The Pirate Captain (81 page)

It was an unspeakable joy to have Nathan alone—well, almost. It was easy enough to pretend the child wasn’t there. She closed her eyes and listened to the timbre of his voice, ragged, yet mellow, like well-worn flannel. She oft wondered what his voice might have been before it had been so shattered. That there had been violence was evident in the scar at his throat, as to what it had been she dared not venture to inquire.

Prudence was torn between her fear of Nathan and her horror of the unknown. Every flutter, buzz of wing, or snap of twig presented eminent peril. Her base instincts of a man—especially one bearing a pistol, knife, and cutlass—as protection ultimately prevailed, and she hung at his elbow. The proximity had caused her fear to give way to something between fascination and morbid curiosity.

At length, Prudence whined of being hot and tired, and they stopped for a rest. Cate sat on the ground with Nathan spread-eagle on his back beside her. Representing that a lady never sat on the ground, Prudence perched atop a rock, near enough for safety’s sake, but far enough to be out of hearing.

“It would seem she has overcome her fear of you,” Cate observed.

Nathan raised his head to peer down the length of his body to where Prudence sat.

“Can’t understand what she’s afraid of.” He dropped his head back down and said to the trees, “Never hurt a woman in me life.”

“You’ll have to admit, for someone from Boston, you
are
a bit of a sight.”

He lifted his head to glare down his nose. “What do you mean by that?”

Cate twisted around in order to see him better. “You have no idea, do you? To the unsuspecting, you are positively…Let’s see, what word I am looking for?”

“Fearsome? Villainous? Rapacious? Scalawag?” His eyebrows waggled in hopeful anticipation.

“No…eccentric.”

“Eccentric?” His mustache drooped as he dropped his head back down. “Eccentric.” He mouthed the word with visible distaste. “Doesn’t sound very impressive.”

“Very well, exotic. How’s that?”

“Barely better,” Nathan grumbled, his dignity ruffled. “Might as well be a bloody schoolmaster.”

His indignation struck a chord. Laughter exploded from Cate. She put a hand over her mouth, her eyes bulging as it fizzed out between her fingers. Nathan rose up on one elbow and glowered.

“I’m sorry,” she said, eyes streaming. Only the barest hint of remorse could be managed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt—”

Another peal erupted. She clamped her hand over her mouth once more, only to have it explode out her nose.

“Think you’re funny, don’t you?” Nathan huffed over her giggling, which was now beyond all control. He was obliged to raise his voice in order to be heard. “So pleased you’re able to find such humor at my expense. Always glad to be of service.”

He flopped back down and glared at the trees. “Bloody woman!”

They soon pressed on, Nathan being quite anxious. The trail became steeper, but he assured them their destination was but a short distance more. The increasing sound of rushing water gave credence of something being ahead. The sound had grown to a roar, by the time they rounded an outcropping of rocks. The foliage fell away to reveal a waterfall curving along one side of a sun-drenched clearing. Nearly as wide as the
Morganse
was long, the falls were an accumulation of a number of smaller ones, anchored periodically by pillars of rock. The water sheeted down in streaks of emerald green and lime, disappearing into a roiling froth of white at the base.

The roar of the cascades made speech impossible, and so Nathan mutely waved them on. He helped them scramble up an incline, and then duck through a stand of flowering bushes, the cerise-colored petals showering their heads and shoulders. They broke out into what struck Cate as almost a room: the walls a tapestry of greens, the carpet made of moss, and a vaulted ceiling of branches. The centerpiece was a large pool, formed by a series of stair-step falls, from knee-high to the height of a man. It was considerably quieter there, the water sheeting over the tiers in a rustling gurgle. The glen’s air was thick with moisture, but pleasantly cool.

Nathan spread the quilt for Cate, while Prudence perched on a nearby log. From his sack he produced a half-round of bread, cheese, and a stone bottle of cider. While they ate their luncheon, Nathan launched into another tale of island natives and Spanish conquistadors, one out-manipulating the other in some kind of
coup de grace
.

When finished, Prudence’s youthful exuberance wouldn’t allow her to sit, so fascinated she was with every detail. The flora, that was; anything alive still sent her squealing. After saving Prudence from eminent peril—an inquisitive beetle on her shoe—Nathan drew up before Cate. Rocking on his heels, he looked far too much like a boy anxiously waiting to show his mother the frog in his pocket.

“I was thinking…I mean, if you like…Since it’s been a bit…What with everything and all…”

Cate squinted with one eye up at him. “Nathan, are you trying to say something?”

He sucked in a deep breath. “I just thought you might fancy a swim,” came out in an explosion. He waved toward the pool. “It’s fair deep enough, around the other side, at any rate. I just thought…Well, that you’d like—”

“Nathan, will you just come out with it.”

“I meant for you to enjoy today, without all the disruptions and distractions of yon witchy-girl,” he finished, with a loathing glare over his shoulder.

Looking back at Cate, he sobered. “You look like you’ve fouled your hawse. What’s amiss, luv?”

“Nothing. I’m fine,” she said, busily brushing breadcrumbs from her skirt.

“As you always insist,” Nathan said tolerantly. He crouched down to reach and stop Cate's hand. His coffee-colored eyes held hers. “Credit Ol’ Nathan a bit, eh? From the first, you stood with your shoulders square and your head up, ready to tell anyone, including me, to go to hell. Now today, you slump along with your head down…”

His words faded as he followed her gaze to Prudence.

“Ah, so I see,” he said quietly and sat back on his heels. “In all the flurry and hubbub, I’d forgotten one very salient point: you’re a woman.”

“You make it sound like a sentence.”

He snorted. “Hardly, darling. Without, the world would be a considerably less appealing: nothing but hairy chests and aching balls. It never occurred you would be one to be longing for that.”

His head inclined in the general direction of Prudence, and more importantly, what she symbolized.

“Not
long for
,” Cate qualified moodily, toying with the fabric of her skirt.

A finger to her chin brought her head up. “Then what?”

Nathan's intuition was alarming. While she had been piecing together the puzzle of Nathan Blackthorne, he had been doing the same with her. It was an uncomfortable to have him poking about in her thoughts. She had struggled with the sensation since she had seen Prudence cowering in the floor. She had preferred to think she was above it, but there it was: jealousy. It was an unbecoming color on anyone, and was even less flattering on her.

“It’s just,” Cate began. “Well, it’s just…I mean, look at her. Everyone can see it, sense it. Everyone is different: the men talk different, Mr. Kirkland brings out the best dishes, chairs are pulled out, doors are opened, the men bow…Hell, you even bowed.”

“Because I thought you desired it. I could have just as easily spit on her. I’ll go do it now, if you like.”

“It wouldn’t matter,” she sighed. He gave the impression of being more than willing to do so, if she was but to nod. “She’d still be the lady and I’d still be the—”

“That’s what’s bothering you? A bloody title?”

Nathan regarded her through a narrowed eye. His realization grew and he slumped. “I’ve only seen you in near rags. It didn’t answer you’d be one to fancy dresses and fine things.”

Cate hunched her shoulders defensively and looked away. “I don’t.”

“Ah, but you do, luv.” He scrubbed a frustrated hand at the back of his neck. “For the love of…You’ve trunk-loads in the hold and more in the cabin, yours for the taking. There’s not a tar aboard what would begrudge you a stitch of it.”

“It’s not that. Besides, it’s a ship. I couldn’t wear any of it anyway.”

Dark with concern, the coffee-and-cinnamon eyes searched hers. “This is what I’ve done to you, isn’t it? Living at sea like a Portuguese fishwife, when you could have been living in finery.”

Cate snorted and rolled her eyes. “Living where? I have no place.”

His steady gaze prodded her to continue. The memories were all so much more manageable when she kept them stashed away. Once freed, it was like Pandora’s box, the pain and regrets devouring her. Each time they were released, they were doubly difficult to pack away.

“I’m not some poor wastrel who doesn’t know what she’s missing. I had all that. Maybe not as fine as Lady Bart’s, but I know what I lost. My family owned thousands of acres; my mother’s mother was third cousin to the Spanish Royal House, a Hapsburg. Brian’s uncle was The Mackenzie, the head of the biggest clan in Scotland. We lived on an estate, with dozens of tenants; Brian was laird of it all. I know what I’ve lost. I just don’t appreciate having my nose rubbed in it.”

There it was: the stab high up under her ribs that always came with remembering. She rubbed her forehead, cheeks heating in frustration at how horribly desperate she sounded.

“Perhaps I should have ransomed you after all.”

She heard the tease in Nathan’s voice and looked up, the sight of his gold and ivory grin eliciting a reluctant one from her.

“Save your energy; it’s all so very, very gone,” Cate said tartly.

Nathan's smile faded and he sobered. “And I’ll wager you mourned when it was gone.”

“I mourned for
who
I lost, not what.” She would have traded it all to have Brian back, but Fate had chosen not to leave her even that bargaining chip. In a single day—in a matter of a few hours—she had gone from a lady of substance to a nameless fugitive, with nothing more to her name than what could be stuffed in a saddlebag.

“It’s just around her, I feel—I feel the same as when I was at Lady Bart’s, with Harte and all those others looking at me…like I didn’t fit in. Which, yes, I know I don’t,” she said peevishly. “Never have—not fully—but it’s just that—”

He batted his lids in disbelief. “Yet again with the ‘don’t fit in?’ I saw you wade into the midst of strange men—pirates, I might add—half-naked, and proceed to sew a man’s flesh. You’ve lived on a ship among a hundred-odd and have earned the respect of every one of them, a feat not to be dismissed,” he added, wagging his finger at her. “You lived alone in London for years, survived a war and shed enough blood to gain the attention of the Crown.”

“And yet put me in a room with silk and lace, and all I can think of is to crawl into the corner. No one will ever mistake me for a lady.”

Her throat tightened at the echo of her mother’s words. Time and again, she had endured her mother’s bemoaning of her lack of grace and modesty, all as impossible to attain as more sloping shoulders and a jaw less bold.

“You’re far too much woman to be wasted on fop and frippery,” Nathan said coldly.

Cheeks burning with embarrassment, Cate tried to look away, but Nathan took her by the chin and firmly pulled her back. A tremor ran through his fingertips as he locked her eyes with his.

“And any bastard—man or woman—what fails see that, doesn’t warrant being in your presence. The corner is never where you belong. You should be front and center.”

Nathan rose and began pacing, his hands carving the air. “Tell me—hell, tell the entire crew what you desire, luv. If it’s a fine house, jewels, servants, then so it shall be. If you want, I’ll get you an entire goddamned island, and you can have your personal empire. You can hold court over them all, and they’ll be obliged to kiss your skirts and beg your leave.”

Checking himself, he drew up before Cate and smiled. “Just tell me what you want and Ol’ Nathan will get it for you.”

“None of that.” Touched by his resolve, Cate's throat tightened. “I’m not ashamed, nor have I minded—”

“But now she has you looking around, seeing what you don’t have,” he put in knowingly.

“I know what I
do
have.” She looked up and said earnestly, “Thank you, Nathan. Have I ever said that?”

“For what?”

“Everything: my life, a place to belong, food, shelter, purpose…a friend.”

Nathan smiled, both recalling his adamant objections when she first bestowed the title. Modesty flowed abundant, the heavy lashes lowering. “No worries, luv. A decent man would do no else.”

“And you are decent, aren’t you?”

He grimaced and leaned down to say, “I’d prefer it if you didn’t broadcast that last bit about,” in low-voiced confidence.

Cate smiled. “Consider it done; my lips are sealed.”

Tease lurked once more in the cinnamon highlights of his eyes. “I knew you were quality, the moment I laid eyes on you.”

“Quality doesn’t pay the butcher, nor feed the dormouse,” Cate said tartly.

“Aye, but ’tis an admirable trait what doesn’t necessarily come with title or position.”

Nathan slid his eyes sideways toward the pool. “Then how’s about a nice bath? The Queen of Persia never had one as grand. Better than any
lady
could ever dream of.”

He gave her one of those smiles that was meant to charm, and it did. The hot bath a few days before had been wonderful, but there had been no opportunity to wash since. The hike had left Cate hot and sticky, her shift stuck to her ribs under her stays. Filled with regret and embarrassment and touched by his concern, she hoped he didn’t notice her eyes were beginning to brim as she nodded. But, of course, he did. He missed blessed little.

With his usual elegant grace and a gesture reminiscent of Mr. Al-Nejem
,
touching his fingertips to his lips and heart, Nathan bent and swept a hand toward the pool. “M’ lady.”

Nathan moved to a discreet distance. Cate went behind a fern, its massive fiddle-heads nearly head-high. She struggled out of her laces and peeled away the sweat-dampened layers of clothing. Wary of the slippery rocks, she probed the water’s shallows with a cautious foot until the drop-off was found, and slipped in.