The Pirate Captain - By Kerry Lynne Page 0,298

cut, inflicted by Thomas’ blade, was now bound in a bit of rag from heavens knew where. “Your hand should be looked at.”

Nathan's mouth quivered with the effort to not smile. “It’s fine.”

While she knotted the cloth around her finger, Nathan collected the knives from the floor, depositing them in the basket. He stood back to regard her with an expectant fatherly look that she found altogether disquieting.

“Very well, let’s have it,” he finally said.

“You need to sit.”

One eye narrowed, thinking it to be a jest. A scowl came with the realization that she wasn’t.

“Very well.” In exaggerated steps, Nathan went to his chair and sat.

Cate stood over him, looking down. “I need you calm.”

“I am.”

“No, you’ve a fist, and your lip is doing that little thing it does whenever you’re upset.”

“I’m not upset, I’m—” Nathan checked himself then made a made a great show of opening both hands, and then strained to rearrange his face.

“You’re still tense.”

“I’m not—”

“Sit back and relax.”

“Goddamnit, I am relaxed. See!” Nathan drew back his lips into a smile that resembled a skull’s grimace.

Cate stood back, but on second thought, pulled Nathan's pistol from his belt. A defiant gaze fixed on her, he reached across the table to slide the sharp-edged objects away from her.

“Now, promise you’ll stay there.”

“I’m not a ruddy dog…oh, very well,” Nathan said over her objections. “Like the damned Number One anchor I’ll be. On to it, then.”

So overtly serene, Nathan was more a caricature and less at ease than ever. Cate took a deep breath. She had come this far; there was no turning back now.

“I need to beg a great favor.”

The false smile faltered and Nathan blinked, thinking there was a trick in there somewhere. “I’ve bid you welcome to anything you desire,” he said with measured caution.

Cate surreptitiously crossed her fingers in the folds of her skirts. “Yes, well, in that spirit…I wish to go fetch Prudence.”

“What!” Nathan launched to his feet. “What the goddamned hell…? Are you trying to put me in an early grave?”

Her glare reminded Nathan of his pledge, and he sat heavily. He exhaled through his nose several times, and then scrubbed his hands tiredly over his face.

“Explain to me again, why we should be so all-fired concerned with this girl? Arranged marriages happen all the time. Why are you so fixated on this one?”

“I’ve told you.” Unable to stand still, Cate set to stalking the cabin. “There’s something about Prudence. I can’t leave her to a hopeless marriage with a—”

“Bastard,” Nathan finished, shrugging a half-apology. He leaned back in his chair and drew his fingers down the curve of his mustache. “Aren’t you being a tad over-dramatic?”

“No.” She paced the gallery. “Well, maybe a little. I sympathize.”

His frown deepened. “I thought you said your marriage wasn’t arranged.”

“It wasn’t—sort of. We probably would have married…eventually…if Brian’s uncle would have allowed it.”

“Then what has all this have to do with anything?”

“Her father, my father…Her family, my family…” she ended, lamely.

Nathan exhaled heavily and closed his eyes as he rubbed his forehead. “You’re not making any sense a-tall.”

“I had a particular friend in school—you recall me telling you about it the other day by the pool?”

He nodded.

“Her Uncle Naecel was the head of the Mackenzie clan, one of the biggest in the Highlands. It was through her that I came to live there. Marriages there are often arranged when the participants are very young. Mairi was six when she was promised to a cousin of the laird of the neighboring clan. There had been a border dispute of some kind or another, and she was part of the settlement.”

“Tangled webs.” Nathan rose and came around the table. “Here, I fear Defoe is not up to the task.”

Nathan gently pried a book from Cate’s hands, one that she had no idea of having picked it up, nor that she had been worrying it to the point of threatened destruction. He pulled a length of cord from his pocket and her heart sank, fearing another lesson was in the offing. Knot-tying lessons were always tedious, Nathan a dogged instructor. To her surprise, he left her to work it in her hands.

“You’ve no idea,” she went on grimly. “He was a monster: nearly thirty years older, and looked and smelled like an old bear. He lived in a house with his prize bull on one side and his bed on the other. He treated the livestock better than her, beat them less, too. Several of Brian’s uncles tried to