The Pirate Captain - By Kerry Lynne Page 0,33

beard, jerking his hand down when he thought her looking.

“Last night, you said you had no one. What of your family?” he asked.

“All very far away and probably dead; I haven’t seen or heard from any of them in a very long time.”

“And his family?”

Cate took another sip of tea. “If they were caught harboring, or even so much as associating with a criminal such as me in any way, they could be arrested. Their lands would be confiscated, they would lose everything.”

“You don’t sound Scots, that’s for bloody sure.” Blackthorne leaned back, hooking his thumbs into a belt buckle nearly twice the size of his hand. “Can’t smoke that accent of yours, but it is most certainly not Scots.”

“Oh, I’m not; Brian was a Highlander, though. Clan Mackenzie,” she said with a spark of pride. She sobered as she toyed with her wedding ring. “The day before he was captured, he told me to forget him, consider him dead. God, as if I could!”

She braced her elbows on the table and dropped her head in her hands. Grinding her palms against her forehead, she was grateful for the protective curtain of hair that fell around her as another emotional outbreak dashed to the surface. The fall into the sea must have washed away every bit of fortitude she possessed, leaving her inordinately fragile.

“Does he know where you are?” he asked.

“If only,” she said, choking back the tears. She heaved a quivering sigh. “He was captured almost five years ago. I haven’t heard from him since. I was told he had been transported, but I have no idea where.”

“Did you not make inquiries?”

“And pray enlighten me as to just how was I supposed to do that?” she bristled, looking up. “‘Excuse me, Your Lordship, might you overlook the warrant for my arrest for the moment, and pray tell me where you took my husband?’” Cate made an unladylike noise in the back of her throat.

“So, you’ve been living alone?”

Living alone.

It sounded so simple. And yet, there was a note of appreciation in his question; he wasn’t altogether unfeeling of the magnitude of what that entailed: wandering, living in rat-infested hovels, existing on scraps, always alone. Alone, cold, hungry…and above all, afraid.

She smiled, apologetic for having flared. “I moved to London; large cities are ever so much easier to disappear into. I’m a fair hand with a needle; I can do fancywork no one else can. At one point, a family took me in as a tutor, because I could read and write, but I had to be careful. The most casual association with me could mean imprisonment.”

Blackthorne leaned back in his chair, intently grave. “But then, you had to leave?”

She sipped her tea and nodded. “The authorities were closing in. After a few close calls, I decided it was time to leave. I went to the docks in Bristol with every shilling I had and bought passage on the first ship away.”

“You were headed for Kingston. Do you know anyone in Kingston?”

“Hardly,” she scoffed. “Mrs. Littleton would have been my only acquaintance. It would have been of great advantage to have a recommendation, even a place to go, but it doesn’t matter now.”

She finished her tea, the cup clinking softly on the saucer as she set it down.

“So, Captain, you have your prize before you. Report to the nearest garrison that you have Catherine Mackenzie, and you’ll be the richer man for it.”

“You said Harper, before.”

She winced at her ruse being exposed. In fact, he was smiling, as if he expected the duplicity and was proud of her for it.

“Yes, well, it’s actually Mackenzie; Harper was my maiden name.”

The Captain leaned forward. “Why are you telling me this? It could mean the hangman’s noose—”

“Drawing and quartering.”

He sat back, duly impressed. “The Crown prides itself on doing no bodily harm to women, officially, at any rate.”

“It was made eloquently clear that they were willing to make an exception in my case,” she said with a grim smile.

Heavy footsteps, amid a goodly amount of labored breathing and florid cursing, interrupted them. Crane and Toad, her two guard-assistants from the sick bay, came through the doors lugging a massive dome-topped chest. The smashed lock dangled from the hasp; its contents foamed out from under the lid. Toad now wore a bandage about his head, the ends flopping from his crown like rabbit ears. He was comical-looking until the bloom of red over where his ear had been, and the streaks of dried blood