“But the surgeon says that there is naught which can be done fer young Robin that he is not doing already! The lad must fight the poison with the strength of youth and, lass, ye’ve just opened yer eyes after a fair injury and bout with the devil of yer own! Ye haven’t the strength.”
“I must see him. I will do so with or without your help,” Brianna said softly but firmly.
Paddy muttered under his breath, certain that Sloan wouldn’t approve one bit. But the captain was closeted in the hull with Lord Darton. The military man was telling him of the latest developments in London regarding the coveted crown and the mood of the people.
“All right, lass. We’ll go see Robin, and then ye’ll come back here with me like a little lamb and take yer own rest again.”
“Agreed, Paddy,” Brianna said, but then, strangely, she hung back.
“What is it, girl?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “Nothing. I am ready. I was just thinking that—that surely the men must despise me.”
Paddy stared at her in surprise, and then shook his head as he gripped her arm to escort her. “Nay, lass. There’s none who despise ye! Those lads are crowing like a pack of roosters with their victory! ’Tis nothing they enjoy so much as routing the likes o’ that black-hearted murderer!”
Brianna didn’t quite believe him, but she said no more as he led her through the ship.
He brought her to a section of theSea Hawkwhere she had never been before, a deck below the galley and the guns but above the cargo hold. It was composed of dual stairways and countless small cabins; the cabins were for the officers, the dual stairways were a quirk of Sloan’s which he had demanded when the ship was built. Sloan, Paddy said, had been but a youth when Charles II had fought the Anglo-Dutch wars, but he had never forgotten the cries of his mates trapped in their burning ship. Regardless of the expense, Sloan had ordered that theSea Hawkoffer her men every possible means of escape should the majestic lady ever catch fire.
Brianna nodded vaguely as she noted a man exiting the cabin door toward which Paddy was leading her. It was the gunner, Geoff, a man of mature years with heavily muscle-bound shoulders but gentle brown eyes.
He had been frowning, but when he saw Brianna, he smiled with swift pleasure. “Ah, Mistress MacCardle! How fine it is to see you up and about!” He clutched her hand and kissed it with warmth and respect, leaving Brianna feeling a bit awed and vastly cheered by his tender emotion. “We feared for you, sweet lady!”
“Thank you, Geoff,” she murmured. “Thank you so very much…you, and all of the crew.”
“Ah, ’twas our sweet pleasure to battle the likes of Matthews! Seein’ them slip that noose ’bout your lovely throat, ’twas enough to make devils o’ the lot of us, lady!”
“Bless you,” Brianna murmured. Then she asked worriedly, “Were you with Robin? How is he doing?”
Geoff looked past Brianna to Paddy. “I was on my way to find the captain and that surgeon of Lord Darton’s. I’m afraid that poor Robin’s fever grows. Paddy, if you will stay with him—”
“We will stay with him,” Brianna said.
“Nay, ’tis not a sight for a lady.”
Brianna swept by Geoff, placing her hand firmly upon the door. “Then it is well that I am ‘Mistress MacCardle,’ and not ‘Lady,’ for I do intend to be with Robin.”
She awaited no word from either man, but pushed her way through to the cabin. It was much smaller than the captain’s cabin, and it was sparsely furnished with just a bunk and a small chest of drawers. The stench within the cabin was grim, yet the ‘sight’ that Geoff feared would be too much for her tender senses was not strongly repellent.
Robin lay twisting upon the sheets, mumbling in the throes of his fever. He was shirtless, and his breeches had been slashed high upon his thigh. The arrow wound had obviously been treated beyond Brianna’s efforts, and a smoothly constructed bandage cradled the injured leg, giving credence to the careful talents of the newly acquired surgeon.
No, it was not the appearance of the carefully tended wound that was tearing upon the heart, but the strain and agony in the whitened features of the youth. The poison, causing the wound to fester beneath its clean linen covering, was permeating Robin’s blood.
Brianna knelt beside the lad and found the damp cloths with which Geoff had been cooling the boy’s body. Tenderly she smoothed the tawny hair from his forehead and bathed his face. “Paddy! Come and help me! We must cool his back as well as his front, or the fever will merely settle!”
Paddy hurried to her side. Geoff watched them for a moment, and then murmured something about finding the captain.
For once, Brianna was not thinking of Sloan Treveryan but of Robin, who was raving.
“The lad is delirious, Brianna,” Paddy said sadly. “Are ye sure we’re doin’ right? Shouldna we be coverin’ the boy up?”
“Not when he’s this hot, Paddy. He is burning inside and out and his mind will be damaged if…if he lives and we cannot cool him quickly. Lift him now, so that I can cool his back.”
Tirelessly, Brianna and Paddy worked over their patient. Brianna kept talking to Robin, soothing him, though he did not hear her. So involved was she that she did not notice when the cabin door opened once more and Geoff returned—with the weary surgeon and Sloan.
She was startled when a gaunt and weary white-haired man knelt down beside her, placing his hand upon Robin’s brow. He looked to the boy first, but then smiled at Brianna. “You’re doing quite well with the boy, lass. Perhaps he is at last fighting the fever.”
“I’ll move, sir, so that you may get to him.”
