Page 10 of Maggie and the Pirate’s Son (Brides of Chattan #3)

Chapter Nine

S trangely, Maggie had never felt more rested than she did each morning after spending the night wrapped in Bash’s arms, swaying with the swell of the sea.

After a week of sleeping side by side in the hammock, she still marveled at the fact that she didn’t feel crowded out by him. The canvas expanded to cradle them both, and his body heat provided the cozy warmth she’d been longing for. He didn’t kiss her again or touch her in the way he had the first night, but his arms around her kept her safe and still, so she never once feared she might tumble out.

How many times had she woken in the bed she shared with Jeremiah, squeezing herself so close to the edge one flinch might send her sprawling to the floor? It wasn’t necessarily because he took up too much room, but even her unconscious mind had been desperate to put space between them. How strange then, to find comfort in proximity now. She tried not to dwell on what it might mean.

The truth was, Maggie didn’t like to think too hard about her marriage. Usually, such memories brought a headache and a queasy stomach, but it was growing harder to keep from comparing the past with her present situation. Jeremiah had been her husband. He had touched her everywhere, but he’d never touched her in the way Bash now had. He’d also called her every insult under the sun, and now perhaps she’d earned some of those epithets, for she’d finally indulged her most wicked desires.

Perhaps her soul was damned to hell, because Maggie didn’t feel wicked, and she certainly didn’t feel sorry. No, she felt amazed. She felt worshipped—like a goddess in a temple surrounded by men whose sole purpose in life was to pleasure her and only her.

Had she actually died? Was this ship some kind of strange bacchanal limbo?

He was there now, hard behind her, as he’d been each morning since that night a week ago. She wondered, not for the first time, which other activities might be possible within the confines of a hammock.

Who even was she, to consider such things? These were the naughty musings of teenage Maggie, who had long since been replaced by the version in a cage. By professing to the world that she was a child of fourteen, had Bash spoken her naive lust back into existence? A year ago, awareness of Jeremiah’s arousal made her sick to her stomach, but not now. Not with Bash.

No, Bash the pirate was going to be trouble.

As he came awake, he nuzzled the back of her neck, sending a shower of shivers down her spine, then he moved his braw arm off her, brushing the side of her breast in the process, murmuring, “Sorry.”

Maggie hoped he wasn’t actually sorry. She never wanted to leave this cozy cocoon.

His hand came to rest on her hip bone, and he whispered as he had each morning, “Best you sit up first, and get your feet under you, else we’ll both wind up on the floor.” The fantasy was over yet again. Time to go back to being pirates, the sailing master and his obedient cabin boy .

She’d like to show him just how obedient she could be. Settle. Down.

Maggie did as he’d instructed, snatching up his cravat to rebind herself. When she peeked over her shoulder to ensure he wasn’t watching, she noticed faint red scratches on his back. A reminder of their time together a few nights ago? Beneath those fading marks was a crisscross of old, healed-over scars.

She opened her mouth to ask, but then he cast a glance back at her, catching her looking, and she swallowed her questions. In the next moment, he pulled on his shirt and stepped out of the alcove, giving her privacy to finish dressing. She tucked some dried beef into her pocket for later and headed above deck after him.

Each night after the first, there had been no discussion or negotiation. Bash simply pulled off his shirt and nodded towards the hammock before they tumbled in together and fell asleep. Each night she had hoped to revisit their nocturnal activities, and each night she could feel the restraint in his taut muscles as he tucked himself away and lay stock still.

Her disappointment had been tempered by exhaustion, along with the peacefulness of simply being held as the ship rocked her to sleep.

Last night they had once again taken the late watch, and Maggie savored the time alone with him outside under a magnificent cloak of stars.

“Do you ever get homesick?” she had finally asked.

“For Scotland, you mean? Not as such.”

“You don’t consider yourself from there?”

“Sometimes I feel like I’m from nowhere,” he admitted.

She wanted to ask him all kinds of questions then, but before she settled on the right one, he went on. “In some ways, home is more of a person than a place, innit?”

“How do you mean?”

“Lewis was only home because my Ma was there. Once she was gone, and my grandparents not long after, there was no one left who wanted me. It stopped being home.”

It had broken Maggie’s heart to picture him as a child, unwanted and alone. “It’s kind of strange, when you think about it,” she mused. “Not enough people wanted you, and too many want me—potential husbands, I mean. And yet we’re sort of the same. All alone.”

“Will you marry again?” he had asked softly.

“My father wishes me to. He has another bridegroom all picked out and ready to stand up in a kirk.”

“What do you want?” Bash had asked, and Maggie inhaled sharply.

Had anyone ever asked her that before and really meant it?

“I just want to be someplace warm.”

Lorna had scoffed at that answer, but Bash nodded as if he understood everything the dream encompassed. Perhaps they were even more alike than she realized.

Without Maggie noticing a change day to day, they had finally reached someplace warm . The atmosphere felt different when she joined Bash on deck with a tankard of rum for each of them.

It was a little humid and sweaty, as though the very air was reflecting her mood and secret desires.

“Good—” Bash rumbled when she offered him the drink, but he cut himself off and accepted the mug, raising it in toast. “Good idea, Mags. Best way to start the day. Stick close, aye?” he added.

Did he feel the frenetic undercurrent in the air too?

“Has the wind changed?” she asked. “Do we still head towards Boston?”

“No. We’re right on course.” He squinted past her, his tongue poking out like a cat tasting the air.

The pink of his tongue made her wonder—did the tips of his ears burn the same color when he grew embarrassed like her brothers-in-law? And what would embarrass a man like Bash, used to living cheek by jowl with this bawdy lot?

She was still staring at his tongue when a shadow fell over them, and with it, a chill. Maggie glanced beyond his shoulder in time to see a magnificent black creature flopping back into the brine.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” she exclaimed, running to the forecastle so she could peer over the side at the wide, diamond-shaped shadow floating in the water.

“Another whale?” Bash asked, joining her at the railing.

“I don’t think so. More like a… I don’t know, a giant oyster outside its shell, all floppy and wide? There it is!” She pointed at the dark shadow, nearly as broad as the very deck beneath their feet, floating like a shawl carelessly tossed overboard.

Bash frowned into the water, throwing an arm protectively in front of her to make her step back.

Flapping its fins like the wings of a seagull, the creature flew from the water once more in a perfect arc, this time exposing its white belly to the sun before diving back into the water and then coming back again for another go. Forward arc, backward flip, and then forward arc again, the creature leaped and dove with balletic precision, almost as though someone beneath the surface were tossing it to and fro.

“Did you see it, Nav?” the junior sailor, Langley, called, pounding up to them with a look of horror on his sunburned face. “It’s an ill omen, that,” he panted, stopping at the edge of the forecastle, hesitant to come any nearer. “Should we shoot it?”

“You’ve seen a devil ray before, surely,” Bash said, exuding a calm that belied the way he’d pushed Maggie away from the railing.

“Never one so monstrous big, have you?”

“Maybe not this big, Langley, but the sea is full of all sorts. Despite its name, it means no harm. ”

The ray continued to dance alongside them, as though it were performing a sort of magic meant to mesmerize, and it was working. Maggie was certainly spellbound.

“Never saw one do that before, neither. Doesn’t have to mean evil to bring it,” Langley protested, then he lowered his voice to a fast whisper. “Your adversary , the devil , prowls around like a roaming lion, seeking someone to devour.” He made the sign of the cross, and then for good measure crossed himself a second time.

“It’s neither roared nor prowled, and last I checked, rays don’t eat people. Man your post,” Bash chided, eyeing the creature warily.

“You never saw one that size before, you said. Fella that big would need more’n prawns to keep its strength up. Maybe it’ll open its gullet like a snake and swallow the whole brig in one giant gulp.”

Bash sighed and shook his head, while Maggie bounced on her toes and grabbed hold of her elbows to keep from clapping with delight, refusing to let Langley’s fear infect her.

“Devil ray,” she repeated, shivering, as the giant beast cast them in shadow and sea spray once more. She liked the way its name sounded like devilry, something she’d been accused of plenty throughout her childhood. “I think it wants to be friends.”

Langley scoffed but Bash laughed. “If anyone could achieve such a feat, it’s surely you.”

She feigned a skeptical expression, though she still didn’t take her eyes off the leaping ray. “Because I’ve some great knack for charming the devil?”

“I believe you could charm anyone you put your mind to, Mags,” he rumbled in his deep, growly voice, making her stomach do backflips just like the flying fish out there, which continued to frolic, though somewhat less enthusiastically as the Revenge continued on its course and out of the ray’s territory .

It was simply magical. “You’ve seen such creatures before?” she asked, wide-eyed.

“Aye, big ones, and tiny wee ones, too. Their skin is soft as buttered leather.”

“What a strange and wondrous place this ocean of yours is,” she murmured.

“Aye,” Bash agreed. “And it’s playing all its best numbers just for you.”

Maggie beamed, but she still couldn’t bring herself to break her gaze as the ray grew smaller and smaller in the distance. If she glanced away even for a second, she might never see another such creature again.

With all Jory had encountered in her travels, Maggie bet she’d never even heard of a devil ray or seen such a breathtaking sight. They wouldn’t believe the stories she’d have to tell.

Maybe this adventure hadn’t been such a terribly rash misjudgment after all. She was certainly richer for having taken it.

“I’m telling you, Nav, it’s a sign, and not a good one,” Langley said, daring to step closer now the beast was far away. Maggie had forgotten he was even there.

“Return to your post, Langley,” Bash said again with a slightly irritated tone that suggested he’d forgotten too.

“Middle watch claim they may have seen sails.”

“May have?” Bash repeated, stern but not unkind.

“Everyone’s saying.”

“Who saw it?”

Langley scratched his head. “Dunno, but they’re saying it’s the Woebegone . They’re saying we’ve found Willy Walsh at last!”

Bash’s eyes darted to Maggie, and he took out his spyglass.

“Willy Walsh, is it?”

“Aye, Nav. Sure as beans the devil means to trick us somehow.”

“Did you also reckon it was a sign when we encountered the whale last week?”

“Aye, Nav, course. Meant we’d find him, and now we have. ”

“But we didn’t find him last week, did we?” Bash asked, turning the glass out to scan the water.

“No, but you know how these things?—”

“So even if the ray was a sign, might have naught to do with Walsh.”

“It’s a sign, sure as beans, and not the only one.”

“Who was on second watch, Langley?”

The young man’s face fell. “Dunno. Balthasar and Samson, maybe.”

Bash’s eyes flicked to Maggie and away so fast she thought she had imagined it. “Balthasar was on watch with Samson?”

Langley shrugged. “Traded with the Butcher.”

Bash set his mouth in a firm line.

“Spread the word, aye. Anyone who glimpsed the Woebegone Whale should come and speak to me, understand? Now go on back to your post.”

“Aye, Nav,” Langley said, looking out towards the ray and crossing himself once more before he hurried off.

Maggie had overheard bits and pieces about Willy Walsh since coming aboard, but she couldn’t reconcile the excitement of most sailors with Bash’s present agitation.

“Who is he? Willy Walsh?” she asked, peering earnestly up into Bash’s dark, stormy face.

“No one, if he knows what’s good for him,” Bash replied.

“I take it you’ve heard?” the quartermaster asked, coming to lean against the rail on Bash’s other side.

“Ravings of drunkards, nothing more. Wishful thinking. What would Walsh be doing all the way out here?”

“Captain told them he returned to Scotland. As far as they’re concerned, he’s but one step ahead of us and losing ground.”

“You and I both know the value of that story,” Bash grumbled.

Dutch merely shrugged. “Maybe you and I were wrong.”

The two men exchanged a dark look that Maggie couldn’t interpret, and then Bash turned back to scan the ocean again. “Well there’s no sign of him now.”

“You think it was a ghost ship?” Dutch asked in a voice so low Maggie wasn’t sure she heard correctly.

“Or our old friend from the navy. He does so love a game of cat and mouse.”

Dutch’s mouth was drawn, but he nodded in what looked like agreement.

Maggie wasn’t sure which she preferred between a ghost, a whale, and the navy. She’d much rather dancing devil rays and stolen moments below deck in a certain navigator’s hammock. She didn’t know if she believed in signs good or bad, but the air still felt different today, and that made her ill at ease.

“Gentlemen,” the captain called, striding up the deck with an unusually energetic gait. “I understand we dine on whale tonight.”

Bash’s heart sank. If there was no ship, the men would be all riled up with nothing to do. And if there was one, how was he going to protect Maggie as they went charging into battle, cannons blazing?

He was third in command of a ship of one hundred men, the only expert in navigational science, and yet he’d never felt so powerful as he did when she allowed herself to come apart in his arms—when she allowed him the chance to take her to that height. He wanted a thousand more chances and a thousand after that. He was far too distracted to face the likes of Willy Walsh or an angry mob of his own men, either one.

“?’Tis a rumor, Cap. You know the value of that,” he protested, but Mad ignored his words, as well as the presence of Dutch and Maggie, stepping up nose to nose with Bash.

“That would be a personal disappointment, boy,” he said. “You know I’ve a very fond taste for whale meat.”

“We’ll double the lookouts up top,” Bash assured him.

The captain’s lips curved into a sneer. “Double zero is still zero.”

“Zero?” Bash craned his neck to scan the platform at the top of the foremast, then, seeing no one, he stepped around Dutch to glimpse the main mast. Both empty. “Where are the watchmen?”

The captain jerked his head towards a nearby circle of sailors hurling eggs up at the mast shouting and being shouted at by Roo.

“I’ll fry up your liver and loins when we run out of grub, you rutting kloothommels!”

“Attempting to de-kestrel the tops,” the captain explained gleefully. And sure enough, a bird flapped and squawked around them. But a kestrel?

The Butcher stepped up with a blunderbuss, took aim, and fired, the lead ball tearing right through the recently mended main sail. Furious, the bird flew directly at him, flapping its wings defiantly in his face, dodging the men who attempted to hit it with shirts and neckcloths they’d stripped off to the purpose.

“Stop!” Maggie yelled, and Bash felt the color drain from his own face just as hers reddened.

She was an enigma, too bold and brash by half, blustering into his life like a hurricane, with a glare that could grab any man by the balls. And yet the other night, she had grown soft and fearful in his arms, then come back to him again under his touch in a way that gave him life. Now she seemed determined to be the death of him.

The captain turned his cold, beady gaze and lascivious grin on the girl. Had she somehow just earned herself a legitimate flogging while Bash was woolgathering?

“Your cabin boy has a tender heart,” Mad sneered, not taking his eyes off Maggie, who licked her lips and swallowed, but didn’t back down. “That infernal crow has made a nest of my tops. It attacks any man who tries to take the watch.”

“Isn’t killing it bad luck, sir?” she tried, her voice low and raspy, stoking the lust already burning deep in Bash’s loins.

The captain pinned her with his gaze, and Maggie lifted her chin as though the unconscious gesture might keep her from shriveling before the madman.

“Worse luck not to,” Dutch reasoned, “what with rumors of ships about.”

“The child could be right,” the captain shouted to get the crew’s attention, and Bash’s gut twisted. The captain’s agreement never ended well for whatever poor soul Mad had in his sights.

The Butcher shot at the kestrel again and feathers rained down on them as the bird darted safely away.

“Stop,” the captain ordered as Maggie rubbed her ears, no doubt to ease their ringing after the gun blast. “What would you have us do, Magnus?” he asked her almost kindly, laying a trap. There could be no right answer.

“Since when do we seek guidance from the cabin boy?” Bash jumped in, sacrificing himself in her place. Mad cut him with a glare so sharp he could almost feel the lash of the cat across his tender back, but he refused to shrink. “You said yourself, he’s a child.”

“I seem to recall another cabin boy who was full to bursting with opinions you thought worth sharing,” Mad sneered. “Though I suppose, under Dutch’s guiding hand, you eventually grew up.”

“Still full of opinions, though.” Bash tried to lace his words with levity instead of venom. If Mad could hear the difference, he didn’t let on. They were both all too aware of their audience, and Bash could swear the phantom stings of long-healed scars burned as sweat trickled down his skin.

Then Mad turned to Maggie. “A ship was spotted which bears the colors of my old nemesis, a man with no scruples, who stole my property and has been on the run these twenty years. Such fortune as we might all retire and live out our days in splendor. Surely that is worth the life of one obnoxious bird? Righting old wrongs after all this time must cancel out any ill the bird’s death might herald.”

Maggie blinked at him like he was speaking in riddles.

“What would you do, if you were boatswain instead of him?” the captain implored her, goading Bash, trying to create a rift.

She swallowed again and licked her lips, which, to his imagination, still looked bruised from kissing even all these days later. She glanced at Bash, almost as though she were seeking permission, and when he nodded, she took a deep breath and nodded back.

“I suppose, sir, I would try to bring it down alive,” she said, and Bash silently cursed.

Bugger Mad, and bugger luck, and bugger that buggered bird.

“It’s only protecting what it perceives as its own, same as you.”

They all turned towards the kestrel—why the blazes was there a kestrel this far out to sea?—then they were forced back a step as it shat at them. Very like Mad, indeed.

Maggie cleared her throat. “That way, you won’t cancel out your good fortune in finally locating the thief who wronged you.”

The deck had never been more silent as a collective breath was held, waiting to see how the captain would react.

Mad clapped her on the shoulder, drawing her to his side, jostling her roughly, but patting her on the back, though Bash still half expected him to slit her throat in the same motion.

“Cap?” Roo called from the circle of men still awaiting orders.

“Magnus will go up,” Mad replied, turning an expectant smirk on Maggie.

Christ. She was well and truly caught in the trap he’d so artfully laid, its jaws springing shut.

Mad tossed her his spyglass. “Have a look around while you’re up there. ”

She turned to Bash once more, and on his grim nod, she set her shoulders and walked into the circle of men.

Langley stepped forward and handed over a small basket on a long strap, now empty of eggs, and she hung it crosswise over her shoulder, as the others moved back to give her room.

She was a good climber, and canny. Even with that beast diving at her, she would probably be fine, but Bash stepped closer all the same, calculating where she’d land if she did fall, where he’d need to stand so he could catch her.

He should volunteer to take her place, but Mad would find a way to punish them both. A real man would stand up to the captain, sacrifice himself while still protecting her. But if Bash knew how to do that, he’d have done it a hundred times over.

All he could do was trust her to remember everything he’d taught, hope for a good outcome, and try not get hard watching from below as she climbed—try not to envision her climbing him. Stand easy, sailor.

She truly was a marvel to behold, despite the angry bird circling her, and not just because of her marvelous arse. She climbed with a skill that belied her inexperience, and Bash was pleased she didn’t go too fast or look down. She was a quicker student than he’d ever been, may God have mercy on them both.