A Heart's Masquerade

by Deborah Simmons

  Suddenly, the breath was knocked from her lungs as someone pulled her leg out beneath her and dragged outside by her shirt collar, despite her screaming, kicking, and biting.

  "Hold, you feline!" a familiar voice shouted as she was thrown to the ground at the back of the tavern.

  "Captain!" Cat called out in surprise, rolling to her feet.

  "By my count, you are losing your spare lives far too quickly, urchin. What possessed you to anywhere with Bull Marston, a man known for his attraction to trouble?" Ransom asked, his expression hard.

  Cat promptly quelled the exhilaration that rushed through her at the sight of him. Instead, she took umbrage at his tone. She drew a breath to give a sharp retort, but the fury on his face stopped her. Ordering her to stay put, he walked back into the tavern.

  Although she obeyed in the strictest sense of the word, Cat moved closer to the door, opening it a crack to peek inside. She stared in reluctant admiration as he dispatched more than one burly fellow in an effort to reach Bull and the small band from the Reckless that remained standing. As she watched, her attention was drawn to a swarthy man on the other side of the room, who remained oddly apart from the fighting.

  The fellow’s stealthy movements, so out of place among the other rampaging, drunken brawlers, were enough to make her curious. And that curiosity turned to apprehension when he drew a knife and began to move purposefully through the crowd. Too purposefully, Cat thought, for while the other sailors lashed out at anyone in their vicinity, the swarthy man seemed intent on a specific target.

  Ignoring the captain’s directive to remain where she was, Cat slipped back into the tavern as surreptitiously as possible. Her gaze fixed on the knife-wielding fellow, she was dismayed to see him edge closer and closer to Ransom. Suddenly, the man made his move, and Cat’s heart leapt into her throat as she watched him point the blade toward Ransom’s back.

  Without thinking, Cat threw herself at the offender with a shout, knocking him to the floor. The two rolled in the dust until he pinned Cat beneath him. She gasped for air, stricken by the sight of the knife raised above her.

  Although weak, Cat was wiry, and as the swarthy man’s arm descended, she jerked sideways. The movement saved her life, but it did not prevent the blade from cutting into her flesh. And Cat blinked in surprise at the pain that shot through her. Then the breath was knocked from her as the dead weight of her opponent landed full upon her.

  ***

  It was a sad lot that shuffled back to the ship. Bull nursed a cut over his eye, two men transported the unconscious body of John Fitzsimmons, and Cat stumbled alongside, refusing to be carried. Although she had hoped one day to find herself in the captain’s arms, these were not the circumstances she envisioned.

  "It’s just a scratch on my arm," Cat said through clenched teeth. But Ransom ordered her to be quiet, and the effort it took to argue with him seemed ill-expended. She felt dizzy with rum and pain, but she fought the urge to drift off and join poor Fitzsimmons in oblivion.

  While her shipmate’s loss of consciousness didn’t matter, Cat’s disguise, her identity, and perhaps her very life depended on her staying awake and aware. She simply could not faint because she knew what Ransom would do when he got her back to his cabin.

  He would strip off her bloody shirt.

  Cat bit back a groan, determined that would not happen.

  "Hold on, lad," Ransom said as he helped her along, and Cat found herself wondering whether this reckoning was fated. She had become complacent and far too settled into her precarious position.

  But she knew that women were thought to be bad luck aboard ships, and stories of such discoveries returned to haunt her. Surely Ransom would not throw her overboard... or worse.

  Cat tried not to panic, for it only aggravated her pounding head, and she could barely think as it was. It wasn’t until she reached the relative privacy of the captain’s cabin that she allowed herself to relax slightly.

  Ransom urged her down upon his bed, but Cat perched upon the edge, the better to fend off the captain’s hands as they moved toward her shirt.

  "It’s my arm!" she protested.

  "Let me see," Ransom said.

  "Here. Look, then," Cat said, pushing up the sodden sleeve.

  "Damn it, Cat. Let me get that bloody shirt off you," he said, his temper flaring.

  "My scars..."

  "Your scars be damned," he said. But she crossed her arms over her chest, her limp hand clinging to the fabric as tears welled in her eyes.

  "Oh, for God’s sake." Ransom muttered a stream of curses, and Cat felt the blood drain from her face as her destiny hung in the balance.

  Then, with another oath, he released her shirt and pushed up her sleeve, exposing the torn flesh on the inside of her arm.

  "It’s just a scratch," he said, confirming her claim. And Cat felt weak with relief. Or was she dizzy?

  His face grim, he cleaned and neatly dressed the wound, then tossed a clean shirt onto the bed. "I’ll leave you to your... modesty," he said. "But first, suppose you tell me why you disobeyed my orders and went back inside that tavern."

  "He was going to kill you," Cat said, keenly aware of the coldness in Ransom’s voice. "He went after you deliberately, captain, ignoring everyone else. Maybe that man Devlin has changed his tactics."

  "A knife in the back?" Ransom scoffed. "That’s a bit too literal for Devlin. Perhaps your man simply chose me out of the crowd as a good target or recognized me as a leader." He turned and poured himself a shot of whiskey and handed her one, as well. She knew the liquor was designed to dull any pain, but it only made her queasy.

  "I don’t think so," Cat said. Her shoulders slumping with exhaustion, she fought back the urge to cry. She longed for comfort from her captain, not this chilly interrogation.

  And in that moment she knew with sudden, piercing certainty what she had only suspected after their conversation the other night. Her love for Ransom would never be returned, no matter what her guise, because the captain was incapable of caring for anyone.

  "Whatever the man’s actions or motives, you had no business going back in there," he said, downing his drink in one swallow.

  "But-"

  "But you saved my life," he said, stiffly, looking down into the empty glass. "I’m indebted to you."

  "No," Cat muttered, closing her eyes. "We’re even. And let’s leave it at that," she whispered bitterly, blaming her hero for falling short of her expectations. "Just... just take me to Barbados."

  "Barbados?"

  "I’ll have a little rest while my arm heals." The lie came all too easily to join with all her others. For it wasn’t the wound that forced her hand, but Ransom. His coldness had finally pushed her to break the ties binding her to the ship and her girlish infatuation with its captain.

  If Cat had hoped for an extension or an argument, she was to be disappointed.

  "Fine," Ransom said, his expression hard. "I’ll work up your final pay."

  Without a backward glance, he left Cat to slump upon his bed, the pain in her heart joining the pain in her arm as the tears finally fell.

  ***

  Shutting the door behind him, Ransom paused a moment to lean against it and recover himself. His cabin boy’s unexpected defection threatened to hurt him if he let it, the final blow in an evening of shocks that had tested his composure.

  After he’d hear the lad’s shout inside the tavern, the next few moments had passed like a nightmare as he turned to find the boy at the mercy of someone with a knife. Ransom managed to plunge his blade into the cutthroat’s back, but as he knelt to push the body aside, he’d felt a pressure in his chest he’d not known in many years.

  It tightened, threatening to constrict his throat, as he sought frantically to discover whether his cabin boy still lived. In that long moment, Ransom realized he cared too much about the lad, but it was too late. The emotion was already invested, and he cursed his own foolishness.

  Then Cat’s eyes flutter
ed open, and Ransom breathed freely again, though he’d remained tense all the way back to the ship - until he’d seen the wound for himself. His subsequent relief was so intense it unnerved him, a feeling both foreign and unpleasant to the captain of the Reckless.

  He struggled to regain the unruffled, chilly detachment he had cultivated for years, knowing he must distance himself from the lad. And just when he’d regained control, he’d been hit with this new blow. He shoved himself away from the door with a vengeance, heading for the only other place on the ship that might provide some privacy.

  "Well, captain?" Bert asked, as he poured them both some whiskey.

  "It’s just a scratch," Ransom said, moving restlessly around the first mate’s small cabin.

  "Shall I have a look at it?" Bert asked, his concern obvious.

  Ransom shrugged, affecting indifference.

  "Well, I guess not, then," the first mate said softly, and Ransom turned away from his keen gaze.

  "Apparently, some of Ben’s friends did not care for the questions I was asking," Ransom said, eager for a change of topic.

  "Ah. You learned something, then?"

  Ransom released a derisive snort of laughter. "Indeed, I discovered that Ben has been doing a little work lately for an old associate of ours."

  Bert shook his head in disbelief as Ransom continued. "It seems he’s found a new partner in Devlin."

  "No," Bert said. "Devlin may be a bad one, but he’s not one of Ben’s kind."

  "You think not?" Ransom asked, lifting a brow. "You give him too much credit. Those two are cut from the same cloth. Only the design is different."

  Bert grunted in disgust, then eyed him sharply. "And now?"

  "And now," Ransom said, his fingers tightening around the glass in his hand. "We look for Devlin." He downed the rest of the whiskey in one swallow.

  "It’s time we settled our score, once and for all."

  Chapter Five

  When the Reckless anchored in Carlisle Bay two days later, dawn was spreading over the neat shops and houses and wide, clean streets of Bridgetown. But Cat wasn’t so much taking in Barbados as taking her leave of her friends.

  "You’ll miss these wooden walls when you land in prison," Harry said, slapping her on the back so hard that her wounded arm ached.

  "You’ll be back when you tire of land life," Bull warned, and the other sailors hurled a few coarse jests her way. It was their idea of a fond farewell, Cat realized.

  "Whatever you do, don’t get married," Tom warned, and Cat assured him she would not fall for any young lasses, pretty or otherwise. She was still smiling at the notion when Ransom appeared.

  How he stood out among the rabble. He was half a head taller than most, yet it was not his height that set him apart, but an intangible air about him. Ignoring the sudden melancholy that enveloped her at the sight of him, Cat moved toward Bert, awkwardly shaking the first mate’s hand with her left.

  "Good-bye, Bert, and thank you," Cat said, sincerely.

  She grasped his fingers longer than necessary, but the old sailor did not seem to mind. "Good luck, lad," he said.

  "I’ll take you ashore," Ransom offered.

  Cat nodded silently, without even glancing his way.

  He was quiet in the boat, and Cat did not say a word. Memories of the past months at sea moved in front of her eyes like a multicolored canvas, dipping and swaying with highs and lows. Each scene that came to mind in seemingly random recollection was a poignant reminder of the man she was leaving behind.

  She remembered the night of the storm when she felt Ransom’s shoulders beneath her fingertips. Her thoughts ran shamelessly through every innocent contact between them, then drifted to the more exotic and less innocent activities described to her by Blossom. And there they remained, sparking a scandalous notion that, try as she might, Cat could not dismiss.

  She eyed Ransom speculatively. The breeze tossed his dark locks and caught his open-throated shirt as he manned the oars, his wide shoulders moving rhythmically, and her whole body tingled in response.

  Cat let her gaze travel over him one last time, from the tips of his long, lean fingers to his dusky hair, lingering on all those places that spurred her senses and finally coming to rest on the smooth firm lips that had fascinated her from the first. Her heart hammering in her chest, Cat knew she should not, could not, do what she most desired to do.

  Ransom had been ignoring her scrutiny, but finally looked up, and Cat nervously glanced away. But his image remained. She knew his every feature like the back of her hand, and longing welled up in her chest, threatening to choke her.

  When the boat came to rest, Cat leapt out and turned to face him.

  "Well, lad, this is it," Ransom said, a little too coolly for her taste. "I wish you well," he added perfunctorily. And suddenly Cat knew she must follow through with her scheme.

  Despite her nervousness, despite the risk, she reached for her captain, knowing that soon he would be gone from her life forever. She would never have this chance again. Her fingers grasped his shirt, pulling him toward her, and throwing an arm around his neck, she pressed her lips against his for one brief moment.

  By the time the astonished man would recover, Cat had already disappeared into Bridgetown.

  ***

  Hot, footsore, and irritable, Cat trudged along the road to her Aunt Amelia’s house, longing for the Reckless and questioning the wisdom of her departure.

  Her quest had begun well when she received directions to her aunt’s residence from a shopkeeper, but since then she had been dusted by a cart that nearly ran her off the road. And away from the sea breezes, she had begun to feel the island heat in earnest.

  With a sigh, Cat took off her hat and rolled up her sleeves, but she dared not remove the vest that helped hide her female curves. Sweat trickled between her breasts, and her skin began to itch under her bindings. What a sight she would present to her aunt. The woman would probably shriek in horror.

  Kicking at a pebble, Cat followed its path and wondered just how much farther she would have to walk. But then she rounded a bend in the road and saw a cottage nearly engulfed by gardens.

  It was made of stone, the differing shades creating a patchwork on the walls, and its windows were flanked by brightly painted shutters. A neat gravel path wound its way among the profusion of shrubbery and flowers to the stone steps and tall doors.

  Was this the place? Cat looked down at the worn cap in her hands and her dirty bare feet. More than a little aware of her ragged appearance and uncertain of her reception, she hesitated to approach the entrance. Then she spied another path leading around the side of the house and followed it to the rear, where a large terrace was surrounded by even more flower beds, overflowing with roses, orchids, and exotic tropical blooms of every description.

  Straightening her shoulders, Cat walked under a white trellis covered with trailing honeysuckle, ducking to avoid pots of plants perched here and there on railings and pillars. Her initial trepidation eased as she looked around her, for the house seemed a welcoming one.

  She knocked once and waited, then knocked again. The wait seemed interminable, and she took the time to wipe her face with her sleeve, leaving a streak of dirt along her cheek. Just when she began to wonder whether the place was empty, a dusky young woman appeared at the door.

  Although the servant tried to shoo her away, Cat insisted upon seeing Amelia Molesworth, and finally, after looking Cat up and down, the girl shrugged her shoulders and let her in. She led Cat down a narrow hall, past several doors, and into a parlor where a small birdlike woman sat writing at a secretary in the corner.

  "This boy says he must see you, ma’am."

  "What? What’s this, Marie?" The little creature turned, and Cat could see pink cheeks, flyaway white curls, and dismayingly sharp attention focused on her. "Well, young man, what can I do for you?" the woman asked, still holding her pen.

  Cat looked pointedly at Marie, hoping her aunt with dismiss the se
rvant. But would a frail gentlewoman care to be left alone with an urchin like her? Cat could only eye her hopefully.

  "That’s fine, Marie," Amelia said, rising from her desk and waving away the maid. She walked to where Cat stood, nervously clutching her hat in her hands, and smiled.

  "Yes, boy, what is it? Speak up now."

  Cat, who towered over the woman, felt big, awkward, and uncertain. "Aunt Amelia, it’s me... Catherine Amberly," she said.

  The woman took this pronouncement with equanimity, as if scruffy lads frequently announced themselves to be female relatives, and stepped closer.

  "Catherine?" She put a hand to Cat’s face, wiping away a smudge of dirt. Cat looked into warm blue eyes and suddenly found herself weeping in her aunt’s arms.

  "There, there, my child. Everything’s all right now," Amelia murmured, gently patting her back until the tears turned to sporadic hiccups. "Little Catherine! I don’t believe it," she said softly, holding Cat back to study her. "How you’ve grown! How old are you now?"

  "Sixteen."

  "No! I don’t believe it,” she said again. "How the years have flown. Oh, but my poor girl, you look so thin. Let’s get you something to eat."

  Relieved that she had not been turned away, Cat sniffed. It was only when she lifted up her arm to automatically wipe her nose with her sleeve that she was reminded of her guise. "Oh, aunt, perhaps a bath would be better first."

  Amelia smiled, and in a very short time, Cat was luxuriating in a brass tub filled with piping hot water and trying to choose among a variety of scented soaps. She lathered her entire body with a bar that smelled deliciously of lavender and washed her hair until it squeaked. The water had long since cooled when she finally stepped out to dry herself with beautiful linens.

  Marie had laid out one of Amelia’s dressing gowns, which Cat gamely donned, although the sleeves stopped short of her wrists and the hem showed a long stretch of calf. Accustomed as she was to rough seaman’s garb, Cat thought the robe was heavenly. She reveled in the feel of the silky material against her skin and the lemon fragrance that clung to the fabric.