Page 89 of Tempest

Fell, at least, perceived. He gave a short nod. “Of course. You will pay him upon arrival in Archenport,” he said dryly. “And what of me?”

“You are to be ransomed back to the navy,” Cat answered.

His flush deepened and his head thunked against the bars. “I should hardly bear the shame of it.”

“You should be used to shame by now, you Meridian dog,” Ana said lightly, one eyebrow raised. “Unless you’re finished serving distant masters?”

Fell’s lip curled, his shame turning again to disgust. “I serve the Crown and Empire. It is an honor and a duty. I don’t expect a pirate to understand that.”

“Oh, we understand what it is to serve, more than you know,” the woman replied, sharpening with distaste. Her eyes flicked over him from head to toe. Whatever she found, she did not like.

“Suit yourself, dog,” she added, spinning on the heel of her boot.

Before Cat could make sense of things, the door to the little room opened and slammed shut again, leaving her behind. Not locked in with her husband and the lieutenant, but still just as trapped. It was almost more insulting, to be left unbound, with little more than an unlocked door to keep her in place. Cat Rose was no threat to a ship filled with pirates. She was no threat to anyone at all.

It made her skin crawl.

Her eyes lingered on the door, long after Ana had gone. Weighing her options. To remain in the little room, in self-imposed imprisonment . . . or to cross the threshold to gods knew what.

They will only bind me too, she told herself, taking a seat on an overturned bucket. Her hands still trembled, and she knit them together in her lap, hoping to hide her quivering fingers.

“Captain Kane said half the pirates in the Lyrian Sea were once men of the fleets,” she said softly. “Is that true?”

Against the bars, Fell gave a shrug. “I doubt half.”

Her eyebrows rose. “But some?”

“I suppose.” Fell busied himself examining the cell wall, made from crossing bands of iron. “There are always deserters, justified or not.”

“Justified?” Cat prodded, her curiosity flaring. In her head, she tried to picture the other sailors aboard the Covenant, their faces blurring together. Which served in the Meridian navy once? Which might hold sympathy for us now?

A strange look crossed Fell’s face and he halted in his study of the cell.

“Not every captain is as skilled, fair, or evenhanded as Captain Quine,” he said tightly, his jaw clenched. From grief or anger, Cat could not say. “But they’re traitors, all of them,” he added, sharper. “And the imperial navy is well shot of their like.”

On the bench, Ryman let out a stifled noise that sounded very much like a preening courtier clearing his throat. Given the circumstances, Cat almost laughed.

Fell rolled his eyes but was more sympathetic. He gestured with his bound hands, pointing at the gag in Ryman’s mouth.

“Do you promise not to start screaming again, my lord?” he said wearily, reaching for the scrap of fabric.

Cat perked up from her bucket. For once she felt as if she might have some control over her husband, holding the upper hand in their marriage.

“And promise not to say anything foolish?” she offered.

The pitiful lord gave a jerky nod, and Fell acquiesced, dragging the gag down his chin. The officer winced, wiping his hands clean of Ryman’s drool. The lord jumped to his feet, his cheeks going red with fury.

“Foolish?” he exploded, pointing at her through the bars. Gone was the soft and simpering lord, replaced by a man pickled with rage. “You’ve indebted us to a pirate captain and promised an unpayable sum! In imperial mint, no less!”

Cat told herself there was no reason to feel shame, but heat crept across her face anyway. “I tried to save us—”

Ryman’s bound palms slapped the bars and Cat flinched.

“I’ve half a mind to sell you to the ship instead and rid myself of your idiocy once and for all,” he snarled, his red-rimmed eyes too wide, black pupils eating up the watery blue. “Though I doubt you would fetch any real price, stupid, useless woman that you are,” he added with a glare to wither flowers in bloom.

He is a stupid man. He should be dead already. His opinion holds no weight here, Cat told herself, biting her lip so hard she tasted blood again. Useless. The word stung more than stupid, and Cat could not help but curl a little, her spine bending to make herself smaller. She felt torn by too many wants—to scream back at him, to reach through the bars and rip his hair out at the root, to go stalking through the ship to find a saber. Anything would do.

But she did not move. All her wants were only dreams, unreal and unreachable. She was Lady Rose, wife to a terrible, pathetic man. All she could do was sit on the bucket and stare back at him, holding on to her shrinking dignity.