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 an
d 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…
Twelve
* * *
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.
"Warned you," he rasped.
"Let go of me!" She jerked her arm away.
"Princess." He rested his face in his hands for a moment, spreading his fingers through his wet black hair. He cleared his throat. "Princess. I didn't…tell them."
"Bastard," she said.
He lifted his head. There was such distressed confusion in his face that for an instant she felt a flicker of shame. "I didn't tell them," he croaked. "I could have. And they wouldn't…they wouldn't have—" He lost his voice in a choking cough and gestured toward the door.
She narrowed her eyes. "I despise you."
He looked confounded, blinking up at her with water still shining on his brows and lashes. "You don't understand. You don't…know—"
"I understand." She pushed his hand away. "You think because you didn't play me foul again, I should feel awful for what they did. I should feel sorry for you. But I don't. I detest you and what you are, Sir Sheridan. I wish I'd been the one to beat you myself."
He sat looking at her. The bewilderment faded slowly; his thick lashes lowered and his mouth went sulky. "Well, so do I," he muttered." Given the choice."
"Stand up, if you please." Frightened exhaustion made her voice sharp. "You've ruined the blanket."
He flashed her a look, petulant and dangerous—like Lucifer brooding on some secret fantasy of rebellion. But he did as she ordered, pushing himself off the berth with that soft rusty sound that seemed to come out of him involuntarily. He bent across the bed and gathered the wet blanket in a ball, hanging over it supported on both arms for a moment until a paroxysm of coughing passed. He was shivering as he tossed the woolen spread in the corner. Reaching past Olympia, he pulled open the locker and probed in it.
"No more blan…kets," he said, with a catch and a quick breath. "Would it displease Your Bloody Highness if I borrowed this fellow's…clothes?" He coughed, once and hard, and then leaned on the locker. "Or am I to be exe…cuted by frostbite for my crimes?"
"I don't care."
He shook his head. "You'd better…c-care. If I'm sick or dead at daybreak, our friend Buckhorse'll take it out of you, sis…ter dear."
Olympia bit her lip, recalled forcibly to the fact that he appeared to be her sole protection, in spite of what he'd done in Madeira. She glared at him. "You probably can't sail this ship anyway. You probably aren't even Sir Sheridan Drake at all. I don't doubt you murdered the real Sir Sheridan and took his place before he ever got to Norfolk."
He rested his head and shoulders against the locker. A drop of water fell from his hair onto his bare collarbone, and he shuddered. "I suppose you can take a…chance on that if you…like."
His voice sounded queer. Suddenly he spread his hand on his belly where Buckhorse had punched him. The golden crescent-and-star twisted, falling over his fingers. As Olympia watched, his face went pale and stark and his knees began to buckle. He slid slowly down the locker, each breath a deep vibration of distress.
Olympia felt her own insides squeeze in spontaneous empathy. She wasn't used to being hard; she'd have felt sorry for a snake that looked so wretched.
Which was exactly what he was. A snake.
"Here." She took off her cloak and threw it around his shoulders where he huddled on t
he deck. He wrapped his fist in the cloth, gripping it until his fingers turned white. He sat still, not even breathing, his head bowed into his knees and his neck corded with strain.
After a long minute, he tilted his head back against the locker and began to breathe again in deep, relieved gasps. "God," he mumbled, "I wish that would stop."
Olympia frowned at him. "What's wrong?" she demanded.
He gave a weak shrug. "Nothing fatal, I'm…s-sure you'll be sorry to hear. A residual…twinge, courtesy of Mr. Buckhorse." He lifted his thick lashes wearily. "Not so bad now, but quite an experience when somebody's pouring water down your…nose."
She pressed her lips together. "Can you get up?"
"Of course."
She waited. He made no move to change position.
She bent over impatiently. "I thought you said you could."
"Tomorrow. Next week. Don't—" He curved away from her hand. "Don't touch my…face, thank you."
Olympia drew back, frowning at him. The only signs of his battering were a smear of blood on the back of his hand where he'd wiped it across his mouth, and a faint darkening at the corner of his left eye. "You don't look very badly hurt to me."
"Someday," he said in his hoarse, mild voice, "I'll bash your head in to broaden your education."
She glared at him. "You've already broadened my education quite sufficiently, I assure you. Get up. You're going to be ready to sail this ship for those men tomorrow."
He looked up at her, his gray eyes darkened to infinite frosty shadow in the lamplight. "Decided to…throw in your lot with a different…devil, princess?"
She came near to saying that anything would be preferable to him, but the thought of Buckhorse and Cal and their convict gang made her pause. "I'm not throwing in my lot with anyone," she snapped. "You and your treachery have taught me that much, you may be sure."
"Lesson One," he said, grasping the locker door and hauling himself to his feet. With a wince, he ran his fingertips gingerly down the side of his face and gave her a painful smile. "The hardest one to learn."