Humored by her aunt's blunt evaluation, Prudence stifled a nervous snicker.

"What am I to do?" Guileless in innocence, Prudence looked to the surrounding women.

Lady Bart's eyes welled. "Marry Creswicke; there's aught else."

"Perhaps not." Cate pensively chewed the inside of her mouth. "What if there had been some kind of a mistake?"

Lady Bart pivoted to ask blankly. "What kind of mistake?"

"What if," Cate began haltingly, still playing it out in her mind, "since you had never seen your niece before, she had been able to put one over on you? What if she told you she was your niece, but wasn't...really?"

Cate looked from one to another, hoping for them to grasp her point quickly and save precious time. She had been in the house far too long; every minute more increased the chances of herself, or worse yet, Nathan, being discovered.

Sputtering, Lady Bart slumped in her chair and threw up her in abject surrender. "Of course, she's my niece," she muttered, more to convince herself. Rocking in agitation, she pleated and re-pleated the fabric of her dress. "But you are Prudence, aren't you, dear?"

"Yes, of course, Auntie." Prudence knelt to clutch her aunt's hand. "But Cate means to help."

Lady Bart's mouth took a severe downward turn. "How is it helping, when she's trying to convince me you're not?"

"Not convince you," Cate explained, patiently. She angled her head toward the parlor door and the unseen world beyond. "We just need to convince all of them."

"Convince them of what?"

"That Prudence isn't...Prudence."

"Then who is she?" Lady Bart asked, her distress increasing.

"A girl on the ship." Even as Cate heard herself say it, she was struck with how desperate it sounded. The pain in her temple pounded in rhythm with her pulse. She glanced toward the window, and then the corner clock.

"That's ridiculous," exploded Nanna. "Everyone knows who she is."

"You know that," Cate said, facing Nanna, "because you were on the Capricorn. But how does anyone else know, I mean, really know? Have you ever seen a likeness of Prudence before now?" she asked of Lady Bart.

"Hardly," Lady Bart said with an unladylike snort. "My brother would have never spent that sort of money on the child. Her mother sent me a silhouette she had made, but that was years ago."

"Then how do you know this is really her?" Cate pressed.

"Why on earth would she lie? For heaven's sake," Lady Bart declared, her hands going to her face. "Will you stop being so circuitous!"

Cate turned to Prudence. "What if, while you were on the Capricorn, you made friends with a girl named Prudence Collingwood, and she had told you about the rich and powerful man she was to marry, the head of the Royal West Indies Mercantile Company? It sounded like a dream come true. Then she died, and so, you decided to take her place and no one would be the wiser."

Prudence scowled. "But what about Nanna?"

Cate turned. "What about it, Nanna? How badly do you wish to see her married to a reprehensible man? Agree, and Prudence is free."

The clock's pendulum ticked off the seconds as Nanna looked first to Cate then Prudence. Her expression softened and her shoulders fell. "Tell me what's to be done."

Cate clasped a fist at the small victory. "Nanna should be the one to start: she used to be your niece's nanny and will be the one to suffer a sudden sense of conscious, and reveal Prudence-this one, that is-as an impostor. Then, with a little convincing," Cate went on, exchanging a sly smile with Prudence, "she could finally admit to not being your niece."

"Then, who is she?"

"Does it matter?" Cate shot back. Her patience and time was running out. "Pick a name."

The wheels of realization were beginning to turn in Lady Bart's head, albeit slowly, too slowly. "What happened to my real niece?"

"She died. A terrible sickness took her along with this girl's parents."

"But the passengers on the Capricorn would know," Nanna said haltingly.

Cate winced. This was the weakest part of her plan, and where it could all fall apart too readily. "We can only hope they have spread across the West Indies and are all very far away. And how would any of them actually know?" she said, crossing her fingers in the folds of her skirt.

Lady Bart rose. Each tick of the clock was a stabbing reminder of time passing, while she paced. Hands writhing at her stomach, she made little, indecisive puffing sounds, her tiny feet clicking on the polished floors.

"Why is she telling the truth now?" Lady Bart said. "She could still marry, if she didn't say anything."

"She's had time to learn what sort Lord Creswicke is," Cate said carefully.

"He'll certainly write Father." Prudence's expression clouded as she grew to understand the implications of the plan. "He'll think me dead."

"And well enough," sighed Lady Bart, bracing her head in her hand. "For what little good that man has done you over the years."

Prudence clouded with the slow realization that the terms of her salvation: she would never see her parents again. It was the part that pained Cate the most. In saving the girl from a miserable fate, she had doomed her to the same one she had lived: losing family and home.

"And Mama?" Prudence barely squeezed out.

By then, Lady Bart, as well as everyone else, had come to the same conclusion. The matron clasped Prudence's hands. Her chin wobbled, but conspiracy touched her eye.

"Where there is a will, there is a way. Perhaps we can have a note secretly delivered." Eyes brimming, Lady Bart smoothed the dark, glossy curls at Prudence's shoulder. "Where will you go, dear?"

The question hung in the air. It was another large-perhaps the largest-hole in Cate's plan. Prudence would no longer have to marry Creswicke, but neither would she have an identity. The backs of Cate's eyes stung. She knew the paralyzing aimlessness of having no name, no family and nowhere to go. With no beginning and no end, it was like a leaf riding a gyre of pointlessness and futility: down seemed the only direction to go.

Prudence slumped. "I don't know," she said in a small voice. The red-rimmed eyes turned to Cate. "Mightn't I go with you?"

It was a painful admission-and one Cate could never share with Prudence-but she had been obliged to make a pledge to not only Nathan, but the entire crew: under no circumstances would Prudence step foot aboard again...ever!

"We can't take her on the Morganse," Cate said, firmly. "It would be too obvious; the entire Royal Navy would be after us by tomorrow. Besides, a pirate ship is no place for a young lady."

"You're living there," Prudence said.

"I'm no young lady," said Cate, dryly. She looked hopefully to Lady Bart. "Are there any other relatives or friends in these waters?"

Lady Bart shook her head. "There's no one. There's a nephew on St. Kitts, but he's an idiot and trying as desperately as he can to gamble away every penny he has." She hesitated. "Would you like to stay here, dear?"

Prudence's face lit, the blue eyes rounding. "Can I?"

"How?" Nanna demanded, with a pugnacious scowl. "We just agreed she isn't your niece.

"I'm Lady Bart Dinwoody," she announced, grandly. "I can do whatever I please! As far as anyone is to know, I'm just a silly old widow looking for companionship. You're welcomed to say here for as long as you wish."

"Are you sure?" Cate asked warily.

"Well, well, look what we have here!"

All five women jumped, startled at the unexpected male voice. Spinning, they found Roger Harte standing in the doorway, pistol in one hand and sword in the other.

Chapter 19: Declarations in the Dark.

The women gasped in startlement and clustered like a covey of frightened quail. Cate might have fallen back with them had her feet been willing to move. Altogether, it painted a guilty face on the scene. Quite surprisingly, it was Lady Bart who was the cooler head.

"Diggie!" Lady Bart pressed a hand to her bosom. "You gave us such a start, skulking about! You ought to announce yourself..."

In dishabille and wigless, his short hair tousled, Harte still presented an imposing figure. As he stood now, shirt hastily tucked into his breeches, features obscured in the half-shadows of the doorway, he was thoroughly ominous. Barely acknowledging the elder, he stepped further into the room and swiveled his attention on Cate with an intensity that reminded her of Artemis spotting a rat.

"Mistress Harper, our little refugee from the pirate ship. Escaped again?" he said to Cate under Lady Bart's rambling.

Cate gulped and forced her frozen lips into something that she hoped resembled a smile. "Roger, what a surprise."

She strained to recall if the windows were opened or closed, envisioning a leaping escape. Air stirring against her arm gave hope. So faint, however, it might have been only the result of someone moving. If the room had been stuffy before, it was now stifling.

"My regrets if I have discommoded you lovely ladies, in any manner." Harte's voice took a condescending dip. He took another step, bringing his humorless smile to light. "Were we looking for someone? Lost something, perhaps? Or might this be a social call?"

Given the hour, he knew damned well it wasn't that.

"Whatever are you doing down here, Diggie?" Lady Bart demanded, insinuating herself between him and Cate. She briefly squeezed Cate's arm, but if it was meant as a signal, or only another of her maternal gestures Cate couldn't tell.

"I thought you retired for the night," the elder woman said. "Oh, pray put away those weapons. One would think we're about to be attacked."

"Aren't we?" He arched a questioning brow at Cate. "Are we about to have unwelcome visitors?"

He broke his stare to address Lady Bart. "I heard voices and was alarmed for your safety, m'lady."

Lady Bart completed her indignant parade around the room and alit in a chair, like a hen settling on her nest. "I declare, there certainly are no dangers here. If you were to ask me, I would say you've over-reacted. It's only Cate, come to see that Prudence is safe. She learned Prudence was here and-"

"Yes, I would imagine she's quite aware of the whereabouts of our Miss Collingwood," Roger mused dryly.

A green-eyed look cut sideways to Cate. "I had feared perhaps you were indisposed, Mistress, when you failed to offer your compliments the other day."

"What I do hardly matters," Cate stammered. A trickle of sweat began a slow march down her ribs.

"On the contrary." The green eyes flickered to Prudence, then back. "May I assume you've come in some feeble attempt to right the damage already done? A little tardy in your concerns, aren't you? The time to help would have been before the despicable act took place, not after."

"I don't understand what-" began Cate.

"Oh, I think you do," he cut in. "I don't know who you are, but I do know you are not as you represent. Of that, I am entirely sure."

There was little sense in arguing the point; Harte had obviously come to his own conclusions. How much he had overheard was the larger issue. His bland countenance showed nothing. Had he heard enough to know of Prudence's deception, or only arrived in time to learn of Cate's grander scheme? The more chilling prospect was, if he knew of Prudence's hoax, would he chose to ignore it, and use her supposed abuse as one more excuse to see Nathan hung.

With a small-very small-bit of relief, Cate noted he made no mention of the warrants against her. Her familiarity with the finer points of British law was foggy, but she believed kidnapping and defilement to be lesser offenses than murder and treason. It was a small consolation to know that at her execution, she would only be hung, not drawn and quartered.

Harte tilted his head slightly in consideration. "You're too fine to be one of Blackthorne's whores, but neither are you a hostage, for you are unscathed."

"Compliance has its rewards," she said evenly. Containing her dislike for the man was becoming a task.

"Indeed," he said distantly, deep in his speculations. "Clearly he has yet to tire of you, for he would have sold you for his next rum."

She winced at his conclusion being so near to her own.

Harte regarded her with the same air as one would regard a new horse. "Although you're fair enough, he could make whoremongering worthwhile. And now he's using you, hiding behind a woman's skirts, sending you to do his dirty work."

"No differently than you sought to use me," Cate shot back in equal coldness.

"Upon my word, Diggie," exclaimed Lady Bart. "You're being rather boorish, playing silly questions."

He gave his hostess only the briefest of glances.

"Two counts co-conspirator to kidnap, misrepresentation, fraud, wrongful doing: all hanging-"

"Cate had nothing to do with that. She wasn't there when I was taken," Prudence said, darting protectively to Cate's side.

"Really?" Harte's voice arced with doubt. "And where, pray tell, would our dear Mistress Harper have been, if not on the famed Ciara Morganse?"

"Well, I..." Cate was at a loss. The day she met him, she had confessed to being on the ship. Any further denial or explanation would only incriminate Thomas.

"It's beside the point. You can explain it all to the magistrate." Shoving the pistol into his waistband, he crooked a beckoning finger. "Come along, my dear. I've arranged for-"

He took Cate by the arm, but instantly went stiff and frozen.

"Hold off, mate."

Cate couldn't see behind Harte, where the voice and the metallic click of a pistol being cocked came from, but she immediately recognized the voice.

Harte stiffened and drew Cate against him. "Well, well, Nathan Blackthorne."

Nathan slipped around Harte to come further into the room. The muzzle of his pistol shifted with him, going from the back of the Commodore's head to the side. The women gasped upon seeing Nathan, and scurried behind the settee. With Harte between them, Cate could only see Nathan's hat and eyes. They flicked in her direction, assuring that she was so far unharmed.

Nathan clucked his tongue with what only the most desperate could call sympathy. "Captain Nathanael Blackthorne. Disappointing you can't retain that bit. Gone feeble, have we? And at such an early age."

Roger held Cate so close, his pistol gouging her ribs. It was a miscalculation on his part, for now she blocked both his pistol and his sword.

Nathan pressed the muzzle harder into Harte's temple. "Leave 'er go."