The Pirate Captain - By Kerry Lynne Page 0,36

the narrow bunk sported a worn canvas-covered mattress and a faded checked pillow. At its foot sat a sea chest, with intricately knotted rope handles. A small stand was next to the bed, a sconce over it. Atop the stand was a stack of books: Catullus, something in French that she couldn’t read, and Moll Flanders. Eclectic taste, to say the least. A dull gleam in the bunk’s corner caught her eye—a bottle wedged there. Uncorking it, she sniffed: Madeira. A washstand in the corner, a low stool, a row of empty pegs on the wall, and a hanging locker containing a disreputable rain tarpaulin completed the room.

No extra clothing, no luxuries, no hints of the person or his past; contrary to his colorfulness of character, Nathan Blackthorne, famed pirate and scalawag, was a man of simple needs and tastes.

Suddenly guilty for having invaded his privacy, she turned to a more pressing problem: clothes. Donning the soiled and crumpled shift once more, she went through the now empty salon to the trunks. She held little hope of finding another shift. Several had been soiled during the women’s illness, and in the spirit of decency, she had dressed each in a clean one before burial.

She hesitated at the side of the largest trunk, chewing at the inside of her mouth. The owner of this trunk had once been alive, breathing and talking, loving and being loved. Now, Mrs. Littleton was gone, leaving nothing but a few possessions to mark her passing. Gathering her resolve, she lifted the lid and groped through the tangled mass. She held a hope, though a desperate one, that the pirates had been thorough enough in their pillaging of the Constancy to have found her little bag, the one she had so carefully hidden, so that it wouldn’t be found. For her to find it there would have meant Providence had smiled upon her, a rare occasion indeed. The backs of her eyes began to prick at the thought of what had been lost. She shook it off and set to digging with more intent.

Just as her hand hit something hard—a hairbrush, it felt like—the clump of boots announced Nathan’s arrival. She rose and bobbed a curtsey. Slightly flushed with exertion, his arms were laden.

“I come bearing gifts,” he declared.

He reached as if over an invisible barricade and dropped the cloth bundle he bore into her arms. She shook it out to find a man’s shirt and breeches.

“They'll answer fine. I can't recall the last time I wore pants, but it's certainly better than a quilt,” she said.

“The hold’s full o’ swag, but nothing seemed…” He struggled for a word, and finally landed on “Appropriate,” but winced, not happy with that one either. “We’ll be putting in on the ’morrow, the next day the latest; perhaps we can find something better then.”

The breeches were sky blue velvet, the shirt a fine lawn, with deep-laced cuffs and collar. As she held the shirt up for inspection, it was difficult to overlook the elegant fabric’s transparency. Suitable for a man, under a waistcoat and jacket, it was otherwise quite revealing.

“Oh! I brought this, too.” From his sleeve, Nathan pulled a long strip of cloth, its ragged edges evidence of having been torn from a larger piece.

“It’s for…well, you know…it's…” He cleared his throat meaningfully and crisscrossed his chest. “It's to help with…things.”

Agitation radiated from him like heat from a brewing pot, his displeasure seeming to stem from the very items he had just given her.

“You're not one of those men who think women shouldn't have legs,” she cried.

His discomfort gave way to indignation. “The last woman I knew to wear breeches tired to kill me.”

“And somehow, it was the breeches’ fault?”

“What else?”

She thought him to be jesting, until she saw his deadpan expression.

“I'm sorry,” she sputtered, holding up what was meant as an apologetic hand. “I'll try to give warning, if I’m taken by the urge.”

“I would appreciate that,” he said coldly.

The smell of dankness, wet wood, stale body odor, and old vomit met her nose, strong enough to be smelt at arm’s length.

Her stomach rolled and she blurted, “I’ll need to wash these.”

“Excuse me?”

“Wash. They need washing.” Even if it meant using seawater, the smell of that would be far preferable. Standing in nothing but an oversized shift was hardly the time to be particular, but on some things she was unwilling to compromise.

His lip lifted, wrinkling his nose. “Why?”

“Because they smell.”

“Like what?”

“Any manner of things. Sniff.”

She shoved