A Heart's Masquerade (4 page)

At Cat’s nod, Ransom shook his head. "I wouldn’t let him hear you call him names, little Cat, or you might lose one of your nine lives," he said. Rising to his feet, he slipped into bed.

There was something about the intimacy of the act that made Cat shiver strangely. “I think I just lost one in the storm,” she muttered.

When the captain made no reply, she realized he was already asleep. For a time she stood watching his face, the strong features softened by slumber, then she quietly tucked another blanket around him before leaving him to his dreams.

***

After the moments of comfort and laughter shared during the storm, the captain seemed more at ease in her presence, and before long, a companionship developed between them. Although Cat was popular with many of the sailors, her latest conquest came as a surprise to nearly everyone, and more than one head turned at the sound of Ransom’s voice raised in laughter at his cabin boy’s quips.

Cat enjoyed her new friendship and reveled in the warm weather when the
Reckless
sailed into Caribbean waters. When they took their first ship, a bloodless event involving a great deal of shouting and the discharging of a few nine-pounders, it was the thrill of her lifetime. The captured cargo was to be transferred to a warehouse Ransom owned on Windlay, and Cat begged a place beside the captain on the first boat ashore.

When they reached the island, Cat marveled at the palm trees and gawked at the blacks and mixed-blood women wearing gaudy kerchiefs and bright flowers. Fascinated, Cat could barely keep up with Bert and Ransom, pausing to point out each new wonder that caught her eye.

Finally, the first mate groaned. "Lord, captain, you’d think the boy had never been out of the nursery."

Although Ransom let out a low laugh in response, Cat saw the truth in Bert’s words and reminded herself just who she was supposed to be: a boy with a much less sheltered background than her own. She put a firm clamp on her eagerness, vowing to enjoy her outing without being so vocal about it.

But her enthusiasm was extinguished when they reached the site of the warehouse, where they found nothing except charred rubble. The building and its contents must have burned to the ground very recently, for Ransom’s surprise was apparent.

Cat stifled a gasp of dismay as the captain stood silently looking over the remains and Bert poked about the ruins, mumbling obscenities. No one spoke, making the grim scene eerily quiet, although the noises of the street could still be heard behind them, a dim echo to Bert’s grumbling.

"Devlin," Ransom finally said. At the single word, his first mate jerked upright, as though his fingers had been burned by a smoking ember.

"What makes you say so?" Bert asked.

"It bears his signature," Ransom said softly. "Look around you, Bert. None of the other buildings were touched."

"But you settled with him!"

"So I thought," Ransom said dryly.

Cat could see Bert was still not convinced, for the older man peered down at the rubble, shaking his head. "I don’t know, captain. I just can’t see it." The first mate looked up again at Ransom’s shuttered features. “And how would he know the warehouse was yours, anyway?”

"The man has spies everywhere," Ransom said, shrugging. He stood staring at the ruins, but to Cat it seemed as though he saw something else.

"Devlin? Who’s Devlin?" she whispered to Bert as Ransom stared off into space.

"Tremayne Devlin. He’s an old enemy of the captain’s," Bert muttered.

Although the look on the first mate’s face warned Cat not to ask any more questions, she persisted. "You think he burned down the warehouse?" she asked, aghast at the notion that someone would deliberately set a fire.

Bert simply glared at her, but the captain spoke. "Devlin himself did not set fire to the building," Ransom said. "That’s not his way. He only directed someone else to do his bidding because he seeks to ruin me. It’s an old grudge."

"Is he trying to kill you?" Cat asked, more familiar with open threats.

Bert choked back an oath, as if preparing to scold her, but Ransom held up his hand, with a cold smile. "Now, Bert, give the boy some credit. The question is logical."

He turned to Cat. "So far, he has not tried to kill me, only to best me. I doubt if he would reap satisfaction from my death... unless he destroyed me first," Ransom said, as though musing over the possibility. He frowned. "I supposed he will have to be dealt with again."

The quiet menace in the captain’s words made Cat shiver, and she said nothing more. The bleak site had stolen her pleasure in the island trip, while the talk of vengeful, plotting enemies raised the hairs on her neck. She did not argue when Ransom ordered Bert to take her back to the ship.

"And bring Peabody back with you to help us nose about," Ransom said. "Let’s see if we can find any clues in the rubble."

Chapter Three

Sunlight streamed through the windows of the captain’s cabin, warming Cat’s bare feet as she sat cross-legged in a bright patch on the bed, humming a ditty and mending Ransom’s shirt. Without a proper female upbringing, she had been a poor seamstress. In fact, when Bert had first set her to sew some sail, he declared it the worst job he had seen in more than thirty years of sailing the world’s oceans. In disgust, he had sent her to Bull Marston for a lesson.

A large bear of a man with scars from head to foot from pirating, privateering, and brawling, Bull had meaty fingers that fairly flew with a needle. He had done his best to teach her, telling her the skill was not all in the fingers, but in the head, too.

"You’ve got to want to sit still long enough to do the job right. That’s the problem with you young whelps. You don’t want to take the time," he said. But time was something Cat had in abundance, and so she practiced, surprising herself when she actually began to enjoy it. There was something satisfyingly peaceful about sitting on the deck mending the huge lengths of sail.

With a shrug, Bull had tried to explain it. "Sometime I just need to keep to myself, instead of getting in a ruckus."

Cat held up the captain’s shirt and surveyed her work critically. It wasn’t too bad, although Ransom would complain about a cabin boy who couldn't sew a straight stitch. Cat smiled at the irony. If he only knew. But needlework was not the only female accomplishment she lacked.

She could not pretend to paint watercolors or sing a pleasing note or engender anything except dismay by her turns at the pianoforte. The life of a lady, which seemed to involve the dullest of activities, had held little allure for Cat, who had preferred climbing trees and frequenting the stables.

But she was an excellent horsewoman, and she’d devoured books. She spoke fluent French and knew a healthy amount of Latin and Greek, too, as well as mathematics and geography and all that Budd had taught her.

In the back of her mind, she’d known her future required different skills and talents, and yet she had staved off preparing for that eventuality. And now... Through the twists and turns of fate she found herself in a most enjoyable position. She delighted in the new sights and sounds of the West Indies, and she found no fault in her shipboard activities, especially when they included Ransom Duprey.

Her worship of the captain had earned her the nickname Ransom’s Bootlicker among some of the more obnoxious members of the crew, but Cat didn’t care. She liked being with him. She had come to love the lazy smile that reached his eyes and the sardonic lift of his brow.

A soft grin played upon her lips as she thought of him, and with a sigh, she folded his shirt and placed it neatly away. It seemed that he was forever invading her thoughts, and she dislodged him with a quick shake of her head before going up on deck.

There she came upon Harry Fields and Joe Williams lazily throwing their knives at a knot in the wood. Small, dark-haired, and wiry, Harry had become a special friend of hers, and he was seldom without Joe, who loomed over his smaller counterpart. Although his slow wits often made him the butt of Harry’s jokes, Joe was devoted to his companion.

When the two invited Cat to join them, they were shocked to find she did not possess a blade. Nothing would have it but that they teach her how to throw, and they were laughing loudly at Cat’s first efforts when the captain strode into their midst.

"Williams, you couldn’t hit a barn," Ransom said, sending Harry into guffaws. "Watch, Cat," he ordered.

With that, a blade sang through the air, landing squarely in the middle of the knot. Harry’s laughter was silenced, and Joe looked at the captain, dumbfounded, for Ransom had drawn the knife from his boot and hit his target before any of the three could "spit nails," as Harry liked to say.

The captain chuckled at their astonishment, and, to Cat’s delight, he proceeded to instruct her in the fine art of knife throwing. They whiled away the afternoon, honing her skills, until she could send the captain’s handsome blade with its mother-of-pearl handle flying straight toward any target.

All agreed, however, that the cabin boy could not attain the stealth necessary to pull the knife undetected. But Cat refused to accept that judgment. And in the weeks that followed, hardly a day went by that she did not pester one or the other of her fellows to borrow a knife and practice, until all swore to get Cat her ow upon making port..

Knives were the last thing on the sailors’ minds, however, when the
Reckless
anchored off Tortola. They were thinking of the
Cock and Bull
, an infamous brothel, and precious little else, as they prepared to head for shore.

Harry and Joe insisted that their new friend accompany them on what promised to be a rewarding expedition, but Cat, ill at ease with the idea, declined politely, to the distress of her companions.

"Maybe the lad’s a bit young yet," Joe muttered.

"He’s not! You’re never too young," Harry said. "Look at Danny." He pointed at the youngest member of the crew, a twelve-year-old even smaller than Cat, who was joining a party bound for sure. "And he went last year," Harry added.

At that moment Mule, a less civilized member of the crew, walked past. "Maybe he’s got his cravings satisfied better right here," he said, sniggering.

But Cat had the last laugh, for Mule did not realize the captain stood nearby, his eyebrow cocked at the seaman’s crude comment. Although taller and heftier than Ransom, Mule backed away without a word and joined his fellows.

Dismissing Mule without another glance, Ransom turned to Harry. "If the boy doesn’t want to go, let him be," he said curtly, leaving the three to stare after him.

"That
man reminds me of a cat," Harry said, shaking his head. "He’s always turning up in the damnedest places and without batting an eye."

"You’re right," Joe said. "Sometimes you just think about him, and he’s there. Gives me the willies."

Cat paid no attention to their chatter, but she watched Ransom walk away, admiring the lean lines of his body. "The captain’s going, too?" she asked.

"Of course," Harry said. "He’s a real favorite of Sally Knotts, who runs the place."

Cat felt her insides churn at the thought of the captain and anyone from the brothel, especially the woman in charge. Oddly piqued and curious, she decided to have a look at this Sally.

"All right, then, let’s be off," she said, drawing whoops of approval from Harry and Joe.

However, Cat soon had cause to regret her decision.

Sally was not the sort of female Cat had expected to be practicing her trade with the likes of the crew. She was beautiful, with hair as black as midnight and eyes the color of the sky. Her grin was wide and friendly, despite a chipped tooth, and she looked round and smooth in all the right places - places where Cat, especially in her boy’s guise, was not.

Try as she might, Cat could find nothing lacking in the brothel owner’s looks, with the possible exception of her hair, which hung loose to her waist and could use a good brushing. Or maybe the men liked it that way, Cat thought, unconsciously fingering the cap that hid her own shortened tresses.

"Ransom Duprey, you gorgeous rascal!" Sally called out in a melodious voice that made Cat’s husky tones resemble a frog’s croaking. As if she were in a waking dream, Cat found herself pushed into a chair while all around her scantily clad females squealed and sailors caroused.

Cat ignored them all, her attention only on Ransom, who was swinging the luscious Sally up in the air, her black curls brushing his shoulders. When Ransom lowered his head and kissed the doxy in one fluid motion, Cat's heart started thundering.

"Ooh, you’ve brought us a young one." Cat turned to find a ripe-smelling female cackling at her elbow. "Lord, and he’s a pretty one, too! I’ll teach him a few tricks."

With that, the hefty woman deposited herself heavily on Cat’s lap, her prodigious bosom only inches from Cat’s face. Caught unawares, Cat leapt to her feet, depositing her burden neatly on the floor to the accompaniment of hearty laughter.

"He needs to learn some manners, don’t he?" the wench said from her position on the floor. And Cat read murder in her eyes before a nearby fellow scooped up the woman and flung her, shrieking and giggling, over his shoulder.

Grimacing at the unwelcome encounter, Cat glanced back to where Ransom and Sally had been locked in their embrace, but they were gone. She searched the room, ignoring Harry’s calls and sidestepping zealous sailors, to no avail.

Disgruntled, Cat dropped into a chair by an empty table and tried not to imagine what the missing pair were doing. There, seated by the wall, she spent the better part of the evening downing rum syllabubs and fending off the advances of Blossom De Mornay, a comely young thing who gave Cat an earful of everything from the ingredients of the syllabub to the skills that had earned her a reputation in her chosen profession.

After suffering the indignity of a kiss full on the mouth from the girl, Cat beat a hasty retreat back to the ship, where she spent the rest of the night and most of the morning in a curious series of dreams in which Sally, Blossom, and the captain moved in and out.