Chapter 20
Agony roared through Percy’s head as he slowly came awake. He was dimly aware of movement and voices around him, but he could scarcely focus through the pain.
Someone touched him gently before a sharp pinch jabbed him in the arm. He groaned.
“Nae much longer now,” a voice said soothingly. “We’re almost done ’ere.”
Percy knew that voice, but the fuzziness in his mind prevented him from identifying it.
“Ye’ve lost a lot o’ blood, Percival,” the voice said again.
“I want ’im alive long enough fer ’im t’ see the results of ’is insolence.” This voice he knew: Butcher.
Percy’s blood turned to ice in his veins.
“As y’ wish, Butcher.”
Something tugged on the bullet wound on his arm, and in a moment of clarity, he realized where he was: the surgeon’s room. Duncan was stitching him up, surely. But why go to the bother of healing him when Butcher was sure to kill him anyway?
To torture you, his mind whispered.
Clearly, Butcher had reclaimed his ship and his crew. Percy was but a prisoner. Fuck. He’d lost. He’d lost sodding everything. Hell, even Heather’s plants were forfeit, likely already tossed into the sea.
An ache settled deep in his chest. Heather.
There’d been a moment, lying abed with her in his arms, when he’d thought that maybe they could be more than paramours, that she could be his in truth.
For his feelings wouldn’t be shaken, no matter how many times he’d told himself that it couldn’t work due to his past… his blood.
But look at what had happened: his life of piracy had come back to haunt him, and she had paid the price alongside him.
For if Butcher hadn’t stopped them, Percy would have been able to get Heather safely away from the earl’s men.
Now she was trapped with a man from whom she’d stolen incriminating evidence. Fuck knew what the man would do to her…
Percy’s heart squeezed painfully. He’d been charged with her protection, and he’d once again failed. He’d not even had the cods to confess his feelings for her…
A cavernous void of emotion opened behind his sternum and began to spread, the numbness both calming his pulse and bringing a biting sting to the backs of his eyes.
“Ah,” Butcher drawled. “Ye’re awake.”
Percy squinted his eyes open to see the man who’d raised him, his blazing gaze belying his gratified grin.
“So glad tha’ ye’re able t’ ’ear this,” the man continued. “We’re approaching yer whore’s ship even now.” He laughed, the sound grating along Percy’s nerves. “Aye, ye’ll get t’ see me kill ’er afore I keelhaul ye.”
The earl wheezed a laugh, and Heather blinked in an attempt to see him through the tears blurring her vision.
He sneered. “I will, of course, graciously take you back once you’ve handed over the stolen documents—you thieving whore—and you will have no other recourse but to accept. We shall be married directly upon our arrival to my uncle’s estate, and I shall be lauded a hero.”
Heather’s gut twisted with fear, all while said documents burned a proverbial hole in the cuff of her left boot. “You can’t!”
“Indeed I can.” He rose from his seat, the chair scraping along the wooden planks of the deck.
“But first, I must make certain that you are not carrying that pirate’s bastard.
You shall be examined by the ship’s surgeon, and if he deems it necessary, we will await your courses before dropping anchor. ”
The air veritably froze in her lungs. Examine. Surely he didn’t mean to have the surgeon look down there. But the triumphant gleam in the earl’s eyes told her differently.
“Wait here, Calluna,” he instructed. “The surgeon is occupied in the sick bay at the moment. I shall retrieve you shortly. It is almost time for evening tea.”
With that, he retrieved his lantern and strode from the room, closing the door with a damning click.
Hot fury chased away the fear lingering in her heart. This was not the way it would be. She would not allow the man to order an examination of her body. It was not to be borne!
She must escape somehow. Jumping from the ship was an ill plan, but perhaps she could convince someone to lower a rowing boat to the water. She would need to steal a satchel with foodstuffs, and…she must somehow incapacitate the earl and his men.
A plan began to form in her mind as she bit and tugged at the knotted rope at her wrists.
Her pulse sped as she considered her options.
It was a terrifying risk, but it would be worth it if she could be free of the earl.
While she intended to use embarrassment and fear to dissuade him from seeking her hand in marriage, there was naught she could do to deter his pursuit of her while she was in possession of his incriminating documents.
The knot came loose at last, and she slid her wrists free, then went to work on the knot at her ankles.
The wardroom was nearly dark as pitch, but once she was free, she found her way into one of the officers’ cabins and felt for a hanging lantern.
It bumped against her palm, and she hastily pulled it down.
Flint and steel were slightly more challenging to locate, but she found them in a nearby metal box.
Her arms laden with the required items, she returned to the wardroom’s table.
She set the lantern down and, with trembling fingers, set to lighting it.
The flint and steel sparked several times, the sudden crack…
crack…crack echoing off the cabin doors.
Perspiration broke out across her brow, and she worried her bottom lip as the minutes passed.
I’m running out of time! At last, the steel struck the flint just so, and the spark landed upon the lantern’s oil-dampened wick, lighting it with a bright little flame.
The sight made her heart stutter, and she hesitated, her gaze flicking toward the wardroom’s door and back. The earl had no doubt posted a guard outside the door to ensure her compliance. This was her way out of the room. She must continue.
Without another moment’s hesitation, she stepped back, squeezed her eyes tightly shut, and smashed the lantern upon the table.
Crash!
Lantern oil splashed the tabletop and splattered the surrounding chairs and floor, taking the fire with it. Heat and a blast of light instantly filled the room, and for a moment, her heart tripped with terror. But she tamped it down, backing away until her back pressed against the cabin doors.
Body poised, she inhaled deeply and let out an ear-splitting scream. “Fire!”
The door slammed behind Butcher, leaving Percy alone with Duncan, and Percy struggled to swallow his emotions down. Butcher had Heather in his sights. And if given even one opportunity to attack…or kill, he would take it. Percy couldn’t allow that to happen.
Tingles of fear raced down his legs as impatience swelled in his chest. “How much longer?”
Duncan tutted. “Nae long now.” He glanced at the closed door and continued in an undertone, “Most crew members still support ye, Percival. Butcher has nae many loyal men aboard, but those few ’ave a watchful eye on goings-on.”
“Thank you, Duncan.”
The surgeon gave a short nod and knotted a bandage around his upper left arm, his shirt having been torn away under the man’s care. Percy sat up and blinked away a wave of dizziness.
“Y’ just tell yer Heather tha’ she made a friend.
” He patted Percy’s arm. “Ach, but ye’ll need a weapon.
” Turning, he searched some crates and withdrew a French cutlass, sharp along one end of the blade and pointed to a glinting tip.
“Now, I advise ye t’ get rest, lest ye pop a stitch or faint from blood loss.
But I expect ye cannae do tha’. There are guards posted outside me door, aye. Get th’ Butcher, Percival.”
Mystified and overwhelmed by Duncan’s sheer faith in him, Percy mumbled his gratitude and dropped to his feet from the surgeon’s table. Pain lanced through his head and jolted through his arm, and he gritted his teeth.
It was time to stop this.
Cutlass at the ready, he swung the door wide and emerged.
The man to his right startled and lifted his arm to aim a blunderbuss at him.
But Percy struck first. With deadly precision, Percy sliced and jabbed, felling the man to the aft platform floor with a guttural groan, his blood pooling around him.
There was a shift of fabric, and Percy turned to face the other man.
The man raised his hands. “’E was loyal to Butcher, Cap’n, but I ain’t. Butcher killed many o’ us o’er the years, and I ain’t glad ’e’s back.”
Percy couldn’t afford to have a man stab him from behind, but Duncan had said that many were still loyal to him. So he’d have to trust the man.
With a nod, he slipped to the companionway and silently ascended.