“Yes, you did.” He donned a slightly petulant expression. “Did you mean it?”
I thought about telling him it was just a slip of the tongue, but something held me back. “I don’t say anything I don’t mean.”
“Darling is a pretty strong endearment, and my sweet darling is just about tantamount to a declaration of love.” He took a deep breath, apparently uncaring of the fact that Jez was present, setting up a couple of needles and thread to sew up his wound. “Do you love me?”
I blinked at him a couple of times, taken aback by the bald question, unsure how to answer it without hurting him.
“Well?”
“I . . . I don’t know,” I finally said, unable to think of an answer, but aware that I was telling the truth. “Truly, Corbin, I just don’t—”
He laid a finger across my lips, silencing me more effectively when he pulled me down for a kiss. “Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. We’ll work it out once I’m done being patched up.”
I smiled into his mouth, relieved that he hadn’t seemed to suffer any brain damage from the injuries or the near drowning. “I told you that if you put your mind to it, you wouldn’t feel Jez working on you.”
“Oh, I feel it.” His hand skimmed up my arm braced next to his head. “It just doesn’t matter as much as you.”
Corbin yelled a great deal when Jez started to sew him up, but a few kisses soon had him more engrossed in making me burn than in worrying about what she was doing to him. By the time she was done stitching the wound together, had covered it with crushed herbs wrapped inside a cloth bandage, and had forced a fever draught down his throat, Corbin was exhausted.
I was positively limp with fatigue. I thanked Jez for her help, paid her a couple of reales from Corbin’s stash of money, and begged her to keep his presence a secret.
She paused in the door and gave me a long look. “I will, but not because ye’re payin’ me to keep me mouth shut.”
I rubbed a weary hand across my forehead. I wanted nothing more than to sleep for a hundred or so years. “Oh? Why, then?”
“Because ye’re helpin’ us when ye didn’t have to, ye talk to me like I’m a real person, not a floozy who doesn’t know her arse from her elbow, and most of . . .” She smiled. “Most of all because ye’re so in love with that man ye can’t see yer nose in front of yer face, and I’ve ever been one to sigh over a good love story.”
I started to protest, but she just laughed and went off to her own room.
“That’s a wise woman. You should listen to her,” Corbin said, his voice fuzzy and thick from the draught. I suspected Jez had included an opiate in it to make Corbin sleep.
“She certainly is good with a needle,” I answered, easing myself down on the bed next to him. His eyes were closed, but one opened up just long enough to give me a sleepy look.
“Corbin, before you fall asleep, we need to talk about what we’re going to do. Much as I hate to do it, we’re going to have to move you. You’re not safe here. I don’t trust Tar not to turn you in for a huge reward.”
“True, most anyone would,” he agreed, his eyelid closing. “You’ll have to get Holder. He’ll take care of me.”
“Dammit, I want to take care of you,” I said, fatigue making me irritable.
A lazy smile stole across his lips. “You’re falling in love with me, Amy.”
“Stop that.” I pinched the skin on his arm.
“If you’re not already in love with me.”
“You’re delusional. Maybe you hit your head when Pangloss blasted your ship.”
“Once you are, you’ll want to spend every waking moment with me.”
I shook my head at him. “A mind is such a sad thing to waste. How tragic that yours should be taken from you at such a young age.”
He smiled a slow, lazy smile at me. “Soon you’ll be so head-over-heels in love with me, you’ll fulfill my every whim and fantasy.” The words were coming out slower and slower, slurring slightly.
“I thought I already had,” I said, unable to keep from leaning forward and pressing a gentle kiss to his lips.
“You have, but if I put my mind to it, I’m sure I can think of more,” he answered just before drifting into sleep.
I looked down at the man in my bed and wondered whether everyone else was right, and I was wrong . . . or I was just fooling myself.
Chapter 18
With cat-like tread,
Upon our prey we steal. . . .
—Ibid, Act II
“So, what’s the prognosis?”
Tar turned his head and spat before giving me a squinty-eyed look. “She’s got a hole the size of a sow in her starboard side, lost the top eight feet of the mast, and there’s three feet of water in the bilge.”
I looked at my poor shot-up ship, listing heavily to one side so the damage on her right side could be examined. “Hell’s bells.”
“Aye. ’Tis by the grace of God we made it here without us all bein’ sent to Davy Jones, but she’ll not be sailin’ again without repairs.”
I bit back the oath I was dying to yell, instead turning on my heel and heading back to town. Tar and the twins scrambled up the narrow footpath behind me.
“What ye thinkin’ to do with Black Corbin?” Tar called out. “There’s a handsome price on his head. We’d all be rich if we was to hand him over to Captain Bart.”
“I’ve already told you no, and paid you for your silence,” I answered, swearing silently to myself. I had to get Corbin out of there, and fast, before Tar had the opportunity to turn traitor and hand him over to Bart. “But don’t worry, Corbin will be gone by nightfall.”
“Oh, aye?” Tar asked, rubbing the prosthetic metal nose he wore when sailing.
“Yup. He’ll be gone as soon as the moon comes up,” I lied, just in case the plan my brain was busily hatching went awry, and Tar escaped to rat on Corbin. “Right now, I have more important things to take care of.”
“What would that be?” he asked, almost trotting to keep up with me.
“We’re going to rejoin the blockade.”
“But we don’t have no ship,” Prudence complained. We crested the hill that led down to the town and harbor. I didn’t stop to admire the view.
“No, we don’t. So we’ll steal one.”
“Steal one?” Impulsive asked, his eyes big.
“Sure, why not? We’re pirates, right? Stealing is our raison d’être.”
All the way down to the harbor I fielded questions—everything from what a “raisen detter” was to what we were going to do in the blockade. There was one question that wasn’t asked . . . something that interested me greatly.
By the time we brazenly stole a pretty green sloop from the end of the dock and got her headed toward the blockade, Tar and the boys had stopped peppering me with questions and were instead actually doing their jobs.
I felt so much like a real pirate captain I burst into song.
Prudence gave his brother a quizzical look. “Is the cap’n insultin’ us by sayin’ we’re pirates who don’t do anythin’?”
Impulsive frowned. I smiled and ordered someone to stand by with a black flag. As we skirted the edge of the blockade, the noise of guns booming, wood splintering, and men screaming filled the air almost as much as the scent of gunpowder and death.
It was sobering to see firsthand how people died in sea battle, but I didn’t let the likelihood that we would again become the target of Pangloss stop me from ordering us right into the thick of the fray, heading straight for the flagship.
Although Corbin’s men must have seen me coming from the harbor, the black flag we ran up seemed to act as a passport of sorts. Pangloss and the other officers evidently weren’t watching their rears, because they didn’t see us until we had sailed quickly past them. I toyed with the idea of shooting Pangloss’s ship while we had them broadside to us but opted for a more prudent plan.
“Bring us alongside her, lads,” I told my crew, pointing to the flagshi
p. “I need to talk to the officer on board.”
Tar gave me a look that didn’t take much to read. “They’re in battle.”
“I know, but only on that side. Not this one. Just bring us in close so I can talk to the people on board.”
Tar shook his head and muttered something that I thought it best to pretend not to hear.
“Is Holder aboard ship?” I yelled through cupped hands as we approached the big red and black ship whose starboard guns were in the process of sinking one of Bart’s ships. “I’m looking for Holder McReady.”
A line of men suddenly appeared on the port side of the ship, directly across from us, all of whom were pointing flintlock muskets and pistols at me.
“Amy?” There was a disturbance in the men and suddenly Holder was at the railing, a bloody rag wrapped around his head, his face shiny and black with gunpowder and sweat. “What in God’s name are you doing here? You could have been shot!”
“Grapple them,” I told my guys, yelling back at Holder, “I need to talk to you.”
“Right now?” he bellowed back. “It may have escaped your notice, but we’re a little on the busy side at the moment avenging my best friend’s death.”
“He’s not dead,” I yelled, gesturing at one of the twins.
“What?”
Holder’s men looked at him as Prudence swung out a grappling hook. Holder snapped an order, and three grappling lines shot out to our ship, snagging us and pulling our ship up close.
“Stay here. I’ll be right back,” I told my crew before scrambling up a thin rope ladder that had been tossed down. Bas ignored my order and followed me onto the Java Guru.
Holder grabbed me before my foot even touched the deck, shaking me as he demanded, “What did you mean he isn’t dead? I saw his ship sink.”
“So did I. I saved him. He was drowning, but I saved him.”
Holder stopped shaking me, staring intently into my eyes. I smiled at him. “He’s safe, Holder. He’s been injured, but he’s safe. At least, for a little while, but I need you to—”
The rest of my words were cut off when my face was squashed into Holder’s shoulder, his whoop of triumph leaving me deaf in my left ear for the three hours that followed.
He planted a smacking kiss on my cheek before giving me another bear hug, finally releasing me. “I knew you were the one. I just knew it the minute I saw you. And I told him, too. Bless you, lass. Whatever I have, it’s yours. Money, jewels, my prized signed photo of Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow—nothing is too precious.”
I laughed, flinching as the guns belowdecks blasted into life. “This will have to be fast. I need to get Corbin off Turtle’s Back, and I can’t do it by myself.”
Holder didn’t wait for explanations. He simply started snapping out orders, and before I knew what had happened, Bas and I were back on board the stolen ship, heading for the far side of the harbor. Holder was at the helm of another sloop, a small, low-slung racing model, which was on its way to the portage where my Saucy Wench was lying. I had a pouch full of reales with which I was to buy anything that Corbin needed for the trip, and the assurances of Holder that no one and nothing on this earth would stop him from spiriting Corbin out from under Bart’s nose.
It took some time for us to make port, what with having to stay out of range of Pangloss’s guns. We had a few sticky moments when we were in firing range, but for whatever reason, we weren’t fired upon.
By the time we reached the dock, I was exhausted, both mentally and physically, and wanted nothing more than to go check on Corbin and collapse next to him.
When I saw who was waiting on the docks, however, my exhaustion suddenly disappeared.
“Amy, m’lass . . . surely that isn’t yer ship? It looks like one I own, which has apparently gone missin’.”
I swung myself over the railing and leaped down to the dock without waiting for the wooden plank to be set into place, stalking over to where Bart stood with two of his pirates. “No, it’s not my ship. I stole this one because mine was shot to hell by your first mate, so I guess it’s just a bit of poetic justice that it should turn out to be yours.”
His eyebrows raised. “My first mate shot ye?”
“Yes, he did. A whole bunch of times. My ship is unsailable.”
“Nay, ye’re mistaken,” he said, shaking his head, a puzzled look on his face.
“It’s a little hard mistaking a ship from your own crew when it’s blasting you to smithereens,” I said grimly. “What made you do it, Bart? Why would you set me up like that? Why did you tell Pangloss to sink my ship?”
“I swear to ye, lass, I gave no such order,” he protested, turning to his men. “Ye’ve not heard me order any action against our own ships, have ye?”
“Nay, never,” the men said in unison.
“Look, you can say whatever you like, but I’m the one whose ship is lying on the other side of the island, filled with huge holes.”
Bart gave me a sad look. “Ah, lass, the sun has bleached yer brain. Yer ship is right where she should be, in the blockade. Where ye should be, as well.”
I stared at him, wondering whether some glitch had happened, rendering all the computer characters insane. “What are you talking about? My ship is on the other side of the island, lying on her side because of the damage Pangloss did to her.”
“Look for yerself,” Bart said, pulling a spyglass from where it was attached to his belt. “Yer ship is to the north of the Java Guru. She’s been there all day. I thought ye were waitin’ until Panny’d stopped engagin’ the warships afore ye were goin’ to open fire.”
I didn’t bother arguing further; I just opened the spyglass and scanned the line of ships, waiting for the smoke to clear to identify the Java Guru before I turned the glass northward. Two ships were beyond the Guru’s bow, on her port side. One, a gray and navy two-masted sloop, was firing on one of Bart’s captains. The other . . . smoke drifted across the outline of the ship. As it cleared, the sleek lines of a compact sloop became clear.
A sloop painted a familiar maroon.
“What the . . . that’s not my ship,” I said, squinting at it through the glass. “My ship is damaged. That can’t be her. Oh. It must be the sister ship to mine. I’d forgotten about it.”
Bart gave me another pitying look.
“I am not suffering from sunstroke, nor am I insane,” I said, turning to my crew. “Tar, tell the captain—our ship was shot up, wasn’t she?”
“Aye,” he answered, limping his way down the dock toward us. “ ’Twas Mr. Pangloss who done it, too.”
“See?” I crossed my arms over my chest.
Bart rubbed his chin, gazing out at the harbor where the ships were still locked in battle, although judging by the fact that the guns had slowed down, this round of battle was probably coming to an end. “I’m at loss, lass. ’Tis no rightful reason for Panny to fire on ye, but I’m thinkin’ there may have been some confusion with the ship I took for yers. She’s wearin’ yer colors, and is where ye should be, so it’s possible that Panny mistook ye for her.”
I opened my mouth to protest such a ridiculous notion but decided against continuing to argue. Bart’s explanation was possible, although I thought it highly unlikely. More likely, the thought occurred to me, was the theory that Pangloss wasn’t who he appeared to be. Could he be the mysterious ex-partner Paul? It would explain why he tried to sink me, given the opportunity.
I rubbed my forehead, confused by the path my thoughts were taking. I had liked Pangloss. Could I be so mistaken about people?
Bart gave me his blessing to use his sloop until mine could be repaired, saying he had to get back to one of the makeshift forts.
“The devil Corbin’s been careful to stay out of range of the big guns,” he said before he left. “But Panny’ll be harryin’ the Java Guru into range of ’em, then we’ll have him.”
Evidently he didn’t realize Corbin wasn’t on the Guru. I certainly wasn’t about to enlighten him, not while
he was all but rubbing his hands at the thought of capturing Corbin. After a few more words of gloating over his anticipated win, he took his leave. From the corner of my eye I saw Tar sidle toward one of Bart’s men.
“Well, thank you for the use of the ship. Buh-bye. Catch you later,” I yelled after him, then turned to my crewmate with a saccharine smile. “Tar, did you check the remaining supplies on the ship? No? Be a lamb and do it now, would you?”
Tar clearly wanted to disobey me but didn’t want to bring down Bart’s wrath by ignoring a direct order. He shot me a look that didn’t at all disguise his loathing, and hobbled off to do as he was bid.
“Juuust what I need,” I muttered to myself and went off to do my own chores.
By the time I had the ship stocked to go back into battle, the warships’ guns had fallen silent. Pangloss had told me that the ships only fought for a few hours before taking a break so that the men could have a rest and the equipment could be repaired and readied for more battle. It seemed an odd way to fight, but who was I to complain? Rather than head back out to battle, I gathered up my crew and hustled them toward Renata’s, unwilling to leave them—especially Tar—alone where they might talk.
By the time we got there, Corbin was gone, all signs of his occupancy in the room removed as if by fairies, but on the chest a small folded-up scrap of parchment had been left.
I will never be able to thank you enough for saving my best friend, the note read. I’m glad you found each other. He needs you.
I sighed heavily, tucking Holder’s note away in my clothes, and forced my thoughts away from where they wanted to sulk over losing Corbin. I had things to do, I told myself sternly. There were Renata and Pangloss to question closely. There were the leading townspeople to approach in order to find out just what supplies I should be trying to get from the blockade ships. I had promised myself to have a really long session organizing and inventorying Tara’s weaving shop. As far as I could tell, her looms had been empty for days, which mean that somewhere, a bunch of weavers were lounging around on my daughter’s payroll. There was no way I was going to tolerate that abuse. And there was my small crew to take care of, to pay off and swear to secrecy about the day’s activities.