The Pirate Captain (47 page)

“Must she be here?” he said, regarding the bird dolefully.

“I’ll allow you the privilege of explaining,” Cate said careful to move her jaw no more than necessary.

Biting back several remarks, Nathan kept an eye on Beatrice as he kicked the pile of Cate's discarded clothing further into the corner. The smells of bilges, moldy hemp, and male sweat stirred. Her gut roiled and she was beset by a renewed wave of panic and revulsion.

Nathan’s nose twitched, his countenance more troubled, as he said, “No need in trying to repair that bit o’ business. I brought you these.” He produced from under his arm the shirt and velvet breeches he had given her when first arrived.

“We should be putting in anon,” he said casually.

Putting into port was news; there had been no prior mention. It led Cate to wonder if it was indeed a planned stop or an accommodation on her behalf.

“How do we know she’s not a he?” Nathan asked, swiveling to regard Beatrice severely.

Cate frowned, eyeing the parrot as well. “What difference would it make, anyway?”

“Plenty, depending on his motivations.” He arched a suspicious brow. “What says
he’s
not in here
ogling
?”

Suddenly self-conscious, Cate tugged the quilt a little higher. “Don’t be absurd.” Admittedly, the bird was showing more interest, verging on affection.

“I’ll see to it that something more decent is found,” Nathan said, picking up his earlier thoughts.

Nathan hung between the bunk and the curtain. Aside from being in territory into which he didn’t ordinarily venture, his uneasiness seemed to stem from something else. With a sinking heart, she realized that he expected her to dress, and judging by the stern set of his jaw, was disinclined to argue the point. The night had been no easier on him: the dark shadow of his beard echoed the circles under his eyes. He repeatedly glanced at her, and then away, making her wonder if her appearance was that disagreeable. A glass hung on the wall, but she couldn’t garner the courage to look. The narrowed vision in one eye, thickened lips, and an overall hot puffiness were guidance enough.

As Cate contemplated trying to finesse her way out of dressing, she shifted with another kind of discomfort: she needed to go to the privy. As perceptive as ever—damn his eyes!—Nathan picked up on the situation.

“I’m sure we can—” he offered, anxiously hovering.

“Not bloody likely,” she growled through clenched teeth. Under no circumstances was she going to subject herself to using a chamber pot, even if there was one aboard, which Nathan doubted. He was quick to assure her, however, that other arrangements could be made. She would have to be far closer to death for that. Once again, she was grateful for the time-honored tradition of the Captain having his own convenience. Having to traipse all the way to the forecastle head seemed an insurmountable expedition.

Nathan discreetly retreated to the salon, although the toes of his boots were still visible beneath the curtain’s hem. Cate moved with eloquent care in sitting up, to the complaint of every nook of her body. On the edge of the bed, she drew several cautious breaths, allowing the light-headedness to abate before rising to her feet.

In halting increments, Cate dressed, daring to peek down at herself. Her neck and chest were a crisscross of angry red nail gouges. The bite on her breast was another story, the tooth indentations now a dark maroon amid a halo of purple fading to yellow. Seeing it made it throb worse. There was fortuitousness in donning the men’s clothing: no stays, and a waistband that barely touched her tender midriff. The binder secured her breasts, but she still hooked her arm under the left one as she took her first experimental steps into the salon.

Cate crossed the room in mincing steps, the slightest jar of her breast causing her to gasp. Nathan saw as much. He knew. He had seen it first hand, for heaven’s sakes.

No secrets on a bloody damned ship!

The thought was more than a little disquieting. At the time, she had been too stunned to care if he saw. Now, it was an awkward truth.

The ship’s motion didn’t help matters; there was an unexpected lurch. Nathan dove to catch Cate as she careened sideways and shepherded her the rest of the way. At the privy closet door, he declared an urgent need to check a chart, his loud humming and drumming of his fingers on the table providing her a curtain of privacy.

Beatrice had moved to the galley gangway rail by the time Cate came out. The bird stared back benignly, as if she had been there right along.

“I thought I smelled coffee,” Cate said hopefully as she shuffled to the table.

Nathan saw her seated. She looked dubiously at the mug on the table before her, her hopes sinking.

“I thought I smelled coffee,” she repeated, dully. That which sat before was her most certainly was not.

“Whipped egg and ale,” announced he brightly to her questioning look. Nathan sobered and said from the corner of his mouth, “I shan’t hold out hopes of aught else forthcoming from Kirkland’s brewing den of Satan, until it’s drunk. It seemed a small price in lieu of being bled.”

Nathan circled and prowled from a distance in thinly veiled disapproval of the shirt and breeches Cate now wore. Gulps of rum required to tamp down the anger he currently masked, he chattered of anything and everything, except the blessed whale in the room. She eventually grew cross and yearned for at least a modicum of directness. To her relief, he was at last called away—some crisis involving the foremast cat-harpins and swifters—and the salon fell quiet, leaving her to cautiously sip her ale.

Sometime in the night, the cries of the cries of the tortured men had ceased. Cate kept her eyes averted, afraid of what scene might await outside. She wondered how far pirate justice went, if it followed the habits of civilian courts back in England: leaving a criminal’s head impaled on a pike or the body rotting in a gibbet. She had looked to Nathan for an indication of what to expect, but none had been forthcoming, and she was loath to ask.

A tug at her sleeve broke her stare. Cate looked into a pair of golden orbs at her elbow. Hermione gaze shifted in broad suggestion from Cate, to her drink, and back.

“It’s…well, I’m not sure what to call it, but it’s not tea.”

Hermione sniffed interestedly at the proffered mug and bleated in complaint.

“Pray see Kirkland on the matter. I’m a bit incapacitated.”

The beast nudged her elbow, demanding to be petted. Cate obligingly scratched behind the silken ears, feeling a bit better for the company. She thought the rustle of feathers she heard was Beatrice taking her leave, but it was Artemis, appearing from below. The owl alighted on the back of Nathan’s chair and stared.

A triumvirate of women
, she mused.

A dash of movement caught her eye: a gecko, perched on the sill of the stern window, eyeing her as well.

How does one discern the sex of a lizard?

“Well, here we all are, eh? A sisterhood amid the Brethren.”

###

True to Nathan’s word, port was made that afternoon. Seen from where Cate sat on the gallery sill, under the sun hanging in a hot orb, the little town appeared barely capable of clothing itself, let alone having any to spare. Nathan waved off the minor detail.

“I have the acquaintance of someone, who knew someone else, who had a connection with someone else, who had access to someone else.”

In other words: don’t ask.

Cate bit back the observation that the stays, shift, and skirt he deposited in her arms smelled markedly of fresh laundering. A small fragment of soap was placed ceremoniously atop the folded clothing. Laden with bits of flower petals and leaves, it was heady with the scent of lavender and roses.

Nathan dismissed her gratitude out-of-hand. “It seemed someone who worshipped cleanliness deserved something to put upon its altar,” was all he said.

She impulsively kissed him on the cheek in gratitude, not only for the clothing but for everything this last day. It was then she discovered that he wasn’t above blushing.

“Still need to find something to do with that hair,” he muttered gruffly and ambled off.

Cate smiled. It was an old joke. Her unruly locks were a running point of contention with him, good-natured but determined. There was a certain irony in it, coming from someone who barely contained his own mane.

The days passed. Cate’s confidence incrementally grew. She was still subject to jumping at an unexpected noise, the pop of a plank, creak of a shroud, clump of a boot, or slap of a wave sending her cowering. Shying at being left alone, she was given to periodic fits, vacillating wildly from sobbing to vacant stares. The smell of bilges, muck, and hungering men cloyed stubbornly in her nose, causing her to snort and snuffle. Nathan hovered over her as if she was an enfeebled aunt. She grew fractious and wanted to rebuke him, but found that she had neither the will nor the wherewithal to do so.

The death of his own crewman was on Nathan’s hands. She would have never requested or expected such a deed, but the fact was he had killed in her defense. It was unclear if it had been a simple act of violence, chivalry, or if there had been a greater meaning in it. He wasn’t saying and it was blessedly difficult to ask.

Men were dead; there was no romance or glory in that.

Cate mentally marked off the small blessings. She had been lucky, she kept telling herself. She was whole, nothing was missing, the bite above her nipple a sharp reminder of how close she had come. Her face was swollen, but there were no broken noses or teeth, not even a finger. Her throat hadn’t been cut, and most importantly, albeit sore and bruised thighs, Bullock and his pack had failed at their initial mission.

So, why didn’t she feel lucky?

She carefully searched the face of everyone she met, from Squidge to Hodder, Towers to Smalley, Jensen to Millbridge, looking for any signs of recrimination or reproach, accusation or resentment, but saw none. For that matter, she saw nothing. She didn’t inquire as to what had befallen Bullock and his cohorts, and no one said. Every trace was gone, no belongings or gear auctioned off, no recollections over a cup of grog, no mention at all. It was a Brotherhood of Silence, in which she was an inadvertent member. What threats had been made to guarantee that silence was an even better-kept secret. On that mark, she was an outsider looking in.

In the long run, she had taken no worse beating than a forecastleman in a minor blow. The matter was over, forgotten. They had moved on, just as she was expected to do.

And so she did. Nothing more was said—nothing more need be.

End of Part One

Chapter 8:
Social Skills

C
ate came out of the cabin and lifted her hair to allow what little breeze there was to cool her neck. Her shift was damp with sweat and she wriggled against the stays where the linen stuck to her ribs.

The
Morganse
had been before the wind since the morning sun struggled up through a haze-shrouded horizon. It meant moving with the wind, the effect being as if there was no wind at all, and the air pressed like a hot mask at one’s face. Consequently, she had spent much of it in the cabin, where what little breeze there was funneled through.

Cate had practiced her knot-tying—in peace, but to no avail—and read. Later, she had embroidered. There was precious little thread remaining; each bit she treasured. She took great joy the process of watching the images of flower, vine, and leaf emerge with the addition of each stitch. Through the weeks hence, Nathan had often observed over her shoulder, fascinated as well.

“I’ve been around the world, more times than I care to count, and I've not seen work like that,” Nathan said in open admiration.

He reached to examine it more closely, but thought better, his hands being so tar-stained. Instead, he tucked them into his belt and peered over her shoulder. He showed a surprising knowledge of design and color. As he bent, his braids fell forward, brushing her shoulders. His breath warm on her neck set her glowing both from his praise and nearness.

But now, eyes too tired and light too poor, Cate stopped working. Nathan had proclaimed repeatedly he didn’t care how many candles she burned.

“Light it up like a wretched lightship, if you wish!”

But such indulgences didn’t come easily.

The night threatened to be nearly as warm as the day, the air and sea too heat-stricken to stir. Cate thought longingly of the Highlands, with its cool lochs and tumbling burns in which one could splash. To dream, however, only served to highlight one’s misfortune.

She stretching her back and working the stiffness from her fingers, she followed the voices outside. She balked at the mass of men. It had to have been the entire company. The last time she had witnessed such a gathering, it had been incited by Bullock’s agitating, but there was a vast difference in the mood now. There was a tension in the air, but more in the way of vested interest rather than dissension.

Gathered under the halo of the lamps, Nathan and Pryce were at roughly the center. Nearby, atop stacked bags of Hermione’s dry fodder, Millbridge looked comfortably on from a position of honor. Away from the light of the lanterns, the moon shone on the intent faces. There was no smoking allowed on board, but chewing tobacco was, although lo unto the poor unthinking soul who spat on Hodder’s holy deck! Those who chose to indulge did so from the leeward rail, adding an odd, staccato chorus of spitting.

Cate halted at the outer margins of the gathering to listen.

“Nay, nay,” Pryce was saying. “That won’t answer. The Royal Navy’ll smoke us afore we’re clear o’ the harbor.”

“I ’aven't ’eard you come up with anything yet,” pouted Smalley.

“Now, now, mates,” Nathan intervened. “Squabbling don’t pay the purser.”