The Pirate Captain - By Kerry Lynne Page 0,54

give her that smile, the one that could warm her heart from across a room, and the intent blue look that could melt all resolve and tighten her belly. All she need do was turn and step into his arms, and she could know again what it was to be held, and most of all, loved.

“Amen.”

The sound of Nathan’s voice jerked her back.

Cate closed her eyes and put a hand to her ear. The sound of a body being commended to the sea was one to which she would never become accustomed. The splash was more cold and final than the thud of dirt on a casket. Determined not to become a sniveling wreck, she was brusquely swiping away the tears when Nathan turned.

“Are ye well, luv?” The dark slashes of his brows drew down with concern.

“I’m fine.” Her eyes filling again, she spun around, putting her back to him. Once sufficiently recomposed, she turned back with a wobbling smile. “Give me something to do.”

Grim-faced, Nathan seemed to perceive the motivation behind her request. While he and Pryce debated as to what she was capable—tarring being too dangerous, not strong enough for the pumps, not to be trusted in the rigging—versus what was most pressing, she gravitated toward a man sitting down amid a snow bank of canvas. The three-sided needle he wielded was gargantuan compared to anything she had ever worked with, but a needle was a needle, and she was intrigued to watch the deft movements as he mended sails.

“Billings here is one the best canvasmen ever t’set sail,” Pryce declared, coming up beside her. He clapped the man on the shoulder and gave him a brotherly shake. “He kin sew more wind into a sail than the Great Zephyr hisself.”

Pryce craned his head skyward. “What be in yer head this fine day, sir? ’Tis a might calm, it is not? But we’ll kiss the iron and sew in the rest, aye?”

Weathered to the same butternut brown as every mariner, at first glance Billings possessed no defining features other than a luxuriant, curving mustache. His response, however, came in a nearly unintelligible garble, Pryce nodding intently.

“Very well, then. T’yer duties,” Pryce said with a joviality she would have thought impossible, and then directed to her from the corner of his destroyed mouth, “Don’t mind if he’s a bit wantin’ on the conversation aspect. He’s put but a score o’ words together over a year’s time. He’s a bit o’ the idiot about him, but who’s to know? He’s blessed with magic in those hands.”

Cate glanced candidly in Billings’ direction. If he had heard—and no reason to believe he hadn’t—no offense had been taken. When he looked up to respond, she saw that under the mustache his mouth was severely disfigured, natural-born rather than by accident, by the look of it.

“The Royal Navy don’t fly no better canvas than the Morganse.” Pryce pointed with pride toward the sail in Billings’ lap. “See them leeches? Only the Navy and the Morganse has corded leeches. And that twine he’s a-usin’ is waxed, not that tar-dipped stuff; only the Royal Navy uses that.”

She forbore questioning how the Morganse came to have stores that only the Royal Navy should possess.

“What about the red?” she asked, looking down at a rubricated stretch of canvas.

Pryce’s contorted face lit. “Funny that. I t’weren’t with the Cap’n then, but he represents he raided a Spanish corvette a’tween Cuba and Cayo Hueso full o’ pastillas of cochineal. Through a certain series o’ mishaps, it got spilt on the canvas stores. Sometimes looks a might pink,” he said, judiciously eyeing the sail, “but the effect is still the same. A comin’ out o’ the sun, she ’pears to be a-breathin’ blood.”

Cate hid a smile. That hadn’t been quite her first impression, but it was close enough.

Amid the turmoil, she became aware of voices rising above all else. They came from a sizable collection of men at the forecastle. One stood at the rail, faced down to the remainder gathered below.

“What are they doing?”

Nathan looked up as if noticing for the first time, and then regarded her as if she might be a bit dense. “It’s an auction,” he said around something tucked in the corner of his mouth. It looked to be a tobacco quid that he half sucked and half chewed on.

“I can see that. Now?” With all that needed to be done, it seemed an odd time for such distractions.

A closer look revealed whatever it was in