Heart's Ransom

by Sara Reinke

CHAPTER NINE

  The next morning, Rafe called for a bath to be drawn for Kitty, a tub delivered to his quarters and filled with heated water. He surprised her with it after breakfast, when crewmen hefted the heavy metal tub and kettle after kettle of warm water down the companionway. She had been abashed by her appearance, and the misnotion that she had somehow grown malodorous over the course of their trip, despite the fact she meticulously bathed herself at the wash basin and groomed her hair daily.

  The racket as the bath had been prepared at startled and frightened her until he had explained, and then it had been like a sunbeam spilling against her; her face had grown radiant, her eyes widening in anticipation and delight, and her mouth had unfurled in a bright, wide grin.

  “You do not mind for it, then?” he’d asked her.

  “Mind?” Kitty had exclaimed, still beaming as she had dipped her fingertips experimentally into the tub. She had uttered a low, happy moan at the warmth of the water, and the sound had unintentionally stirred pleasant sensations of Rafe’s own in the pit of his stomach. “Rafe, I could nearly kiss you for it!”

  She had not, of course, although Rafe realized he would not have minded for that at all. He had taken his place as a dutiful gentleman in the companionway corridor, with his left arm extended into the room beyond, the door closed just above the crook of his elbow. This allowed Kitty both a modicum of modesty and enough slack in the chain to allow her to use both hands somewhat as she bathed and washed her hair.

  As he sat in the hallway, his back against the wall, his head deliberately turned away from the door lest he entertain the temptation to peek―which he suffered nonetheless―he thought about his left hand, only inches at best away from Kitty’s naked form as she soaked in her tub. It was a pleasant distraction, and he tilted his head back to rest, closing his eyes, imagining what she might look like unclothed and soaking wet.

  Footsteps coming heavily and hurriedly down the companionway ladder drew his gaze, and he watched Claudio approach. The boatswain paused, momentarily puzzled to find Rafe sitting in the hall with the door closed against his arm, then shook his head, crossed himself and continued.

  “She is bathing,” Rafe said, addressing him in Spanish. “I thought she might enjoy a soak in a tub, and you would be crossing yourself a lot more if I had stayed in there with her, now would you not?”

  “That I would,” Claudio replied in Spanish. He squatted, folding his legs beneath him and resting his hands on his knees. “I need to speak with you.”

  “What, Rafe?” Kitty called from beyond the threshold, and there was a light splash of water as she moved in the tub.

  “Nothing,” Rafe called back in English. “Claudio has come. He is speaking to me.”

  “Oh.” Another slap of water as Kitty resettled herself comfortably. “Alright, then.”

  Rafe looked toward his boatswain again. “What is it?”

  “We have tacked fully east,” Claudio said. “We are approaching the coast of Spain now.”

  “So we should reach La Coruna by lunchtime?” Rafe asked. Once they reached La Coruna, it would be no time at all before they found a blacksmith able to cut through the chains. It was only a matter of hours, then, before he would have to release Kitty and send her home to England. For reasons he did not quite understand, this notion left him somewhat dismayed.

  Claudio arched his brow. “Yes,” he said. “If we are not dragged into the rocks by the high tide.” Rafe blinked at him, startled from his forlorn thoughts about losing Kitty, and found the older man regarding him sternly. “Do you know what the ancient Romans called this coastline? The end of the world. Sailors call it the shores of death. It is the most inhospitable and nonnegotiable stretch of coast in all of Spain―and I would dare say, in the world. And you have us sailing headlong for it with no one at the helm.”

  “You are at the helm,” Rafe said.

  The furrow between Claudio’s brows deepened. “I cannot call orders aloft and hold the deck all at the same time. I need to watch the sails. That is what I do. You need Cristobal to pilot the ship. That is what he does.”

  “No,” Rafe said, frowning. “Damn it, Claudio, I am not―”

  “You are going to kill us all,” Claudio snapped, his sharp tone drawing Rafe to an immediate, surprised silence. He had never heard the boatswain speak like that to him, and he had known Claudio practically his entire life.

  “I am sorry I did not tell you the truth about your father,” Claudio said. “Cristobal was right―Evarado did not want you to know. Do you think your father enjoyed this life? Do you think it brought him pride to know he was a pirate? It shamed him beyond measure, but it was his lot, and he had seen no other recourse. Cristobal, on the other hand, enjoys all of this―the power, the infamy, the money. Perhaps Evarado hoped by leaving all of this to you, that you could find an escape for Cristobal and the crew that he never could, and that he knew Cristobal would never seek, had it come to him.”

  He reached out, laying his hand against Rafe’s sleeve. “Or perhaps Evarado simply left it to you because it is your birthright as his eldest son. Only he knew his reasons. I am sorry you feel remorse for this now―for taking the girl, seeking revenge against John Ransom. I think your father would have wanted that. But I tried to talk you out of it, and you did not listen. Cristobal was wrong―it was not his decision to make, Rafe, or mine. It was yours. Just as it is yours now.”

  Rafe blinked at him, wounded. “Claudio, I―”

  “Listen to me,” Claudio said firmly. “Put Cristobal at the helm. Put aside your anger, your disappointment, whatever else you might be feeling. You are the captain of this ship, whether you like it or not. The crew is your responsibility. Your heart and mind have to lie in what is best for them―and right now, that is giving Cristobal the deck. He has navigated this coast before, hundreds of times. He can get us to La Coruna. Anyone else―anything less―and we are all dead.”

  The older man stood with a soft, nearly inaudible groan. Rafe looked up at him, remembering the day that he had left for Madrid with Lucio. He had stood on the dock with his knapsack, awaiting a skiff that would take him out to the ship bound for the Spanish mainland. His father had not come; Claudio had taken the boy by horse-drawn cart to the beach. He had stood beside Rafe and had not missed the way Rafe had struggled not to weep, keeping his lips pressed tightly together, blinking fervently, furiously against the sting of tears.

  “You be a good boy for Señor Guevarra Silva, hijo,” Claudio had said, calling him son.

  Rafe had nodded. “Yes, sir. I will.”

  He remembered how Claudio had smiled gently down at him, and had reached out, draping his hand briefly but fondly against Rafe’s shoulder―things Rafe had wished Evarado had done. “I know you will, Rafe,” Claudio had told him―words he had wished his own father had said.

  Rafe looked up at Claudio in the companionway corridor. He sighed, forking his fingers through his hair, hunching his shoulders in weary resignation. “Alright, Claudio,” he said, nodding. “Go and get Cristobal.”