She harbored less guilt for washing the cabin floor. It had looked dirty, her intention to be useful.

"I'll not have you slaving about like some scullery maid!" had been Nathan's comment at the time, and with only a small amount of discussion, she had agreed to resist such impulses in the future.

Nathan pivoted to jab an accusing finger so squarely at Cate's nose she ducked. She didn't think he would deliberately hurt her, but given his mood, miscalculations came easily.

"And then there was the matter of the hammocks," he said in a war-like declaration.

"They were stained and they smelled," she shot back before she could stop herself.

"They are washed every Wednesday, each man being responsible for his own."

In a rising heat, Cate wondered whether he was upset over the disruption of routine or that she had robbed the men of the opportunity to do it themselves.

"Am I being disciplined?" Cate said, ruffling. "If so, then put me off at the next port. I had no wish to be such a burden."

"Hold your course and speed. You shan't slip from under this so easily...and I've only begun!" Settling his shoulders, Nathan continued. "And now, out of the blue, without provocation or warning..."

His mouth moved wordlessly, unable to utter the words. Surrendering, he stood over her and glared down his nose. "I demand you explain yourself!"

"Excuse me?"

"Did you mean what you said?"

"I don't know." Baffled, Cate pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose. "I didn't...I mean...What are...?"

"You called me a friend. A friend, mind. What the bloody hell did you mean by that?" Vibrating with acrimony, Nathan commenced pacing, the rum geysering from the bottle.

"That was yesterday," she sputtered "Ah-ha! Exactly! Thought you could drop that stinkpot and it would go unnoticed?"

Cate's first reaction was to laugh, but thought that unwise; Nathan didn't seem of a mind to be dallied with. She wished she knew him better, that she might more accurately read his moods and swings.

"If you had called me an ass or a sottish bugger or a Dutch-faced princock, I would know how to respond to that. Or even if you'd slapped me face, at least I'd know what I'd done, but this...this!" Nathan cried as he stormed about, the scarf jouncing at his knees.

He stalked the room, spewing a black tirade in a rapid succession of languages. Cate's neck grew stiff with visually following his circuitous path. Married to a Scot and living in the Highlands had given her a thorough education in dealing with tempers. Unless bodily harm was imminent, riding them out as invisibly as possible was usually best. Eyes down, she folded her hands in her lap.

"A stab to the heart, that's what it is, and goddamned uncivil to boot. Friend! Tach!"

Nathan took a drink, and then took an angry swipe at the air. His shoulders jerked, elbows working at his sides. "I'm not alone on this, be assured. I've conferred with Pryce and he concurs. Blessed unseemly! I'll have you know, madam, I am a pirate and under no circumstances does that allow-nor come with the expectations-of my being a friend to anyone!"

Cate turned her head to cover a smile that couldn't be suppressed. It was endearing-another term she was confident he wouldn't appreciate-that he was so upset. She was beginning to regret what had only been best intentions, but those often went unrewarded.

Nathan's pace slowed to measured strides. Timed to punctuate each word, he ticked his points off on his fingers. "I've been nice. I've been cordial. I've made polite conversation. Hell, I even gave you me bunk. I haven't shouted or called you names-"

"Well, there was that one time..."

Nathan's lip took an ugly curl. "You were cleaning, madam. Cleaning, mind you. You had to be stopped. This is a first you know," he said, narrowing an accusing eye. "I have never had a woman call me anything so vile or the likes of this in me entire life!"

He stopped in mid-stride and rolled his eyes, striving to recall. "Nope. Never!" he said, with a definitive thump of his fist on the table that made her jump. "It defies all logic. Damn perplexing creatures, women. Incomprehensible!"

Nathan continued to storm the room. "If you've a complaint, woman, then out with it. We fancy ourselves as running a civil ship. We might be pirates, but we don't go a-name calling just because it suits our fancy. We've a Ship's Council; file your complaints as any worthy sea rover would."

He threw himself into his chair and slouched, his outrage fading to resignation. "I've known a vast number of people in me life," he said, as if that fact was of relevance.

Given his acrimony, it seemed unwise to now attempt to discuss the very thing that had set him off. Not everyone appreciated an examination of something so personal. And yet, he was so bereft Cate couldn't sit in silence. Sensing it safe, she picked up the chance to possibly defend herself, or at least mollify a bit of his pique.

"How many were friends?" she asked carefully.

Nathan slid down further to prop his boots on the table. "What is this 'friends,' anyway?"

He posed the question as if it were a condition or disease, certainly not something to be sought.

Cate closed one eye in thought. Her first urge was to mock him: anyone knew what it meant. Considering his life, however, it was possible he had never enjoyed the opportunity. Pirates. Treachery. Bloodshed. Killing. Mutiny. Raid. Kill. Plunder. Hardly fertile ground.

"Umm...trust?" she said.

Nathan made a scorn-laden noise at the back of his throat and rolled his eyes. "Bloody little o' that...and dwindling each day." He slid a cutting look at her that quelled any doubts as to what he meant.

He fell quiet, the dry rasp of his thumb brushing back and forth across the brown glass the only sound.

"Two, mebbe three," Nathan said at length. He seemed a bit surprised by the revelation, but it was unclear if it was because there were so few or that there were that many.

His boyish innocence was heartbreaking, for someone who had lived elbow to elbow virtually his entire life, and yet could count less than a handful as trustworthy.

It was possible that his standard for assigning such status was higher and was affronted by her having assigned it so cavalierly. Cate had assumed it would be taken in the same way as she had intended. She had been without connection for so long-no husband, no family, no home...no friends. She had found a raft in a sea of loneliness and she clung to it, joyous for that small bit of salvation.

"If you like, I'll take it back," she said.

"What will that accomplish?" he asked, sulking. "Can't unring a bell."

"Dong!" she said brightly in a pitiful mimic of a bell. "There, see: undone."

The end of his mustache reluctantly lifted, the familiar humor returning to his eyes. "That easy, eh?"

The storm had passed. Like those of the Caribbean, his anger boiled in, raged and crashed, and then departed with nothing more than a faint rumble.

She rose and lightly laid a hand on his shoulder. "Rest assured, the word has been stricken from my vocabulary. You'll never hear it again. Do we have an accord?"

Nathan smiled with considerable relief and lifted the bottle in salute. "Agreed."

She bent nearer and said in a loud whisper, "Be assured, however, good Captain, this by no means implies that I shall be changing my opinion."

Flourishing the quilt as if it were the royal robes, she strolled back to the sleeping quarters. From behind her came the sound of Nathan taking a drink and a rumbling groan.

"Bloody woman!"

As members of the Brethren of the Coast, equality for the men of the Ciara Morganse came in many ways: equal voice in affairs of piracy and equal shares in the resulting plunder, as well as equality in choosing who was to lead them through it all. Daily, Cate came to understand the delicate balance Nathan maintained as Captain. The volatility of commanding pirates raised its head with startling abruptness one morning.

The day had started with Cate waking from one of those sleeps so deep it took her several moments to collect where she was. She lay snuggled deep under the quilt. Blinking the drowsiness away, she listened to the ship and her people slowly come to life, as would any household.

The Morganse stirred from her slumber and shed her nightclothes of reefed sails. She stretched her arms with her fresh wardrobe of canvas and leaned into the wind with renewed intent. The water at her sides slipping faster, she picked up her daily song of wind and rigging. The holystones were next, cleaning Mr. Hodder's sacred deck. Starting at the forecastle, the hollow growl of the great blocks of sandstone gradually increased as their handlers inched their way along on their knees. Directly behind came the thump of the pumps and gush of water. Next, the rhythmic slap of the decks being flogged dry.

Pryce and Hodder could be heard above it all. Pryce's exact words couldn't be made out, but there was no mistaking his thrust: some poor soul found slacking. As boatswain, Hodder required a voice that could carry from bowsprit to taffrail, topmast to bilges. What he might have lacked in Pryce's resonance, he made up admirably for in volume and all around a nearly fist-sized quid of tobacco in his cheek.

From the salon came footsteps, a vehement curse-Kirkland's, by the sound-followed by a heavy stomp and a simultaneous high-pitched squeal of a rat meeting an inglorious demise. Very soon after, she heard the soft padding and snuffle of His Lordship, considerably more industrious in his task. Whether it was for appearances-lest he appear laggardly in his duties-or spurred by hunger-having been robbed of his most recent meal-Cate couldn't tell.

The bell clanged-eight times, she thought. Hodder bellowed the men to breakfast with sufficient force to spring Cate from her snuggery. She dressed to the slap of bare feet as the hands hurried to their meal.

Artemis, roosted on the back of the Captain's chair, looked up from her preening when Cate rounded the curtain. It was an unusual sight, for the hold was customarily the owl's preferred place.

"I suppose this means the rats have all moved up."

Cate automatically checked along the walls and corners. She had lived in places far more infested, where one was awakened by feet tracking atop oneself. Still, it didn't mean she liked having them about.

Artemis regarded her with baleful reserve, and then lifted a wing to continue preening.

Through the expanse of gallery windows, the Caribbean morning stretched before Cate. It was the picture of perfection, so long as one had a great appreciation for blue skies, billowing white clouds, dazzling sun, and vast stretches of indigo water. It was a far cry from the clouds, drizzle and fog of the Highlands. There the only variety was the degree of chill and damp. Far behind her were the round-backed mountains and stretches of pine forests, tumbling burns and sea-like expanses of moors. The smells of peat, heather, and pine, always sharp in the air, had been now replaced by tar, canvas, and salt.

The ship's wake streamed white against the deep blue sea. Noting clouds on the horizon, impaled by an island's mountaintops and heavy with rain, she checked for the wind: leeward, downwind, and hence no threat.

"Beginning to feel like an old salt," she said, smiling to herself.

As always, coffee waited. It was the mystery of the ages as to how Kirkland foresaw her arrival, for the pot was always steaming, to the point of perilous to the unsuspecting. The porcelain cup and creamer might have been chipped, and the silver spoon a bit tarnished, but they were always there, carefully arranged, waiting. Almost at the same time that she noticed the honey pot and extra plates, the smell of scones baking rose up the galley companionway.

Cate settled in for her next routine: steaming cup in hand, leaning back in her chair, and listening to the ship come alive.

At the sound of feathers, Cate cracked one eye open in time to see Beatrice arrive. Alighting on the chair next to Artemis, the parrot set to a raucous outcry of indignation. She considered the Captain's chair her private domain and voiced a piercing shriek of objection. Artemis looked benignly at Beatrice, and then to Cate. Finding no sympathy or reprieve, she flew away in an almost silent beat of feathers. Beatrice assumed the sacred spot and, puffed with satisfaction, struck a noble pose.

Peace restored, Cate closed her eyes once more. The ship hummed with increasing industry. A skeleton afterguard remained on the quarterdeck, for the Morganse was a lady of high maintenance, a queen always in need of her attendants. Their voices drifted down through the skylight directly overhead. She smiled faintly, the lowest regions of her belly tightening at the sound of Nathan's voice.

Cate often wondered what Nathan's voice would have been had it not been so destroyed. Soft, to be sure, for it still held vestiges of that, but never with the richness of Brian's. His had been deep, and yet so very soft, a warm hug on a winter night. As she and he would lie together at night, reviewing the minutiae of the day, her cheek resting on his chest, its bass would resonate in her bones. Even at a whisper, Nathan's gravel was like torn velvet, a more-worn woolen blanket on that same winter's night, rough yet holding the promise of more comforts to come. She had never thought another voice would touch her as Brian's had. And yet Nathan's did, but differently, as no other.

"Clap on to that sheet, you ill-begotten son of a double-poxed Dutch whore! What the fucking hell...?" echoed down through the skylight.

Ah yes, touched her like no other.

"What?"

Startled, Cate opened her eyes to find said angel-voiced soul standing at the door with a puzzled look.

"Hm? Oh, nothing," she said, sitting up straighter.

His curiosity deepened by worry, Nathan's brows knitted tighter as he came further in. "You had the look as if you were hearing angels singing. You're not going to lose your mess number on me, are you?"

The question didn't seem intended for an answer, and so she didn't.

A curl of his nose, a scowl, and a flutter of fingers deposed Beatrice from her roost. The bird moved to the edge of the table. Cate could feel the single-eyed stare as she peeled an orange, and eventually held out a section. Beatrice crab-stepped across the table, took the offering in her claw. She immediately sidled away to eat with as birdly manners as one might expect.

The pursuant absence of conversation wasn't unique. Nathan was often preoccupied with matters of his ship. It was common to see him tapping the glass, pricking a chart, or writing in the log, while balancing his coffee in the other hand. Come to think on it, she had never seen him entering into a personal journal. Many people kept one, especially those seeking a connection. A captain lived elbow to elbow with men, and yet was isolated by the position of command. Pryce was probably Nathan's nearest thing to a confidant, but even that was quite limited.

No secrets on a ship.

Indeed, that could well be the case, for nothing put to paper could be guaranteed as secret.

The scones arrived. As Cate ate, she tried to decide what it was that struck her so odd, thinking perhaps she was still deep in her earlier daydream. And then, she realized: Nathan was eating. He had plucked a mango from the plate, diced it into chunks with his knife, and was now using it as fork.

She often wondered what kept Nathan going, for it was rare to see him eat. Occasionally, he would walk about with a piece of smoked charqui tucked in the corner of his mouth, like one might a cheroot. She had seen him at times sipping from a cup of something that smelled similar to the hands' meal, obviously thinned considerably. He had taken the fruit from a plate that had a permanent residence in the middle of the table. Strategically placed out of Hermione's reach, with a dome of stiffened gauze over it and sprigs of sage around as deterrents to vermin, it held a ever-changing variety: fruit, boiled eggs, wedges of cheese, pickles, kippers, softtack, charqui, anything that could be grabbed and eaten. She suspected Kirkland, distressed by his captain's apparent lack of appetite, kept it there in hopes of tempting him.

Cate watched with guarded pleasure as he plucked up a scone. She smiled privately at seeing him slather it with honey to the point of drooling over the sides.

There was one secret she knew about Captain Nathanael Blackthorne: he had a sweet-tooth. The honey pot, and its accompanying spoon, was a permanent resident on the table. His coffee was always heavily dosed. Many a time, she had seen him stop to either take spoonful as one would a dose of physick, or swirl his finger inside and pop a golden dollop in his mouth.

Nathan nibbled at the scone's edge, the bells in his mustache flashing in the morning light as he chewed industriously, licking the dripping sweetness from between his fingers, and dashing the crumbs from his mustache and beard.

He flicked a Bombay bomber from his plate as casually as one would an ant at a picnic, sending it on a long arc out the window.

"Damned geckos have been slouching again. Might feed you to Artemis, if you don't bear a hand and show a leg," he directed louder to the general room.

Nathan paused in his chewing to eye Beatrice as she sidled over to Cate for another morsel. "You're going to spoil her appetite."

Cate wondered if he was speaking to her or the bird.

With a squawk of protest and a swirl of feathers, Beatrice soared out the gallery window and curved up toward the quarterdeck.

Mr. Kirkland topped the galley steps and came to a dead stop just as Nathan swallowed carefully, followed by a gulp of coffee. Joyousness flushed his florid face at seeing his captain eat. He eagerly rushed forward uttering an effusive list of other temptations-sausages, bacon, soft-boiled eggs, toasted softtack, fried fish, or an omelet-but was waved away as Pryce came in.

"The crew begs yer leave, Cap'n."

The ominous weight in Pryce's voice brought Nathan instantly to his feet. Cate rose as well without knowing why. Both men stood poised, an entire conversation in one look.

"What's...?" Nathan swallowed, straining to maintain his casualness. "What might this be in regard to?"

Jaws flexing, Pryce's grey eyes narrowed to slits. "They've...grievances, sir."

A sharp rise of voices on deck gave veracity to his statement.

Nathan nodded faintly. "Who?"

"Same as before." Pryce's bass dropped to a bare shadow of itself.

"How many?"

"More than the last," Pryce said, with considerable reticence, and then hissed in burst of hushed vehemence, "God rot their eternal souls and strike them blind!"

Nathan's throat moved as he gulped. "Very well, I shall attend directly."

Nathan stared in Pryce's wake. He closed his eyes and swayed. Hands working at his sides, he emitted a low growl through clenched teeth. He shook himself like a great dog, and then turned to her, his features now carefully arranged.