Virgin Star (48 page)

"Seanessy." Shalyn emerged from the heady rush of sudden and violent ideas, struggling beneath his weight, her heart pounding, urgency filling her. "You won't believe this—"

"Nonsense, darling." He watched her hands working the loosely tied ropes, his body hopefully concealing the effort. "I'll believe anything at this point."

"It did work!" she announced. "I remember!"

Outside in a small dinghy some fifty feet off the bow Toothless and Edward saw the duke's boat moored alongside the ship. Toothless swore. Edward tried to figure it out. "So who's left on board, do you think?"

"No one but the captain and the lass. Everyone else would be off blowin' up the island." Toothless's agile mind quickly figured out the rest, and his whole body began shaking with his mirth. Before they left on this mission, Butcher had said Seanessy was in there trying to help Shalyn "remember."

"Five pounds says the bastard caught them doin' what they've been doin' since they started doin' it."

"Now that's a pretty picture! The captain caught with his pants down," Edward chuckled too, until an unpleasant idea occurred to him. "Hey!" he wondered, "What about Oly? You don't think they shot the big lug?"

"Ah, why should they?" Toothless dismissed this. "An idiot could take that dog out with a small side of ham. So," he said, his laughter quieted by the thought. "How are we going to do this?"

"Our guns would wake 'em up. That's useless. Looks like we'll have to start picking 'em off one by one, the old-fashioned way."

Toothless sighed as Edward broke the oar over his knee, snapping it in two before swinging it swiftly through the air. "I hate being a hero," he said. "I'm too darn old. I really am."

"Blazes, Toothless, you're such a coward. Ah, well, we can shoot once we're inside."

The whole nightmare had rushed through Shalyn's mind in violence. She remembered the French agents appearing in the village, looking for her, men of the duke's employ. They told her she was the heiress to a huge fortune, thanks to her father and Ti Yao, a treasure they had found and died for on the Isle of Blue Caverns. They would take her there where she would collect her fortune before they returned her to England. They only wanted a finder's fee, they said, which she quickly agreed to give them. The idea of being a wealthy women of independent means appealed to her free spirit immensely; she could hardly believe this good fortune.

The nightmare started when she reached the island and was brought to the duke, a nightmare she remembered in startling clarity, day after day, month after month, year after year: every moment spent trying to escape, trying to convince him she did not know where the blasted treasure was, that he could kill a thousand people and she still would not know where the treasure was.

She remembered the night she had escaped. She had worn only a chemise, for the pretense of being in the throng of a night terror—in case she was caught. And she was. She remembered clutching the ruby star and Seanessy's address tight as the lead pipe flew down on her head—then nothing.

She would not let this nightmare end with their death. At least not until she killed the duke—and she would kill him, she swore, if it was the last thing she ever did.

As Shalyn freed her hands Seanessy said, "I'm so glad for you, Shalyn!"

"If you remember," the duke said. "Then you remember the years of hell you put me through, all the way up to the last wild goose chase to London looking for the elusive Mary Brackton, your aunt. She's dead, you know. Though I did manage to get a dozen of those picture books. You convinced me the secret to break the symbols was in one of her picture books, but that I might need you to get them. Huh! That performance was so convincing! I believed you had finally broken after all those years. I should have known, though—"

Shalyn was not thinking of this. She was remembering, remembering. "You kept killing people in front of me, burying them in the sand for the tides to drown, and, dear Lord, all my nightmares of skulls—"

"You make it sound so dramatic." The duke drew on his cigar, releasing his breath in a cloud of smoke. He dismissed it, for: "They all had malaria—they would have died any way.”

Shalyn absorbed this with a pained cry. "Malaria? They all had malaria!" Her mind tore swiftly over all the dying people he had made her watch, and all the ghastly things he had made her submit to in order to avoid watching more people die. Gschu herself had died of malaria; it was the leading cause of death in the China Seas, and the island had had many cases of the dreaded disease—

"Ti Yao?" she asked in a pained whisper. "Did you kill him?"

"Ti Yao! That man! You know he killed ten of my men before we managed to subdue him? I could hardly believe the carnage—"

She cried out, "The tides? Did he die in the tides too?"

"Well!" The duke looked cross. "It was not my fault your father would not save him—your father was so greedy! Anyway..." He paused, rolling his eyes and waving his cigar in dismissal. "Ti Yao died before he drowned. It was as if he had willed himself dead. And it was so odd watching; I always wondered how he managed the trick. Not that I wanted him to die. I did not! At the time I was considering saving him. God knows, I could have used a man like that."

"Get off me, Seanessy," she whispered through gritted teeth. "I am going to kill him!"

"He was so stubborn," the duke said angrily. "Just like you Isabel. I couldn't believe you wouldn't save them—"

"I couldn't," she shouted at him, and not for the first time she told him, "I never knew where that cursed treasure was! I still don't know!"

"Ah, yes," the duke said, still bemused by the irony, the impossibility of it. "You know, when Monsieur Kyler told me about this head injury business I was convinced it was just another one of your endless intrigues. I kept turning it over in my mind, trying to figure out what you were planning. Until it finally occurred to me that it really happened; that you really did lose your memory. Extraordinary, I thought! I was more than a little upset at the prospect of having to keep you on the island for God knows how long until this elusive memory of yours returned—"

"How many times do I have to tell you I don't know where the treasure is!"

"Fortunately it no longer matters, my dear. Thanks to your men, Captain, your visit has been most worthwhile after all. We were sitting out in the dark water listening. I was just hoping to get Isabel back to the island before I blew this ship sky-high when I heard them figure out what that vulgar desecration your father gave you actually meant ..."

As he spoke, Shalyn whispered again through gritted teeth. "Will you please get off me!"

"No!" Seanessy said, his own jaw not moving. "They'll kill you!"

"A humiliating experience," the duke continued, his voice sounding cross as he thought of it. "I listened to your cretins figure out in minutes what I've spent years trying to grasp—" He became agitated thinking about it. "Of course my men will be following them on land to the rock. I might even let your men retrieve the treasure before opening fire—"

A man called in French from outside on the deck, interrupting the duke. Shalyn translated the rapid words in her mind. The man said they were finished laying the explosives.

She exchanged an alarmed glance with Seanessy. Seanessy looked toward the door. Where the devil were Edward and Toothless? If anyone ever needed a rescue—

"Ah, we are through?” the duke said. "Take them out and tie them to the mainmast. You first, Captain." He motioned to Seanessy. "You know the rules. Two pistoles trained on Isabel the entire time. Now get up."

With fear pounding through him, Seanessy slowly stood up. Three guards with pistoles. Alarmed, he turned to Shalyn. She was so defiant, so fearless! She would do something and get killed. Oh, Lord, if she died ...

"Shalyn," he said, forcing himself to watch. She pretended to look afraid, but Seanessy knew better. "Shalyn, don't do anything! For God's sake, girl, if you do... if you do anything, I'll kill you myself!"

"Keep your hands on your head, Captain."

Seanessy slowly put his hands behind his head.

Shalyn's lovely features appeared torn with anxiety but this was in fact a pretense. While her heart and pulse raced and her breathing came quick and fast, she knew how to overcome fear to act. And act she would, just as soon as someone drew close enough. With any luck she could use them as a body shield against the gunfire. It would be their only chance.

"You, Robert." The duke was motioning to a guard. "Untie Isabel. And you, Christian, keep your weapon on her."

Seanessy turned slightly to see his pistoles on the floor. He looked at them with more longing than he had ever looked at a woman, Shalyn excepted of course.

Holding the rope in both hands, Shalyn maintained a convincing pretense of fear as Robert leaned over her. The tousled mass of gold hair spilled over the bedclothes; her nudity was only partially covered by the bedsheet.

He wiped his brow on his sleeve, trying to keep his mind on the task long enough to untie the ropes.

Robert leaned close. Shalyn waited until she caught the scent of rum on his breath and then moved with such speed and assurance, she might have rehearsed it a hundred times. Her hands flew up as she called out, "Now, Seanessy!" She twisted the rope around Robert's neck and sent her knee hard into his groin. A shocked howl of pain sounded. The stunned guards fired. Too late, for Robert had collapsed on top of her and took the bullets in the dead center of his back.

In the same instant Seanessy had leaped aside, swung back around with clenched fists, and knocked his guard to the floor. He kicked the pistole from the remaining guard. That man leaped back with a gasp of fear.

"No! No!" the duke cried as he crouched to retrieve the pistole himself. The duke's hand grasped the cold metal, but ever quick, Seanessy slammed his bare foot into the hand. A sickening crunch of bone sounded, followed by the duke's unnatural cry of pain. Seanessy threw him against the wall with enough force to knock the breath from him.

An unexpected minute of deadly calm fell over the quarters as the stunned guards looked frantically around the room, uncertain of their options. They didn't have any. Retrieving one of his pistoles, Seanessy swung the long-barreled weapon in a fast circle like a circus trick, stopping it to aim. "Out of here!" The men rushed out of the room, grateful for the captain's generosity.

Relief swept over him that he and Shalyn were both still alive—and together.

Shalyn pushed the dead man off her and struggled a moment to collect the tumult of her senses. Then she stood up, gathering the torn remnants of her gown around her neck, and surveyed the empty room with dismay. It housed only the three of them now. "That wasn't too difficult," she said, regaining her composure. "Seanessy, show those others outside that you hold the duke hostage and force them to remove the dynamite."

"Good idea," he managed. "Just let me catch my breath." His condition had nothing to do with any exertion and everything to do with surviving the terrible fear of losing her. That had been too bloody close...

A thunderous explosion sounded in the distance, then another and another. Oly howled and then barked outside.

Alarm mixed with pain as the duke gasped, "What was that?"

"The opium warehouse blown sky-high," Seanessy said, his pistole trained on the Duke de la Armanac. Oly, after a moment of self-restraint, began barking wildly. "And that must be Edward and Toothless coming to rescue us now." He supposed he should get dressed in case they needed help getting rid of the dynamite.

He just needed a moment more to recover.

Panting with his pain, the duke couldn't, wouldn't believe this. "No, no! Not my opium ... Do you have any idea what you've done?" Each breath brought an unbearable agony, and he tightly clasped his crushed hand as he considered his much changed circumstances. "The stockpile was worth over five million pounds! My entire fortune! Why, dear God, why?"

"Why? Well," Seanessy said, finding his breeches, "Wilson promised to help repeal the hateful English law that bars Catholics from serving in Parliament for the favor, you see. So my Irish countrymen can get a seat." He grinned thinking about it. "Never mind the four years of tariff-free shipping thrown in the bargain."

"That pretty pile of money means nothing to you, does it, Seanessy?" Shalyn tossed her hair over her shoulder as she hurriedly pulled on her own pair of breeches, afraid Edward and Toothless might not find the dynamite in time to save the ship.

"Practically nothing," Seanessy said as he cinched his belt with one hand, the other holding his pistole.

"My God, five million pounds." The duke could not get past this. "Five million pounds gone..."