The Pirate Captain (93 page)

A shriek, female and of a pitch that could only be attained by the young, came from outside. It was the piercing sort, which stabbed the temple straight through to the back of one’s eyeballs.

“Thar she blows,” cried Pryce, wincing.

“What was that?” Cate asked.

“God knows,” Nathan sighed, looking thoroughly haunted. “She could have just met Mr. Squidge or noticed Pickford’s ear collection. Hermione looked cross-eyed, or Beatrice said something untoward. Her skirts could have flown up, or she might o’ scuffed a shoe. Suffering Jesus!”

Cate was in no position to argue. She had experienced much the same scream when His Lordship had ambled past. Come to think on it, the mongoose and Hermione had been conspicuous in their absence.

“Clap ’er in irons, I say, ’n’ pitch ’er in the hold.” Pryce’s eyes rounded with delicious anticipation.

An appealing thought at first, Nathan waved it away. “Nay, allow the rats their peace. We’d be up to our knees in them in no time.” He turned to Cate, beseeching. “Do something!”

“I’m not her mother.”

“And I’m not her father,” retorted Nathan. “There, we’ve settled lineage. Now, pray, might we move on to more important and pressing matters? Do something!”

“Oh, honestly, very well.” Cate brushed past, painfully aware of her own testiness. The waiting had taken its toll on her, as well. “Upon my word, I can’t fathom why a bunch of grown
pirates
can’t manage one young girl.”

“Ever seen a rat terrier?”

Pryce’s query stopped her in mid-stride. Her blank look prompted him to explain.

“A wee beastie, no bigger than yer foot, what can kill a wharf rat with a single shake. Saw one near tear a man’s hand off…well, nearly,” he qualified under Cate’s dubious stare.

“I get your point, Mr. Pryce.” Chastened, Cate looked to the floor to hide her smile. “I beg your leave,
gentlemen
.”

Cate found Prudence, cornering Diogo between the foremast and the scuttlebutt. Portuguese-born and with little English, he stood clutching a sheet with a stunned, quizzical look as Prudence babbled. With promises of hair ribbons and hot chocolate, Cate lured the girl away. Amid the audible sigh of her people, Cate thought she heard the
Morganse
expel the same relief as she ushered Prudence into the cabin.

Several turns of the glass later, came the cry “Sail ho!” Cate was on her feet and out on deck.

“Where away?” Nathan shouted to Damerell, on the masthead. “Can you make her?”

“She’s the
Resolute,
sir.”

Cate was met with droll smiles from Nathan and Pryce as she mounted the quarterdeck. “I take that’s good news. What is the
Resolute
?”

Pryce folded his hands behind his back and rocked on his heels, fat with smug satisfaction. “Eighty guns. ’Tis the largest what the Royal Navy plies in these waters.”

The news struck Cate as alarming, and yet neither of the men, nor anyone else aboard, showed concern.

“You’re pleased they sent their biggest ship?” she goggled.

“That ship,” Nathan began patiently, “being the biggest, consequently and most significantly, carries the deepest draft.”

Cate followed his pointed look toward the mouth of the bay, still puzzled. In her three to four months at sea, she had gained considerable knowledge of sailing, but many of the finer points still escaped her—as now.

“Soo, if they require deeper water…” she began, slowly.

“She’ll not clear the reef,” Nathan finished. “She draws a good four feet more than we.” He draped his hands on the heels of his weapons, tapping his belts, preening in the luck. “Providence has smiled!”

“Then where are they to go?” Cate asked, still confused.

“Nowhere,” Nathan and Pryce chorused.

With a flip of his fingers, Nathan yielded to Pryce. “There be no other anchorages here ’bouts, not for a ship of her draft. She can set a hook, aye, but ’twill be a fair rough go, what with wind and wave, and land in ’er lee. They’ll be a-stowin’ topmasts and yards in no time.”

Cate nodded. It was common for topmasts to be swung down, in order to ease the weight overhead and the overworking of the planking. Wind and current funneled into the Straits’ narrow space resulted in very rough seas. Both the
Morganse
and
Griselle
had ducked their heads into the waves, throwing off great sheets of water over their shoulders and waists as they came through.

“
We
are at liberty to move about as we please,” Nathan said, with a sweeping gesture. “They’ll be stuck, on their hooks, riding hard, whilst worrying where the
Morganse
might pop up next.”

“’Tis smaller and faster we are; we can out-maneuver her in these tight waters,” Pryce added with pride. “We could up anchor and be on ’er afore they could beat to arms.”

“We could rake her, broadside to stern. What with yon Thomas laying abeam, they would be at our mercy,
if
we’re of a mind,” Nathan said.

“Are we of a mind?” Cate felt quite dense by this point.

Nathan waggled his eyebrows with smug glee. “They don’t know, do they? We can worry them to death and never stir a hand.”

Time crept. A week seemed to have passed with each bell, until the
Resolute
’smasts finally peeked over the treetops lining the distant arm of land. Cate watched the ship round the headlands and draw up at the cove’s mouth. Sails aback, waves breaking high over her forecastle, the ship’s bow rose and fell at a sickening rate. She sat with her guns presented to the pirate ships that flanked her, but distance pulled the teeth of her threat.

Towering triple masts, brilliant in her regal blue, gilded fretwork gleaming, the vessel bore a presence, as if accustomed—nay,
expecting
ships to shy in her presence. The Union Jack in prominent display at her backstay, a number of other banners and pennants stood out in the stiff breeze. One was glaringly plain and white: the flag of truce.

“Well, well, well,” Nathan declared, peering through the spyglass. “Dash me buttons and rip me jib. His Pompousness has blessed us with his presence.”

“Commodore Harte is aboard,” Pryce explained over Cate’s shoulder. “’Tis his flag there, the blue with the star.”

“A status achieved only through the good graces of the fair Governor of the Royal West Indies Mercantile Company, and a wholly unholy alliance it ’tis,” said Nathan, the glass still to his eye.

“The Commodore’s convinced he would have made Admiral several times over had it not been fer the Cap’n,” Pryce sniffed.

“If it hadn’t been for you?” Cate asked of Nathan.

He shrugged. “The Commodore’s hubris can be of epic proportions, betimes.”

“It’s cost ’im promotions in spite of Creswicke’s endorsements,” said Pryce

“And through no fault of yours, of course,” Cate said, looking to Nathan.

A muscle twitched at the corner of his mouth. “I’m just a poor pirate, doing what I might in the way of making a living.”

Nathan slapped the glass closed. “She’ll lay in irons. They shan’t desire to be mucking about with anchors. Sharpshooters aloft,” he shouted over the quarterdeck break to Hodder. “Gun crews, Mr. MacQuarrie, at the ready, but don’t open the lids. Loose the t’gall’nts and stays’ls, but don’t set the braces. Let’s give them every cause to believe we’re at the ready.”

He rounded on Cate and sobered. “You’ll need to be out of sight. They may suspect you’re here, but seeing would be believing, would it not? No arguments, luv,” he went on over her protests as he steered her toward the cabin. “Rest assured they’ve spyglasses and are fixed on us as we speak. If all goes pear-shaped, I can’t be worrying about you. Now stay inside.”

His walnut eyes held hers, searching for the assurances he needed. “Please, luv, allow me to know you’re safe.”

Now at the cabin’s door, Cate nodded woodenly. He winked and strode away. The cold realization of how much her presence burdened him pricked the nape of her neck.

Deep in the cabin’s protective shadows, Prudence wrung her hands. “They’re coming, aren’t they?”

“It will be a while before they arrive, but yes, they are.”

“Is Lord Creswicke with them?”

“I think not.” Wishing to ease the girl’s anguish, Cate fingered one of the curls at her shoulder. “Your hair is very pretty.”

The sun-reddened cheeks deepened. “Thank you. I did it myself.”

“And you did a lovely job of it.”

Beaming under the praise one moment, Prudence threw her arms around Cate and clutched her tightly. “I don’t wish to go. I’m afraid.”

Cate gently pushed her back and brought the tear-streaked face up to hers. “Don’t you remember how afraid you were a few days ago? And now, look.”

Prudence had the grace to be ashamed. “Of the Captain most especially. He’s been so kind; I’m sorry I said those bad things about him.”

She brightened with the enthusiasm of an inspiration. “I’ll make it up. I’ll tell everyone how wonderful and kind he was, and—”

“No, no, not that,” Cate blurted. Nathan could forgive a lot of things,
except
telling everyone what a wonderful person he is.

“Then what shall I do?”

Cate bit her still-sore lip. Lady Bart’s had taught her how drastically one’s story could be misconstrued. “Just represent that you were treated well. If experience is any indication, they won’t credit anything else.”

She tried to see Prudence through the eyes of those very same people. The glossy black hair was brushed and arranged, but the long curls, achieved only through hours with an iron, were gone. The porcelain skin was bright red from sun, the rounded nose glowing. Ripped, hem hanging, and slashed across the back where Nathan had spanked her with his sword: the dress was still yellow, but streaked and soiled. Her stockings, shoes, and kertch all gone missing, through some eyes, the damage could be seen as the result of rough handling. As Nathan had forecast, the worst would certainly be assumed.

The hollow thud of boats hooking on to the
Morganse
’s hull and Hodder’s cry of “Watch the goddamned paint, you fucking whoresons!” broke Cate’s thoughts. Footsteps scurrying on deck and climbing the ship’s side announced the
Resolute
’s boarding party had arrived. Cate slipped nearer the door to peek through its sidelights.

The Royal Navy came aboard with a flourish. The
Morganse
had run up a square of white on her jack-staff at the bow, but it was nowhere near the huge one displayed over the heads of the boarding party. By the time Cate took up a position, to peek from behind the door and through a sidelight, a double-file of officers—blue-coated, white breeched and laced hats— Marines and sideboys flanked the entry port. It was sobering to see the red-coated uniforms on the decks of the
Morganse
.

With a clash and stomp, the Commodore was piped aboard with all the flourish befitting his rank, and the
Morganse
—predictably—had failed to provide. One could almost hear their snap to salute. Harte came up the side ramrod-stiff. Like his ship, the Commodore’s uniform was meant to impress, and it did. A ceremonial sword and a gold-laced, cockaded hat had been added to his resplendency. In honor of the moment, Nathan had squared his hat and donned his coat. Even in its infancy, the burgundy could never have equaled the naval splendor, but it was worn with the same
élan
, as if it did.

The sea rogues had their own theater. They had on their masks: familiar faces were now contorted into the barbarous expressions she had first witnessed on the
Constancy
. With blood-dripped sails overhead, the same symbolically drooling from her deck, the
Morganse
had no goldwork, but the sun shone even brighter on the fresh-honed edges of cutlasses, boarding axes, pikes, gaffing hooks, and hatchets. Chin, Mute Maori, and Hodder stood at the forefront, brutish and menacing, Churchill’s maniacal, cackling laugh in the background.

The Navy’s brilliance only served to exemplify the pirate’s sun-drab, rendering them that much more the Tartans. Several took great pleasure in singling out a Navyman, their tension evident in rigid jaw muscles and white-knuckled fists on their weapons, and fixing him with a sinister glare. Even at Cate’s distance, “Steady” was quite readable on the mouths of several of their superiors.

Harte surveyed his surroundings as a warrior surveys a possible battlefield. It was done more out of habit than a precursor, for an outbreak of violence was unlikely. The odds were not in the Navy’s favor—a little over a dozen among nearly 200—and their hands were bound by the white flag.

Harte drew up before Nathan. The green eyes that fixed on him were even more reptilian, like a hungry snake with its favorite meal dangling before it. The prize Harte sought most was within arm’s reach, and it might as well have been a league.

A hush befell the deck, only the creak of the ship and the flap of the two white flags, with a cough now and again to break it. Harte’s patent-leather, silver-buckled shoes took a step forward. As distasteful as it obviously was, Harte was a slave to the Rules of Procedure: he swept off his hat and executed an overly proper bow. The obligatory “Your servant, sir,” uttered through white lips, was barely audible.

The poor man probably can’t help it
.

So noble and honorable
. She had seen men much like him before, so insufferably honorable and noble they would watch their own mother hang if duty was thought to require it. Harte might rescue her from scurrilous pirates, if she so desired. He would also arrest her, and then with that same nobility, watch her hang.

Harte stiffly gestured toward the
Griselle
across the Straits. “Might I inquire as to the identity of your accomplice?”

Nathan snorted. “You may not.”

“Oh, come now,
Captain
. I am not without my resources. It will only be a matter of time, before I learn of her and her captain’s identity.”

“Then, I suggest you use your time more remuneratively, because that ship will be naught but a wake.”