Seize the Fire (42 page)

It had been almost a week before Francis had agreed to take her to Rome to be married. He'd promised to ask for a matrimonial shore leave as soon as he completed this mission to Arabia. He was being brave and noble about it, but Olympia detected a slight increase in his demands to see her, and just a trace of stiffness in his manner if she said something he didn't quite approve of. She hadn't seen Sheridan since he'd left the state cabin so abruptly. He didn't come to meals, and never walked on deck. He was sulking, down in his own lair—no doubt expecting her to think he was devastated, waiting for her to come begging forgiveness and hot kisses.

But she would not go. No matter how much she wanted them.

When Sheridan closed his eyes, he would dream. So he didn't close them—except when he passed out cold on Fitzhugh's brandy.

Being awake wasn't much of an improvement. He thought of corpses in a Burmese mudbank, or of his father's vicious amusements, or of an old man the thugs had murdered while he stood by and watched. There seemed to be something splintered inside him, some barrier that had kept these things at a distance and let them rush in on him now.

He tried to drink himself senseless, but it didn't help. He dreamed, bad dreams, and every time he woke the images were there, more vivid than before. He kept seeing the broken remains of Midshipman Harland on a shattered gun deck, and hearing the soft ceaseless mutters of Mr. Wright, who'd been all night and another day dying.
Bring me some water, Mama. Mama, I'm so thirsty. Please, Mama, please—I won't cry.

Sheridan wanted to cry. He wanted to kill. He seemed to have disintegrated into bewildering pieces of a man: someone he didn't know…and yet he did know.

Oh, yes…he knew.

This was himself, yes—this was the part of him that lived below the surface, the wolf that answered everything with slaughter. He embraced death. He was good at it. He survived.

He didn't dare leave the cabin. He made Mustafa lock it from the outside. He drank and stared and huddled in his borrowed berth in confusion and misery. He despised himself; he was lost; he couldn't put these pieces into a person anymore. He could not understand what was happening to him.

Sometimes he thought disjointedly about his life, bits and fragments of hopes and illusions. All he'd ever wanted was his music. It was comical, the way he'd clung to that for so long. He'd waited and waited for the moment, the day he could leave behind the existence he'd led and begin again. Then his father had died, and that had seemed like the time.

Only it turned out to be too late. Decades too late. He was a fool—and worse, an old fool—to have thought there was soul enough left in him to make music anyone would want to hear. There was music in him, yes, but it sounded of guns and smelled of death and powder smoke, and no one would want to listen, any more than they wanted to hear the truth of the ghastly scenes that made a man a hero by mistake.

Sometimes he dreamed of his princess, and thought that any normal man would cry.

But he could not cry.

Mustafa came and went, tending him as if he were a child. It all seemed like a dream. Once, someone knocked on the door and said the captain wished to see him. They left, and came again, with a louder demand, and then an order.

Sheridan looked at the door and looked away, uninterested. He touched the barrel of the pistol that lay on the pillow beside him. He slid his hand beneath the butt and caressed the trigger.

It was comforting. One fractional move, and no more nightmares. No more flashes of black fear and anger that made him terrified of himself. No more waking from restless half sleep to the smell of burning flesh that filled his brain and his nostrils, more real than the ship around him.

Far more real. Living and dying blended into one another; he was dead already, he'd been gone for years, what difference did it make?

But he was hanging on.

Why, he could not fathom. But he reckoned it to be his only real talent.

Another week passed, and Olympia hadn't seen Sheridan for a fortnight. She walked the deck, watching the sailors or staring at the water. Pressure was growing inside her. She tried to keep her feelings under control of her mind. It was a game, and she did not dare lose. She would not break first, not this time.

Between the strength of her desire to rush to Sheridan's cabin and the frequency of her imagining that she would find him outside hers, contrite and begging to marry her, Olympia was becoming highly suspicious of her own motives. They began to seem much less pure than she'd originally thought. Instead of the high-minded goal of reaching Rome and Oriens under Captain Fitzhugh's protection, she feared she might have been equally interested in the mean hope of making Sheridan madly jealous. Perhaps even more interested.

Oriens and its problems seemed so far away, and the emptiness of days without Sheridan so piercing—she could not seem to keep the relative importance of them in proper proportion.

She stood with her hands on the polished rail, braced against the plunge of the ship, watching the bow wave arch outward, shatter with a cascade of white on green and then slide past her in a foaming roll. She preferred this forward spot to the sheltered captain's deck, a disagreement which was escalating into an actual argument with her doting fiancé. Francis became more possessive and restrictive daily.

She tried to imagine being married to him and felt a deep uneasiness. But she'd promised, and it would be his choice once they reached Rome and she confessed. If he still wanted her, she would have to do it.

"Excuse me, ma'am?" A young voice spoke beside her. "Miss Drake?"

Olympia turned. One of the midshipmen stood at her elbow, dressed in tight blue ducks with gold trim, his cheeks pink in the chilly breeze. She always marveled at how young they were to be so far from home—this boy was no more than thirteen at best. Olympia thought he ought to be home with his mother and family, going to school instead of sailing on a warship to battle slavers.

She smiled warmly, reading the name stitched on his collar. "Good morning, Mr. Stevenson."

"Ma'am," he said quickly, "I hope you don't think I'm impert'nent for asking—but—me and…and some of the others was wondering—is Sir Sheridan going to get better, ma'am?"

Olympia looked at him. "I'm sorry…I don't quite understand."

He locked his hands behind his back. "Well—we'd noticed, ma'am, that he hadn't come on deck no more since…" He bit his lip. "Well—a fortnight ago. And we heard he didn't take meals in the cabin with you an' the captain, and we was worrited, you see. After we saw the way he was an' all, ma'am."

Olympia frowned at him. He wet his lips.

"I know it's a secret, ma'am," he said in a rush. "You don't got to worrit that I'd say anything, nor Barker nor Mr. Jackson nor the gunner's mates neither, and we was the only ones that saw."

"Saw?"

"Well—" He shifted his feet. "One of his…fits…you know. When he thinks he's somewhere else, fighting some battle. He went after Barker, calling him Mr. Wright and all, and got real mad because we wouldn't call 'All hands.' "The boy raised wide eyes to Olympia. "I was frightened at first, ma'am, but Mr. Jackson made me understand what it was. And we—we just was hoping he would be getting better now. Mr. Jackson told me all about all the things he's done, and I wanted to say—well, ma'am—" He touched his tongue to his upper lip. "I don't guess he 'members me at all, but I'd be obliged if you could tell him I was very stupid to ask if he was crazy, and I'm sorry, and I hope he feels better, and I think he's the best, ma'am. Would you tell him that for me?"

Olympia looked silently at the towheaded boy. Her fingers tightened on the rail.

"He called me Harland, ma'am," the boy said after a pause. "Would you know who that is?"

"No," she said faintly. "I'm afraid I don't."

"Oh. Well—I thought maybe it was somebody who'd—you know—done something…grand."

She managed a smile. "I'm sure it is."

He ducked his head. "Will you tell him what I said, ma'am?"

"I'll tell him. Yes. I'll go and tell him now."

Mustafa sat against the bulkhead outside Sheridan's cabin. Olympia dismissed the sailor who'd led her below-decks and glared at the huddled servant.

"Why didn't you tell me he was ill?" she demanded, reaching for the door.

He stood up, blocking her way, and looked at her with unfathomable eyes. "He will not see you, Emiriyyiti."

"Yes," she said. "He will." It was the command of a princess. "Open the door."

Mustafa looked at her beneath his lashes, dark and speculative. His thin face seemed thinner, drawn with weariness, but Olympia did not cease her commanding stare. After a moment he shrugged and stepped aside. The door swung inward.

For an instant, she thought she must be in the wrong cabin. There was someone there, but it wasn't Sheridan. The man who lay on the berth was a stranger in a black beard and rumpled clothes. He didn't even look at her, but lay gazing blindly at the bottle propped on his raised knee until she closed the door and spoke his name.

It came out a questioning whisper. He did look toward her then—a gray stare that lasted five beats of her heart before he turned away. He put his fingertips over his eyes and sighed. His hand seemed to shake a little.

"Sheridan," she said. "My God—what's wrong?"

There was a silence. Then he said, "Nothing."

"You're ill." She stepped forward, lifting her hand to touch his forehead.

"No." He pushed her arm away. "I'm not ill. Leave me alone."

She bit her lip, stepping back. "I'm going to call the surgeon."

"
No
. "He sat up, a move that seemed swift and healthy enough. "Don't call anybody."

Olympia stood uncertainly. He sat, not looking at her, his gaze focused somewhere off at the floor in obvious avoidance. The sweet smell of brandy mingled with sea salt.

"Just go," he said. "I don't—I'm not—" He spread his hands on the edge of the berth. "Hell! Just go away. I'm not in the mood for tea and polite conversation."

"What's wrong?" she asked again.

He frowned angrily, still not meeting her eyes. He shook his head.

"You cannot expect me to believe that you're all right." She moved closer again, anticipating that he would pull away. But instead he pressed his fist against his mouth and drew a shuddering breath. He closed his eyes briefly, then reached for the brandy and drank a long swallow from the bottle.

As he lowered it, Olympia took it out of his hand and set it aside. She started to sit down next to him, but first had to pick up a pistol that lay on the berth. She stood, holding it gingerly out to Sheridan. "Expecting an attack?"

He stared at the weapon. After a moment, he lifted it from her hand. His fingers fitted around the handle and trigger with a natural move. He hefted it, and for one startled instant she had the notion that he actually wanted to fire—at what, she had no idea.

"I was cleaning it," he said tonelessly.

He held the gun in a loose grip, looking down the interior of the barrel as if it fascinated him. His voice sounded strange, but the ragged beard made it hard for her to interpret his expression.

"Why are you hiding down here?" she asked abruptly.

He shrugged.

"Is it—" She hesitated. "Is it because of Francis and me?"

He turned the gun over, smoothing his fingers down the bore. "Who the hell is Francis?" Then he looked up at her sideways. His eyes glittered. "You mean that bloody little bastard Fitzhugh?" He cocked the pistol and aimed it lazily at the brandy bottle. Olympia drew a breath as his finger tightened suddenly on the trigger.

The hammer fell with a harmless click.

"Bang," he said indifferently. "There's dear Francis with his brains all over the wall."

As soon as he said it, a queer look came into his face. He wet his lips and stared at the bulkhead. His breathing quickened.

"Oh, my God," he whispered. He groaned softly. "Oh, my God."

"Sheridan?"

He jerked his head, turning back to her as if she'd startled him. It seemed to take him a moment before he focused, and then he said aggressively, "Just keep that strutting little cock away from me. Or I'll kill him."

Olympia looked down at him in astonishment. She hugged herself. If this was another attempt to throw her off-balance, it was certainly succeeding. The beard made his face look pale and strained. Fierce tension marked his mouth. She wanted to touch his cheek, to smooth her fingers down the rough beard and hold him as she used to do, for comfort and warmth. But there was Julia. She had to remember that. Julia, and all his perfidy. "Why are you locking yourself up down here?" she demanded again.

"I have to," he said.

"Of course you don't. Sheridan, if it's because of me, if you wanted me to come to you, I—"

"No!" He rose suddenly. "No, I didn't want you to come! Go away, leave me alone." He grabbed her by the shoulders. The pistol dug into her arm as he shook her. "It's dangerous, don't you see? You don't know—you don't understand. I didn't want—" His voice broke. Suddenly he pulled her hard against him, his hold so fight it hurt. "What am I gonna do?" he whispered. "What'm I gonna do, what'm I gonna do?" He muttered a slurred litany into her hair. "I didn't want you to see me. She wouldn't turn, do you understand? I only wanted to live. I only wanted to live. Oh, God, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

He was trembling, crushing her against him cruelly. The cold barrel of the pistol lay against her ear. She had the feeling he hardly knew she was there, that he was only holding on, mumbling unconnected phrases over and over.

She didn't know what to do. Her suspicions of him evaporated in that desperate and painful embrace. This was real, this was no game—he was distraught and rambling incoherently, and she didn't know why or how to help. If only she were Julia. Julia could have handled this; Julia would have known what to do. Olympia felt frightened and confused and helpless.

"Sheridan." She stiffened against him and tried to sound firm. "You're hurting me."