Seize the Fire (20 page)

Olympia stared at the scatter of tin and paste. She felt that the breath had been knocked from her lungs.

A trick.

She closed her eyes, trying to remember. A trick. The jewels. It had been so dark! What had he said—what had he looked like? Her heart wanted it to be true, to know that he was alive; her mind reeled at the crush of such a betrayal.

She put out her hand and felt blindly for the bed. The strength seemed to have left her knees. She sat down hard.
Bunglers,
he had said.
Bloody bunglers.

But the men in disguise—the two fake Jewish men with turbans under their flat-brimmed hats—they'd boarded the ship at Ramsgate…

They were trying to kill me!
His astonished and bewildered voice rang in her head. He'd been surprised at it, even after all of his own spine-chilling stories about the
sthaga.

And there had been two sets of attackers. One that spoke with Portuguese accents. And one that never spoke at all.
Oh, God,
he'd groaned.
Who'd have thought it?

She sat up. "They were real," she exclaimed. "Some of them were real. They had turbans."

"What if they were?" Mustafa cried. "You pushed them down and saved him"—he swiped up a handful of paste jewels—"and so! This is how he thanks you!" She put her palm to her forehead, trying to think. "But—could he have left this with you on purpose? As a—a decoy—or something of that sort? To mislead anyone who might try to steal them."

"And not tell me of it? Why? Mark me, my princess! There is some ship which leaves this harbor before dawn;
wallahi-l'azeem,
he is on it."

"He wouldn't," she said plaintively. "He wouldn't."

Mustafa made a rude noise. He held up his hand, his fingers spread wide as he ticked them off. "He left me in Stamboul. He left me in Spain at Albuera. He traded me to the pirates, the Laffite Pashas in New Orleans. He sailed without me from Rangoon. He gave me to the First Admiral of the White after the battle at Acre, but the admiral gave me back. Five times has Sheridan Pasha tricked me. He would do it, O Beloved. You may believe it. He will have an explanation, that is sure; he will make you think that night is day…but look—" He shook the front of his galabiyya. "He has taken the
teskeri,
the Sultan's safe conduct. It must have been him—why would any other thief take plain brass, as worthless as this paste to anyone who knows not what it means? Who but my pasha would lift it from my very neck? Who else knew it was there? No, this is no accident. He meant to leave, and the
teskeri
he would not go without."

"But—to steal my jewels. To become a common thief—"

Mustafa straightened indignantly. "I said nothing of that! He is no common thief."

"You're accusing him of it yourself!"

"Not some low, ignoble, common thief." Mustafa lifted his eyes to the ceiling and said reverently, "He is il-Abu Goush, my pasha, the Father of Lies, full of feints and subtle stratagems, crowned with cleverness and cunning." He looked back at Olympia. "It is we who are common, my princess. We are common fools. You should know better."

"How can you say—" She balled her fists. "I trusted him with my very life!"

"Aye. It is fortunate he only took your jewels. Now see where you have left us. In the soup."

"I can't credit it. I just can't credit it. Someone else must have stolen them."

"Of course not," Mustafa said scornfully. "Such a ruse as
this—
no one but Sheridan Pasha could design it.
Allaah akbar!
God is good. How fortunate for us that you saw through the trick before it is too late." He pressed his forehead to her ankles like an adoring dog. "What shall we do, my princess?"

"Well, I…" She bit her lip, feeling bewildered, numb to her soul. "I don't…"

"Perhaps you would wish to order your humble slave to the quays. For intelligence of this ship that the vile British devil thinks to slink away upon."

She bent her head. "I don't know. I can't believe it. I just can't…believe it…" Her voice trailed off in painful bafflement.

"I will go and carry out your praiseworthy plan, O Beloved. You are his equal in guile; you shine like the North Star in beauty."

Tears pressed at the back of her throat. "I'm a fat, stupid coward."

Mustafa cocked his head. "That which Allah creates is beautiful," he said. "You are a gazelle, my princess; your eyes are like the cool green waters of the oasis; your hair is like the morning sun; your hands and feet are as soft and gentle as the dawn wind. You are admirable in all ways, Beloved of my Wicked pasha. I go now."

After the door had closed behind him, Olympia stared at the blank wall.

Go to Fitzhugh,
he'd said, all brotherly concern.
If something should happen to me.

How noble, she'd thought. How selfless, how gallant, how brave.

What a fool she must have looked. What an idiotic, mindless, calf-eyed little fool. Her body was shaking. Never in her entire life had she felt like this. The numbness was beginning to wear off. Her mind began to function, to perceive the full extent of outrage and humiliation. She stood up, her toe encountering the dull tinkle of fake jewelry.

She reached down, swept up a bracelet of tin and paste, and bent and twisted it between her fingers until it was a shapeless, broken mass.

Who did he think he was? To beguile her, to lie to her, to steal from her and expect her to skulk away like a beaten cur in a gutter?

She would not.

She was a princess. Her ancestors had led Hannibal across the Alps; they had stood with Charlemagne when he was crowned Holy Roman Emperor; her family's blood ran in the veins of Austrian Hapsburgs and French kings and Italian popes.

Who was he? A common nobody. The descendant of some piddling baseborn English sea dog, and a bastard line at that.

Oh, yes. She would go to Captain Fitzhugh. She and Mustafa would track the vicious traitor down. They would find him.

And then…

Then she would do what the thugs had not. She would kill him with her own hands.

You are indeed an admirable woman, Miss Drake," Captain Fitzhugh said. "You have an excellent grasp of international politics."

"Thank you." Olympia refilled his cup with tea, not even splashing any under
Terrier's
ceaseless motion. After three months aboard the survey ship as she made her way across the Atlantic and slowly down the South American coast, pausing frequently to update Captain Fitzhugh's charts, Olympia was an old hand. This daily time for tea and intelligent conversation with the young captain had become a routine, a small way of repaying him for his endless consideration. He seemed to enjoy it. Indeed, he sometimes appeared to go to amazing lengths to make certain he would not miss it.

"It seems a shame that a lady of your education and talents cannot exercise them in a civilized location," he said.

"Yes," she said faintly. "Australia. I never thought…"

"Forgive me." He was quick to look chagrined. "I didn't mean it quite that way. I'm sure Port Jackson must be quite genteel. And fascinating, too, for a person of your perceptive habits."

"I'm sure it will be very interesting." Olympia kept her face down. She still could not believe she was doing this. She could not believe she was aboard the
Terrier,
bound for Cape Horn. It had been incredible enough to be on her way to Rome with Sir Sheridan, but
this
—sailing off toward the end of the earth on the word of a strange little Egyptian man she barely knew, pretending to be a person who didn't exist, trusting herself to the kindness of a stranger who helped her because he thought she was the sister of a hero…a hero who was either a foul thief or dead.

Murdered and mutilated and buried in an unmarked grave.

Captain Fitzhugh said, "You must follow your brother's instructions, of course."

"Yes." She nodded into her cup. "There is nowhere else to go."

She looked up in time to catch the frown which he hastily smoothed from his face. "It is—unfortunate—that he made no arrangements for you to return to England."

"Si—" She remembered in time to drop the 'sir.' "Sheridan always said I should go to our cousin if something—untoward—happened."

"Yes. It just seems that…I mean, forgive me, but—
Australia…"

She lowered her face again, afraid he would try to argue with her or ask her more questions to which she'd have to make up hurried answers. "I shall be quite all right."

There was a long silence. Captain Fitzhugh looked upset. It was fortunate, Olympia thought, that he didn't know her real destination might be far worse than Australia and some long-lost cousin.
Kutaradja, Acheen, Sumatra:
the names were like dreams. Like nightmares. She envisioned savage islands, hellish jungles, snakes and glaring cannibals.

But he would go there, Mustafa had said with absolute certainty. If Captain Sir Sheridan Drake—K.B., Royal Navy, pasha, former slave and erstwhile hero—had stolen a fortune in jewels, he would go to this barbaric island of Sumatra and live out his days like a rajah with some equally knavish acquaintance of his who'd already established a personal kingdom there.

It was Mustafa's idea that Sheridan had escaped Madeira aboard the convict ship that had been in harbor with
Terrier.
And indeed the ship had weighed anchor that dawn after his disappearance, bound for Botany Bay. Catch up with him in Australia, Mustafa had advised—the words of an expert on tracking Sheridan Drake. It made sense.

It made an awful sense.

She should have gone back to England.

Panic existed constantly in a ball in the pit of her stomach. It was only the disbelief, the dreamlike quality of everything, that kept the panic from blossoming into pure terror. She'd always been a coward. She knew it. She should have gone home; she could not do this; she'd never known how or what was required, not for anything. All her childish fantasies of saving her subjects from tyranny, all her dreams of a shining future had come to this—that she was going, without really knowing where or why, only moving, to escape the pain of betrayal.

She should have gone back. There were worse things than marriage to face.

But in a moment of rage and grief, shell committed herself to this course. She'd put herself and her future in the hands of a bizarre tiny slave who was as fluent with lies as with compliments. Everything had gone too far too fast during those few days after Sir Sheridan had disappeared; she'd been too furious and ashamed and distraught to think straight. Mustafa made suggestions, and she accepted them. Mustafa propounded theories, and they sounded reasonable. Mustafa told her what to do, and she did it.

And here she was.

Mustafa had stolen one of her jewels for certain, stolen it when they were all supposed to be in his safekeeping, and brought it out with considerable pride to show her how he had outwitted his master in this one small matter. The chain of perfectly matched pearls was to pay, one by one, for their passage on this wild chase across the globe. Sometimes she half thought Mustafa had stolen the rest, too, and laid the blame at his master's feet.

But to believe that was to believe that Sheridan was dead.

Captain Fitzhugh would hear nothing of payment—not for the orphaned sister of a naval colleague. But she and Mustafa could go no farther than South America with him. Mustafa said they would find another ship at Montevideo. He sounded certain. Olympia felt terrified.

"Miss Drake," Captain Fitzhugh said, "I should not…perhaps I…" He swallowed and turned red as she looked up at him. "I mean to say…we haven't known each other long, but I admire you immensely. I'm—pardon me, please, I don't wish to seem encroaching—but I'm afraid for you. I don't see how I can leave you at La Plata."

She bit her lip.
Don't leave me,
her mind cried. "That seems to be the only course," her mouth said.

"But what if you can't find a ship? You may have to wait for weeks—months—for a decent passage, alone in that vermin-ridden place. If you or I knew someone in Buenos Aires; but you've no companion beyond your maid and that odd little fellow of your brother's—neither of whom inspires much confidence, if I may be perfectly blunt." He put down his cup with a clatter and started to pace. In the cabin where Sir Sheridan had had to bend his head to avoid the beams, Captain Fitzhugh could stand quite straight as he passed. "I've been thinking on this for weeks. We'll make Montevideo in another fortnight, but—Miss Drake—I just don't think I can bring myself to abandon you."

"What," she said in a voice that barely carried over the sweep and creak of the ship, "—what do you suggest?"

He turned suddenly, unexpectedly, and dropped down onto his knees before her chair. He took her hands. "Miss Drake." He swallowed, met her eyes, looked away and met them again. "Do me the honor…"

It was a shock. She had anticipated cautions, arguments anything but this. She stared at him with her lips parting.

He grasped her hands harder, his palms moist and hot. "Do me the honor of becoming my wife, Miss Drake," he said steadily. His cheeks were burning. From the deck above came a faint shouting of orders, barely audible in the cabin. He blinked, his eyes shifting upward with an officer's instinct before he disregarded the disturbance and looked back at her. "You could stay aboard with me. You needn't go on to your cousin in Australia." He wet his lips and smiled bashfully. "It's not a lady's life, precisely, but you're an excellent sailor…I've been watching you. And as soon as we've finished this survey we'll be going back to England. Perhaps a year. Sixteen months at the most, You don't have to decide this moment; we're well out from—"

Someone knocked at the door Captain Fitzhugh scrambled up just in tune to avoid being caught on his knees by a second lieutenant who looked to be at least a decade older than he was.

"We've been hailed, sir," the lieutenant said. "Captain Webster, brig
Phaedra
out of Salem, bound for Sydney. He wishes to bespeak us, sir. Mr. Goodman asks if you care to come on deck."

Captain Fitzhugh's frown changed to consternation. His red flush went pale. "Sydney, you say?"