The Pirate Captain (57 page)

“Let’s wash you up,” said Sally, in a motherly tone as she set down a basin of hot water. Exhaustion turning her limbs to sand, Cate yielded to her competent hands, while Lady Bart rammed about the room like a ranting bee in a bottle.

Under Sally’s watchful eye, Cate finished the brandy and another was poured. At the senior maid’s silent bidding, the chambermaid intercepted Lady Bart, and crooning patiently, steered her out of the room. The door was pulled shut and blessed quiet befell the chamber.

Sally surveyed Cate critically as she sponged her arms. “Will you be well?”

“Yes, I’ll be fine,” Cate sighed, touched by her sincerity. With some effort, she raised a hand to her head. Surprised to see her hand quivering, she let it fall back to her lap. “I didn’t realize I was so tired.”

“That would be the brandy working. Drink up, and then take your rest.”

Brandy finished, Cate allowed herself to be tucked deep into the quilts. Sally moved in virtual silence across the Turkish rugs to pull the shutters closed, and then left, the latch of the door clicking faintly behind her.

Lying on her side, Cate fingered the knotted pendant at her neck, suffused with the contentment of a goal accomplished. That shining victory was tarnished, however: her plan had only gone as far as providing a distraction for Nathan’s rescue. Escape for her wasn’t an option, not yet at any rate. To do so would be to risk leading Harte and his Marines to Nathan.

She had the sudden sense of being watched. Lifting her head, she was met with a glare of intense accusation from the nameless Dunwoody ancestor on the mantel.

“What?” she huffed at the ancient face. “I’ve done what I might. Nathan’s free. The rest will just have to bide until I can think of something…something…later.”

###

Leaving the town in their wake, Pryce was caught between the need for haste and the burden of a battered and dazed Cap’n. And so they pushed on, as hasty as could be managed.

Confident any pursuit was outdistanced, Pryce called a halt in a quiet glade. With a running stream and good defenses, he figured to bide, until the Cap’n could find his legs.

Pryce wryly smiled. ’Twas a wonder how cooperative a soul could be at gunpoint, and so soon being yanked from his warm bed. Two strokes by the town’s sleepy-eyed smith, and the Cap’n was free of the shackles. A few coins smoothed ruffled feathers and bought the smithy’s silence, but such loyalty would only endure, until the arrival of someone with a larger coin, and make no mistake.

Watches posted, Pryce hunched down next to where the Cap’n laid, head pillowed on a log, and gave him a critical eyeballing.

“How bad is it?”

The Cap’n’s voice was a start, figuring him either asleep or out cold.

“If I may make so bold, I’ve seen ye worse, but more oftener I’ve seen ye a damn sight better. ’Pears they had their way with ye,” Pryce said judiciously.

“A bit,” came with effort and a sigh.

An outright blatant exaggeration on the skipper’s part, it was. It was Pryce’s notion a fair job of beating had been done. Eye swollen shut, split lip, scraped cheek, nose bleeding—not busted, just bleeding—he promised a sight by the morrow. The raw wrists told the tale: they’d taken their time. It had been a beating, but a careful one: not to maim or kill, just inflict pain, and a good deal. ’Twas a sorrow not heeding Mr. Cate’s pleas. Might be the Cap’n could have been spared considerable abuse.

The Cap’n grunted as he shifted. “Stand by and allow me to get me head clear.” In the spirit of that thought, the one eye that could open did so, squeezing shut in rapid succession. “How the bloody hell did you find me?”

“A little bird told us,” Pryce said dryly. He directed the Cap’n’s attention toward a feathery flash of blue perched overhead.

“The bugger’s been a talkative sort, lately.” The Cap’n groaned and closed his eyes.

Pryce rose and searched out a suitable leaf. Folding it into a cup, he made several trips from the stream with water for the Cap’n. The first few sips were swished and spat, the next drink drunk as if God’s milk.

“Mr. Cate gonna be near apoplexy when she sees you,” Pryce mused.

The Cap’n began a grim smile, but was checked by a split lip. Probing his face and working his jaw, he said, “Might be well-advised if I were to stand off out here for the while. You’ll be obliged to keep her shipped. Otherwise, the bloody woman will track me down. Most determined woman I’ve ever met.”

“’N no bones about it,” Pryce agreed heartily.

The Cap’n saw something that didn’t serve. “She is aboard, is she not?”

Pryce looked to the ground between his feet. Damn! Now there was what he dreaded most. Eyes like a hawk, the skipper had, able to see into a man’s soul better than a witchy-woman. Failing orders was galling enough; failing the Cap’n like some fond and feckless scrum was worse.

“She made it aboard, did she not?” the Cap’n repeated, the battered face clouding ominously.

“Well, d’ye see—”

“Where is she, Pryce?”

“Well, ’twas like this, you know how she can be—”

“Where is she?!”

“We needed a diversion, and so…”

“Where the goddamned hell is she!” Blood set to trickling from the Cap’n’s nose.

Pryce drew a deep breath. “Harte’s got her.” The Cap’n would never hit him, but he braced for the storm in the offing.

“How the…?” He blenched and rolled away to puke.

Pryce winced in sympathy. He’d suffered stove-in ribs, knew the agony what would come with each retch, and bore a hand at the finish. Alternating between gasping and swearing, the Cap’n clutched his sides, while Pryce fetched more water. Much to his relief, this time it stayed down.

“I’m glad it’s you, Pryce,” muttered the Cap’n at one point, fondling the makeshift cup. “If it were her, she’d insist on that damned honey water of hers.”

“Aye, she would, at that. Sets a great store by it, she does,” Pryce heartily agreed. “And sure as a cock’s crow, you'd be drinkin’ it, and the Devil take ye.”

“No telling her ‘no’, is there?”

“No, there ain’t. Nathan, I beg yer leave. She wouldn’t hove to. Hell, you know how she is.”

“Don’t I, though.” The Cap’n sighed, that small movement causing him to wince.

“Ribs broke?”

“Nay, just tender. Me stomach took the worst. I’ve the impression they weren’t quite done with me, yet.”

“Aye! Ye wouldn’t be a-drawin’ breath else.”

The Cap’n took on a dogged look. “I can’t leave her, mate, not with him.”

“Aye.” A blind man could have seen that coming. Getting the Cap’n to stay put whilst the rest went to fetch Mr. Cate: now that looked to call for a fair bit of doing. When the skipper set his mind, one might as well try to turn the tides.

Pryce squinted up from under his brows. “Don’t suppose you could mebbe stand off a bit, do ye? Won’t do ’er or anyone else much good, if yer laid out in the bushes somewheres.”

“Always the pragmatic.” The Cap’n grinned as much as he dared. It didn’t go unnoticed that the question went unanswered. “Might you spare a bit of that rum you hold so dear?”

“I’m speechless as to what ye be implyin!’” Pryce said, feigning ignorance.

“Buggering hell, man! You’ve toted that flask since the day you shipped. You fancy it more than you fancy a fat widow. Now, give over.”

In grudging good humor, Pryce fished the flask from his shirt and they shared, the Cap’n in careful increments. No sense in wasting it, if the Cap’n was just going to puke it. While they awaited the rum’s restorative powers, he regaled the Cap’n with Mr. Cate’s performance in front of the blacksmith’s. He laughed, clutching his sides.

“She’s one brave lass,” Pryce said admiringly. “I ain’t never seed the likes.”

Considering the tales she told and the scars she carried, the woman had endured what would have broken many a man. Instead of slinking—and not a mother’s son would blame her and she did—she looked the world square on and told it to go to hell!

“Aye, it’s a rare attribute,” the skipper said, looking off. “’Tis is likely to get her killed by and by.”

“Likely to get
you
killed. She’s near as crazed as you.”

The Cap’n struggled to his feet and swayed. He took several steps, as if unsure of where the ground was. Finally, he folded to his knees at the stream’s bank. He dipped a hand, like he was of two minds. Then he crumpled to the ground and rolled to land face down in the water. Grasping a rock, he floated like a corpse, the water swirling reddish-brown in his wake. In the time a normal soul would have foundered, he rolled over, hair streaming like kelp. Pryce rubbed a tired hand over his face. The man was always half fish.

Eventually, the Cap’n stood in midstream and shook off like a great dog. The blood and filth gone, he was white as a ship’s biscuit, but nearer to decent. The eye once matted shut stood open. He sat next to Pryce and put out a hand for the flask.

“What’s in yer head regardin’ her?” Pryce asked, smacking his lips in satisfaction after his own pull.

It took the Cap’n so long to reply, Pryce allowed he mightn’t.

“I’m on beam ends on this one, mate.” The Cap’n lifted a hand, then dropped it in surrender. “There’s not much I can do. She’s married.”

Pryce squinted, thinking perhaps he’d been hit in the head harder than credited. “Never caused ye to set yer sails aback afore.”

“I don’t know. Scupper and burn me, if I know why, but it does this time.”

###

Cate floated between the delicious netherworld of sleep and the harsh reality of day, knowing it necessary to leave the one, but unwilling to cope with the other. At length, she let go her desperate grasp and allowed the day to drag her up to join it in all its glory.

She had no idea of the time. The sun blocked the shutters, the room too dim to see the clock. She contemplated the benefits of lying abed and waiting for it to chime. Reprimanding herself for such decadence, she rose. Wrapped in a corner of the quilt, she shuffled to the window and pushed back the shutters. Squinting, she shielded her eyes against the brilliance and checked the sky. Brooding clouds gathered in low behind the trees, but she determined it to be well past midday. As if on cue, the clock chimed a delicate “two.”

Cate groaned aloud. Tea was not far away. Soon Sally would burst in to prepare her for another session with Lady Bart and her guests, including the ever-impressive and omnipresent Commodore Harte. At the moment, she couldn’t imagine how she could look the bastard in the face, let alone speak, pleasantness being in the realm of impossible. She pinched the bridge of her nose, and measured the prospects of pleading a headache, illness…better yet, insanity. Given her earlier performance, the latter would be readily credited.

She looked up into the judgmental stares from the room’s faces.

“I beg your leave, but I’m fresh out of answers,” she said crossly to the circular curia.

A light scratch at the door was the only warning before Sally burst in, arms loaded. Spreading her burden on the bed, she propped her hands on her hips and regarded Cate with a critical eye. “You appear rested.”

“I feel much better, thank you.” Physically, sleep had been rejuvenating; emotionally she was spent, thought and conversation coming only with effort.

A gown—and all its accompanying accoutrements—had been brought, another pass-down, no doubt. In a surge of defiance, Cate declined and insisted on wearing her own. If she was to meet Lady Bart’s guests, it would be as herself. Sally put up a fair protest, but Cate’s doggedness prevailed. There was some turmoil regarding the whereabouts of said clothing, with the off chance they had been disposed of. At length—and to her great relief—they were found. Carefully spread out in place of the gown, Cate’s skirt and stays were barely recognizable after a transformational laundering and pressing, the apron as pristine as the day Billings had crafted it.

“You don’t have to go,” Sally said.

The cogs of Cate’s mind ground slowly, dimly wondering if perhaps she had voiced that wishful thought without realizing. “Excuse me?”

“Tea,” Sally enunciated, as if Cate might be a trifle dim.

“I thought attendance was compulsory.”

Sally waved that off. “I could give your compliments, and then your regrets. I’ll tell them you’re too distraught and not at your leisure.”

Cate bit her lip. Sally’s directness was both unique and refreshing. The offer was tempting, deliciously so. She could play the overwrought victim, but to do so would run the risk of missing word of Nathan’s welfare. If he had been captured or found dead, heaven forbid, it would be the highlight of the afternoon.

No, she would go.

Cate was ushered to a stool before a dressing table. Mesmerized by the rasp of Sally brushing her hair, she closed her eyes. It was a luxury, one life rarely allowed. Sitting on a tufted satin stool, before a table laden with toiletries befitting of a lady of substance, she felt decadent.

The brush abruptly stopped. Cate snapped from her reverie to find Sally solemnly staring at her through the mirror’s reflections.

“Did Blackthorne hurt you?” The maid’s voice was sharp and abrupt, but rooted in earnest concern.

Cate had given it no mind, but the ruined gown, hysterics, and a tear-swollen face would have given the impression she had been ravished, or at the least, used rough.

“No; I appreciate the thought, but no, he didn’t hurt me,” Cate said, smiling faintly.

“You love him, don’t you?”

Cate looked again into Sally’s steady gaze, the hairbrush poised in mid-stroke. “Beg pardon?”

“You love him,” Sally repeated evenly. Romanticism softened the stern features. “You have been on that ship with him all that time, and now you love him.”

She set to brushing once more, muttering under her breath, “Some women have a way of picking the wrong man.”

Cate shifted gaze to the weary, turquoise-eyed image before her. Did she? Had she fallen in love with Nathan?

A pang of guilt knotted her gut. Since losing Brian, she had never considered the possibility of another man. For years, it had seemed traitorous to think of another man in her bed. But the cold hard facts were, she was ready. It was painful to look into the mirror and admit it: Brian was gone and Nathan was there; he was most definitely there. For the last weeks, her world had been suffused with him.