“Yes, you can.” Clenching the gold in her palm, she turned to the sailor closest to her, a burly man with coal-colored hair, and tossed it to him. He caught it and stared at his hand.
“Could you use it, sir?”
He glanced at Christian, whose frown had returned, but nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I’ve two boys at home, they’ve been needing new shoes for a while now.”
“Keep it.” She turned and grabbed the chest.
It didn’t budge. Lord, she forgot how much gold weighed. With a heave, she got it to move a couple inches. Heat crept up her ears as the men watched her struggle with it.
A shadow fell over her. “What are you doing?”
“You hate pirates. So you stubbornly refuse to accept help or even payment from one. Don’t you care what good this could do for them?” She spoke to the handle she tugged on, soft enough so only he could hear.
“Is that what you think? That I don’t care for them?” He leaned in and placed a hand over hers, halting the minuscule movement she’d coaxed from the blasted chest. “Would you like to know how many of them died trying to rescue you, thinking you were the helpless esteemed Miss Warstein?”
A cold weight settled in her stomach. “No,” she whispered, blinking back the memory of cannon fire.
“No?” He straightened. “When you’re a captain, you don’t get to pick and choose. You don’t get to gloss over the dirty details, the hard reality of life at sea.”
Tears stung her eyes. “I never said—”
“Don’t ever insinuate I don’t care for my men. Each loss I suffer cuts deeply.”
“I’m sorry.” And she was. Her temper had gotten the better of her and she’d shown just how naive she really was. Worse, the tentative camaraderie they’d enjoyed in the cave had slipped away like a handful of sand.
A muscle ticked in his jaw as he regarded her. “Isaac, take the chest. Split it however you see fit.”
He turned and pointed to the man holding a sword at Thorne’s back. “Bring him to the ship.” Without a backward glance, he walked away and a thousand little fractures splintered across her heart as everything she’d let herself hope for earlier vanished.
“How amusing.” Thorne stood and shifted his gaze between them. “The great lieutenant, taking charity from a pirate.”
Christian stopped a few yards ahead of her. “Silence.”
The word rang through the clearing, sharp with warning.
But Thorne chuckled. “I wonder if she would have offered it if she’d known who you are.”
Isaac paused mid-lift of the chest and stared at her with wide eyes as Christian spun to face the pirate.
“Not. Another. Word.”
The coldness in her belly turned to ice. “What are you talking about?”
Thorne turned his attention to her with gleaming eyes. “And what about you, Miss Warstein? Does your lover know your true identity?”
She blinked. “Of course he does.”
His grin spread to reveal a flash of white teeth. “Or should I say, the identity of your uncle?”
Suddenly, she couldn’t breathe. She tried to suck in air, but nothing happened.
No.
Anything but that.
“I thought not.” The sailor at his back pushed him forward but the pirate kept his eyes locked on her. “Did the lieutenant tell you why he hates pirates so much?”
Somehow, her lungs drew air as she gave a curt nod. “His mother was killed by pirates.”
