The Pirate Captain (86 page)

Nathan slumped and looked to the ground between his feet. “Oh.”

“My grandmother always said to marry a tall man. They were the most gentle, is what she used to say. She was right,” Cate said, with a faint smile.

The firelight flared on tendons of Nathan’s arms, now gone rigid “So, you do fancy him.”

His shoulders rose and fell, and then he looked up with the expression of a man commending himself to the gallows. His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “I could put a word in for you,” came in a tight rasp.

It was tempting, so very tempting.

For a moment, Cate allowed herself the luxury of that fantasy, but instantly saw it for what it was: a hopeless snatch at regaining a life long lost. And yet, she had not made mention of the resemblance to Thomas for that very reason. “You remind me of my dead husband,” was hardly the way to initiate anything. She hadn’t made mention to Nathan for the same reason: so that she could pretend. And pretend she did, to the point that it was both a startlement and irritation, when Thomas did something out of character. To use Thomas in such a way was reprehensible, and she despised herself for it. She only need think how she would feel if Nathan was to use her the same way: as a replacement for his precious Hattie.

Ah, but would it be so terrible if he was to have you for just a little bit?

She batted down the voice. To chase ghosts was to throw her heart away. She had surrendered one heart—one long gone—in exchange for another.

She looked at that very heart sitting next to her just then, dejected and miserable.

“No.” Regrettably, the word didn’t come out as definitively as intended. Cate cleared her throat and tried again. “No, it wouldn’t be fair.”

She stiffened as another thought occurred. “Are you hinting to be rid of me?”

“No!” Nathan burst out, eyes bugging with alarm. He checked himself and softened. “No, most definitely and adamantly, no.”

She dipped her head to intersect his gaze. “Then why even ask the question or even suggest it? Is this because of the other night?”

“No, upon me word! Just intuitive insertions, idle observations.” Nathan lifted a shoulder, as if to dismiss it, but it still pressed his mind. “I thought…perhaps—”

They were interrupted by Thomas’ hail as he strode toward them.

“There you are!” he boomed. “You children lurking about in the dark, I see. Shame, shame!” He waggled a warning finger at them. “People will talk.”

“Only about the overbearing pestilence what keeps storming up and down the beach like a pillaging Cossack,” Nathan grumbled.

“Then c’mon over to the fire and sit. One of my men finally brought a chessboard. Are you ready to get beat?”

“Certainly,” Nathan declared eagerly, handing Cate up. “Except, I do suffer a bit of remorse at the prospect of demeaning and humbling someone so grand as yourself…
again
.”

“Willing to put your money on that?”

Nathan swept a mocking bow that finished with an inviting arm toward their fire. “I’m your man.”

Nathan and Thomas settled into what some might call “a friendly game.” It was a far cry from any chess match Cate had ever witnessed. Customarily associated with long pensive silences, interspersed with quiet murmurings of appreciation of a move, Nathan and Thomas’ version lacked all manner of gentlemanly restraint, bearing more resemblance to a tavern brawl than a parlor game. A player’s selection of his next move was made under a barrage of taunts, bawdy jeers, and derisive challenges. The move was immediately followed by a tirade of swearing and name-calling—in several languages—heavily mixed with punches, slaps, and generalized fist-brandishing.

Familiar enough with the game of chess to understand, but not proficient enough to pose a challenge, Cate had been goaded into a game by Nathan now and again. She had learned at her father’s knee, with further tutelage from her brothers. Brian had spent innumerable winter evenings attempting to broaden her game, and ultimately she became accomplished enough to delay defeat for almost an hour. Her successes against Nathan had barely been better. Her matches with him had been nothing like this.

Cate sat on a cask between the two pirates and watched. There were no classical moves, no familiar gambits. This was based on nerve and cunning, bravado and bluff. Their familiarity with each other bred congenial contempt, but also an advantage, often seeming to know the other’s next move before it was made.

Alike in so many ways, the two men were diametric opposites in so many others. Sitting between them, Cate became aware of being bracketed by muscle and bone, the round of a shoulder against the linen of a shirt, the pull of thigh muscles under the taut fabric of breeches, each exuding his unique aura of maleness. More often, she was lost in watching their fingers—Nathan’s long and aristocratic, Thomas’s broad and blunt—hover over the board in thought, and then pluck the chosen ivory piece.

A few times she glanced up to find Nathan watching her watching Thomas, dropping his attention to the board when caught. In those brief moments, she caught a glimpse of something akin to jealousy…again. It had cropped up several times since Thomas’ arrival, and Harte, too, come to think on it. It was a puzzle. On the one hand, Nathan wanted no other man near her, and yet on the other, he held no interest. She was caught between saying, “Make up your mind” and “You’ve nothing to worry about; I’ve cast my lot.” Surely she was reading more into it than was meant. By his own admission, Nathan was new to this concept of friendship, especially where a woman was concerned. Finding the balance between friendship and possession clearly was a struggle. This was going to require patience on both parts.

Cate looked periodically to check on Prudence. A girl in a saffron dress wasn't difficult to find among a crowd of sun-drabbed, weatherworn sailors. She now sat atop a keg, a piece of canvas chivalrously draped over it. According to Thomas, the young lad Nathan had hired was named Biggins. He was the ship’s baby. Thomas represented he had only taken on the lad because he had cried so hard when he had been denied.

“Half-monkey in the tops, though,” said Thomas in wonderment as he waited for Nathan to make his move. “The boy’s fearless on that account. A week of bein’ cabin boy taught him nothing could be worse.”

To their chagrin, Prudence and Biggins had been joined by Grisellers and Morgansers, and no wonder. Young or old, fishwife or princess, women were a welcomed relief, and the pirates circled around for the sheer joy of a feminine face.

Crude laughter had drawn Cate’s attention a few times. She looked again to see Prudence, ashen-faced and scandalized, Biggins next to her, stiff with indignation. Cate chuckled silently. In the face of such propriety and innocence, the men couldn’t resist the temptation of being as raucous as possible. They had tried her on at the beginning, but life, a war, and five brothers had already seasoned her; few things shocked her now.

Cate straightened at seeing Prudence lurch to her feet and race away, and was instantly on her own feet to give chase. Nathan called out from behind her, and then darted to catch her up. Their paths down the shore in Prudence’s wake converged with Squidge, also in pursuit.

“What happened, man?” Nathan demanded.

Deep in his cups, the garland of dried ears swung at Squidge’s neck as he splayed his hands in innocence. “Honest, Cap’n, we was just tellin’ her of her intended. I guess it just went a bit too far.”

“A bit,” Cate shot back acidly.

Swearing, Cate took off in the direction in which she had last seen the saffron dress. She scanned the beach and nearby bushes as she jogged along, confident Prudence wouldn’t have gone far. The dark wilderness would be too scary. Once away from the fires, and her eyes had grown accustomed to the night, she saw the glimmer of yellow just ahead, only a few paces into the trees. As Nathan came up beside her, the sound of muffled crying could be heard over the rattle of palm fronds and rustle of the water lapping shore. Nathan stiffened and put out a protective hand. Cate silently bid him to wait, and went closer, making a good bit of noise, lest she startle the child and upset her further.

“Prudence? Are you all right?”

“Go away!”

“We just came to—”

“Go away, all of you!” she shrieked louder, her fists balled at her sides. “I hate all of you! Leave me!”

Cate hesitated then pressed closer. “I just wanted to—”

Cate inched close enough to touch Prudence on the arm. The girl whirled around, her face contorted with rage. “I hate you. I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!”

Prudence flew at Cate like an enraged cat and pummeled her with her fists. Nathan lunged forward, but Cate waved him off, for it was more like being attacked by a kitten. Even in a fit of blind fury, Prudence’s blows were pitifully ineffective, although there was a good chance Cate would be bruised by morning. She took a fist to the ear, another grazing her cheek. Overall, it was far less abuse than what her brothers had inflicted in her youth.

Exhausted at last, Prudence fell away. Turning her back, her small shoulders heaved as she gasped for breath. “You lied to me.”

“I’ve never lied,” Cate said evenly.

“Yes you did,” Prudence hissed over her shoulder. Her eyes glittered with teary hatred. “I asked inquired about Lord Creswicke and you lied. All of you lied.”

“I never said—”

“Why didn’t you tell me about him?”

“Because I…we hoped to spare you.” Efforts that now seemed woefully inept, Cate thought ruefully.

“They said he’s a horrid man, and he has done despicable, disgusting things.”

Cate stood mute. Too often, the truth was regrettable. Upon reflection, it might have been better advised to have eased the child into it, rather than leaving her to the shock of finding herself married to a monster, and monster he certainly was. Cate had heard thinly veiled allusions to Creswicke’s distasteful “tastes.” She didn’t care to contemplate to where those tastes might lead.

“Anything I did or didn’t say would not have made Lord Creswicke any better or worse of a person,” Cate said, a bit defensive.

Prudence drew several shuddering breaths in an effort to regain her composure. “They said he beat Nathan…Captain Blackthorne.”

Cate looked toward Nathan. He stood half-hidden by the fronds of a head-high fern. Scowling, the vertical lines between his brows deepened: a clear message that he preferred she desist.

“Yes, he did,” Cate said at length, with some reluctance.

“And he branded him.”

Nathan’s expression darkened further, willing her to leave the subject lie.

“Yes, that as well,” she said, looking back to Prudence.

Prudence turned, the petite features twisted with anguish. “Will he brand me?”

The question caught Cate so unprepared, she almost laughed. At the same time, she felt a pang of sympathy. As irrational as it might seem to everyone else, the possibility was very real to Prudence.

Cate’s mouth wobbled with the urge to smile. “I doubt it.”

Sniffing, Prudence twisted at the fabric of her skirt. “You should have told me. I thought you were my friend.”

Cate inched close enough to lay a tentative hand on the girl’s shoulder. Tremors coursed through the small body. “And sometimes friends have to do difficult things.”

“You all hate me.”

“That’s silly, of course we don’t—”

“Yes you do! I’ve seen the way you all look at me. You all treat me like I’m a child…and you hate me!” Prudence’s voice took a new pitch as her anger resurged.

Cate bit back a remark to the effect that one is treated as one acts. “Prudence, you know better than that. We’ve all—”

“I hate you!” Prudence spun and leapt at Cate again.

The child came at her with the frenzied misdirection of having attacked, but with no real idea as to how to go about it. As they grappled, Cate absorbed the slaps and fended off several more. She ducked from the curled fingers aimed at her face. Prudence made a fortuitous snatch at the hair at Cate’s temple, and she yelped. Over Prudence’s shrieks, she heard a growl and saw an arm snake out. Beringed fingers dug deep into the black curls and Prudence was jerked away.

“Stand off, you shrieking strumpet.” Nathan’s graveled voice ripped the night air as he swung the girl by the hair in an arc. The patent leather shoes skipped over the ground, Prudence squealed like a shoat, in startlement more than pain.

“Nathan, put her down!” cried Cate.

He gave Prudence a quelling shake, and then released her. The small space was filled with the sound of ragged breathing. Rubbing her head, Prudence gave them a wounded look, and then broke into a new wave of plaintive crying.

Blood pulsing still from being attacked, Cate rounded on Nathan. “You don’t need to be so—”

“Belay!” Considerably calmer, he said, “I mean, quiet, luv.”

Nathan stalked toward Prudence with a vehemence that caused her to fall back several steps, half-stumbling on the low plants behind her. “Stay your claws, you cross-grained bit o’ culckoldry. You will never,
never
raise a hand to that woman
ever
again!”

“Nathan, I—” A desisting hand and a glare from Nathan cut Cate short.

Nathan rounded on Prudence with a rigid finger in her face.

“You will treat her as if she were the Queen Mum, not your goddamned chambermaid.” He dipped his head lower, denying Prudence’s attempts to look away. “You touch her, or speak to her with any—I repeat,
any
—disrespect, and sink and burn me, I will bare that ass before every tar on that beach and strap it as your cursed father apparently never did.”

“Nathan, you don’t need to—” Cate began.

“Aye, but I do. This has been coming and little Miss Bird o’ Price knows exactly of which I speak, does she not?” He fixed a gimlet eye on Prudence.

Sniffling, Prudence risked a glance toward Cate then back to the ground, pointedly avoiding Nathan.

He cleared his throat, a sound similar to ripping canvas. “Prudence?”

Prudence sniffed loudly—dramatically so, by Cate’s judgment—and cringed. Twisting her hands in her dress, she batted her eyes at him, the effect greatly diminished by the tear-reddened rims.