The Pirate Captain (6 page)

In spite of its noxiousness, she took another sip. If nothing else, the liquor helped erase the nasty taste in her mouth left by seawater and vomiting.

He flopped into the ornate captain’s chair across the table from her.

“Rather foolhardy to jump, don’t you think?” he asked, gesturing toward the
Constancy,
visible through the stern windows
.

“There was an island,” Cate said with far less conviction than intended.

He made a caustic noise. “That would have been a bloody long swim. I’d be hard pressed to find two hands what would be willing to row it, let alone swim it. You do know there are sharks in these waters?” he asked conversationally.

Her stomach took a sickening lurch. “No, I hadn’t thought of that.”

His mouth hovered at the bottle’s rim as he cut her a sidelong look. “Can’t imagine why anyone would do something so half-crazed.”

The implication that she was either mad or lying wasn’t lost, nor was it appreciated. Cate flexed her hands, aching from being clenched for so long.

“I’d been told under no circumstances should I be taken by pirates.”

He smiled at that, a dazzling display of white and gold teeth splitting the ebony mat of beard. “I’ve been told the same thing. Nasty rumor, luv.”

He rose to cruise the room once more. His path weaving through the light, he popped in and out of sight like a sword-bearing wraith.

“The warnings were very convincing,” she said evenly. “The
Sarah Morgan
and Captain Nathanael Blackthorne were enough to scare anyone.”

“Ah, then you know of me. Spent the best part of me life propagating that image.” Though his face was lost in the gloom at that moment, the smile in his voice couldn’t be missed.

“Then may I assume that you are…?” Cate tensed. On deck, she had heard him called “Captain.” For formality’s sake, however, it was best to be sure. Amid the swirl of unknowns, a solid bit of information seemed essential. Liquid slopping on her hand broke her stare; she was shaking harder than she had thought.

“Oh, I beg your leave. Wretchedly uncommon to be introducing meself on me own ship.”

He drew up and struck a formal pose. Doffing the battered leather tricorn, he swept a surprisingly elegant bow. “Captain Nathanael Blackthorne. Your servant, mum.”

He scowled at seeing her shiver. She felt thoroughly sodden, the wetness of her hair having soaked through the coat. Chilblaines now set in. It seemed impossible that one could be so cold in the West Indies.

“Here, have another drink. I can hear your teeth clacking clear over here. Doomed to never have back me peace,” the Captain grumbled as he poured.

A plan seems required
, she thought, as she stared into her glass.

As in what?

Now at his mention jumping carried its merits. Cate cut a clandestine look through the window at the
Constancy
rising and falling on the swell. Boats plied in a steady flow between the two ships as pirates looted the
Constancy
. She was a strong swimmer. Surely once she was alongside, the Constancies would pull her aboard.

And what about the pirates over there?

And the sharks?

Hmm…Yes, well, every plan has its flaw.

The island she had seen earlier was still in view, but now seemed so very out of reach.

A boat, then.

And do what?

There was no hiding on open water. She considered waiting until dark, and then stealing a boat. It would mean finding the distant island in the dark. To miss, however, would doom her to open seas, there to die of starvation and thirst. She secretly eyed the mizzenmast, collared by a rack bristling with cutlasses and sabers.

And do what? Your arms still hurt from the last swordfight. You plan to fight your way off the ship, and then what, escape? To where?

Pressing her fingers to the bridge of her nose, she thought longingly of lying down in a dark, quiet place for the next fortnight. The saltwater, gurgling in her ears and filling her sinuses, rendered her too thick-headed to effectively think anything through. If she had been surrounded by a forest, mountains, or wilds, she would have known what to expect, how to survive. With nothing but water around her, hope of escape verged on impossible.

“What do you plan to do with me?” she ventured to ask again, a bit more steadily this time. In lieu of her own plan, knowing his might help.

He closed one eye as he strolled around her, shrewdly evaluating her as one would when purchasing a horse. “Scrawny and a bit old aside, a thing such as you could bring a good price at several markets. However, Miz Littleton—”

“My name is not Littleton.”

The Captain batted his lids with affected patience. “Aye, but it is. You shall enjoy our hospitality until your father is contacted—”

“My father? He’s been dead for years.”

“Come now, luv.” He virtually purred as he slinked nearer. A wolf circling its prey; the black eyes and wild hair only added to the impression. “Your father is in Kingston. We’ll send a messenger with a—”

“No, no, no.” She might have been suffering from a number of uncertainties, but on this she was clear. “My father is—”

“Your father is the King’s Commissioner—
new
King’s Commissioner, that is—of Jamaica, and as such shall pay more, a good bit more than what might be gotten at the markets, for the return of both you and your mother, as soon as those thick-pated offscourings find her,” the Captain added, with a malignant look toward the
Constancy.

“My moth…? You mean Mrs. Littleton? She and her daughter are dead.”

It was sobering to hear two lives memorialized so coldly.

“Some kind of fever,” Cate said dully. “It took Lucy first, Mrs. Littleton but hours after.”

“Why didn’t you sicken?”

“I suppose I was healthier,” she said evenly.

“Can’t argue with that,” Blackthorne muttered, more to himself. “No explaining sickness, especially on a ship. I’ve seen entire crews decimated, whilst others remained in the pink.”

None of this came as good news. He stalked the room, uttering a black-sounding tirade in something other than Spanish or French, and took a long pull off the bottle still clutched in his fist.

“This wasn’t my damned plan to begin with. I tried to tell those oysterheads this wouldn’t answer. And now…” He broke off, thinking better of what he was about to say.

He came at her, shaking his fist, the bottle’s contents sloshing. “I’ll have you know, I do
not
approve of women aboard. Noxious creatures! Nothing but problems. It puts the men’s minds on nothing but their cocks, as you already may have noticed.” He canted his head toward the main deck, where Scarface and his men would still be.

He drew up before the window, swallowing back several more remarks that bubbled to the surface. Her heart leapt at seeing his hand come to rest on the pistol at his belt. She braced, chanting inwardly that death might be the blessing she had hoped for.

“What is your name then, luv?” he asked over his shoulder.

It was a bit disconcerting that he needed to know her name just before shooting her. She lifted her chin, determined to meet her end with grace. “Cate.”

“Catherine?”

“No, Cate will do nicely.”

He pivoted around on his heel. “Very well,
Cate
…”

A firm rap at the door caused her to start. A man’s silhouette, a dark blot against the glare of daylight, filled the doorway.

“Cap’n?”

She shrank back at recognizing the voice. It filled the room the same way it had echoed across the
Constancy
’s deck
.

“Yes, Master Pryce?” Blackthorne beckoned him in with a wave.

Pryce advanced several steps, before he pulled up short at the sight of her. She snugged the coat tighter around her under his cold stare.

“Wishin’ to report, Cap’n,” Pryce said, averting his attention. “The prize has give over.”

“Readily?”

“None so much as might o’ been. Their weapons were already laid, until the cap’n’s wife there called the charge.” Pryce cut her a look, now a heated glare. “Took Chin directly in the leg, she did, and then managed to draw blood on several more afore…”

Blackthorne whirled on Cate. “I could have you hocked and heaved or flogged for drawing the blood of another.”

At some point, she had risen to her feet. She shrank back, coming up hard against the gun carriage as Blackthorne stalked toward her. He grabbed her by the arm and towed her around the table. Releasing her, he went out on deck, where a number of pirates churned through trunks taken from the
Constancy.
Shoving them aside, he pawed through the contents, seized something, and stomped back.

“I don’t give a damn about you, but that’s me number one coat and I’ll not have it bloodied up. Here,” he said and flung a garment at her. “Put it on or parade about half-naked, I don’t give a rat’s ass.”

The garment turned out to be a shift. She turned her back and wormed out of the coat while donning the other. The hem was barely over her hips, before the coat was yanked away. Blackthorne reached, meaning to snatch her by the hair. Thinking better, he took her by the wrist instead, the force grinding the bones together, and half-drug her to the steps below. In morbid dread of stumbling, she concentrated on her footing as he pushed from behind.

At the bottom, a shove propelled her much faster than her feet could manage. She stumbled several times. The passage wasn’t unlike that of the
Constancy
’s: narrow and lined with a couple of cabins to one side, and the galley the other, the cook, ladle poised in hand, watching them pass. They came out of the passage into an open space one could only call the gundeck. As low-ceilinged as the
Constancy
, the ’tween deck was cavernous. The pirate ship was no more than a platform for the double phalanx of guns, crouched in their carriages like silent black sentinels. The ports stood open, the fresh air thankfully stirring the miasma of bilge, stale gunpowder, and soiled hammocks.

She balked at the sight of a large number of men gathered at the foot of another companionway. It was only Blackthorne’s presence pushing from behind that kept her from turning and running, that and the recollection of what had happened the last time she tried to do so. The smell of blood grew sharp. It mingled with that of sweat and gunpowder as they neared. It was then that she saw the injured being helped down the steps. The wounded sat where they could, the more serious lying on the floor. Some glared at the sight of her; others looked on with mild interest.

Pryce’s voice rose over the commotion. “By the saints, Chin. Any chuckle-headed fool could see a thing like that won’t close on its own.”

A final shove from Blackthorne put Cate squarely before the man Pryce addressed. Hunched on a stool, his sweat-soaked shirt clinging to his chest, the man clutched his thigh, the blood seeping between his fingers pooling on the floor. He looked up and she found herself looking into the same impassive broad face and flat black eyes of the one who had held the knife to her throat, the one she had slashed with her sword. Her stomach lurched, the rum she had drank now an icy cannonball. Chin’s face twitched with recognition, and then settled into malevolence.

“He be refusin’, Cap’n,” Pryce said, his hands propped on his hips. His destroyed mouth tucked up in a wry twist. “You know how he is about bein’ sewed.”

“I sorry for it, Cap’n. In wrong place,” Chin said in stilted English. The admission of having been done for by a woman didn’t come easily. The glare he directed at her suggested he desired the favor to be returned.

Blackthorne knelt next to Chin and clapped him on the shoulder. “Word has it someone thought you a fish and sought to dice you up for supper. Appears to be a tough one what needs throwing back, eh, mates?”

The pirates laughed, the tension lifted. The change in Blackthorne was so remarkable she had to look again to make sure it was the same man. Like an actor shifting roles, he was suddenly amiable, even caring. Judging by the surrounding faces, this version was a familiar one.

Blackthorne gently pried open Chin’s grasp to inspect the wound. A surge of guilt struck Cate at seeing the gash through the rent in Chin’s breeches. Longer than one’s hand, it ran diagonally across the fat of his thigh, the blood welling to a steady flow once the pressure was removed. Pryce’s analysis had been accurate: with the edges curling back, a wound such as that would only fester, eventually costing him his leg.

Blackthorne clucked his tongue as one would scold a child. “’Tis going to have to be sewn.”

Sweat beading on his shaven head, Chin clamped his hand back in place and bit his lip against the pain. “All respect, sir, I can’t bear thought of stitch, especially by any o’ you.”

Blackthorne took the rebuke in stride. “You’ve seen Pryce and Kirkland both mend many a man.”

“Aye, many fester and die—lucky ones, at least. So, Crooks?” Chin directed his question to a man who stood against the bulkhead, his partly empty sleeve knotted off just below the elbow.

“Can’t say ’twere Pryce’s fault entirely,” Crooks said, laconically.

Blackthorne fixed a minatory eye on her. A drama was being played out in which she was expected to take part, but how, she couldn’t tell. Chin’s reluctance seemed to be feeding Blackthorne’s irritation with her. Judging by the intent and worried looks, Chin was held in high regard by all. The sense of brotherhood was striking, no different than among the Highland clans.

Wiping hands suddenly gone sweaty on her shift, she looked from one grizzled face to the next. Bearded and sun-beaten to evenness, they could have all been of one family. In full daylight, they had been a barbarous and menacing lot. Now, clustered in the cramped and dim space, they were even more intimidating. The sight of Chin set the cut on her breast to sting anew. It was either play along with the drama, or face Blackthorne’s wrath.

Cate glanced judiciously at Chin’s leg, not without sympathy. “You can try binding it, but you know that won’t answer, don’t you?”