to mend Chin’s leg. It seemed they had been having a bit of a go at her. Their Captain had to have been in on it, she thought unkindly. She felt quite put upon, but seeing the innocence with which he slept dissolved her annoyance.
At length, she moved to the table. There she slouched in a chair and tried to think of a single place in her body that didn’t ache. Every joint felt as if it had been ground into the next. She sat staring out the stern gallery, shaking with fatigue, covered in vomit, blood, and filth, pulsing with a sense of fulfillment.
She had been needed.
Every bone ached, but at the same time, she was exhilarated. The true reward had come in the grateful faces. She was very familiar with the way men away from home yearned for a woman’s touch, a kind word and a smile often doing more than bandages or salve. What she had forgotten was how taxing the process could be, as if each man had taken with him a small piece, until there was nothing but an exhausted body and a drained spirit.
With an exhausted groan, she fell across the table, pillowing her head on her arms.
Another day done. How many more to go?
Chapter 4: Captivated
Cate woke to the puzzling sensation of being tugged by the hair and a strange smell, curiously reminiscent of hay and barns.
Not knowing where she was only added to her disorientation. Not in bed, certainly, but where? She cracked one eye open to a sideways view of a room. A cabin…a hard surface against her cheek…sitting rather than lying…And then the night before came tumbling back.
Her hair was pulled again. Not painfully, but more out of impatience. She pried her cheek from where it stuck to the table, turned her head, and was met by two vertically slitted golden eyes, a startled bleat, and a blast of goat breath.
“Ah, you’ve met!”
Cate sat up at the sound of Nathan’s voice. He stood braced in the doorway of the sleeping quarters, hair matted, blood-streaked shirt rumpled and askew. Both eyes had blackened in the night, one swollen considerably more than the other. It left him looking quite cockeyed.
“We haven’t exactly met,” she said, eyeing the goat. The beast ducked its head to snatch her hair again, bleating in protest when Cate reflexively jerked away.
“Hermione, mind your manners, you ruddy beast. You needn’t be afraid of her,” Nathan directed to Cate.
He balefully regarded the goat as he crept across the room. He moved with the utmost care of one suffering the severe aftermath of a night of overindulgence. Careful not to cross the line of demarcation, his path veered to snatch up the rum bottle as he passed. “She bites, but only when in drink.”
“I’m not afraid. It’s…She’s…I wasn’t expecting—”
“No goats?” Nathan mused on the thought as he slouched in his chair. “Can’t imagine why not. Come to think on it, there’s been one on nearly every ship I’ve served. Good milk, not to mention fresh meat on the hoof. Gives the men a bit of the sense of home, too. Never could abide pigs aboard,” he added as an afterthought. “They don’t fancy the sea. Nothing more unsightly than a seasick pig.”
“Where’s your bandage?” Pulling her attention from the goat, Cate saw that Nathan’s headscarf was back in place. A dark circle, looking suspiciously like blood, bloomed in the neighborhood of where he had been wounded.
“Can’t be seen as infirmed,” he said with a flap of the hand. He took a drink from the bottle. “Besides, ’tis fine,” he said with his eyes closed, waiting for the rum’s restorative effects.
“I rather doubt that. A wound like that doesn’t disappear overnight.”
Nathan's eyes popped open to give her a dark look from under his brow. “I had one mum and shan’t be in need of another, if you please.”
While Cate slept, cups and a pot had been left on the table. The pot was still hot, surprisingly so. Pouring, she was pleased to find it was coffee. She gestured to Nathan in silent query as to whether he desired any. A shudder and a lift of the mouth was her answer.
She took a drink.
Tea was fine for afternoon parlors, but nothing started the day like a good cup of coffee. This particular cup, however, tasted like musty socks and had a thick gritty texture that left a coating on her tongue and an edge on her teeth. She wondered how much delicacy