Hurtheven inhaled sharply. “How dare you suggest Pen would be better off if you were, in fact, dead?”
Bitterness twisted Chev’s features. “Not worth a half-penny, the woman said.”
“What woman?”
“The grasping, greedy bob tail.”
Hurtheven snorted. “If I’d known how she felt, it would have saved me a good deal of blunt.”
Nothing about this circumstance was amusing in the least. Even if Pen were to have held out hope—“How is my wife to feel whenthis”—Chev lifted his severed arm—“is returned to her?”
Hurtheven examined Chev’s raised arm with interest. Then, he met Chev’s gaze. “You speak,” he said, “as if you were a stray package. You are her husband. Herbelovedhusband.”
“I am not the man she married.”
“I should hope not! She married a randy sixteen-year-old buck with a good deal more brawn than brain.”
Chev’s startled cough ached in his ribs. “Whoreson,” he said with affection.
“Chev.” Hurtheven lifted a lip. “I knew you were in there.”
Cheverley’s sense had started to return, anyway. Wearily, Chev set aside questions too unanswerable for his throbbing mind.
“Wherearewe going, anyway?” he asked.
Hurtheven raised an imperious brow. “Demanding, aren’t you?”
“You don’t have a destination in mind.”
“I most certainly do! My plan—brilliant for being hastily put together, I might add—begins at the Admiralty.”
The Admiralty.Chev nodded. Of course. He’d remembered he was an officer. A captain. He squeezed his eyes closed. And his ship—theHMS Defiance—a slight, fast beauty with a mast as tall as—
“The Admiralty will court-martial you for the loss of your ship,” Hurtheven said.
Chev winced, turning his head to the side. Behind his lids, the mast swayed, and then split apart from the ship, splashing into the sea.
Suddenly he knew there was more. So much more. And he wasn’t ready for any of it.
“And,” Hurtheven continued, oblivious, “they will also want to know where you have been—as would, well,everyone,by the way.”
Wherehadhe been? The damp stench of a cave stung Chev’s nostrils.
On an island. Or not.
He could not say for certain. However—he glanced down at his arm—his first attempted escape ended with a lead ball in his wrist...which had then led to an amputation.
Saw jaws rattled his bones and then a gravelly, female voice filled his ears.
Le pauvre bébé.The poor baby.Je pense que je te préfères comme ça.I think I like you better now.Plus facile à maîtriser.Easier to subdue.
He saw her face. The pirate.
He slammed the stub of his arm against the hard surface beneath him.
She disappeared.
“No answers.” What he had was a devil of a headache and a chill that had seeped into his bones. “Hurts, Hurtheven. Bad.”
