Enraged by her failure, she turned and fought Bastard tooth and nail, tried to kick him where she’d wounded him, tried to drown him. She struggled so hard they both sank several times. She might have won that fight, too, but unfortunately he hadn’t swum after her alone. Mort was with him, and when the blond got there, he took her in hand to swim both her and Bastard to the rowboat that had also been lowered for the search.
She might have heard the oars approaching if not for the rain. She might have had time to dive deep so they would have gone on searching endlessly with no luck. The dark would have been on her side. They couldn’t see anything out here in the water any more than she could. But Bastard was tenacious. He had to have been getting weaker and weaker himself from his wound, but he’d continued to swim after her, determined to save her from her folly.
And it was so bloody galling that she hadn’t even gotten far. Within minutes the rowboat stopped below the ship’s lowered ladder. She slapped away the hand that reached for her and climbed it herself. But she didn’t move any farther when she landed on the deck because she found herself surrounded by pirates. These definitely weren’t ordinary sailors, being garishly dressed and armed and making scandalous remarks about her attributes, which she knew were outlined by her clinging, wet clothes. And they were laughing, especially at Bastard when he came over the side.
“If you can’t handle the little vixen, we can!”
“You nearly lost our prize,” another man sneered.
“She’s not your prize,” Bastard retorted, in a chilly tone she’d never heard him use before. “And she won’t be taking any more evening swims. Get off my deck, now!”
Mort pushed the lot of them out of the way when they didn’t depart quickly enough. Bastard took her arm and walked her up to the quarterdeck to reach his cabin and get her away from those leering eyes. She was too abject to be embarrassed. She still couldn’t believe he’d jumped in after her with his wound. That was a stupid thing for him to do, considering his friend had also jumped in. And the wound was bleeding a lot. His wet shirt was pink with it.
The blond followed them into the room to get the key from her. He didn’t ask for it, just stood in front of her with an angry expression, holding his hand out. She would have thrown it at him if she weren’t so dejected. He then moved to his friend and helped to strip the wet clothes off him and get him into bed.
She’d watched without interest as she stood in a puddle from her own clothes, taking in the wide chest, a bare flank, but not much else with that big blond standing between them. The door had been left open, but she saw at least one man had moved in front of it to stand guard, so she didn’t look that way again.
Then another man entered, a short, skinny fellow of middle years dressed all in black with a long braided beard and a pink bandanna on his head. And two silver hoop earrings, which were barely visible beneath his shaggy long brown hair. She stared at him incredulously, but her eyes got really wide when he marched straight to her.
“Please say yer my patient, pretty.”
Mort snapped, “The wound is over here, as if you haven’t heard, you nasty old sod. It needs stitching.”
The doctor, if that’s what he was, still gave Jack one more suggestive look before he moved to the bed and opened the long bag he’d brought with him. He lifted a saw out of it, then a hammer, before he said, “Aha!”—and brought out a threaded needle.
Jack was still staring at what appeared to be a toolbox rather than a doctor’s bag and asked incredulously, “A hammer?”
“Easier to cut bone if ye break it first,” the man said as he began to ply his needle without any preparation first.
“Are you a real doctor?”
He glanced back at her with a chuckle. “Course I am. I’m just better at chopping off legs—and getting under skirts.” He actually wiggled his eyebrows at her.
She turned her wide eyes on Mort. “Is this who treated Andrew?”
“No, that doctor left us in England. He only agreed to join us for the free passage home.”
“Then who exactly is this?”
“Already told ye who I am, girly. Name’s Dr. Death and I’m the only doc aboard, so don’t be insulting me, eh.”
She clamped her mouth shut, guessing he was one of the pirates. A real doctor would never have a name like that.
Mort left, still without closing the door, and then Bastard said from the bed, “I really didn’t think you’d actually try to kill me.”
The words rang hollowly in Jack’s ears. Her last and worst failure yet, that Bastard wasn’t dead—that she wasn’t on her way to England. But she didn’t react. She was too numb with dismal despair.
She was tired, exhausted, but she didn’t sit down on her cot, didn’t want to get it soaked when she guessed she’d be sleeping in it sometime tonight. And the doctor was still there, stitching the wound. Bastard hadn’t waited for them to be alone before he’d made his remark.
He wasn’t giving up on a reply, either, and said warningly, “Jack?”
Wearily, she reminded him, “I’ve lost count of how many times I said I would kill you. You’ve lost your mind if you think I wouldn’t.”
“No, I just thought there might be more between us than blood and gore.”
“Ah, yes, what were your deluded words? That I ‘liked’ you?” She laughed scornfully.
“You give me this paltry wound instead of a real one that could have ended me? Admit it, Jack. Your heart is no longer in it—not since we danced together.”
That revitalized her anger. “How many times must I say it? I thought that man was someone else, not you. If I’d known it was you, I would have shouted to the rafters that you were a murderer and needed to be apprehended. You wouldn’t have gotten out of that ballroom alive.”
“Perhaps. But now you do know it was me. Changes everything, doesn’t it?”
He sounded so bloody smug—until the doctor asked, “You’re a murderer, Captain?” Dr. Death sounded impressed.
“No.”
“He is, too!” Jack insisted.
“She’s just predicting I will be, Dr. Death. Hardly makes it true, now does it?”
Bastard might have addressed that to the doctor, but he’d said it for her. Not that it mattered in the least when he was using her to lead her father to his death.
But the doctor shook his head as he closed his bag and headed to the door. “I suppose the bandage will need changing over the next few days, Cap’n,” he said in parting. “But that’s woman’s work, not mine.”
“Jack will do it.”
“No chance in hell.”
“You will. Would you really throw your . . . hirelings to the wolves?”
She drew in her breath. Was he actually going to play that card? And he wasn’t even looking at her when he made that threat. His eyes were closed. The blood loss and his exertion in the water had weakened him more than he was trying to let on. But he hadn’t passed out yet.
“You know where my shirts are, put one on. I haven’t locked the trunk yet.”
She almost laughed. He obviously remembered that she’d confiscated one of his shirts on the last voyage just so she could get out of that uncomfortable ball gown she’d been wearing when he’d kidnapped her. She’d shredded all the rest of his shirts that day and would have ripped apart his pants, too, if they weren’t so sturdily made. But he’d locked his trunk after that.