Page 16 of Maggie and the Pirate’s Son (Brides of Chattan #3)

Chapter Fifteen

T he doldrums which had caught the Revenge dragged on for more than a week, though the crew took turns at the oars so they weren’t completely stranded. While the Butcher wouldn’t go so far as to admit the leeches had worked wonders, he grudgingly agreed Bash’s ear wasn’t getting any worse. Still, he offered to cut it off and have done. Bash told him in no uncertain terms precisely where he could shove his blade, which Langley found hilarious.

After that, the barber-surgeon had abandoned his infirmary entirely, which was fine with Maggie. She quite liked their little world of just the three of them—her, Bash, and an oft-snoring Langley.

No one questioned the need for a cabin boy to remain at the sailing master’s side, nursing him through the worst of it, and doing whatever was needed. She had saved Bash’s ear, maybe even his life, and that was good enough for them.

They were almost forgotten, tucked away out of sight as they were—even Langley. Maggie suspected Dutch had ordered him to help her at first, but as one of the youngest sailors on board, he seemed to genuinely enjoy her company, and while she’d have rather been alone with Bash during his waking hours, she did enjoy Langley’s kinship and chatter.

With each new day of his confinement, however, Bash grew more and more restless. Long accustomed to an active lifestyle, lying still, cooped up indoors and in darkness was making him surly. He was a creature of the ocean—requiring sun and brine to thrive. Honestly, Maggie wouldn’t have been surprised to learn his mother, Amoy, really had been a mermaid or that saltwater flowed through his veins.

His ear was steadily improving. They’d run through about a hundred leeches so far, and both the color and swelling were dramatically improved, along with the pain. So, once he felt like sitting up, Maggie wrapped his head with a clean bandage and relocated him to a more comfortable position in a hammock, which at least improved his disposition a little.

Though exhausted, his sleep was fitful, and several times he awoke singing long forgotten lyrics with a wistful look in his faraway gaze. Late at night, after Langley had helped himself to the medicinal hashish and passed out with Custard the cat for a pillow, Maggie and Bash would speak in low, murmured tones—about their youths and their youthful dreams.

He sang for her, what he could remember of his mother’s song. It was the only tune he could recall her ever singing, though her voice was strong and fair.

“How old were you when she passed?” Maggie asked.

“Five,” he answered. “Or six, maybe. She was the whole world to me. She sailed from Jamaica to Lewis to find my sire, but instead she found his family. They took her in, loved her, and she looked after them… after all of us.”

Maggie played with his hair absently as he reminisced, just happy to be near him. She didn’t ever want to stop touching him.

“Nothing gave her more joy than the fruit and flower garden she kept beside the house. She could coax any old seed to thrive, no matter the soil. ”

It made her smile to hear the brash, brave pirate speak so lovingly of his mother. In turn, she shared more about her brother-in-law, Silas, who liked to study plants as they grew upon his windowsill. She told him stories of growing up with Jory and Ellen, how she used to torment them as only a little sister or cousin could, and how much she had learned from them about becoming a woman. She even showed him the little folding frame with their likenesses and flushed with pleasure when he noted the family resemblance.

One night, he opened up about life after his mother’s death: being passed from grandparents to aunts to neighbors until one day his pirate sire came to take him away.

“Dutch?” she asked, laughing ruefully.

“Not Dutch.”

“Oh. Only I thought?—”

“Understandable,” he said, catching her fingers and kissing them so she forgot to feel embarrassed by her mistake. “Dutch has been more of a father to me than my own flesh and blood ever could.”

In a way, Maggie knew what he meant. “Mine tried,” she said. “But it was hard, I suppose, when his sole mission in life was to find someone to take each of us off his hands.”

“Explains your husband, then,” he murmured. “A foolish man found you an equally foolish man.”

She was silent for so long that he reached out to brush her arm.

“I apologize,” he said. “I shouldn’t speak ill of?—”

“Jeremiah wasn’t foolish. He was cruel.”

She hadn’t always realized it. Maggie had thought it was just how men were—thought perhaps she’d been deceived by the kindness of Finn and Si. She convinced herself they, too, would have shown their true natures eventually had Jory and Ellen been less perfect. But over the last month and a bit, living amongst pirates, she had begun to realize that some men were cruel and some were kind. Even if she had been more capable like her sister and cousin, it still wouldn’t have been enough for Jeremiah.

“He hurt you,” Bash said, and a knot formed in Maggie’s throat. No one had ever asked. She’d never allowed herself to say it either—even to think it—only to excuse it.

He was just a man. She was just his wife. There was something wrong with her for not desiring him, for not enjoying what little he offered, just as there was something wrong with her stitching and cooking and the way she scrubbed the floor.

There was something wrong with her for wishing he would fall off the roof, even as she shouted at him that it could wait until morning, as it had waited weeks already. There was something wrong with her for feeling relief when he died.

“Mags?” Bash asked, running his thumb along her shoulder.

“You should drink,” she said, getting up to fetch them both more ale.

In the galley, she took a moment to gather herself.

Jeremiah hadn’t hurt her undeservingly, she told her brain, squashing down the tears. She had picked every fight with him because she was impulsive and far too dramatic, and he was right to be disappointed with her. He had needed someone capable and level-headed, a mother for his children, not a seemingly-barren child of his own.

She took a deep breath and then another and then filled two tankards with watered-down ale. The barrel was dangerously close to empty. She had to stretch to reach deep inside.

“Well, if it isn’t the cabin boy turned personal nursemaid,” a voice said, and a prickle of alarm shot down her back, making the tiny hairs on her arms stand on end. She pulled herself back upright, slowly, determined not to show her fear, and turned to see Balthasar grinning lasciviously behind her, with an upturned smirk and a glint of Jeremiah in his eye.

“Pity,” he said, clucking his tongue and stepping closer. “That was the perfect position. ”

“I should get back to Bash,” she said loudly, hoping anyone might be around to hear and intervene.

He drew closer. “Should you, now? And do your attentions extend to the whole crew or just our fearless Nav?”

She swallowed down bile as he sidled even closer. “By helping Bash, I’m helping all of you,” she stammered, as though she didn’t understand his meaning.

“I can think of much better ways for you to help me, cabin boy.” He leaned in and sniffed her, and she jerked back, splashing warm, sticky ale down her front. It made him roar with laughter.

“Excuse me,” she said, trying to duck away, but he put a hand on her waist to stop her.

“Oh, I’ll excuse you—once I’ve decided whether your mouth or your arse would be the more pleasant fit.”

A faintness threatened to overcome Maggie as she tried to calculate whether splashing the remaining ale in his eyes would give her ample time to get away—and if so—where she could run. Leading him back to a weakened but enraged Bash was a terrible notion.

“Magnus?” Langley called. “All right?” he asked, stepping into the galley.

Balthasar shuffled back a step. “Just updating me on Bash’s miraculous recovery,” he said, winking at her.

Langley drew even with her, standing up straight and shoving his hands in his pockets. “Ain’t miraculous,” he said. “It’s science.”

Balthasar threw back his head and laughed. “All grown up now, are you, Lev? Big man of science?” he laughed again before slinking off into the shadows.

“All right?” Langley repeated, the slightest tremor in his voice.

Maggie nodded, but she couldn’t speak. Bash had been right. She was still as naive as a newborn babe. If Langley hadn’t been looking out for her… she shuddered.

He took the tankards from her quaking hands and topped them up before guiding her back to the infirmary, where she retook her seat on the stool beside Bash, clutching her own drink so tightly her fingers glowed white in the semidarkness.

Somehow Bash had fucked up yet again. He needed to remember, no matter his tender feelings, he was nothing but a pirate brute, and he shouldn’t be allowed within ten feet of a lady, even one pretending to be a tough pirate boy.

She’d practically flown from the room after he mentioned her late husband, and when Langley brought her back, she looked even more upset than he had realized. No doubt she was sick of being trapped in the dim and stuffy sickbay—would much rather take some sunshine and spend the night in a hammock alone. He couldn’t blame her there. His skin was beginning to crawl and not because of the leeches.

He resolved that no matter how dizzy it made him and despite his cabin boy’s orders to stay put, come the dawn he would leave his sickbed and resume his post. The crew were exhausting themselves with rowing in God-knew-which direction, and he needed to ascertain their location and find a wind to carry them back to Jamaica.

Between his confinement, the stagnation of the ship, and dreams of his mother, he felt like he was going mad. She haunted him, as though calling from beyond the veil, warning of imminent disaster. But like the rest of her song, he couldn’t remember her message when he surfaced from those vivid dreams.

Maggie, however, didn’t seem to ever sleep. No matter the hour, day or night, each time he awoke he found her eyes boring into his. For a moment he drowned in the fantasy of waking up to swim in their azure depths every morning for the rest of his life. But that was a dangerous line of thinking. His life was wherever the winds took him, and hers was in Scotland as soon as he could see her aboard an eastbound vessel.

At the same time, the life of a pirate could be all too brief. Somehow, he’d never been less troubled by the notion of death—not if it meant waking beside her until it was his turn to dance the hempen jig.

“How do you feel?” she whispered.

“Ready to get back to work.”

She sat up straight, incensed. “The Butcher said recovery would take about three weeks.”

“The Butcher also claimed your idea would never work at all, Mags. It may seem like one long nightmare, but it’s been two weeks already, and I’m long overdue on deck.”

She frowned, and he pushed himself to sit up, pretending it didn’t make his head swim. As long as he stayed off the rigging, he’d be fine. Probably.

“Come now,” he whispered. “Your treatment has worked wonders. It’s time I earned my salvation.”

“There’s nothing to earn,” she muttered.

“I’m going above,” he said gently, but firmly. “Will you come with me and make sure I don’t fall overboard?”

She smiled at that and offered him a reluctant nod, and Christ, how he longed to kiss her. But Langley was just stirring a few feet away and there was work to be done. Kissing would have to wait, heaven help him.

“Fine, but you must promise?—”

“Anything.”

“Swear you’ll continue your treatment. The leeches still need replacing every few hours.”

“Is that all? I’ll be the model patient.”

But he was far weaker than he realized after the whole ordeal. Just climbing the ladder to the deck nearly wiped him out. He almost asked Langley to help him back to bed, except whatever pride he had left wouldn’t allow it. Now wasn’t the time to appear weak, not when the ship was adrift and tensions coming to a boil.

He only hoped they were out here alone. If he had to lead this divided lot into battle, he’d be done for.

“Well, well,” the captain greeted, a manic look barely hidden behind his lazy mask. “Finished swinging lead at last, have you, boy?” he asked, tapping his spyglass against his leg.

“Aye, Captain. Reporting for duty. Still no wind?”

“As you can see,” Mad said, nodding to the slack sails, his eye twitching.

Bash blinked up at them and almost stumbled backwards.

The leech in his ear was affecting his balance more than he’d anticipated, and the sunlight was blinding. But Maggie was there, slipping under his shoulder so he could lean against her.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

“Yes, I understand you’re to thank for keeping my sailing master out of commission all this time,” the captain said, turning his attention on her.

“Keeping your sailing master out of the grave, sir,” Bash said. “I’m here now. Do we still make for Kingston?”

Mad sneered at him. “You’re here now. You decide.”

Which of course meant any decision Bash made would be the wrong one. Same as it ever was.

Enjoying the warmth of Maggie tucked under his arm, he walked to the bow, took out his compass and watch, and squinted up at the sun.

The men were rowing more or less in a westerly direction, but they made slow progress against the current. There were no clouds overhead, though in the distance, his spyglass revealed the speck of a vessel. Perhaps merely the Whale they’d left behind, but it ignited a familiar tingling in his scalp, intensified by the damage to his ear.

“What is it?” Maggie asked, reading his posture and expression as plainly as he read maps and charts. How did she know him so well after, what, a little more than five weeks? What other secrets had he failed to keep hidden?

He collapsed the spyglass and dropped it in his pocket. “Nothing to worry about,” he told her. “Can you find Dutch for me?”

She nodded once. “Of course,” she said, and he rested against the railing as she hurried away.

“Langley,” he shouted in no particular direction.

“All right, Nav?” the boy asked, dropping from the rigging.

“In my quarters, there’s a book of maps. Bring it to me?”

“The one with all them squiggly lines?” Langley asked nervously.

“Yes… why?”

“I were feeding the blasted bird, and well, it got out of its nest and shat all over your book when no one was looking.”

Bash closed his eyes. When he opened them, Langley had gone, but Maggie was heading back with Dutch.

“Should he be up?” the quartermaster asked her, eyeing Bash’s bandaged head warily.

“Either way, he is.”

Bash ignored them and began growling out orders. “If we turn the gib lines, we might tack a little more southerly and pick up wind.”

Dutch nodded and turned away, to relay the orders so Bash didn’t have to exert himself, but Bash caught his arm.

“Magnus,” he called. “You should check on your bird.”

A look of faint surprise crossed her face, guilty, like she hadn’t thought about the kestrel in days, and Bash was more pleased than he ought to be, knowing he was the reason.

“Are you sure?” she asked, clearly torn between eagerness to do as he suggested and trepidation at leaving him behind.

“Go on. I’ll be fine. See, I’ve Dutch here to look after me.”

She nodded warily and took off once more .

“What’s the temperature?” Bash asked Dutch quietly, not wanting to alarm Maggie as she walked away.

“Hot,” Dutch replied just as softly into his good ear. “Three skirmishes yesterday. Just fisticuffs, not much blood. Reports from the night watch claim ghost ships appearing and disappearing on the horizon.”

“Fata morgana?” Bash asked, the Italian term for a mirage some less experienced sailors took for phantoms.

Dutch shrugged. “Who can say?”

“Could it be Walsh coming after us?”

“With what wind?”

“Which direction would the Whale be now?”

Dutch pointed to port, as Bash would have expected. At least his instinctual sense of direction remained intact.

“What did you see?” Dutch muttered, and Bash realized he was frowning.

He handed Dutch his spyglass and indicated the starboard side, where he’d spotted the ship a moment ago. Now it was Dutch’s turn to frown.

“Could be anything,” the quartermaster said, handing back the glass.

“Aye,” Bash agreed uncertainly. “Could be.”

“You think it’s him? The navy man?”

“When’s the last time we saw him?” Bash asked struggling to remember. “Sixteen—eighteen months ago?”

They might all joke that the captain was a madman with a persecution complex, but he’d come by it honestly, after twenty years of cat and mouse with Constantin. “There were pigeons on that boat. You ever known Walsh to fuck about with pigeons?”

Dutch shook his head and looked through the glass again.

“Navy uses pigeons.”

Dutch didn’t comment.

“Does he know?” Bash asked, glancing over his shoulder towards the captain’s quarters .

“It’s a speck on the horizon, son. There’s nothing to know.”

But Bash could sense trouble in his tingling scalp. “Tack the sails to port,” he said. If there was any wind to be found, they’d better do it.

“We need to talk about your cabin boy,” Dutch said.

Bash’s gut twisted. Had he figured out what transpired moments after their last conversation, before everything went to hell?

“Saved my life,” Bash said.

“May have at that. Were you ever going to come clean?”

“?’Bout what?” Bash asked, squinting out at that speck in the middle of the ocean.

Dutch huffed. “You’re a terrible liar, son. I’m almost impressed you made it this long.”

“I don’t know what you?—”

“You got sloppy. She got even sloppier,” the quartermaster whispered, confirming Bash’s fear, and his mouth went dry. “How the hell did you think you could pull off such a stupid stunt?”

“I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Well it was quick thinking, I’ll give you that.”

“How—?” Bash began, but Dutch cut him off with a look.

“Aside from that?” Bash asked, rolling his eyes.

“A million broken pieces eventually make a whole.”

“Do you think anyone else knows?”

Dutch shook his head once, but stopped.

“Dutch?”

“The day after…” He gestured to Bash’s ear. “She and Langley were chatting over loud. She mentioned watching Simon Fraser march on Inverness.”

Bash stared at him blankly, the name ringing some vague, distant bell.

“Not many books on this boat for a man learning to read, but the captain always did like his Scottish history. ”

Bash nodded, holding his breath. He’d avoided the captain’s favorite books, preferring to memorize his maps instead.

“The siege of Inverness was in 1715.”

Bash remembered now, part of the Rising to restore the Scottish king. “Fifteen years ago,” he said.

Dutch nodded. “Arithmetic doesn’t quite add up,” he said. Not if Maggie was supposed to be a lad of fourteen.

Bash swallowed. “What else?”

Dutch looked away then, almost embarrassed.

“What?”

“She was leaning forward stitching you up. I was crowding in to see. Looked down and well… most men don’t wrap their chests in linen, do they?”

Ah. “Christ.”

“Who is she?”

“She’s just… a marvel. Just…”

“Magic?”

“Aye,” Bash agreed, cheeks burning.

“Are you in love with her?” Dutch asked, and Bash slowly nodded his head. “Well. Seems like so far she’s brought pretty good luck,” he said, cupping the back of Bash’s neck.

Exhaling with relief, Bash nodded once more in agreement. She was the best kind of luck.

“Promise me you’ll be careful.”

He nodded at that too, seemingly all out of words.

Dutch put one arm around him in a quick, sideways embrace.

“I wanted to tell you,” Bash whispered.

“Well. Now you have.”