FOTD, Blue Raspberry 16: Something Starting
Title: Something Starting
Main Story: In the Heart -- EPIC PIRATE AU
Flavors, Toppings, Extras: FOTD (cosher: to treat with special fondness), blue raspberry 16 (choosing sides), malt (Back to school 29 : Gail : No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!), chopped nuts (EPIC PIRATE AU), brownie.
Word Count: 5172
Rating: PG-13 for more violence.
Summary: Captain Nathan Kendall and Mistress Gail Hirschfeld get better acquainted.
Notes: DEATH BROWNIE part two! This may be the most serious use of a Monty Python malt ever. Part one here.
"Absolutely not!" Gail yelped, her voice spiraling up. She hadn't meant it to, but... well.
Captain Kendall winced, and shot her an irritated glance. "I should like to hear any other suggestions you might have," he said, stretching up on his tiptoes to loop the hammock over a hook set into the wall.
She crossed her arms protectively over her breasts and said, "It's your ship. There must be somewhere else you can sleep."
"Oh, yes," he said, pacing across the cabin. "Plenty of other places. None of them are places where I can sleep in comfort or safety. This, at least, has a door that locks."
"What about your first mate's cabin?" she asked, knowing she was grasping at straws and not really caring. "He must have one."
"He does." Captain Kendall grunted as he reached up to hook the other end of the hammock, and Gail realized with a brief start that he was not very much taller than she was. "It's been commandeered. I doubt you'd care to share a bed with Ian."
Her cheeks flamed. "I have no intention of sharing a bed with anyone," she snapped, hugging herself just a little bit tighter.
He winced again. "Of course. My apologies, I misspoke. I meant to say cabin."
Gail accepted that with a cautious nod. "I would still rather not share the room," she said. "I... I have things I need to do. And I certainly cannot sleep in one of those." She gave the hammock a baleful look. "I'd fall out."
"It's much easier to stay in than you might expect," Captain Kendall said, "but no, you will of course have the bunk."
She glanced around the tiny cabin, in which no bed was visible, and gave him a speaking look.
Captain Kendall sighed, walked over to a cabinet set into the wall, twisted a handle, and pulled it open. It turned out to be much bigger than Gail had previously thought, and opened on a small but very cozy-looking bed. "This bunk," he said. "It may interest you to know that it locks."
She eyed it uncertainly. "From the inside?"
"From both sides," he said. "But you may have the key. Believe me, Mistress Kendall, when I say that I really have no interest in molesting you. Even if I did, I have neither the time or the space, since my son sleeps in here too." He watched her for a moment, then added rather shrewdly, "And I don't think you believe I would, either, or you wouldn't be alone in here with me."
Gail sniffed, and lifted her chin. "I think I've proven to be quite capable of defending myself, thank you," she said, primly.
Although he was right. There was no sense going into a dangerous situation when you didn't have to, and Gail did not have to be here. And he seemed... comforting, in a way. Certainly not dangerous.
"Of course," he said, and laughed. "But I have no candlesticks, I'm afraid."
"Rest assured that I will think of something," Gail said.
Humor still lit his eyes, but he had the sense not to laugh. "Of course," he said, again. "Regardless. You will have the bunk, Aaron and I will share the hammock, and somehow we'll all rub along well enough until we get to Plymouth. Will that suit you, Mistress Hirschfeld?"
Heavy irony loaded his tone. Gail chose not to hear it.
"I suppose," she said, her tone making it as clear as possible that she did this only because there was no other choice. "But my reputation will be ruined."
He shrugged, and turned away, rummaging in one of the other cabinets. "Why? You're a widow. It's respectable enough under the circumstances."
"It is not at all respectable for a young woman--" young enough, anyway, she was only twenty-three, "--to share a room with..." She hesitated this time for tact rather than honesty, but finished, deliberately, "an unmarried man. Under any circumstances."
Somewhat to her shock, Captain Kendall didn't seem to take offense at that. He did, however, stop rummaging and straighten up, a blanket in his hands. "So you found that out, did you?"
"I don't know that you can call it finding out," Gail said, cautiously. "Finding implies a searching. Aaron just... told me."
He laughed again, somewhat ruefully this time, and shook his head. "Really? He must have liked you very much, then. Aaron doesn't take to strangers, usually."
Strangers probably did not usually allow him to feel a baby kick inside them. Gail had the feeling that she had forever endeared herself to the little boy with that one simple action.
"He's a good lad," she said, avoiding the question. "Why didn't you marry his mother?"
There was a long pause. He stood with his back to her, twisting the blanket between his hands thoughtfully.
Just when Gail was about to apologize and change the subject, he said, quite abruptly, "I did not marry Aaron's mother because by the time I realized I needed to, she was long gone." He seemed to assume that that was enough explanation, and resumed rummaging.
Unfortunately for him, Gail was not nearly satisfied yet. "She was what?" she exclaimed. "How on earth... and what do you mean, by the time you realized you needed to? You're really supposed to marry someone before you share a..." She cut herself off, cheeks flaming again. Not only had she spoken somewhat indiscreetly, but she herself had no room to criticize.
Fortunately Captain Kendall's back was still to her. "Things are different," he said, quietly, "when you aren't well-born."
Gail froze, but he went on talking. "A woman of the lower classes has fewer choices, most of the time. But sometimes she has more." He turned around, and gave her a crooked half-smile. "Melanie made her choice. I'm just grateful that she left me my son."
Maybe it had just been a strange example. He couldn't know, she told herself. Certainly not. She'd been careful. "He is a good boy," she said, at last. "And you, I think, are a good man, to care for him."
He shrugged, looking rather uncomfortable. "He's my son. He's my responsibility. I don't shirk my responsibilities."
"Mmhmm," Gail said, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.
"You don't believe me," Captain Kendall said. He sounded annoyed.
She let the smile out. "Oh, no, I believe you. I simply don't think that's all. You love him."
That got her a look she was accustomed to getting only from her tutors, the look that wondered if she was actually an idiot or just playing at being one. "He's my son."
"Yes," she said. "And you love him. Not all men love their children." Her husband certainly had not loved his. At least her father would not hesitate to welcome her back, and her child with her.
The captain hesitated a moment, perhaps sensing her mood, then said, carefully, "I think, mistress, your marriage was not all you had hoped? It so rarely is, in some stations."
Gail very nearly told him to mind his own business, but he'd been candid with her. She owed him the same. "No," she said, still rather curt. "It wasn't. I would rather not speak of it, if you don't mind."
He waved a hand. "Not at all. Supper will be ready soon." He glanced at the door, smiled sourly, and added, "Shall I bring you some in here?"
"Please," Gail said, trying to show dignity rather than relief. "I don't particularly like the looks of your crew."
"Neither do I," Captain Kendall said, and muttered something in which Gail only caught the name 'Davy' and some blasphemies. "I'll go find Aaron and send him in here. If you would look after him until he sleeps, I would appreciate it."
"I will," she said, and watched him go before she sat, carefully, on the hidden little bed, heart suddenly thundering.
Did he know?
--
"So, Captain," Pat said, appearing in front of him as he maneuvered his way out onto the deck. "Are you ever going to explain milady?"
"No," Nathan said, repressively, managing not to drop any of the food he was carrying. Mistress Hirschfeld had continued to take her meals in the cabin for the week or so that she'd been on board, which-- frankly he could not blame her for. It was true that she was quite clearly pregnant, but most of this crew hadn't seen a woman that they knew was a woman for months, and at this point would take anything they could get without caring about niceties like possible physical awkwardness or the woman's feelings on the subject.
Or at least they would have had Nathan not made it very clear that anyone attempting to do so would soon find himself with holes in inconvenient places. And not necessarily inflicted by him, either-- he'd heard enough rumblings from the crew to think that both Pat and Ian had made their own views on rape painfully clear.
Pat, not privy to his thoughts, grinned at him. "You're going to have to, you know," she said. "Ian and me, we've been talking."
"Heaven help us all," he muttered.
Pat grinned some more. It was a slightly worrying sight, since Pat was usually only happy when terrifying some poor idiot. "We’ve been talking," she repeated. "We've decided you've gone soft on milady."
Soft? Nathan drew himself up. "Just what do you mean by that? And she isn't a lady, Pat. Stop calling her that."
She rolled her eyes. "With respect, Captain, we're not blind. We know she's a lady. So does most of the crew, for that matter." While he was digesting that bit of unwelcome news, she unexpectedly took one of the plates from him. "I'll get her some ale, shall I? I mean that you've gone soft on her. Fetching and carrying--"
"There is a very solid and practical reason for this," Nathan objected, lifting the other plate. "I don't want any of the crew--" currently in the galley, thank heaven-- "getting ideas."
Pat shrugged. "Fair enough, but you and I both know that keeping her out of sight wouldn't stop them." She grinned again, this time not at all nicely. "At least, not if they didn't have other motivations."
Ah. So she had threatened the crew. Nathan made a mental note to give her some sort of bonus for it, when all this was over. "Yes, well, it can't hurt."
"It's not the only thing anyway," Pat said. "You trail along after her like a lost puppy when you haven't any other work to do. And sometimes when you do have other work to do. Don't think Ian and I are the only ones who've spotted it, either."
"I do not--" Nathan started, then cut himself off with a sigh. He supposed he did, at that, although certainly not because he was 'soft' on Mistress Hirschfeld, or whatever ridiculous reason Pat could invent. "You know, Pat," he said, instead, "if you hadn't been sailing with me for so long I'd have tossed you overboard for insubordination a long time ago."
Pat gave him a serenely unruffled look, looking unnervingly like the Virgin in the Papist paintings they'd found in the hold of the Spanish ship. "It's because she likes Aaron, isn't it?" she asked. "It's not that uncommon to like him, you know. I'm not fond of children but he really is charming."
"Just a bit," he said, dryly, and did not answer her question because it was uncomfortably true. All right, so Aaron adored Mistress Hirschfeld. If Pat thought that Nathan trailed along after her, Aaron must have become her shadow, a tiny sprite bouncing along in her wake discoursing on anything he thought she might find interesting. Nathan often came across them sitting together in the course of his duties, the two of them laughing and exchanging words in some language he didn't even recognize.
It made him... well, it made him a little jealous, if he was going to be totally honest. He loved Aaron deeply, but there were some things he couldn't share with his son, and it hurt that some woman Aaron had only known for a week could draw that out of him. On the other hand...
She looked so comfortable with Aaron, so easy with him that Nathan could almost have thought she was his mother. It boded well for the child she carried, though not so well for either of the Kendalls.
Which reminded him. "I am a bit worried about that, actually," he said. "What happens when she leaves? Aaron will be brokenhearted."
Pat shrugged. "He'll recover," she said, with the blithe unconcern of someone who had no children and never intended to change that. "The question is, will you."
"This conversation," Nathan said, hoisting the trays, "is over. And irrelevant anyway. I've not gone soft on anyone and I'll thank you not to spread rumors to that effect."
"You're such a liar," Ian said, popping out of absolutely nowhere. Nathan, used to him, managed not to jump but only rolled his eyes. The things that made Ian such a good privateer-- his sticky fingers, his soundless movement-- sometimes made him a very difficult friend.
"And what do you want?" he asked, rounding on his second mate.
Ian ignored Nathan's annoyance and Pat's amused grin with equal ease. "I brought this for the lady," he said, lifting a box from inside the cabin. "It should make her more comfortable."
Nathan stared at Ian, who had never displayed this kind of consideration for anyone before, and then at the box. "What... what's in it?" he asked, after a moment.
"A comfort gown," Ian said. "I found it in the hold. Some noble or other must have got it for the wife, because it's made out of silk. Didn't think they made comfort gowns out of silk but there's gentry for you."
Nathan and Pat stared at him for a long moment. Finally, Pat spoke. "What the hell's a comfort gown?"
Ian gave them both an incredulous look. "You don't know... oh, for heaven's sake, don't either of you have sisters?"
"No," Pat said, repressively.
"I don't have any siblings," Nathan said. "As you know very well. What's a comfort gown?"
Ian rolled his eyes. "It's something ladies wear when they're with child," he said, 'you idiots' unspoken but clearly heard. "So's they don't have to wear stays or a bodice. The poor lady's making do with a half-laced bodice, and my sister Ailsa says that's worse than nothing."
"Ailsa. Good Lord. You know, Ian, we're aware that you're a Scot," Pat said. "However do you reconcile sailing with Englishmen anyway?"
"Well, some of us aren't men at all, are we?" Ian asked, after checking for inconvenient ears and finding none.
"At least two of us here," Pat agreed, tone deceptively sweet.
Pat and Ian did this sometimes; Nathan felt no need to pay attention to either of them. Instead, he eyed the box thoughtfully. "All right," he said, breaking up an incipient fistfight. "I'll take the box, Ian. And thank you. I'm sure Mistress Hirschfeld will appreciate it."
Ian grinned meaningfully at Pat, but gave Nathan the box without demur. Juggling it and the other meal was a little difficult, but he managed, in the end, nodded to Pat and Ian, and edged past them, towards his cabin, Pat trailing behind.
"Captain," Ian said, and he turned back, expectantly. "Look, she is a lady. We all know that, and you can bet that they--" he jerked a thumb backwards, towards the galley and the crew's quarters-- "know that too."
"I just told him that," Pat hissed at him.
Ian ignored her.
The thought of what the crew might do made Nathan feel a little ill, but he nodded. "Yes, I know. I hope... I hope pretending otherwise will help. That lot's as dull as dishwater."
"I shouldn't count on it," Ian said. "I know she has a good arm with a candlestick, but I should give her a pistol. Just in case."
Pat gave Ian a dubious look. "You think she knows how to use one? It's not a skill ladies are taught much."
Ian blinked at her. "And you would know that because..."
"My da was a stableman at Greenwich," Pat said. "You can learn a lot hanging around there, if you listen to the right people."
"Huh," Ian said. "I never knew that about you."
"Up until six months ago you didn't know I was a woman," Pat said. "I think we can safely say there's a lot you don't know about me."
On that grace note, she swept past Nathan, chin high.
Nathan gave Ian a mildly sympathetic look, then moved along himself. Mistress Hirschfeld was waiting for her supper, and he wanted his rather badly.
There was something to what Ian had said, too. True, Mistress Hirschfeld did not strike him as the helpless type. Still, there was something to be said for the deterrent power of a pistol aimed at one's head. And it wasn't as if they had a shortage of them, not after taking that Spanish ship.
He made up his mind. It couldn't hurt.
--
"This is so much better," Gail said, adjusting the sleeves of the gown a bit. She gave Captain Kendall a grateful smile. "I've no idea where you found it, but thank you for thinking of me."
To her faint surprise and amusement, he blushed. "It wasn't me," he said. "Ian found it. I expect he was digging around in the hold again."
"Was he stealing things?" Aaron piped up, from his seat on the bench by his father.
Captain Kendall twisted and looked down at him. "No, he wasn't, and where did you hear that?"
"Pat," Aaron said, perfectly calm. "She said Ian likes to take things and that's what makes him such a bloody good pirate but a piss-poor mate."
Gail might have been shocked by the little boy's language if she hadn't heard far, far worse in the past few days, and from his father, no less. The rest of the crew didn't even bear thinking about.
Case in point: Captain Kendall merely shrugged. "Yes, well, she's right, but you are to remember that we are privateers, not pirates, and you are not to repeat that around Uncle Ian."
"Why not?" Aaron asked, tipping his head to one side. "He knows we know he likes to take things, doesn't he?"
"He does," his father said, "but it isn't polite to remind him of that. Besides, he does try not to take things from us. And sometimes it's beneficial, like for Mistress Hirschfeld here." He nodded to her. "I am glad it fits. I was worried about that."
Gail shrugged, too amused by the byplay to mind being left out. "Comfort gowns fit pretty much anyone," she said. "It's the way they're constructed." Granted, this one was a bit long on her, but she wasn't about to complain. She could always bring up the hem a bit before she went to bed tonight.
"Well enough," Captain Kendall said. He hesitated then, gave her an odd look, then turned to his son. "Aaron, go run these things back to the galley. Then find Ian and tell him it's time for your navigation lessons."
Aaron gave a little gasp of pure delight. "Yes, Papa!" he chirped, then collected the things in record time and hared off out of the cabin door, without bothering to shut it.
Captain Kendall didn't even bother calling after his son. He just got up, shut the door, then turned around and regarded Gail with that unreadable gaze again.
She got uncomfortable under such steady scrutiny, and crossed her arms across her breasts, lifting an eyebrow at him. "Well? I gather you have something to say to me in private."
He made a slight face, and sighed. "I do, at that. I'm usually better at covering that sort of thing."
Gail said nothing. She had the sneaking suspicion that he just wasn't very good about it around her.
Although why she thought that, she couldn't have said.
Better to just say nothing.
Captain Kendall came back to the table and sat down again. He linked his hands on the tabletop, and stared down at them for a moment before he finally spoke. "Mistress Hirschfeld, would I be wrong in saying that you are gently born?"
She froze, blindsided, then lifted her chin. "Why would you even ask me that?" she asked. "Dressed like this?" She moved to gesture at her clothes, then remembered that she wasn't even wearing the same things-- and the comfort gown she wore was definitely meant for the aristocracy. Higher than she ever could have aspired to, actually, not that she was currently complaining.
"Well, actually," he said, almost apologetically, "that was the second clue. Your chemise is made for a farthingale."
Damn it. No one she'd ever met had noticed that, including a few Portuguese women who really should have, if their histories as ladies maids weren't fabricated. "I might have gotten it secondhand," she snapped.
"Yes," Captain Kendall said, "but you just told me that you didn't."
She ignored that, lifting her chin. "You said second clue."
He shrugged. "The first is the way you speak. I'm not sure you could have helped that, honestly, but you speak better than anyone I've ever met. And of course you carry yourself like a lady."
Gail frowned. "What on earth is that supposed to mean?"
He shrugged again, turning his hands palm-upward. "Women of my class don't hold themselves like the world will leap to obey them if they but snap their fingers."
"I don't..." she began, and in the face of his patently skeptical look, frowned harder. "Do I?"
"I'm afraid you do," he said. He didn't sound terribly sorry about it. "On the bright side, that means half my crew is afraid of you."
Gail bit her lip. And she'd thought she'd kept it such a secret. "And the other half?"
"The other half..." He hesitated. "Might I speak plainly?"
"You might as well. It would be better if I knew what I faced," she said, but clasped her hands together under the table until her bones ached.
Captain Kendall sighed. "There is... a thought, among some men, that highborn women are... ah... more interesting. To lie with."
Gail stared at him. "But I'm pregnant," she said, at last. "They wouldn't want to hurt the baby, surely."
He looked at her as if she was an idiot. "These are pirates, milady."
"Privateers," she snapped, trying not to feel the irony. "And don't call me that!"
"Pirates, I'm afraid," he corrected, gently. "It's a fine line, but they are definitely on the other side of it."
She shivered. "I will be very glad when we get back to England," she said. "Why do you even sail with them?"
A spasm of annoyance crossed his face, but it was not directed at her. "The damned-- begging your pardon-- lords who funded this little expedition demanded that we set out again immediately. Never mind that we need repairs, never mind that half of my regular crew is laid up or doing their regular jobs."
"Regular jobs?" Gail lifted an eyebrow. "Privateers have regular jobs?"
"My men do," Captain Kendall said, and shrugged. "Davy and I are fishermen in the off-season, like most of us. Pat does some sort of rough work for a tavern. Sajiv... I honestly don't know what Sajiv does, but it keeps him comfortably enough."
Interested in spite of herself, she asked, "What about Ian?"
He grinned. "Ian is a thief. He doesn't have a regular job. When we're not sailing he just lives off whichever sister is least angry at him."
Gail smiled, and adjusted the comfort gown again. "He seems a remarkably considerate thief."
"I never said he wasn't a gentleman. Just that he's also a thief." Captain Kendall hesitated again, then looked her directly in the eyes. "Mistress Kendall, I have to ask. What brings a gently born lady here?"
"It's none of your business," Gail said, but with much less heat than the first time.
He didn't relent. "I have to know," he said. "If there's someone hunting you, if you're running away from..."
"I'm running away from nothing." Nothing besides her own bad decisions, anyway. "I'm... I'm going home. I want my child to be born on English soil."
"I gathered as much," he said, his tone gentler than it could have been. "So you're not being hunted."
"No." Gail hoped that was an end to it.
But Captain Kendall was still watching her, his expression not sympathetic, but unrelenting.
She sighed. "Fine," she said, less than graciously. "I... married unwisely. My husband took me to Portugal. He drowned. Now I'm coming home."
"Succinct and to the point," he murmured. "I take it the Portuguese ship was the one caught by the Spanish. How did you get on it?"
"It was crewed by the men from the village I lived in," she replied, and shivered again involuntarily. "They agreed to help me. When the Spanish caught us, they..." She stopped. He'd know.
Captain Kendall waited a moment, then prompted, gently, "They...?"
"They died!" she cried, shoving away from the table and hugging her arms against herself, looking down at the floor or at the walls or anywhere, anywhere but at him. "The Spanish killed them. There are women in that village, my friends, whose husbands will never come home now because of me!"
There was silence for a moment. When Gail finally dared to look at Captain Kendall, he was regarding her with such sympathy that she nearly burst into tears.
And then he said something totally irrelevant.
"I am a father."
Gail, startled from her own self-pity and fear, gave him a look.
He smiled at her, and said, "I am a father, and my son is my whole world. I would do anything to save him the slightest pain. I would, and have, killed for him. I suspect, based on our first meeting, that you would do the same for your own child."
As if on cue, the baby shifted inside her, and she laid a hand on her belly to calm it. "Yes," she said, simply. "I would."
"Those men," he said. "Were they fathers? Did they have children?"
She flinched at that, thinking of the children's faces. She knew them all by name. "Yes. Yes, they did, most of them."
"Then they were not fighting for you."
Gail stared at him for a moment, then said, "They wouldn't even have been there if it wasn't for me. They were helping me. Because they liked me."
"And because you paid them," Captain Kendall pointed out. "You told me you sold your wedding ring to pay your passage. Is that true?"
"Well," she said, reluctantly. "Yes. But I insisted on paying them. I didn't want them to suffer because of me."
Captain Kendall nodded, then shifted on the bench. "Laudable. Regardless. They weren't fighting for you, they were fighting for their children's futures."
"They were fishermen," Gail began, then shook her own head before he could say anything. "So they'd fight the harder, to try and make up for their lack of experience." In fact, she didn't even think they'd got out of their home waters when the Spanish attacked.
And now that she thought of it, there had been a lot of guns on board for a fishing vessel.
Had they been expecting something like that?
"Exactly," Captain Kendall said, nodding obliviously. "And that's all I'm doing, really, trying to build something for Aaron." He sighed, and propped his chin in his palm. "A word of advice, Mistress Hirschfeld. Once you have a child, they become everything. Be prepared for that."
"I don't think you can be," she said, looking down at her belly. "I just... I'm trying to get home. I'll worry about after later."
"A sensible proposition," he said, then got up, his knees creaking a little. "I'm afraid I have to leave you now, Mistress Hirschfeld. I've got to see to the night watch."
"All right," she said.
She'd welcome some time alone to think, anyway.
--
It was two weeks later that it happened.
The crew had been getting steadily more restless, but perhaps two days before all grumbling had abruptly ceased. They'd found a thief (not Ian-- he wouldn't get caught stealing from shipmates) and hung him about the same time, and Nathan assumed it was the cause.
He was very, very wrong. But he didn't know it at the time.
They were three weeks out from Plymouth, by his best reckoning. Mistress Hirschfeld seemed to get larger every day; she depended now on someone's arm to get anywhere outside his cabin, and she couldn't climb the ladders at all. Her shooting lessons had to be curtailed and finally stopped; she simply couldn't manage them anymore. Aaron had begun to trail her everywhere she went with a little worried line between his eyebrows.
Nathan had overheard him asking Pat how the baby was going to get out. He was rather glad he didn't have to answer that one yet.
The day was unseasonably hot, the sun beating down on the deck, and the wind was intermittent and fitful, the shrouds hanging slack much of the time. The crew went about their duties in eerie silence.
The hair stood up on the back of Nathan's neck. Something was going to happen.
He just had no idea what.
To take his mind off whatever was impending, he went down into the hold and began poking through the stacks of crates, looking for anything obviously disturbed. He didn't trust his crew at all, especially not after they'd caught that last thief, and it was always wise to keep an eye on these things anyway. Besides, it was cooler down here, out of the sun, with the water soaking the wooden timbers and cooling the air.
He spent a happy half-hour or so down there, cataloguing the cargo and reassuring himself that nothing was missing, before Ian called down the ladder to him, sounding nervous. "Captain?"
"What is it?" he called back, without looking up. One of the crates in the back looked as if it had been opened. He started towards it.
"Captain," Ian said again. "We have a problem."
Nathan frowned. Whatever put that tone in Ian's voice? The last time he'd heard it was when they'd found Mistress Hirschfeld. "I'll come up in a moment," he said, still heading for the crate. "There's something here I have to see."
"There's nothing in there that'll interest you, Captain," an entirely new voice said, a smirk laced through the words.
Nathan turned around to snap at whoever it was, and found himself looking down the barrel of a pistol.
Main Story: In the Heart -- EPIC PIRATE AU
Flavors, Toppings, Extras: FOTD (cosher: to treat with special fondness), blue raspberry 16 (choosing sides), malt (Back to school 29 : Gail : No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!), chopped nuts (EPIC PIRATE AU), brownie.
Word Count: 5172
Rating: PG-13 for more violence.
Summary: Captain Nathan Kendall and Mistress Gail Hirschfeld get better acquainted.
Notes: DEATH BROWNIE part two! This may be the most serious use of a Monty Python malt ever. Part one here.
"Absolutely not!" Gail yelped, her voice spiraling up. She hadn't meant it to, but... well.
Captain Kendall winced, and shot her an irritated glance. "I should like to hear any other suggestions you might have," he said, stretching up on his tiptoes to loop the hammock over a hook set into the wall.
She crossed her arms protectively over her breasts and said, "It's your ship. There must be somewhere else you can sleep."
"Oh, yes," he said, pacing across the cabin. "Plenty of other places. None of them are places where I can sleep in comfort or safety. This, at least, has a door that locks."
"What about your first mate's cabin?" she asked, knowing she was grasping at straws and not really caring. "He must have one."
"He does." Captain Kendall grunted as he reached up to hook the other end of the hammock, and Gail realized with a brief start that he was not very much taller than she was. "It's been commandeered. I doubt you'd care to share a bed with Ian."
Her cheeks flamed. "I have no intention of sharing a bed with anyone," she snapped, hugging herself just a little bit tighter.
He winced again. "Of course. My apologies, I misspoke. I meant to say cabin."
Gail accepted that with a cautious nod. "I would still rather not share the room," she said. "I... I have things I need to do. And I certainly cannot sleep in one of those." She gave the hammock a baleful look. "I'd fall out."
"It's much easier to stay in than you might expect," Captain Kendall said, "but no, you will of course have the bunk."
She glanced around the tiny cabin, in which no bed was visible, and gave him a speaking look.
Captain Kendall sighed, walked over to a cabinet set into the wall, twisted a handle, and pulled it open. It turned out to be much bigger than Gail had previously thought, and opened on a small but very cozy-looking bed. "This bunk," he said. "It may interest you to know that it locks."
She eyed it uncertainly. "From the inside?"
"From both sides," he said. "But you may have the key. Believe me, Mistress Kendall, when I say that I really have no interest in molesting you. Even if I did, I have neither the time or the space, since my son sleeps in here too." He watched her for a moment, then added rather shrewdly, "And I don't think you believe I would, either, or you wouldn't be alone in here with me."
Gail sniffed, and lifted her chin. "I think I've proven to be quite capable of defending myself, thank you," she said, primly.
Although he was right. There was no sense going into a dangerous situation when you didn't have to, and Gail did not have to be here. And he seemed... comforting, in a way. Certainly not dangerous.
"Of course," he said, and laughed. "But I have no candlesticks, I'm afraid."
"Rest assured that I will think of something," Gail said.
Humor still lit his eyes, but he had the sense not to laugh. "Of course," he said, again. "Regardless. You will have the bunk, Aaron and I will share the hammock, and somehow we'll all rub along well enough until we get to Plymouth. Will that suit you, Mistress Hirschfeld?"
Heavy irony loaded his tone. Gail chose not to hear it.
"I suppose," she said, her tone making it as clear as possible that she did this only because there was no other choice. "But my reputation will be ruined."
He shrugged, and turned away, rummaging in one of the other cabinets. "Why? You're a widow. It's respectable enough under the circumstances."
"It is not at all respectable for a young woman--" young enough, anyway, she was only twenty-three, "--to share a room with..." She hesitated this time for tact rather than honesty, but finished, deliberately, "an unmarried man. Under any circumstances."
Somewhat to her shock, Captain Kendall didn't seem to take offense at that. He did, however, stop rummaging and straighten up, a blanket in his hands. "So you found that out, did you?"
"I don't know that you can call it finding out," Gail said, cautiously. "Finding implies a searching. Aaron just... told me."
He laughed again, somewhat ruefully this time, and shook his head. "Really? He must have liked you very much, then. Aaron doesn't take to strangers, usually."
Strangers probably did not usually allow him to feel a baby kick inside them. Gail had the feeling that she had forever endeared herself to the little boy with that one simple action.
"He's a good lad," she said, avoiding the question. "Why didn't you marry his mother?"
There was a long pause. He stood with his back to her, twisting the blanket between his hands thoughtfully.
Just when Gail was about to apologize and change the subject, he said, quite abruptly, "I did not marry Aaron's mother because by the time I realized I needed to, she was long gone." He seemed to assume that that was enough explanation, and resumed rummaging.
Unfortunately for him, Gail was not nearly satisfied yet. "She was what?" she exclaimed. "How on earth... and what do you mean, by the time you realized you needed to? You're really supposed to marry someone before you share a..." She cut herself off, cheeks flaming again. Not only had she spoken somewhat indiscreetly, but she herself had no room to criticize.
Fortunately Captain Kendall's back was still to her. "Things are different," he said, quietly, "when you aren't well-born."
Gail froze, but he went on talking. "A woman of the lower classes has fewer choices, most of the time. But sometimes she has more." He turned around, and gave her a crooked half-smile. "Melanie made her choice. I'm just grateful that she left me my son."
Maybe it had just been a strange example. He couldn't know, she told herself. Certainly not. She'd been careful. "He is a good boy," she said, at last. "And you, I think, are a good man, to care for him."
He shrugged, looking rather uncomfortable. "He's my son. He's my responsibility. I don't shirk my responsibilities."
"Mmhmm," Gail said, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.
"You don't believe me," Captain Kendall said. He sounded annoyed.
She let the smile out. "Oh, no, I believe you. I simply don't think that's all. You love him."
That got her a look she was accustomed to getting only from her tutors, the look that wondered if she was actually an idiot or just playing at being one. "He's my son."
"Yes," she said. "And you love him. Not all men love their children." Her husband certainly had not loved his. At least her father would not hesitate to welcome her back, and her child with her.
The captain hesitated a moment, perhaps sensing her mood, then said, carefully, "I think, mistress, your marriage was not all you had hoped? It so rarely is, in some stations."
Gail very nearly told him to mind his own business, but he'd been candid with her. She owed him the same. "No," she said, still rather curt. "It wasn't. I would rather not speak of it, if you don't mind."
He waved a hand. "Not at all. Supper will be ready soon." He glanced at the door, smiled sourly, and added, "Shall I bring you some in here?"
"Please," Gail said, trying to show dignity rather than relief. "I don't particularly like the looks of your crew."
"Neither do I," Captain Kendall said, and muttered something in which Gail only caught the name 'Davy' and some blasphemies. "I'll go find Aaron and send him in here. If you would look after him until he sleeps, I would appreciate it."
"I will," she said, and watched him go before she sat, carefully, on the hidden little bed, heart suddenly thundering.
Did he know?
--
"So, Captain," Pat said, appearing in front of him as he maneuvered his way out onto the deck. "Are you ever going to explain milady?"
"No," Nathan said, repressively, managing not to drop any of the food he was carrying. Mistress Hirschfeld had continued to take her meals in the cabin for the week or so that she'd been on board, which-- frankly he could not blame her for. It was true that she was quite clearly pregnant, but most of this crew hadn't seen a woman that they knew was a woman for months, and at this point would take anything they could get without caring about niceties like possible physical awkwardness or the woman's feelings on the subject.
Or at least they would have had Nathan not made it very clear that anyone attempting to do so would soon find himself with holes in inconvenient places. And not necessarily inflicted by him, either-- he'd heard enough rumblings from the crew to think that both Pat and Ian had made their own views on rape painfully clear.
Pat, not privy to his thoughts, grinned at him. "You're going to have to, you know," she said. "Ian and me, we've been talking."
"Heaven help us all," he muttered.
Pat grinned some more. It was a slightly worrying sight, since Pat was usually only happy when terrifying some poor idiot. "We’ve been talking," she repeated. "We've decided you've gone soft on milady."
Soft? Nathan drew himself up. "Just what do you mean by that? And she isn't a lady, Pat. Stop calling her that."
She rolled her eyes. "With respect, Captain, we're not blind. We know she's a lady. So does most of the crew, for that matter." While he was digesting that bit of unwelcome news, she unexpectedly took one of the plates from him. "I'll get her some ale, shall I? I mean that you've gone soft on her. Fetching and carrying--"
"There is a very solid and practical reason for this," Nathan objected, lifting the other plate. "I don't want any of the crew--" currently in the galley, thank heaven-- "getting ideas."
Pat shrugged. "Fair enough, but you and I both know that keeping her out of sight wouldn't stop them." She grinned again, this time not at all nicely. "At least, not if they didn't have other motivations."
Ah. So she had threatened the crew. Nathan made a mental note to give her some sort of bonus for it, when all this was over. "Yes, well, it can't hurt."
"It's not the only thing anyway," Pat said. "You trail along after her like a lost puppy when you haven't any other work to do. And sometimes when you do have other work to do. Don't think Ian and I are the only ones who've spotted it, either."
"I do not--" Nathan started, then cut himself off with a sigh. He supposed he did, at that, although certainly not because he was 'soft' on Mistress Hirschfeld, or whatever ridiculous reason Pat could invent. "You know, Pat," he said, instead, "if you hadn't been sailing with me for so long I'd have tossed you overboard for insubordination a long time ago."
Pat gave him a serenely unruffled look, looking unnervingly like the Virgin in the Papist paintings they'd found in the hold of the Spanish ship. "It's because she likes Aaron, isn't it?" she asked. "It's not that uncommon to like him, you know. I'm not fond of children but he really is charming."
"Just a bit," he said, dryly, and did not answer her question because it was uncomfortably true. All right, so Aaron adored Mistress Hirschfeld. If Pat thought that Nathan trailed along after her, Aaron must have become her shadow, a tiny sprite bouncing along in her wake discoursing on anything he thought she might find interesting. Nathan often came across them sitting together in the course of his duties, the two of them laughing and exchanging words in some language he didn't even recognize.
It made him... well, it made him a little jealous, if he was going to be totally honest. He loved Aaron deeply, but there were some things he couldn't share with his son, and it hurt that some woman Aaron had only known for a week could draw that out of him. On the other hand...
She looked so comfortable with Aaron, so easy with him that Nathan could almost have thought she was his mother. It boded well for the child she carried, though not so well for either of the Kendalls.
Which reminded him. "I am a bit worried about that, actually," he said. "What happens when she leaves? Aaron will be brokenhearted."
Pat shrugged. "He'll recover," she said, with the blithe unconcern of someone who had no children and never intended to change that. "The question is, will you."
"This conversation," Nathan said, hoisting the trays, "is over. And irrelevant anyway. I've not gone soft on anyone and I'll thank you not to spread rumors to that effect."
"You're such a liar," Ian said, popping out of absolutely nowhere. Nathan, used to him, managed not to jump but only rolled his eyes. The things that made Ian such a good privateer-- his sticky fingers, his soundless movement-- sometimes made him a very difficult friend.
"And what do you want?" he asked, rounding on his second mate.
Ian ignored Nathan's annoyance and Pat's amused grin with equal ease. "I brought this for the lady," he said, lifting a box from inside the cabin. "It should make her more comfortable."
Nathan stared at Ian, who had never displayed this kind of consideration for anyone before, and then at the box. "What... what's in it?" he asked, after a moment.
"A comfort gown," Ian said. "I found it in the hold. Some noble or other must have got it for the wife, because it's made out of silk. Didn't think they made comfort gowns out of silk but there's gentry for you."
Nathan and Pat stared at him for a long moment. Finally, Pat spoke. "What the hell's a comfort gown?"
Ian gave them both an incredulous look. "You don't know... oh, for heaven's sake, don't either of you have sisters?"
"No," Pat said, repressively.
"I don't have any siblings," Nathan said. "As you know very well. What's a comfort gown?"
Ian rolled his eyes. "It's something ladies wear when they're with child," he said, 'you idiots' unspoken but clearly heard. "So's they don't have to wear stays or a bodice. The poor lady's making do with a half-laced bodice, and my sister Ailsa says that's worse than nothing."
"Ailsa. Good Lord. You know, Ian, we're aware that you're a Scot," Pat said. "However do you reconcile sailing with Englishmen anyway?"
"Well, some of us aren't men at all, are we?" Ian asked, after checking for inconvenient ears and finding none.
"At least two of us here," Pat agreed, tone deceptively sweet.
Pat and Ian did this sometimes; Nathan felt no need to pay attention to either of them. Instead, he eyed the box thoughtfully. "All right," he said, breaking up an incipient fistfight. "I'll take the box, Ian. And thank you. I'm sure Mistress Hirschfeld will appreciate it."
Ian grinned meaningfully at Pat, but gave Nathan the box without demur. Juggling it and the other meal was a little difficult, but he managed, in the end, nodded to Pat and Ian, and edged past them, towards his cabin, Pat trailing behind.
"Captain," Ian said, and he turned back, expectantly. "Look, she is a lady. We all know that, and you can bet that they--" he jerked a thumb backwards, towards the galley and the crew's quarters-- "know that too."
"I just told him that," Pat hissed at him.
Ian ignored her.
The thought of what the crew might do made Nathan feel a little ill, but he nodded. "Yes, I know. I hope... I hope pretending otherwise will help. That lot's as dull as dishwater."
"I shouldn't count on it," Ian said. "I know she has a good arm with a candlestick, but I should give her a pistol. Just in case."
Pat gave Ian a dubious look. "You think she knows how to use one? It's not a skill ladies are taught much."
Ian blinked at her. "And you would know that because..."
"My da was a stableman at Greenwich," Pat said. "You can learn a lot hanging around there, if you listen to the right people."
"Huh," Ian said. "I never knew that about you."
"Up until six months ago you didn't know I was a woman," Pat said. "I think we can safely say there's a lot you don't know about me."
On that grace note, she swept past Nathan, chin high.
Nathan gave Ian a mildly sympathetic look, then moved along himself. Mistress Hirschfeld was waiting for her supper, and he wanted his rather badly.
There was something to what Ian had said, too. True, Mistress Hirschfeld did not strike him as the helpless type. Still, there was something to be said for the deterrent power of a pistol aimed at one's head. And it wasn't as if they had a shortage of them, not after taking that Spanish ship.
He made up his mind. It couldn't hurt.
--
"This is so much better," Gail said, adjusting the sleeves of the gown a bit. She gave Captain Kendall a grateful smile. "I've no idea where you found it, but thank you for thinking of me."
To her faint surprise and amusement, he blushed. "It wasn't me," he said. "Ian found it. I expect he was digging around in the hold again."
"Was he stealing things?" Aaron piped up, from his seat on the bench by his father.
Captain Kendall twisted and looked down at him. "No, he wasn't, and where did you hear that?"
"Pat," Aaron said, perfectly calm. "She said Ian likes to take things and that's what makes him such a bloody good pirate but a piss-poor mate."
Gail might have been shocked by the little boy's language if she hadn't heard far, far worse in the past few days, and from his father, no less. The rest of the crew didn't even bear thinking about.
Case in point: Captain Kendall merely shrugged. "Yes, well, she's right, but you are to remember that we are privateers, not pirates, and you are not to repeat that around Uncle Ian."
"Why not?" Aaron asked, tipping his head to one side. "He knows we know he likes to take things, doesn't he?"
"He does," his father said, "but it isn't polite to remind him of that. Besides, he does try not to take things from us. And sometimes it's beneficial, like for Mistress Hirschfeld here." He nodded to her. "I am glad it fits. I was worried about that."
Gail shrugged, too amused by the byplay to mind being left out. "Comfort gowns fit pretty much anyone," she said. "It's the way they're constructed." Granted, this one was a bit long on her, but she wasn't about to complain. She could always bring up the hem a bit before she went to bed tonight.
"Well enough," Captain Kendall said. He hesitated then, gave her an odd look, then turned to his son. "Aaron, go run these things back to the galley. Then find Ian and tell him it's time for your navigation lessons."
Aaron gave a little gasp of pure delight. "Yes, Papa!" he chirped, then collected the things in record time and hared off out of the cabin door, without bothering to shut it.
Captain Kendall didn't even bother calling after his son. He just got up, shut the door, then turned around and regarded Gail with that unreadable gaze again.
She got uncomfortable under such steady scrutiny, and crossed her arms across her breasts, lifting an eyebrow at him. "Well? I gather you have something to say to me in private."
He made a slight face, and sighed. "I do, at that. I'm usually better at covering that sort of thing."
Gail said nothing. She had the sneaking suspicion that he just wasn't very good about it around her.
Although why she thought that, she couldn't have said.
Better to just say nothing.
Captain Kendall came back to the table and sat down again. He linked his hands on the tabletop, and stared down at them for a moment before he finally spoke. "Mistress Hirschfeld, would I be wrong in saying that you are gently born?"
She froze, blindsided, then lifted her chin. "Why would you even ask me that?" she asked. "Dressed like this?" She moved to gesture at her clothes, then remembered that she wasn't even wearing the same things-- and the comfort gown she wore was definitely meant for the aristocracy. Higher than she ever could have aspired to, actually, not that she was currently complaining.
"Well, actually," he said, almost apologetically, "that was the second clue. Your chemise is made for a farthingale."
Damn it. No one she'd ever met had noticed that, including a few Portuguese women who really should have, if their histories as ladies maids weren't fabricated. "I might have gotten it secondhand," she snapped.
"Yes," Captain Kendall said, "but you just told me that you didn't."
She ignored that, lifting her chin. "You said second clue."
He shrugged. "The first is the way you speak. I'm not sure you could have helped that, honestly, but you speak better than anyone I've ever met. And of course you carry yourself like a lady."
Gail frowned. "What on earth is that supposed to mean?"
He shrugged again, turning his hands palm-upward. "Women of my class don't hold themselves like the world will leap to obey them if they but snap their fingers."
"I don't..." she began, and in the face of his patently skeptical look, frowned harder. "Do I?"
"I'm afraid you do," he said. He didn't sound terribly sorry about it. "On the bright side, that means half my crew is afraid of you."
Gail bit her lip. And she'd thought she'd kept it such a secret. "And the other half?"
"The other half..." He hesitated. "Might I speak plainly?"
"You might as well. It would be better if I knew what I faced," she said, but clasped her hands together under the table until her bones ached.
Captain Kendall sighed. "There is... a thought, among some men, that highborn women are... ah... more interesting. To lie with."
Gail stared at him. "But I'm pregnant," she said, at last. "They wouldn't want to hurt the baby, surely."
He looked at her as if she was an idiot. "These are pirates, milady."
"Privateers," she snapped, trying not to feel the irony. "And don't call me that!"
"Pirates, I'm afraid," he corrected, gently. "It's a fine line, but they are definitely on the other side of it."
She shivered. "I will be very glad when we get back to England," she said. "Why do you even sail with them?"
A spasm of annoyance crossed his face, but it was not directed at her. "The damned-- begging your pardon-- lords who funded this little expedition demanded that we set out again immediately. Never mind that we need repairs, never mind that half of my regular crew is laid up or doing their regular jobs."
"Regular jobs?" Gail lifted an eyebrow. "Privateers have regular jobs?"
"My men do," Captain Kendall said, and shrugged. "Davy and I are fishermen in the off-season, like most of us. Pat does some sort of rough work for a tavern. Sajiv... I honestly don't know what Sajiv does, but it keeps him comfortably enough."
Interested in spite of herself, she asked, "What about Ian?"
He grinned. "Ian is a thief. He doesn't have a regular job. When we're not sailing he just lives off whichever sister is least angry at him."
Gail smiled, and adjusted the comfort gown again. "He seems a remarkably considerate thief."
"I never said he wasn't a gentleman. Just that he's also a thief." Captain Kendall hesitated again, then looked her directly in the eyes. "Mistress Kendall, I have to ask. What brings a gently born lady here?"
"It's none of your business," Gail said, but with much less heat than the first time.
He didn't relent. "I have to know," he said. "If there's someone hunting you, if you're running away from..."
"I'm running away from nothing." Nothing besides her own bad decisions, anyway. "I'm... I'm going home. I want my child to be born on English soil."
"I gathered as much," he said, his tone gentler than it could have been. "So you're not being hunted."
"No." Gail hoped that was an end to it.
But Captain Kendall was still watching her, his expression not sympathetic, but unrelenting.
She sighed. "Fine," she said, less than graciously. "I... married unwisely. My husband took me to Portugal. He drowned. Now I'm coming home."
"Succinct and to the point," he murmured. "I take it the Portuguese ship was the one caught by the Spanish. How did you get on it?"
"It was crewed by the men from the village I lived in," she replied, and shivered again involuntarily. "They agreed to help me. When the Spanish caught us, they..." She stopped. He'd know.
Captain Kendall waited a moment, then prompted, gently, "They...?"
"They died!" she cried, shoving away from the table and hugging her arms against herself, looking down at the floor or at the walls or anywhere, anywhere but at him. "The Spanish killed them. There are women in that village, my friends, whose husbands will never come home now because of me!"
There was silence for a moment. When Gail finally dared to look at Captain Kendall, he was regarding her with such sympathy that she nearly burst into tears.
And then he said something totally irrelevant.
"I am a father."
Gail, startled from her own self-pity and fear, gave him a look.
He smiled at her, and said, "I am a father, and my son is my whole world. I would do anything to save him the slightest pain. I would, and have, killed for him. I suspect, based on our first meeting, that you would do the same for your own child."
As if on cue, the baby shifted inside her, and she laid a hand on her belly to calm it. "Yes," she said, simply. "I would."
"Those men," he said. "Were they fathers? Did they have children?"
She flinched at that, thinking of the children's faces. She knew them all by name. "Yes. Yes, they did, most of them."
"Then they were not fighting for you."
Gail stared at him for a moment, then said, "They wouldn't even have been there if it wasn't for me. They were helping me. Because they liked me."
"And because you paid them," Captain Kendall pointed out. "You told me you sold your wedding ring to pay your passage. Is that true?"
"Well," she said, reluctantly. "Yes. But I insisted on paying them. I didn't want them to suffer because of me."
Captain Kendall nodded, then shifted on the bench. "Laudable. Regardless. They weren't fighting for you, they were fighting for their children's futures."
"They were fishermen," Gail began, then shook her own head before he could say anything. "So they'd fight the harder, to try and make up for their lack of experience." In fact, she didn't even think they'd got out of their home waters when the Spanish attacked.
And now that she thought of it, there had been a lot of guns on board for a fishing vessel.
Had they been expecting something like that?
"Exactly," Captain Kendall said, nodding obliviously. "And that's all I'm doing, really, trying to build something for Aaron." He sighed, and propped his chin in his palm. "A word of advice, Mistress Hirschfeld. Once you have a child, they become everything. Be prepared for that."
"I don't think you can be," she said, looking down at her belly. "I just... I'm trying to get home. I'll worry about after later."
"A sensible proposition," he said, then got up, his knees creaking a little. "I'm afraid I have to leave you now, Mistress Hirschfeld. I've got to see to the night watch."
"All right," she said.
She'd welcome some time alone to think, anyway.
--
It was two weeks later that it happened.
The crew had been getting steadily more restless, but perhaps two days before all grumbling had abruptly ceased. They'd found a thief (not Ian-- he wouldn't get caught stealing from shipmates) and hung him about the same time, and Nathan assumed it was the cause.
He was very, very wrong. But he didn't know it at the time.
They were three weeks out from Plymouth, by his best reckoning. Mistress Hirschfeld seemed to get larger every day; she depended now on someone's arm to get anywhere outside his cabin, and she couldn't climb the ladders at all. Her shooting lessons had to be curtailed and finally stopped; she simply couldn't manage them anymore. Aaron had begun to trail her everywhere she went with a little worried line between his eyebrows.
Nathan had overheard him asking Pat how the baby was going to get out. He was rather glad he didn't have to answer that one yet.
The day was unseasonably hot, the sun beating down on the deck, and the wind was intermittent and fitful, the shrouds hanging slack much of the time. The crew went about their duties in eerie silence.
The hair stood up on the back of Nathan's neck. Something was going to happen.
He just had no idea what.
To take his mind off whatever was impending, he went down into the hold and began poking through the stacks of crates, looking for anything obviously disturbed. He didn't trust his crew at all, especially not after they'd caught that last thief, and it was always wise to keep an eye on these things anyway. Besides, it was cooler down here, out of the sun, with the water soaking the wooden timbers and cooling the air.
He spent a happy half-hour or so down there, cataloguing the cargo and reassuring himself that nothing was missing, before Ian called down the ladder to him, sounding nervous. "Captain?"
"What is it?" he called back, without looking up. One of the crates in the back looked as if it had been opened. He started towards it.
"Captain," Ian said again. "We have a problem."
Nathan frowned. Whatever put that tone in Ian's voice? The last time he'd heard it was when they'd found Mistress Hirschfeld. "I'll come up in a moment," he said, still heading for the crate. "There's something here I have to see."
"There's nothing in there that'll interest you, Captain," an entirely new voice said, a smirk laced through the words.
Nathan turned around to snap at whoever it was, and found himself looking down the barrel of a pistol.