growled, “A bit o’ privacy, if you please.”
“You should rest.”
“Pray, mind the oars in your own boat,” Nathan said censoriously. Only the most generous could have called his showing of teeth a smile.
Fine tremors coursed through her as his image was blurred by several shades of red. She hadn’t expected effusive thanks to be lauded upon her, but a little acknowledgement would have been appreciated. Ingratitude seemed no more Nathan’s nature than the dreaded “indolence.”
Still deep in that same tinted haze, she didn’t remember going to the curtain, but did hear the clatter of the rings when she snatched it aside.
“Then by your leave, m’lord!” She hoped he didn’t hear the quaver in her voice. Amid another jangle of rings, the curtain was yanked shut behind her.
Once alone, she sagged against the bulkhead, tears stinging the backs of her eyes. Voices rose from the galley companionway, and she ran to the corner of the salon and locked herself in the convenience. There she sobbed into the folds of her skirt.
The day failed to improve.
Several days’ bed rest would be normally prescribed after what Nathan had just suffered, but a ship wasn’t a normal place, especially one staggering under such storm damage. Nathan was still pale and drawn, the glow of health yet to return. There were dark smudges under his eyes and an uncommon sag to his shoulders. He flared at delicate suggestions, not only from Cate, but Pryce and Millbridge, that he should rest. Seeing Nathan periodically cradle his hand in the crook of his other arm caused everyone to make allowances. That sympathy, however, was quickly dissolved by uncharitable thoughts in the face of his ill-tempered bursts.
Cate tried to shake it off, crediting Nathan’s contrary behavior to his concern for his ship. Keenly aware of the toll the last few days had taken on everyone aboard, she scolded herself for being thin-skinned and testy.
Cate thought it her imagination at first, but she gradually came to realize Nathan was making a point of being where she was not. Over a hundred feet of ship suddenly wasn’t large enough. Twice, while she mounted the windward steps, she saw him exit the quarterdeck by the leeward. When she came into the cabin, he rose abruptly and brushed past her without a word. She was left standing in his wake, confused and feeling as cold and empty as the coffee cup he had left on the table.
That night, Cate glumly picked at the plate Kirkland had left. For the third time that day, Nathan had come to the cabin, saw her, pivoted, and left. The report was that he now sat on the masthead—God knew how he got up there, one-handed—threatening bodily harm to anyone who ventured near. Beatrice grew quarrelsome—more so than was her usual—and Hermione declined her evening tobacco quid.
The memories of the fervor of his kiss and the warmth of his arms, his body pressing against hers, responding so readily to her touch, had faded incrementally under his cold glares and icy shoulder. It was quite clear it had all been an anomaly. It was unsettling how one could be so passionate one point, and so distant and surly the next.
She braced her head in her hands. “This is Nathan. What the hell else did you expect?”
The thing that weighed most was the one she could barely admit: Hattie.
Hattie.
The name loomed over her like a mythical being. It was like being the second wife after the untimely death of the beloved first: living in the shadows, always measured, always seen through a tinted lens.
You remind him of her.
No more chilling or damning words had ever been uttered.
It was clear that Cate was but a substitute. A fascination and wonder it was, as to how Nathan could continue to love the very one who had so cold-bloodedly betrayed him, but there it was. Cate stood at the curtain looking at the bunk, and wondered what pleasures he and Hattie had enjoyed there. She couldn’t help but wonder if a few days earlier, when Nathan had closed his eyes, had it been his precious Hattie he made love to? It had been his precious Hattie he had called for when fevered. His disappointment at finding Cate standing there instead was evident. The whole situation was so much like a drunk after a binge, during which ugly things had been said. Now sober, the drunk didn’t recall anything, and assumed everyone around him to do the same, any hurt to be forgotten.