Sea Fire (21 page)

T
he sound of the shot reverbrated through the tiny cabin; its force knocked Cathy backward. Her eyes flew open as she half-fell, and the smoking pistol dropped from her suddenly nerveless fingers. The acrid smell of gunpowder seemed to sear her nostrils.

To her horror she saw that Jon was staggering, his hand clapped to a spot just below his left shoulder. Bright red blood welled beneath his long brown fingers; crimson droplets were spattered on the dark pelt covering his chest. The stunned look on his face would have been almost comical under any other circumstances.

“Damn it, you shot me!” he muttered, his gray eyes lifting from his shocked contemplation of his wound to fix disbelievingly on Cathy’s equally shocked face.

“I told you I would!” she cried accusingly, hurrying toward him. When she stood directly in front of his tall, naked body she stopped, hovering helplessly. In truth, she did not know quite what to do.

“Does it hurt?” she asked inanely. Jon flashed her an irritated look.

“Hell, yes, it
hurts! What did you expect?” he growled, gingerly moving his injured shoulder. Cathy saw his face grow very pale beneath its tan.

“You’d better lie down,” she exclaimed, thinking that his long body seemed to sway. “You look like you’re going to pass out.”

“Thanks to you, I probably will,” he gritted. He tried to shake her off when Cathy eased an arm around his waist, but she hung on tenaciously. His weight was just beginning to rest against her when a knock sounded at the door. Immediately Jon’s good hand came out to squeeze her shoulder hard. Cathy was horrified to see the gaping, oozing hole she had made in his shoulder.

“Just keep that too-quick tongue of yours still, will you?” he ordered softly, then raising his voice, called ungraciously, “What is it?”

“You okay in there, Captain?” O’Reilly’s voice boomed. “We heard a shot.”

“I was cleaning my pistols and one of them discharged. What were you expecting, an insurrection?” Jon shot Cathy a hard, warning look when she made a move as if to demur.

“Shouldn’t we send for a doctor?” she whispered, her eyes fixed on the blood that was running freely from the wound in his shoulder. Bright crimson streaked his chest and belly and even his bare, muscular thighs. Cathy was beginning to be very much afraid that she had done him a serious injury.

“No,” he answered fiercely. “Now shut up.”

Cathy stiffened at his rudeness, but did as he said. From beyond the door, O’Reilly’s voice came again.

“Just checking, Captain. Enjoy yourself.” The chuckle in these last two words turned them into a bawdy comment. Cathy was too concerned about Jon’s injuries to take offense. When she heard O’Reilly’s footsteps move away, she turned on him angrily.

“Why didn’t you tell him what happened? You need a doctor!”

“To begin with,
there’s not a doctor on board. And even if there were, I wouldn’t call him. Good God, you still don’t have a clue about the situation on deck, do you? The men out there are convicts, all of them. Some of them would slit my throat, and yours, for no other reason than they’re here! What do you suppose would happen to you, to say nothing of me, if those men were to find out that I’d been shot? They’d close in like a pack of wolves, that’s what. And I don’t think you’d enjoy their idea of a good time. Although I could be mistaken. I have been before.” Jon flashed her a sardonic look. It left Cathy in no doubt as to his meaning.

“You’re hateful!” she hissed. “I’m glad I shot you! You deserved it!”

She glared fiercely at him. He glared back just as angrily, and then he closed his eyes, his face whitening even more.

“I think—I’d better—sit down,” he muttered, and Cathy could feel his hard body sagging against her side. Immediately her arm tightened around him, and she supported him as best she could over the few paces to the bunk. He was too heavy for her to be of much help, but at least, she thought, she was there to catch him if he should fall. As he sank down in a sitting position on the hard mattress, Cathy felt like a murderess. She hadn’t really meant to shoot him, God knows, just take his arrogant self down a peg or two. Deep in the recesses of her brain had lurked a vague but pleasurable picture of him down on his knees before her, begging her to spare his life. Knowing Jon as she did, she’d known from the first that she couldn’t hope for that, but still, she hadn’t expected him to laugh, and reach for the gun. . . .

“Shouldn’t you lie down?” she asked, concerned, as he continued to sit slumped on the edge of the bunk.

“If I lie down, I’ll never get up,” he said abruptly, his eyes closed. “Do something for me: look at my back and tell me if there’s an exit wound. You know, a hole like the one you made in my front.”

“I know what
an exit wound is,” Cathy answered with haughty dignity. If he wasn’t so very obviously in pain, she thought, she would have left him to his own devices. Then, as she was about to do as he had directed, a thought occurred to her.

“What happens if there’s not an exit wound?” she asked suspiciously. Jon cast her a darkling look.

“Then that means the ball’s still in my shoulder, and you’ll have to get it out,” he gritted. “God, did you always talk this much? Get on with it!”

Cathy ground her teeth, but said nothing further. Instead, she looked at his back. To her profound relief, there was another oozing hole piercing his shoulder blade; the broad planes of his back were transversed by flowing crimson rivers.

“There’s an exit wound,” Cathy gulped. Jon let out his breath in a sigh of relief. Cathy continued: “You—you’re bleeding pretty badly. I—I’ll get something to bind you up. I don’t suppose there’s anything like bandages on board?”

“Tear up a sheet,” Jon answered. “But before you do, look in that box under the bunk. There’s a bottle of whiskey: hand it to me.”

Cathy got down on her knees, feeling under the bunk. Sure enough, there was a box, and as she dragged it out she saw that it contained, among other miscellaneous items, a three-quarters full bottle of whiskey. Without a word, she handed it to Jon. He took it with a grunt, and proceeded to pull out the cork with his teeth and down fully a third of the contents in a series of gulps.

Biting back a comment about the evils of strong drink, Cathy took the top sheet from where it was crumpled at the foot of the bunk. She stood looking at it rather doubtfully. As far as she knew, it was the only one available: the
Cristobel
did not boast a surfeit of bed linen. But although it had been washed several times since she had come on board, the sheet could hardly be termed sanitary.

“Isn’t
there anything else I can use for bandages? This isn’t very clean.”

“Well, it will have to do,” Jon answered shortly. “I’m bleeding like a stuck pig. Can’t you hurry up?”

“Listen, you ungrateful oaf, it would serve you right if I let you bleed to death!” Cathy was so annoyed that she tore the sheet straight across with one vicious jerk. Quickly she ripped the halves into manageable strips, and dropped to her knees before him.

“Wait a minute,” he said when she would have pressed a cloth pad to the sluggishly bleeding wound. “First use this.” He passed her the bottle of whiskey. “For disinfectant,” he explained.

Cathy took it rather gingerly. She had heard of whiskey being used in that way, of course, but she had never actually seen it done, and she had certainly never done it. Jon maneuvered himself so that his back was to her, the black hole with its trailing crimson aureole uppermost. Cathy stared at it for a moment, feeling faintly sick. It looked awful. . . . Then, resolutely catching her lower lip between her teeth, she tilted the whiskey over it.

Jon gasped as the golden liquid poured over the wound; what she could see of his face turned as white as paper.

“Soak a pad in it and press it to the wound,” he directed through gritted teeth. Cathy’s hands were shaking, but she did as he told her. Then, while she held the wet pad in place, he moved again so that she had access to the front side of the wound. As she poured the whiskey over him this time, Jon made not a sound, but sweat beaded tellingly on his upper lip and forehead. His skin was so pale. . . . Cathy moaned herself as she soaked another pad and pressed it to the crusting hole.

“What are you whimpering about? You’re not hurt.” Jon’s sarcasm sounded so nearly normal that Cathy felt a quiver of relief. His gray eyes opened and she met them, her own contrite.

“I’m
sorry I shot you,” she said low. “I never would have done it if you hadn’t laughed.”

Jon grimaced, then a faint smile tilted up the corners of his lips.

“I know,” he admitted. “Don’t feel too bad about it. You haven’t killed me.”

“I’m glad,” Cathy whispered, surprising herself as much as him. The way she had felt about him lately, she should have enjoyed seeing him suffer, wanted to see him dead. But if he died, the thought occurred to her, what would become of her? She would be left entirely at the mercy of men that Jon himself was wary of. So she convinced herself that this, and this alone, was responsible for her nearly overpowering feeling of remorse, and set about binding his wound. Jon, for his part, cast her a sharp look. For some little while nothing more was said.

He sat in a half-reclining position while Cathy dressed the wound, his black head resting against the paneled wall of the cabin, his long bare legs stretched their length across the floor. His face was still very pale, making the stubble on his jaw and chin seem almost blue-black in comparison. He usually went three or four days without shaving—probably, Cathy guessed, because he knew she liked it better when he was clean-shaven, and hoped to annoy her. His mouth was set hard against the pain, and his eyes were closed. Blood was matted in the dark hair on his chest and belly. When she had secured the bandage Cathy began to gently sponge it away with a wet cloth. He said nothing, submitting docilely to her ministrations.

For just a minute after she had finished and sat back on her heels, he stayed as he was, unmoving. Against her will, Cathy’s eyes ran the length of that long, naked body. Injured or not, he looked formidable; Cathy realized that, had she been a man, she would now be in quaking fear for her life. Broad of shoulder and wide of chest, with a tautly muscled belly and long,
powerful-looking legs, there was no doubting his strength. And when he was in a black rage. . . . Cathy shivered. She was suddenly very glad that she was not a man.

Jon’s eyes opened, and as they met her own Cathy saw with a sense of inevitability that they were as hard as the rock they resembled.

“Help me get dressed,” he directed tersely, easing into a sitting position. Cathy gaped at him.

“You can’t be serious,” she said.

“I’ve never been more serious in my life. Now get me my breeches.” From his voice there was no doubting that he meant what he said. Cathy stared at him for a moment, helplessly. His eyes were closed again, and she knew that he must be suffering a great deal of pain. As she watched him, frowning with concern, his eyes flashed open and seemed to bore down into hers.

“Go on, get me my breeches,” he said impatiently. “If I stay in here much longer, the men will know for damn certain that something fishy’s going on. I’ve had time to hump you fifty times over.”

Cathy felt her cheeks crimson at his crudity. So that was how he thought of their lovemaking! She flashed him an angry look, then got to her feet and went to retrieve his breeches from the floor by the stove, where he had carelessly discarded them the night before.

“Bring my shirt, too, while you’re about it,” he directed. Cathy picked up that coarsely woven linen garment, one that Jon had clearly managed to acquire since taking over the
Cristobel
, and his boots. Then she carried her load back across to him.

“Breeches first,” he directed. Cathy knelt at his feet, her lips compressed. She looked up to find him regarding her ironically.

“Jon. . . .” she began, only to be silenced by an impatient wave of his hand.

“For God’s
sake, don’t argue,” he snapped. “Accept the fact that I know what I’m doing. And you can stand up. I didn’t mean for you to dress me like some puling infant.”

“If you’re determined to get dressed,” Cathy replied coldly, “I’ll help you. Now, would you mind lifting your feet a little?”

Jon flashed her a sardonic look, which Cathy ignored, then obediently lifted his feet. Cathy slid his breeches over them until his feet came out the end of the pant legs. Then she pulled the garment up over his knees to his thighs, where she was stopped by the fact that he was sitting very firmly on his hard-muscled bottom.

“You’ll have to lift yourself up,” she said, annoyed as she realized that his mouth was twitching. Then, as her hands came in contact with the black material of his breeches once more, she added disgustedly, “These breeches are filthy. Don’t you have any clean ones?”

“No, Lady Stanhope, I don’t,” he replied, the humorous twitch vanishing as if it had never been. “Unlike you, I didn’t come on a pleasure voyage. I was a prisoner sentenced to transportation, as you may recall. I was lucky to be allowed to keep the clothes on my back. Since then, I’ve managed to acquire a few shirts, ill-fitting though they may be, but breeches that are a reasonable size have been beyond me.”

“Well, these need to be washed,” she told him shortly, pulling the breeches up over his hips and beginning to button them. Her hands brushed the hardness of his belly, were tickled by the soft mat of hair that curled around his navel. The sensation was pleasurable. Cathy frowned irritably as she tried to dismiss it.

“Maybe you could get Sarita to do it for you,” she added, her tone waspish.

“Maybe I could,” he answered equably. Cathy fastened his last button with a twitch of her sharp-nailed fingers that made him wince.

Cathy stood up when
this was done, undecided.

“Boots,” Jon said. Cathy frowned at him, but turned to pick up his boots. They were high-topped leather ones, meant to shine softly but now scuffed with hard use and stained with sea water. And they were devilishly hard to put on. Cathy struggled over them for fully five minutes, her face flushed with effort, curses hovering on the tip of her tongue. That she didn’t utter them was due entirely to the fact that she was born and bred a lady—and besides, Jon would have roared with laughter, and she had no wish to afford him any amusement.