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“I need your help with something in my cabin. I don’t want to disturb the crew. Will you come?”
“I suppose so,” she said stiffly, thinking he’d smuggled something aboard. They moved slowly and silently down the companionway to Savage’s cabin and he fumbled with the oil lamp until he got it lit.
Tony turned to watch him shrug out of a tattered black coat, bracing herself for what was to come. The last thing in the world she expected was his next words.
“I’ve a ball in my shoulder and I want you to take it out for me.”
“Ohmigod, why didn’t you say something immediately?” She was upset. “This is what happens when you go crawling about the underworld in the dead of night!”
“Save me the lecture, lad,” Savage said quietly. His shirt was black and didn’t show the blood, but once the shirt was stripped off, blood was everywhere and she saw that he’d lost a copious amount.
There was a low tap on the cabin door. Savage nodded his head, so she answered it. It was Mr. Baines with a kettle of boiling water.
“Thank you, Mr. Baines,” she said with relief.
“Can you cope, lad?” he questioned.
“We’ll manage,” Savage said crisply. “I want you on watch for the law.”
Mr. Baines touched his forelock in a silent salute and withdrew. When she turned back to Savage he was holding his knife blade in the flame of the lamp. Tony kept her eyes lowered as she washed the blood from his chest. As her fingers touched the well-remembered muscles she thought grimly, Ididn’t think I’d have at him again this soon.Tony examined the wound closely.
“I know it hasn’t shattered my shoulder blade—it’s just imbedded in the muscle.”
Without a word she took hold of the knife handle. She hesitated for a minute or two as she gathered her courage. Her own common sense told her she must be quick and she must go deep enough to rid him of the ball with one decisive thrust. She must not probe and prick at it incessantly and ineffectually. She took a deep breath, bit down upon her lip, and plunged in the sharp point of the knife.
Red blood welled up and trickled down his chest immediately, but she let out her breath with awhooshas the ball dropped into the metal washbowl. Her glance went to his liquor cabinet. There was wine and there was rum. Quickly she took up the rum and brought it back to the table. Again she hesitated, but Savage said calmly, “I can separate my mind from the pain.”
Quickly she flooded the wound with the raw rum and watched him stiffen. She felt a small measure of satisfaction that indeed he had felt the pain. It served him bloody well right for whatever criminal act he had committed.
He directed her to a box of dressings and bandages and she had to apply pressure to the wound to staunch the blood before she could bandage it. They heard footsteps overhead on deck.
Savage said, “Get rid of this lot. Put it all inside the wardrobe and fetch me my dressing gown.”
Tony threw the bloodied shirt and towels on the floor of the wardrobe, then she put in the bandage box and even the bowl of bloodied water. She helped him into a claret-colored brocade dressing gown and before he tied the sash another knock came upon the cabin door.
“Quick, get into the bunk,” he ordered.
Without thinking she obeyed him. Savage’s gaze swept the cabin before he moved across it to open the door. Mr. Baines’s square face was unreadable. “Sorry to disturb you, sir, but the gendarme here insists he was following a criminal who boarded theFlying Dragon.”
Savage fixed Mr. Baines, then the French official, with an icy blue stare. Then he drawled, “Since you have disturbed us, I suggest you come in and take a good look about. My young companion and I have been secluded in this cabin all night.”
The Frenchman directed a penetrating look at the boy in the bed. He could not keep a look of distaste from his face for what had apparently been going on. He looked back at the man in the dressing gown. “I’d like to search the vessel,” he said in heavily accented, but understandable, English.
“By all means,” drawled Savage. “I’ll give you thirty minutes.”
When the door closed, Tony jumped from the berth, white faced with anger. “You bastard,” she hissed, “how could you use me in such a degrading manner?”
“Easy, Tony, I didn’t actually bugger you,” he mocked.
Her cheeks flamed. She wanted to smash him in the face. Her fists doubled and she took a threatening step toward him, when to her amazement, Savage staggered on his feet.
“Peste!”she cursed, then helped him to the bunk and brought the decanter of rum. “Have a good swig,” she ordered gruffly. Tony held it to his mouth while he took a few swallows.
The mocking light faded from Savage’s eyes. “Thanks,” he said sincerely.
Tony sat down, and only after she knew he had fallen asleep did she make her way to her own cabin. She lay down, but after a length of time acknowledged the truth to herself. She’d never rest while he lay wounded, doors away. She got up, unhooked the hammock, and managed to drag it along to his cabin. She hooked it across the corner and, leaving the lamp lit, lay down, listening to his even breathing.
Tony must have dozed, but Savage was becoming so restless, he had kicked the wall and roused her. She was across the cabin in an instant, a hand pressed to his brow. He was definitely feverish. His bowl was still full of blood, so she took his fresh-water jug and sponged his face and neck over and over in an attempt to cool him down. Savage began to mutter. She paid little heed to his murmurings until he began to call for someone.
