The Pirate Captain by Kerry Lynne Page B

held in high regard by all. The sense of brotherhood was striking, no different than among the Highland clans.
    Wiping hands suddenly gone sweaty on her shift, she looked from one grizzled face to the next. Bearded and sun-beaten to evenness, they could have all been of one family. In full daylight, they had been a barbarous and menacing lot. Now, clustered in the cramped and dim space, they were even more intimidating. The sight of Chin set the cut on her breast to sting anew. It was either play along with the drama, or face Blackthorne’s wrath.
    Cate glanced judiciously at Chin’s leg, not without sympathy. “You can try binding it, but you know that won’t answer, don’t you?”
    The pat of blood dripping on the boards marked the seconds as she held Chin’s gaze. His defiance faltered, his lids lowering. They snapped open, only to close once more.
    “Bleeding like that for another hour or two,” Cate said, “you’ll be half out of it, probably verging on delirium. By then, weakened by all the blood lost—”
    “Right she is!” Pryce cried. “I ain’t never seen a gash what benefitted with the waitin.’”
    Pryce’s declaration was endorsed by encouraging murmurs from all around. From behind Chin’s back, Pryce moued at having to agree with her. She looked to Blackthorne for some sign of having done right, but he was too intent on Chin to notice.
    “What man would pass up the chance for a lady’s hand on his leg and not have to pay first?” Blackthorne winked, prompting a lewd chuckle from the rest. “Hell, I’ll throw in all the rum you can swallow.”
    Chin’s increasing struggle to keep his eyes open gave credence to her prophesy. Through a haze of pain, he regarded her with cold suspicion, trust apparently a scarce commodity among the pirates.
    “I’ll warn ye, Cap’n,” Chin said at last. “That could be a fair bit.”
    “I’ve a quid in me pocket what says you can’t make a pottle,” said Blackthorne as he rose to his feet.
    Catching their captain’s spirit, the men made their wagers, bringing forth coppers, shillings, shares of grog, and other tokens of value. Blackthorne turned and clapped a hand on Cate’s shoulder. To the idle observer, it would have seemed a genial gesture, but he squeezed the soft muscle until she winced.
    “A life for a life ’tis our motto, so have a care,” he said, low-voiced in her ear. “And hark ye well: there are no secrets on a ship, so I shan’t advise foolery.”
    Chin made it as eminently clear as his broken English would allow to all within hearing that he would not be touched until properly numbed. He ground out black-sounding Chinese at being lifted to a table. He beamed, however, when the promised rum arrived, and he drank with purpose.
    As it turned out, Pryce and Kirkland, the cook, shared the duty of ship’s chirurgeon. A medicine chest was brought, containing a sharpened sailmaker’s needle and a spool of cord-like thread.
    “That’ll never do,” Cate muttered, poking a finger at them. “There should be a sewing kit in those trunks from the Constancy. In the smallest one, I believe.”
    “Fetch it!” barked a voice.
    “Bring some of those petticoats, too,” she called after the hand who scrambled away.
    The remainder of the medicine stores was disappointingly sparse: a few rags, a bottle of liniment smelling of things long-gone bad, and a jar of innocuous salve. That, plus hot water from the galley, and rum, composed the total of her weapons. Meager, yes, but she had gone into battle against injury with far less.
    An ebony etui was delivered. It bore a silver family crest with the initials “LL.” Lucy Littleton. Cate stroked the glossy wood, seeing once more the slip of a girl. Barely fifteen, Lucy had possessed all the innocent sparkle of youth, breathily anticipating her coming life, a husband her greatest aspiration. She would have been stunned to see her symbols of ladyhood being put to such brutal use.
    But Lucy was