Chest heaving, he stood staring across the water. "We had them: three against one, at the least. They boarded in the smoke, but we pushed them back. The sharpshooters mowed them down like pigeons. Then we boarded..."

Rubbing an arm with a hand that shook with weariness, he looked toward theNightingale, and said in a hoarse whisper, "It's worse over there."

He blinked, like a sleepwalker awakened, and turned as if seeing her for the first time. "Are you all right?"

In view of the carnage all around, she choked a mirthless laugh, sounding almost maniacal in her own ears. She managed a nod. The small gesture gave him ease. Dashing at his face with his sleeve, he swayed. He took a step, staggered and his knees buckled. Cate caught him with a shoulder under his. A crewman lent hand and they guided him to the quarterdeck steps.

Kneeling before him, she tried to take his sword, but he wouldn't-or couldn't-let go, and she had to pry it free. Now she could see that a good portion of the blood on him was his, pouring from near his crown.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

She bit back a smile. "You look bloody awful."

He swiped at the blood on his face and flicked it away. "Can't say as I disagree. Seems I didn't duck fast enough."

Nathan lurched to his feet and leaned over the rail to retch. Several more spasms took him before he shakily sat. His ill-focused gaze steadied on her.

"Planning on putting me out of me misery?" he asked dully.

Cate looked down to find the pistol was still in her hand. "Give me a good reason and I'll use it."

She dropped the weapon on the step and bent to help Nathan to his feet. "C'mon, you need to lie down."

Mumbling in protest, he rose, nonetheless. He swayed precariously and she braced a shoulder under his.

"Cap'n, orders?" Pryce cried, drawing up before them. His face was soot-blackened as well. Rivulets of sweat had carved flesh-colored lines, which gave him an odd striped appearance.

"Where be the captain of that fair vessel?" Nathan asked.

Pryce dabbed the sweat from his face with his sleeve. "Which piece o' him would ye care to address?"

"Burn that fucking flag," Nathan said, glaring at the other ship.

"He'll take it personal."

"Good, because it is. Pray set that hulk aweigh as soon as possible."

"She looks helpless," said Cate, noticing the Nightingale for the first time. The two ships sat virtually yard to yard, bound by lines and boarding planks. Ravaged and listing badly, the Nightingale was a sorry sight. Mainmast splintered, yards tangled, shredded canvas draped from her waist to nearly her bow. Wallowing on the swell, she slumped in the water, her spirit as shattered as her rigging. The Eclipse's sails, in the meantime, were no more than a blot of white at the line where sky and water met.

"And that concern would be mine, how?" Nathan's brown eye glared ghoulishly through the glistening red. "A pirate with fewer scruples would have torched her, and then listened to them scream, until the magazine caught and they all went to the depths."

"You're to be commended for killing a captain, but not destroying his ship?" she said in disbelief.

"No, I'm to be commended for being alive and he's not."

"The Nightingale has able hands and land in her lee," Pryce said, dispassionately. "They'll do."

Nathan wobbled. His legs buckled and his weight sent Cate staggering. Pryce dipped a shoulder to take the load and half-carried, half-drug his captain into the cabin.

"Put him on the bunk," she called from behind. "And take off those boots."

Pryce did so, pitching them into a corner. He passed Kirkland at the door, bearing hot water and cloths.

The cook hovered as she filled the basin, critically eying his captain, now splayed on the bunk like a rag doll. "He should be bled."

Cate suppressed a reflexive shudder. "I think we've had quite enough blood let for one day. After all, the body does require at least a little upon which to carry on, don't you think?"

Kirkland clearly didn't "think," but forbore pressing the point, and scurried out to go tend the casualties.

"Can't abide bleeding." She hadn't realized she had spoken aloud, until she heard Nathan grunt in agreement.

Nathan made a flailing attempt to rise. Failing, he fell back on the bed, gasping. "I shouldn't be here," he said and gathered up for another try.

"I have yet to witness bullheadedness being able to stop bleeding," she said, pushing him back down.

Cate sat on the bunk to deter him from another escape attempt. She carefully pulled away his headscarf and dropped it to the floor with a sodden splat. His high forehead was divided by a sharp line of deep bronze below pale ivory. Head wounds tended to bleed profusely and this one was no different. Taking a rag, she swiped away the blood in order to see more clearly.

"You've quite a head of hair," she said quietly, hoping to distract him as she probed.

Underneath his scarf, there were several inches of loose hair before being woven into the multitude of braids. One ended abruptly at his shoulder, sliced away by a blade. Blooming in their newfound freedom, the hair ends sparked in the candlelight with a multitude of colors: sable, umber, sienna, the occasional sorrel, and even bronze. Feeling through the heavy silk, she finally located the wound: a nearly finger-length gouge, running along the curve of his skull. Seizing the candle from the sconce, she held it higher for better light.

"Hmm, it looks like if it wasn't for that scarf, a good piece of your scalp would be gone."

Nestling the basin on the mattress between them, she cleaned the abrasion and the area around it, picking away bits of hair, cloth, and wood. The water swirled redder with each squeeze of the cloth. The feel of Nathan's flesh made him so very real, no longer the personification of a legend, but a man, warm and breathing-a bit raggedly at the moment, but still doing so. At first, he twitched at her every move. Gradually, his shoulders eased and his body uncoiled, the hand curled in his lap falling open. She looked down at one point to find he was observing her just as closely.

"You have double eyelashes," she said in quiet astonishment.

The thick dark frame around his eyes was composed of two rows, one a hair's breadth above the other. In the candlelight, it was difficult to see, but she was sure a blush rose from his collar.

"You have a chipped tooth, just there," he said, tapping a gold one of his in illustration.

"Could use some soap," she said, looking away. Soap, at least the kind not made with lye and ash, and didn't burn the skin, was a rare and expensive commodity.

"Sorry, luv. 'Tis a pirate ship."

Cate smiled wryly. "No mind. It's been years since I've owned any. Here, push."

She directed his hand to the bit of cloth over the wound. He did so, shakily but gamely, while she set to washing his face and neck. More damage was revealed. Many of his knuckles were sliced and scraped. A razor-like line of blood marked his neck, a wider one across his wrist. She felt a slight queasiness. Had any of those been a bit deeper, and it would have been his fingers, arm, or head lying on the deck.

She was struck with a shocking wave of relief. Nathan was barely more than an acquaintance; it was inexplicable that his welfare would be such a concern. He had wormed his way into her heart already.

Charmer.

He brought the word a whole new meaning.

Veering from a path of thought she didn't want to take, she asked, "When you told Pryce to burn the flag, he said 'He'll take it personal.'"

Nathan was quiet for so long, she thought he might not answer. Glancing down, she found him staring off with a remote expression. She had thought it a safe question, but his personal boundaries were elusive. Having stumbled upon several of those limits that day, it was clear Blackthorne possessed more than average.

"R-W-I-M-C." He spoke each letter with firm distinction. "Royal West Indies Mercantile Company. You have heard of it?"

"Only mention and none of it flattering."

"Justifiably so, darling." His lips pressed into a firm line. "TheNightingale was a privateer, a licensed hunter to dispatch anyone who might be 'inconvenient' to the Company."

"That's nothing more than a hired assassin."

Nathan smiled grimly. "That would be in the eyes of the one holding the gun. A privateer doesn't have the balls to rob on his own; he needs someone to cover his ass by paying his way, promising to hold his hand when he fails. If he succeeds, he wraps death and destruction up in a tidy package with a bow, and calls his murder and thieving 'for the greater good.' Pirates are the only ones honest enough to call it what it is and die in the process, to the dismay of no one."

"And the 'he' would be..."

"The current lord-on-high in these waters, one Lord Breaston Creswicke," he said, posing as pompously as could be while lying in bed with one hand pressed to his head.

Cate twitched at the name.

"You're familiar with him?" Nathan asked, sharply.

"Only in name. Pryce was probably correct: he won't appreciate his flag being burned, would he?"

Nathan puffed with the satisfaction of a task achieved. "Nay. I can only hope it's the first thing he sees when the Nightingale finally makes port."

"Why didn't you sink it, if you detest him so much?"

He shifted, suddenly restless and defensive. "Have to have been a bit daft to give them quarter, didn't I? By rights, I should have taken them all hostage, strip them of everything, including their dignity, and send that wreck to the depths. That's what any good pirate would have done. But then, why not send that pitiful mess back, let him see he'll have to do better than that to take the Ciara Morganse, allow those men report how the Morganse raked their decks with musket fire, until no one had the courage to take the wheel, and then, let them wonder what lengths it will require the next time?

He snorted in disgust, looking a bit silly with an arm up over his head. "Sir Spineless Simmons hauled his wind at the second volley, tucked his tail and ran, leaving his consort to take the brunt. With some able handling and a bit o' backbone, they could have had us.

"Full broadside was how the Nightingale wanted it, even in the face of our sixteens to his twelves. We had the size advantage too; we ran close so as to keep him from firing up into our rigging, while we had free run at his. Musket fire finished off what was left; a rain of hell with sixty firing at will."

He paused to switch hands. His shoulders twitched with indignation.

"The bastard wouldn't hove to, even when he knew he'd been bested. His men and ship were nothing more than a means to him. Aye well, we sent him off to a world where he shan't be annoyed with such trifles. He's in Jones' hands now."

"What would push a captain to be so foolhardy?" Cate asked, squeezing out the rag, the water now brackish with blood and grime.

Nathan glanced up briefly. "There are two great motivators in this world, darling: ambition and fear, and not necessarily in that order."

"I understand ambition, but what would make him so afraid?"

"Not what? Who?"

"Creswicke? He has that kind of power?" She had heard as much on the Constancy, but had taken it more in the way of exaggeration.

"He has a way of making examples what leaves lasting impressions," Nathan said, with a cold finality.

He fell quiet as she worked. When she finished washing, she removed the basin to the washstand. He took that as his cue and attempted to rise. Hindered by her hand firmly on his chest, a dueling match ensued: he determined to rise and she, determined that he not.

"You should be lying quiet," Cate said, pushing him down.

"Bloody hell, woman. I've no time to be cosseted," he said, batting her away her. "I should be tending me ship."

"You should be-"

Nathan lurched to his feet in spite of her insistence. In the process of struggling, his hand had come away from his head. The blood welled with renewed force and tracked down his forehead. Head high in defiance, he took two steps, wobbled, and then staggered to the basin, just in time to be sick. She caught him as he reeled sideways and wrestled him once more to the pillow. Scooping the cloth from the floor, she clapped it back in place-not sorry to see him wince-and redirected his hand to it. Knocking back the hair, she stood over him.

"If I thought taking your breeches would keep you here, that is exactly what I would do."

"Can't wait to see me in me altogether, eh?" The tease was short-lived. Darkening with determination, Nathan attempted to rise again. "I need to tend me ship."

"You're as white as that pillow."

The pillow in question was actually a dirty off-white, but the parallel held, nonetheless.

"I need-"

"Am I to assume you prefer being seen wobbly like a colt and vomiting over the rail like a landlubber?" Cate demanded.

Chastened but not beaten, he laid back on the pillow, glaring up. "I'll not lie here, whilst me ship-"

"Shall I call Mr. Pryce, then?" Huffing with aggravation, Cate wrung the cloth in the bowl and set to cleaning the blood from his face...again!

"Torturing me, you are," Nathan huffed indignantly. "If you were so damned concerned regarding me miseries, you'd at least allow me a spot of rum."

Having been married to a Scot for a number of years, she was well-versed in stubbornness, and in the process, fancied herself as having cultivated a similar streak of her own. In dealing with said Scot, she had learned a frontal attack was too often ineffective; a feint to the flank often proved best.

"There is still bandaging to be done," Cate said with a suggestive lilt. "I'll wager you've a fair good headache."

"Hurts like the dickens," he said, anticipation heightening.

"Well, in that case," Cate began judiciously, "a bit might be allowed, for medicinal purposes only."

"Of course!" Sobering, he lowered his voice. "Of course."

"Very well, then, a bargain?"

"Negotiating, is it?" He brightened at the prospect. Batting his eyelids affectedly, he settled in for the challenge. "A parlay it is. Your terms?"

Mindful of the delicate nature of such proceedings, she paused, taunting him with a prolonged consideration. "You stay in that bunk...and I'll fetch the rum."

"This bunk, for that rum," he reiterated, gesturing toward the salon. "Agreed!"

The village idiot could have seen his wheels of deception turning. She would have done no differently if positions were reversed, she thought as she fetched the bottle. His face fell in predictable proportions at seeing her pour a dollop into a cup.

"You said the rum. Those were the terms," Nathan said in stunned betrayal.

"I didn't specify how much, did I?" It was her turn to affectedly bat her lashes. "You were planning to jump up the instant I turned my back."

"They say power corrupts," he muttered, darkly.