Seize the Fire (23 page)

There was a silence. Somewhere loose blocks thudded, a syncopated chorus in the wind.

"And why 'ud I want t' bad-tempered bint?" Buckhorse said at length. "T' other one'll do."

"Then let me loose," Sheridan said. "I need some clothes, man."

Buckhorse just called him a smart-ass and ordered Olympia and Mustafa out into the saloon. Olympia came first, face lowered and subdued, which Sheridan saw with vast relief. He began to think they might somehow scrape through this.

Buckhorse tramped into the cabin and shut the door to amuse himself with Olympia's maid. Sheridan sat in silence, judging it best not to speak, since his red-coated convict guard appeared to be a little cranky over his failure to concoct a suitable excuse to break Sheridan's ribs.

He passed the time by watching his princess. She looked up at him once: a glance like a poison dart, utter loathing in eyes so green they could annihilate a man—slaughter him down in that little place inside where he'd held aloof from everything else.

Make him strange to himself.

He had a grim suspicion that he'd missed her. That the jolt he'd felt when he looked up and saw her on that deck had not been entirely vexation. A vague unease filled him, unrelated to Buckhorse and his ugly crew.

He could tell she was near to paralysis with fear. He knew her that well; knew the way her plump shoulders hunched so that she looked like a sparrow fluffed out in the cold. He knew the way she kept her eyes down and shot frightened glances from beneath her furry lashes. He knew how she would have looked up at him, worship with endless confidence, when she'd thought he was really a hero.

Well, she understood him now. She didn't look at him like that anymore.

He wasn't given to regrets. In the past three months he hadn't thought about her. He was quite sure that he hadn't. His life had been perfectly under control, except for the frequency with which he woke up in a sweat with his night terrors, and that, at least, she could hardly be blamed for. He'd abandoned her because she was too damned much trouble, with her mutinies and her innocence and her deuced green eyes that made him do things that were stupid.

Now here he was trying to make deals with that murdering brute Buckhorse, when a man of any sense would have sold her at a profit. If she hadn't made such a fracas about her bloody jewels, Buckhorse and the rest might have gone ahead with their simple plan to play captain and marines and passengers, stayed low and quiet and peacefully slipped away at the first port. Instead, what they had now was a crisis and desperate men. Sheridan hated crises and desperate men. His face hurt. He wished he'd thrown her overboard in a sack when he'd had the chance.

From the closed door of the cabin came a series of thuds. Olympia's head snapped up; she looked in that direction in horror. The cabin door flew open and Buckhorse stalked out, fumbling at his pants.

Sheridan gripped his hands together behind his back. His guts tightened, his body reacting instinctively to the look the convict gave him.

"Lying bastard." Buckhorse grabbed Sheridan's shoulder and knotted his fist. He plowed it full force into Sheridan's belly.

The world splintered into blackness and one white-hot focus of agony. His lungs froze; his heart exploded; the chair hit the wall and something came out of the dark like an anvil and smashed his ear, pain on top of pain, layers of it, so that he could not breathe or think or see.

The hurt gripped him, tore and twisted him, and then slowly, slowly, began to let go. At first it was distant sounds that tried to organize themselves into syllables, then shape and color and the ability to pull air into his punished lungs.

"Who is she, Drake?"

He sat blinking at the blur in his eyes, taking a long time to find some sense in the words. His body throbbed. "My sister," he said hoarsely.

Buckhorse's face came clear through the mist. "That's all right, guv'nor. Be an ass."

Sheridan moved his eyes, finding a new face—Olympia's skinny maid staring down at him with trepidation. Buckhorse stood with one hand still pushing Sheridan's shoulder back into the wall, tilting the chair, the other hand loosely fisted. Sheridan gazed for a moment at that ready fist. A sense of doom moved through him.

Buckhorse leaned down close. "This here gel o' hers says she thinks yer lyin'. Says you two don't act like no brother an' sister what she ever saw."

"Well," Sheridan said, wishing he were someone else, "she's wrong."

Buckhorse ducked, putting the full driving power into his blow. It sent Sheridan forward, doubled, his shattered senses closing to bright, burning darkness and his muscles contracting. He heard himself and some other, higher sound of distress as he spun down the bruising well. The muddy blur of his perception shook and began to stabilize, and then pain exploded in his ear, knocking him sideways, his tied hands clutching for support that wasn't there until a third smash sent him back upright like a puppet jerked on broken strings.

His confused brain tried to find the murky well and sink, but the blessed darkness slipped and wavered and slid away. He opened his eyes. Buckhorse was in front of him, swelling and fading like a nightmare. He stared at the image, not having the ability to move his head.

"Oh, don't!" a feminine voice was pleading. "Don't hit him anymore."

Sheridan wet his lips. His tongue stung where he'd bitten it. Blood minted his mouth. He felt vaguely aggrieved, some distant part of his brain having recognized that it wasn't Olympia who'd spoken up for him.

So I'll tell. Worth thousands. Claude Nicolas. Prince of…He closed his eyes, trying to remember.

"I won't hit him," Buckhorse said. "Not if 'e's smart enough t' talk. Who is she?"

"Sister," Sheridan said thickly. "My sister."

He was already tensing his aching body when the pain smashed into him. He hung forward in the chair, trying to find himself amid the black agony. There were noises in his ears—the sound of his own throat, struggling for air. His heart pounded, clouding his brain and his vision with waves of dark and light.

This time. This time l'll tell.

Buckhorse shook the chair. "She ain't yer sister. We all know't, by damn. So who is she?"

Sheridan opened his mouth. For a moment his tongue would not form words. He parted his lips and panted.

"Sister," he whispered. From the comer of his eye he saw Buckhorse draw back his arm. Sheridan flinched helplessly. Don't. I'll tell you. I'll tell.

"You'll kill him, Buckhorse," someone said from a great distance. "Then how do we get out of here?" The blow Sheridan had braced for did not come. After a moment, which he spent staring at the decking above, his head braced back against the bulkhead and his chest heaving, he heard Buckhorse say, "Don't matter. I'll think o' somethin'."

"The hell you will." The other voice—Cal's, perhaps; Sheridan could not tell and couldn't look—sounded impatient. "You won't get it out of him like that nohow. He'll go out 'fore he'll say, if he hadn't yet."

"Wot d'ye want, anyhow? Beat it out o' her?"

Sheridan swallowed around the lump of nausea in his throat and lifted his head.

"Not if she's worth something to somebody. I know somethin' better. Takes a towel and some water. Works like a charm, nor it won't kill him, neither."

Buckhorse shoved off from Sheridan's chair, sending his head banging into the wall before his feet came to the floor. He sat there with the world spiraling around him.

"Have a go, then." Buckhorse clapped Cal on the back. Sheridan released a whisper of relief and misery. He sat with his head bowed and his body burning. People moved and spoke around him, but he paid no attention, concentrating on each aching breath.

Cal grinned at him. "I ain't going to hurt you," he said.

Oh, God. Sheridan's heart quickened. He closed his eyes in panic.

"Bring that here," Cal said at the sound of bootheels on the companionway stairs. "Yeah, it'll do. Here—set 'er down and take that pitcher, then."

Sheridan sat still, waiting with growing horror while Cal deliberately dawdled, making commonplace comments about the bruises Sheridan was likely to have from Buckhorse's beating. "Now, then," Cal said gently. "Who's this little lady, Mr. Drake?"

Sheridan stared at him, at the towel and the bucket and the pitcher. Cal's friendly manner made his spine crawl with ice.

"Just don't want to talk about it, we don't?" Cal shook his head. "That's a shame. That's a bloody bad shame." He stood above Sheridan and laid the towel flat over his face. Water swished and splashed and then came pouring slowly down over the cloth.

At first it was only cold. It even felt good for a moment against Sheridan's battered face.

Then he tried to take a breath.

The wet cloth sucked against his mouth and nose, an instantly discomfiting sensation as it interfered with his breathing. He opened his lips to draw more air and the water came down again, flooding his mouth. He swallowed, closing his lips, trying to breathe through his nose. But his chair tilted back, someone grasped his hair and more water slid across his face and eyes and plastered the towel to his skin. He sucked for air and got a surge of water.

He began to strangle, gagging on his own efforts to save himself. His body jerked, fighting for what it needed, arching up in an uncontrollable spasm against the hand that twisted in his hair and held him down, drowning.

I'll tell you! I'll tell. I'll tell.

The words were only a sound, a gurgle in his throat, but suddenly the chair tilted down and the towel slithered from his face and he was bending over and coughing in between great draughts of air and life.

"She ain't worth it, is she?" Cal asked softly. "Blow me—ain't nobody worth it."

Sheridan couldn't lift his head, but he looked under his dripping lashes toward the comer of the saloon where Olympia sat. She was staring at him, her plump chin tucked under and her eyes like something caught in a trap at night—a blank rigid blaze of animal fear.

He made a soft whuff of dismay. She was gone. Broken already. There was no chance she would make the decision for herself and spare him this.

So I'll tell 'em.

"Who is she, guv?" Cal whispered.

Now. Now l'll tell him
.

The pitcher swished and burbled, filling again.

God have mercy, l'll tell you, I'll tell, I'll tell…

Olympia jerked when the cabin door slammed. She was afraid of Buckhorse. She was afraid of all of them, and her mind would not function beyond it. She'd watched while Buckhorse used his thick, compact frame as a dead weight with power enough to fling Sheridan against the wall. She'd watched Cal cover Sheridan's face, pull back his head and pour water down on him; watched Sheridan choke and gag and struggle and collapse. But it was as if there were a wall of glass between her and the scene.

The sound of Buckhorse returning brought her out of the stupefied haze and resurrected the sharp edge of immediate terror. She felt herself curling, pressing back against the wall behind her, but Buckhorse merely glanced at her and then at Cal. His quick survey stopped at Sheridan, who was slumped forward against the rope that bound him to his chair. Water dripped from his hair down his slack body.

"I thought y' wasn't going t' kill 'im," Buckhorse snapped.

"He ain't dead," Cal said.

"Nor 'e ain't breathin', neither."

Cal hooked the chair with his foot, sending it toppling. Sheridan hit the floor with a thudding clatter. His body spasmed in a fit of coughing.

"Didn't say nothin' worth knowing, hey?" Buckhorse grinned, sweeping up the soggy towel and wringing it with his blunt fingers.

Cal shrugged. "I drowned him five times. All but did it for real this last one. He ain't got nothin' to tell, or he'da spilled it by now."

Both of them looked at Olympia. Her vision grew dim with fright.

"Get up," Buckhorse said.

She obeyed, standing on shaky legs.

"Untie 'er and put 'em both in that room." Buckhorse waved his hand. "I want 'im on his feet and right in 'is head by daybreak. That'll be your little job, you see,
sister."

They put her in the murdered chief mate's cabin. In a shaft of light from the main saloon, she sat on the berth and rubbed her swollen wrists, watching through the door as Cal cut the rope that held Sheridan to the fallen chair. He began to cough again as he was freed, rolling onto his elbow, his head hanging. It took three of them, cursing and grunting, to force him to his feet. He stood, swayed, and then Cal hauled him bodily into the cabin, let him fall next to Olympia on the berth and slammed the door.

Darkness enclosed them. She couldn't see Sheridan, only hear and feel him: his labored breathing, a muffled, gurgling cough, and the wet press of his body seeping moisture through her cloak and into her dress.

She moved away, reaching for the flint and lighting the oil lamp by feel. The white glow flickered and expanded to light the room.

Sheridan lay curled up on his side. As she looked, his body tightened and shook. He opened his eyes and reached out; his fingers splayed and then clutched on nothing. He turned his face down and vomited into the blanket, expelling a rush of water.

He was still for a moment, panting. Then he pushed up onto one trembling arm. "Princess," he said, his voice all wrong, hoarse and squeaky.

She stood staring at him, at his black hair plastered to his face, at his arm and shoulder quivering under his own weight.

"You deserve it," she hissed. "You deserve it, do you hear me?"

He lifted his wet lashes and took a long, hollow breath. His head dropped forward, a shift of precarious balance that nearly toppled him onto his face before he caught himself. "Bad," he murmured in that grating whisper.

"Loathsome," she said with feeling. "Foul, rotten, detestable cheat. Thief. Traitor. Swine!"

He shook his head with a rusty sound that could have been a chuckle or a wheeze, but ended up a chain of violent coughing. He reached out and gripped her arm, his fingers closing painfully on her sleeve as he used her to lever himself up to a sitting position.