Seize the Fire Page 11

  There wasn't a bit of blood. She slowly realized she was unhurt, that the blow to her shoulder must have been nothing but a passing glance from a belaying pin.

  In the frozen tableau, dizziness rolled in her head. She sank down onto the steps. Her vision wavered. The sounds of shuffling came to her through a haze. With an effort of will, she swallowed terrified nausea and lifted her face.

  She found Sir Sheridan at last, leaning against a shroud with his arms crossed, watching them all with that faint derisive smile, like a fallen angel looking on at a meeting of pious saints.

  Relief poured through her. He was there; he would stop it. Sir Sheridan would fix it all.

  But he made no gallant speech or appeal to reason. Into the expectant pause, he said, "Leaving aside the irregularity of this proceeding, I presume you drunken hayseeds realize I've no interest whatsoever in commanding you?" His lip curled. "I'd sooner take a half-dozen vicars in a river dhow."

  The sailors hesitated in confusion.

  "We'd get there faster," he added dryly.

  "He don't mean that," someone yelled.

  "Don't I?" Sheridan swept the gathered crew with a jaundiced eye. "If I didn't want to reach Rome before I'm ninety, I'd hang you all on the spot. And that French bucket to starboard's been overtaking us for half the noon watch."

  Olympia dropped her gaze. It suddenly appeared silly; Sir Sheridan made it seem so, standing there with a lifetime of battle and hardship behind him, altogether unimpressed by their demands. A resentful muttering began in the back of the crowd. A few sailors glanced over toward the French ship off to starboard.

  Sir Sheridan began to whistle the "Marseillaise."

  His cool disdain reached even the captain, who perversely came to the defense of his crew. "They did well enough," he snapped, "until you fed them these radical notions and turned them from their duty."

  "Really?" Sir Sheridan shook his head sadly. "Fifty guineas says the French brig overtakes us by eight bells."

  "A hundred!" the captain roared.

  Sir Sheridan squinted toward the other ship. His mouth curled. "How could I pass up a wager like that?"

  Some sailor made a rude gesture at him, setting off catcalls and whistles. He ignored the jeers and glanced complacently up at the sails, then off again toward the French brig. The captain barked out orders. The crew set to work with a vengeance, leaving Olympia sitting alone on the steps as if there had never been a gun brandished or a grievance mentioned.

  Sir Sheridan won his bet, but not for lack of willing and cooperative effort on behalf of the crew and captain. As the two contenders thrashed along, word of a race spread among the passengers. Soon wet and cheering spectators crowded the bow, all hanging onto the rail against the spray washing over the deck and the steep heel of the ship. Even the taciturn pair of dark-eyed Jewish jewelers came up to watch, looking more miserable than interested, crushing their wide hats down over their heads and clinging to the capstan for dear life while the black skins of their coats flapped around them. By late afternoon, however, when the ship's bell struck eight times, the shouts and whistles had turned to glum silence long since.

  Sir Sheridan led Olympia into the evening gloom below. In her cabin, he lit the lamp for her. In the instant of rising glow, between shadow and illumination, she happened to glance nervously reward him. For a fragile moment, as he looked down into the glass bowl to adjust the flame, she saw weariness instead of the anger she'd expected; strain in the slight tremor he blinked from the comer of his eye.

  Without thinking, she reached toward him. Before her hand touched his sleeve he met her look with a dark smile, the illusion of fatigue vanished. "Well," he said briskly, "did you enjoy your mutiny, ma'am? Shall we put on another one soon?"

  Olympia drew back, embarrassed. She sat down on the berth and stared at her hands. "I made a muddle of it."

  "A muddle? Not at all. You were nearly shot, I was almost lynched and now we're to be put off the ship at Madeira. I think I'd call it a damned disaster." He lifted the lamp sharply. "But then, watching a lady get her head blown off always does make a fellow feel low."

  Olympia drew in a shaky breath. "I don't believe the captain would have fired at me," she said in a small voice.

  "Of course not. Which is why I made sure you were up for a target instead of me."

  Her lips parted. She frowned. "Did you expect the captain to draw his pistol?"

  He set the lamp in its brass holder. In the cramped quarters, each roll of the ship sent shadows reeling across his face. "There were weapons raised, my dear. I didn't think he was going to sing lullabies."

  "And you left me there on purpose?"

  "Somebody had to draw the poison. Better you than me."

  "But I'm—" She broke off, turning red.

  "A princess?" he suggested. "A lady? A mere dabbler in anarchy? Messy business, these rebellions. Naturally you would expect to leave the sordid details to the menfolk."

  She bit her lip. "It isn't that. I thought they would listen to you more readily."

  "No," he said gently. "I would simply have been shot more readily. I've been shot before, madam, and I found it a most unpleasant business. So I put you up front. The whole damned thing was your fault in the first place. The captain is a gentleman; I thought it doubtful he'd fire on a female, and a passenger to boot." He paused and then grinned, watching her through lowered lashes. "Fairly doubtful, anyway."

  Olympia lifted her chin. "I'm prepared to face violence in the cause of freedom."

  "Defied that fellow to his teeth, didn't you? Solid as rock."

  "I am," she cried. "I have to be!"

  He laughed, a white flash of mockery in the swaying shadows.

  "All right!" She drew a choking breath. "You may make a joke of me if you please! I'm not like you; I'm not brave. But I'm trying to learn. You may think I can't, because I'm not a man, because I've no experience of battles and guns—you may think I ought to stay in my sheltered place and sew the lace on your shirt points, but I assure you that I haven't been brought up to that! I know my duty. I wish I had been born a man like you, who's never known petty fears, but God didn't see fit to give me that advantage, and so I must educate myself in courage by practice. I failed today; I stayed silent when I should have spoken. I shouldn't have been intimidated by a mere pistol. But next time—"

  "Next time!" Sheridan said faintly. He leaned his shoulders against the door and put his hand over his face. "You're insane."

  "I'm only inexperienced," she said stubbornly. "You could teach me, if you would."

  He grimaced. "For the love of God—teach you what?"

  "How to be brave." She looked up at him with that hero worship shining in her eyes. "I saw it, the way you turned those men from what they meant to do. You didn't flinch for an instant. That's what I want to be like. The way you are."

  Sheridan glared at her. The silly dumpling—why did she insist on mooning at him as if he were God Almighty? "You don't know anything about the way I am."

  She only kept her earnest gaze upon him, her lips parted a little, her great, green, solemn eyes full of foolish adoration. He felt an odd rush, a surge of protectiveness and resentment: the disgusting twist his normal desires seemed to have taken with this ridiculous chit. He wished he could tumble her and have done with it—and dispense with this hero farce at the same time.

  No, she certainly didn't know anything about the way he was, or the dangerous state he was in—between anger and terror and lust, what with her preposterous rebellion and that bug bear excuse for a captain waving his pistol around, making Sheridan's heart alternately pound and petrify as the gun muzzle pointed toward her and wavered away. It would have been a vast inconvenience to have to explain to Palmerston and Claude Nicolas that she'd been executed for inciting a mutiny.

  He wasn't too fond of the idea himself. After three weeks of travel and covert observation, he knew every curve and swell of her delicious body, the plump shape of her cheek and the deli
cate contour of her earlobe. He had to stay well away from her if he wanted to avoid torturing himself, and he'd done so—religiously. To make it worse, he'd quickly discovered that the maid he'd hired to accompany her, especially chosen for casual character and the come-along look in her eye, was nothing but cotton stuffing and skinny limbs under her long sleeves and corset. Sheridan hated scrawny women. He supposed he'd make do, but in ten days he hadn't gotten around to it, in spite of her willingness.

  Sheridan was tired of playing hero. It was a dashed dull game.

  "Princess," he said, going soft and noble, "courage can't be taught. You know that."

  She lowered her eyes. "I thought—I hoped there might be a method. A catechism, perhaps, to repeat when one is feeling…daunted."

  He couldn't help a brief laugh at that. "Such as—'Hell's bells, my back's against the wall'?" He shifted, pushing away from the door and sitting down beside her on the berth. "That's generally what I find myself repeating."

  She sighed. "You're teasing me. But of course you've never been daunted by anything."

  He slipped his hand around hers and turned her palm upward, tracing the pads of her fingers with his thumb. She stared down at their hands. Sheridan caressed the tender skin on the inside of her wrist. She blinked up at him, biting her lower lip.

  "Princess," he murmured, looking into her eyes as he brought her hand to his mouth.

  It was so, so easy. He could see her melting; feel it in her trembling fingers. She looked at his face, all misty admiration as if he were a visitation from heaven. "Sir Sheridan, I—" She ran her tongue over her lip, a tender pink tip, an unconscious teasing. He gripped her hand harder. "Sir Sheridan, I want to tell you—today, what you did; I thought you were…magnificent. You were—"

  He stopped the sentence with his thumb pressed gently against her lips. The warm touch slid sideways across her mouth. "Don't ruin it," he murmured. "Shut up."

  "But I think you're the bravest, most valiant—"

  "Shut up," he said, and kissed her.

  He wasn't gentle. He'd intended to be, to jolly her along until she opened to him freely, but she made him angry; she made him want to crush her close until she recognized him, until she understood she wasn't kissing some bloody white-knight fantasy man.

  He slid his hands beneath her arms and made a low sound of appreciation, pressing his lips harder into hers as he realized what he was touching: no stiff whalebone corset, but female flesh beneath the fabric, real and soft, full of generous curves and dimples. He ran his fingers upward, exploring her body as his tongue explored her mouth, so intent and excited that he hardly noticed her stiffening. He spread his palm across her torso, leaning against her, pushing her down onto the berth.

  Olympia sank beneath him, shocked by his weight and strength, and the way he used them—no gallant tenderness, no delicate appeal, but a masculine body, solid and heavy and suddenly real in a way he had not been real before. She made a faint sound, striving with the unfamiliar sensation of a man's mouth wide open and tasting deeply of hers, with his dominating weight, pressing her breasts, driving the air from her lungs and spreading something warm and aching through her limbs.

  She gasped for air, meeting his tongue. His hand tightened on her waist. It slid upward and opened intimately, embracing the full shape of her breast. His thumb closed against his finger, teasing her nipple through the soft sarcenet fabric.

  Sharp sensation shot through her. Olympia writhed and broke away from his kiss, panting. She wanted to pull away from his hand, but he held her, sliding his thumb in a slow, coaxing rotation. Her body shuddered and her throat closed on soft sounds of agitation at the queer, piercing ecstasy of it.

  Sheridan felt her reaction. He smiled wickedly and kissed her again, hard, tasting sweet excitement as his fingers drew little twitches and a deep arching of her form, innocence catalyzed into untutored lust. His reason was dissolving: he wanted to take her completely. Right here. Right now. She was driving him crazy, close and yet forbidden. He wanted the storm and he wanted the peace that came after.

  She was so much smaller than he, in spite of her bountiful figure; and so soft, so soft, like a baby bird or a newborn lamb, when life in general was so deucedly full of hard edges. He left off kissing her and buried his face in the warm curve of her neck, holding her tightly in his arms.

  She pushed at him feebly. "Sir Sheridan. Please don't!"

  He ignored that; women were always saying nonsensical things while they clung to a man's neck. She wasn't exactly clinging, she was putting up a halfhearted struggle, but he trapped her hands and touched his tongue to her earlobe, tasting the light mingle of salt spray and lemon-scented soap. He'd bought that for her, provisioned her liberally in Ramsgate with all the things he thought females liked and a number he was fond of himself, such as the lemony soap and white satin gloves and boots to match, with delicate little toes and a row of pearl buttons down the side—completely useless aboard ship, but when he'd stood in the shop, thinking about unbuttoning them to reveal her tender ankles, his throat had gone dry at the image. So he'd laid out ten guineas for the set. She was a princess, after all.

  "Please," she gasped into his ear. "Please, you can't mean to do this!"

  He tilted her chin up, his own hand in sun-darkened contrast to her delicate skin. "I mean it." He could shape her fragile bones; his hand was large enough that he could spread his fingers and touch both corners of her jaw at the same time. He kissed the pink-and-cream plumpness along the edge of his open palm. "I mean it, Princess."

  "Oh…no…" Her body was trembling, moving under his with an enticing confusion of invitation and denial.

  He brushed her lips with his and smiled at her, finding her virginal foolishness to be fiercely seductive. He wasn't much of a hand at virgins—had never had one, in fact; had always claimed they were overrated and too damned expensive—but the feel of her, the flutter of her breath on his cheek, the fresh cushion of her skin beneath his lips…he felt his wits slipping, a distant sense of dismay; Palmerston and Claude Nicolas and dying young be damned. He wanted her. Before she could speak, he outlined her mouth with tiny kisses, blowing delicately between each one. "Silly…soft…beautiful…princess…"

  "Don't!" A new and desperate note came into her voice. "It is unkind, and I know you can't mean to be cruel."

  He nibbled her lower lip lightly between his teeth. She began to struggle like an imprisoned rabbit, pushing at him with her hands and knees. But he had all the advantage, and he used it. It was no trouble to catch both her hands in one of his and pin her lightly beneath him. He slid his free hand down her side and discovered that she'd succeeded in working her dress up high on her thigh. When he touched bare skin, he lost all track of the diplomatic importance of preserving the royal purity.

  She was squeaking protest while he shaped the round curve of her thigh. He kissed her again, to keep her mouth busy, and moved his hand up until his fingers found her lovely plump belly. Excitement surged through him; he spread his hand over the luscious swell.

  "You're beautiful, Princess." Against her lips, he heard his own voice, husky and intense. He frightened himself with how much he meant it. "So goddamned bloody beautiful."

  "No!" She twisted wildly, breaking his hold. Her elbow caught him a violent club on the temple as she flung herself away. He grunted, seeing stars for an instant before he blinked and focused.

  When he could look again, he found she'd curled herself into the comer of the berth, pulled down her dress and burst into tears. "How could you?" she cried. "How could you? I know I made you angry, but it's beneath you to mock me so!"

  He nursed his bruised face and stared at her.

  "I know I'm not beautiful! Why must you make a joke of it?"

  "A joke!" He rolled back onto his elbow. He touched the comer of his eye gingerly and winced at the sting, directing a dark stare at the far wall. "A joke," he muttered.

  She sniffed and gave a little sob. "I suppose you meant nothing
by it. I just never thought that you would—I mean, you are so good and kind and honorable; you've gone to so much trouble on my behalf, and after what you did today—you saved all of us from bloodshed, I know it. I see now that I botched everything." Her shoulders drooped abruptly. She looked down at her knees. "But I think if I must be punished somehow, I would rather be whipped than ridiculed—like this!"

  He glanced toward her sharply and sat up. "That," he said, "is the most precious pack of rubbish I've been privileged to hear in a lifetime." He caught her by the arms and hauled her upright in the berth. "Listen," he snapped, holding her still. "Stop sniveling and listen. Hear that?"

  She took a shuddering breath. Over the sounds of the ship and the water came the faint pitch of a human voice, a yelp and a cry, just discernible, then an instant of silence and another distant shriek.

  "Hear it?" he demanded. "If it's whipping you want, madam, toddle on deck. You can get yourself seized up and flogged along with the rest of 'em."

  Her eyes grew wide. "Dear God," she whispered.

  He released her and sat back, crossing his arms and propping one boot on the mahogany trimwork. "Go on! The captain won't really touch you; he's too much of an old woman for that. But you'll want to nurse their bleeding backs and weep on their noble necks, I imagine."

  She clasped her hands until her fingers turned white, staring toward the door. From his position slightly behind her, Sheridan could just see her chin trembling dangerously. Her bent head revealed the nape of her neck beneath the heavy twine of rusty-gold hair.

  "Don't have the stomach for it?" he asked. "And I thought you were all eagerness for violence in the name of the cause!"

  She reached up and wiped at the stream of silent tears that dripped from her chin. After a moment, she put her fist to her mouth and shook her head.

  Sheridan snorted. "I see. Only for 'next time, hmm?"