Page 85 of My Hellion, My Heart
Irina was frowning at Henry, as well, her head shaking as if she also worried he’d been cracked over the skull too much.
“Or apen?” he asked. Irina was cocking her head, frowning still, when Crow came at him with the ladle of water.
“Shut it! A pen and fruit. What the bleeding hell is wrong wif ya?”
He poured the stale, slightly brackish water down Henry’s throat, getting most of the water on his collar and shirtfront before stuffing the gag back into his mouth and knotting it tightly behind his head. Henry didn’t care. Irina had stopped frowning and was now trying to school her expression of excitement. She’d caught on to his hints.
Crow went back to his post on the companionway steps and crossed his arms. He leaned his head back on an upper step and looked at the ceiling for a while. Then, even as the waves tossed the packet ship, he closed his eyes.
Irina instantly began to fumble behind the chair she’d been bound to, her fingers reaching and swishing around in a desperate attempt to open her drawstring purse and reach for her small folding blade. A few minutes later, she bit her lower lip and nodded, indicating she’d managed to get it. She then started to saw, the steady movements restricted and awkward, and by the expression on her face, tedious. They both watched Crow, anticipating his eyes to open on every violent plunge of the ship. She only got in a good five minutes of sawing the rope before the door into another cabin, the one Remisov had gone into, opened.
Irina went still, and Crow snapped to attention.
“We are pulling to port,” Remisov said, passing Irina. Henry prayed she didn’t still have the knife in her hand. He prayed even more that she did not try to stab Remisov with it as he passed by. The opportunity was not ideal, not yet.
“Durand should be waiting at the pier,” Remisov said to Crow, passing Irina without noticing anything amiss. “Take our esteemed lordship above deck and send out the signal.”
Durand? Henry tried to place the name, but his focus was still on Irina’s hands. She didn’t seem to still have the knife out, and he released a pent-up breath of relief.
“Remember your promise, Max,” she hissed, her heavy gaze sliding to Remisov, who bent to replace the gag over her mouth. “If he’s harmed, I’ll fight you tooth and nail at every bloody turn.”
Remisov’s eyes glittered at her threat, but he nodded curtly, his lips a thin line. Henry knew he was a loose end. Whoever this Durand was, he would have been paid a handsome sum to get rid of Henry once Irina had done her part. Henry had seen enough deceptions to know Remisov’s intent. His jaw tightened, but he kept his face calm. For Irina’s sake.
With a rough shove, Crow obediently led him out of the cabin. Henry kept his eyes fixed on Irina, who had stopped talking and was instead staring at him when he walked past. There was so much in those violet eyes: dismay, fear, hope, trust. She believed in him. As she sat listening to Remisov and Crow muttering to one another in hushed tones, she looked at Henry as if she knew he would fix everything. That he would save them.
I will.
Even if it meant taking his last breath.
…
At their departure, Irina resumed sawing with a vengeance, the sound of loud voices filtering down through the open cabin door. It still seemed as if she were caught in some unending nightmare.Maxhad betrayed her. Max, whom she had trusted for years, had rendered her unconscious, shuttled her into a carriage, and gagged her like a trussed-up pig. Not to mention what he’d done to Henry. From what she’d been able to discern during Max’s ranting, Max had delivered a forged letter from Dr. Hargrove, causing Henry to rush frantically from his home and onto a side road, where a band of criminals awaited him.
When she’d reached consciousness inside the carriage, the sight of a bruised and battered Henry had nearly killed her. And every time that huge beast of a man had hit him whenever he stirred, it’d been like a blow to her own skull.
But Henry was strong. He’d come through much worse.
That knowledge had been the only thing that had kept her from falling to pieces for every mile of that excruciating ride. Half asleep from exhaustion—she hadn’t closed her eyes for one second in the carriage for the entire journey—she hadn’t even thought about the tiny knife in her wrist purse until Henry had mentioned it. Not that she could have done anything in the confines of the coach with the female accomplice at her side, watching her every move.
Her fingers ached from the awkward motion of holding the knife, and the ropes burned into the tender skin at her wrist, but after a few minutes, she felt them fraying. Finally cutting free, she removed the filthy gag at her mouth and untied her legs. The cabin was empty, but Irina didn’t know for how long, so she moved quickly, searching for a weapon or anything she could use. She kept up her search as she left the cabin, creeping up to the top deck. There, she saw a few boarding pikes secured in a becket near the mast. They were to deter pirates, she guessed, and she set her jaw grimly as she silently removed one from its mooring. A pike was as good as a sword.
Max’s voice filtered back from the bow. “Quickly now, before we are spotted.”
Staying out of sight, Irina peered over the side and noticed that they hadn’t pulled into port but remained offshore. A tiny rowboat in the distance was leaving the pier. It was occupied by a handful of men and was headed toward them, fighting through the rough water of the harbor. The ship rocked wildly on the churning surface as the tide rolled in, but thankfully Irina had never been prone to motion sickness. Retaining her balance, she inched toward the bow where Henry was being held.
In addition to Henry, she counted four standing with Max, including the giant, Crow. The woman who had been in the carriage was nowhere in sight. Max would have only had a skeleton crew aboard the small vessel—less people to keep quiet about the kidnapping of a peer and a forced marriage to a princess. She and Henry would only have a short time before the rowboat arrived, a quarter of an hour at the most, and for now, the odds were more in their favor.
“Well, hello, lovey,” a voice said into her ear.
Irina didn’t hesitate. She brought the rear of the pike backward in a vicious stab and connected with soft tissue. She turned swiftly to see the missing female clutching her stomach on the deck. Before Irina could silence her, the woman cried out loudly. She cracked the wooden end of the pike against the woman’s temple, and her screaming ceased abruptly. But the damage was done.
Booted feet pounded on the deck behind her. Irina grabbed the pistol that had fallen from the now-unconscious woman’s hand and the rapier tucked into a scabbard at her waistband. Twisting, Irina fired, catching one of the men running toward her in the leg. The other she met at the point of the sword, raking him across the arm and following with a well-placed kick to the groin. He joined his companion moaning on the floor.
The sounds of a scuffle up front reached her as she grabbed the loaded pistols from the fallen men and tucked one into the pocket slit of her riding skirt. Her breath caught in her throat when she reached the bow and took in the scene. Max lay crumpled on one end of the bow while Henry was half-obscured in the meaty arms of the giant. One of Max’s men lay unmoving near where she stood.
“Henry!”
Taking careful aim, with only the guttering lamp and torchlight to see by, she fired at the giant. The bullet struck Crow’s calf, enough to loosen his hold on Henry, who stumbled a few feet away, but it only seemed to make the bigger man more incensed. And Henry was still bound. With a cry, Irina discarded the spent pistol and rushed toward him, using the tip of her sword to cut the ropes at his wrists in the scant second before Crow barreled into him, crashing them both into the side of the ship.
