Julian touched the sword in ceremonial ritual, then gestured courteously that his opponent should keep it. The man bowed and sheathed his weapon, and the two looked around, no longer enemies, simply battle-weary warriors.

On the quarterdeck Hugo Lattimer was accepting the surrender of the Delphine's captain with the same courtesy, insisting that he keep his sword. One didn't humiliate an enemy who'd fought bravely, and one could never be sure in the fluctuating fortunes of war when the situation would be reversed.

Julian made his way to the quarterdeck. Hugo greeted him with a tired smile. “Colonel St. Simon, may I make you known to Monsieur le Capitaine Delors?”

The two shook hands, and the captain introduced the rest of his officers. It was all very courteous and civilized, as if the murderous mayhem of the last hour had never taken place. Except for the smell of blood and the continuing groans and screams of the wounded, and the broken spars and ripped rigging littering the bloodstained decks.

“I'll put a prize crew aboard her under Will Connaught,” Hugo said. “Together with our wounded. He can sail her back to Lisbon with a bit of make and mend.” He couldn't conceal his satisfaction as he looked around the captured vessel. It had been a good day's work. The French frigate was a fat prize and would bring him a much-needed injection of funds, and the Isabelle's crew would have their share, which would ensure a jubilant ship for the rest of the voyage.

Julian left him making these dispositions and returned to the Isabelle, swinging himself across the boarding nets. “Knows what he's doing, that Captain Lattimer,” Gabriel observed, landing beside him on the deck. “Where's the bairn?”

“Still in the thick of something, I imagine.” They made their way to the waist of the ship, where order miraculously was emerging out of chaos. Tamsyn was kneeling beside a wounded man waiting his turn for the surgeon's attentions. He'd lost a finger and seemed relatively unperturbed, his chief lament being that the wound wasn't enough to send him home.

“Is it over?” Tamsyn looked up as Julian and Gabriel crossed the deck.

“So it would seem.” Julian scrutinized her blackened countenance. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” She stood up, stretching wearily. “I don't know how, though. I don't know how anyone could survive in that inferno. It was horrible. Worse than anything I've ever been in.”

Julian made no reply. There was no disputing her statement, but they were both soldiers, and battle horrors were intrinsic to the life.

“Josefa's helping the surgeon,” Tamsyn said to Gabriel. “He says she's a lot more skilled than his assistants.” She turned toward the cockpit, caught her foot in a coil of rope, and fell headlong on the deck.

She must be exhausted, Julian thought, reaching down a hand to helpher to her feet. When she didn't immediately take it, he bent over her and lifted her to her feet, hiding his concern, stating briskly, “You're done in, girl.”

Tamsyn didn't seem to hear him. She was staring down at her thigh, where a jagged splinter stuck out through a rent in her britches. Blood was seeping out of her flesh where the splinter was lodged. “Look! I'm cut. It's bleeding.” She raised her eyes, and he saw they were filled with a sick horror, her face suddenly deathly white beneath the grime.

“Colonel, catch her!” The sharp, urgent command came from Gabriel, standing behind him.

Tamsyn swayed, her knees buckling. Just in time Julian moved, catching the slight figure as she crumpled to the deck. “What the hell…?” He stared down at her, unconscious in his arms, then looked incredulously at Gabriel. “She must have fallen on a splinter, but it doesn't look bad.”

“It's the blood,” Gabriel said matter-of-factly. “Always sends her off like that.”

“But she's already covered in blood,” Julian said in disbelief.

“Aye, but it's not hers,” Gabriel explained. “The bairn can't abide being cut. As a baby she'd scream the house down for a pinprick… anything more than that, she'd be beside herself. The baron tried everything to get her out of it, but he gave up in the end.”

“Dear God,” Julian muttered. Of all the absurdities.

She rode like a cossack, fought like a mountain lion, didn't flinch from discomfort and deprivation, but she fainted dead away at a pinprick. He thought of Cornichet's knife and wondered in amazement what it must have cost her to face up to the mere prospect without breaking.

“We'd best get this splinter out quickly,” he said.

“It's going to bleed a lot more then than it is now.”

“I'll get Josefa.”

Julian carried Tamsyn into the day cabin, and her eyelids fluttered open as he laid her down on one of the cushioned lockers.

“What happened? Oh, God, my leg. It's got that thing in it!” Her voice rose on a frantic note.

“We're going to take it out,” he said calmly. “It's just a splinter. You must have fallen on it when you tripped.”

“But it's sticking out of me! All my blood's coming out!”

“Tamsyn, don't be absurd!” It was so ridiculous he wanted to laugh, but her distress was acute and definitely not feigned. He pulled his dirk from his belt and cut the leather of her britches away from the wound. “Now, don't look,” he instructed when she wailed in horror at the sight of the splinter and the blood that was now flowing strongly.

“I hear you need my services.” The surgeon sounded amazingly cheerful as he came into the cabin, still in his bloodstained apron, accompanied by Josefa and Gabriel. “Oh, my, that's a big one,” he said with the same cheeriness. “Soon have it out.”

“No!” Tamsyn screeched. “I'll do it.” She struggled to sit up, reaching for her thigh.

“No, you won't! Now, stop being so silly!” Julian sat down behind her, lifting her head onto his lap, holding her shoulders steadily. “Keep still. It'll be over in a minute. “

Josefa bustled over, taking her nurseling's hands, chafing them, crooning softly to her, as the surgeon deftly pulled the splinter clear. Blood spurted; Tamsyn groaned and fainted again.

“Good God, what's going on?” Captain Lattimer entered his cabin to find it filled with people not generally welcomed into his private quarters.

“We're having a little trouble,” Julian said, a chuckle in his voice. He shook his head in renewed disbelief, maintaining his hold on Tamsyn's shoulders. “This absurd girl is behaving like a milk-and-water miss because she has a splinter in her leg.”

“Good God!” Hugo said again. “After what she was doing during the battle! According to Lieutenant Godfrey nothing slowed her down.”

“There's none so strange as folks,” Samuel declared in his Yorkshire burr, bringing a bowl of hot water to the surgeon. “I'll fetch ye a roll of bandage.”

Tamsyn came round again as the surgeon was washing the wound. She gazed up into Julian's face. “Has it stopped?”

Her face was deathly pale, her expression as fearful and vulnerable as a terrified child's. All the resilience, the dominance of her personality, had vanished as she looked to him for reassurance and comfort with a trustfulness that he couldn't possibly have destroyed.

He smiled and brushed her hair away from her forehead as he'd wanted to do earlier. “It's almost stopped. The surgeon's going to bind it up, and you'll be as good as new in a day or two.”

“It wasn't too deep, Miss Tamsyn,” the surgeon said, shaking a dusting of basilicon powder over the wound. “There should be no danger of infection.” He wound gauze and bandages around her thigh, and the patient lay very still, her color returning slowly. “It'll probably ache, though. Would you like some laudanum?”

“I don't mind it hurting,” Tamsyn said. “I just don't like it bleeding.”

“Well, it'll stop soon enough.” The surgeon dusted off his hands and stood up. “I recommend you don't do too much running around for a day or two, though. Let it heal up first.”