"About ships and sailing, everything, aye. About Beecher?" Nathan asked, angling his head toward her, pursing his lips. "Just that I didn't want to be around him, the old barracuda. Then, we finally arrived at Matelotage Isle."

"Where?"

"Matelotage Isle," he repeated, each syllable with a hiss of disgust. Too agitated to be still, he sat up, bits of moss and twigs clinging to the damp linen of his shirt. "A delicate sounding name for the damnedest, most godforsaken, wretched place me young eyes had ever seen."

With a derisive snort, he shook his head in dismay. "A place that's on the way to everywhere, but near to nothing. But, ah!" Nathan said displaying a warning finger, "you'll not find it on any map. It's a place where pirates go, when nowhere else will have them."

He reached for the bottle and took a drink.

Cate struggled to imagine the place he described. "A pirate penal colony?"

"Hardly, but of sorts," he said, setting the cork with his palm. "There's the ones what are too tired, but not so tired as to die. And there's the ones what are too lowly and vile to be had anywhere else, including hell."

"Sounds rather hellish."

"An understatement, to be sure. Such a place would need someone from the right hand of Satan to rule it, and that would be none other than Beecher."

"And that's where he took you?"

"Like he was delivering us to the Garden of Eden," he said grimly.

"I thought I heard once of a place something like that near Africa."

"Madagascar? A pirate haven to be sure. Ranter Bay, Fort Dauphin, and Isle Sainte Marie; Baldridge, Welsh, Samuel, and Plantain had their share of running it, Ol' Avery and Tew sailed out of it, but that was nigh a half century ago."

A hand clenched a fist on his leg. "I hated that place," he rasped, with a soul-felt vehemence. "Every variety of degradation you could imagine was there, and hell-hound Beecher was the Master of it all."

Nathan's eyes closed as he fought to quell the memories. When they opened again, he cautiously glanced sideways to see if she were looking. A blush rose from the collar of his shirt as he averted his gaze overhead.

"Shortly after we arrived, Beecher announced he was going on a venture and I was to go with him. I begged Mum to allow me stay, but she insisted, sayin' as it would be good for me, a chance to meet me calling and go to sea under the guidance of an expert." He heaved a long sigh and added, grimly: "Took me first and second flogging on that voyage."

"He flogged you?"

He gave a rueful smile as he stretched out on the grass once again, one knee bent. "Became a bit recalcitrant I did, I expect. He had to make an example of me, and he did. I swear, he enjoyed every stroke of it. First time, it was two strokes-just with the lash-and second time, it was five with the cat. Bloody unpleasant on a scrawny, bony back. Taught me I never wanted to be a pirate, that's for bloody damned sure. I hated every one of those men with a passion what penetrated clear to me bones."

"Where's your mother now?"

"Dead." The answer was blunt, but laden with loss. "Shortly after we returned, she died in childbed with Beecher's. I remember crouching in the corner, hiding behind a chair, listening to her scream. There was so much blood." His eyes clamped shut as he bit his lower lip. "I hated him even the more. Shortly after, I left, stowed away; swearing I'd never go back to that hellhole and never to sink as low," he added vehemently.

An awkward silence fell between them as the irony and tragedy of that twisted in the air. She sought in vain for something to say that wouldn't sound like hollow platitudes.

Unable to witness his pain any further, Cate swallowed hard and asked, "Then what?"

"I stowed away on a merchant, and I've been at sea ever since," Nathan finished lightly, as if announcing the "happily ever after" ending to a child's story.

"Have you ever seen your father?" As contentious as her relationship had been with her father, she still couldn't imagine never having one.

Re-crossing his ankles, he resituated his head on his hands.

"No, never have. Not bloody likely, either. The sea claims many a soul and no one the wiser. Maybe I'll run into him in the hereafter, whatever that is," he finished on a slightly brighter note.

"And your brothers?"

"Charles and Michael?" His jaw twisted sideways as he considered. "Last time I saw them, they were standing at the end of the wharf at Matelotage, waving good-bye."

Having said more than intended, he withdrew into himself, and faded from the poolside glen to somewhere distant, where he wrestled with awakened ghosts. He possessed the maddening ability to stretch out and be comfortable anywhere, from a beach to the tar-caked deck of a ship. His eyelids grew heavy and drooped, and his breath slowed. An infinitesimal sigh, and he was asleep.

Nathan's head lolled toward her, his hair a spidery black tangle about his head and shoulders. The furrows between his brows smoothed and his lips parted slightly, blowing out gently with each breath.

The heat of the pool glowing inside like a small furnace, Cate fondled her new bracelet as she studied him, as she so often did. It was rare opportunity to see him near and so still. There was a time, not that long ago, when she had only seen him as the total man. Now he was the sum of dozens of little oddities and details: the small scar at his temple that ran up into his hairline; the clump of three bright copper hairs in his beard at the corner of his mouth, or the single silver one in his left brow. The hooks at the corner of his mustache, the ones she had seen lift the corners of his mouth into a smile so many times, were not a matter of trimming, but a natural phenomenon. Under his mustache, his mouth tended to curve downward from its sharply peaked center, giving him a certain somber sadness when at rest. At the moment, however, it drew up at the corners in a faint smile. His right hand rose and fell where it rested on his stomach. She could see again the severed ends of the last two fingertips, the nail corners nicked away.

Cate resisted the urge to touch him, trace the curve of his lip, run her fingers through the ebony mat of hair at the opening of his shirt, or touch the vein throbbing at the base of his neck. She rolled toward him as near as she dared and inhaled. Amid the crushed grass and the pool's sulfur, there was the smell of him, with the ever-present undertone of cinnamon, orange oil, and rum.

Dampened shirt clinging to his body, in his own barbaric way, Nathan was beautiful in spite of the lingering effects of the beating he had taken. Barefoot, fine-boned, and elegant, he bore a heretofore-unseen innocence, as if allowing her to see his truth. He slept, and therefore was saved from facing rejection, if she chose not to accept him. Lying there amid the moss and fern, dappled by the lacy shadows of the leaves, he could have been a creature of the forest, but the sea wouldn't relinquish its grip, as proven by the swallows on his knuckles and tattoo over his heart.

She still stung with the mortification and hurt of the night before. The wall between them seemed a brick higher. Looking at the thick fan of lashes-copper-tipped by the sun, long and curving to the point of almost girlish-she wondered what it was which allowed him to be so malicious and cruel one minute, and so boyish and attentive the next.

Numbness was going to have to become a permanent state of being, if she was to be around Nathan. She was learning how to keep her heart locked away, and to desensitize herself against the constant barrage of moments when her breath caught and pulse raced. She had found a small corner in which to keep her heart, close enough so that, if the occasion should arise, it could be readily retrieved, and yet not so convenient as to be inadvertently exposed. It meant living a half existence, wooden and cold, the feelings she had thought to be essential, now dangerous liabilities.

Cate contemplated the risk of throwing herself at him, right there, right now. Only fear of the devastation of being repulsed stopped her. Restraint meant there was always a chance; succumbing could mean all hope would be lost.

The gnarled scar at Nathan's neck called to mind the one on her shoulder blade. She could feel press of the thickened slab when she thought about it. Time did have its benefits: the pain had long passed, though some days the bone beneath ached. She moved her hand under the quilt to her stomach and lightly traced the network of scars there. Most were but hairlines, though some were nearly the width of her little finger. Older than the one on her back, these were from another time, another place.

So much damage; proof time couldn't heal everything.

Limp of limbs, with no strength or inclination to move, she closed her eyes and dreamed of seals in bathtubs afloat with pirate ships.

Chapter 13: What Friends Are For.

It was late afternoon by the time Cate and Nathan returned to the shore, the sun a torrid globe a hand's breadth above the island's jagged backbone.

Much had changed in their absence. The pirates were striking camp.

With the fresh water casks filled, firewood loaded and the galley beams hanging with fresh game, the two ships collected their crews like mother hens calling back their chicks. It was a slow process, men and provisions incrementally returning in longboats and makeshift barges.

The Morganse's decks were astir with stores to be loaded, and with what Nathan explained as exchanging her Number One anchor for kedges, lighter and therefore more readily retrieved, a significant advantage for a ship lying in wait. The Grisellers operated under the pressure of time: if they were to keep to their Captain's plan, it was necessary for them to win her anchors, clear the bay, cross the Straits and settle to lie in wait while there was still enough light. Even in Arabic, there was no mistaking the bawl of her boatswain and his mates, urging the men to their tasks.

Cate bore a hand with packing stores and loading boats. In between, she sat on a storm-cut ledge of sand, blotting the sweat from her face. Nathan and Thomas stood at the water's edge, arms crossed, intermittently interrupting their conversation to bark orders. Aided by the breeze, they were near enough that she could hear them detailing their attack plan, spoken in a tongue known only to mariners. It was a fascination how two men could communicate so much with so few words. A nod, a grunt, a shrug, a lift of two fingers, not to be confused with that of three, and volumes were spoken.

Business complete, Nathan dropped cross-legged in the sand next to her.

"We'll hold off until the last boat. I thought you might desire to remain ashore as long as possible."

"Firm ground has felt wonderful." Cate leaned to add in a lower voice, "But hot water felt even better."

Nathan ducked his head, grinning shyly. "'Tis pleasing to hear."

"You think the ship will pass so soon?"

He surveyed the offing with a one-eyed squint. "Aye. A premonition, but a strong one."

"Then what?"

He pursed his lips and counted off on his long, ring-laden fingers: "Deliver the ransom note, arrangement for an exchange and hide the hostage until said exchange."

Cate winced at the word "hostage." She had been-and for all that matter, could still be-a hostage. It was an uncomfortable word, with connotations she was disinclined to explore.

"Will Creswicke pay?" The mere mention of the man's name gave her a sense of creeping evil.

"Oh, aye," Nathan said with emphatic satisfaction. His arms came to rest his on bent knees. "He'll pay, if for no other than the simple reason he can't bear the thought of telling anyone she was taken, let alone taken by me."

"What will he do then? I mean, after he's gotten her back?"

His chuckle was heavily tinged with anticipation. "Everything in his power to catch us...catch me, that is."

Nathan shook his head and smiled crookedly. "I pity anyone around him for the next while. He's going to be insufferably insufferable. And he'll do everything in his power to wreak his revenge."

"On you?"

"Who else?" He spread his arms in a prideful display, more like a boy bragging on toppling the neighbor's privy.

"You don't like each other, do you?"

"Not much," Nathan said indifferently. "One does have to admire a dedicated enemy."

"Thomas told me some of it," Cate said carefully, worried of possibly breaking a confidence.

Nathan twisted around. One brow arched in derision "He did, now? Rotting ol' looby never could keep a stopper on his gob. Not as smart as he thinks his is, however."

She waited. The lilt in his voice suggested there was indeed far more.

"There's more?" she eventually prompted.

He squirmed, leaning away. "'Tis nothing. Trifles. Inconsequential indiscretions."

"Apparently not, at least in Creswicke's mind." Cate inclined her head into his line of sight. "What did you do, Nathan?"

He twitched, fingers drumming a tattoo on his leg.

"Nathan, what happened?"

He shifted on his rear. Clearing his throat, he gave a wobbling smile. "Well...I might...just possibly," he clarified, holding up a cautionary finger, "may have..." His voice faded; his throat moving as he gulped. "I may have bedded his mother," he finally blurted.

Her mouth fell unbecomingly open. "What?" Cate cried with a force that caused several of the men to turn and look.

"How was I supposed to know?" he said, sounding even more like that privy-tipping schoolboy.

Stricken speechless, her mouth moved like a fish for air. "The name would have been a hint."

"All I knew was Lady Arthur, or Anthony, or one of those 'A' names. Bloody royals and their pompous falderal!"

For all his amatory escapades-which were legion, to be sure-this one seemed particularly insidious, perhaps due only to the severity of its consequences. She had never thought of him capable of being that scheming and insensitive. Inconsequential, indeed.

"Nathan, how could you?"

"Allow me to point out, in me own defense, that she never said. I had no idea who she was, so it didn't count, not really. There is something to be said about the older ones," he sighed wistfully.

"Apparently it counted to Creswicke. No wonder he was so angry. Obviously he found out. Did he catch you?"

"Not that time."

"There's more?" Her jaws were beginning to ache.

"Very well, if you must." Nathan heaved a long-suffering sigh. "I bedded his sister."

Cate groaned and slapped her forehead.

"Lovely, plump little thing she was, fair of hair and blue-eyed," he said with a blissful lilt. He sobered, his jaw twisting aside. "At least, I think that was her."

"Why am I hoping that you're lying?" she said into her hands.

"As God is me witness," he intoned, extending a palm to the sky.

"Somehow I don't think He would care to witness this. Was this before or after Creswicke's mother?"

"After. Decidedly and most certainly, after."

Cate arched her eyebrows expectantly, while Nathan examined his fingernails with great intent.

"Fight ensued," he finally relented. "I emerged victorious, of course."

"A fight? A sword fight?" The initial shock waning, she was beginning to follow his train of thought-a convoluted and dizzying ride, to be sure.

"Had to defend me honor."

"Your honor. What about the sister's?"

His pride deflated at that. "Turned out she was working her way through the alphabet of Company captains. The perverse wench started at Z; the B's came at the last."

Cate braced her head in her hands and groaned again. "So that's why Creswicke hates you so much."