She looked frantically toward the approaching longboat. Her legs felt leaden, but she forced them to keep pumping. She feared she would drown with him if they did not hurry.
“Row harder,” Mr. Donnetti shouted as he flung off his cloak and boots. He was on the point of diving overboard when Scargill stopped him.
“Nay, Francesco, she may lose her hold.” A slight smile broke his grim expression. He could hear Cassie cursing the earl as they approached, berating him in broken sobs for his stupidity, his ridiculous stubbornness.
Mr. Donnetti muttered under his breath, “It makes no sense. She shoots him, then saves his life.”
“It would not be in her character to do otherwise,” Scargill said, but Mr. Donnetti paid him no attention.
The earl stirred.
“Hold still, damn you, else we’ll both drown.”
Mr. Donnetti and several other men slipped over the side of the longboat and freed Cassie of her burden. It took them some moments to pull him into the boat. She heard the earl’s voice, weak, but fiercely commanding. “Save her, Francesco, quickly, before she loses her strength.”
Mr. Donnetti grunted and grabbed Cassie none too gently around her waist. He lifted her toward the boat and several hands closed about her arms, hauling her upward.
Cassie crouched down at the stern of the boat and wrapped her shivering arms about her knees. A sailor threw a cloak over her shoulders, but it did not warm her.
The men huddled around the earl, and no one seemed to pay her the slightest attention. If she had had the strength, she might have slipped over the side of the boat before any of them noticed. She tried to see the earl, but Scargill and Mr. Donnetti were crouched in front of him, blocking her view. She heard Scargill tell him not to move.
Four sailors, two on each side of the narrow longboat, rowed furiously back toward the yacht. Cassie gazed toward The Cassandra and marveled at how quickly the sails had been lowered. As they drew nearer she could hear the grating sound of the iron-linked anchor line being dropped. She strained forward at the sound of the earl’s voice.
“Dammit, Scargill, none of you is strong enough to carry me up the ladder. I’ll climb it myself. Francesco, stay close to me.”
She could not believe that he would try to climb the ladder himself. She wanted to yell at him not to be such a fool, but his foot was already on the bottom rung, his face forbidding in his determination. She watched with held breath as the earl slowly and painfully pulled himself upward. A cry tore from her throat when he nearly lost his grip halfway up the ladder.
Joseph drew a relieved breath once the earl was finally hauled over the railing onto the deck. He turned to her and said crisply, “Now it is your turn, madonna.”
She shook her head mutely, for her arms felt like useless sticks of wood hanging at her sides. He misunderstood her. “I’ll not let you escape, madonna, and you haven’t now a pistol to shoot me.”
She licked her lips. “I cannot, Joseph.”
He studied her exhausted face and, without another word, hauled her over his shoulder and climbed the rope ladder. He set her down upon the deck. When she did not move, he said sharply, “Go to the captain, madonna. He’ll not be easy until he knows you are safe.”
Cassie entered the cabin quietly. The earl was stretched his full length on the bed, gritting his teeth against the pain as Scargill and Mr. Donnetti stripped off his wet clothing.
“Where is she, Scargill?”
There was an undercurrent of panic in his voice. She walked quickly forward into his line of vision. “I am here, my lord.”
He stared at her for a long moment, and closed his eyes.
Scargill straightened over the earl, his face grim. “Ye’ve lost a lot of blood, my lord, and the bullet must be drawn out.”
“Very well,” the earl said, without opening his eyes. “Get it over with.” Blood trickled through the black mat of hair on his chest. She felt an unwonted surge of guilt.