Page 69 of Go, Rogue

We will fix this ship, she silently promises Andrew, and we’ll get you back.

When night begins to fall, the crew sits outside in the brisk air, huddled together for warmth and sharing hard tack and a bit of dried beef from what remains of the kitchen stores. They pass around bottles of ale, and Catherine joins in, appreciating this meal in a way she wouldn’t have thought possible before.

Her body is exhausted from the day of physical labor, and her mind keeps reverting to the sight of Andrew injured, but her belly has never been more glad for a meal than it is now.

She’s never been part of a team before. And a dozen seated dinners served in the beaumonde, with oysters and pie and champagne, can’t compare to how it makes her feel to eat salted beef as a member of the crew. To be needed and useful and a part of something. She glances at Rogers, who raises his bottle of ale to her.

Tomorrow, she thinks, I’ll confront him. And tomorrow she’ll find a way to save Andrew.

Tonight, her stomach full and her eyes drooping closed, she has to sleep. She bids them goodnight and stumbles to the captain’s cabin, where she falls into a deep, exhausted slumber.

McGann awakes in the brig with a pulsing, nearly overwhelming pain in his leg. He eases himself up to sitting while the darkness does its best to spin around him. At least they cut the ropes from his ankles and wrists, a small gesture he can be grateful for.

Or maybe it’s just easier to keep him alive this way. They wouldn’t have taken him if they didn’t need him for something.

He presses his back into the bulkhead and sits still until the nausea settles and he can examine the wound in his thigh. The puncture goes deep into the muscle, and it’s dirty, but the bleeding has definitely stopped.

That’s something at least. Although when he lightly presses his fingers against his skin, the pain is excruciating. He flinches, jerking his hand back.

“Hurts, does it?” a voice sneers at him from the darkness.

And then James appears.

“You,” McGann says. “What in hell are you playing at, man?” And when James is silent, he demands, “Answer me!” from the cur’s smirking face.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” James finally says. “You’re not the one in charge now, are you? And I’d keep my mouth shut if I were you.”

He nods his head back into the darkness behind him. “He doesn’t like it when you make a ruckus. Disturbs his sensitivities, if you know what I mean.”

“I’ve no idea what you might mean,” McGann says. “Why don’t you explain it to me?”

“Nay.” James shakes his head. “He doesn’t like that either, being reminded of the dirty business. Keeps his hands clean, he does. So, if you know what’s good for you, you won’t remind him. Being reminded makes him mean.”

“That’s enough,” a cold, hard voice says from behind James.

That voice, with its cut-glass English accent, shoots a shiver of pure hatred down McGann’s spine. He’s known that voice for years.

“Barclay,” he calls to his bloody arsehole of a half-brother. “What in hell have you done now?”

“That’s ‘Your Grace’,” Barclay says as he approaches, “to you. And the question isn’t what I’ve done, you twit. It’s what have you done?”

“I’ve not done a bloody thing.”

“Haven’t you? Haven’t you been stealing daguerreotypes and burning ships and making a general nuisance of yourself?”

That stops him cold. How in hell does Barclay know about that?

“Haven’t burned a ship in years,” he finally says. “What’s this about?”

“I believe I’ll be the one asking questions, brother. And you’ll be the one answering them, not the other way around. Or James will see to it that you’re punished.”

“Will he?” McGann looks around for the other man, the one who was part of his crew, damn it. Someone he’d trusted.

“I’ll pay you more than whatever he will, James,” he says. “Much more.”

“Will you now?” Barclay interrupts. “And how exactly do you plan to do that? Borrow it from our sister, who’s already up to her eyeballs in debt to me? Sell that ship of yours? From what I hear, it’s no longer worth the cost of the timber it’s made from. You haven’t a dime to your name, brother, and everyone knows it. So, let’s stop with the idle threats and get to business, shall we?”

“Is that what this is about?” McGann asks, incredulous. “Sinking my ship? Taking Esmee’s distillery with it?”