o’ toast?” Mr. Kirkland asked, hovering anxiously.

“Bread?” The closest to bread she had seen on the
Constancy
had been ship’s biscuit, appropriately called hardtack, since only lengthy soaking rendered it edible.

Blackthorne chuckled at her awe. “Aye, softtack. Ovens were installed a bit ago. Not large ones, mind, but enough to allow for a bit of variety. Pirates are a heartless and scurrilous lot, but our bellies still appreciate a fair meal.”

The last time she had eaten was breakfast past, under Grogan’s watchful eye, and meager it had been. Vomiting and the terrors of the day before had left her quite sharp set, and her stomach growled loudly at the suggestion of such a feast. Blackthorne was quick to clear his throat loudly enough to cover the sound.

“No worries, luv,” Blackthorne grinned. “Let it never be said someone went hungry under me watch.”

“That would be lovely, Mr. Kirkland,” she said at last.

“And perhaps a bit of fruit?” the cook suggested.

She nodded and he scurried away, obviously pleased by his insightfulness.

Blackthorne rose and made the host. The ritual of serving—the murmured inquires of “Milk?” “Sugar?” and “Honey?” and the clatter of porcelain and tinkling of the spoon—eased the tension. As he bent, she noticed there were bells in his mustache, as well. Similar to those in his hair, they hung asymmetrically: one at the corner of his mouth, the other high over the opposite lip.

…one for every virgin…

Then what do those two mean?

Tar-stained, but long-fingered and finely boned, his hands moved with surprising gracefulness. The porcelain’s delicacy was a sharp contrast to the lacework of fine scars across the backs and knuckles as he passed her cup.

He poured his own, sipped with exaggerated delicacy and nearly gagged. Struggling against the urge to spit it out, he rolled it from side to side in his mouth. He managed a hard swallow at last, his lip curling in disgust.

“Vile stuff,” came out in a half-strangled rasp.

Cate took a sip and closed her eyes in pleasure. These being pirates, something in the “gunpowder” variety had been expected, but this was aromatic and slightly spicy, one never tasted before. Setting down the blue-flowered cup, she looked up to find him staring, round-eyed.

“What?” Hitching the quilt higher, she glanced to see if she was more indecent than thought.

“Your eyes. They changed color.”

“Oh, that,” she said, averting them to the table. “I’ve been told as much before. I’m sorry, I can’t help it. It depends on—”

“No, no, ’tis all well…it’s just…if you might warn a soul. Yesterday they looked like—”

“An idol that cursed you, I think you said.”

“Aye. Now, they’re the color of Gordos Bay.”

She had heard any number of references through her life, most people being at a loss to assign a name to the color, but never anything quite that impassioned.

“Almost green, then,” Blackthorne said pensively. He ducked his head to see once more. “And now, almost blue…but not quite. Odd…indescriptably odd.”

He shook his head, his bells jingling with the movement, and then darted another look to see if they had changed again. Seizing upon the distraction, she cleared her throat, in essence calling the meeting to order. She gave her hair another cursory smoothing. Half-drowned and sleep-mussed, wearing a blood-smeared and torn shift, she knew she must have presented a sorry sight.

“May I ask again, Captain,” she began levelly, “what do you plan to do with me?”

His expression sobered. His features were carefully arranged, a skill at which she was discovering he was very accomplished. “Why were you on the
Constancy
?”

“I had to leave England, rather quickly,” Cate said after some deliberation. “The
Constancy
was the first ship away for a price I could afford.”

Blackthorne cocked a suspicious eyebrow. “Wanted to leave or
had
to leave?”

She pensively chewed the inside of her mouth as she traced the scalloped edge of the saucer. Hours of sleeplessness had provided hours to think. There might be no family willing to pay for her return, but there was another who would, no questions asked. As she was given to understand, Kingston, and hence the authorities, was very near, meaning her sojourn with the pirates could be very brief.

It all depended on the whim of a very pragmatic, yet unsettling pirate.

“Captain, I’ll make it easy for you. You and your men pulled me out of the water and saved my life. The least I can do is return the favor.”

She took a deep breath. She was a captive on a pirate ship. What could be worse? Revealing herself, however, didn’t come easy. After years of secretiveness, false names, lies, and being suspicious of every person met, confession to a stranger was now necessary, one known for treachery in pursuit of a prize. And yet, it was that very trait upon which she depended.

“There is a price on my head. None so large as the ransom of a commissioner’s daughter,” she conceded, smiling briefly, “but His Majesty’s authorities will pay at least enough for rum to last you and your men for several days.”

One brow twitched, but Blackthorne’s face remained carefully impassive. “What...?” He stopped to clear his throat. “What could you possibly have done to draw such attention from His Royalness?”

“Ever heard of Bonnie Prince Charlie?” Cate watched him carefully from under her brows for his first reaction. For many Englishmen, it was a very sensitive issue, raw feelings often very near the surface. If he was one who fiercely resented Charles Stuart’s campaign, her future could be very bleak.

His face screwed in confusion. “Certainly. Who hasn’t? What the bloody hell has a Catholic upstart seeking to overthrow the Crown, whose only outcome was the destruction of every fool crazed enough to follow, have to do with anything?”

“My husband and I were two of those crazed fools,” she said without rancor. “Reluctantly, but that’s another story. Brian, my husband, was an officer in the Stuart army. Since I always rode with him, I was considered to be ‘aiding and abetting the enemy.’” She chuckled, shaking her head in disbelief. “At one point, there were even handbills for my arrest.”

He absent-mindedly scratched his beard, jerking his hand down when he thought her looking.

“Last night, you said you had no one. What of your family?” he asked.

“All very far away and probably dead; I haven’t seen or heard from any of them in a very long time.”

“And his family?”

Cate took another sip of tea. “If they were caught harboring, or even so much as associating with a criminal such as me in any way, they could be arrested. Their lands would be confiscated, they would lose everything.”

“You don’t sound Scots, that’s for bloody sure.” Blackthorne leaned back, hooking his thumbs into a belt buckle nearly twice the size of his hand. “Can’t smoke that accent of yours, but it is most certainly
not
Scots.”

“Oh, I’m not; Brian was a Highlander, though. Clan Mackenzie,” she said with a spark of pride. She sobered as she toyed with her wedding ring. “The day before he was captured, he told me to forget him, consider him dead. God, as if I could!”

She braced her elbows on the table and dropped her head in her hands. Grinding her palms against her forehead, she was grateful for the protective curtain of hair that fell around her as another emotional outbreak dashed to the surface. The fall into the sea must have washed away every bit of fortitude she possessed, leaving her inordinately fragile.

“Does he know where you are?” he asked.

“If only,” she said, choking back the tears. She heaved a quivering sigh. “He was captured almost five years ago. I haven’t heard from him since. I was told he had been transported, but I have no idea where.”

“Did you not make inquiries?”

“And pray enlighten me as to just how was I supposed to do that?” she bristled, looking up. “‘Excuse me, Your Lordship, might you overlook the warrant for my arrest for the moment, and pray tell me where you took my husband?’” Cate made an unladylike noise in the back of her throat.

“So, you’ve been living alone?”

Living alone.

It sounded so simple. And yet, there was a note of appreciation in his question; he wasn’t altogether unfeeling of the magnitude of what that entailed: wandering, living in rat-infested hovels, existing on scraps, always alone. Alone, cold, hungry…and above all, afraid.

She smiled, apologetic for having flared. “I moved to London; large cities are ever so much easier to disappear into. I’m a fair hand with a needle; I can do fancywork no one else can. At one point, a family took me in as a tutor, because I could read and write, but I had to be careful. The most casual association with me could mean imprisonment.”

Blackthorne leaned back in his chair, intently grave. “But then, you had to leave?”

She sipped her tea and nodded. “The authorities were closing in. After a few close calls, I decided it was time to leave. I went to the docks in Bristol with every shilling I had and bought passage on the first ship away.”

“You were headed for Kingston. Do you know anyone in Kingston?”

“Hardly,” she scoffed. “Mrs. Littleton would have been my only acquaintance. It would have been of great advantage to have a recommendation, even a place to go, but it doesn’t matter now.”

She finished her tea, the cup clinking softly on the saucer as she set it down.

“So, Captain, you have your prize before you. Report to the nearest garrison that you have Catherine Mackenzie, and you’ll be the richer man for it.”

“You said Harper, before.”

She winced at her ruse being exposed. In fact, he was smiling, as if he expected the duplicity and was proud of her for it.

“Yes, well, it’s actually Mackenzie; Harper was my maiden name.”

The Captain leaned forward. “Why are you telling me this? It could mean the hangman’s noose—”

“Drawing and quartering.”

He sat back, duly impressed. “The Crown prides itself on doing no bodily harm to women, officially, at any rate.”

“It was made eloquently clear that they were willing to make an exception in my case,” she said with a grim smile.

Heavy footsteps, amid a goodly amount of labored breathing and florid cursing, interrupted them. Crane and Toad, her two guard-assistants from the sick bay, came through the doors lugging a massive dome-topped chest. The smashed lock dangled from the hasp; its contents foamed out from under the lid. Toad now wore a bandage about his head, the ends flopping from his crown like rabbit ears. He was comical-looking until the bloom of red over where his ear had been, and the streaks of dried blood down his neck and shirt came into view. Close behind them came two more men to deposit smaller trunks. Knuckling their foreheads, all took their leave.

“I passed the word for the…er…um…well, I know how women are about their…things...” Blackthorne, or rather Nathan, frowned in the puzzlement as to what could be so valuable.

“Pray tell them, ‘Thank you.’” She looked to her lap to hide a smile. “It’s a lovely thought, but there’s only one small problem: those aren’t mine.”

His smile faltered into a displeased curl. “Blundering, cod-handed dolts! They claimed ’twas all—”

“There wasn’t much to be found.” She looked away, for it was embarrassing to have to admit being so near destitution. She winced at the stab of loss. She blinked to clear her blurring vision as she looked out the windows, to where the
Constancy
had vanished. She felt Blackthorne watching, but elaborated no further.

“Might I suggest that you find something, unless you desire to go about like that,” he said, rising.

Seeing him abruptly side-step from the imaginary line in the floor reminded her to keep to her side as she followed him to the trunks.

“I have nothing,” she said evenly.

Blackthorne flipped open the lid of the largest, its ransacked contents—silk, satin, lace, ribbons, ruffles and linens—spilling out. She recognized the churned snarl of whites, pinks, blues, greens, and yellows as having been Mrs. Littleton’s.

With a pang of remorse, she ran her fingers along the silver crest that adorned the front of the largest trunk, an oval, full of flourish and detail, it bore a scripted “L.” She was familiar with the exact contents of all three trunks, for she had been the one to pack them. Being the only other woman aboard, she been the one to care for the ill women. She had sponged their fever-wracked bodies, day and night melding into a blur. She had overheard a crewman mumble something about “a couple of days;” she had no alternative but to accept that as fact.

Their deaths had been a blow. In the short time, she had become close to Mrs. Littleton, but most particularly Lucy. There had even been suggestions that, once arrived in Kingston, she might find a position in the Commissioner’s household. Those hopes disappeared over the rail as the bodies were sent to the deep.

“These are women’s things, aren’t they?” Blackthorne asked.

“Yes, but Mrs. Littleton was a good twelve inches shorter than I—and at least double at the waist—and Lucy was a girl of fifteen, barely half my size.”

The smaller trunk had belonged to the younger. A sleeve stuck out, lilac-flowered, with the same silk flowers at the elbow. She touched the flowers, smiling inwardly as she recalled Lucy in that very dress as she strolled the
Constancy
’s decks.

Blackthorne frowned, clearly unfamiliar with feminine complexities. “Can’t you just fix up something? I thought you said you were fair with a needle.”