With a glare daring her to object, Nathan grabbed the bottle and poured an additional dollop into the pot. "Serve the wench, if you must," he said and shoved the pot across the table toward her.

"Shh! She'll hear you."

"Much more the better. Then she'll know if she doesn't drink this, it will be bilge water and sea biscuit for the next fortnight! And if she does you harm again, I'll slap her in irons until we're rid of her cursed carcass!" He raised his voice incrementally until he was shouting at the end, and all aimed at the curtain.

Balancing pot, cup, and light, Cate went back around the curtain to find the hostage had indeed overheard. She sat chastely on the bunk, her large blue eyes meeting Cate as she set everything on the bedstand.

"Who are you?" she asked querulously in a voice torn by tears and screaming.

"I'm Cate. Who are you?"

"Prudence." She sniffed hugely. "Prudence Collingwood." Sniffing again, her fingers flexed at the folds of her skirt in suggestion of a curtsey. Glancing toward the curtain, she leaned to whisper, "Are you a prisoner, too?"

"Umm, not really." Cate said, posing an encouraging smile.

"Were you stolen? Did he take you from a ship? Are you a prisoner? Are you his slave?"

"Slave?" Cate's smile wavered. The child certainly had a vivid imagination. "I think not."

"They're pirates!" Prudence wailed into her hands. "They're going to kill me!"

Melting into a new crescendo of crying, Prudence launched at Cate and threw her arms around her neck. The force drove them both to the mattress. Grappling to escape the death grip, Cate managed to sit up and gather the girl in her arms. Rocking and murmuring little nothings, Cate strove to console the child. It was difficult to admonish the girl too stridently. Her fears were real, as evidenced by the trembling body. Cate recalled suffering many of those same terrors, although she preferred to think she had faced them with a little more alacrity.

Prudence's sobbing eventually subsided, leaving her sniffling and hiccupping.

Hot water! The idea came to Cate as a desperate inspiration. Any woman feels better after washing.

Freeing herself from Prudence's clutches, Cate poked her head out around the curtain. Nathan and Pryce milled about the salon, Kirkland and Millbridge lurking in the margins, all looking thoroughly anxious.

"Hot water?" she asked.

In less time than she thought it possible to reach the galley and return, an arm came around the curtain-no mistaking Nathan's-to hand off a ewer of steaming water. Murmuring vague nothings to Prudence, Cate sponged the tear-reddened face, while praying for the water's palliative effects. Seen more clearly, Prudence proved to be a lovely girl. Glossy, dark brown curls surrounded an oval face with piercingly clear blue eyes, a bow-shaped mouth, and...

"How old are you?"

Prudence looked to her lap and toyed with the silk of her skirt. "Sixteen."

"And you're to marry Lord Creswicke?"

The level of disbelief in Cate's outburst jolted the poor girl. Tears welled and her chin began to wobble dangerously. Prudence's "Yes," came out in a wheezing squeak.

She possessed rounded, doll-like features that rendered her much younger than her years. Still, sixteen was excessively young, by Cate's standards. True enough, she had witnessed marriages at far younger ages while growing up, and in the Highlands. She had disapproved of those, too. In the face of another hysterical onslaught, Cate swabbed the wetness from Prudence's face and helped her blow her nose on the towel.

"How about some tea?" Cate asked brightly.

Tea certainly had its curative qualities, but Cate was putting her money-and her sanity-on the brandy.

Seeing Prudence propped up, tea was served. The small, bow-shaped mouth drew up in disappointment at the cup. "I usually take mine with lemon and milk."

Once assured there was neither, she balked when met by the brandy. The loud, admonishing sound of a male throat clearing came from behind the curtain spurred her to drink. Within moments, her stomach gurgled, and she blushed. Lest she cause further embarrassment, Cate went about straightening the room for a bit longer, before inquiring when Prudence had last eaten.

"Not since breakfast. I was too scared, what with the pirates chasing us," she said, shooting an accusing look toward the curtain.

Cate was sympathetic, but there was a glaring flaw: it would have been late afternoon before the Capricorn would have sighted the Griselle. Youth and terror, however, had a way of clouding one's perceptions.

"Aye, food is always the best means to tame the savage beast," came a disembodied, graveled voice.

At length, a tray was brought. Millbridge-judging by the footsteps-stopped short of the curtain, and refused to approach further. Finally, it was slid under the curtain. The ever-reliable Kirkland had produced toast, a couple of boiled eggs, and slices of cold meat, which Prudence ate with the enthusiasm of the young. A full stomach, combined with tea, kidnapping, crying, and brandy took its toll, and she soon drooped. Chanting assurances of her safety, Cate tucked her up. She promptly fell to sleep, curled up like the little girl she was.

Somewhat haggard and tear-sodden, Cate tiptoed out. Nathan sat quill in hand at the table, Pryce standing across. They looked up with anxious trepidation, Nathan arching a brow.

"She's sleeping," Cate whispered.

"Praise God!" Pryce sighed in a hush. He slumped in relief. "A true worker of miracles, ye are, sir. The woman is relentless. Never knowed a soul what could caterwaul like that."

"She's no woman," Cate hissed and leaned closer to whisper lower yet, "Did you see her? She's a child. She's only sixteen years old."

One was compelled to wonder how the men hadn't taken notice.

Nathan sat back and scowled. "I knew our Lord Creswicke had appetites, but I had no idea he had that one."

"He must be almost twice her age," Cate said.

Nathan snorted. "And near half again."

"What kind of a man would marry a girl...?"

"A man looking for connections and money," Nathan finished, coldly. "And our dear Lord Creswicke seeks both."

"My God, doesn't the man have enough already?"

Nathan snorted again, more derisively. "The word 'enough' doesn't exist in his vocabulary."

"Aye, pirate he is!" Pryce put in, with his own level of disdain. "No matter how much there be in the hold, yer still mauradin' for more."

Nathan grew contemplatively distant. He jerked and shook himself. "Other than the watch, the men have gone ashore. Do you wish to remain or go?"

The thought of an evening ashore was appealing. On an inexplicable surge of motherly instincts, Cate declined with great regret. "I think it best to stay aboard, tonight."

Nathan nodded, surprisingly without comment. "Very well, I'll remain. Mr. Pryce, you're to go ashore and tend the men."

Nodding a brief salute, Pryce left.

Nathan looked up from under his brow, one lifted wryly. "Slave?"

"No secrets on a ship, hmm? Your reputation precedes you."

His mouth curled in distaste as he glanced toward the curtain. "Most decidedly and certainly not with mere children."

Cate sank into a chair. Until she sat, she hadn't realized the ache in her back. Standing on deck waiting, and the argument with Nathan had taken its toll. The bite on her arm throbbed, and her head pounded, as if she had been the one crying. The quietude of Thomas' candlelight supper seemed a lifetime ago.

Resting her head on the back, Cate watched Nathan. He took great pride in his charts, each one a piece of artwork in and of itself. She had spent many an hour watching him pore over them, assessing positions or plotting a new course. But they were currently at anchor.

"What are you doing?" she asked at length.

"Adding a reef; hadn't spotted it, until today." Nathan frowned in concentration, an ink-blotched finger tracing the outlines on the parchment. "This island here is actually two. There's a small pass here. A storm could have taken it out recently, but it's there, nonetheless."

"What time is it?" she asked, rubbing her temples while he sketched.

"Middle watch was just rung. 'Tis midnight," Nathan added, knowing Cate's inability to follow ship's time. He paused to look up, the candlelight catching the cinnamon in his eyes. "You've had a full night."

"It would appear I've next to find a place to sleep," she said, fatigue dragging her voice.

"I'll pass the word to ready one of the cabins below," he said, standing.

A rapid sequence of images flashed through Cate's head: dark, dank holds, snoring men swinging elbow to elbow in hammocks, the smell of pitch and gunpowder.

She halted him with a raised hand, still rubbing her temple with the other. "Don't bother. I don't think I could sleep down there."

"Why not? We'll make sure it's nice and clean." Tease touched the graveled voice.

"No windows, no air, no thank you."

"Then how about the deck? Weather glass says fair and the sky agrees."

Too tired to resist, she allowed Nathan to guide her outside, her arm in one hand and the bottle in the other. Two of the anchor watch stood on the forecastle, so they sat, side by side, with the foremast to their back.

The moon was a bare sliver hanging just above the island's crown. Its thin light allowed the stars to shine like fairy dust, their tiny rays colliding. As he and Cate shared the bottle, Nathan pointed out the constellations and told Greek fables, Nathan Blackthorne-style, in his gravel-gruff voice, and with his own quirky mix of Roman, Greek, pagan, Norse, Hindu, and the mythologies of a world travelled, all heavily dosed with love and lust. She had never realized stars could be so bawdy. They sat shoulders touching. His voice vibrated through her, the soft rumble of his laugh echoing in her bones. The lamps gilding his profile, hands illustrating and punctuating every tale, there was an elegance about him. If she closed her eyes-no challenge there, for she could barely keep them open-she tried to imagine him not as a pirate, but before life had taken its toll.

At some point, the fables faded, and they talked of everything and nothing, dreams and hopes, regrets, fears, ambitions, and grand plans, Nathan painting verbal pictures of things real and things imagined, things he had seen and things no one would ever see. Chilled by the night air, Cate snuggled closer, a head suddenly too heavy coming to rest on his shoulder. Drowsy, she was vaguely aware of his arm slipping around her shoulders and her head brought down to pillow on his chest.

"Welcome back."

Shrouded in the gauzy margins of sleep, it was murmured so faintly, she wasn't entirely sure if she had heard it or dreamt it. And yet, the stirring of her hair and the rumble of his voice under her ear seemed proof it had been real.

Together, they slept.

Cate woke curled on the deck with Nathan's sash folded for a pillow and his faded burgundy coat her blanket. A bit muzzy-headed, it took her a few moments to recollect how she had come to be there. She sat up to an uncommonly empty deck, a mere handful of mariners milling about. Then she remembered that most of the hands had gone ashore, only the anchor watch remained. Stiff and rubbing feeling into one shoulder, she made her way to the cabin.

The salon was empty. Not what one would call a messy person, Nathan still had a way of leaving a trail of evidence everywhere he went. It was a surprise to find no sign of him having been there: no half-drank cup, no crumbs, no fruit peels, navigational tools. nor charts.

More striking, there was no sign of Prudence, either.

Cate cautiously poked her head around the curtain and found Prudence lying on her back staring at the ceiling.

"I give you joy of the morning. I hope I find you well?" Cate asked.

"Very well...I suppose."

Judging by the stiffness with which the child laid, Cate suspected quite to the contrary. "Is there something the matter?"

Prudence looked from the ceiling to Cate and back, worry etched on every rounded feature. "I was unsure if I should rise."

Biting her lip, Cate pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose. "And why shouldn't you?"

"Because...because...I was afraid...and I..."

An annoying inner voice suggested the possibility the child had taken Nathan's directives the night before a little too seriously. She then considered how to go about explaining most of his threats came with little bite and, for all his gruffness, there was a gentleness underneath. On the other hand, such insights might be best left unspoken.

"I heard talk on the Capricorn," Prudence whispered urgently. "I heard stories...at night...about the Ciara Morganse. They eat their victims and drink their blood. They kill their mothers for the gold in their teeth. The ship is made of caskets...and it's cursed!"

Cate turned her head to hide a smile. She had heard many of those same tales on the Constancy. They had been very convincing.

"Those were but sea tales." She patted the girl's arm encouragingly. "It's all well. You'll not be harmed."

"He's a pirate," she moaned, burying her face in her hands.

"Yes, he is," Cate said, pulling Prudence's hands down. "That's Captain Blackthorne."

"He's so scary! He looks mean."

"Well, he's neither scary nor mean." The chance of said Captain being just the other side of the curtain, hence hearing every word, curtailed any further remarks. He did, after all, have a reputation to uphold.

"Did he? I mean, has he...? Have they done terrible things to you?" Eyes rolling with terror, Prudence left little doubt as to her meaning.

Cate smiled semi-sympathetically at recalling her first night aboard the Morganse, waking in the same bunk, suffering the visions of the same horrors. She couldn't help but wonder how much easier things would have gone, if there had been a friendly face for her.

At least Prudence has the benefit of her own clothing, she thought ruefully. "No, they haven't done anything, and nor will-"

"Are you a pirate's woman?"

The absurdity caught Cate unawares. Her cheeks inexplicably heated. "Prudence, you must be famished."

The girl predictably brightened. "Yes, I am...a bit," she said eagerly. Then her knuckles whitened on the blanket. "Oh, but, he's out there. I know he is!"

"Prudence, pray listen. There is no reason for you to fear N...Captain Blackthorne. I know he's a bit...bizarre, but upon my word, you are in no danger."

"I simply can't." Prudence plucked disdainfully at her sleep-wadded clothing. "I'm too mussed."

"Mussed?" It took Cate a moment to process the concept. "It's a pirate ship!"

The outburst and blunt reminder was regrettable. Tears welled instantly. Concessions would need to be made soon or a replay of the scene from the night before was imminent, and it would be on Cate's head. Several suggestions were made, but Prudence was intransigent as the aforementioned barnacle. Progress was finally achieved at the suggestion that Prudence undress, wash, and then redress.

"The ewer's there," Cate said, turning to leave, the prospect of coffee weighing heavily on her mind.

"The water's cold."