A Pirate's Wife for Me (13 page)

She pointed to several straight tools with slightly curved tops. "These are feeler picks." She showed him four simple wrenches. "These are tension wrenches. An accomplished lockpick can open most ward locks with two of these tools."

"Then what are the rest of them for?"

"Different sized locks. Different kinds of locks." She looked up at him through her eyelashes. "Showing off."

He noted a small, jealous twinge somewhere in the region of his heart. "Is that how your friend Billy captured your attention? By showing off?"

"He captured my attention by being wicked and being there." She sounded cross and looked cross, not surprising after the day she'd had.

Taran had done as his mother suggested, and turned Cate over to Blowfish for lessons in self-defense. After a tough morning in the pub spent learning to escape an assailant's hold, how to make weapons where there were none, and how to hide weapons so they would be available, Blowfish had taken her out into the streets of Poole. He had been relentless, taking her to the meanest streets, lecturing her on how to avoid attack, then jumping her when she least expected it. It wasn't kind of him, but Taran wanted to chuckle. Cate had always hated to be bested; she really hated to be bested by a man half a foot shorter. But she'd learned. She would learn more tomorrow. As he would learn tonight.

Cate pointed at a variety of keys. "Picking locks is difficult and unpredictable, so first we try every key in our stockpile. Even if they're not right, sometimes with a little jiggling we can get them to work." Nimbly, she took apart the stripped lock and pointed out the parts.

Wisps of hair fell out of her chignon, and she tucked them back with a gesture of annoyance.

He would pay a hundred guineas to discover why it had been cut — or why she had cut it. Young ladies did not do such a thing, and Cate had been proud of her hair, loosening it for him in a ritual that bound him as firmly as any vow. Now he wanted to hold the ends in his hands, marvel at the color, breathe in her scent.

"Are you paying attention?" Cate's voice was sharp. "Because I'm tired, I don't want to do this, and if you don't stop staring at my neck, I'm going to show you a trick I learned from Billy that you don't know, that Kiernan didn't know, and that made Blowfish wince when I told him about it. I call it the nutcracker."

The girl she had been was flirtatious, open and enticing. This woman with her narrowed eyes and her flared nostrils was intimidating … he wanted to know when that had happened. "Please." He gestured to the lock. "Proceed."

She scowled as she put it back together, bolted it, and showed him how she held the pick and tension wrench.

Under her control, the lock sprang open so quickly he couldn't follow the steps. He picked up the candle and held it so it shone on her fingers. "Do it again."

She did. "You feel for the pressure here, and shove here …"

She showed him as slowly as possible.

"I understand. This doesn't look difficult." She'd been lying when she said it was.

She handed him the tools. "You try it."

His fingers seemed as big and clumsy as sausages, and when he stuck the tools in the small lock hole he couldn't tell what they were touching. He concentrated, remembering what the lock looked like, and thought he had it.

He didn't.

He tried again, and again.

He stopped, puffing with frustration, and stared across at his men. Thank God, they weren't paying attention to him. They were sitting in the far corner, discussing the fine details of the plans he'd worked out, and he wished he was there with them.

"It takes a while to get the hang of it," Cate said encouragingly. "Here, look at it from the side. Then you can see what you're doing."

He did as she suggested.

It didn't help.

He could steer a ship laden with goods through the trickiest channel, climb the highest mast and mend a sail, and sleep through a hurricane on a hammock — but he couldn't get the feel for this delicate work?

He could not believe it.

Increasingly annoyed, he watched the wrench and pick slide across the wards, and suspected Cate of laughing at him.

A glance up proved him wrong. She looked as discouraged as he felt. "Billy said …"

"What did Billy say?" he snapped.

"It doesn't matter." She touched the wrench and guided it to the tumbler. "Put a firm, twisting pressure here."

He did. At least he tried.

With a cry, Cate jerked her finger back, looked at it, and stuck it in her mouth.

He dropped the tools and took her hand. "I'm sorry. Let me see."

"It's nothing. Just a scratch. Try again."

It wasn't just a scratch; he'd slipped the point beneath her fingernail. Blood oozed dully from her cuticle, and crimson traced a path beneath her nail. He slid the bench under her and pushed her down on it. "To torture prisoners, they used to shove slivers under the fingernail."

Her complexion was pasty. "I'll confess to anything right now."

"Really? Such an opportunity." He put a firm pressure on her nail and held it between his fingers. "What did Billy say?"

"He said you were a jackass."

"Nay, he didn't."

"Aye, he did. He said the man who'd sent me on such a streak of wildness … was a jackass. That was you." She smiled at Taran, but pain made her lips narrow and bloodless. "Don't worry, I didn't let him blame you. I told him I'd gone bad on my own. You were no longer the impetus."

"Faint praise. I thank you." He glanced at her nail. The bleeding had slowed, but her fingers still trembled. "I'm surprised, though. I thought you blamed me for every misstep along your way."

"Not in my saner moments. I brought disaster on myself. I know it."

"Then what were you thinking? You were raised with good values."

"So were you, but you cheated at cards."

He remembered at once the game she spoke about. "I did not. I corrected a mistake."

"You had discarded and you no longer touched the card. You had no right to seize it back."

How they'd fought about that card! He'd known even then that she loved him, but she didn't back down to please his ego. A girl like that could drive a man mad. "My mother worries that, since you once stole for pleasure, you might steal from us."

Her round-eyed dismay was almost comical, and all too real. "Have you noticed how much your mother is like mine?"

Startled, he mentally compared the flamboyant Lady Bess to his own dignified Queen Sibeol. "How?"

"They don't look alike. But they have the same strength of character. They'll do what's right no matter what the cost to them or anyone else. I tell you the truth, Taran. It was one thing to tell Kiernan what I had been doing during my months with Billy. It was another to tell my mother."

When he had seized that card from Cate, Lady Bess had touched one finger on his sleeve. In her husky, smoker's voice, she had said, "God hates a cheater." Taran didn't know if God hated one, but he knew Lady Bess did, and he'd given up the card without another word. "Aye, I see your point."

Cate stared at their joined hands. Her finger still throbbed, Taran still pressed on it, and she wished she could remove herself from the area — and temptation — but she had an explanation to make. "Tell your mother I didn't keep the things I … acquired. I gave them to Billy, who sold them. He was a kind thief. He had friends he helped support, and …"

Head tilted, lips twisted, Taran watched her. "Are you trying to say you were supporting Billy as you would a charity?"

She inclined her head graciously. "An excellent way of putting it. I will never steal from you or anyone. When I was with Billy, I was … confused."

"What lifted your confusion?"

Cate didn't want to tell Taran this tale; not because she'd been reckless, but because she'd been foolish, and her foolishness had resulted in tragedy. More than that, she didn't want to remember. But she'd learned that sometimes a mistake could bring one eternal remorse. Because sometimes that same mistake could cost a life. With her hand at her throat, she said, "I … Billy and I broke into a lovely home, for a lark, really. I saw a scarf worn by one of the women who'd scorned me – who'd been happy to cut me, because I –" She hesitated.

"Who was it?" Taran asked.

"Sarah Barry."

"She always envied you."

"Yes." Sarah had not been as pretty or as popular as Cate. She'd been spitefully rapturous by Cate's downfall. But her perfect little life had been ruined by the events of that evening, too, and Cate couldn't bring herself to exult. "I wanted her scarf. I thought it would be funny if she lost something she treasured." Cate rubbed her hand over her lips. She could remember that scarf even now. The rest of the events were fuzzy, but she could remember that scarf. Every swirl of green and purple, every ripple … every puncture of the knife.

"So you were going to keep that scarf for yourself," Taran observed. "It wasn't going to the charity of Billy."

"I've always thought of that. I've wondered if I was pulled back from the brink of iniquity by some Celestial hand." Sweat broke out on Cate's brow, and she tugged at her collar. "But someone had to pay."

"You?"

"Not me. Unless I paid the coin in guilt." She took deep breaths, trying to calm her queasiness. "Billy and I waited until the house was asleep. We picked the lock at the window. Billy said we should always plan an escape route. We did, out through the servants' quarters. But we didn't think we'd need it. The job was easy. She'd left the scarf on the banister. We were giggling. We didn't know her husband was sneaking in to catch her with her lover. Instead, he saw Billy, assumed the worst, stabbed him –" The scarf. The colors. The knife wounds.

In a quiet voice, Taran asked, "Did they catch you?"

"Billy died almost at once." Writhing in pain and agony. No goodbyes. No chance to apologize, to grovel, to beg him not to leave her. Only blood everywhere, and a furious nobleman shouting that he'd teach Billy to sleep with his wife. And on the landing above, Sarah Barry, accompanied by her real lover, screaming that single, long, high-pitched shriek. "It was almost completely dark. Only a couple of candles lit. I was dressed like a serving maid. I slipped away." She hadn't wanted to. She'd wanted to stay there and cradle her friend.

But Billy had trained her well, and she heard his voice in her head.

"
Get oot. No matter what happens, get oot. Ye don't do yer friends any good by going to the gallows with them." Leaning down, he caught her chin. "And ye – fer sure, don't let a flatfoot catch ye. They'll find out who ye are. They'll make an example of ye and ye'll do the hangman's dance for sure."

In her fury and her anguish at losing Taran, she had done a great many wrongs. She had lashed out at her family. She drank too much, laughed too loudly, had been too wild. She had stolen. She was responsible for the death of a dear man, her friend … everybody's friend.

Two days after the inglorious robbery, she'd sneaked away to attend Billy's rag-tag memorial service. His comrades had pelted her with garbage.

She'd gone home to the Isle of Mull and closed herself in her chamber. She had mourned. She had wept. She had done penance. Finally, her mother came to her and demanded, not an explanation, but labor. Cate threw herself into the task of creating a pauper's garden in the rocky soil of the island, and while she did it, she thought, very hard, about her life. She needed a vocation.

With this mission, she had found one.

Taran didn't understand. He could not dissuade her. Events – fate – had pushed her toward this moment, this obligation, and she would complete her task.

Kneeling in front of her, Taran asked harshly, "Was he your lover?"

She blinked at him. "Who? Billy?" She laughed too long and too hard.

The pirates in the corner stopped murmuring among themselves and stared.

Her nausea retreated. "Billy was the handsomest man I ever met. Charming, sweet, brave, savvy, street-smart -- the kind of man every woman dreams of meeting. Yes, of course he was my lover."

Taran stared into her face, examining each emotion with the care of a surgeon. "You're lying."

She was. Of course. But that he dared ask, after all he'd done, make her so mad she wanted to spit. "Shall I interrogate you about
your
lovers?"

"You can if you want. I don't remember any of their names." He gave an elegant shrug, so smooth, relaxed and indifferent Cate pitied the women who had loved him.
"Why
wasn't Billy your lover? Obviously he adored you."

"He loved women … but he loved men more. I was never in danger of seduction by Billy."
And he died because of me.
But she didn't say that, because she'd given up on melodrama.

Apparently Taran had not. He stood, loomed over her like a great dark hawk. paced away from her, and paced back. "You've lost your nerve," he stated.

"You weren't listening. This is not the truth. It's what you hope. And hopes are fragile things, unlikely to be fulfilled." How dare he behave as if he could read her heart and her soul? "I have not lost my nerve. I have lost … hope."