The Pirate Captain - By Kerry Lynne Page 0,153

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