Page 8 of Maggie and the Pirate’s Son (Brides of Chattan #3)

Chapter Seven

A man like Bash, Maggie was certain, must be well accustomed to giving orders. He couldn’t help it. The life he lived, shouting orders meant the difference between continuing to sail or being swallowed up by some kind of beautiful whale. He was used to giving orders and having them obeyed without question.

They were completely incompatible. Not that she was looking for compatibility.

Maggie might be just a little too much like her cousin Jory in all the wrong ways. She wasn’t overly sensitive, but directives chafed at her too-tight skin. Whether a command was common sense, whether aligned to her own desires, the minute an edict was issued, Maggie was compelled to do the very opposite. She’d always been that way—with her parents, her cousins, and obviously with Jeremiah too.

So why, then, did she find something attractive about Bash and his stern commands? Why was some part of her eager to comply, to do his bidding in exchange for a whispered Good girl , and not even roll her eyes? It was untenable, and it left her as annoyed with herself as she was with him. At the same time, she’d never lived moment to moment in a life-or-death situation before. It had never truly mattered if she was obstinate or headstrong or rash. Until now. Bash wasn’t making demands to exercise his power over her.

When Maggie’s father ordered her about, he had an air of detached resignation, like she was a scab he wished to heal for her own good, and with little expectation of compliance. When Jeremiah gave an order, it was always a disgusted dare to defy him. He wanted to fight, so he came in hot and half-angry. He knew Maggie couldn’t help giving him a reason for his ire.

In both cases, her father and Jeremiah were demanding power and submission. Theirs were orders rooted in the notion that women should do as they’re told regardless of everything else.

Bash was different. He ordered men as easily as women, and he had a way of being instructional. He expected to be obeyed absolutely, and he left no room for trepidation or doubt or disobedience . But he spoke with such confidence, his words sounded like the only logical course of action. It simply made sense to comply. So, as he guided Maggie through her descent from the rigging, she swallowed the desire to push him away and figure it out alone—she had asked him after all—and when she found his instructions at odds with her own instincts, she trusted him to know what he was about.

Once safely on deck, he showed her how to belay the rope which had been tangled and knot it around a long wooden pin so it wouldn’t come loose again. Then he ignored her completely to shout orders like, “Helms a lee!” and “Haul wind!” Everyone except Maggie had a role to play in turning the massive ship in a more southerly direction, and she watched with fascination as their muscles bulged and strained to make it happen.

When they finished and the sails were back in place, billowing less fully than before, Bash peered through his spyglass for longer than seemed necessary. Then he sent Maggie to fetch him some rum. So maybe a few of his orders were self-serving .

She was tempted to splash the bumbo back in his face and announce that she wasn’t a servant at his beck and call, but as cabin boy, that’s exactly what she was, so she filled his tankard to the brim and swallowed her pride.

As she handed it over, her fingers brushed against his rope-calloused palm and heat flared in her cheeks. He stared at her a moment before taking a long drink, never breaking eye contact, then handed the half-full mug back to her.

“Are you drinking enough as well?” he asked, sounding like a school master who knew he’d caught his charge misbehaving.

Maggie licked her chapped lips.

“Finish that,” he said, and again she wanted to toss it in his face, except she suddenly felt a powerful thirst which had nothing to do with beverages. “You must drink,” he urged, his brows knitting with concern, and this time she drained it, maintaining eye contact just as he had done.

Throughout the rest of the day, she ran a few more messages to the captain and the quartermaster, but much of her time was spent clinging to the rail, gazing out to sea, trying to work out whether this impulsive act of hers had been the silliest thing she’d ever done or, in fact, the bravest.

Would she ever see her family again? Or would she remain a part of this pirate crew forever, pillaging gold from undeserving slavers like a sort of Robin Hood?

The thought made her more melancholy than she might have expected. She loved being able to see forever in any direction, but when she compared the wide-open expanse to home, she found she missed the mountains. The idea of never seeing Ellen or Jory again made tears spring to her eyes, and she even almost missed the patronizing way her father called her My girl and her mother managed to turn cooking into a lecture, but only because she wanted to show them both how well she was doing on her own own.

This was an adventure, that was all. An interlude, she resolved. She’d see them again one day, and with stories they wouldn’t half believe.

Peering over the starboard side, she observed the spaces where cannons would be manned in a battle, and she shivered at the thought of them firing one after another, splintering the hull of an enemy ship.

Maggie could well imagine the captain giving orders to attack another vessel. Would she be expected to swing aboard from some hiding place in the top of the rigging and steal away all that was precious to the other crew? Would she be expected to shoot a pistol or slice a man’s cheek with her rapier as someone must have done to Bash?

It was hard to even imagine such a thing, especially when there was nothing, not land nor ship, as far as she could see in any direction. How, amidst all this blue—above and below and on and on forever—could they find their way anywhere at all?

“Your face looks mighty fearsome, Magnus. You practicing your pirate scowl?” Bash asked, appearing at her elbow.

“Is it working?”

“Oh, aye. Were I to glimpse you through my spyglass, I would surely turn tail and run t’other way for dear life.”

Perhaps she ought to feel insulted, but she laughed instead. It felt good to laugh. She used to do it so often as a girl.

“How would you know which way you were running?” she asked, and his eyebrows seemed to shoot up in surprise at her question. “At home there are roads and landmarks,” she explained. “Hills and rivers and towns can be your guide, but out here…” She shook her head, marveling once more at the vast emptiness. “I know you have maps, but can you really map a whole ocean? How do you know you’re here until you’re there?” she frowned, unsure she was making any sense, but Bash’s lips quirked up on one side like he was pleased by her question.

“Out here, it’s a bit of dead reckoning, you’re quite right. Paying attention to your compass, the current, and the wind. ”

She tilted her head, trying to decide if he was teasing her. “If you were a woman, they’d burn you as a witch for talking like that.”

Now he laughed. “Navigation is a science, not a sorcery.” He held up a shiny, circular object, about the size of a man’s watch. “Have you ever seen a compass?” he asked, turning the device in his palm so a needle spun around.

Maggie shook her head in awe.

“The tip of the needle will always point north,” he explained.

She stared at the compass, recognizing the same directional signs one might find on a map. “It’s pointing west right now,” she said.

“No, west is merely facing north in my hand.” He turned the compass until the needle, which she realized didn’t move itself, lay across the N, and a mark between the W and the S was aligned with the bow of the ship. “The compass is pointing north. We’re traveling southwest.”

“But how does it work?” she asked, furious with herself for admitting her ignorance. She was fully prepared to channel her rage back at him when he scoffed at her feeble feminine mind.

“Lodestone. And magnetite,” was all he said.

She stared at him, surely appearing the blankest of fools. Was he speaking in Spanish again, or one of his many other tongues, just to confuse her?

“No one really knows why exactly, but the lodestone magnetizes the needle, and a proper magnet always points north.”

“Always?”

She couldn’t decide whether to be more amazed by the things he was telling her, the fact that he was telling her, or his own admission of not understanding it all. Did Jory know about these magnets?

“Always.”

“How do you know it’s a proper magnet?” she asked. “And not an upside-down one? ”

He chuckled and rocked back on his heels—not like a man giving a belittling lecture, but more the gleeful laugh of a little boy who was proud to share what he’d learned. “For one thing, because I struck it against the lodestone myself just last week. For another, because where is the sun?”

“Dead ahead,” she said, realizing her folly. “What do you even need a compass for then, if you can follow the sun?”

He grinned, the nearly invisible scar on his cheek giving a slight twitch.

“For nighttime and cloudy days,” she answered her own question.

Bash winked. “The magnet’s even more precise than the sun. And knowing where you’re going’s only half the battle. You’ve also got to know where you are.”

Maggie wasn’t sure she’d ever known where she was, let alone where she was going, never more so than right now.

“That’s where the astrolabe comes in,” he said, placing the compass in his pocket and leading her to a heavy brass ring which hung from the rigging.

The astrolabe was much larger than the compass, etched with numbers around the edge. A double-pointed arm spun freely around the disk.

“You line up the sight with the sun or lodestar. Obviously don’t look directly into the sun,” Bash explained, turning his back on the sun so a shadow fell across the vane.

Maggie watched in awe, only half listening as he explained how he used the shadows and mathematics to calculate something or other about distance and what all.

“From there you’ve got a pretty good notion how far north or south you are. We’ve a backstaff as well, of course. It’s best for measuring the noon sun.”

“And then more mathematics?” Maggie asked.

“Aye.” Bash grinned.

She’d never realized how much learning was required in order to be a proper pirate. “I was never much good at mathematics,” she confessed. “I suppose I wasn’t meant to be.”

The astrolabe felt solid and sturdy in her hands as she studied it and spun the vane. “Do you turn it sideways to do east and west?”

“?’Fraid not. That’s where the reckoning comes in,” he said with another wink. “Come.” He motioned for her to follow. “It’s salmagundi tonight.”

Though Maggie’s head still spun with a million questions, she let him lead the way down the hatch and through to the galley.

“Ho, knave, been swinging the lead?” Roo, asked, tossing Maggie a different sort of wink.

She lifted her chin and said, “I climbed the rigging.”

“And back down again in one piece? My, you are brave,” Roo said, handing her a plate. Then he eyed Bash cautiously. “An ill wind blows, Bashy,” he said.

“Wind’ll change,” Bash replied, stoically taking his own plate.

“And if it don’t?” the cook asked, showing a toothy grin that Maggie suspected was meant to scare her.

“You’ve been sailing long enough to know it always changes, Rooijakkers.”

Roo cackled. Maggie found it quite unnerving.

“And it if doesn’t, I’ve always wanted to raid the colonies,” Bash added, motioning for Maggie to head into the dining room, conversation over.

Slouching onto a bench, Maggie could hear her mother’s chiding voice reminding her to Sit up straight, elbows off the table, Miss , and she did so out of habit. Then she glanced at the posture of the men all around her and slumped back down, resting her elbows where she wanted with delight.

Salmagundi turned out to be a rather nice salad of lettuce and chopped meat, which she supposed must be a delicacy they wouldn’t have for much longer, so she relished every bite.

Maggie watched with interest as the others settled into familiar groups. Duffy, Samson, and Langley played a quiet game with rectangular bone tiles, while O’Riordan, Balthasar, and some others played a rowdy hand of cards.

“Why don’t you ever play with them?” she asked Bash.

“What, Ruff?”

“?’Acause he doesn’t know how, ain’t that right, Nav?” Balthasar called.

Bash shook his head at the jibe. “Drink your bumbo.”

Balthasar scoffed. “That fucking grog? Rather drink me own piss.” But he took a drink all the same, glaring at Bash.

“Don’t know how? Say it’s not so,” Maggie teased to ease the tension.

“It’s not. But I don’t like how they play,” he growled, and the Butcher laughed loudly.

“How do they play?”

“For money,” Balthasar answered. “Nav don’t like to break the rules. Though, the rules don’t forbid wagering the services of your cabin boy,” he said, sliding his gaze over Maggie in a way that made her feel sick.

Sensing Bash stiffen for a fight, she nodded towards Langley’s group to distract him. “What about their game?”

“Dominoes. And yes, I know how, but it wouldn’t be sporting or good for morale.”

“Oh, ho, big talk, Nav, big talk,” Samson laughed, far more kindly than O’Riordan had.

“Can you teach me to play them both?” Maggie asked.

“Aye, but not tonight.”

He looked as bone weary as she felt, and a deep soreness was beginning to settle into her muscles from her adventures in the rigging. How she longed for a hot bath, but she resigned herself to dreaming of one in her nest beneath the desk in Bash’s alcove. She was relieved when he ate his meal quickly and stood before the chiming of the bells.

As they neared the companionway, though, instead of turning towards his berth, Bash made for the ladder to the upper deck. Maggie hesitated, perplexed.

“I’ve got first watch,” he explained, nodding towards the hatch.

Her instinct was to ask what that had to do with her, but she bit her tongue and blinked sleepily.

“You’ll accompany me.”

For a moment she thought he was joking, but he shifted from foot to foot, impatient for her to climb.

“Sounds like a rare opportunity to enjoy a night of privacy,” she tried.

Bash coughed out a laugh but stepped closer to her. “There’s not a chance in hell I’ll leave you down here alone.”

Maggie tossed her head, still not quite used to her short-cropped hair after a lifetime of it trailing to her waist. The move brought her face dangerously close to his. “Surely they’ll not trouble me after you said your piece.”

“And surely you’re not still as naive as you were a week ago,” he growled.

Maggie blinked even as a shiver ran through her whole body at the sound his throat made. “I’m exhausted,” she said, careful to keep her tone even rather than the plaintive whine she felt to the depths of her being.

“Oh. Well all right then. I’ll just tell the captain and the men that I can’t take my turn at watch because the cabin boy is sleepy.”

“We worked all day,” she argued.

“That’s life at sea, darlin’,” he countered, and what could she say to that?

So, with a sigh that she tried to soften from sounding overly dramatic, she squeezed past him in the tight passageway and, ignoring the little thrill which beset her stomach when she brushed against him, she climbed the ladder hoping to catch her breath in the fresh air above.

Frankly, Bash had expected more of a fight. Anyone could see the girl was asleep on her feet. Of course she’d want to turn in for the night rather than stand watch with his piss-poor company until the wee hours, but if life had taught him anything it was that there’s trust and then there’s trust .

He trusted most of his companions to do their jobs. The majority worked hard and performed well when it mattered and shoddily when they were too drunk. In battle, he trusted every man to do his best to survive, but the list of those he trusted with his life was short indeed.

Not a chance he’d leave Maggie on her own in a quiet corner while he was known to be detained above.

He had little experience with women. None, really, not since the day his sire ripped him from the bosom of his kin. But he’d heard enough stories about the fairer sex—and knew enough young men, as well—to expect her to huff and brat petulantly over his demand. When she acquiesced so quick and easy-like, it left him unsettled and bracing for a counterattack.

Emerging onto the deck, however, he found her once more at the railing, staring out across a horizon of pink and orange hues. In the east, the stars had just begun to appear amidst the inky blue.

“Is it always this beautiful?” she asked, but Bash couldn’t peel his eyes off her—the contours painted in honeyed light as well as the features chiseled from shadow.

“I like to think so,” he breathed, and a small smile tugged at her lips.

“The island, Orkney, was so different from where I grew up it made me resent the ocean, but I never imagined the open sea could be a world apart yet again. ”

He grinned. “Wait until you see Jamaica.” And suddenly, inexplicably , he wanted to take her there. He wanted to see his mother’s homeland through her eyes and to watch her take it all in.

The first and only time he ever set foot in Port Royal, his heart leapt in recognition, as though whatever part of his mother that pulsed in his veins, whatever essence that makes up a human soul, was finally home.

Clearing his throat, he swallowed his excitement. “Where did you grow up then? Inverness, you said?”

“Mostly.”

“Landlocked, innit?” he asked, knowing full well that it was. He’d spent his youth pouring over more maps than just oceanic ones.

“Yes. We had a very fine river, but only a thick fog would stop you seeing the opposite shore. Though I’ll wager our monster could rival any of yours.”

Bash laughed, motioning for her to follow him to the bow. He preferred to keep night watch in the tops, but he’d let Samson or Duffy take his usual spot tonight. The girl really was worn out, and he wouldn’t punish her further with a second climb.

“So what do you know of sea monsters, anyway?”

“Besides Nessie, you mean? The Shaw Wretch told a story of one called Cetus,” she said, glancing up as if to search for the constellation.

Bash bristled and then batted the jealous feelings away. So what if she’d known other brigands who told stories of the stars to woo her? “The Shaw Wretch?” he asked, in as disinterested a tone as he could muster.

“Finlay Shaw. My cousin’s husband. I suppose I really oughtn’t call him Wretch now. He’s been nothing but worthy and good,” she added in a tone laced with something like disappointment.

Bash relaxed. “Then why did you?”

She shrugged. “Everyone used to, until he redeemed himself. ”

“What made him wretched, if he could be so easily forgiven? Was he an outlaw?”

She laughed. “You know, I’m not actually sure.”

“But he redeemed himself?” he asked, annoyed at the desperate hope in his voice.

“He did.” She smiled fondly. “He’s well respected now.”

“How?”

“He helped my cousin Jory save dozens of girls from a terrible fate. And me too, I suppose.”

“Then I shall have to thank him,” Bash murmured, only realizing he’d said it out loud when her smile grew wider.

The knot in his stomach loosened. “Were you close to your cousin growing up?”

“Yes and no. She lived with us much of the time. She and Ellen were as close as real sisters. I was always chasing after them like a sort of spare leg… a part of things, but unnecessary. Like a harmony that’s a little off key,” she mumbled, painting a picture that he could see perfectly.

“I never had any brothers or sisters that I knew of.”

“Cousins?” she asked.

There had been cousins on Lewis. The youngest MacLeod sister had taken him in after his grandparents died, but she handed him off again a few days after delivering her first child into the world. There was an older sister too. Jenny. She was blessed with far too many mouths to feed of her own. “Not close ones,” he said. “Certainly none who knew celestial mythology like your Shaw Wretch.”

“When I… left for Orkney, Ellen shared with me something her husband told her—that no matter where we three are—Jory, Ellen, and me—we’ll always be looking up into the same stars. It made her feel better.”

The sun was fully set now, and the girl turned her face up to the sky once more, speckled like a blanket of shiny jewels. It was a lovely notion, and though Bash wasn’ t sure the idea made Maggie feel less alone, he couldn’t bear to tell her the stars actually changed the further south one cared to venture.

“You miss them,” he said, instead.

She shivered and he drew closer, lending her some of his heat.

“I miss a lot of things,” she answered.

“Then why sneak aboard? Why not go home? You had to know you might never see them again.”

She was quiet for a long moment and then she shrugged. “I suppose I missed the illusion of independence most of all.”

Christ, she looked young, crowned by starlight. How was it possible for one so unseasoned to have already been both married and widowed? What on earth had ever given her the sense of freedom she was missing enough to board his ship? And what had taken it away?

He cleared his throat again. “Aye, an illusion is all it ever is. We’re all of us at the mercy of our fickle mistresses, the winds and tides.”

“Is it true the moon controls the tides?”

“Some say so.”

“And others?”

“Others say it was the Norse god Thor,” he teased. Finlay Shaw, the formerly wretched cousin-in-law, wasn’t the only one who could fill her head with ancient tales.

The girl turned to him, her eyes alight with glee.

“What’s so funny?”

“Just imagining my mother’s face to hear me discussing pagan deities.”

He laughed out loud. “That would be her concern? Not the pirate ship in the middle of the ocean and you parading around all but indecent in my breeches?”

“I don’t parade!” She dipped her head to hide an elfin sort of smirk. “Go on then, tell me about Thor. Has he a star up there?”

“Nah, he made the stars, innit? ”

She laughed and turned the radiance of her smile back to the cloudless sky.

“The story goes, Loki challenged Thor to a drinking contest, but he secretly connected the god’s cup to the ocean. No matter how hard Thor tried, he couldn’t drain it because, after all, it was the whole ocean, but his efforts created the rise and fall of the tides.”

“A likely tale,” she said in a dreamy voice, leaning back to tilt her face up even farther.

As she had in the rigging, she fit just perfectly against him. Every hair on his body stood erect as though leaning to meet her, and he fought the urge to rest his chin atop her soft head.

“Jory would say, ‘Leave it to men to give the credit to a man,’” she said.

“Ah, but Thor wasn’t just any man. He was a god.”

She shook, either with a chill or silent laughter.

“Are you cold?” he asked, rubbing his hands along her arms before he caught himself.

“A little,” she admitted. “One of the reasons I snuck aboard was to travel someplace warm.”

“I recall the isles can be unforgivably fresh.”

“Fresh,” she laughed. “Spoken like a local. What’s the warmest place you’ve ever visited?”

How could he tell her he’d sailed to many ports but rarely explored them?

“There’s nothing finer than to dawdle on the deck as a bright sun warms you from the outside in.”

“So you can store it up to keep you going through the long, dark night? You speak as if you know the islands well.”

“I was born and raised on Lewis for a time.”

“With no cousins or siblings for company,” she said sadly.

Bash had never minded being solitary. As a child, it suited him, and when he was taken aboard the ship, he’d been glad not to leave a houseful of cherished brothers and sisters behind. But, despite Maggie’s own lonely brooding, something about the way she spoke of her kin, of Jory and Ellen, the Shaw Wretch and the big MacKenzie laird, it stirred a yearning for companionship deep in Bash’s soul, one which must have lain dormant all this time.

“Is that why you ran away to sea?” she asked. “Because you were alone?”

“No, but perhaps it’s why they let me go.”

“Or they recognized you were bound for someplace warm and couldn’t deny you the opportunity.”

Releasing a humorless huff, Bash shook his head. “It is the irony of my life. My grandparents’ greatest fear was that I’d become a pirate. Perhaps not irony. Perhaps it was destiny.”

“My father’s greatest fear was that I’d become a wanton whore,” she said as though it were nothing at all to admit, not painful in the slightest.

Bash’s heart caught in his throat. “But my grandparents were proven right,” he said softly. “Their fears all came true. I am a good-for-nothing pirate.” But not like the captain. Never like the captain.

Maggie nodded, seeming to understand. “Then I suppose my great irony is I went the other way, becoming a… frigid, fatuous shrew.”

It sounded as though she were quoting someone.

“I would slit the throat of any man who claimed so,” he whispered in her ear, leaning into her so that her next shiver set his groin on fire.

They stayed like that, stock still, until the bells rang at midnight to change the watch.