I really hate it when I’m wrong about things. . . .
Chapter 24
Away, away, away! . . .
To-night the traitor dies!
—Ibid, Act II
“Amy, I forbid you to do that again!”
“Ow! That stings! You’re an evil nurse. I was much nicer to you. What’s that? And forbid me to do what—be kidnapped, or faint?”
“Both.” Corbin held up one of the bottles that Jez had provided him with to take care of my injuries. “It says water hazing.”
“Witch hazel,” I said, squinting at the tag tied to the neck of the bottle. “That’s okay. It shouldn’t sting. You may proceed.”
He glared at me as he poured a little witch hazel on a clean cloth before dabbing it on the long scratches on my lower calf. I lay on the bed in one of the guest rooms at the governor’s house (I couldn’t bring myself to sleep in the same bed where Bart had slept), warm and relaxed and as comfortable as one could be when one was stark naked having a miscellaneous collection of cuts, scrapes, scratches, and bruises treated by a man who looked furious enough to bring down the entire house.
“You, woman, are infuriating. What the hell do you think you were doing letting Paul kidnap you?”
“It’s not like I had a whole lot of choice in the matter,” I answered, feeling the back of my head and wincing when my fingers found a small, painful lump. It didn’t hurt unless I pressed on it. “Well, there’s one small blessing—at least with being torn up on the rocks the pain from being whacked on the head has faded.”
He hitched his glare up a couple of notches and indicated he wanted me to roll over. I turned over to my stomach, sighing with relief as he dabbed the soothing liquid on the burning scratches on the backs of my legs. “You could have yelled for help, or used self-defense moves to disable Paul, or done something to save yourself.”
“Save myself?” I asked the pillow, the tight muscles in my back starting to relax now that I was safe. “Where were you, I’d like to know? Why weren’t you saving me? Haven’t you read pirate books? The pirate always saves his lady love.”
“What happened to women not needing a man to save them?” Corbin asked.
“I didn’t need you to save me,” I said, groaning as his hand brushed my thigh. “If you’ll notice, I saved myself just fine. The point is, it would have been nicer if you had rode up on your white horse and saved me so I didn’t have to get bashed to a bloody pulp on those rocks.”
He dug through the basket of salves and ointments and pulled out a pot of something with a cork lid. He sniffed at it, then dipped his finger into it.
“What’s that?” I asked, looking over my shoulder at him.
“Says it’s a burn salve. Can’t hurt. And I don’t have a white horse.”
“Nitpicker,” I told the pillow, my eyes closing at the pleasure the gentle brush of his fingers on my abused flesh was giving me.
He stopped for a second before getting a roll of gauzy material. Carefully he wrapped it around the worst wounds on my legs, using his knife to cut the ends and tie them in neat knots. “I’m sorry about that, Amy.”
“Hmm? Sorry about what?”
“That I wasn’t there when you needed me. I should have been guarding you. I should have known that Paul would grab you in an attempt to hurt me.”
I rolled over onto my side, tugging him down so he rested on the bed next to me. “Silly man. I don’t expect you to be psychic, Corbin. And I was teasing you for the most part—you’re absolutely right in that I don’t need a man to save me.”
“But it would have been nice if I had?” he asked, his eyes dark with emotion.
“Well . . . maybe just a little saving.”
His eyes went even darker. “You saved me. You saved my life. I didn’t even know you’d been kidnapped.”
“And that’s why I’m not, at this moment, reading you the riot act,” I said, kissing the tip of his nose. “I couldn’t have saved you if I hadn’t been right there with you, could I? So there’s no reason to beat yourself up for not being somewhere when you had no idea I was in danger. Besides, I like you in my debt this way. It means you have to do anything I want you to do.”
“It does, does it?” he asked, his hand running up the curve of my hip. “And what is it you want me to do?”
“Make mad, passionate, all-night-long love to me,” I answered, sucking his lower lip into my mouth.
“You’re hurt,” he said before his tongue came visiting mine. I squirmed against him, my skin suddenly highly sensitized against the rough texture of his clothing.
“Not that hurt,” I answered, gasping in air as his mouth moved down my neck, leaving behind a trail of sizzling kisses.
“Mind over matter,” he murmured into my breastbone.
“Absolutely,” I answered, a thousand and one nerve endings coming to sudden tingling life.
He made slow, sweet love to me, just as I’d asked, his kisses gentle, his touches giving rather than demanding, building the need in me until I was almost frantic. But when he pulled my knee over his hip and slid into me, I sighed with the pleasure of it all, and bit his lip. “I love you, Corbin. More than any other man. I love you so much my heart may just burst.”
“I know CPR, too,” he said into my mouth, his hips flexing.
“What a romantic answer.” I laughed and gave myself up to the moment, pushing aside all the worries and problems that besieged us, and focused on showing the man I loved just how much he meant to me.
I lay awake late into the night, snuggled up to Corbin’s side, my hand possessively lying on his chest, right over his heart. His chest rose and fell with slow regularity, his heartbeat a gentle thud beneath my fingertips. Corbin had fallen asleep before I had a chance to discuss the latest developments with him, leaving me with an exhausted body and a brain that wouldn’t stop puzzling over things long enough to let me sleep.
What role did Renata have to play in things? It was becoming clearer to me that she wasn’t exactly what she seemed. What did Bart have planned for us? How were we going to catch him, and once we did, was Corbin serious about killing him in order to get us out of the game? What was going to happen to the people of Turtle’s Back if things went wrong? Who would watch out for Bas?
I finally fell asleep with those thoughts swirling around until they merged into one bright, shining problem that seemed to glow with a blinding intensity that consumed everything in and around me.
Corbin woke me up a short while later with one word that struck fear deep and hard within me.
“The island is on fire,” he said, strapping his sword belt to his hips and grabbing his pistols. He’d already pulled his pants and boots on, but before I could pull my thoughts together in my sleep-muddled brain, he was running out of the room, yelling for the few servants who slept in to wake up and help.
“Fire?” I asked, sitting up in bed, sniffing the air. “Are you sure? I don’t smell smoke. How do you know there’s a—” As I swung my legs over the bed, the window came into my view. Beyond the scraggy line of trees that marked the boundary between the settled part of Turtle’s Back and the rest of the island, the sky glowed orangey red.
“Oh, hell,” I swore, jumping from bed and grabbing the nearest clothes—my knickers and Corbin’s shirt. My arms and legs protested the quick movement, but I ignored the stiffness and hurried into my boots, grabbing my foil out of instinct before I ran from the room. Downstairs, the cook and scullery maid were lighting candles. Bas emerged from a room two doors from mine, rubbing his eyes.
“Bas, I want you to get dressed and go down to Renata’s house,” I told him. Holder bolted past me from the room he’d confiscated as his own, leaping down the stairs to the main hall.
“What’s happenin’?” Bas asked, standing at the top of the stairs.
Corbin was standing just outside the opened double doors, shouting orders to the remaining servants. Holder joined him for a moment, then took off toward the town, presumab
ly to raise the alarm there.
“Fire,” I said succinctly, not waiting to explain further. “Just go to Renata’s house and tell the ladies there to get on a ship if the fire reaches the town.”
I raced out of the house, following Corbin, intent on helping him fight the fire. Outside, the smoke was thick and heavy as I reached the point where the lawn ended and the scrubby, sparse forest that covered much of Turtle’s Back began. The palm trees and surrounding tall grass were fully ablaze, casting grotesque shadows as Corbin and the men danced around it, trying to beat out the burning grass. Billows of black smoke shot up into the night sky, mushrooming as they hit cold air in the upper levels. The heat from the fire at ground level was breathtaking—literally—absorbing the oxygen and leaving everyone breathless and gasping.
“Get in the bucket line,” Corbin yelled when he saw me standing, staring helplessly at the burning trees.
I gave the fire a wide swath as I ran painfully around to the back of the house, where I knew the well was located. Bas’s black silhouette darted past me as he grabbed a bucket in his good hand.
“Dammit, Bas, I told you to go to Renata’s house,” I gasped, clutching my ribs where they’d been bruised in my clash with the rocks.
“Do more good here,” was all he said.
“Only until I say you have to leave,” I warned, rolling up the sleeves to Corbin’s shirt as I joined the bucket line. There were about five of us in the line, carrying water from the well around to the edge of the lawn where Corbin, the cook, and a couple of others leaped around the fire, beating the grass with wet curtains and hurling buckets of water on the worst spots.
We hauled bucket after bucket of water down the line. My hands quickly formed blisters from the wet handles; my arms and shoulders ached with the unaccustomed strain. The relief I felt each time I passed on a full bucket fizzled with the sight of the next one approaching. The horror of the situation combined with the repetition of the bucket line soon consumed my brain until all that became my whole world. Ten steps to the left led to my hands and shoulders complaining as a heavy bucketful of water was passed to me, followed by ten steps to the right and the blessed relief of handing it on. We coughed on the acrid smoke that filled the air, turning breathing into a labored chore that left my chest aching. My eyes watered, sending tears down my cheeks, but I couldn’t stop long enough to wipe my face.
It seemed like an eternity, but probably a half hour later Corbin called a halt to the bucket line.
“It’s no good. It’s too far spread,” he yelled in between gasps for air. “We’ll never get it out.”
The scullery maid fell to the ground, overcome by the smoke. Someone pulled her out of the line. My arms were shaking with the strain, my breath raspy and painful, my throat raw. I wheezed as I breathed, my lungs burning as if they were filled with hot embers.
“What now?” I asked, looking at the others in the bucket line. At Corbin’s call to halt, the line had collapsed, everyone on the ground panting for air, rubbing aching arms and hands.
“We make a fire break to keep it from going down to the town. We need shovels and axes,” he directed one of the male servants. “As many as you can get.”
The man nodded and took off at a run around to a small gardening shed. Two others from the bucket line staggered to their feet and followed him.
“Did you guys really write things like axes and shovels into the game?” I asked Corbin, dragging a half-filled bucket of water over to him.
“Of course. We anticipated towns being fired,” he answered, dipping his hands into the water, drinking from his cupped hands. “It was a traditional pirate action upon taking a town, although this . . .”
He looked at flames leaping from tree to tree.
“It’s Bart, isn’t it?” I asked quietly.
“Possibly. Probably. It’s suspicious that the fire should start right behind your house. Sweetheart, I’m afraid you’re going to lose it. We can’t save it and the town, both.”
“That’s all right. It’s just a house, and it wasn’t really mine anyway. The town is what matters.”
“I’m glad you feel that way,” Corbin said with a hollow smile. “I didn’t really like you living in Bart’s house. Where the devil is Holder?”
I dipped the hem of Corbin’s shirt into the bucket and wiped some of the soot off his sweaty face. “Did you send him to rouse the town?”
“Yes. And to bring back my crew to fight the fire. He should be here by—”
A shout interrupted him. I sighed with relief when I saw Holder lope toward us, but that relief died when Corbin frowned.
“Where the hell is my crew?” he asked me, then yelled that question to Holder.
“Asleep,” he answered, grabbing his side, stopping in front of us to double over. “God . . . need . . . start jogging again . . . out of shape . . .”
“Asleep?” Corbin asked, his scowl almost as black as the smoke. “Why didn’t you wake them?”
“Couldn’t,” Holder panted. “Tried. Drugged. All of ’em. All over the floor at the whorehouse. Think it was the rum.”
“All of them?” Corbin yelled.
“Yes.”
“Renata,” I said, remembering my suspicions about her. “It had to be Renata. She drugged them.”
“More likely was Bart,” Corbin said grimly, grabbing a shovel from one of the men returning with tools. “Amy, you go down to the town and see what you can do about getting us some help. If we want to save the town, we’re going to have to have a lot more help.
“I could help dig trenches—” I started to say. Corbin flickered a glance toward my bloody, blistered hands. “Right. I’ll go get everyone who’s able to wield a shovel or axe. Bas! You come with me. I need your speedy legs.”
Corbin held a quick conference with the firebreak workers to explain where he wanted the fire stopped. Bas got to his feet and limped toward me. I plunged both hands into the bucket of water Corbin had abandoned, biting back a scream of anguish at the feel of water on the open wounds, splashing a bit of it on my face.
“You ready?” I asked Bas as he stopped next to me. I frowned at something missing. “Where’s Bran?”
“Got him here,” he said, pulling open his hand-me-down jacket. “Didn’t want him to get burned.”
Inside the jacket, tucked into an inner pocket, Bran was snuggled up safe. The bird squawked a couple of times, bobbing his head as he always did in greeting.
“Oh. Good place for him. Come on, we’ve got people to wake up. I’ll take the north side of town, and you can do the—holy crap, what was that?”
We had just reached the gates when a massive blast shook the ground, the sound of it so palpable, it could be felt as well as heard.
Behind me, feet thudded on the grass.
“What the bloody hell—” Holder asked as he, Corbin, and a handful of other men burst from around the back of the house.
“Earthquake?” I asked, having definitely felt the ground tremble.
“Cannons,” Corbin answered, his face grim. He pointed toward the harbor, barely visible through the smoke as a slightly lighter black patch on a field of ebony.
“Cannons? Someone is firing cannons now?”
“Not firing,” Corbin yelled, throwing down his shovel as he jumped forward. “Blowing them up. Bart’s attacking the town.”
Chapter 25
I’m telling a terrible story,
But it doesn’t diminish my glory. . . .
—Ibid, Act I
I grabbed Bas by his good arm and followed the men down the hill toward the town, swearing like mad to myself as we stumbled and slipped on rocks. Another blast rocked the island, this time slightly more distant. A huge fireball lit the night sky, illuminating for a few seconds the far arm of the harbor, where one of the makeshift forts was located.
“We’re bein’ attacked?” Bas asked as we raced down the hill as fast as we could.
“Yes. Those were the big land guns going.
Bart must have rigged them to blow up so we couldn’t use them to defend ourselves,” I answered in between ragged gasps for air.
“Why is Bart attackin’ us?” he asked. I glared at him for a moment, annoyed that the little wretch didn’t seem to be the least bit winded.
“He’s a rotter, that’s why. Corbin? What are we going to do about the fire?” I yelled, waving a hand behind us.
He answered something that I didn’t hear—he was too far ahead. But I gathered by the way everyone abandoned the firebreak that the most pressing concern was the attack by water, assuming that was coming next. And it made sense that an attack would follow now that the town’s defenses had just been knocked out to almost nothing.
“There are still our ships, though,” I argued to myself, pain ripping through my side as my bruised ribs tried to cope with the unexpected activity.
“But no one to sail them,” Holder said, slowing down so he could run next to us. “I swear I’m going to gut Paul when I get out of this game. The whole crew is out cold, every last Jack of them.”
I stumbled, almost going to my knees, my heart sick with dread. Holder and Bas grabbed me to keep me from falling. “What are we going to do?” I asked Holder, tears burning my already red eyes. “How are we supposed to fight Bart with no crew?”
His jaw tightened as he tugged me forward. “You underestimate Corbin, Amy. You’ve never seen him in battle, have you?”
“Not really, just a bit before he shot up my ship,” I said, miserable, wanting to just curl up in a ball and pretend none of this was happening.
“He’s meant to be a pirate, he truly is,” Holder said, his hand locked around my wrist, keeping me moving toward the town. We were at the outskirts now, and below us, voices were calling out in horrified confusion, the town already lighting up as people were dragged from sleep by the explosion of the guns. “He’s a wild man behind the wheel of a ship. A brilliant tactician, merciless and exacting. Even down a crew, with nothing but a few townspeople to man his ship, he’ll take down Paul—or die trying.”