Page 17 of Maggie and the Pirate’s Son (Brides of Chattan #3)

Chapter Sixteen

M aggie was fairly certain she wasn’t actually going to die, no matter what her body was telling her. And that was almost too bad, because she really kind of wanted to. If she’d been less impulsive, if she’d stopped to consider anything beyond her immediate desires for more than five minutes, she might have made some sort of plan for this eventuality. Instead, running around pretending to be a boy had allowed her to forget.

Until she awoke in the hammock alone, after Bash had insisted he sleep on the floor for the sake of his ear. She was roused by the sensation of being repeatedly stabbed in the gut with the Butcher’s filthiest knife. Her courses, which had never been predictable, had finally made a most inconvenient appearance.

“Is it dysentery?” Bash asked, searching her face when she emerged from the head.

“No, of course not,” she assured him.

He wasn’t convinced. “Scurvy then?” he asked, baring his teeth to make her do the same, gently tugging down her lip to check her gums. “Honestly, you look quite peaked. ”

She patted his arm. “I am well,” she said, and then tried to drink the ale he offered, but instead raced to the railing and vomited over the side.

“Mags,” he said plaintively, “you’re not well.”

“I’ll be fine,” she snapped and walked away from him, wanting nothing more than to curl up in a heap with Custard purring warmly on her abdomen until it was her turn for the watch.

Because the captain was getting restless.

Bash hadn’t taken a night watch since the incident with Walsh, which meant neither had Maggie. But with more rumors than ever flying about ghost ships, the captain had put everyone on high alert, and since Maggie had been first to confirm sighting the Woebegone Whale , he was insistent she spend tonight looking out for any kind of vessel, friend or foe—and who was a friend to pirates?

A little surprised when Bash let her walk away, a thrill of fear ran through Maggie the moment she descended below deck on her own. Was Balthasar occupied above? Or lurking somewhere, waiting to catch her unawares with no Langley to intervene this time?

She shuddered, but no bogeymen jumped out of the shadows as she swiped bandages from the infirmary to line her smalls. She fed Kes a bit of dried beef and eventually Custard joined her in the hammock, glaring hungrily at the bird from Maggie’s lap.

Bash roused her with a bowl of bland fish soup not long before the second watch bells.

“It was supposed to have a touch of milk in it, but they ate the cow last week,” he said sorrowfully. “I’ve never seen Rooijakkers so devastated on account of his cheese.”

“Poor Roo,” Maggie agreed. “It’s delicious even without the milk, thank you,” she told him, hoping gratitude might make up for her earlier crabbiness.

She wasn’t terribly hungry, but she forced herself to eat every bite. As rations had grown tighter each day, Bash tried to hide the fact that he was taking even less than his allotted portions so Maggie could have more—she, who had stolen onto their ship and by rights should not have any portion at all, while he was still recuperating and needed every ounce of nourishment. When questioned, he pretended not to know a thing about it, but she knew.

The others had not lately been so kind. They glared daggers at her across their bowls of gruel. She may have spotted the Whale and saved Bash’s ear, but the Whale held neither treasure nor food, and the ear could not be eaten, and now she was just another mouth they could ill afford to feed.

If they saw land before they all starved to death, they’d probably vote her off the ship whether a port was available or not. She couldn’t bear to think about ports and ships and Scotland. She wasn’t sure she could bring herself to leave.

She squeezed Bash’s hand, and he rubbed his thumb along the back of her knuckles.

“How are you?” he asked.

“I’ll be fine. Promise.”

“I’ll go with you tonight,” he said.

She was glad of the offer. She wanted him there, but he shouldn’t be climbing yet, not with his head still leeched and bandaged. “You don’t have to do that. I’m capable.”

“You’re more than capable, darlin’, but I miss the tops. No argument. Cabin boys mustn’t get cheeky with the sailing master.”

He must be feeling better to put his bossy breeks on like that, and Maggie liked to think maybe it wasn’t just the tops he was missing.

When the bells rang, they made their way to the main mast and began to climb just as they had on her second week aboard only seven weeks ago now.

“It’s not just a ghost ship tying the captain up in knots, is it?” she asked as they huddled side by side on the platform, looking out into a star-covered night .

“No,” he said after a moment. “Ghosts aren’t real. But the navy is.”

Maggie didn’t know what to say to that. An encounter with the military could mean death for them all. As pirates, the navy was their natural sworn enemy. And just as she’d known it when the Butcher wanted to cut off Bash’s beautiful ear, Maggie knew she couldn’t lose him. Whatever was coming, she was powerless to stop it, but she could also never allow it to happen. The Royal Navy couldn’t have him. He was hers.

“Wind’s picking up,” he sighed with palpable relief.

That had to be a good sign, didn’t it?

A wave of cramping crashed against her belly, making her knees almost buckle and she hunched forward holding onto the railing for life. In an instant, Bash’s arm was around her.

“I wish you’d tell me what ails you,” he said.

But ladies did not speak of their courses with gentlemen, not even their fathers or their husbands. Most especially not with pirates.

“Should I fetch O’Riordan?” he asked, and he really must be worried to suggest such a thing and use the barber-surgeon’s proper name.

“No,” she gasped. “I’ll be fine. It’s only…”

“Only what?”

Maggie studied his face. His intense brows were packed with years of dread, his dark amber eyes swirling with both anguish and innocence. He would either empathize with a pain he couldn’t quite fathom or he’d shy away in disgust and revile her for the sin of being a woman. She couldn’t bear the latter, though it might ease their inevitable parting, the one she refused to contemplate. Either way, he had trusted her with his ear. It was time she trusted him with this.

“Only my monthly courses,” she whispered.

“The blood of Eve?” he asked, and when she nodded, “Do you need to sit down? ”

“No.” Curious concern was not the response she’d expected, but perhaps it should have been.

He rubbed her back. “It hurts a great deal?”

“Sometimes more than others.”

“Will anything ease it?”

“No. At home I might brew a cup of willow bark or raspberry tea and warm a stone on the hearth to wrap in a blanket and hold against my belly, but as I’m not home and have no stove or hearth or willow bark…”

“My hands are warm,” he said, low in her ear, and her breath sped up for a different reason.

Bash moved behind her, almost shy despite the intimacies they’d shared thus far. Slowly, he ran his large hand up under her shirt to cradle her stomach.

His hand was warm, and she nudged it just a bit lower to span from hip bone to hip bone. The cozy pressure helped her relax muscles she hadn’t realized she was clenching.

They stood that way for a long time, as Maggie absorbed the relief his warmth provided. His breath tickled her cheek but he held himself impossibly still, even while growing hard against her.

“I apologize,” he finally whispered.

It was one of the things she loved most about him, his inclination to address any awkwardness rather than pretending it away while it festered into rot.

“Don’t,” she said, and he seemed to hesitate, to draw back, so she put her hand over his, holding him in place, and repeated, “Don’t… apologize.”

Then he drew her closer and nuzzled into her neck, and she wished she wasn’t menstruating because she’d never longed to be as close to another human being as she did right then with him.

“Is it true,” he began tentatively, “an orgasm can alleviate the pain? Or is that just tales men tell?”

Maggie didn’t know the word, though she felt an inkling of what it meant. When she didn’t answer he mumbled, “Forgive me, I?—”

“What is orgasm?” she blurted out.

“Oh. Er—climax. During relations.”

So her inkling had been correct, and that indefinable moment of bliss had a name.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I only ever felt it with you.”

For a moment she could sense him swell with pride, and then he kissed her neck, making her shiver.

“Would you like to try?” he asked.

Maggie froze, momentarily unable to breathe.

Responding to her rigid posture, Bash froze too.

She braced herself for the next part. He was Bash, he wouldn’t shove her away or shout at her. He wouldn’t demand to know why she was such a cocktease.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Was that the wrong thing to say?” And by God, if he could address it head-on so casually, then so could Maggie.

She turned to face him. “I don’t… typically like to be entered. Especially back there.”

Back there , his lips moved as if to say, but he frowned, not understanding.

Her cheeks burned, very much regretting her decision to be bold.

“In the arse?” he asked suddenly, his eyebrows shooting up to his hairline.

She could have both laughed and cried. “Yes.”

“Is that a requirement? I only meant in the regular way.”

Did he not understand how it all worked? “My courses. I’m unclean,” she explained, and now his brow furrowed.

“Maggie, you’re only you.”

Love flooded through her, fierce and pure, washing away her doubts and fears like a tidal wave unleashed, leaving her newly raw and vulnerable, a scallop stripped of its shell when it washed up on a sandy beach.

“I only thought there might be extra—ah—lubrication,” he fumbled to explain, and Maggie buried her face in his chest, squeezing him tight.

For the first few months of married life, her courses had been her only reprieve from Jeremiah’s attentions. He wouldn’t come near her, as though she were so filthy her blood would stain his appendage forever. But then the more he drank, the more creative he got, and he began to insist she offer her bottom, so he could still hump to his heart’s content while keeping his precious cock clean .

“It was a foolish thing to suggest,” Bash murmured. “Forgive me, Mags, truly. As I’ve said, I’ve no real experience, only the stories of bawdy sailors. It’s not always easy to tell fact from fiction.”

For some reason, as he mumbled his apology, Maggie had never been more aroused.

“It doesn’t repulse you?” she asked, giving him one last chance to disappoint her.

He tilted his head, confused, then shook it and she raised up on her toes to kiss him, a heated, bruising kiss, and he hardened against her stomach once more.

“Will you show me? For science?” she asked, running a hand over his length, making him shudder deliciously.

He peered down at her, his face a mixture of lust and concern. “But you don’t like?—”

“Maybe this time I will.”

“I’ve no wish to hurt you,” he said.

“Then go slow.”

He searched her eyes, and finding the truth there, he kissed her again, thirstily, like a man who’d been deprived of water for weeks, and Maggie kissed him back, just as thirsty, a woman who’d been deprived of love .

Gently, he turned her back around so she could grip the railing and whispered, “Hold on. I won’t go in your arse, and I won’t let you fall. Keep your eyes open, you might see a shooting star.”

Then he lowered her breeches just enough to grant access, and her smalls as well, and her bottom felt the nip of the chill sea air for only a moment as he touched her like he had that first night in his hammock. She gasped.

“Try to keep your voice down, Mags,” he whispered, kissing her cheek, and the inside of her neck, and her shoulder, and then closing the chilly gap, pushing up close behind her, his erection bobbing eagerly between her legs.

She stepped her feet further apart.

“Are you certain?” he whispered.

“Yes, please,” she replied, and he entered her only a little, just the tip. This time he gasped, which made her wetter if such a thing were possible.

She had closed her eyes, but she wrenched them open as he kissed the back of her neck and circled her with his finger, all the while drawing in and out at a torturously slow pace.

Maggie clenched the railing and leaned lower, deepening the angle and he hissed, speeding up just a little. The friction was exquisite, as Bash panted, stifling his own moans by burying his face in her hair, while she turned into her shoulder to keep quiet as she rode crescendo after crescendo until at last she broke apart and became one of those shooting stars.

Holy fucking hell. Bash was a little put out that not a single story he’d ever been told of the act had come close to living up to the real thing. It was sacred and incandescent, St. Elmo’s fire made flesh .

He’d known for weeks that Maggie’s body fit perfectly against his own, known too that her mind and spirit were his perfect counterweight. And though he’d dreamt of their coupling more than one dark night, he’d never dared hope such a thing might come true, let alone fill him up, body and soul, all the empty, broken parts made new.

Now he sat with his back against the mast, and she rested between his legs, leaning into his chest, as though they were cut from the same piece of wood.

“Thank you,” she murmured sleepily, and he chuckled.

“Did it work?”

“I believe it did.”

“Good.” He kissed the top of her head. “Let me know if you need another.”

She giggled softly, and he wanted to bottle the sound to hear again and again after she was gone, like the ocean waves inside a shell. His stomach sank, and he deflated a little. Soon they’d reach Jamaica and she’d sail away home forever, leaving him lost and wandering without compass or lodestar to guide him.

Once she was safe, he would dedicate the rest of his life to making an honest living for himself so that someday he might actually deserve her.

“Dutch was looking at me funny this morning,” she said softly. “I’m afraid he might suspect.”

Christ. Bash considered his options—lie, deflect, or be honest—and he decided on the truth. “I should have warned you, but I didn’t want you to worry,” he admitted.

She stiffened in his arms but didn’t pull away.

“He would never betray me,” he swore.

“But if he knows, surely others?—”

“I don’t think so. Dutch is the most perceptive man I’ve ever met. Especially where I’m concerned.”

“He loves you.”

Her statement made him warm all over, such a simple pronouncement of fact, and yet one Bash had never allowed himself to put into words lest he be mistaken.

“I could see it,” she went on. “When he visited the infirmary. Langley, too.”

Bash smiled. He’d often felt unlovable after his mother died. Strange to think the actions of a man who never wanted him had led him to this other family, aboard a pirate ship no less.

“We’ve been through a lot together.”

“Mmm,” Maggie chuckled.

“What?”

“It’s just funny how that works. You know Finn?”

“The erstwhile Shaw Wretch?”

“Mmhmm. He had two brothers. One still lives, but I believe Silas MacKenzie is more of a brother to him than his own flesh and blood even now. It’s just… it’s like God gives you a family, but if that one doesn’t fit, He leaves you the pieces to make one of your own.”

Bash had never thought of it quite in that way before, but he was getting used to seeing a new world through Maggie’s sea-blue eyes. “And which do you have?”

“A little of both, I hope,” she whispered.

He was glad for her to say so. It would make their parting easier for her. “Will you go to Ellen? Or to Jory? When you return home.”

“If I were to return, Langley thinks I should apprentice to be a physician,” she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice.

“You must return. I’ll write you a letter of reference,” he agreed.

“I’ll be the most sought-after ear reattacher in all of Scotland. Pirates and highwaymen will be lining up in droves for my services. They’ll pay me in golden teeth and stolen jewels, and the leech houses will soon be empty.”

Bash snorted and rested his scarred cheek against the crown of her head. He almost hoped she would hang up a shingle. It might make her easier to find if he was ever respectable enough to track her down.

Maggie snuggled against him and sighed. “Honestly, I could get used to this life,” she said. “This freedom.”

“It only feels like freedom,” he reminded her. “Because you’ve never been free. This ship is just a different sort of cage.”

“I’m sorry, Bash. I didn’t think.”

“You’ve nothing to apologize for. You’re like the Pleiades. He pointed up to the brightest stars in the sky.

“What are they?”

“The seven sisters: Sterope, Merope, Electra, Maia, Taygeta, Celaeno, and Algone,” he said, lifting her arm to point out each star. “The daughters of Atlas. He couldn’t protect them,” he said, frowning. “He was too busy holding up the sky.” Did that make him Atlas, then? Distracted by a task so colossal that he’d fail in the one that truly mattered—keeping Maggie safe?

“A valid reason,” Maggie said. “I’m sure they understood.”

“To save them from the hunter Orion, Zeus transformed them into stars and fixed them up there for eternity.”

“Mmm,” she said sadly. “Turned seven innocent women into stars rather than shackle one man.”

Bash couldn’t argue. If he could place her amongst the stars to keep her safe, he’d like to do it, but what right did he have?

She pointed back up at the stars. “Jory, Ellen, Maggie…”

He followed the line of her long, lovely finger. Would it bother her, comfortable as she was, if he kissed all the way down her arm and back up again?

She dropped her pointing finger lower. “That’s not a star.”

He tore his gaze from her hand to the speck she’d identified on the horizon. “Sails,” he breathed, as she took out her spyglass for a better look. Of course it was. He was as cursed as the captain, not deserving even a breath of stolen peace.

“What do we do?” she asked.

“We sound the alarm and get the hell out of here.”