This absurdity was more than he could stand. "You call this freedom? Throwing in with pirates who would rape you at any moment?"
"No one has raped me, though it's kind of you to concern yourself with my welfare. That's all you've ever been concerned with, isn't it? My welfare? Kind acts with no thought of reward?" She snorted loudly. "You're truly one man in a thousand, Nathan Adams."
He could no longer match her gaze. He pulled away and faced the ocean, great and blue and stretching on and on. Annabelle was out there somewhere, he knew it. The key to finding her was finally in his grasp. He had been so sure he hated Katherine Lindsay, and now he was finding it difficult to recall the vindication for that hatred. The sun beat heavily upon the crown of his head. His fingers started for an itch running along his left arm, and then he remembered that there was nothing to itch.
"Will you give me to Rogers?" she called. There was an anxiety in her voice that he hadn't detected earlier, and he realized she truly cared. She cared more than she wanted to let on.
Of course she cares.
"You are not the only prize on this island," he answered.
"Then you're not Rogers' man?" She sounded hopeful.
"I don't know what I am, Kather—Kate. I'm still trying to figure that out. When I do, you'll be the first to know."
Nathan motioned to Richard Maynard. "Take her to the tent with Dillahunt and stand watch outside. I don't want her touched, is that clear?"
Richard cackled. "What you think we are, pirates?"
"I think you are men," Nathan said. "Should any ill fortune befall this woman, Woodes Rogers will know the name of the man who did it."
"Then we're going back to Nassau?" Richard asked, puzzled. "What about the treasure?"
Nathan smiled. "Bellamy tells me Dillahunt needs a few days to recover before it's safe to travel. What we do in the meantime is no business of Rogers'."
Richard liked the sound of that, grinning ear to ear. "Yes, captain." He lifted Kate to her feet and prodded her toward the largest of the tents, which had no doubt belonged to Hornigold. Nathan watched until she descended under the tarp.
He strolled to the prisoner tent, ducking inside. Seven men were chained in a circle, plus Hornigold. Hornigold tried to stand when he saw Nathan, but his hands were chained behind his back, and he was jerked to a halt before his knees could straighten. A puff of air popped from his lips as he landed on his ass.
"Don't get up," Nathan said.
"Dillahunt sends a boy in his place," Hornigold grumbled.
"Consider yourself lucky," Nathan replied. "Dillahunt had very specific requests regarding you." Nathan hoped he wouldn't be considered a mutineer for not removing Hornigold's cock.
"Guy Dillahunt would not chain me up like some mangy dog."
Hornigold's men cackled at that. "Captain always was too good for us dogs, wasn't he?"
"Aye, never could be bothered to eat with us or nothin'."
"That redheaded strumpet made a better captain, she did."
Nathan quieted them with a raised hand. "If you so desire your captain's company, take comfort knowing he will spend his final moments with the rest of you."
Their laughter died down as they remembered their predicament. "Well that soils the mood," muttered a fat prisoner named Farley.
"Where's Ryan?" Hornigold demanded, doing his best to ignore his perfidious crew. "Where's the boatswain?"
"If he's not here, he's dead," Nathan said. "There are two others we captured when we took your ship. You all will be joining them soon. They're in our brig, if you could call those cages a 'brig.' A black man and a French man. Neither of them named Ryan. By my math, all but nine of your men are dead. Those that were smart enough not to shoot at us as from the beach sit beside you now. A few fled into the jungle. We'll keep an eye out for them, but if we don't find them, I'm not worried. We have the man we were sent to find."
"My ship!" Hornigold remembered. "I did not see my ship. Where . . . where is it?"
"Oh it's out there," Nathan assured him with a smile. "Beneath the water. Your crew fired upon us as we sailed in. Captain Dillahunt was wounded. He's lucky to be alive, in fact."
"We found a chest," Hornigold exclaimed, wasting no time. "A fortune beyond your wildest dreams!"
"Yes, I know," Nathan said with a dismissive wave.
Hornigold frowned, perplexed. "Lindsay told you? What a monstrous bitch! Is there nothing she won't do to save her—"
"Lindsay didn't need to say anything," Nathan interrupted, amused at Hornigold's fervor. "I crewed aboard
Harbinger
."
Hornigold blinked. "Under Jonathan Griffith?"
"The very same."
Hornigold sighed in dismay, what little hope remained fleeing from his eyes. "You crewed with Katherine Lindsay," he muttered. "Now I see why she isn't chained up in here with us. You're in league with the bitch."
"Hardly," Nathan chuckled. "She's to be returned to her family, as I'm sure you know."
Hornigold's eyes flashed with murderous rage. "She's not to be executed?!"
Nathan's chuckle became a laugh. "Of course not. She's a woman lost at sea."
"A criminal, far worse than any pirate! A demon!"
"A demon created by pirates. She would not have come this far without the aid of men like you, Hornigold."
Hornigold spat in the sand, his face contorting terribly. "She embraces her misfortune! You should have seen her instigate my crew into looting a vessel that came to our aid after a fierce storm!"
Nathan traded a glance with one of Hornigold's crew, a man who had surrendered willingly and politely introduced himself as Harrow. "We was pirates again," Harrow said with a shrug.
Nathan smirked at Hornigold. "You fled Nassau. Apparently your crew understood the implications of that crime, even if you did not."
"I would not have fled if not for that fire-haired cunt! Her words were topped with sugar, cloaking a venomous bite."
"I always thought her words more bitter than sweet," Nathan replied.
"Then she presents you with an altered face."
"Lindsay is many things, but a chameleon is not one of them. I think your memory sweetens her words. Maybe you weren't looking at her lips."
"A woman speaks with more than her mouth," Hornigold sneered. "Spoken or not, Lindsay makes promises she has no intention of keeping."
Nathan made no attempt to mask his revulsion. Hornigold's clothes were covered in dirt, his raven hair was a mess, his nose ravaged, and his eyes were consumed with furious desperation. "You're pathetic." The words escaped Nathan's lips before he gave them leave.
The puffy black folds under Hornigold's eyes wrinkled painfully. "What?"
A captive with dark islander skin ardently shook his head, as though the foundations of everything he had built his life upon had just been torn asunder. "This is no way to talk to the captain," he murmured. Apparently Hornigold hadn't lost
everyone's
confidence.
"What did you say to me?" Hornigold seethed, his nose deepening its shade of purple.
"I called you pathetic," Nathan answered.
The bruise seemed to be spreading from the center of Hornigold's face like a dark cloud. Nathan glimpsed the shadow of a once formidable man within those furious eyes. "On equal ground, boy, I would see your throat opened and your blood gush freely upon the sand."
"Life rarely affords opponents equal footing," Nathan replied. "A pirate should know that by now. I am only missing one arm, while the two of yours are secured behind your back. Yet even if they were not, you would claim Katherine Lindsay manipulates them. You truly believe she's the reason you sit in chains? That she is the lone catalyst to set your life off course? When you ascend the gallows, will you scream her name, claiming you had no control of your actions? Did she sprinkle magic dust under your nose? Did you wake one morning to find yourself spirited here, knee deep in the dirt with a shovel?"
Nathan turned away and started for the exit, not only disgusted with Hornigold but with himself for thinking Katherine Lindsay responsible for all his woes.
"Don't pretend you're better than me, boy!" Hornigold called after him.
"I don't have to pretend," Nathan said.
"I know a pirate when I see one. I doubt you lost that arm as an honest sailor. I know the look of a man who craves what isn't his. I've captained a thousand boys like you. You're all so quick to part with innocence, but the high and mighty condemnation that accompanies youth is not so easily mislaid. Walking contradictions, the lot of you. Most of you are dead before you realize what you've become."
Nathan stopped at the flaps and tilted his head. "It's a pity I didn't meet you sooner, Hornigold. You've taught me much in a short time."
He pushed through the flaps and stepped into the warm sunlight. The sound of crashing waves greeted his ears. He inhaled deeply, smelling salt for the first time in a long time. He had forgotten how much he used to love that smell, before it became so common that he didn't even know it was there.
He found Calloway near the firepit, piling logs for the night's feast. "Captain," she greeted with an alluring smirk. Her large hat was not pulled as low as it used to be. Several of the crew had figured out her secret since last night, and the news had probably spread like wildfire. It was also likely that they knew she belonged to Dillahunt, and they wouldn't touch her as long as he lived.
"Boy," Nathan replied with a smirk of his own.
"You look like you want something."
"That obvious?"
"I know when a man wants something," she replied.
"And when does a man want something?"
She grinned. "When he opens his mouth."
"Well, your instincts serve you. I need a small favor. There's a woman in the big tent."
Her face was instantly racked with dread. "But, Guy is in there!"
"She's not that kind of woman," Nathan assured her. "Your man will go unmolested."
"Is it Katherine Lindsay? The one with the bounty on her head?"
"That's her. I want you to find Bellamy and have him see to her wounds. Stay by her side for a while and keep watch on her. You can pretend you're there to watch over Dillahunt. Don't try to hide your gender, as she'll figure it out quicker than I did. She'll be relieved to see another woman, I think."
Calloway regarded him skeptically. "Maybe."
"Don't worry, you'll like her."
"That doesn't evoke my confidence. Men are terrible judges of such things."
He rubbed his temples in exasperation. "Look, it can't hurt to try."
Calloway suddenly grinned. "Do you love this woman? Is this the one you were talking about? The girl who 'belongs to no one'?"
Nathan recoiled in horror. "What? No! You've got it all wrong!"
Calloway giggled.
"Stop laughing," Nathan barked. "Do as I ask, or I'll pull your hat off in front of everyone."
She shrugged. "I think they've mostly figured it out by now."
"Just do it." Nathan turned to leave, then halted and raised a finger. "Oh, and her hands are bound. You might gain a bit of trust by freeing her and pretending you're doing so against my will."
"You're not afraid she'll try and escape?"
Nathan spread his hand and stump, and he made a big show of looking all around. "Where will she go? Is there another ship I don't know about on the other side of the island?"
"Why are you doing this?" she asked.
"She needs to be reminded of something. I think you are just the person to remind her."
Calloway lowered her head slightly, eyes shaded beneath her huge hat. "What am I supposed to remind her of?"
Nathan looked to the ship on the horizon, its once pristine sails now pitted with holes from last night's battle. A tingling sensation crept along his missing arm, taunting him with its absence once again. "Something too easily forgotten out here."
The girl's soft fingers brushed gently against Kate's wrists as they worked at the knotted sash that bound her hands behind her back. "This knot is stubborn," she muttered.
Richard Maynard smiled obscenely, gesturing downward. "I've got a stubborn knot for you to sort through." Sweat trickled down his leathery forehead, collecting on the thick ledge of his brow. His beady eyes gleamed from within deep-set hollows. He had not seen a woman in weeks, and now there were two in one tent.
"Captain Adams says you can wait outside," the girl coolly replied.
"I see
my
captain right there," Maynard said, shoving a fat index finger at Guy Dillahunt's unconscious form, heaped in blankets in a dark corner of the tent. His face was shrouded in bandages, save for the eyes and lower jaw. His arms and legs were wrapped as well. "He says nothing."
Kate felt the girl's fingers stop moving. "Shall I wake
your
captain and ask his thoughts on mutiny?"
Maynard slowly let the air out of his chest. "I'll be outside," he grumbled, ducking through the flaps. Bright rays of sun temporarily flooded the tent as the flaps opened and closed. Kate was relieved to see him go. The big oaf had done nothing but stare at her breasts since bringing her inside.
"And, there we have it," the girl said as the sash slipped free. Kate's wrists parted, freeing the strain in her shoulders.
"Thank you," Kate said, massaging her raw wrists.
"You're welcome." The girl possessed an amiable, soft voice. Her hair was cut like a boy's. She stood half a foot taller than Kate, and her shoulders were very broad, yet her face was delicate and youthful. When she first entered the tent, she had removed a large hat that Kate quickly deduced was meant to conceal her gender.
"The doctor will be here shortly to see to your face." The girl tentatively bit her lip as her gaze fell suggestively. "And any other wounds you might have."
"Just the face," Kate said with a light chuckle. She gestured at Dillahunt. "I trust it looks better than his."
The girl's young face fluttered with aggravation, but she swiftly veiled it with a smile. "You might need a stitch or two." She wandered over to Dillahunt and stared earnestly at him, biting a nail.