The Pirate Captain

CHAPTER 8: Social Skills

Cate came out of the cabin and lifted her hair to allow what little breeze there was to cool her neck. Her shift was damp with sweat and she wriggled against the stays where the linen stuck to her ribs.

The Morganse had been before the wind since the morning sun struggled up through a haze-shrouded horizon. It meant moving with the wind, the effect being as if there was no wind at all, and the air pressed like a hot mask at one’s face. Consequently, she had spent much of it in the cabin, where what little breeze there was funneled through.

Cate had practiced her knot-tying—in peace, but to no avail—and read. Later, she had embroidered. There was precious little thread remaining; each bit she treasured. She took great joy the process of watching the images of flower, vine, and leaf emerge with the addition of each stitch. Through the weeks hence, Nathan had often observed over her shoulder, fascinated as well.

“I’ve been around the world, more times than I care to count, and I've not seen work like that,” Nathan said in open admiration.

He reached to examine it more closely, but thought better, his hands being so tar-stained. Instead, he tucked them into his belt and peered over her shoulder. He showed a surprising knowledge of design and color. As he bent, his braids fell forward, brushing her shoulders. His breath warm on her neck set her glowing both from his praise and nearness.

But now, eyes too tired and light too poor, Cate stopped working. Nathan had proclaimed repeatedly he didn’t care how many candles she burned.

“Light it up like a wretched lightship, if you wish!”

But such indulgences didn’t come easily.

The night threatened to be nearly as warm as the day, the air and sea too heat-stricken to stir. Cate thought longingly of the Highlands, with its cool lochs and tumbling burns in which one could splash. To dream, however, only served to highlight one’s misfortune.

She stretching her back and working the stiffness from her fingers, she followed the voices outside. She balked at the mass of men. It had to have been the entire company. The last time she had witnessed such a gathering, it had been incited by Bullock’s agitating, but there was a vast difference in the mood now. There was a tension in the air, but more in the way of vested interest rather than dissension.

Gathered under the halo of the lamps, Nathan and Pryce were at roughly the center. Nearby, atop stacked bags of Hermione’s dry fodder, Millbridge looked comfortably on from a position of honor. Away from the light of the lanterns, the moon shone on the intent faces. There was no smoking allowed on board, but chewing tobacco was, although lo unto the poor unthinking soul who spat on Hodder’s holy deck! Those who chose to indulge did so from the leeward rail, adding an odd, staccato chorus of spitting.

Cate halted at the outer margins of the gathering to listen.

“Nay, nay,” Pryce was saying. “That won’t answer. The Royal Navy’ll smoke us afore we’re clear o’ the harbor.”

“I ’aven't ’eard you come up with anything yet,” pouted Smalley.

“Now, now, mates,” Nathan intervened. “Squabbling don’t pay the purser.”

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.

“If you don’t mind too much,” she began, measuring each word, “I thought I’d return…for a while…at least?”

Nathan tipped his head back against the wall in relief. Shoulders sagging, the hand in his lap clenched in a victorious fist. He glanced up shyly, and then away. She ventured to touch him lightly on the shoulder and his head jerked around.

“Thank you, Nathan.”

He scowled with the effort of thinking. “For what?”

“For giving me a home, a place to belong. It’s been a long time.”

Fumbling, his hand came to rest over hers and squeezed. “Anytime, luv.”

Nathan’s eyes drifted to aimlessly traverse the dark room. Like a great tree, he slowly toppled sideways into the darkness, his bells clattering softly on the floor.

“Nathan?”

Rising on her elbow, Cate strained to see. Nathan lay on his side, only his hips and rear now lit. She slipped off the bunk and picked her way through his out-flung limbs to kneel next to him. Asleep or fallen out, a blissful smile curved under his mustache. She pressed her fingers to her lips to suppress something between laughter and tears. Checking to make sure the salon was clear, she retrieved his coat from atop a trunk and brought it back to spread over his shoulders. Bells jingling faintly, he stirred, and then settled, sighing contentedly.

“Sleep well, luv,” she whispered. Smoothing stray hairs from his face, she tucked the coat more snugly around him.

Blowing out the candle, she crawled back into bed and slept as she had never before.



###



The island of New Providence proved to possess two roads, which intersected at a given point. Cate stood at said crossroads, feeling like a character in a fable, trying to choose which fork to follow.

After Nathan’s midnight appearance at her bunkside, she had wakened the next morning to His Lordship shuffling about an empty bedside; Nathan was already gone. When he finally made his appearance in the salon, he was his usual, insufferable, cheery self, shouting for Mr. Kirkland, coffee, and Hermione’s tea. She waited for him to say something about the night before, but either through his typical fashion of ignoring the inconvenient, or the convenience of drunken forgetfulness, he gave no sign of recollection. Perhaps it was just as well; morning-after scenes could be awkward. The sentiments expressed were dismissed, as well. Best the whole thing be forgotten.

The Ciara Morganse had slipped into New Providence’s back bay under the pinking skies of dawn. Nathan had spent the bulk of the day and into the night pacing, haranguing everyone in his path. Beatrice and any topsman who could find sufficient excuse, retreated to the mastheads, much to the admiration of everyone left below.

“You don’t have to do this. You’ve done more than enough to prove yourself,” Nathan intoned more than once.

He briefed and debriefed Cate again and again, only to return after each with a finger skyward and a “One more thing”, until she finally excused him with a stern finger of her own and an exasperated “Get out!”

The plan was basic, therefore with less room for complications: where there are taverns, there are soldiers. It was a simple axiom. Somewhere in Hopetown was a tavern or alehouse where the garrison’s Marines gathered to drink. Cate was to find said tavern, posing as hostage from the Constancy and just escaped from pirates. In essence, it was the truth, and so, provable. After, it would be a simple matter of playing damsel-in-distress, drink enough to be sociable, sit, wait and listen. By evening, she was to return to the bay, where a boat would be waiting to deliver her back to the Morganse.

In the time Cate had known Nathan, he had never seemed the pessimist: his glass—better yet, rum bottle—was always half full. As the plan solidified, however, he came up with an endless list of what-could-go-wrong scenarios, to the point of Mr. Pryce looking strained when Nathan launched into a lengthy and convoluted premise of the entire Royal Navy springing up from nowhere.

Nathan had been adamant about seeing her ashore, as if by some stroke of stupidity she might not find it, and then wouldn’t relent, until he had seen her through the trees to the road. She was glad for his arm, however. For her first steps on solid land, she was rubbery-legged. She had become so accustomed to the liveliness of decks under her feet, the ground was too solid and unyielding, and never where her feet expected it to be. Giggling, she staggered against Nathan as he led her to the road, as if she had emptied Nathan’s half-full bottle.

“I don’t like this.” Nathan glared at the road, no more than a glorified path, and then her. “I don’t like it a-tall.”

“Nonsense. How difficult can it be?”

“You’re unarmed.”

Cate inwardly groaned at what had been another point of contention.

“I can’t very well claim to be an escaped captive wearing a pistol, now can I?” she said acerbically, as she had every time. Pryce had thankfully concurred, or Nathan would have never relented.

“Allow me to at least walk you to the—”

“And risk being seen together?” She arched a brow, driving home the unfortunate implications of that.

“Sundown,” Nathan warned, shaking a finger at her as if she were a wayward child. “I’ll be right here—as will you! Now, you have your knife?”

“Yes!” For no less than the fortieth time, she thought crossly. He had insisted on sharpening it himself to the point at which she wondered what kept it from slicing through her pocket.

Unperturbed—as always—Nathan pressed on, continuing to make her feel like that same juvenile being sent off for the first day of school.

“Mind your purse.”

“Don’t stop for any strangers.”

“Don’t walk too fast.”

“You should have a parasol.”

“Mind the heat.”

“Nathan, good-by,” she said with finality.

“I’ll be right here at dark. Can you remember that?”

“I’d have to be a complete dolt not to,” she huffed under her breath.

With an encouraging pat on the arm, she gave him a peck him on the cheek. She didn’t have the heart to look back as she took her leave, unable to bear his forlorn look.

Now ashore, there Cate stood at the literal and proverbial fork in the road. In all the briefings, no one had mentioned this. With no other option to hand, she followed the time-honored tradition: plucked a piece of grass, closed her eyes and dropped it. The blade fell pointing left, so left she went.

The road was no more than well-pounded wagon ruts dotted with the occasional oxen or horse droppings. Its width could almost be spanned by extending her arms. Privacy and solitude were scarce commodities on a ship, and so she strolled, relishing every moment. Her senses were assaulted with sights, smells, and sounds, and she eagerly devoured them all. She hadn’t felt terra firma under her feet, nor heard anything alive other than a seagull in over three months; St. Agua had been a cruel temptation. As she went deeper into the protection of land and trees, the air grew denser, becoming almost too thick to breathe. Stopping often in open-mouthed awe at the edenic forest, she experienced the same thrill of discovery that the first explorers must have suffered. The verdant lushness, bright jeweled tones of birds, insects, and flowers stabbed her eyes after months of naught but saturated blue. The smells alone made her heady: leaves, moss, green—yes, green did have its own scent—and ferns, mixed with the sweet, earthy smell of dirt and the pungent animal stench.

It was heavenly!

Amid the raucous calls from bevies of multi-colored birds, chittering and scolding could be heard: small, furry beings alarmed at her passage. Her step slowed at hearing a slithering rustle in the grass at her ankles.

“If it crawls, slinks, scuttles or slithers, don’t touch it!” had been Nathan’s admonition.

“No danger there!” she said aloud.

All too soon, she found herself in the middle of Hopetown. The sun’s heat and light glared off near-white of the crushed oyster shells which paved the streets. It muffled the clop of the horse hooves, the wheels of passing carriages and carts grinding softly. A small town by many standards, it seemed a metropolis to her. It wasn’t Edinburgh, London, or Bristol, but it was the largest—only—town she had been in for months. In many ways it was the same as every town: people scurrying about on their daily business, hawkers with their push-carts and colorful shop signs over the sidewalk, advertising their wares: silversmith, glassblower, tailor, tobacconist, or wigmaker. Palm trees notwithstanding, what separated this from the other cities were the multi-colored faces that peeked out from under the hats, bonnets, kerchiefs, and parasols: white, black, brown, and yellow, with every hue in between.

It was fascinating!

Cate peeked in the windows of the first few shops she passed. Glares from the proprietors set her on her way. The passing citizens eyed her—a woman unescorted was to be noted—disapproving sniffs the most common reaction. It was no wonder, she thought, looking down at herself. In her worn clothes and tar-stained shoes, she was quite beggarly. She followed the lumbering wagons, handcarts, and freight drays, and the smell of the waterfront to the lesser side of town, for that was where she would find the taverns Marines would frequent. As the surrounding voices grew more boisterous and sharper-tongued, she felt less conspicuous.

Mumbling something about “damned pauper,” Nathan had tucked a purse heavy with coins into her pocket. Her stomach rumbled as she passed the street vendors. Breakfast had been marginal. Mr. Kirkland, so distracted by the prospect of her departure, had burned the porridge beyond salvation. She still hadn’t acquired a taste for ship’s biscuit—Every time she looked, she swore she saw things moving in it—softened in broth. She bought a roll from a lady with a basket on a corner. Filled with diced meats and vegetables, it was so very reminiscent of bridies, the meat pies of Scotland. After an orange on a stick, she tried something called plantains, cooked over a small brazier by a woman in a brightly striped skirt.

Cate came across two taverns that held promise, but the clientele was too well-dressed, and so she moved on. Down the street a bit nearer the docks were four more taverns, roughly forming a square: The Rose and Crown, The Pewter Pot, The Admiral’s Cabin, and The Sign of the George. Finding a shady spot under a fragrantly flower-covered archway, she waited. In this section of town, a woman standing alone drew attention, but for different reasons. She was approached by men offering their coins. The first one took her rejection kindly, the second and third were a bit dim. Some of Nathan’s dark oaths, mixed with a few learned from her husband, sent them scurrying on their way.

Standing and waiting proved not as easy as one might have predicted. When walking, all was well, but once still, Cate discovered the consequences of months at sea: everything moved, the world swaying in ghostly memory of waves. A hand anchored to the wall was of little help. A few times she had to catch herself, feeling she was about to topple over. Bracing a hand to her forehead, she closed her eyes, but instantly found that the wrong thing to do, the oscillating only intensifying. The only solution was walking and so she did. Strolling slowly, she bore a sharp eye on the establishments.

Heat and thirst were beginning to take their toll, when luck finally came Cate’s way in the form of four bright red coats of Marines. Jostling and guffawing, they paid her no heed as they passed within a few feet and barged into The Rose and Crown. Four more immediately filed in, followed directly by three more. Apparently, she had found the glory hole! She began to smooth her hair, and then checked herself: if she was supposed to have been just escaped, a bit tousled was to be expected. She stepped across and went in.

The taproom was a fairly large, saw-dust floored, low-ceilinged affair, with rough tables and benches. Its beams had been blackened by decades of fire, candle, and tobacco smoke. The air was thick with a combination of ale, burned food, wax, and tinges of urine and vomit. A typical tavern. The keeper behind the counter gave Cate a minatory eye—there was only one reason a woman would enter alone—and then went on about his business, assuming her to do the same. The Marines were scattered among several tables in the room’s middle, and so she chose one off to the side. As she sat, she caught the whiff of something else: her own sweat. She hadn’t thought to be that nervous.

The servant girl, a waif with brown snakes for braids, appeared wordlessly, setting Cate’s tankard in front of her with the same amount of enthusiasm as she had taken the order. The ale was sour, but not bitter, with a slightly sweet aftertaste that made it tolerable. Best of all, it was cool. She tipped her head back to let it slide down her throat and wash away the road dust. It had been a long time since she had been able to enjoy a drink. Heaven knew, rum flowed freely on the Morganse. God, how she hated the stuff! It tasted like old socks, but she didn't dare say as much to Nathan—

“Pray, I beg pardon, Madam…?”

Cate was snapped from her reverie by a male voice directly over her. She looked up into the blue and white of a Royal Navy uniform.

“Commodore Roger Harte, your servant—”

She had the sudden sensation of falling backwards and jerked with a violence that shot her drink out of its mug. With reflexes of a swordsman, Harte artfully dodged the flying liquid, although a fine spray of ale glittered on the dark blue wool.

“No, mind,” Harte said, waving away her apologies and attempts to wipe the mess with her apron. “Please, leave us shift over here. You!” he called sharply to the sullen serving girl. “Attend this and bring us two drinks. Cider?” he asked of Cate.

Too flustered to think else, she weakly replied “Ale.”

Harte’s surprise and disapproval at of Cate drinking something so common was evident, but fleeting. He drew a vast handkerchief from his sleeve—deeply laced and scented—and fastidiously dabbed at his coat.

“Commodore Roger Harte, at your service, Madam,” he announced once more. He swept off his hat and made an elegant leg.

Still discomposed, her voice failed. Clearing her throat, she tried anew. “Cate Harper.”

He seized her hand and kissed it, flashing a smile of even white teeth meant to charm. “Enchanted. Shall I join you?”

Harte sat without an answer, the drinks arriving shortly thereafter. It was worth noting that he had ordered nothing specifically for himself, and yet a glass—not a mug—was set before him, with the significance of it being exactly as he would wish.

“It's so enlightening to find someone as charming as yourself, in an establishment such as this.” Harte spoke in a carefully cultured accent. His nostrils flared slightly with distaste. “These small settlements can be at times such a tribulation. I couldn’t help but notice you were unescorted.”

Cate smiled faintly. That pointed observation could have its feet in either chivalry or overtures of a baser sort. In desperate need of time to compose herself, she dipped her nose into her drink and regarded him over the rim.

It was difficult not to stare. Across from her sat the man whose warships had pursued the Ciara Morganse, fired with intent to kill. Given the reaction by any Morganser, most especially Nathan, at the mere mention of his name, Harte wasn’t the monster she had expected. He was fairly good-looking and relatively young for one of such advanced rank. Verdantly green-eyed and cleanly profiled, the golden hue of his skin—a product of years of living outdoors—had an undertone of blue-blooded sallowness. In spite of its deepness, he had one of those nasal, flat voices that made even the most exhilarating words sound painfully dull. Plumed and powdered, gilded and laced everywhere that could possibly support it, she was gratified to see his linens beginning to wilt from the tropical heat. A longing for Nathan’s simplicity seized her.

“Don’t you agree, Madam Harper?”

Cate blinked to find Harte staring expectantly at her.

“Don’t you agree, Madam Harper?” he repeated. He pointedly looked down at her hand on the handle of her tankard and her wedding ring gleaming dully.

“Yes, I dare say.” She smiled vaguely, straining to recall what he might have said.

She had no experience with the His Majesty’s Navy, but enough with the Army to know his type: rigid, reserved, ambitious, and judgmental. He was doing so that very moment as he drank: openly regarding her over the rim, trying to decide to which category in his regimented life she belonged: lady, servant, or common whore. The latter seemed the more fertile ground.

“I’ve not seen you before and I come here frequently.” The smile Harte displayed was a bit forced and suffered a cruel curve. “You’ve a strange accent, but you’ve the speech and bearing of a lady, although you drink ale like a monger’s wife. You’ve the skin of a lady, too, although you have been in the sun of late. Tall, although,” he added more to himself as his eyes raked her, assessing her as one would a new milch cow.

It was becoming glaringly apparent that Harte wasn’t going to leave until his curiosity was satisfied. With no other apparent choice, Cate gathered her nerve and began.

She displayed her own charming smile, and coyly batted her lashes. “I beg you to excuse my awkwardness, Commodore. I’ve just escaped from a pirate ship. I’m a little discommoded and certainly not myself.”

“Oh, dear! My poor, poor…” His mouth moved wordlessly during this honest display of emotion. “I had no idea. Are you all well? But of course, you aren’t! What did those blackguards do to you?”

“No, no, I’m quite well. They were ever so kind.”

Harte leaned forward with startling intensity. “Tell me of it. What unfortunate set of circumstances put someone so delicate in such dreadful harm?”

“I was on a ship from England: the Constancy. Do you know her?”

“I certainly do, “ he said with sudden vehemence. “The Commissioner’s family was to have arrived on her, until they were ruthlessly slaughtered by pirates. I’m sure it was only by Providence that you—”

“Slaughtered?” Cate blurted, gaping.

“Ruthlessly cut down as the captain pleaded for their lives,” Harte said, through clenched teeth. His fist curled around his glass.

“By whose word?”

He bristled at her disbelief, unaccustomed at being questioned. “The captain; I received his report at Fort Charles. He also represented that a woman had been taken.”

She eyed Harte with new suspicion. It seemed highly unlikely Captain Chambers would have manufactured such an outrageous lie, unless of course, he had been coerced. The probability leaned toward the truth-bending having started with the one seated before her. Her stomach clenched at the sudden feeling of a fly lured by a spider. There was only person who could disprove Harte’s claims: her. She bit back any further objections; to do so might not best serve her purposes.

“And yet, the pirates spared you,” he said with renewed interest.

“Why, yes,” Cate replied faintly.

“Then I must conclude you’ve been on the Ciara Morganse. You’ll be acquainted with Captain Nathanael Blackthorne, then?”

“Blackthorne?” She shifted under the green gaze, which had gone slightly reptilian. “Yes, I believe so. An odd chap, with strange hair?”

“Yes, that would be Blackthorne,” Harte said, coldly. “I hope he didn’t…harm you.”

“No, not at all,” she said as emphatically as she dared, while demurely bowing her head. “He was quite the gentleman.”

“So tragic,” Harte murmured, quite sympathetic. “The terrors you must have been forced to endure, and yet you faced them with such conviction and bravery.”

Cate feigned sudden interest in her mug, swallowing down both ale and a withering retort to his patent presumptuousness. She didn’t appreciate having someone putting words in her mouth, but at the same time realized the hazards of defending Nathan too stridently.

She covertly studied Harte. On the surface he was courtly of manners, a consummate gentleman, but too much so. Just underneath the surface, however, was falseness and cunning, thinly veiled, waiting to erupt at his first displeasure. Beneath the low hum of conversation in the room, however, she heard a dull tapping. His middle finger rapped the table with the slow, rhythmic regularity of a dripping eave. A nervous tic of some sort, for his fixed expression of civility showed no sign of awareness.

Harte began to say something, but was interrupted by a loud outburst of laughter from a table of Marines. He gave them the benefit a look that immediately blanketed their jocularity.

“Pray tell, madam. How did you manage to escape?” he asked.

“They put in to water and wood.” Cate winced at sounding too much the seaman. Harte didn’t seem to have noticed. Hopefully, he would also overlook the obvious flaw: no pirate ship would put in so near a garrison.

“I represented I needed to…well…” She cleared her throat meaningfully.

Harte had the good graces to look away, his sense of propriety preventing him from inquiring further.

She assumed a more beleaguered-damsel air. “I was able to slip away into the bushes. I found the road and walked into town.” That part could be easily verified by the heavy layer of dust on her shoes.

Cate sat back, pleased with presenting her story, his open admiration proof she had done so credibly. His gaze then shifted to her necklace, and her newly acquired confidence sank. It pressed credulity that a hostage would wear such an adornment, possibly a gift. She searched for a response, in case he was to ask.

“You’re a very brave woman,” he said with surprising compassion. Realizing himself, he stiffened. “I have caused you delay in this disreputable place far too long.”

Harte rose abruptly. “It is my duty, as an officer of His Majesty’s Royal Navy and as a gentleman, to assist one so delicate and distressed as yourself. I would be pleased and honored if you would accept my offer of hospitality on behalf of a particular friend. Her lovely and refined home has been my residence whilst I visit this desolate quagmire. I dare to assume that you shall find it quite agreeable.”

“No, no! I'm not in need—”

“Oh, but my dear, Madam Harper, you are. A woman, alone? I could not bear the thought, if I were to leave you here, unattended.

Hovering like a hen over a lost chick, no amount of declining or refusing would repel him. Cate found herself being escorted down the sidewalk, Harte's firm but gentle hand at her elbow. Disoriented, she felt a cold panic. A stranger walked at her side, rigid and reserved, uniformed and gilded, shoes tapping ridiculously lightly on the bricks, the clump of boots and creak of leather replaced by the swish of lace and satin. She missed Nathan’s rolling gait…

Nathan! He would be frantic.

Cate glanced to the sky to judge the time: mid to late afternoon, still time. Her step slowed and the grip on her arm tightened. She needed to return to the tavern and finish what she came for. If she failed to return, Nathan might think his fears—God, that seemed too long ago!—had been fulfilled, or assume that she had lied. She had to get back, somehow.

But, how? Presently, she was being ushered toward…whose house?



###



“Where the bloody hell did she go?”

Squawking in protest at the Cap’n’s bellow, Beatrice retreated to the bowsprit.

Pryce observed from a reasonable distance. The Cap’n was amiable enough, in his own unique way, but bore a black temper. Once witnessed, few chose to have visited upon them again. It was a rare thing to see, but an ugly one that bided long on one’s mind.

The Cap’n paced before Towers and Smalley—both rigid at attention, and wisely so—swearing. One of the best cursers, land or sea, bar none. He brandished a fist at the pair, and then, thinking for the better of it, stabbed a finger instead.

“I sent you two with one simple duty,” the Cap’n rumbled threateningly. “One lousy task! How goddamnedably difficult can it be to keep after one woman?”

Sweating profusely, a permanent state since their empty-handed return, the two misfortunates cringed. Onlookers skulked at the margins of the scene, lest they draw his attention next.

“Honest, sir,” Towers begged. “We had her: she was sitting at the table…at The Rose and Crown,” he added importantly, as if knowing the name of the establishment might somehow add credence, and hence, dispensation.

“Aye,” chimed in Smalley. “She was there and the Commodore Harte came in and—”

“Harte! Suffering Jesus on the cross, Harte found her?”

The two exchanged glances, nodding eagerly.

“Aye, Cap’n!” Towers’ tongue flicked out to lick his lips, eyes rounding with drama. “He cum in and sat directly, as easy as kiss yer hand.”

“What the screamin’ blazes is Harte doing there?” the Cap’n shrieked.

“Don’t know, sir, but the Resolute is in,” said Smalley.

A fourth-rate sixty-four, thought Pryce. A warship. Not good.

“What the hell’s fury is the pride of the Royal Navy doing here?” The Cap’n only verbalized the same thing everyone was thinking.

“Same thing as her consorts, I expect, sir: the Solebay and Flamborough,” added Smalley.

Both sixth-rate twenty-fours.

“Two ships?” The Cap’n stalled, frowning. “That doesn't make any sense a-tall. You’re sure?”

“I’d know ’em like I’d know me own sister!” Towers rocked on his toes.

“Yes, I suspect everyone has known your sister,” grumbled the Cap’n under his breath.

It wasn’t unusual to see such ships, especially the twenty-fours, in the same harbor, but only in support of a large garrison, such as at Fort Charles, Port Royal, or Bridgetown, unless…?

The Cap’n was clearly thinking along the same lines.

“Sounds like they’re up to somethin,’” put in Pryce.

“Aye, Mr. Pryce, so it does,” the Cap’n replied, still lost in thought.

“The place wuz swarmin’ with Marines, too,” Smalley added, anxious to pursue any inroads of approval. “Looked like a pot o’ red paint exploded.”

The Cap’n scowled, a good sign the worst of the storm had passed. “Did Harte seem to know her, familiar like?”

The two seamen traded uncertain looks. It was Smalley who answered. “Can’t say, for sure, sir. He jest walked up, kissed ’er hand ’n’ pulled up a chair.”

The Cap’n’s frown deepened. “How the devil’s hoof did you manage to lose her?”

“We went to get two more ales…”

“Aye, the girl wouldn’t attend, so we fetched it ourselves,” Smalley clarified.

“And when we came back, she was gone.” Towers held out his hands, as if to show they were, indeed, empty.

The Cap’n shook his head, his mouth in awed disbelief. “It takes two of you to get a damned ale? Any idea where she went? Did you inquire or look around?”

“We asked the tavern keep,” Towers said eagerly, relieved to have at least done one thing right.

The Cap’n waited. “And?”

Looking away, Towers clamped his mouth tightly closed, Smalley dropping his gaze to his feet.

“And!” The gravelly voice ripped the air. The men quailed, several onlookers retreating as well.

“And,” Towers started, with great trepidation, “he said as the Commodore probably took her upstairs to his room, where he takes all ’is whores.”

The Cap’n’s lip twitched as he digested that. Decades at sea, Pryce had known the look of a storm brewing and there was one building then, fit to erupt. Those who had shipped with the Cap’n for any length of time fell back another step.

“We’re to go ashore.” With a thunderous glare, the Cap’n pivoted on his heel, and stomped for the accommodation ladder. “Mr. Pryce!” he bellowed over his shoulder. “All boats ashore! Those two miscreants,” he hissed, stabbing a finger as if it were a blade, “will be accompanying me!”

The Cap’n paused at the top of the ladder. Pryce, who had been striding behind to keep up, skidded to a halt. “Spread everyone out. Find her. And when…if you do, get her aboard with all haste. I’ll be along, directly.”



###



With Towers and Smalley scampering ahead, the walk to Hopetown was not a long one, but still provided Nathan more than enough time to visualize in grim detail all manner of perversities that might be befalling Cate at that very moment, each involving captivity and bodily harm.

The coincidence of Harte being at the same place, at the same time was too much. Dark thoughts of collusion and betrayal skulked, even though in his few rational moments, he knew it to be impossible. There was the niggling thought that she was part of an elaborate scheme. His first urge was to dismiss that out-of-hand, for he grossly doubted the Commodore’s ability, to either conceive or carry off something so fantastic. Still, the doubt was firmly in place and not to be dislodged, until he had seen for himself.

Time would tell. The first matter of business was to find her.

Truth be told, he didn’t think the Commodore had the nature for such devious acts, nor Cate the tolerance. He tended to not give Harte much credence, but any man with any amount of power and control, confronted with a beautiful woman, might resort to any amount of coercion necessary to make her more pliable.

If that were the case, he wished he could be there to see that. Cate struck him as one who wouldn’t succumb without a blood-laden struggle.

Unless…

Belay that!

Just exactly which case did you hope for: that she had thrown in with Harte, or she’s been arrested?

There was the chance that it had been as the noisome duo had said: Cate had been drug up to a room to be used like a common whore.

Not bloody likely! She’d castrate ’im before he could lock the door.

At the moment, Cate being arrested was vastly the lesser of concerns, although it curdled his gut to think of her in chains, lying in one of those stinking cells.

God, the dirt! She’d never abide that.

A flapping overhead broke his concentration. Muttering moodily, he glanced skyward to see Beatrice’s bright plumage alighting in a tree just ahead. Ruffling then smoothing, she tipped her head, scrutinized him, and then threw her head back and squawked.

“Oh, put a stopper in your gob!” Nathan jerked an irritable shoulder. “It’s not as if there weren’t enough pestilences in me life.”

Protesting loudly, she took flight and soared ahead.

Once in town, they pressed to the shadows. Smug in the security afforded by virtue of its size, Hopetown took little notice of comings and goings of such as the likes of them. Besides, any pirate worth his salt knew how to get in and out of any spot on the map without notice. Towers and Smalley hastily led him to The Rose and Crown, as indicated by a sign over the door.

Bloody royalists clear out here, he thought, looking up at the red rose superimposed over a crown. Put it in your pipe and smoke it, mate.

A quick reconnaissance of the building proved there were no entrances other than the street.

“I wouldn't suggest the front door…” Towers said in sotto.

“The place is crawling with red-coats,” Smalley finished.

“Did the keep say which room is Harte’s?” Nathan asked, peering up toward the second floor. Seeing both shake their heads in negation, he gave a resigned sigh. “Aye well, on to it, then.”

Bidding them to stand watch—one didn’t dare assume they would know enough to do so on their own volition—he used Smalley’s tall frame as a ladder to reach the edge of a rear balcony. Agility and determination pulled him up and over the rail, landing lightly outside the window.

As luck would have it, the window was open and he slipped in. Too late he discovered that the room was occupied. A man and woman were in bed, sufficiently preoccupied, however, that he judged his chances good of going unnoticed. Tiptoeing, he was well passed halfway when he heard a deep voiced, “Hey, mate! Wait yer turn. She’s on my shilling.”

“Sorry.” Nathan sidled toward the door, tipping his hat. “Concentration, mate. No lady ’ tis flattered to think her charms aren’t sufficient to hold a man’s attentions… or vice versa. Madam.” He flashed a smile meant to charm as he backed out the door. “Please, pray continue. By all means...”

He slammed the door shut behind him and breathed a sigh of relief.

He checked the hall. Rooms were to larboard and starboard. Some doors stood open, instantly eliminating them as possibilities: the good Commodore would definitely desire his privacy.

The first closed door was unlocked, the room empty; same for the second. The third was unlocked, as well, and he pushed it open without pausing to listen.

“Hoy! What the bloody…!”

Occupied.

The next door was unlocked. Leaning to listen, he heard the movement of someone inside and tapped lightly.

“Come in!” It was a female voice.

Nathan's heart leapt. The door was open, before he could heed the internal voice screaming that it wasn’t Cate. He skidded to a halt at the sight of the occupant: female well enough, large, blowzy-haired, and naked.

“Oh, you sweet thing!” Her pendulous breasts wobbled as she charged at him with open arms, squealing, “I’ve always liked the dark ones.”

Her embrace drove Nathan back against the door, the force slamming it shut behind him. His objections were cut off by an onslaught of a tongue to a gagging proportion, while a hand latched expertly onto his crotch. Floundering to fend her off—a bloody octopus, she was!—he groped for the doorknob at his back. At last, he wrested free of her grasp enough to get the door open. He slipped around and outside, pulling it shut as a barricade. He gripped the knob, his arms nearly jerked from their sockets as she threw her weight into tugging at the door, all the while pleading for his return.

Soon enough, the pounding ceased; inside went quiet. He cautiously released the knob. Safe enough.

“I’m getting too old for this,” Nathan muttered, trying to wipe the taste of her off on his sleeve.

Several minutes later, he stood in the hallway, struck with indecision. The other three rooms had been empty. There was no sign of Cate or Harte, leaving him to wonder if they were already done and gone.

Snorting aloud, he instantly negated the idea. He wasn’t made of wood. In the process of imagining what sounds Cate might make in the height of passion, several scenarios of his own doing had come to mind, none of which could be completed in anything less than an afternoon. Come to think on it, however, Harte didn’t strike him as the sort to possess enough imagination to go much past the knowledge of a virgin whore: 10 minutes, and he’d be back to limp as an old sock.

All options exhausted, there was nothing left but to take his leave. Voices echoing up the stairs told him the taproom was still full—no sense in risking that—and no servants’ steps were to be had. And so he backtracked to where he had begun.

Stopping at the door, Nathan listened carefully, and swore under his breath.

This cove has the stamina of a racehorse!

Cautiously turning the knob, he winced at its squeak. Stealthily slipping in, a canny eye for the pair in the bed, he tiptoed through. As he reached the window, one leg over the sill, he felt someone watching. He slid a sideways look to find the woman looking back. Legs wrapped around the panting and thrusting one atop her, she winked, nodding approvingly. He tipped his hat to the whore’s disappointed pout and slipped out the window. Slithering over the rail, he dropped to the ground, grunting softly with the impact. Towers and Smalley still hovered against the shed where he had left them.

“Anything?” he demanded, shaking one leg from the sting of landing too heavily.

“Nothin’, Cap’n.” Towers put a hand to his nose, making a face. “Blimey! What's that smell!”

Nathan’s first urge was to blame Towers; he announced his arrival well in advance to anyone who had the misfortune of being downwind. This markedly offensive odor was, in fact, coming from himself. He raised an arm and set to coughing from the perfume of his noxious assailant.

“She wasn’t there,” he growled, after clearing his throat. “Any other thoughts?”

Like some comical clock pendulum, Towers and Smalley shook their heads in unison. Looking skyward, Nathan silently sought tolerance and guidance from any deity that might be watching.

“All right now, mates, bear a hand,” he said, drawing them to attention. “There is a tall, copper-headed woman and a commodore, probably together, somewhere in this bloody blot on the map. It shouldn’t be a tall challenge to find either one. Spread out and the first one what finds Mr. Cate is to haul his wind back to the Morganse with her in tow, toot sweet.”

“Aye, sir!” came a chorus.

“What about you, Cap’n?” Smalley asked.

“Never mind, me. I can bloody well mind for meself. I want her on that ship, with all possible haste. Now, shove off!”

He turned just as a blue blur cut through his view.

Blessed Beatrice, again!

Soaring like some kind of a masquerading buzzard, the parrot circled several times, finally landing on a roof peak, and then carried on like she was possessed by Satan himself. Nathan mouthed several oaths, batting a dismissive hand at the beast.

Beatrice swooped past as he strode for the street, so low as to force him to duck, clacking her beak at him as she passed. Alighting on a shed’s peak just ahead, she bobbed her head and chattered. Not a dozen strides later, Beatrice dove again, scuffing the crown of his hat, then arced off to perch atop a post.

Slowly stalking toward the pestilence, said pestilence incrementally flitted away. Nathan clenched his teeth. It had been a very bad day, thus far, and he was looking for something to kill or maim. Retreating to his steady advance, Beatrice ultimately turned up an alley, and was sitting atop a stack of casks when he rounded the corner. Stopping, he scowled. “Are you trying to lead me off?”

Arching her wings, Beatrice berated him with several guttural cackles. “Tea time! Tea time!” she said, bobbing her head with avian urgency.

“Bugger it!” he sighed. “Don’t have any better ideas of me own, might as well follow a bloody bird.”



###



Lady Bartholomew Dunwoody,” Roger Harte announced and made an elegant leg.

“Oh, my sweet dear, Lady Bart will do quite famously.”

Somewhat dazed, Cate found herself making her curtsey before a regal but stout, elderly woman in the marble foyer of a vast house, murmuring some vague salutation.

Harte frowned, worriedly hovering over Cate. “Madam Harper was taken hostage by pirates and only just escaped.”

“Oh!” Lady Bart’s hands flew up to her cheeks—a gesture Cate was soon to discover to be habitual—her small mouth rounding in dismay. “It’s no small wonder the poor dear is so regrettably disheveled. Scurrilous and reprehensible beasts, the lot of them,” she declared breathlessly, a state of being Cate was also to witness with frequency.

“Upon my word, Diggie,” the woman huffed, rounding on Harte. “When are you going to rid these waters of those savages, so a lady might pass in safety and freedom of these indignities?”

Not waiting for an answer, she seized Cate by the arm and whisked her up the stairs.

“Come with me, you poor, poor, bereft child,” Lady Bart crooned. Her motherly tone was in sharp contrast to her heavy lean on Cate’s arm, as if seeking support rather than offering.

“We’ve a bit before tea; I shall see you to a room, so you may refresh yourself. Oh, dear, that hair. Sally?” she called as they mounted the stairs. “Sally? Where is that girl when you need her? Sally!”

Topping the curved stairs, Lady Bart, her ample bosom heaving under her kertch, swept Cate down the hall on a wave of flourish and endless chatter.

“Yes, Ma’am?”

Lady Bart drew up before someone who was far from a girl: middle-aged, stern-faced, and dour-mouthed.

“Sally, there you are! We have a guest—”

“We have several guests,” Sally interjected.

“Don’t be impertinent,” Lady Bart retorted, absent of ire. Fanning herself with one hand, she scurried down the hall with Cate in tow. “Pray, attend Madam Harper. She is in desperate need of all assistance.”

Her Ladyship paused in her march to cast another fretful look at Cate, a hand rising to her cheek. “And this hair. Oh, you poor thing, and so tall. Pity,” she declared, pressing Cate further down the hall. “Those vile creatures wouldn’t even allow you a brush and a mirror. Oh, and where did you ever come by eyes colored such as that?”

Before she could answer, Cate was standing in a large bedchamber, laced, satined, and frilled on every surface that could support it.

“Oh, when I think of the insults you were required to endure,” Lady Bart sighed. “Alone, with all those men…”

She stopped. Her shocked expression gave way to morbid curiosity as she whispered, “They didn’t…do anything, did they?”

She held her breath in anticipation of delicious details.

“No,” Cate said. “They were very kind.”

Lady Bart’s mouth drooped with disappointment, but it faded quickly. “Mrs. Harper; you’re married then. Where is your husband? Oh, how frantic with worry he must be. Perhaps we might send a—”

“I’m widowed.”

“Oh, my condolences for your loss,” Lady Bart said, without a hint of compassion as she pushed open the windows. “I’m widowed myself, you know: lost my dear Harry eighteen years hence.”

Cate considered it possible she had talked the man into his grave.

“He visits most nights,” she went on matter-of-factly, fluffing a pillow, re-arranging a vase of flowers on a table, and then sweeping toward the door. “He always was such a thoughtful dear…”

Her voice faded down the hall, leaving Cate to deflate in silence. Her respite was cut short by Sally’s arrival, laden with brushes, towels, ribbons, and other necessities to wage war against Cate’s state of dishevelment. A small chambermaid scurried in her wake, bearing a steaming ewer. Emptying her arms on the dressing table, Sally stood back with one hand on her hip to survey Cate with a critical eye.

“Miracles in minutes,” Sally sighed in private wonderment. “Gonna require Providence’s hand in this one.”

Cate raised a self-conscious hand to her tangled mass. Never had she been made to feel so inadequate with efficiency.

“Well,” Sally said, filling the basin. “My experience is cleanliness is the best place to start. Let’s see what what’s to be found under all that grime.”

The water was hot, the soap finely-milled, impregnated with bits of lavender and rose petals. Once the layers of road grit, salt, and sweat were removed, Cate’s skin was its softest in months, nay, years.

Once past her austere shell, Sally proved to be a kind-hearted soul. Her business-like air stemmed from coping with a doddering mistress, for whom she nurtured a boundless love and tolerance. Her first suggestion for Cate’s hair was a proper cap. Following a brief contretemps in which Cate flatly refused, Sally seized the brush and set to work.

As Cate sat on the stool before the dressing table, it occurred that Nathan would have enjoyed witnessing Sally’s exercised attempts to bring her snarled bramble into order. “Oakum is more orderly,” was often his comment. Given sufficient attention, her hair could be tamed into long curls about her shoulders without a touch of the iron. Too mindful of the timepiece on the mantle, Sally was disinclined to do so.

“Tea is at three sharp. M’lady sets great store in everyone attending. The miller’s cat can expect the hospitality of this house time out of mind, but only if it attends with an open heart and promptly.”

Sally ultimately resorted to severely pinning Cate’s hair back. Piled high at the crown, it cascaded in semi-orderliness down her back. With a flourish of ribbon, and several flowers from the vase tucked in, victory was declared.

The chambermaid returned with a freshly ironed kerchief, edged with delicate lace. Making no attempt to hide her disapproval at Cate’s sun-exposed skin, Sally muttered a soliloquy of “too tall,” “nothing decent,” “won’t answer,” as she tucked it into the edge of Cate’s bodice. Cate’s apron, fashioned from lightweight sailcloth by dear Billings, the ship’s sailmaker, was taken. Stained and sullied with blood and all manner of ship’s filth, it was carried off with two-fingered disgust, while another was passed around her waist and tied off with a crisp bow.

“Make you at least a little decent” was Sally's final assessment.

Feeling somewhat refreshed after the hurried toilet, Cate was guided from the bedchamber to downstairs. She felt prepared to face whatever was to come, when she was handed off to the downstairs footman, who led her down the highly polished hall. Gilt-scrolled double-doors were opened, and there she stood in the drawing room. The drone of conversation stalled as the attention of its dozen or so occupants swiveled around. The men launched to their feet and bowed. An awkward silence hung in the air as the seconds were ticked off by an unseen clock. Clenching her hands in the folds of her skirt, Cate felt like an insect in the yard, the chickens eyeing their next morsel. Smiling nervously, she wondered again how she ever came to be there.

“My sweet dear.” Lady Bart’s shrill shattered the silence. She pattered across the room on incredibly tiny feet. “Everyone, pray allow me to name…Oh dear, what was it? Oh, yes, how dreadfully silly…This is Madam Catherine Harper, a particular friend to our dear Diggie.”

Diggie?

Leaning heavily for support, Lady Bart towed Cate from person to person, while rattling off names, titles and an endless array of staggeringly irrelevant bits of information. Cate strained to connect names to faces, but abandoned all hope after the third person: a woman in bright green watered-satin dress, a towering powdered wig, and a voice befitting of a five-year-old.

Introductions blessedly complete, Cate was ushered to a gilt chair—dubious in both size and strength—near the window, teacup in hand. Having seen her seated, Harte took up the chair’s twin opposite a low tea table. An elegantly hosed calf extended, cheeks gleaming from a recent shave, he was freshly linened and powdered, a pert bow finishing off his tightly queued wig. He was one of those people who would be regal if dressed in rags.

“Rags” was exactly how Cate felt. She drew her feet under herself, in order to hide the indecent display of unstockinged ankle and sadly worn shoes, barely more than clogs. Her petticoat wouldn’t have been considered short had the room been occupied by those who toiled for a living. Aware of her hands, now tar-stained and tanned, she buried them into the folds of her apron as best as could be managed while holding a cup and saucer. Compared to the powdered and pink tones of those present, she felt as brown and leathery as Nathan’s hat.

“Diggie represented you were taken captive by that vile Captain Blackwater,” announced Lady Bart, alighting in a high-backed chair.

“Blackthorne. Captain Nathanael Blackthorne,” the Commodore said tolerantly through an enduring smile.

“Pardon? Oh, yes, well, of course.” Lady Bart shuddered for what appeared to be only for drama’s sake. “Dissolute creatures. The civilized world would be so improved if we were rid of those despicable beasts. Diggie, I beg, can’t you do something about those people?”

“Not to worry, my dear Bart,” began one of the first gentlemen to be introduced, be-laced and blue-satined. The Honorable…oh, something! “Our Diggie has eradicated virtually every pirate ship in the West Indies. Blessed few remaining now. A dying breed, praise God, thanks to him.”

“Hear him! Hear him!” came a restrained murmur.

Coldness pricked between Cate’s shoulder blades.

“That Blackthorne chap has managed to give you the slip several times, has he not?” mused a younger man standing near the fireplace.

Henry, no Harry! No, wait, Fordshaw!

His outward demeanor unchanged, the muscles in Harte’s jaw flexed.

“Yes, a few.” He turned to Cate with intense conviction. “But mark me: that gnat shall be swatted from existence.”

Under the conversation of the room, she heard a tapping noise. From the corner of her eye, she could see Harte’s finger rapping on the black-lacquered surface of the tea table between them, marking a rhythm similar to the clock ticking on the mantle.

Cate looked to her lap, the tea forming an icy knot in her stomach. If someone had asked, she would have said sailing was a noisy business, but not until it was gone did she realize the degree. A seaman’s voice was perpetually raised to be heard over plank, block, canvas, wind, and water. Well over a hundred men lived elbow to elbow, and yet one was required to shout to be heard by his mess neighbor, anger and conversation often at the same volume. Having become accustomed to noise that one could lean against, she was left swaying by soft, reserved voices, the delicate titter of laughter, the clatter of china and rustle of silk. Here, the clearing of a throat was a vile disruption. The once-moving air was now still, to the point of near suffocation, heavy with perfume, pomade, and pomanders.

A surge of heat rushed from her chest and up her neck. Just as it touched her cheeks, it turned to ice, and gooseflesh shot down her arms. She closed her eyes against the high, thin ringing in her ears. The room pitched violently and she snapped them open once more.

No reprieve there.

“…that horrible slaughter,” finished the woman in green. She pivoted her attention to Cate and peered down her nose. “Oh, my dear…Madam. Harper, was it not? Yes, of course. The Commodore informs us you were aboard the Constancy, when it was set upon by those pirates in such an egregious manner. Such fortune, to have escaped with your life from that shocking incident.”

“You were there!” exclaimed…Fordshaw—she was sure that was his name. Eyes rounded with anticipation, he hunched forward, teacup forgotten in his hand. “Oh, I beg, pray tell us of it…unless, of course, it was too shocking,” he added with a miserable attempt at compassion.

“Well, of course it was shocking,” Lady Bart interjected from her chair, with a vigorous flourish of an ivory and silk fan. “The thought of that sweet dear, little Lucy Littleton begging for her life, after those men had…” Her mouth moved, fish-like, as she groped for an appropriate word. “Well, you know…had their way with her—”

“No!” Cate was surprised by her own vehemence.

There was a unified rattle of teacups falling to their saucers.

“Beg pardon, dear?” It was Lady Bart who ended the stunned silence.

Every eye in the room swiveled on Cate. Literally perched on the edges of their seats, they leaned in for the sordid details.

“No,” Cate repeated, more quietly but no less fervent. She drew a shaky breath. “I’m sorry, but no, that is not what happened. The Littletons died of a fever—”

“By what account?” demanded the honorable elder across from her.

Cate met his challenging look. “Mine. I was there.”

Sympathy befell every face, with pitying eye-rolls and murmurs of “Poor thing,” “Deranged,” and “Shocked.” Her sense of entombment in lace and satin, hosed legs, and slippers deepened.

There was a value, however, in being thought deranged: no one is comfortable in the face of it, hence conversation swerved away. Having failed to provide the amusement sought, they moved on, leaving her unobserved. Deflating with relief, she leaned back and closed her eyes, only to be swept by another wave of giddiness. The room spun again, sloshing like the Morganse’s bilges. She clutched the arm of the chair and opened her eyes in search of a solid fix.

Cate cast an anxious eye toward the window, and then the clock. It was nearly four; the walk back to the longboat would require at least an hour, and stepping smartly at that. Somehow, some way, she had to extract herself from this horror. She was already sure to be late; Nathan would have to be patient.

She smiled at that thought. Now there was a contradiction in terms: a patient Nathan Blackthorne. Animated, circuitous, funny, imaginative, vociferous; many words could describe Nathan, but patient was not one of them.

As Cate idly sipped her tea, she caught a play of eyes over Big Wig’s fan. The room was quite warm in the late afternoon hour. The ladies’ fans were in full employment, but cooling was a secondary function. There was a language of the fans, a silent dialogue of suggestion, flirtation, and clarification. She was familiar with this particular tongue, as carefully schooled as was every female present. The target of most of messages was the Commodore. Judging by the hidden eyes, touches to the right cheek or heart, he more or less had his pick of the room.

Cate’s train of thought was interrupted by, “I’m given to understand our dear Lord Creswicke is sparing no expense on his upcoming nuptials.”

The comment came from the direction of the fireplace. Fordshaw?

“Readily achieved when you’re the head of the Royal West India Mercantile Company,” snorted His Honorable. “I shouldn’t care to imagine how many of our coins have gone toward payment for that.”

Snickers and murmurs of agreement passed around the room.

“Marrying well certainly does the pocket no harm, either,” sniffed Lady-in-Green.

“Poor thing,” sighed another dispassionately. “I suspect the girl doesn’t comprehend what awaits her.”

“No matter, if she does or not,” said Elder-in-the-Chair. “The arrangements are made, signed and witnessed, as I hear it.”

“Mutual advantages,” mused Mr. Fireplace. “Her father acquires direct connections to the Company—and a tidy empire our Lord has built—while Lord Creswicke receives thousands of pounds and exclusive access to Boston’s markets.”

“Fair trade all around,” cried someone.

Another wave of knowing laughter rounded the room. Underneath the titter of knowing laughter that came from around the room, the rapping on the table at her elbow grew more emphatic. Too slow for a heartbeat, it was just as unfailing, but weighted with menace.

“It might be said we all benefit. If it wasn’t for his privateers and our good Commodore,” Elder-in-the-Chair said with a deferential bow in his direction, “we’d be at the mercy of those wretched pirates. Heaven only knows what our lives would be, and not a hope of safety or peace.”

Approving murmurs were uttered, the Commodore bowing from his place.

Cate sat stiff, hoping no one would notice her white-knuckled grip on her saucer. She meant to take a sip, but the cup rattled, clattering even louder as she set it back down.

“Are you well, Madam?”

She looked up into Harte’s intent green gaze. She nodded, but judging by his frown, he wasn’t convinced.

“Diggie, I’ve been given to understand you’ve been made charge of Lord Creswicke’s more, shall we say, delicate arrangements?”

Harte reluctantly shifted his attention to Elder-in-the-Chair. “It would seem Lord Creswicke has found my services indispensable.”

“Do tell, Diggie!” Mrs. Big Wig declared, bouncing with child-like anxiousness. “What is His Lordship’s latest folly?” cried another.



Harte sipped his tea, allowing the suspense to build.

“Lord Creswicke’s betrothed,” he said, with disdainful emphasis, “will be under my charge, until her arrival to Bridgetown.”

“I thought she was in Boston,” Mr. Fireplace said.

“Indeed, until some weeks ago, she was,” said Harte, smug with importance. “As we speak, she is bound for the West Indies.”

“When is she to arrive in Bridgetown?” asked Mrs. Big Wig conversationally, nibbling a biscuit.

He cocked a brow in calculation. “Sometime in the next fortnight, but probably less, but she shan’t be going—”

Blessing her luck, Cate closed her eyes. It was for only the briefest of moments, but was stricken with another wave of violent dizziness. The room heaved like the deck of a ship. Her hand jerked as she grabbed for the arm of the chair, the cup and saucer crashing to the floor. She lurched to her feet and teetered. Harte caught her by the arm.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, touching a shaky hand to her forehead. “I beg your leave. I must be more tired than…Perhaps I should…”

“By all means, my dear,” Lady Bart cooed, rising.

Against a backdrop of mutterings of “Airs,” “Thin blood,” and “Burned feather,”

Her Ladyship took Cate from Harte’s grasp.

“You need your rest. You’re positively frayed. Now you shall be seen back to your chamber, where you can lie down…” Lady Bart droned as she took Cate away.



###



In the shuttered light of the bedchamber, Cate lay on the bed.

The house had long fallen quiet, Lady Bart and her guests having retired through the afternoon heat. The small clock on the mantel chimed six; supper would be rung soon.

Upon returning to the bedchamber, Sally and the nameless chambermaid had stripped her of her clothing and deposited her in bed. Tucked up under a coverlet, wet cloths laced with lavender were applied to her forehead and chamomile tea poured down her throat, all in the spirit of aiding her recovery from the arduous ordeal at the hands of pirates. Once satisfied that she rested comfortably, they left her to her peace…at last!

There would be no sleeping, however. By now, Nathan would be pacing, assuming he had ever stopped since her departure.

The dizziness she suffered was troublesome. It was a wonder how one could feel so landlubberish on land. Reclined even now, she was obliged to keep one foot on the floor to assuage the sensation of being pitched out of bed. She could have been well on her way, else. Instead, there she lay, stripped to her shift, feeling more a hostage of Commodore Harte and Lady Bart than ever she had on a pirate ship.

At first, Cate had thought the dizzy spell to be a blessing: an opportunity to escape not only the parlor, but the house. Instead, the house had been brought to full attention. In retrospect, the dizziness has been so severe, escape under her own power would have been nigh impossible. All she need do was fall and break a limb, and she would be imprisoned forever.

Feeling as if she was being watched, Cate looked around the room into a number of faces staring back. Miniatures, figurines, and cherubs peered from wallpaper, fabric, and frames, scrutinizing her with everything from demanding to outright accusation. The portrait of an old man, no doubt some revered, ancient ancestor judging by the position the mantel, bore the most penetrating glare.

“This wasn’t my plan,” she huffed defensively. “All you need do is hang there. We, the still-living, have it a bit rougher.”

Adding to Cate’s annoyance was an increasing racket coming from outside. Muttering one of Nathan’s better oaths, she rose to investigate, feeling carefully for the floor her first few steps. As she pushed open the balcony doors and went out, she recognized the sound just before seeing the brilliant hyacinth-colored flash of a parrot in the trees.

“Beatrice?”

“It certainly is!”

The gravelly voice came from behind. Startled, Cate yelped as she spun around. “Nathan!”

He swung a final leg over the balcony rail and stood before her, puffing from the climb.

“What on earth are you doing here? Come in here before you’re seen,” she hissed.

“I played bloody hell trying to find you.” Nathan shook an admonishing finger at her as she pulled him inside.

“What are you doing here? How did you find me?”

The thought of him looking for her was touching…but…

“Didn’t fancy I would find you, did you? Looked all over!” Hooking his thumbs in his belt, he struck a triumphant pose. “Thought you could give me the slip—get away clean—but I found you.”

Cate fanned a hand, backing away. “What’s that smell?” Even as she asked, she knew: there was no mistaking cheap perfume.

“I had me virtue threatened,” he said.

“You couldn’t have been in much of a hurry, if you had time sufficient to stop at a whorehouse.”

“I was attacked. An innocent, I was!”

Cate pressed a cautionary finger to her lips. She lowered her voice, which obligated her to move closer to both him and the smell. “How did you ever find me?”

“My impeccable instincts—” Her dubious stare brought Nathan’s boast to an abrupt halt. “And Beatrice,” he conceded, crestfallen.

A myriad of questions popped to mind, none of which Cate desired to pursue. Capture for him meant an appointment with the gallows.

“You have to go, before you’re discovered,” she said.

“I came to help you escape,” he said, resisting her attempts to urge him back to the balcony.

“Escape? I don’t need to escape.”

“Aren’t you under arrest?”

“No,” she said, puzzled by such a far-flung assumption.

Nathan prepared a reply, but then noticed she wore only a shift. The soot-colored eyes flicked toward the tousled bed and eyes she had always known to be warm went cold. He stalked to the bed to snatch up the bedclothes and shake them at her.

“Ah, so it would appear the fly didn’t mind being caught by the spider after all. A roll at the tavern wasn’t enough, eh? Decided to give the sheets a wearing here, as well?”

“What are you talking about?” she asked in clipped precision.

Growling in disgust, Nathan pitched the sheets aside. “I know you went to his room. You’re a faster worker than I’d credited,” he said with grudging admiration.

“You’re not making any sense.”

“Coy does not suit you, Missy. I had the inseparable duo follow you—”

“You had me followed!” Cate flinched at her own volume, and hissed lower, “How dare you. You didn’t trust me…”

Nathan stalked back, glaring. “I trusted you, then. I sent them to assure you were safe. I see now I was grossly misguided in me concerns.”

She flushed at his accusation. “We don’t have time for your childish arguments—”

“Childish!”

Cate waved away Nathan’s indignant sputtering. “So far, I know Creswicke’s fiancée is definitely en route. She should be here within the week, more or less, but she’s not to go to Bridgetown directly. She's to stop off somewhere, but I haven't been able to learn where.”

“Did Harte tell you all that during the first shining of the sheets or the second?” Nathan shot back with a cutting edge. He tilted his head to critically survey her. “Did your hair up for him, too, I see. Sweet-smelling soap; fancied up for him, too,” he added, leaning nearer to sniff. “Prettying yourself up, employed all your tricks; bloody fast work for less time than a watch.”

“What do you care?”

No longer of a mind to deal with this senseless sparring, Cate drew a deep breath, and said in measured calmness, “Supper will be rang directly. I hope to know more by the time it’s finished. Shall I try to make my way back, or would you prefer I just keep going?”

Nathan exhaled sharply through his nose. “I’ll be in that garden, tonight.” He pointed toward the balcony, and then stabbed a finger at her. “You be there!”

A baring of teeth punctuated his demand. With a low grumble, he turned on his heel and headed for the balcony.

“How are you to get away?” Cate asked from close on his heels.

“That would be me own problem, wouldn't it?” Nathan snapped over his shoulder. Checking the grounds below, he threw a leg over the banister, pausing to glare once more. “You be there!”

And then he was gone.

Cate watched Nathan disappear into the woods at the garden’s edge with a sinking sensation. The look on his face had been quite damning. She was beginning to think this entire venture had been a bad idea. Worse yet, he acted as though it had all been her idea.

She had barely turned when the bell in the hall sounded, announcing it was time to dress for supper, Sally entering on cue. Behind her trailed a small legion of assistants, bearing a dress and all the necessities to render Cate presentable.

By most standards, the gown that was laid out on the bed was a simple one, but it was the noblest Cate had worn in a very long time: striped dimity, cream and azure, over a floral petticoat. She stood in the middle of the maids as they buzzed about like skirted bees, tugging, tying, and pinning, often with conflicting instructions: “Stand straight,” “Bend over,” “Put your foot here,” or “Don’t move.” A stomacher pinned, filet lace apron tied, a few plucks at her hair, a black ribbon at her throat, and she was declared ready.

Cate turned to the mirror and a complete stranger stared back. It only added to the sense of disorientation suffered since Harte had whisked her out of the tavern. She glanced over her shoulder toward the balcony and the long shadows of the garden beyond. Somewhere out there, Nathan was waiting. She wondered if he would approve of what he saw, or if the accusation and mistrust exhibited as he went over the rail would only deepen.

Any further thoughts were cut short by Sally’s urging her out the door.

Once again in the downstairs foyer, Cate stalled at hearing voices echo from the drawing room. Gathering her nerve, chanting, “Only be a little longer,” she made her entrance.

Supper at Lady Bart’s was apparently the social height of the region and her guests dressed accordingly. The sight brought Cate instant flashes of being at Court. Not near so grand, the opulence was shocking against anything she had experienced in nigh a decade. Nothing so trivial as a tropical evening had dampened the guests’ verve for style. Swirling hooped skirts, ruffles and flounces, flaring coattails and deep cuffs, it was a riot of vibrant colors of satin and silk, brocade, moiré, and taffeta. As they craned their necks to see who had entered, their rice-powdered faces looked like a covey of ghosts. Seeing it was only her, they returned to their conversation. Harte materialized at her side to seize her hand.

“I was so distressed that you might be too indisposed to join us,” he murmured fervently over her knuckles.

Cate felt a surge of compassion for Harte’s valet; the poor man must have been exhausted. The Commodore’s linens were fresh, his jacket brushed and uncreased, and the bow at the back of his head as crisp as ever a ribbon could hope.

Cate forced a smile, while attempting to graciously extricate her hand. Taking no notice of her intent, Harte tucked it into his elbow. She made her curtsey before Her Ladyship on his hand.

The furniture had been cleared in order to make room for the grandeur, and so the guests milled about in small clusters while waiting for the dining room doors to open. Even in her new finery, Cate felt like a brown wren among the peacocks. She shifted first on one foot then the other at Harte’s side. As uncomfortable as she found him on a personal level, she was grateful for his presence. For the first time in her life she felt protected by the Royal Navy. Erect and square-shouldered, in his navy and buff, bullioned epaulets and ornaments of commendations gleaming under the chandeliers, his resplendency deflected the stares.

The crystal cup thrust in Cate’s hand contained a punch of some sort, with rum. Ah, well. There seemed to be no way of avoiding it in the West Indies. It was both fruity and spicy, and most particularly, cool. It was delectable. Her tension drained with each sip, the twirling sensation she suffered earlier being replaced by a pleasant lightheadedness.

Her uneasiness abated somewhat. It wasn’t as though she was without social skills. Although she was rusty, it wasn’t difficult: a smile, a nod, murmur some inconsequential something on the rare occasion when addressed. The problem lay in the fact that such parlor skills were not her nature. Standing next to Roger, the cold disapproval from the women was easily managed. Jealousy was rarely a good color on anyone. While she observed the women, however, she looked up several times into an emerald haze of him watching her. She smiled faintly and buried her nose into her drink.

The way the men regarded her was another matter. Distracted by laughter at the far end of the room, she looked back into an expression of raw hunger on the part of young Fordshaw. The same came from Lord Something-or-Another, earlier in blue, now in peach moiré. Another mentally undressed her where she stood. Emboldened by her sullied status, their assumption was if she had played the whore to the pirates—Blackthorne specifically, his appetites well-known—she would now do the same for them. She longed for one of the fans the women brandished in grand style, so that she might send a few messages of her own, namely a good bash across the face, or somewhere lower and more efficacious.

Cate shifted closer, more grateful still for Harte’s presence.

It was the third—no fourth—glass of punch which brought Cate to see Roger in a much more pleasant light. He wasn’t without his charms. Once relaxed, he was witty and quite knowledgeable on many subjects. Clean-profiled, tall and regal, under different circumstances she may have found him attractive, in an aloof, thin-blooded sort of way.

She worked her fingers together, feeling the metal cool of her wedding ring. It was a constant reminder of a past life. After losing Brian, another man in her life was never a consideration. Nathan had been a complete surprise.

Nathan. She shied at recalling his look as he slid off the balcony: betrayal, heavily laced with the satisfaction of suspicions rewarded. He had expected the worst from her and, to his mind, she had fulfilled the prophecy. The warm flush of the punch dissolved under the chill of that reality.

She felt Roger looking attentively down at her. “Have no cares,” he said in quiet earnestness. “I’ll assure that you are at my side.”

It took Cate a moment to fathom what the devil he was about. Seating arrangements? Good Lord!

Supper was called, a matched pair of footmen opening the doors. Lady Bart took the head of the table, the Commodore opposite. His position of honor spoke loudly to Lady Bart’s regard. Cate was whisked into the seat to Harte’s right, much to the displeasure of those scrambling for that same spot. The lush-eyed Fordshaw, a heart-shaped mouche at the corner of his mouth—declaring himself both kissable and a lover—was to Cate’s side, Mrs. Big Wig across. As the toasts were given, her stomach rumbled.

The bounty at Lady Bart’s table, however, struck Cate almost ill. For the months, she had lived on ship’s fare, and before that on what could be begged or scrounged. Now she was faced with over a dozen dishes. More than once, she looked down to find the cold, startled looks of her food staring back: fish, doves, crabs, and a suckling pig from its silver-platter repose in the middle of the table.

Her stomach might have been empty—several cups of punch aside—but it was now quite closed. She ate without appetite, much of it becoming a glutinous mass in her mouth. The wines, and excellent they were, however, flowed like the proverbial river, the footman seeming to have taken up a permanent position at her elbow to refill her glass. Roger grew more intent with concern at seeing her poke her food about the plate. Like an obedient child, she tried to eat, but only wound up scattering it, piling it up, and scattering it again.

As the servants moved like wraiths at the table’s perimeter, conversation fell into small localized groups. The low hum of one blanketed the next, the titter of female laughter high over the men’s deeper. Amid the tinkle of silverware and china, came the rise and fall of Lady Bart’s shrill. Conversation at Cate’s end of the table was dominated by Big Wig. Harte her primary focus, Fordshaw a distant second, she piped higher when either man sought to address Cate.

As Big Wig prattled on, Roger arched a questioning brow at Cate, the significance of which was unclear. Cate returned a vague smile, hoping her discomfiture wasn’t too apparent. It had been a long time since she had worn anything so restricting. The stays were too short, gouging her back and ribs at every breath. The gown was too narrow at the shoulders and too short at the sleeves, the banded cuffs cutting her arms.

“Is everyone a guest?” Cate asked of Roger during a brief lull in Big Wig’s dialogue. Her head buzzing from the wine, it was a silly question, but conversation of some sort seemed requisite.

“That would depend on one’s categorizations,” he said under the table’s chatter. He scanned the table briefly. “A few are just arrived from Barbuda, here for the season.”

Cate nodded knowingly, in spite of not having the foggiest what “the season” might entail. Days? Weeks? Months?

“A few more are somewhat more of a permanent arrangement, having arrived months ago,” Harte said with open disapproval.

From the corner of her eye, Cate saw Mrs. Big Wig, fork gone forgotten in her hand as she craned an ear. Out of open malice, Cate lowered her voice further, obliging Roger to lean nearer yet.

“Has Her Ladyship not heard of putting a pineapple on the bed?” she asked.

Roger hesitated, and then unsteadily laughed at the tradition of using the celebrated symbol of hospitality as a means to inform a guest of having overstayed their welcome.

Perhaps the thought of being so handily excused struck too closely.

“And pray, how long do you plan to visit?” Cate’s question had been meant as a jest, but a poor one. Her cheeks heated. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to be forward.”

“Not at all.” Harte was so much more handsome when he genuinely smiled as he did then. “The lodgings in Hopetown are insufferably dreary. Lady Bart has been kind enough to indulge me of her hospitality.”

For a fraction, Cate felt sorry for him.

“Have you known Lady Bart long?” she asked.

Momentarily distracted by something said down the table, Roger seemed surprised by the question. “Yes, I made her acquaintance some years ago, shortly upon my arrival to the West Indies. I met her husband first, of course, but since I have come to consider myself a friend.”

Glancing toward his hostess, he smiled with the same regard one would show toward an eccentric aunt. “Bart can be trying, but she is a dear.”

Time passed. Dinner dragged. The room became oppressive, in spite of the opened doors and windows, and bank of fans overhead, operated by a doe-eyed slave boy in the corner. Rivulets of moisture trickled from under the wigs, leaving flesh-colored paths on the rice powder. The heat combined with perfume, sweat, and pickled eel brought a prickle between Cate’s shoulder blades. Wondering if her cheeks were as red as they felt, she looked up into Roger’s intense green look. Good heavens. Surely he didn’t think her flush was on his account.

Attempts on the part of Lord Whatever-His-Name to catch Cate’s eye were easily ignored. Directly at her elbow, however, Fordshaw’s efforts were not. Such a dandyish sort, she wondered what he could possibly want with her or any woman, for that matter. At one point, his foot came down on hers, the slippered toe brushing her ankle. The side of his leg came against hers. Soon after, his forearm pressed her, with a meaningful look from the corner of his eye.

Cate was opting between a fork into Fordshaw’s hand, a well-aimed spoonful of aspic to the face—or better yet, her entire plate—or a more overt table knife to the ribs, when Roger turned to direct a footman. Fordshaw took the opportunity to lean close enough for his breath to be warm on her neck.

“I wish you joy of your escape.” He lifted his wine glass to his mouth, cupping the curve of the glass as if it was a breast, and ran the tip of his tongue suggestively along its rim. “Might I offer you something in the way of further condolences in your hour of need?”

Inwardly seething, Cate lifted her glass as if in a toast. She batted her lashes with all the charm and innocence she could muster, and said through a frozen smile, “Touch me again, and I’ll cut off your cock with this table knife, just as I did that pirate while he slept.”

The dainty laugh Cate added at the end, as if having just heard something witty, drew Roger’s attention. He scowled at Fordshaw, now pale under his powder. Fordshaw smiled unsteadily then made a great show of shifting both his chair and attention away.

“I say, Diggie,” said Lord Peach-Moiré called from the far end as the cloth was pulled for dessert. “Where did you say Lord Creswicke’s intended is to land?”

“I didn’t,” Roger said somewhat dryly, pleased when all ears turned his way. “She’s destined for her aunt's home.”

He rolled a sip of wine in his mouth, ostensibly appreciating its bouquet, but actually allowing the suspense to build.

“Here!” Lady Bart cried, beaming. “She’s to come here. The poor child is my niece.”

Caught in mid-sip, Cate choked. Sputtering, she flapped her hand, assuring all she was fine. Following insincere murmurs regarding her welfare, a reserved exclamation of surprise made its way around the table.

“Lady Bart, I beg, pray tell how, in good conscience, can you allow your niece to be married off to that…that…?” inquired Mrs. Blue-Dress.

“Upon my word, it wasn't my idea,” said Lady Bart in evident distress. “It was that grasping brother of mine; his foremost concerns revolve on two things: his connections and his money.”

“Does he have any idea of Lord Creswicke’s, er…nature?” asked Eames judiciously.

“Well, if he doesn't, he should,” Lady Bart sniffed. “I’ve written him dozens of times, protesting this arrangement most vehemently, and he has chosen to ignore me on every count. The best I can do now is offer the poor girl a quiet refuge until the momentous occasion.”

Dessert crept. Cate picked at her apricot tart, seed cake, and comfits. Eventually Lady Bart announced the meal complete. The ladies rose and retired to the drawing room for sherry, while the men remained for their port, walnuts, and cigars.

Cate barely wetted her lip in sherry. She always found the stuff excessively sweet. In the absence of male influence, the women’s conversation quickly spiraled down to childbirth, child rearing, and bad husbands, for which she had no frame of reference, and therefore nothing to add. She squirmed against her stays, a raw spot now growing under her arm, and dreamed of the time when she might again draw a full breath. One foot idly waggling, she half-listened to aimless dribble about people she didn’t know, while glancing repeatedly toward the windows.

Her mind raced with far more important issues. Learning the fiancée’s destination was not good. If Nathan was determined in his plan, it meant having to pass under the nose of not only a Commodore, but several Royal Navy ships. It was difficult to imagine Nathan would be so foolish as to attempt something so harebrained. And yet, if the stories she had heard on the Constancy were any measure, he would dare any number of hazards in order to embarrass Harte.

She strained for ways to talk Nathan out of this plan of his, but a larger and more immediate problem loomed: escape.

Time was not on Cate’s side. Dinner had taken nearly three hours; it was well after dark. Nathan was waiting; she had to find a way to slip out. The further she delayed, the further Nathan’s doubts in her would plunge. Between Roger, the guards—no house of this stature would be without—guests, servants, and a Commodore, escape unnoticed seemed nigh impossible. Nathan had slipped in and out in broad daylight with alarming ease. Even with the cover of darkness, attempts on her part promised to be executed with considerable less aplomb.

Out from under Roger’s scrutiny had been a step in the right direction, but Cate was still faced with a roomful of women. Going to the privy wasn’t an option; she had already seen the footman slip a chamber pot under Mrs. Blue-Dress’ chair.

Risks be damned, she abruptly rose. Playing the distressed damsel to the fullest, pleading headache and exhaustion, she backed out of the room. Once in the hallway, she sagged against the wall and closed her eyes.

Alone at last!

Someone touched her on the arm, and she shrieked. Whirling around, she found Lady Bart standing there.

“He’s waiting for you,” the matron whispered in breathless drama.

“Waiting? Who?”

“Oh, you don't have to play coy, my dear. I saw your impatience and he is so anxious.” Lady Bart winked conspiratorially and patted Cate's arm. “I know all about it.”

He? Cate gaped. It was outrageous to think Nathan had somehow communicated with Lady Bart. Surely some kind of alarm sounded would have been sounded, if a pirate had been discovered in the garden.

“Diggie. He’s waiting for you just outside.” She squeezed Cate’s arm and winked significantly. “Be off, my dear, I assured him there would be no awkward interruptions.”

The tiny-footed woman slipped back into the drawing room, leaving Cate in a cold sweat. In the spirit of avoiding “Diggie,” she could either stand in the hall for the remainder of the evening, or go to her room. Either scenario placed Nathan and Harte in roughly the same vicinity. Or she could go outside to evade an unwanted suitor, while looking for one who had no intention of being one—suitor, that is.

Cate shook her head. I’ve been around Nathan too long. I’m beginning to sound like him.

“I can do this,” she chanted under her breath, beating a tattoo on her leg with her fist. She walked with the animation of the condemned. “All I need do is go out, dismiss him, and then I’m away.”

It was galling Harte would be so presumptuous. She had given him no reason to think she was about to go running off into the night with him. For one of his character, such impulsiveness seemed markedly out of character.

Cate’s step slowed with niggling second thoughts. She was well versed in social behavior and its minutiae, and had taken particular care not to send any false signals. She had no fan; no mistakes there. Somewhere in the middle of dinner, there had been a time or two when their gazes had met. Nothing had been meant as flirtatious, but apparently he thought otherwise. Roger’s passionate impulses might have been flattering, was it not for the possibility they were prompted by something other than her charms. He bristled at any mention of Nathanael Blackthorne, which lent credence to his ardent attentions stemming more from rivalry.

No matter. He was about to be set straight, and in short order.

Cate pushed open the doors, and stepped into the garden and its smells of jasmine and damp earth. She stopped to inhale the fresh air as deeply as the stays would allow. Rendered by the moonlight in a palette in hues of silver and indigo, it proved to be a dismaying maze of hedges and shrubbery. Stones grinding softly underfoot, she followed the winding paths. Feeling vaguely like a rat in a maze, she hoped Providence might smile this once, and allow her to find Nathan first.

“Madam Harper?”

It wasn’t the graveled voice she hoped to hear.

Cate jumped, and yelped, “Roger! You startled me.” Touching a hand to her chest, she was admittedly not as startled as she let on, but it provided the time to recompose.

“You’ve called me Roger, may I call you Catherine?” Not the usual nasal flat, his voice was now deep and husky—so very enamored.

Cate laughed, as hollow and false as those heard all evening. “No one has called me Catherine since my father; Cate will suffice.”

“Lovely, Cate.”

She flinched at Harte’s breathy joyousness. All powers of concentration absorbed by her worry for Nathan, she stammered badly, then opted for the dense-headed approach. After all, ignorance was claimed to be bliss.

“I thought you to be with the men, having their port and cigars.” Bearing a false smile, Cate fixed her attention on Harte in order to resist the driving urge to look around for Nathan.

“I was waiting upon you. Did Lady Bart not tell you?”

“Perhaps she did,” she said faintly. “I must have forgotten.”

So much for ignorance.

Harte stepped closer yet. Considerably taller, his nearness forced to her tip her head back in order to see his face.

“I must speak my heart, Cate.” He stammered, then forged ahead. “I’ve found I am fascinated by you; you’ve entranced me and I am compelled to be with you.”

Outwardly impassive, Cate cringed inwardly. He clearly meant to sweep her off her feet. If anything, it was having quite the opposite effect: she was not moved. Well, maybe moved to scurry away, but certainly not attracted, as so obviously hoped. Fawning men she had never found appealing.

She fell back a step. “Isn’t this somewhat sudden?”

“I know my behavior may seem impulsive and erratic.” Harte turned away to clutch his hands to his chest. “There was someone—someone else so very special—and I hesitated, playing the gentleman and the fool. Since, I couldn’t help but think, if I had been a little more…forthcoming, it might have gone quite differently.”

Swiveling back, Harte pressed closer. His hand hovered at her shoulder, and then alit. Not exactly a resounding statement of affection.

“Now she’s gone, but you are here, and I have resolved to seize this opportunity.” He hesitated, and then with a choked gasp, clutched her close. “My heart swells at the thought of the bravery and courage you’ve shown.”

Not the only thing swelling.

Cate wriggled, trying to push away. Harte whispered something unintelligible, probably meant to be quite romantic, and then kissed her, so very chaste. Protesting against his mouth, she flailed. He was inexplicably encouraged and his arms around her tightened.

“Let ’er go, mate!”

His grasp firm, Harte straightened as Nathan stepped out of the shrubbery shadows and into the moonlight, pistol in hand. “Well, well, Nathanael Blackthorne.”

“Commodore.” Nathan sketched a mocking bow. Sobering, the pistol was brought more to bear. “Now, if you please, let ’er go.”

Harte’s arms still around Cate, the air between the two snapped with mutual hatred. “And if I refuse, do you propose to shoot me?”

“I might.”

The Commodore made a low sound that might have been a taunting laugh. “There are Marines everywhere. All I need do is shout.”

Nathan canted his head, considering. “Fair enough, I’ll be captured, but she’ll be dead.” He gestured with the pistol, his voice dropping to a menacing low. “Now, let ’er go.”

Harte gave Cate a sharp push, hurtling her at Nathan. Meant as a distraction, instead Nathan caught her smoothly, his eyes never leaving Harte. He swung her around, up against his chest and pressed the pistol to her jaw hard enough for her to yelp in pain.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Harte sneered. His fists balled uselessly at his sides; in deference to Lady Bart’s hospitality, he wore no weapons.

Nathan chuckled. “Really, now? In that case, watch this next bit.”

“Na—” Cate began.

Nathan cut off her protest with another jab of the pistol, clacking her teeth together. “Shh, quiet. You’re coming with me, darling. As I recall it, we’ve unfinished business.”

Nathan nuzzled her neck and nudged his hips against hers. Harte’s expression darkened.

“You can have ’er when we’re done with ’er, mate. I bid you good e’en.”

The pistol firmly in place, Nathan backed away, taking her with him, the foliage closing in around them. Several more steps later, he pulled her around and gave her a solid shove.

“A path, just there. Go!” he hissed in her ear.

Cate hitched her skirts and ran, Nathan close behind. The shadows crisscrossing the path rendered it nigh impossible to see. Within a few strides, a shoe came off and she stumbled, going down hard on her knees. He jerked her back up onto her feet and propelled her forward.

“Marines! Marines!” cried Harte.

Footsteps and heavy crashing of several men could be heard converging on them.

Nathan pulled to a stop and looked back. “Keep going. The fatuous twosome is just ahead. Go.”

“But—?”

His fingers dug her shoulders as he spun her around. “Go!”

The urgency in his voice and the sound of oncoming footsteps spurred Cate away as he braced to meet their pursuers. From behind came the grunts and thuds of fighting. Then all was quiet, except the rasp of her breathing. The urge to go back was strong, but Nathan’s last words had been for her to run, and so she did as best as possible with the cumbersome skirts. At length, she broke out onto a road, but had no idea of which way to go. She was startled when two men popped from the bushes on the opposite side: Towers and Smalley. They motioned her across. She fell in between them as they sped away.

They kept up a rapid pace until at the beach once more. Pryce stood by the longboats, waiting like a protective father. Several more familiar faces loomed out of the night, coming up silently behind him.

“’Bout time ye’s got back,” Pryce barked without ceremony, then craned his neck to peer behind them. “Where be the Cap’n?”

“He fell behind,” Smalley reported.

“He said he would catch up,” Cate said, worriedly looking back.

Pryce eyed her in her finery, considerably now worse for wear, and then stared in the direction of town. Decision made, he seized her by the arm and propelled her toward the waiting boats. “Orders is orders, and ours is to clap on and ship ye directly.”

“But, Nathan—”

“If he’s a-comin’, then he’ll come. Otherwise…Else he’ll come when he might. It’s back to—”

“No!” Cate shrieked and yanked free. “I will not leave him!”

Pryce gave the benefit of a glare known to turn a subordinate to stone. “’Tis not to be a-leavin’, ’tis to be followin’ orders, just as—”

“I will not! You can’t make me.”

Brows arched, he said with menacing lowness, “Ah, but Mr. Cate, can and will.”

She sank back on her heels. Pryce could and would. She was a woman alone against a gang of pirates, looking particularly menacing in the dark just then. They could do anything they darn well wanted, and there wasn’t a blessed thing she could do about it. Years of dealing with a stubborn-as-a-rock Highlander, however, had taught her the wisdom of alternative approaches.

“Isn’t there something in that precious Code or ship’s book or whatever, of yours that requires the crew to save their captain?” she asked of all of them.

An unexpected tack it was. The men rocked back, puzzling it out.

“Could…mebbe be.” Pryce cast a pensive gaze to where the Morganse laid at anchor, and then said under his breath, “Haven’t ever read all of it.”

“Sounds likely,” said Squidge, pondering.

“Not savin’ ’im could almost be seen as mutinying.” The import of Smalley’s point struck them all, and distasteful it was.

“If isn’t, it should be.” Cate waited and watched. “I say we make all efforts to preserve the Code and go get him.”

There was a quiet cheer in favor.

“You’ll not be a-goin’ anywhere,” Pryce said, grabbing her by the arm once more. “Yer goin’ aboard.”

Her victory plummeted to panic and the tears welled. “Allow me to at least stay…”

“Mr. Cate, by yer leave. The Cap’n desires ye aboard, and direct as direct orders could be.”

“I am safe. I have all of you around me,” she said, spreading her arms toward the circle of pirates. “If something happens, I promise to swim for the ship. How’s that?”

“Well…” Pryce ducked his head and kicked at the sand. “Aye, but if anythin’ wuz to happen—”

“I’ll make sure he knows it was my doing. He won’t shout at me near as much.”

Pryce made a caustic noise. “He wouldn’t dare.”