Blow Me Down (25 page)

Renata’s lips pursed as she considered me. “I’ve no problem with Corbin bein’ here, although ye should know that Bart’s placed the black spot upon him. If ye don’t want him dancin’ with Jack Ketch, ye’d best be gettin’ him out of here right quick.”

“Not until he’s seen a doctor, and not then if the doctor says he shouldn’t be moved,” I answered, prepared to fight for my man, ignoring the tiny niggle in the back of my mind that asked just when it was that Corbin had become mine.

“Ah, lass, there be no doctor here. He was killed when that man lyin’ yonder murdered Bart’s crew.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to forestall both the headache I could feel wanting to blossom to life and the urge to lose my temper. Screaming that Corbin didn’t actually kill anyone would do him little good. “Is there someone here who has medical training?”

Renata just looked at me.

“A . . . what do they call them . . . healer?”

“Aye, Sly Jez is by way of bein’ a healer,” Renata allowed.

“Great.” I knelt next to the bed and started to remove Corbin’s wet clothing, carefully avoiding the wood jutting out of his stomach. “I’ll help however best I can. Tar, you and the boys go take a look at my ship and see how badly she’s damaged. I need to know whether or not I can sail her to Mongoose. Oh, and Tar?” I glanced back over my shoulder at where my crew stood huddled together in the corner of the room, clearly uncomfortable at being in such close confines with the infamous Black Corbin. I gave them all a look to let them see the steely resolve that flowed through me. “I will give each of you ten reales for your help in moving Corbin, but if any of you mention this to a single living soul outside of this room, I will hang your guts from the yardarm. With great pleasure, using nothing but a spoon and a dull butter knife. Do you all understand?”

Prudence swallowed hard and nodded. Impulsive just looked scared. Tar had a blank look on his face, but his eyes avoided meeting mine. The three of them left quickly, but doubts about Tar lingered in my mind.

Jez turned out to be a better resource than I’d imagined—she bustled into the room in nothing but an (evidently hastily donned) chemise, a basket on her arm, looking quite proficient until she stopped with a shocked look on her face. “Oh, mercy! That’s . . . that’s . . .”

“Yes, it’s Corbin. He’s my hus—er . . . boyfr—uh . . . he’s a friend, all right? I’ll pay you to take care of this horrible wound he has and keep quiet, but for the love of God, please don’t ask questions, and just help him. He’s been unconscious for way too long. He might be suffering irreparable brain damage or something.”

Jez didn’t say anything further, although she did give me an odd look. My confidence in her abilities rose when she quickly examined Corbin, dismissing the lesser wounds to focus on the big one.

“Amy?” Kneeling next to Jez, I spun around so fast I fell back on my butt.

“Corbin? My sweet Corbin. You’re awake.”

“Yes,” he said, a spasm of pain crossing his face as he tried to move. I crawled over to him and put a restraining hand on the upper part of his chest. “Christ, I feel horrible. What happened?”

“You were hit with shrapnel. Don’t move. We’re taking care of you.”

“We?” he asked weakly, lifting his head to look down his body, his eyes widening as he saw the blood and gore. “Christ almighty and all the saints!”

“I’m going to take it out now,” Jez said to me softly, laying a couple of clean white cloths next to Corbin’s hip, along with a stoppered bottle of what looked to be brandy.

“What did she say?”

I put a hand on Corbin’s forehead and gently pushed it back into the pillow, leaning over him so all he could see was my eyes. “Sweetie, I want you to remember something, something very important.”

“What’s that?” he asked, trying to see around me.

I positioned myself so he couldn’t possibly see Jez as she prepared to yank the wood out of his stomach. “This is all in your mind, Corbin. You’re not
really
hurt. Nothing has
really
harmed you. Your brain just thinks you’ve been hurt, so it’s manifesting pain and all sorts of other things. All you have to do is be firm with yourself, and make your brain understand that you are just fine and dandy, physically.”

“It seems bloody real to me,” he growled. “What’s that woman doing down there? She’s not going to do what I think she’s going to do?”

“She’s going to remove the wood, but remember—the wood is just a figment of your imagination as well. Just tell yourself there will be no pain because there is no injury, and you won’t be the least bit uncomfortable.”

Jez wrapped both hands around the piece of wood and yanked it out with a quick move.

“Amy?” Corbin said, his entire body having stiffened up.

I kissed his nose. “My brave little cowpoke. You see, I knew you could get a handle on this mind-over-matter stuff.”

Tears collected on the outer corners of his eyes.

“Aaaaaaaaaargh!” he screamed, his back arching off the bed. I grabbed him by the arms and tried to hold him down as Jez muttered an apology before pouring a liberal amount of brandy on the open wound.

“Mind over matter, mind over matter,” I yelled at Corbin as he thrashed around on the bed, one long scream of pain ripping from his throat. Jez worked quickly to clean the wound out with alcohol, picking out tiny splinters of wood as I threw myself across Corbin to keep him (relatively) immobile. “You’re not really in pain! This doesn’t really hurt!”

He took a deep, shuddering breath and bellowed, “Like hell it doesn’t hurt! Tell that sadist to stop tearing me open!”

“She’s helping you, my sweet darling. She has to get all the bits out of the wound, or it’ll get infected.”

Corbin opened his mouth to scream again, but an odd look crossed his face instead. “What did you say?” he finally asked.

“I said that Jez has to pick out all the slivers of wood in the wound. She’s not trying to hurt you, Corbin; she’s helping. She’s a healer.”

“No, not about that.” He frowned, his beautiful silvery eyes dark with pain. “What you said before that.”

“Mind over matter?”

“In between. You called me darling. Your sweet darling.”

“Oh,” I said, for once at a loss for words. I wasn’t ready to look at the warm emotions that seemed to be growing inside me for Corbin. I had too many other things to take care of, too much work to be finished. “Did I?”

“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.

—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.