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PART IV

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OCTOBER, 1780
MÁLAGA, SPAIN

“LORD, I HATE those beasts,” Celia groaned to Dindi as she dropped onto her bunk, her thighs and quim and back and shoulders and … everything … one big mass of pain.

She was so tired she was tempted to fall asleep where she lay, stinking of horse, coated with dust, the stench of death in her nostrils. It was nigh midnight.

It had taken them almost four weeks to fulfill Rafael’s request. Celia had ridden the thirty miles from Málaga to the Covarrubias estate, but her inability to keep her seat at anything more than a trot (which jarred her teeth unbearably) had slowed them significantly. Since she could not bear the thought of sitting atop a horse the three hundred miles to Madrid, she had ridden on one of the cage wagons in which she had tossed a third of the remaining Covarrubias women.

Once she had made her appearance at court to dispose of said women, she had demanded King Carlos lend her a coach-and-six for the return trip to Málaga. She was more than willing to bear his derision for her inability to ride if it meant she would not be forced to do so.

But the coach had lost an axle somewhere north of Antequera and thus, to everyone’s dismay, she had decided to ride—and had been doing so for the last twenty-four hours.

Bataar, who had spent her childhood in the saddle on the plains of Mongolia, had ceased to speak to Celia two miles south of Antequera. Then, at the third mile, she had kicked her beast into a gallop and left them choking on her dust.

“Bitch,” Celia mumbled.

Solomon, an equally accomplished horseman, had taken to his cabin in a rage because (so he had said) (repeatedly) she had made no effort to improve her seat.

Her cabin door slammed open, but Celia was too tired and sore to start. It was George, commanding her little army to set up a bath and food. Celia smelled the brimstone when the charcoals in the braziers were lit. She smelled the spiced meats and honeyed dates on the table. She smelled the faint scent of lemon from her sheets.

“The Iron Maiden’s in the harbor, Cap’n.”

She grunted.

“He will go with us to Algiers.”

Suddenly Celia’s shoulders began to relax and her neck felt less stiff. Well, wasn’t he a bundle of surprises lately.

“Elliott?” Celia murmured.

“He went on, as you bid.”

“Why did he choose now to accede my wishes?” Celia grumbled as she allowed George to pull her up until she was sitting on the edge of her bunk, and strip her boots and shirt off.

“I thought that was what you wanted him to do,” George said as she helped her out of her breeches and into the tub.

“I did.” She paused as she slid down into the hot water and sighed when George began to unbind her hair. “But I must admit I hoped he would follow anyroad.”

“You were not angry about … um … what happened?”

Celia tilted her head back on the edge of the tub and looked at the girl, who would not meet her eyes. “You can say it, George,” Celia said wryly. “My husband killed my lover.”

“Cap’n,” she said hesitantly. “Why— How can you—?” She stopped. Bit her bottom lip. Pushed Celia down into the water and soaked her hair through quickly.

Celia emerged and wiped her face with the towel George handed her. “Ask me straight, George. I am capable of many things, but divining your thoughts is not one of them.”

The girl rubbed a cake of soap into Celia’s hair and began to scrub. “How— How do you love two men at the same time?”

“Three.”

Her hands stilled and Celia smiled. “Elliott is my second husband, which means that, yes, I have buried two of three men I have loved in my life. And five babes amongst them.”

“Oh,” she said wonderingly. “But … how?”

“Firstly, they are different men and they each bring something to me that I have not known, so there is much to love about all of them. Secondly, the soul expands to take in more and more love. The capacity to do so is nearly endless.”

“And if something happened to Captain Judas? Would there be another?”

Celia did not answer for a long while, as she had become convinced she would find a successive love once she had grieved the previous one—whether she wanted to or not.

“Sometimes, George,” Celia muttered finally, unable to say anything but the truth of the moment, “you see far more than is comfortable.”

“So there wouldn’t be!” she cried, not in triumph as Celia had expected, but in despair.

“Speak at will.”

“Cap’n Judas asked me if Kit and I would care to come with you to Ohio and—”

George had grown a bit too enthusiastic in her scrubbing for Celia’s taste, but she did not protest. Yet.

“—and I could not say yes because Kit has not … ”

“Would you be willing to come alone?” Celia asked quietly when she did not complete the thought.

“And do what?” she asked bitterly.

“George, attend. Should you go on with Kit, you may or may not bear fruit, but if you do, he will likely leave you alone with his bastard and no skills.”

“You’ve said before,” she muttered.

“Rinse me before you scrub all the hair off my head.”

It took some time for this to be accomplished, but once it was and Celia’s hair was wrapped up in a towel, she relaxed back into the tub and watched George bustle about the cabin doing … nothing.

“As this is the likeliest outcome,” Celia continued, “you must somehow resign yourself to its inevitability. Once you do that, either have no more truck with him or enjoy it for what it is now. Regardless, you must think to your future. This is why I bid you not spend your coin on him.”

“You could talk to him—”

“No,” Celia said sharply. “You fuck like a woman, you will work out your own relationships like a woman. You cannot pick and choose when to be a child now. You are an adult with adult responsibilities, and you will act accordingly.”

“Aye, Cap’n,” she whispered.

“But if you do catch, I will not abandon you. If you wish to accompany us into the frontier, you will be welcome. If you don’t, perhaps my aunt would be willing to sponsor you in London society, present you as a shockingly young loyalist widow. Thus, your lack of virginity and thickening waist will not be at issue. You will be allowed to set up your own household and have the freedoms widows usually do, with your pick of lovers.”

“I could never afford that!”

“Oh, hush, girl,” Celia snapped. “Rafael left me a house in Mayfair. I would be happy to deed it to you and set you up with an annual. My aunt would take you to a modiste and—”

“Cap’n,” George interrupted, “I spent my life being groomed to be the wife of a noble. I have had the fine clothes—as you know—and the fine life. As hard and dirty and frightening life is aboard the Thunderstorm at times, I would not trade it.”

“At least not now.”

“Ever,” she retorted. Celia rolled her eyes, remembering herself at sixteen, sure of her wants and, after having been taught by Rafael to expect to get everything she desired, convinced that life would not change in its purpose to fulfill her every whim.

“Or,” Celia said briskly, “I can purchase for you a home near the Gjaltemas and Catherine can shepherd you.”

“Did I choose that course, I would rather be with the Gjaltemas, Cap’n.”

Of course. Maarten was a known entity whom the girl trusted and she knew enough of his wife to trust her by proxy.

“Well, you have time to decide, but mind you do as I bade you to keep yourself free of a babe as long as you can.”

It was then Celia realized the girl was attempting to keep herself occupied to stave off tears. “I love Kit!” she burst out. “I cannot imagine loving anyone else ever again.”

“Aye, ’tis what I thought about Rafael. I was about your age, too. But time takes care of such things.”

“I am afraid he will forget about me.”

“’Tis certainly possible. ’Tis also possible you would forget him in the arms of someone else.”

“You did not forget about Captain Covarrubias,” George grumbled.

“Nay, but he was not faithful to me, and that altered my love for him. After that, I cared nothing for remaining faithful to him, which provided me the opportunity to learn that I could, in fact, love someone else.” Celia’s mouth pursed. “You are curious I am not angry with Elliott for killing Rafael, aye?”

George nodded hesitantly.

Celia sighed, closed her eyes, and laid her head back against the tub, feeling the warmth coming from the braziers underneath it.

“Rafael died the way he lived: Impetuously. With tarnished honor, foolish courage, and twisted love and loyalty. But his mind— Oh, his mind was a wonder. He had traveled the world and could speak and write in ten languages fluently. He accomplished great things, and was possibly the finest swordsman in the world. He attained his most treasured goal, which was to die as the Rector of the University of Coimbra. And I am the only woman he has ever loved.” Celia paused. “I dare say I am the only woman who could also love him.”

Because he had trained her to.

“But there was one thing he could not manage to do for himself, and so I have honored him by doing it for him.” Celia sighed at the tone of her eulogy. “It was inevitable,” she muttered somewhat resentfully. “If it had not been Elliott, it would have been any other man who threatened his influence over me.”

“I’m sorry,” George whispered.

Celia took a deep breath. “And now I desperately need my husband, who must be questioning my loyalty. Send for my father.”

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Pirates!