The Pirate Captain (50 page)

“Commodore Roger Harte, at your service, Madam,” he announced once more. He swept off his hat and made an elegant leg.

Still discomposed, her voice failed. Clearing her throat, she tried anew. “Cate Harper.”

He seized her hand and kissed it, flashing a smile of even white teeth meant to charm. “Enchanted. Shall I join you?”

Harte sat without an answer, the drinks arriving shortly thereafter. It was worth noting that he had ordered nothing specifically for himself, and yet a glass—not a mug—was set before him, with the significance of it being exactly as he would wish.

“It's so enlightening to find someone as charming as yourself, in an establishment such as this.” Harte spoke in a carefully cultured accent. His nostrils flared slightly with distaste. “These small settlements can be at times such a tribulation. I couldn’t help but notice you were unescorted.”

Cate smiled faintly. That pointed observation could have its feet in either chivalry or overtures of a baser sort. In desperate need of time to compose herself, she dipped her nose into her drink and regarded him over the rim.

It was difficult not to stare. Across from her sat the man whose warships had pursued the
Ciara Morganse
, fired with intent to kill. Given the reaction by any Morganser, most especially Nathan, at the mere mention of his name, Harte wasn’t the monster she had expected. He was fairly good-looking and relatively young for one of such advanced rank. Verdantly green-eyed and cleanly profiled, the golden hue of his skin—a product of years of living outdoors—had an undertone of blue-blooded sallowness. In spite of its deepness, he had one of those nasal, flat voices that made even the most exhilarating words sound painfully dull. Plumed and powdered, gilded and laced everywhere that could possibly support it, she was gratified to see his linens beginning to wilt from the tropical heat. A longing for Nathan’s simplicity seized her.

“Don’t you agree,
Madam
Harper?”

Cate blinked to find Harte staring expectantly at her.

“Don’t you agree,
Madam
Harper?” he repeated. He pointedly looked down at her hand on the handle of her tankard and her wedding ring gleaming dully.

“Yes, I dare say.” She smiled vaguely, straining to recall what he might have said.

She had no experience with the His Majesty’s Navy, but enough with the Army to know his type: rigid, reserved, ambitious, and judgmental. He was doing so that very moment as he drank: openly regarding her over the rim, trying to decide to which category in his regimented life she belonged: lady, servant, or common whore. The latter seemed the more fertile ground.

“I’ve not seen you before and I come here frequently.” The smile Harte displayed was a bit forced and suffered a cruel curve. “You’ve a strange accent, but you’ve the speech and bearing of a lady, although you drink ale like a monger’s wife. You’ve the skin of a lady, too, although you have been in the sun of late. Tall, although,” he added more to himself as his eyes raked her, assessing her as one would a new milch cow.

It was becoming glaringly apparent that Harte wasn’t going to leave until his curiosity was satisfied. With no other apparent choice, Cate gathered her nerve and began.

She displayed her own charming smile, and coyly batted her lashes. “I beg you to excuse my awkwardness, Commodore. I’ve just escaped from a pirate ship. I’m a little discommoded and certainly not myself.”

“Oh, dear! My poor, poor…” His mouth moved wordlessly during this honest display of emotion. “I had no idea. Are you all well? But of course, you aren’t! What did those blackguards do to you?”

“No, no, I’m quite well. They were ever so kind.”

Harte leaned forward with startling intensity. “Tell me of it. What unfortunate set of circumstances put someone so delicate in such dreadful harm?”

“I was on a ship from England: the
Constancy
. Do you know her?”

“I certainly do, “ he said with sudden vehemence. “The Commissioner’s family was to have arrived on her, until they were ruthlessly slaughtered by pirates. I’m sure it was only by Providence that you—”

“Slaughtered?” Cate blurted, gaping.

“Ruthlessly cut down as the captain pleaded for their lives,” Harte said, through clenched teeth. His fist curled around his glass.

“By whose word?”

He bristled at her disbelief, unaccustomed at being questioned. “The captain; I received his report at Fort Charles. He also represented that a woman had been taken.”

She eyed Harte with new suspicion. It seemed highly unlikely Captain Chambers would have manufactured such an outrageous lie, unless of course, he had been coerced. The probability leaned toward the truth-bending having started with the one seated before her. Her stomach clenched at the sudden feeling of a fly lured by a spider. There was only person who could disprove Harte’s claims: her. She bit back any further objections; to do so might not best serve her purposes.

“And yet, the pirates spared you,” he said with renewed interest.

“Why, yes,” Cate replied faintly.

“Then I must conclude you’ve been on the
Ciara Morganse
. You’ll be acquainted with Captain Nathanael Blackthorne, then?”

“Blackthorne?” She shifted under the green gaze, which had gone slightly reptilian. “Yes, I believe so. An odd chap, with strange hair?”

“Yes, that would be Blackthorne,” Harte said, coldly. “I hope he didn’t…
harm
you.”

“No, not at all,” she said as emphatically as she dared, while demurely bowing her head. “He was quite the gentleman.”

“So tragic,” Harte murmured, quite sympathetic. “The terrors you must have been forced to endure, and yet you faced them with such conviction and bravery.”

Cate feigned sudden interest in her mug, swallowing down both ale and a withering retort to his patent presumptuousness. She didn’t appreciate having someone putting words in her mouth, but at the same time realized the hazards of defending Nathan too stridently.

She covertly studied Harte. On the surface he was courtly of manners, a consummate gentleman, but too much so. Just underneath the surface, however, was falseness and cunning, thinly veiled, waiting to erupt at his first displeasure. Beneath the low hum of conversation in the room, however, she heard a dull tapping. His middle finger rapped the table with the slow, rhythmic regularity of a dripping eave. A nervous tic of some sort, for his fixed expression of civility showed no sign of awareness.

Harte began to say something, but was interrupted by a loud outburst of laughter from a table of Marines. He gave them the benefit a look that immediately blanketed their jocularity.

“Pray tell, madam. How did you manage to escape?” he asked.

“They put in to water and wood.” Cate winced at sounding too much the seaman. Harte didn’t seem to have noticed. Hopefully, he would also overlook the obvious flaw: no pirate ship would put in so near a garrison.

“I represented I needed to…well…” She cleared her throat meaningfully.

Harte had the good graces to look away, his sense of propriety preventing him from inquiring further.

She assumed a more beleaguered-damsel air. “I was able to slip away into the bushes. I found the road and walked into town.” That part could be easily verified by the heavy layer of dust on her shoes.

Cate sat back, pleased with presenting her story, his open admiration proof she had done so credibly. His gaze then shifted to her necklace, and her newly acquired confidence sank. It pressed credulity that a hostage would wear such an adornment, possibly a gift. She searched for a response, in case he was to ask.

“You’re a very brave woman,” he said with surprising compassion. Realizing himself, he stiffened. “I have caused you delay in this disreputable place far too long.”

Harte rose abruptly. “It is my duty, as an officer of His Majesty’s Royal Navy and as a gentleman, to assist one so delicate and distressed as yourself. I would be pleased and honored if you would accept my offer of hospitality on behalf of a particular friend. Her lovely and refined home has been my residence whilst I visit this desolate quagmire. I dare to assume that you shall find it quite agreeable.”

“No, no! I'm not in need—”

“Oh, but my dear, Madam Harper, you are. A woman, alone? I could not bear the thought, if I were to leave you here, unattended.

Hovering like a hen over a lost chick, no amount of declining or refusing would repel him. Cate found herself being escorted down the sidewalk, Harte's firm but gentle hand at her elbow. Disoriented, she felt a cold panic. A stranger walked at her side, rigid and reserved, uniformed and gilded, shoes tapping ridiculously lightly on the bricks, the clump of boots and creak of leather replaced by the swish of lace and satin. She missed Nathan’s rolling gait…

Nathan! He would be frantic.

Cate glanced to the sky to judge the time: mid to late afternoon, still time. Her step slowed and the grip on her arm tightened. She needed to return to the tavern and finish what she came for. If she failed to return, Nathan might think his fears—God, that seemed too long ago!—had been fulfilled, or assume that she had lied. She had to get back, somehow.

But, how? Presently, she was being ushered toward…whose house?

###

“Where the bloody hell did she go?”

Squawking in protest at the Cap’n’s bellow, Beatrice retreated to the bowsprit.

Pryce observed from a reasonable distance. The Cap’n was amiable enough, in his own unique way, but bore a black temper. Once witnessed, few chose to have visited upon them again. It was a rare thing to see, but an ugly one that bided long on one’s mind.

The Cap’n paced before Towers and Smalley—both rigid at attention, and wisely so—swearing. One of the best cursers, land or sea, bar none. He brandished a fist at the pair, and then, thinking for the better of it, stabbed a finger instead.

“I sent you two with one simple duty,” the Cap’n rumbled threateningly. “One lousy task! How goddamnedably difficult can it be to keep after one woman?”

Sweating profusely, a permanent state since their empty-handed return, the two misfortunates cringed. Onlookers skulked at the margins of the scene, lest they draw his attention next.

“Honest, sir,” Towers begged. “We had her: she was sitting at the table…at
The Rose and Crown
,” he added importantly, as if knowing the name of the establishment might somehow add credence, and hence, dispensation.

“Aye,” chimed in Smalley. “She was there and the Commodore Harte came in and—”

“Harte! Suffering Jesus on the cross, Harte found her?”

The two exchanged glances, nodding eagerly.

“Aye, Cap’n!” Towers’ tongue flicked out to lick his lips, eyes rounding with drama. “He cum in and sat directly, as easy as kiss yer hand.”

“What the screamin’ blazes is Harte doing there?” the Cap’n shrieked.

“Don’t know, sir, but the
Resolute
is in,” said Smalley.

A fourth-rate sixty-four
, thought Pryce
. A warship. Not good.

“What the hell’s fury is the pride of the Royal Navy doing here?” The Cap’n only verbalized the same thing everyone was thinking.

“Same thing as her consorts, I expect, sir: the
Solebay
and
Flamborough
,” added Smalley.

Both sixth-rate twenty-fours.

“Two ships?” The Cap’n stalled, frowning. “That doesn't make any sense a-tall. You’re sure?”

“I’d know ’em like I’d know me own sister!” Towers rocked on his toes.

“Yes, I suspect everyone has known your sister,” grumbled the Cap’n under his breath.

It wasn’t unusual to see such ships, especially the twenty-fours, in the same harbor, but only in support of a large garrison, such as at Fort Charles, Port Royal, or Bridgetown, unless…?

The Cap’n was clearly thinking along the same lines.

“Sounds like they’re up to somethin,’” put in Pryce.

“Aye, Mr. Pryce, so it does,” the Cap’n replied, still lost in thought.

“The place wuz swarmin’ with Marines, too,” Smalley added, anxious to pursue any inroads of approval. “Looked like a pot o’ red paint exploded.”

The Cap’n scowled, a good sign the worst of the storm had passed. “Did Harte seem to know her, familiar like?”

The two seamen traded uncertain looks. It was Smalley who answered. “Can’t say, for sure, sir. He jest walked up, kissed ’er hand ’n’ pulled up a chair.”

The Cap’n’s frown deepened. “How the devil’s hoof did you manage to lose her?”

“We went to get two more ales…”

“Aye, the girl wouldn’t attend, so we fetched it ourselves,” Smalley clarified.

“And when we came back, she was gone.” Towers held out his hands, as if to show they were, indeed, empty.

The Cap’n shook his head, his mouth in awed disbelief. “It takes two of you to get a damned ale? Any idea where she went? Did you inquire or look around?”

“We asked the tavern keep,” Towers said eagerly, relieved to have at least done one thing right.

The Cap’n waited. “And?”

Looking away, Towers clamped his mouth tightly closed, Smalley dropping his gaze to his feet.

“And!” The gravelly voice ripped the air. The men quailed, several onlookers retreating as well.

“And,” Towers started, with great trepidation, “he said as the Commodore probably took her upstairs to his room, where he takes all ’is whores.”

The Cap’n’s lip twitched as he digested that. Decades at sea, Pryce had known the look of a storm brewing and there was one building then, fit to erupt. Those who had shipped with the Cap’n for any length of time fell back another step.

“We’re to go ashore.” With a thunderous glare, the Cap’n pivoted on his heel, and stomped for the accommodation ladder. “Mr. Pryce!” he bellowed over his shoulder. “All boats ashore! Those two miscreants,” he hissed, stabbing a finger as if it were a blade, “will be accompanying
me
!”

The Cap’n paused at the top of the ladder. Pryce, who had been striding behind to keep up, skidded to a halt. “Spread everyone out. Find her. And when…
if
you do, get her aboard with all haste. I’ll be along, directly.”