The Pirate Captain (106 page)

“What do you suppose they’ll say?” she asked, struggling into her stays.

“Who?”

“The crew. You said they know what we’re doing.”

He considered while he stuffed his shirt into his waistband. “I should imagine they’ll say ‘‘‘’Tis about time,’ and settle their bets.”

“Bets!” she gaped. Her arms dropped to her sides. “Bets? They’ve been betting on when we…I mean, if we—?”

“From the day you were brought aboard, I should imagine.”

Nathan chuckled at her startled look as he pulled on a boot. “Darling, these are men who bet on whose spit kills the spider first, or which way a goat turd will roll. Betting on when I bedded you is a minor thing.”

“Well, it wasn’t minor to me! Didn’t I have any say in it?”

Stomping his foot into his boot, Nathan grinned. He came around to cup her cheek in his palm.

“Darling, you had all the say. I wouldn’t take you, until you’d have me. It was never going to be any other way,
ever
.”

“Why, Nathan? Why did it take so long…? I mean, before you…? Why didn’t you say…?”

He reddened and smiled, grim but tolerant. “Because you’re his, darling.”

“His?” Cate echoed stupidly. She had expected any number of excuses but that.

“You’re married,” Nathan said with the eloquent patience of one dealing with a child.

“He’s dead.” It wasn’t to be ghoulish or cold. It was but to state a simple fact.

“As you keep saying. You don’t know that.”

Cate brought his face around by the point of his beard in order to look into the coffee-colored orbs. “Yes, I do.” The thought of Brian returning was ludicrous. She bit back a rising smile, lest she wound Nathan’s already delicate pride.

“Darling, I’ve a lifetime of men declared dead—gunshot, lost at sea, fever, or sea monsters, or whatever you desire to name—and the next thing I know, they are buying me a drink. Hell, I was given up for dead meself, and yet here I am in all me charming glory.” He spread his arms in display.

To argue to the contrary would have been disingenuous, for she too knew people who mysteriously died and mysteriously reappeared. And yet, on Brian’s death she was firm: she had woken screaming the night it had came to pass, had felt the stab in her heart and had awakened the next morning with a part of her gone. For Nathan’s part, she couldn’t argue either. She had heard many and widely-varied versions of him being cursed, blessed, resurrected by the hand of some sea goddess, even allusions to immortality.

“I thought it was because I reminded you of…her.” She said, looking away. It was her strong belief that there should be only two in a bed—or bedchamber, as it were—at a time. But so long as it had been opened to three, it might as well be four.

“Her?” Now he was the one to sound stupid.

She willed herself to meet his gaze, but failed. “Yes,
her
. Pryce claims you said I reminded you of…of…Hattie,” she finally squeezed out through a constricted throat.

“Did I now?” Nathan mused, a bit too innocently for her money. “Bloody awkward, that.

“God help me, I was a spineless coward,” he said on a sudden surge of self-loathing. “I was scared, mortified you’d confound and burn me for the accursed, driveling, maudlin milksop I was. And when those cursed eyes of yours failed to see, well…I knew it had to be because they didn’t desire to.”

“You always looked like it was torture to be in the same room—”

“And it was,” he said with hearty conviction. “To have you right there…” Nathan's hand raised to her shoulder and hovered. “To have you so near, to hear your voice and smell you, and not be able to…” His clamped his lower lip between his teeth, eyes clouding and filling with anguish.

“And then, there was the fear if I was to say something, you’d jump. You damned near did, twice, nay…three times,” he added to her dubious look.

Nathan had made mention of that same worry before, although for the life of her, she couldn’t fathom what or when he was referring. Still, whatever the fabrications, they were real to him.

The poor man and the tortures he had suffered, so much like her own.

“Misery enjoys company, it would seem,” she said.

“And ’tis no finer company in which one could wish to suffer.”

Nathan's eyes softened to the color of warm molasses. He touched his lips lightly to Cate's forehead as a parting and swaggered to the door.

“By the by,” he said, pausing there. “Shall you be desiring to know who won?”

A hurtled shoe, harmlessly hitting him in the shoulder, was his only answer.

Chapter 21: Storm Tossed

O
nce dressed, Cate balked at the curtain as Nathan’s words rang in her head.

…settling their bets…

Mortification knotted her gut. Everyone aboard knew…

Every man, jack, tar, and mate knew what they had been doing, not only just then, but the night before, too. She tried to think back, wondering if she had cried out at any point. She wasn’t usually given to doing so at those crucial moments of passion, but it had been a very long time.

Everybody knew…which meant she was going to have to face everyone, knowing they knew. From the forecastlemen, to the foretopsmen, to the afterguard, to anyone slaving in the hold moving water butts…
everybody
knew.

“No secrets on a damned ship,” she grumbled under her breath.

Cate prayed—vowed—not to go bright red at the first person met, and then worried as to who it might be.

When she came around the curtain, Nathan stood at the table, leaned over a chart. He nimbly walked the brass dividers, his fingers tapping the parchment in calculation, reminding her so much of her first day aboard, and innumerable times since. His charts were his pride, and justifiably so. Detailed and finely scripted in his florid handwriting, they were works of art. She had spent many an hour watching him work on them, embellishing with further details and descriptions.

He looked up, brightening at seeing her.

“We’re to meet Thomas at Cogburn’s Island,” Nathan explained at her inquiry as to their destination.

A ringed finger indicated their current position, and then the aforementioned island. His rag-bound hand reminded her of the cut he had suffered from Thomas’ sword. Earlier attempts on her part to attend it had failed; hopefully he would yield this time.

“Allow me to—” she said, reaching to examine it.

“It’s fine. Observe.” Jerking free of her grasp, he worked his hand to illustrate. His checked wince—slight, but unmistakable—robbed the desired effect. His hands were near the color of mahogany, but she could see bright red peeking from under the binding.

“It needs to be—” she said more determinedly

“I’m fine,” he said in a tone that would brook no further discussion.

Conceding, she peered over his shoulder and pressed against him, still thrilled at being able to do so. “How far?”

“Two days.” Nathan shifted his hips in acknowledgement of her nearness. His fingers sought hers where they rested on the parchment and stroked her knuckles.

“Sometimes three, if the winds are in our favor. Doesn’t appear, however, as though Calypso is going to bless us today,” he added with a grudging sigh.

“How bad is it going to blow?” She had endured storms on the
Constancy
, but had yet to experience a bad one on the
Morganse
. Her apprehension stemmed only from not knowing what to expect. Her faith in Nathan’s seamanship was unquestioned. With Pryce and the crew, it became an impossible sum to add up the total number of years of experience represented on these decks.

“Not sure.” Straightening, Nathan cast a dubious eye over his shoulder, toward the glass. It was an inconspicuous, odd-looking instrument: a long tube with a bulb at its bottom. Gimbaled on a rosewood board on the bulkhead, it was consulted with a devotion and reverence normally paid to a religious icon.

“Weather glass says bad, right nasty. The wind is steady, but I don’t like the looks of that swell,” he said, swiveling a speculative gaze out the windows.

Cate had been vaguely aware of an increase in the action of the ship. The sea was kicking up rough. A dark and tumultuous-looking bank of clouds hung low on the east horizon.

“We’re required to see what comes,” he went on, looking to the chart once more. “We might scud before it, if it will answer, and be taken leagues off course. If it overtakes us, then we’ll take the worst of it on the stern.”

It was spoken as if there was something positive to be found in that outcome.

He gave her an encouraging grin and squeezed her arm. “Not going lily-livered on us, are you?”

Cate straightened and pasted on a smile. “Of course not! Don’t you dare get hurt.”

She had waited for what seemed a lifetime to have him; to lose him to storm or injury would be too cruel. And yet, life had proven to be exactly that. Yes, she was afraid…for both of them.

Nathan bent to kiss her, brief but meaningful.

“Now there’s the motivation what a man needs,” he said, grinning with devilment. Grabbing his coat from the chair, he sauntered to the door and stopped. “Stay under hatches. Don’t come out, no matter what you hear.”

And then, he was gone.

###

That a storm was brewing was no great surprise: cloud formations, bird sightings, coffee grounds, and aching bones had all been read, the omens conflicting only with regards to severity. The glass had dipped its lowest according to many, and yet Millbridge’s hip said nothing so severe. Hermione retreated to her manger below, while His Lordship and the geckos were nowhere to be seen.

The swell grew to more precipitous heights, while relieving tackles on the rudder and masts were rigged, topmasts lowered and storm canvas bent. The air turned sultry and still, the world taking on a bilious green cast that rendered sky and sea inseparable. Guns were bowsed up and double secured; a half ton of iron careening across a deck could smash a man, or worse yet, pierce the hull, taking everyone to Davy Jones’ depths. Hatches were bonneted, bulkheads secured. Pitch stoves sent up sharp-smelling curls of smoke as the caulking irons were put to their fullest application to seal every gunport and port, including the gallery windows and skylight.

As the wind stiffened, the Great Cabin was swept clear. Rugs were rolled, furniture and trunks lashed, and oil lamps tucked safe away; many a ship had burned to the waterline from an oil slick gone unnoticed. It was in that process that Cate encountered her first member of the crew, since her and Nathan’s…er, tryst: Millbridge. She willed herself to put on a strong front, but her cheeks heated, nonetheless. She expected severity, at the least the old codger’s customary churlishness, but was met only with benign benevolence. It was more disquieting than if he had openly pointed and laughed.

Having failed the first test, she passed the second, barely. Her blush had paled in comparison to Kirkland’s. For that matter, Nathan had left with a levity in his step heretofore unseen, and she could have sworn she heard humming.

The galley fires were doused after the dog watches, allowing the men their last hot meal. As if waiting for that last meal to be finished, the blow arrived in full fury. The wind pressed a stiff arm at the
Morganse
’s masts, heeling her over and holding her there.

Cate stood in the middle of the cabin as great doors were slammed shut. Hearing the resounding
clunk!
of the crosspiece dropped into its brackets, she was seized by a sense of being entombed. She wasn’t completely sealed in: the galley steps stood open—she could come and go as she pleased, Nathan’s final orders notwithstanding—but the feeling was undeniable. So empty, so quiet, in spite of the full gale outside.

With all the furniture stowed, Cate stood wondering what to do next. She shied from the gallery, the wind and rain lashing at the thick panes. Flashes of lightning illuminated the mountainous waves of greenish-grey water just the other side of the glass, the foam at their crests hanging like snarling great teeth, seeking to devour anything in its path. The deck now at a violent pitch, she half-crawled to a locker. It was against a lee bulkhead, which meant she could sit atop and lean back against the wall with a modicum of comfort.

Beset by a chill reminiscent of the more sour days in the Highlands, she hunched on the trunk, listening to the gale tear at the windows and doors, clawing to violate her solitary bastion. The ship lurched to dizzying heights, and then sickeningly pitched downward, disorienting one to the point of doubting which way was up. The rain a hammering drone, the wind screaming through every crevice, and the grind of planking combined into a din that battered one to numbness.

The gunmetal sky had given way to a Stygian night, lightning the only illumination, when Millbridge appeared at the galley companionway, reporting over the storm’s clamor of men injured. Cate stirred from her torpid state and her corner. She skated helplessly on a skim of water over the slanted deck and slammed into
Merdering Mary
’s carriage. Rising shakily, she crabbed across the room to follow Millbridge down the steps, the elder carrying her blood box under one arm, as well as a watch lamp. They wove through the swaying cocoon-like hammocks, filled with sodden, sleeping men, to the gunroom to where the injured waited.

A near senseless Mr. Seymour was met with first, reported to have been knocked in the head by a swinging block. Blood and rainwater glistening on his face and chest, he sat oblivious, even when spoken to directly. Afraid to appear “lily-livered,” but in desperate need to know, she inquired after Nathan as she strapped Ogden, his ribs having taken the brunt of a battle with the ship’s wheel.

“A fiend he is during a blow.” Bald head gleaming with wetness, Ogden rolled his eyes upward with something between fear and awe. “He’s up there now, a-darin’ Calypso to take ’im.”

Mr. Harrier appeared, cradling his arm. “Bo’lun snapped it like a dry twig.” A nasty rope burn entwining the forearm gave credit to his testimony.

A table suspended over a gun her surgery, a steady trickle of injured continued. Fractures and dislocations became the mode of the day: ribs, shoulders, arms, and collarbones. Millbridge stoically held the lamp while she groped in her box for salve, splints, and bandages, ignoring the water that dripped down her neck and sloshed at her feet, soddening her skirts. Her station was nearly at the ship’s waist, much nearer the ship’s heart than in the Great Cabin, rendering the storm that much more immediate.