Seize the Fire (37 page)

"What happened, then?" Fitzhugh asked. "We've gone on thinking you were attacked and murdered by these Indian savages for revenge." He popped a bite into his mouth and gestured with his knife and fork. "On account of your betraying their foul fraternity and trying to bring them to justice, you know."

Sheridan rubbed the bridge of his nose with his forefinger, looking embarrassed. "Yes—well…that was a deuced long time ago, after all. I'm afraid it was nothing so dramatic this time. I was just decked and robbed by some ruffians set loose from the convict ship, if you want the sad truth."

"They were thugs," Olympia insisted. "They used those words you told me."

He looked at her quizzically. "Did they?"

"Yes!
Bajeed
, and
timbalo
. "

"
Tombako
, " he corrected. "
Tombako ka lo
. " He tilted his head with a faint smile and winked at Captain Fitzhugh. "I'd just been filling her head with tales of my epic past not long before it happened, you see."

Fitzhugh's ruddy face grew even brighter pink beneath his freckles. He broke into an indulgent, grin. "Indeed. I quite understand." With an affectionate glance at Olympia, he leaned over and added softly, "A natural misconstruction of events, I'm sure. No doubt you mistook their Portuguese."

"I did not," she exclaimed. "And what about the turbans?"

Sheridan smiled, breaking open a second roll. "Did they wear turbans? I didn't see that."

"I
told
you!" She was growing agitated, disturbed by the way he was distorting things.

"Yes, I remember you saying so. But it was dashed dark, my dear. You'll forgive me if I can't support the assertion with my own observation."

"Well, they had turbans, you may be sure! Under their hats."

He buttered the roll. "No doubt you're right, of course."

Olympia looked around the table at the patronizing smiles, set her jaw and applied herself to her meat pie without another word.

"You believe the attack originated with the transport brig, then?" Captain Fitzhugh said, after a pause.

"If waking up on a convict ship with empty pockets and ankle chains is any evidence. Particularly when the agent insists that I'm down on the lists as a condemned felon named Tom Nicol."

"But why?" Fitzhugh demanded. "There was no ransom asked."

Sheridan put down his fork. "No need for that. Not when God's original fool announces to a company of genteel strangers that he's going to be carrying his sister's jewels for appraisal on a specific date, at a particular time and place. Not when that company happens to include an enterprising gentleman down on his luck and working as a government agent on a convict transport."

Olympia's head came up. "Lieutenant…St…St…" She frowned. "It began with an S."

"Stacy." Sheridan stabbed at a boiled carrot with his fork. "A thoroughgoing rogue. Not to speak ill of the dead."

Oh, he's dead, is he?
Olympia thought.
How convenient
. She gave Sheridan a tart smile. "It was rather careless of you, wasn't it? To let the horrid fellow steal every jewel I owned. I'll never replace Auntie Matilda's emerald tiara."

He looked up at her, his hand arrested in the motion of helping himself to another portion of pie. "Replace it? What do you mean?"

"My jewels," she said sweetly. "I'll certainly miss them. I think I could bear it better, if only I hadn't lost every single one."

He slowly laid down his silverware, leaned forward and said in a low voice, "Tell me you're joking."

Olympia met his eyes. They were intense and utterly serious, without a trace of humor or secret rapport. With a jolt of confusion, she suddenly distrusted her interpretation of all that had gone before. "Well, I—"

"Where are they?" he asked sharply. "Did you check? They aren't with your belongings off
Phaedra?
"

She opened her mouth in helpless consternation. "No," she said. "Of course not. They never were. You had them when you were attacked in Madeira!"

He closed his eyes and sat back in his chair. "God! You mean you haven't had them since Madeira?"

She stared at him. She didn't understand. He wasn't lying—she would swear on her life that he wasn't. "No," she said slowly. "I thought you—"

The sentence hung unfinished.

"I didn't have them." He spread his hand across his eyes. "I decided to take the heliotrope only, because I wasn't going to have time to change before we left for dinner and the whole packet was too bulky to carry under evening wear."

"Yes," Captain Fitzhugh said unnecessarily. "Miss Drake showed it to us, you recall."

"I left the rest where they were." Sheridan lifted his fingers, staring at her. "And now you say they're gone?"

She nodded.

"Damn." He stood up and kicked back his chair. "Pardon me, but—" He slammed his fist on the chair rail. "Damn!"

"Most disconcerting," Captain Fitzhugh murmured uncomfortably. "Perhaps there's some mistake."

"When did you discover them missing?" Sheridan demanded.

Olympia moistened her lips. "Just after the—the attack. Mustafa looked for them, and there was nothing in the packet but paste."

He set his jaw. Then slowly one dark eyebrow rose. His hand tightened on the chair rail. "Oh, was there indeed?" He stood back. "Forgive me, gentlemen—my profoundest apologies. I shall be back in a moment."

He thrust away from the chair and strode out the door. A discomfited silence descended on the table. Olympia stared at her plate, suddenly unable to eat a bite. Beneath her confusion an awful suspicion was growing, the dreadful possibility that she had chosen the wrong interpretation of events since that horrible night—that, led by Mustafa, she'd tried and convicted an innocent man in her mind, and then been glad to see him suffer. It was so long ago, that night on the dock; it had been dark and frightening. She might have been mistaken. It was possible.

It was one thing to have forgiven Sheridan—it was another entirely to imagine she had wronged him all along.

It was so hard now to think of him as a thief and a liar after all they had survived together, and harder still to work her way through the evidence. He'd told the convicts he'd hidden the jewels, yes—but he'd been fighting for their lives. He'd also told them there weren't any jewels at all. He changed stories like a lizard shed skin, but he'd saved them from desperate danger. He'd done the right thing each step along the way, even to stranding them on a barren island—as proved by the fact that she was now safe and unharmed aboard H.M.S.
Terrier
with warm clothes and food to eat, instead of beaten and misused and murdered at the hands of Buckhorse and Cal.

The saloon door opened. Sheridan entered, with Mustafa behind. The little servant was abasing himself at every step. He shuffled around to Olympia and knelt at her side.

"
Emiriyyiti!
" He beat his forehead on her chair. "I am beneath forgiveness. I am a dog, a filthy jackal! I have told you untruths, my princess—foul lies against my pasha! I have your jewels; I have had them from the first—never were they stolen at all. And the rest, all the rest—stories and lies and twistings. It is I who have been a slave, in wretched bondage until my great and wonderful and generous pasha, may Allah bless him with strong sons and beautiful daughters, rescued me and bade me follow him if I would!" Great tears welled up and fell from his dark eyes. He clutched her hand and kissed it. "
Emiriyyiti,
I meant only good; I only wished to find him—I cannot bear to be sent away from my master! I will die! I beg you to intercede, to ask—"

"Enough," Sheridan snapped. He jerked his head, and Mustafa, with one last wet kiss on the back of her palm, scurried backward out the door, bowing as he went.

Captain Fitzhugh pursed his lips. "Strange little chap."

"Confounded thieving nuisance, plague take him." Sheridan glanced at Olympia. "Your jewels are safe in your cabin. He's had them all along. Pardon the interruption."

He picked up his silverware and resumed eating.

Sheridan lay resting on his berth with a sherry in his hand, trying to assimilate the novel sensation of being clean and well fed and to think of a brotherly excuse to spend the night in Olympia's cabin. Or for her to spend the night in his. Flare-up of an old wound, perhaps, which could only be nursed by his dearest sister, who would know just how to bring his fever down.

He grinned to himself, contemplating the emotions of the twenty-two officers and two hundred crewmen of
Terrier
.

Dream on
,
me hearties
, he thought, without a shred of remorse.

But he felt strangely vulnerable, separated from her. The familiar surroundings of a navy frigate seemed disorienting, oddly threatening—as if the peace he'd found with her on the island could be pulled away from him somehow, like a blanket from a sleeping child. He wished he could have her here with him. Just to hold onto her. Just to lie beside her and watch her and be able to touch her whenever he wanted.

She'd stuck by him at the dinner table. He wanted to kiss her for that: for not throwing wrenches in his story, for rescuing him from his foolishness. He felt a deep sinking nausea when he thought of how absurd he must have appeared to her. He hated being called a slave, he loathed it, but he'd acted bloody berserk there at the table in front of them all.

At the pit of his stomach, there was a renewed tension—an old, old anxiety: he was back in the world; things were the way they'd always been…and he didn't like it. He didn't like himself. He was going to have bad dreams again.

He reckoned he'd better post Mustafa as a chaperon for her. No telling when young Fitzhugh might lose his head. The ship wasn't long out of Buenos Aires, so pressure was light yet, but a few months on and things would look entirely different. These noble, true-hearted bastards couldn't be trusted. They went along all sincere and righteous and bottled up, and then broke down into raving lecherous lunatics when you least expected it.

As Sheridan lay frowning and thoughtful, Mustafa sat sulking on the floor, muttering to himself. When his mumbles reached a discernible level, Sheridan gave him one silent look.

Mustafa hunched his shoulders, dropped his face into his hands and began to pour out apologies in Arabic. "Forgive me, O my master! I have done my pitiful best; I have regained the jewels of our princess from where you hid them in your infinite wisdom on the island; I have followed your prudent and cunning orders; I have preserved the treasure at terrible risk to my very life!" He raised his eyes and spread his arms. "I have brought this ship, this mighty vessel of your Sultan King George, across the broad waters of the earth to your aid; I have watched over your beloved in the day and in the night; I have confounded your enemies—"

"You'd have done better to keep your miserable mouth shut," Sheridan snapped in English.

Mustafa prostrated himself. "O my pasha, whose honors are endless, who rules the great oceans, whose countenance shines with the compassion and mercy of the blessed—"

"Quite. Perhaps I'll only cut your tongue out, instead of flaying you alive."

"I did not mean to do it!" Mustafa squealed, still in his own language. "It was in the darkest moment of grief and despair, when I thought you were lost to me!"

Sheridan sat up and leaned over. He grabbed Mustafa's arm and hissed in Arabic, "O son of swine, may Allaah curse your sorry carcass; may you die alone and godless and forsaken; may your body be left to flies and black rot if ever you call me a slave again."

A soft knock came at the door. Sheridan let go. He gave Mustafa one last look that made him cringe down to the floor and cover his face.

"
Yállah!
Hurry up! See to the door." Sheridan reached for the spirit decanter.

Mustafa scrambled up and obeyed. Sheridan rose, startled to find Captain Fitzhugh waiting in the corridor.

"Forgive me for disturbing you," the younger man said. "I hoped I might have a private word. I thought of waiting, but it's rather—" He paused, taking a breath. "Are you occupied presently?"

"At your service." Sheridan set down his glass and started toward the door, ducking to avoid a deck beam.

"No, no—you're comfortable here. No need to go elsewhere. I'll stand."

Sheridan glanced at him in mild surprise. It wasn't exactly common naval practice for the captain to do anyone the honor of calling in person, or to conduct business outside the spacious confines of his cabin and the poop deck. Sheridan's quarters, two decks down and crammed next to the surgery, where the sixth lieutenant he'd displaced was sharing with the chaplain, made a strange choice for an interview with the commanding officer.

Mustafa took his chance to escape and slipped out behind Fitzhugh. The door shut. Sheridan stood back to allow Fitzhugh room, grasping the decanter. "Will you take some of your own excellent sherry?" he asked politely.

"Yes, I—that does sound—salutary!" Fitzhugh's face was pink as he shifted, edging himself into a stable position in the tiny space.

Sheridan poured him a glass and leaned against the berth, trying to create some room without actually sitting down, which seemed a little too casual a move with a fellow officer and the man who'd rescued them—even if he was a damned apple-cheeked infant.

After a moment of quick calculation for the day of the week, Sheridan lifted his drink in the navy's traditional Thursday toast. "Bloody war and quick promotion." Then, not seeing how he could be asked to do anything inconvenient or unhealthy—not in the near future, at least—he added, "Look here, I hope you know there aren't words enough to thank you for what you've done for us. Any way I can oblige you, you've got my best at your service."

Fitzhugh waved his hand and shook his head. "It's nothing. Nothing. How could I have done otherwise, knowing Miss Drake was…and you, of course…countrymen in need, and all that." He bit his lip, turning redder. "Well, it was only a trifling digression to stop here. Practically on the way."

"Thank you for it. I hope we won't be a burden to you, toting us half across the globe."