‘Can I help?’ She had no idea how, and anyway, he’d just dismiss the offer. She was a girl, after all, men didn’t accept help from women, not when it really mattered.
Nathan looked up, his blue eyes hard and steady, studying her as he had that night in the tavern. ‘Yes, you can.’ He nodded towards the bunk. ‘Get some rest now, it’s going to be a long night. I’ll come for you.’
Clemence finished tidying up, a tight knot of anticipation and apprehension in her stomach. Nathan wanted her help, he didn’t just dismiss her or belittle her. His eyes searched hers so intently and he seemed to find something there; she had no idea what.
Obedient, she lay down on her bunk and closed her eyes, but it was a long time before she slept.
Chapter Six
Clemence stood a pace behind Nathan, clutched the sextant and shivered. The evening air was not cold, far from it, but the sense of menace hung like a chill fog around the poop deck.
‘Well?’ She forced herself not to cringe closer to Nathan as McTiernan swung round. ‘What are we waiting for? Enter the channel.’
‘When the moon is up,’ Nathan said, a statement, not a request. ‘We’ll beat up and down here until it is.’
McTiernan’s eyes narrowed, but he nodded abruptly to the steersman. ‘As Mr Stanier orders.’
The atmosphere had changed from merely frightening to something else entirely. The pirates were hunting, she realised, the scent of blood was in their nostrils and the channel was the equivalent of a track through the forest that would lead them to their prey.
She watched Nathan’s supple back as he bent over the chart spread out on the hatch, wondering how he managed to look so relaxed and confident under such pressure. It was, she thought, remembering that first startling glimpse of him naked, a beautiful back, unblemished golden skin over long, strong muscles.
‘You, boy. Fetch coffee.’ Cutler’s voice, as precise as his clothing, made her jump. Setting the sextant down carefully by Nathan’s right hand, she turned to obey.
‘And a lantern, Clem,’ Nathan added.
It filled the time, getting the coffee for the men on the poop deck, finding a lantern, but not enough. What if they did hit a rock or a reef? What if the Sea Scorpion was holed and there were men, as she suspected, captive down in the dark hell of the orlop deck?
She wished she’d mentioned them to Nathan, but now was not the time. Slowly the moon rose, then, at last, the sea was washed with silver. The land, the forest tumbling down to the sands, was stark black and white and, between two headlands, a ribbon of water marked the treacherous shortcut to Lizard Island.
‘Two points round,’ Nathan said to the man at the wheel, and it seemed that at least half a dozen people let out pent-up breath. ‘I suggest you reef more sail, Mr Cutler. I need control, not speed now.
‘Clem, get up to the bows with the leadsman. He’ll call depth and what’s coming up on the lead, but I want you to scrape some off and bring it to me, every cast. Run.’
The mate on the Raven Duchess had shown her how to cast the lead when she was young, although she had never had the strength to make the throw that sent
the weight on its knotted cord out ahead, and she knew how the hollow in the end was filled with tallow to pick up whatever was on the sea bed.
The hand was swinging and casting now, counting out as the knots flew past his fingers, then shouting the result as the line went slack. He hauled the lead up, dripping.
‘I’ve got to take some of the bottom for Mr Stanier,’ Clemence said, pulling out her knife and scraping off the coarse sand that clung to the tallow. She ran back as the man cast again, her hand spread palm-up in the lantern-light for Nathan to study.
She was shaking. He took her wrist in one warm hand to raise it closer and his thumb caressed briefly over the delicate skin of her inner wrist. ‘Black sand and no shell.’ He picked up the notebook and made a note. ‘Again. Run.’
Back and forth, back and forth, for what seemed like hours. The leadsman’s monotonous chant was the loudest noise on deck and her palm grew sore from rubbing off sand and shell. There was hardly time to watch Nathan as she wanted to, his face rapt and remote as he studied chart and notes, the outline of the dark land and the set of the sails. He sent a hand forward to climb out along the bowsprit to watch ahead for the tell-tale foam of waves breaking over almost submerged rocks, but the real danger, she knew, were the heads of coral that lurked unseen just under the surface, ready to rip the bottom out of a ship.
The islands on either side grew closer and closer as they crept along on reefed sails. Cutler put two men on the wheel. No one was speaking now, except the leadsman and the watchers.
Then Nathan picked up a telescope, strode to the side, caught hold of the rigging and began to climb until he reached just below the yards, hooked one arm into the ropes and leaned out, his eyes fixed on the sea ahead.
‘He’d better know what he’s doing,’ a soft voice said in Clemence’s ear. McTiernan. The hair on her neck stood up as he laid a hand on her shoulder.
‘He does, Cap’n,’ she said stoutly, staring up at the dark figure silhouetted against the sky, and found she believed it. There was a call from the bows. ‘I’ve got to go, sir. The leadsman.’
She wriggled out from under his hand and scurried off as Nathan began to call down course corrections to the wheel. What sort of captain put his whole ship at risk, just to test out one man? An insane one, the voice in her head said. It was almost as though McTiernan saw Nathan as a threat.
‘No bottom!’ the leadsman sang out, pulling up a clean weight, and she relaxed a little, leaning against the rail while he prepared to cast again. Nathan was coming down the rigging now, moving like a shadow to jump on to the deck and go back to stand beside the captain.
Yes, no wonder McTiernan was wary of him—they both had an intangible natural authority, a charisma. Cutler could dominate, but she couldn’t imagine him leading, whereas McTiernan had the mesmeric quality of a snake and Nathan simply exuded the confidence that what he said, went.