Seize the Fire (22 page)

"Passing my—" Olympia started to exclaim, then shut her mouth.

"You know each other?" Captain Webster looked between them. His astonished expression darkened. "Now look here—what kind of gullery is this?"

"It isn't any kind of gullery," she cried. "It's plain theft. May I speak to you in private, Captain? I can explain everything."

Captain Webster hesitated, glancing around at the avid listeners, a mixture of bearded and clean-shaven faces in the windy night. "We don't really have time for this. I need to make some accommodation for these men. They must have something to eat; it's full dark and we'll have to land some sustenance for the rest of them that we've left on shore."

"Yes, of course—but he's a
thief!
I tell you, he stole my jewels—thousands of pounds' worth—and he just took my pearls! If he isn't locked up instantly, there's no thinking what he'll take."

"Pardon me, Miss—ah"—Webster cleared his throat uncomfortably—"Miss Drake. Those are strong words. I've no proof at all—"

"Search him! Look in his left pocket, and you'll find my pearls."

"Aye—" One of the shipwrecked men, the one in the ill-fitting captain's coat, suddenly shoved forward and jerked Captain Webster back against his chest. He pushed a pistol under his captive's chin. "Search 'im."

Phaedra's
chief mate sprang with a shout, lunging toward his threatened commander, but two of the wrecked company brought him down. The trio thrashed together on the deck. An instant later one of the bearded attackers stood up, wiping a bloody knife on his red coat and grinning in the lamplight.
Phaedra's
mate lay facedown and still.

The other gave the body a kick. It didn't move. Suddenly there was not a sound but the wind and the squeak of the lantern swinging from the rigging.

"Cal!" The man holding Captain Webster twitched his chin toward Sheridan. "Strip 'im. Find these here pearls. You, Bill—get in t' cabin. Find any officers and kill 'em quick. But ye don' go hurtin' no sailors. Leave well enough alone. We'll be needin' 'em."

Captain Webster said, "Now—think this over. You don't want to do this." His voice was steady, almost gentle, but his gnarled hands were shaking.

The shorter man shoved the pistol hard up against his jaw. "You be a dead old man, d'you come cross with me. Don't forget it."

Olympia cast Sheridan an appalled look. He stood still, only watching, saturnine and unsurprised. When the big man named Cal took hold of him, he submitted without resistance, meeting her eyes only once: a swift shaft of anger and contempt just before Cal gave him a vicious shove with both hands. Sheridan stumbled back up against the rigging and caught his balance, then straightened and obeyed the man's snarled order with a resigned expression, pulling off his coat and handing it over to be torn apart.

The pearls did not appear. Sheridan was relieved of his pistol, waistcoat and shirt next, and then his boots, leaving him barefoot and half naked on deck in the freezing wind.

Still no pearls.

"What's this here?" Cal clutched at the gleaming crescent that hung around Sheridan's neck.

"It's only brass," Sheridan said, resisting Cal's jerking pull on the chain.

Cal lifted the pendant and bit it, then scratched at the metal with his knife, squinting down at it in the lamplight. "Yeah." With a disgusted flick, he let the crescent fall back against Sheridan's chest. "Trumpery. Give over the pearls."

"There aren't any damned pearls." Sheridan spread his arms wide and turned around. "Do you see 'em on me?" He grimaced at the man who'd shredded his clothes. "Be sure and look in my bootheels."

Cal backhanded him across the face, sending him reeling a step.

"Jesus," Sheridan said, nursing his cheek. "I take your point."

He turned his head and said something in Arabic. Mustafa asked a question, and for a few moments they argued back and forth while the others glared in growing impatience. When Cal took a step toward him, Sheridan jerked his head and snarled an order to his servant. Mustafa shuffled forward, the string of pearls coiled in his open palm. Cal snatched them up, but a quick shout from the leader of the wrecked company brought him reluctantly around. He handed them to his chief, who shoved them in his inner pocket.

"Little bugger got t' rest, Drake?" the leader demanded. "Deliver 'em over."

"The rest are on the island."

"Where?"

"I'll have to show you."

"Who be this here stout femaline party, then?" The wrecked leader nodded toward Olympia.

Sheridan looked at her. There was a faint shivering tremor in his chest and arms. The icy wind tore at his dark hair. He blinked slowly and said, "My sister."

"No, she ain't. Some lowlife like you—servin' on a convict ship? You got no sister what owns a set o' matched pearls an' talks like that. Who she be?"

Cal made a threatening move. Olympia opened her mouth, but Sheridan's voice cut across hers. "My sister," he said sharply. "She got the pearls off her mistress in Funchal. We were to rendezvous at Port Jackson." His lips curled in a dry smile. "We have the occasional sibling difference of opinion, as you may have observed."

The leader stared at Olympia, never taking the gun away from Captain Webster's chin. "A workin' gel, then," he exclaimed with a skeptical lift to his brows. "Doin' wot?"

"Lady's maid," Sheridan said.

"I'm thinkin' t' bitch can answer, ain't you?"

Sheridan dodged a cuff from Cal. "Certainly. You don't have to hit me, you know. I'm in an excessively cooperative mood."

"Who be your missus, gel?"

Olympia wet her lips, baffled and aghast and certain that something important was riding on her answer by the way they were all staring at her. Instinctively she wanted to disclaim this lunacy, to declare her innocence in the face of Captain Webster's shocked distress. She wanted to deny being a thief and the sister of a thief, and most fervently wanted to reject any connection with Sheridan Drake whatsoever.

But she recognized her mortal danger. She saw what she would be to them if they knew the truth: a prize of infinite value, a captive who might bring riches to desperate men. They were off the transport ship; their uniforms could he nothing but a thin disguise for convicts who'd escaped the wreck. She shook her head and tried to keep her hands from fluttering. "My mistress was—ah—Mrs. Stothard. But I took the pearls from one of her guests," she added, for an extra touch.

The man regarded her keenly. "I tell you what. You learn me somethin' a lady's maid 'ud know. You learn me"—he wrinkled his nose—"as how you take spots out o' silk."

"Why—" She took a breath, trying to remember what her maids had done. "What type of spots?"

"All kinds, me lyin' puss."

She took a guess, not daring to hesitate. "You soak them in milk, of course."

"Aye," Sheridan said disgustedly, and in that instant Olympia saw from her interrogator's expression that she couldn't have been more wrong. "No wonder you've been sacked from every position I've got you and ruined the half of my waistcoats. Forgive my sister, gentlemen, she's—"

"She ain't yer sister," the leader snarled. "And she ain't no lady's maid as sure as me name's Bob Buckhorse. Who is she?"

Sheridan rolled his eyes. "Who do you want her to be? A bleedin' princess?" He clapped his arms in a glacial chill. "She's my sister. Have the pearls; I'll take you to the rest tomorrow, but give me my boots back and something to wear or you'll be interviewing penguins to find out where I buried it."

"I'll be interviewin' you, and not taken' any sauce, by God," Buckhorse said. "Tie 'em up—all four." He gave Captain Webster a shove. "And put this old mutton chop where none of the crew gets at 'im."

It was the first and last occasion, Sheridan thought, that he would attempt to be a felon. Being a natural-born bastard was quite stimulating enough. He didn't need this kind of excitement.

But he was well hoist with his own petard this time. On top of shipwreck in this godforsaken desolation, here was his princess popping out of nowhere, braying about her damned jewels in front of as desperate a gang of convicts as ever should have swung by the neck—the only other survivors from the government transport besides Sheridan himself and one poor ass of a marine colonel. The colonel, having made it through the shipwreck, had given it as his view that he was now in command and would make sure the criminals continued on to Botany Bay at the first convenient opportunity. The criminals thought this a sadly uncreative outlook, and promptly shot him for his lack of imagination.

Sheridan, seeing the high standards of conduct to be met, had immediately set about making himself indispensable. He'd rigged a cable and raft and begun salvaging the wreck for what he could recover of food and supplies. The convicts, however, had seemed to have other things on their minds, such as killing each other over the remaining rum. It was nothing but God-given luck that
Phaedra
had found them before they'd resorted to stone spears and cannibalism after ten weeks in this place, and petty God-given revenge that their rescuer happened to have Her Royal Inconvenience aboard.

She was going to be even sorrier for it than he was, Sheridan feared. Right now, her eyes were so wide with fear and anger and confusion that he was terrified of what she might say or do. He stared at her, trying to catch her attention, trying to send a message with his eyes:
shut up, keep quiet, let me do the talking.

Buckhorse, ever suspicious, checked the bonds himself after Sheridan had been tied. The convict leader followed Cal as he bound the others, strutting around in the late captain's dress uniform, poking and prodding. When Cal finished with Olympia, Buckhorse slid his hand behind her. She jumped, gasping indignantly at his hard pinch on her bottom.

"Put 'er in t' big cabin," he said. "Mine."

Sheridan was two paces toward Buckhorse with a furious denial on his lips before he realized what he was doing. He towered over the squat convict, but a pistol pointed at his belly brought him to an abrupt stop. Cal hit him anyway, a hard, unexpected clip to the back of his neck that sent him to his knees.

It left his head ringing, but he scrambled up before they got the bright idea to kick him to death, that being the kind of entertainment they seemed to favor.

"Never mind me," he muttered hastily. "I seem to have forgotten what I was going to say."

They took him below, dragging away the bodies of two other luckless officers—the second and third mates, most likely. The rest of
Phaedra's
crew just looked on in dull horror, unarmed and deprived of their leaders with a murderous efficiency that was calculated to inspire respect in the most loyal of seamen.

Cal tied Sheridan into one of the dining chairs. From a comer of the main saloon a sobbing female scrambled quickly aside without looking at him. Sheridan recognized the skinny maid he'd hired for Olympia in Ramsgate. She and Olympia were hustled into the captain's cabin with Mustafa. No one bothered to find Sheridan any clothes, so he sat there freezing while Buckhorse hunkered down in front of him.

"Now. Where's these here jewels hid?"

"On the island," Sheridan said. "I told you, I'll take you to them directly tomorrow."

"Say where they is, and I'll get 'em right now. You an' t' little bugger stink o' double cross, all that babble in some kinda heathen talk between ye up there. I can't hardly abide a man who's too damn smart fer 'is own good."

Sheridan gave him a level look. "No trick. I'll tell you where they are now, if you wish. But you can't find them in the dark. And you'd be a fool to try that surf before morning. The sailors won't take you."

"Huh." The convict glared at him. "Old muttonhead 'us goin' to send 'em back."

"He was going to land stores, not men—I'll wager you that. He'd rig some casks and float them in."

Buckhorse frowned thoughtfully. He motioned to one of his minions. "Go ask t' old codger. Don't tell 'im nothin'. Ask 'im wot he 'us goin' to do."

The man disappeared on deck. Sheridan looked toward the door of the main cabin, where Olympia was locked. He wondered if she was planning anything really stupid, like escaping through a porthole. She'd probably get stuck, half in and half out, and freeze her chubby, lovable little rear end off, which might be a far better fate than some others that appeared imminent.

"Who is she, Drake?"

He turned his head. "My sister, Buckhorse."

The convict stood up, his hands at his waist. His messenger returned, pounding down the steps and slipping off the bottom one as the ship rocked on a wave. "He's lookin' peaked, that old man. Shakin' all over. Bill said he thinks he might be goin' to have a seizure. But I got the word from 'im; I got it all. He says he'd been going to tie some boxes together and line 'em with canvas and put in food, and then float 'em on shore."

Buckhorse gave Sheridan a concentrated stare. "Now…'ow come you know so much?"

"I've been at sea."

Buckhorse snorted. "Doin' what, then?"

Sheridan looked at Buckhorse coolly. "Commanding a British seventy-four, as a matter of fact."

Buckhorse twisted his lip in an ugly curl. "Right. An officer toff commandin' a ship o' ta line. An' you and your sister is a pair o' pickpockets." He nodded at Cal. The man moved a step closer. "Tell me the truth."

"Buckhorse!" The convict called Bill burst in, almost falling down the stairs in his agitation. "Buckhorse—that old man's gone and died on us!"

"The devil 'e has," Buckhorse roared. "I told ye—"

"I didn't touch 'im, I swear I didn't. Ain't a mark on 'im. He just choked up and rolled over, white as a sheet."

"Begad—you certain he's dead?"

"No question. Go look for yourself. And if he ain't dead as a hammer, he sure ain't in no shape to give no orders."

Buckhorse cursed violently. He paced around the cabin, hitting the bulkheads with his fist. Then he whirled and faced Sheridan. "You. Ye know as how t' sail this here ship?"

Sheridan looked at the convict's squat figure, bursting the seams of the blue coat. Slowly and clearly, he said, "Not if you lay hands on my sister."