The Pirate Captain (48 page)

Nathan’s face lit at spotting Cate, and he beckoned her near. As she picked her way through the crowd, the smell of the night’s ration of rum rose amid the stronger ones of unwashed male and sun-baked clothing. Nathan gallantly rose from his seat atop a cask.

“Good evening, luv.” Mirth sparked his eye as he bowed deeply. “Our compliments. We wish you joy of this fine evening.”

“Good evening. Gentlemen,” Cate said, nodding graciously to those she passed.

With a small amount of shuffling, a seat was arranged for her next to Nathan.

“The problem is: we’ve no idea of when she’s to arrive,” Nathan said, resuming the discussion. “If we knew that, the rest would be of minor consequence.”

“Yes, but the only one what knows that is Creswicke,” argued Squidge, a murmur of agreement coming from the rest. “And I don’t fancy him telling us.”

“Well,” Towers sighed, morosely. “There has to be someone what knows.”

A silence fell as each man retreated into his own thoughts. Looking across the faces, Cate slowly came to find a semblance of order in the gathering. Larbolins apart from starbolins, the men were loosely clustered according to their duty assignments, generally in the vicinity of their leader: Hughes, Cameron, Diogo, Damerell, and the balance of the forecastlemen near Fox, Hodder with his mates. The topsmen stood with the topsmen, Chips with his carpenter’s mates, Jimmy Bungs and the coopersmates, and so on.

Cate leaned toward Nathan and whispered, “May I inquire what this is about?”

“By all means,” Nathan replied, jovially. He bent to pick the bottle of rum from at his feet. He started to take a drink, but paused with the bottle poised at his mouth. “Would you care for a bit?”

Devilment quirked Nathan's mouth with the offer of temptation. It occurred to her that it mightn’t have been the first bottle of the evening.

“No, thank you, I don’t care much for rum,” Cate said.

Amid the ensuing disgruntled murmurs brought on by that revelation, Nathan regarded her with a narrow look. “So you keep saying.”

“There's a lot you don't know about me, Captain.”

“Indeed, there is.” Nathan's jaw worked sideways as he scrutinized her. “Indeed, there is.”

The walnut gaze lingered. Then he straightened and cleared his throat. “A man without a plan is a man who plans to fail. Therefore, we plan, in hopes of a bit of profit.”

“At whose expense?” Cate asked.

“Lord Breaston Creswicke…” began Smalley.

“Of the Royal West Indies Mercantile Company…” continued Towers.

“Is betrothed,” Nathan completed, his eyebrows lifting in emphasis.

“Ah, yes,” she said, recalling Samuels’ revelations during his ill-fated visit. She smiled faintly, wondering if he had yet divested himself of the pink paint.

“And so, you're going to kidnap said fiancée?” she asked.

“Exactly!” Nathan declared, pleased at her ability to grasp.

“Problem is,” continued Pryce, less enthusiastic, “with no idea of where, what or when, we’re sailin’ blind.”

The pirates called out a number of suggestions—people, places, options—many of which were shouted down before the presenter could finish.

“’Tis obvious Samuels doesn’t know when she’s coming, or he would have held out for more money else.” Nathan said in his usual cold pragmatism.

“So we’re left with the who, a possible when, but not the where,” sighed Pryce.

“Someone must know,” she cut in, picking up their frustration.

“Obviously, Creswicke,” sneered someone from the rear.

“He never comes out o’ that stronghold of his in Bridgetown, so we'll not be a-squeezin’ it out of him,” Pryce added with prim disdain.

“You can bet your Aunt Maud’s bloomers, he’ll have ’er guarded, that’s for sure,” said Towers, with a lugubrious shake of his head.

“Guarded by whom?” asked Cate.

The men stopped, perplexed by her query.

“Who’s to guard her?” she repeated. Looking from face to face, she came around to Nathan.

“Probably the Marines,” he said, squinting speculatively. “What have you in that lovely mind?”

“If the Marines are to guard her,” she began slowly, picking through her line of logic. “Then wouldn’t it follow that the Marines would know when she’s to arrive?”

The men exchanged glances, uncertain. Nathan looked thoughtfully at the deck between his feet.

“Just ask the Marines?” Nathan asked, looking up dubiously from the corner of his eye.

Cate was a bit taken back at their failure to see the strength of her point. “Certainly. Why not? You could learn everything you need.”

Pirates weren’t shy about expressing their misgivings, and did so with verve then.

“But how do we do that?” Chin’s voice finally rose over the others.

“Kidnap one,” someone shouted from the shadowy reaches, eliciting a laugh.

“Torture ’im until ’e talks,” called another from the opposite direction. The prospect of inflicting pain brought an enthusiastic cheer.

Nathan batted an irritated hand, quieting them all. “Nay, that won’t answer. Who’s to know the one what we take would be the one knowing?”

“Well, we can’t very well just walk in and ask ‘em,” blurted Towers, ruffled by Nathan’s dismissal.

“Why not?” Cate asked.

“Because, me darling,” Towers said, condescendingly rolling his froggish eyes, “they'll take one look and smoke who we are.”

“Serve nothin’ but to get us arrested,” put in another faceless voice, bringing further murmurs of approval.

“Then send someone who doesn’t look like a pirate,” Cate said, a bit testily. She looked from one to the next, waiting for the response that never came. Instead, they stared blank-faced…except Nathan.

“And who pray tell, would that be?” he asked, his gravelly voice dropping to a near purr.

“Me.”

Nathan was both stunned and suspicious. “You'd do that for us?”

“Certainly, why not? You’ve all been so good…about everything…It’s the least I can do.”

Pryce crossed his arms and swiveled a severe eye. “Put a name to what be on yer mind?”

“Go to wherever the Marines are and talk,” Cate said, suffering to point out the obvious.

“That’s it? Talk?” Nathan gave her a queer look.

“Yes.” Seeing doubt was rampant, she explained in slow, patient terms. “With all due respect, gentlemen, it’s not a difficult recipe: put men and drink together, add a little flattery, perhaps a flutter of the lashes, and it’s but a matter of time.”

Puffed at having their weaknesses so handily dissected, the men reluctantly agreed. In order to execute said plan, there was only one person who could carry it off; Cate waited patiently until they came to the same conclusion. Nathan’s displeasure at the prospect was patently obvious, and he suffered no hesitation in voicing it, but in the face of the final vote—one man, one vote—it was approved, leaving him little choice but to go along.

“Where do we begin?” she asked.

“Eh, well,” Nathan said slowly, drawing a pensive hand down the curve of his mustache. “Hopetown is the first landfall between Boston and Bridgetown. ’Tis likely they would put in there for water and victuals, before pressing on to Barbados.”

“Then let’s start there.”

###

Cate blew out the candle that night. She laid fingering her knotted pendant and staring at the deck prism overhead. Hopetown was but a day’s sail, by Nathan’s estimation. Reef points shook out and sail packed on, the
Morganse
’s eagerness for her new destination could be felt, the decks pitched with a new stiffness.

She was not without conscience. The thought of aiding the kidnapping of another was wholly uncomfortable, the terrors of her own taking being fresh in her mind. But the cold facts were that she was aboard and therefore a part of it, whether she wished it or no. To argue against it could have put herself, and most importantly, Nathan at risk, the near-mutiny still looming near. Bullock was gone, but the seeds of dissention could still be lying, ready to sprout on the not-so-fallow ground.

The crew had voted, the decision made. Now it was but a matter of the how. Had she not spoken up, someone else—most likely Nathan—would have been obliged to do something. The incident with Bullock had already put Nathan at risk. Guilt weighed heavily and she was anxious to repay him, everyone, for that matter.

Hostage-taking had been very common among the clans in the Highlands. It had often been a contest as to which they valued more: a relative or the cattle. There had been one snatching of a person, however, that had been far more violent…

That was different, far different.

Whoever this unfortunate soul was would have it far better than she had, for there would be someone waiting to comfort and protect. The woman would come to no harm, not aboard the
Ciara Morganse
, not with Captain Nathanael Blackthorne commanding.

How different it could have been, had I known as much then.

It wasn’t fear or apprehension that made Cate’s heart race. She was just…anxious. Among a hundred-plus unwashed and weathered men, a hyacinth-colored parrot, a mongoose, a goat, and an enigmatic captain, she had found an anchorage. She had learned to trust these men, and now they were learning to trust her. Her greatest fear was of disappointing them, most particularly Nathan.

This was something that she could do as no other aboard could: entice men to drink and talk.

Child’s play!

Somewhere in the cradle of thoughts, darkness, and the easy motion of the ship, she slept.

Cate woke to the horrifying paralysis of someone standing over her, faceless and breathing heavily. Shrieking, she scrambled for the knife hidden at the mattress’s corner.

“You awake, luv?” The disembodied voice came out of the inky void.

“Nathan?” She gasped, sagging with relief.

“Did I give you a start?” His usual throatiness was thickened. The words slurred, the smell of rum rode each one.

“What in the world are you doing in here?” Heart still pounding, her own breath came in tight wheezes.

Nathan had been drinking, how much being the question. She had seen him in drink before, but only pleasantly so. The basic nature of a man could change unpredictably when drunk. How much would it require for Nathan to cross from friend to assailant? It had already compelled him to a startling invasion.

“Pray, a word, if you please,” he said precisely.

Cate nodded, but then realized the gesture was lost in the darkness. “Yes?”

More at ease, she inched away from the bulkhead and returned the knife to its home. In the darkness, Nathan’s dark form was limned by a lucent green of the prisms. A boot scraped the floor. The mattress dipped when he collided with the bunk and caught himself. Such clumsiness was disconcerting. Never had she seen him put a foot wrong. He was most certainly
very
drunk.

“Need to know something.” He audibly swallowed like the condemned, and then said determinedly, “I need to know…if you’re coming back.”

“Back?” It took her a moment to realize his meaning, made doubly difficult by having to guess where his face was. “You mean, tomorrow?”

“Aye. Are you…coming…back?”

Cate gaped into the darkness, thinking surely she had misunderstood. “Why wouldn’t I?”

A swishing jingle of silver and creak of leather marked Nathan's movement. By the sound of his breathing, he was very near. She heard the familiar rasp of the stubble of his beard as he passed a hand along his jaw. There was the intake of air in preparation to say something, but then exhaled heavily and gulped in dread.

“It occurred…maybe…perhaps…I mean…you might be thinking to…to escape.”

Nathan’s face was obscured, but his trepidation couldn’t be mistaken. Cate bit her lip, choking back a rising lump in her throat.

“I hadn’t considered myself a captive; of late, at any rate. Am I?”

“Are you what?”

“A captive.”

“Oh,” he said, puzzled.

A hand trailed along the edge of the bed toward the nightstand. With a certain amount of fumbling, the flint box was struck and Cate squinted at the glare. The candlelight flared on profile. Weaving precariously, Nathan blinked, as if noticing where he was for the first time. His sockets blackened pools in the shadows cast by his skull, he struggled to steady unfocused eyes. Swaying once, and then again, he turned to brace his back against the bulkhead. He slid slowly down, a muffled thump and clatter of his sword marking his reaching the floor. Cate inched down in the bed in order to be more on his level and propped her head in her hand.

The candle’s amber haloed Nathan’s head and shoulders, the rest of him lost to the darkness. One arm resting on a bent knee, the other limp in his lap, he gaze fixed somewhere in the vicinity of the toe of his boot.

The dark dashes of his brows drew together. “’Tis why I feared to allow you ashore,” he murmured more to himself.

His eyes pivoted up to hers, with a heart-stalling mixture of yearning and fear. “I thought you wouldn’t come back.”

“I hadn’t realized I was being held against my will,” Cate stammered, playing along, for surely it was another one of Nathan’s ploys. He was drunk. No more need be said.

“You’re free to go, luv.” He gulped again. The near-black orbs searched hers, hoping for the answer he wanted to hear, afraid of what remained.

His mouth worked as his rum-fogged mind searched for words. “Anytime. At your leisure, just say the word.”

“Where do you fancy I might go?” Heart pounding, Cate's breath caught, knowing all the while she didn’t dare believe this to be true.

“Someplace. Any place, but here.” He shook his head, waving his hand toward the beyond. “A ship, the sea’s a rough place, especially for a woman.”

“I’m comfortable.” She nestled deeper under the quilt. “For the first time in years, I have purpose and a place to belong.”

She paused, fondling the blanket as it occurred to her that this might not be a moment of truth, but another one of Nathan’s elaborate evasions, a long-winded way of desiring her to be gone. The hand draped on his knee flexing, he could swing wildly from maddeningly evasive to stunningly blunt. Which was this? Between the deep shadows and the rum, she had no way of knowing.