Free The Devil's Fire by Matt Tomerlin Page B

developed a natural affection for the man out of sheer familiarity. This accounted for her irrational assault on Griffith. He was willing to forgive her for that; clearly she had been out of her mind at the time. Her five-day spell at the mainmast would cause her to think twice before she made any further attempts on his life.
    It would take time to liberate the ties to her husband, but Griffith was confident that he was up to the task.
Harbinger
would do half of the job for him. It was a new environment and a new life. Thomas Lindsay was not a part of it. She would either concede to that fact or perish in her defiance. Griffith hoped for the former, but he would be forced to grant the latter if given no other option.
    The choice was Katherine Lindsay's.
    She was still sleeping like a baby when he arrived with the dresses. He was starting to wonder if she would ever rouse. Perhaps the cutlass's damage had run deeper than her thick skull. Griffith recalled an unfortunate accident involving one of his crewmen. The man had survived a harrowing plummet from a mast, suffering what appeared to be nothing more than a minor head injury, only to fall asleep that night and never open his eyes again. Yet still he breathed, forever lost in slumber. It was a month before the crew unanimously decided to put him out of his misery and give him to the sea.
    Griffith turned the sack on its end and shook it, depositing the dresses onto the end of the bed by Katherine's feet. He spared her a final glance and hurried out of the cabin.
    He found Thatcher curled over the gunwale, retching. The surgeon's massive round belly contracted, and the pale contents of his stomach burst from his mouth. Griffith plugged his nose. The stench of Thatcher's vomit was infamously nauseating. The crew often jested that one whiff could kill a man faster than any poison. "You'll foul the ocean with all that sick," Griffith said.
    "I can't help it," Thatcher said, wiping his mouth and catching his breath. "It keeps happening."
    "You're the doctor. Surprised you haven't figured it on your own."
    "I have figured it out," Thatcher declared. "I'm not meant to be on this ship!"
    Griffith chuckled with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Belay that noise, Thatcher. If men were meant to be here, we wouldn’t need to build ships."
    "An astonishing observation," Thatcher exclaimed sarcastically. "I feel better already."
    "It's not my concern what you feel, save you're well enough to carry on with your duties. I've come to ask you to look on the girl. Is that something you can fit betwixt your daily purging?"
    Thatcher embellished a sigh. "What's ails her now?"
    "A bout of sleep that's persisted since before noon yesterday, far as my knowledge."
    The surgeon looked at him like he was crazy. "That's all?"
    "That's not a long time?"
    "All things considered? No."
    Griffith brought his face close to Thatcher's, which he instantly regretted when he glimpsed slimy chunks of half-digested meat stuck to those bulbous chins. He managed not to flinch. "You speak the truth, Thatcher?"
    The surgeon diverted his eyes, blinking copiously. "Why would I lie?"
    "It escapes me," Griffith admitted. "But that doesn't mean you wouldn't. Sometimes men do things I don't understand. My lack of comprehension doesn't prevent these things from happening."
    Thatcher smirked. "Do you comprehend even your own actions?"
    "You refer to the girl."
    "Very astute," Thatcher drawled.
    Griffith let out a small breath of air that might have been a laugh. "I find myself. . . attached."
    "That's not out of the ordinary, Captain. She's a woman. And I'd wager that she was an attractive one before she was despoiled."
    She hasn't been despoiled."
    "No?"
    "No."
    "Yet you worry for her health? Tell me, have you even shared words with this woman?"
    Griffith feared he had revealed too much; he did not want Thatcher thinking him a romantic. "The girl is merely a possession. Like a monkey or something of that sort."
    "She's not a