The Devil's Fire (7 page)

A sudden sting in her chest prevented her from admiring the beauty for long. She inhaled sharply and felt a stab of pain in her lungs. She took another involuntary breath, this one sweeping fire through her veins. And then her eyes flashed forward and her muscles tightened. The noises of the main deck exploded in her ears.

She was back at the mainmast.

Her peripheral vision caught the glint of something shiny. She tilted her head and saw the black-haired captain approaching with a gleaming cutlass in hand. She instantly recognized the weapon as the cutlass she had brandished against him. How appropriate that he would now kill her with it.

She closed her eyes and forged an image of Thomas in her mind. She thought of him on their wedding day, kissing her as they took their vows. She felt the texture of his lips on hers. She had opened her eyes just a tad to see if his were closed. His were open as well, thin slits, stealing a glimpse. She chuckled, puffing air into his mouth.

Death did not follow.

The ropes slithered apart, severed by the cutlass, and she fell onto her hands. The captain was silhouetted before the sun, features shadowed. Standing beside him was an obese man whose face was also indistinguishable. The captain nodded to the man. "Take her to my cabin and clean her up. Check her scalp and make certain there's no infection."

The stout man grunted a reply and bent down to help her to her feet. By the time she was up, the captain was gone. She eschewed the wandering eyes of pirates as the large man helped her toward the cabin, and focused instead on russet planking beneath her bare feet. Relief washed over her as she was ushered inside the darkened sanctuary, removed from their view.

"Douglas Thatcher," said the large man as he closed the door of the cabin. "Ship's surgeon." He moved past her, not making eye contact. His features slowly came into view as her eyes adapted to the dim light. "Sit on the bed."

"I'd rather not," she announced stubbornly, and was taken aback by the rasp of her voice.

"I'm sorry?" said Thatcher as he lifted a bucket of water off of the floor.

"Well, that's the captain's bed, isn't it?"

"So?"

"So I'd rather not."

Thatcher brought the bucket over to her. "Sit on the floor then, though I should point out that it also belongs to Captain Griffith. As does the mast you’ve been tied to all this time."

"Griffith?"

"You haven't been formally introduced, I take it."

"What's his first name?" she asked offhandedly.

"You might ask him," Thatcher replied. "Now have a seat on the floor, if the bed won’t do."

She sat on the floor and the surgeon knelt beside her. He parted her hair and ran a chubby finger over the seam. He mumbled something under his breath and frowned.

"What's wrong?" she said. "Is it infected?"

"No infection. You're fine." He seemed perplexed. He drew a sponge from the bucket and started for her arms, then hesitated.

"I can do it," she said. She snatched the sponge away and squeezed the fluid onto a filthy arm. She scrubbed vigorously. She caught a whiff of the pungent liquid that saturated the sponge and recoiled with a frown. "What is this?"

Thatcher stood. "It's not water, if that's what you mean."

"Rum?"

"Cleans as well as anything," he shrugged.

"Barbarians," she whispered. She scrubbed her chest, shivering as rum streamed down to her stomach.

"Well, I’ll leave you to it," Thatcher muttered, clapping his chubby hands.

"I could use some clothes. I'm sure your lot has stolen many lovely garments."

Thatcher’s discomfiture evaporated as he spun on his heels and proclaimed, "I have stolen nothing, madam! Do not include me in such activities!"

"You are a pirate, are you not?" she replied, hoping her smirk made it obvious that the question was rhetorical.

"Are you a pirate?" he countered.

"Don't be daft!"

"What are you then?"

She started to say, "A wife!" but realized that was no longer true. The implication of the question overwhelmed her. The one person that had made her important was dead. There would be no more tea parties masquerading as a woman born into wealth, no more servants to attend to her every whim, no more freedom of will. Thomas had made her someone, and now all of that was gone.

"If you’re not a pirate, what are you?" she exploded in frustration, her voice breaking.

"A surgeon," he replied with not the slightest hesitation.

Infuriated by his calm temperament, she aimed an accusing finger at him. "You sympathize with pirates therefore I deduce that you, sir, are a pirate!"

He chuckled slightly. It was a sad, sardonic sound. "Is that what I am?" She wasn't sure if he had directed the question at her or himself.

When she was finished cleaning her chest, the sponge was brown with dirt. She tossed it away. "This won't do. I require a proper bath."

"Oh really? In front of a hundred pirates?"

She scoffed. "Surely you have a private bath on this ship."

"If only," he exclaimed with an extravagant roll of his eyes that was decidedly feminine.

She shook her head in disgust. "I shouldn't be surprised. I shouldn't be surprised by anything anymore."

Thatcher nodded his agreement.

"If you're not a pirate, as you claim, how did you come to be on a pirate ship?"

"Right," he said abruptly, clapping his hands again. "You can take care of the rest, then?"

"Answer my question." She studied him narrowly. "You certainly don't resemble the others. Not physically, anyway."

"Why thank you, I think."

"Perhaps one day you'll feel inclined to share your story with me."

"Should we live that long," he quipped with a sad smile. He gave a curt nod and took his leave.

Katherine plucked the sponge from the floor and dipped it into the bucket. She hiked up her tattered skirt and scrubbed her legs until they were white again. She scrubbed her face as well, which drew the most dirt into the sponge, along with some crusty peels of skin. She had to rinse the sponge several times before it stopped coming away with dirt on it. When she finished, she wasn't quite spotless, but she was a good deal cleaner than when she had begun. However, she stank of rum.

She stood and wandered about the cabin, reacquainting herself. Her sore legs were unaccustomed to walking. She felt as though she had never used them, and they wobbled like thin planks of wood. She spent a few minutes steadying herself.

She caught her distorted reflection in a bottle of wine in the captain's liquor cabinet and was shocked at the redness of the face that stared back. She tried to adjust her hair, but it was an unsalvageable thick and greasy mess.

She walked to the painting of the brigantine on the wall behind the captain's desk. There were two hooks beneath it where the cutlasses had been. She doubted he would leave anything even remotely sharp within her immediate vicinity after what she had done to him. She also doubted that she would have the strength to try anything so rash a second time. It had nearly killed her the first time. If she failed at a second attempt, the captain would finish the job for certain.

She would have to bide her time. She wondered how long she could hold out. It seemed to her that time was a treacherous entity on this ship. There were too many deadly hazards, some of which she had already experienced firsthand and barely survived. How long before her luck ran out?

She was certain of only one thing: her crying was done. She had shed enough tears to cleanse the deck of the blood she had spilled during her incarceration at the mainmast.

She stretched, her entire body shuddering, and she realized the great fatigue that gripped her muscles. She didn't want to think anymore. She'd had five days to do nothing but think and she was sick of it. Her mind was as drained as her body.

The captain's bed on the far side of the room was extremely inviting. She found herself drifting toward it in a daze.
I'll just have a closer look at it
, she told herself.
It's quite nice. Soft blankets. Maybe just a touch. Very soft indeed. Silk, in fact. And the pillows . . . so very soft. Mmm. I could die in them.

She was plunging into the soft blankets and pillows before she knew what was happening. She stretched out gloriously in the warm sheets and rolled over. Her eyelids were too heavy to hold open any longer.

As Katherine rapidly drifted out of consciousness, she dimly recollected that, for some reason or another, she had meant to steer clear of the bed. For the life of her she couldn't remember why she would wish to deny herself something so comfortable.

Griffith's excuses for avoiding his cabin were wearing as thin as the purple hue on the western horizon. He rarely ventured outdoors after dusk, especially on cold Atlantic nights, and this was a particularly frigid night. A canvas of bright stars speckled a black and cloudless sky. The crew had grown quiet, perhaps as a result of their captain's presence, and the ship glided through gently rippled waters. A light swishing, quiet yet constant, mingled with the soft creaking of wood and the intermittent sweeping of sails.

Harbinger
was slowly descending the East Coast of North America. She would hug the coast until she reached Florida, at which point she would break for the Bahamas.

At midday Griffith calculated the latitude with a quadrant. Afterward he spent a fair portion of the day studying navigational charts that he had obtained from various merchant vessels over the years. The charts were elegant works of art to behold, but Griffith was too often frustrated by their geographical imprecision. More often than not the curves of the coast differed drastically from what the charts presented. He often became so discouraged that he would rip a chart to shreds and throw the pieces into the ocean. Due to this crude process of elimination, only the most accurate remained.

After finishing with the charts, Griffith happened upon the ship's cooper. The man reiterated what Griffith already knew; the water supply was exhausted and food was dwindling. Over the past several months the barrels of provisions that had once filled much of the lower decks had gradually decreased, while booty had increased. All of the pigs and cows had been eaten and only one goat remained to provide milk. The majority of the chickens and geese had been stricken with a malady that swiftly claimed their lives. The cooper suspected that several ailing crewmen had been infected with this disease. Thus far, fourteen had taken ill. Griffith and Livingston convinced them to keep from their duties until they recovered. One man had died the day before
Harbinger
intercepted
Lady Katherine
.

After speaking with the cooper, Griffith went below decks to check on the ailing men, only to find that their conditions had worsened. If the malady didn't kill them, the lack of water and food surely would.

The problem, he grimly concluded, would work itself out naturally. He didn't like having to think this way, but years of seafaring had given him little choice. Losing crewmen to various illnesses was as natural to him as the boundless waves that the ship crested each day.

Griffith ascended from the clammy depths of the lower decks and joined the healthier members of his crew above. They were presently living off of dried meat, hardtack, and eggs from the few hens that had maintained their health. He trusted that his crew would survive the journey to the West Indies. This wasn't the first time they had found themselves absent water, and it gave them a worthy excuse to glug spirits all the more recklessly.

However, Griffith was growing weary of stale biscuits and tough jerky. He would have given anything for the tender meat of a Caribbean turtle or a stout mug of ale. He didn’t particularly care for the dryness of white meat, but even a hearty breast of chicken would suffice right about now.

It was twilight by the time Griffith found Livingston fastening a cannon that had come loose on one end. It was not unlike the quartermaster to attend to lesser duties on his own, to make certain they were done proper. Griffith informed him of the ship's pressing need for provisions. Livingston indicated that he would pass the information to the crew on the morrow.

Griffith took his leave and wondered what more he might find to do. It had been a productive day. The work had kept his mind off of Katherine Lindsay. She had tried to kill him, nearly succeeding where the most dangerous of men had failed. For the first time in his life, Griffith was afraid. Of all the dangers in the ocean, he was afraid of a girl.

Before releasing her from the mainmast, he had removed all potential weapons from his cabin, leaving nothing for her to wield against him, though he seriously doubted she would have any strength left to try anything. And there was still a chance that she would die of her injuries.

So why was he apprehensive?

The silence of the crew,
he realized. It was unnerving. Was his fear plain for all of them to see? How well did he conceal it? How long could he stay out here in the cold, with their eyes fixed on him? Perhaps Livingston was right. Perhaps he should have killed her. Perhaps he should have saved himself the trouble and just left her at the mainmast to die.

The very thought twisted his stomach in knots. He would have left a man to such a fate without a moment’s hesitation or subsequent regret, and he had done so many times before, for lesser crimes than Katherine Lindsay’s attempt on his life. Why was this so difficult?

He realized, suddenly, that he had never taken the life of a woman. This should have been obvious, but it was something he hadn’t been required to consider until now. Men went to sea knowing the dangers inherent, and left their women on land where they belonged, sparing them a plethora of dangers. If a man died at sea, Griffith saw no tragedy in it, for he knew the risks when he set out.

A woman did not belong out here.

It was Thomas Lindsay who brought her to sea,
he reminded himself.
The fool should never have taken his wife to sea in the first place. The blame is his, and it died with him. All that remains is the frightened, wounded creature in your cabin.