The Pirate Captain (97 page)

Prudence tried to pull away, but Cate held her firmly by the arm.

“Just the truth,” the girl whimpered, the picture of virtue shamed. “What Captain Blackthorne did…one night…near the waterfalls…”

Tears dotting her lashes—
How did she manage to orchestrate that?—
Prudence turned beseechingly to Nanna and Lady Bart.

“But, he…he drug me away, into the dark and he…”

Oh, she was good! She was so very, very good!

Prudence extended her arm—appropriately trembling— and tipped her chin to display several bruises. “I fought, but he forced me.”

Cate was almost sick with relief. The girl might have been violated, but there had been no violence. The incriminating bruises on her arms were from the ordeal of Harte and his men trying to get her off the
Morganse
. Those on her chin were by Cate’s own hand. It meant everyone was to believe Nathan had spirited Prudence away—quietly, for the girl had slept but a few yards from Cate—and then led her through the jungle, at night, for over an hour’s walk, in order to ravish her by a waterfall?

The girl had been on a beach with over 300 men, and yet she had chosen Nathan to target in her hoax, because it was what everyone expected to hear.

The cunning behind that virtuous façade was stunning.

“That’s not true and you know it, you stupid, silly fool. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

A perfectly timed pearl of a tear slid down the china-doll cheek and her lower lip quivered.

“I only thought…” Prudence whimpered.

The bilious lump rose once more in Cate’s throat. “No, that’s just it, Prudence, you didn’t think at all. Do you have any idea of the consequences of this?”

Prudence looked to the floor once more, her hands twisting at her middle. Nanna had sidled protectively closer. Sally stood teetering between who to believe.

“I was so afraid.” Prudence’s voice pinched to a small squeak, and she reached out a tremulous hand. “I didn’t wish for you to be upset.”

“Upset doesn’t begin to describe it.” To Cate’s pleasure, Prudence flinched at the bite of her tone. “Lord Creswicke is not a man to be trifled with. He’s dangerous and you’re playing childish games with Nathan’s life. This will give Creswicke the grounds to have Nathan hung, or worse.”

And yes, where Creswicke was concerned, there were most certainly things worse than a quick death.

A number of unkind thoughts and words bubbled up, many which would have made Nathan proud and her mother blench.

“But he took me—” Prudence went on determinedly.

“Stop it!” Cate cringed at her volume. She lowered her voice to quaking growl. “I don’t need to see any more of your crying, nor your theatrics.”

“He’s only a pirate!” Prudence burst out.

Rage surged, blinding Cate to everything except the cornflower-eyed face before her. Cate drew back her hand and slapped Prudence. She heard the
crack!
, then Prudence’s squeal, and then saw her tumble backward, patent leather slippers and petticoats to the air.

“You little selfish bitch,” Cate hissed.

Lady Bart gasped, scandalized. Nanna and Sally rushed to help Prudence up from the floor. Once righted, hat askew and hair straggling, Prudence rubbed the offended cheek, now brilliant. Her accusing look was accompanied with a perfectly rounded, pouting lip.

“How dare you!” Nanna cried, rounding on Cate.

“How dare
you
!” Cate retorted down at the diminutive nursemaid. “How dare you raise…”

“You have no right! You’re nothing but a—!”

“—a child who doesn’t lie just to save—!”

“I’m sorry!” Prudence shrieked. She fell against Cate and wept. “I had to do something! I can’t marry Creswicke. I can’t! I was so scared. Papa said I had to leave Boston, because no one else would have me. Lord Creswicke was so far away, he wouldn’t know—”

The delicate pearl-tears dissolved into a cascade as she clung to Cate. Fighting back tears of her own—of anger or relief, she wasn’t sure—Cate put her arms around the quaking shoulders and woodenly patted her on the back.

“Prudence, please, time is of the essence—” Cate pleaded.

“There was a young man.” It was Nanna who spoke. She closed her eyes with pain of the admission. “He and Prudence…well…they did what young people do.”

“I loved him, Cate,” Prudence moaned into her shoulder. “I honestly loved him, with all my heart.”

The grey eyes going soft, Nanna lovingly stroked the back of Prudence’s head. “But the boy didn’t have the prospects or connections Master Collingwood sought. So he was sent away.”

“Papa meant to send me away, because I was ruined: no one of any position would have me.” Prudence sniffed hugely. Fumbling, Lady Bart produced a handkerchief and handed it to her.

“Then, a letter came from Lord Creswicke,” Prudence went on, after blowing her nose, her voice thickened with crying. “A business offer, I believe. Papa said it was perfect; Lord Creswicke was too far away, and had no way of knowing. So he…”

“Sold you to Creswicke,” Cate said flatly. “Damaged goods.”

Lashes quivering with tears, Prudence looked up. “I knew if I had been with a man—spoiled—no other would want me. Papa had said as much. So, I thought if Creswicke knew I had been, then he wouldn’t want me, and I wouldn’t have to marry him. So I told everyone—”

“That it was Nathan, and the doctor confirmed it.”

The sickening knot seized Cate’s gut. It was virtually her own plan, but Nathan had dissuaded her, pointing out the multitude of flaws. She regarded Nanna, wondering how much she knew. Worse yet, how long Nanna would have played along: before, or after Nathan was hung?

Cate closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, hoping the pain might wake her from this nightmare. Opening them, she instead found reality staring her in the face, and now a dull headache.

“Prudence, you silly, silly girl,” Cate groaned. “Don’t you understand anything? Lord Creswicke doesn’t give a tinker’s damn about you, or your worthiness, or anything else. He seeks connections, nothing more.”

“It’s true dear,” Lady Bart said, tight with emotion. “Your father has been a reprehensible, money-grabbing cad most of his life.”

Humored by her aunt’s blunt evaluation, Prudence stifled a nervous snicker.

“What am I to do?” Guileless in innocence, Prudence looked to the surrounding women.

Lady Bart’s eyes welled. “Marry Creswicke; there’s aught else.”

“Perhaps not.” Cate pensively chewed the inside of her mouth. “What if there had been some kind of a mistake?”

Lady Bart pivoted to ask blankly. “What kind of mistake?”

“What if,” Cate began haltingly, still playing it out in her mind, “since you had never seen your niece before, she had been able to put one over on you? What if she told you she was your niece, but wasn’t…really?”

Cate looked from one to another, hoping for them to grasp her point quickly and save precious time. She had been in the house far too long; every minute more increased the chances of herself, or worse yet, Nathan, being discovered.

Sputtering, Lady Bart slumped in her chair and threw up her in abject surrender. “Of course, she’s my niece,” she muttered, more to convince herself. Rocking in agitation, she pleated and re-pleated the fabric of her dress. “But you
are
Prudence, aren’t you, dear?”

“Yes, of course, Auntie.” Prudence knelt to clutch her aunt’s hand. “But Cate means to help.”

Lady Bart’s mouth took a severe downward turn. “How is it helping, when she’s trying to convince me you’re not?”

“Not convince
you
,” Cate explained, patiently. She angled her head toward the parlor door and the unseen world beyond. “We just need to convince all of
them
.”

“Convince them of what?”

“That Prudence isn’t…Prudence.”

“Then who is she?” Lady Bart asked, her distress increasing.

“A girl on the ship.” Even as Cate heard herself say it, she was struck with how desperate it sounded. The pain in her temple pounded in rhythm with her pulse. She glanced toward the window, and then the corner clock.

“That’s ridiculous,” exploded Nanna. “Everyone knows who she is.”

“
You
know that,” Cate said, facing Nanna, “because you were on the
Capricorn
. But how does anyone else know, I mean, really know? Have you ever seen a likeness of Prudence before now?” she asked of Lady Bart.

“Hardly,” Lady Bart said with an unladylike snort. “My brother would have never spent that sort of money on the child. Her mother sent me a silhouette she had made, but that was years ago.”

“Then how do you know
this
is really her?” Cate pressed.

“Why on earth would she lie? For heaven’s sake,” Lady Bart declared, her hands going to her face. “Will you stop being so circuitous!”

Cate turned to Prudence. “What if, while you were on the
Capricorn
, you made friends with a girl named Prudence Collingwood, and she had told you about the rich and powerful man she was to marry, the head of the Royal West Indies Mercantile Company? It sounded like a dream come true. Then she died, and so, you decided to take her place and no one would be the wiser.”

Prudence scowled. “But what about Nanna?”

Cate turned. “What about it, Nanna? How badly do you wish to see her married to a reprehensible man? Agree, and Prudence is free.”

The clock’s pendulum ticked off the seconds as Nanna looked first to Cate then Prudence. Her expression softened and her shoulders fell. “Tell me what’s to be done.”

Cate clasped a fist at the small victory. “Nanna should be the one to start: she used to be your niece’s nanny and will be the one to suffer a sudden sense of conscious, and reveal Prudence—this one, that is—as an impostor. Then, with a little convincing,” Cate went on, exchanging a sly smile with Prudence, “she could finally admit to not being your niece.”

“Then, who is she?”

“Does it matter?” Cate shot back. Her patience and time was running out. “Pick a name.”

The wheels of realization were beginning to turn in Lady Bart’s head, albeit slowly, too slowly. “What happened to my real niece?”

“She died. A terrible sickness took her along with this girl’s parents.”

“But the passengers on the
Capricorn
would know,” Nanna said haltingly.

Cate winced. This was the weakest part of her plan, and where it could all fall apart too readily. “We can only hope they have spread across the West Indies and are all very far away. And how would any of them
actually
know?” she said, crossing her fingers in the folds of her skirt.

Lady Bart rose. Each tick of the clock was a stabbing reminder of time passing, while she paced. Hands writhing at her stomach, she made little, indecisive puffing sounds, her tiny feet clicking on the polished floors.

“Why is she telling the truth now?” Lady Bart said. “She could still marry, if she didn’t say anything.”

“She’s had time to learn what sort Lord Creswicke is,” Cate said carefully.

“He’ll certainly write Father.” Prudence’s expression clouded as she grew to understand the implications of the plan. “He’ll think me dead.”

“And well enough,” sighed Lady Bart, bracing her head in her hand. “For what little good that man has done you over the years.”

Prudence clouded with the slow realization that the terms of her salvation: she would never see her parents again. It was the part that pained Cate the most. In saving the girl from a miserable fate, she had doomed her to the same one she had lived: losing family and home.

“And Mama?” Prudence barely squeezed out.

By then, Lady Bart, as well as everyone else, had come to the same conclusion. The matron clasped Prudence’s hands. Her chin wobbled, but conspiracy touched her eye.

“Where there is a will, there is a way. Perhaps we can have a note secretly delivered.” Eyes brimming, Lady Bart smoothed the dark, glossy curls at Prudence’s shoulder. “Where will you go, dear?”

The question hung in the air. It was another large—perhaps the largest—hole in Cate’s plan. Prudence would no longer have to marry Creswicke, but neither would she have an identity. The backs of Cate’s eyes stung. She knew the paralyzing aimlessness of having no name, no family and nowhere to go. With no beginning and no end, it was like a leaf riding a gyre of pointlessness and futility: down seemed the only direction to go.

Prudence slumped. “I don’t know,” she said in a small voice. The red-rimmed eyes turned to Cate. “Mightn’t I go with you?”

It was a painful admission—and one Cate could never share with Prudence—but she had been obliged to make a pledge to not only Nathan, but the entire crew: under no circumstances would Prudence step foot aboard again…
ever
!

“We can’t take her on the
Morganse
,” Cate said, firmly. “It would be too obvious; the entire Royal Navy would be after us by tomorrow. Besides, a pirate ship is no place for a young lady.”

“You’re living there,” Prudence said.

“I’m no young lady,” said Cate, dryly. She looked hopefully to Lady Bart. “Are there any other relatives or friends in these waters?”

Lady Bart shook her head. “There’s no one. There’s a nephew on St. Kitts, but he’s an idiot and trying as desperately as he can to gamble away every penny he has.” She hesitated. “Would you like to stay here, dear?”

Prudence’s face lit, the blue eyes rounding. “Can I?”

“How?” Nanna demanded, with a pugnacious scowl. “We just agreed she isn’t your niece.

“I’m Lady Bart Dinwoody,” she announced, grandly. “I can do whatever I please! As far as anyone is to know, I’m just a silly old widow looking for companionship. You’re welcomed to say here for as long as you wish.”

“Are you sure?” Cate asked warily.

“Well, well, look what we have here!”

All five women jumped, startled at the unexpected male voice. Spinning, they found Roger Harte standing in the doorway, pistol in one hand and sword in the other.

Chapter 19: Declarations in the Dark

T
he women gasped in startlement and clustered like a covey of frightened quail. Cate might have fallen back with them had her feet been willing to move. Altogether, it painted a guilty face on the scene. Quite surprisingly, it was Lady Bart who was the cooler head.