Seize the Fire (28 page)

"Perhaps we should have," she agreed, looking at his empty hands. "Did you find nothing?"

The sharp surge of resentment almost made him turn away without answering. But he didn't, and that made him angry, too. "A crab. Some mussels. Three pieces of driftwood," he said sullenly.

"That's all?"

"Be damned to you," he snapped, swinging away.

"Wait."

He stopped and turned back with his mouth set in bitter temper.

She had a peculiar look on her face, a little upward quiver around her lips. Her eyes were very wide and green. "You brought wood. Is there any way to start a fire?"

"I've got a flint." He shrugged. "Don't look for a roaring blaze to keep you warm all night, not with three pieces of drift."

"Well," she said, with an odd shaky break in her voice. She shifted her arms beneath the cloak and spread it open. "I thought we might cook this."

Sheridan blinked. "My God," he said, his brows rising. "My God."

In trembling hands, amid barren sea and sky a thousand miles from the least sign of civilization, she held out a goose. A fat, dead goose, plucked and dressed and ready to roast.

"I snared it," she said as their fire popped and flickered in the shelter of the windbreak Sheridan had erected out of the sail and extra oars. "There's a little stream over there where the flock comes to drink. I made a noose out of the ribbons from my—" She reddened. "My—uh—"

"Chemise," he suggested cheerfully. "You needn't mince words with me; I'm old enough to know all about those things. Corsets, petticoats, stays—the works. I bought 'em for you, you know." He plucked a gaping mussel shell from the fire and grinned, his face a hellish cast of blue bruises and beard shadow. "Bally good thing I've got such vulgar taste in ladies' underpinnings, too."

Olympia ducked her head. She busied herself with spitting the goose on a long splinter of shattered oar, regretting that she'd once complained of the excessive lace and ribbons to Mustafa, who had undoubtedly carried the tale to his master directly. "I never said 'vulgar.' I thought the style unnecessarily extravagant."

He scooped the mussel from its shell with one of her whalebone corset stays, dumped it with the rest into the bucket and regarded her beneath his lashes with a slow interest. "I like extravagance. If you'd married me, I'd have dressed you to the teeth."

She turned away and stared rigidly into the fire. "Fortunately, I did not."

"I don't know…" He tossed a handful of rinsed seaweed in with the mussels. "Shipwrecked alone on a desert island—even if we're rescued…" He stirred the contents with her stay. "I'm afraid you may be stuck with me now."

She raised her eyes to his beautiful, battered face and said with clear deliberation, "I'd become a streetwalker first."

The whalebone utensil paused for a fraction of an instant. He looked at her sideways, his eyes light and gray like the misty clouds that swept overhead, his mouth expressionless.

"Would you prefer mussel, crab and seaweed stuffing or mussel, crab and seaweed soup?" he asked mildly.

She turned back to the goose. "Anything that's food."

"Stuffing, then. We'll have had enough of seaweed soup before long, I suspect." He handed the bucket across to her.

Olympia peered into it dubiously. "Are you certain this seaweed is safe to eat?"

"The Chinese dote on it. Sea lettuce. And this other—" He poked in the bucket at some thick reddish leaves amid the translucent green ones. "It looks like dulse to me. They eat it dried in the Maritimes. Tastes beastly, but there it is. I tried to get us decent lodgings, but you would insist on a room with an ocean view."

Olympia looked up in puzzlement at the peculiar comment. He rolled his eyes and turned away from her.

When the sun began to set, the wind died, leaving a crisp, biting cold and the constant roar of the surf. The stuffed goose went on their makeshift spit, supported by lashed oars. As Olympia turned the bird and Sheridan tended the fire, she stared into the flame, watching the careful way he prodded and nursed it with pieces of tussock, trying to wring the last bit of heat from the driftwood. The glow reflected off the side of the overturned pinnace, lit his face and cast shadows on his thighs as he stood over the fire or knelt to add fuel. He looked dark and magnificent against the fading sky, like the Devil intently tinkering with his hellfires, the better to torture lost souls.

She turned the spit, over and over, her stomach anxious and her mouth watering. The smell of roasting meat amid the windblown desolation brought a weakness to her chest that went beyond hunger. A sheen of hot oil had formed on the browning goose skin, sliding downward into rivulets and drops as she turned the spit. He ran the whalebone stay over the goose, skimming the clear drippings, and held it out to her.

"Eat that. No use wasting it in the fire."

She bit her lip and took the glistening stay. Hot oil ran onto her finger. She licked it, and the first taste of nourishment, warm and delicious amid the nightmare of cold hunger, made the weakness in her chest tremble into a rush. She sat in a huddle by the fire, licking the whalebone corset stay, turning the spit and crying silent tears.

Sheridan squinted quizzically down at her across the flames.

"Excuse me," she said, taking a mortified swipe at her eyes.

"Never mind. Any person of sensibility would weep over goose cracklings." He shrugged. "I rather feel like it myself."

"I don't know why. It's just that—this goose—" She sniffed, and wiped her face again. "I daresay you won't understand."

He said nothing. She gazed at the roasting bird and then ventured to glance up at him. He was smiling gently at her.

"It's just that," she exclaimed in a wavering voice, "—it's the first time I've ever done anything really…
vital!
suppose you think I'm…si-si-silly."

He knelt and retrieved the corset stay, settling down next to her cross-legged. Skimming it over the goose, he caught the fresh drippings, then closed his eyes, tilted his head back and sucked at the whalebone until it was clean. "In terms of historical importance," he said, regarding the corset stay respectfully, "I daresay this goose will rate somewhere between the Magna Carta and the Second Coming of Christ."

Through the blur of tears, Olympia felt a tiny smile tug at her lips at the ridiculousness of that notion.

He glanced at her, his gray eyes resting for an instant on her mouth, and then returned to a solemn contemplation of the goose. "We'll commit the details to memory, of course, so that when we're interviewed for the Encyclopaedia—three full pages of description, you know, to be inserted just before the Gutenberg Bible and right after the Glorious First of June—we'll be able to recall the decisive facts that led to this momentous goose. For instance—how long has it taken this goose to cook, would you say?"

She looked longingly at the bird. "I would say about ten thousand years."

He laughed, an abrupt hoot that startled her. But it seemed to relax something inside her, that sudden masculine music. She smiled shyly, acutely aware of his knee pressed against her thigh as he reached from his crosslegged position to skim the drippings again.

He handed her the corset stay and watched her as she licked it. "No doubt it will be known to future generations as simply The Goose," he remarked, "but I think the gravity of the occasion requires something more formal, don't you agree? I propose 'The Glorious Goose of Her Royal Highness Princess Olympia of Oriens, English Maloon and an Impressive Assortment of Other Godforsaken Places.' That way it will still fit into the G's, you see."

"Yes," she said, "but it seems a shame that Admiral Howe and the First of June should still come before."

"The Glorious Bloody Goose, then. You certainly shan't be cut out by some paltry admiral. He only sank five seventy-fours and two eighty-gun French battleships, by God."

Olympia found her smile expanding into a giggle.

"What hey—" he said, peering at her. "Are you laughing? There's a change." He put his arm around her shoulders and bent his forehead to hers. "How pretty you are!"

She stiffened, turning quickly away. But he didn't let go, and the night air was so cold, and the island so lonely, and the situation so desperate, that she sat still where she was and allowed him to touch her.

He didn't move away even when they took down the goose and used her pocket scissors and his knife to cut off portions of meat. Corset stays and fingers made spoons and forks. He sat next to her, his shoulder against hers, dividing the portions with exacting equivalence.

Olympia bit into the first piece of sandy, slightly charred goose and closed her eyes against the intensity of that lifesaving pleasure. It seemed unreal, so familiar and smoky and delicious was it—except for the gritty sand and strange, salty taste imparted by the seaweed. Olympia ate the rubbery green stuff along with her share of the mussels because she was starving, but the sensation of eating solidified ocean water was almost stronger than she could stomach.

When they had finished half the goose, Sheridan put his arm around her again, stopping her move as she reached for another piece.

"That's enough for tonight, my greedy mouse. Think of breakfast."

Olympia pulled back, embarrassed. "Yes, of course." She sat stiffly in the curve of his arm, not knowing where to look. "But you should have some more. I'm convinced that your larger frame requires much more nourishment than mine," she added conscientiously.

"I've lived off less. And you're not conditioned to it." He squeezed her shoulder. "I intend to keep you alive and in proper trim to do all the goose-getting around here."

She looked up into his eyes, struck by the painful desire to allow herself to sink back into the protection of his embrace. It seemed a powerful shelter against the weariness and fright that flooded in on her now that her hunger was diminished. He was so confident, so easy and assured, while the edge of panic pushed at Olympia every moment.

He smiled down at her. Olympia's scruples wavered. She let her rigid spine relax a little, resting tentatively against the curve of his shoulder and chest.

"I suppose," she said, "that you've been through much worse than this."

"Much," he said comfortably.

Compared to her cold cheeks and hands, he felt very warm where his body touched hers. She searched for something to take her mind off it. "What's the worst thing that ever happened to you?"

He gave her a dry look. "Now there's a charming topic of conversation."

"I imagine you've been through some terrible battles. "

The rhythmic, solacing brush of his fingers on her arm stopped. He didn't answer.

She glanced sideways at him. He was staring off into the night. As she watched, a faint frown seemed to slide over his face like a shadow.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Never mind."

He shifted a little, loosening his hold on her. "It's a natural thing to wonder about."

And he left her at that. Wondering. After a few moments of silence, she said, "Did you never think of leaving the navy? After the great war was over, I mean."

"Madam, I've lived, breathed and dreamed of leaving the navy for thirty years."

"But you never did."

He made an abstract design in the sand with his knife blade and wiped it out again. "I came close."

"What happened?" She tilted her head.

"I tried being a destitute civilian once. I wasn't very good at it." His breath glowed in the firelight and mingled with hers for an instant before the rising breeze took it. He gazed down at the knife, making another little circle with the point. "Sometimes," he added softly, "I was afraid I might hurt somebody."

She frowned at him.

He looked up and met her eyes, staring at her for a moment, and then blinked. He shrugged and grinned. Before she could pull away, he dropped a light kiss on her forehead. "Show a little cheer, Princess. We ain't dead yet."

Looking down at her lap, she murmured, "Are you not worried?"

"Are you?"

She bit her lip. "I'm frightened to death."

He was silent for a moment. Then he said quietly, "Well, it don't do to say so, you know. Doesn't go down well with the adoring masses. People get the notion you're a poltroon."

She lifted her eyes. "You
are
afraid."

"Quaking in my boots. But after you've been quaking in 'em for thirty years, you get pretty good at hoaxing."

She stiffened a little, frowning.

"Did you think heroes were never afraid, Princess?" His mouth turned up in a mocking curl. "Do you suppose dragons look any smaller at close range? They don't. They look a deuce of a lot bigger." The firelight cast his face in glow and shadow, making his brows seem heathen slashes, his mouth grim and merciless. He could have been one of the dragons himself.

"But after all," she said, recalled to what he was, quivering between renewed anger and disappointment and cautious not to show either, "you've dispatched them. A great number." She paused and asked carefully, "Or has it all been a great hoax?"

He shrugged. "I suppose I'm a fairly downy bird when it comes to hoaxing dragons. But when one of 'em ties you down and punches you in the stomach, not to mention beating you over the head and drowning you by degrees, it's high time to retire from the field with what grace you can muster." He looked at her, his dark lashes swept low over the silver firelight in his eyes. "I'm sorry you were caught out in the middle, but it's no place for princesses, you know. Dragons have a particular taste for a sweet and helpless royal highness."

"I thought that was what the hero was for," she said tartly. "To rescue the princess."

"Well, you're not eaten, are you? And we heroes weren't created just for the convenience of some feather-headed princess gone astray. We have lives of our own. Hopes, plans, railway stocks…" He shook his head. "But nobody ever thinks of that. It's just rescue the princess and live happily ever after. I've never heard precisely what we're supposed to do when the princess would prefer to start a revolution than marry the poor sod who risked his neck to rescue her. Or announces"—his smile held a bitter twist—"that she'd rather become a streetwalker."