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the side, but certain death had little appeal. Just before being thrust into the cabin, she spotted the third accomplice. He squatted near the stern where he relashed a small dinghy. The dinghy! The big craft would be impossible to manage, but the dinghy!
    The blonde pushed her ahead of him into the cabin, then stooped to clear his height through the doorway. Catherine spun abruptly, slammed the heels of her hands upward against his chin, and cracked his head against the lintel. When he reeled and caught automatically at his ringing head, she dove into his midsection, snatched his pistol, cocked and leveled it without a tremor. "Back out, Sir Patriot, with your hands clasped at the back of your neck. And don't suppose I'm a poor shot. You're a sizable partridge at this range and you've told me exactly where you stand, so move!"
    Cheeks blazing and head throbbing, Liam moved. He would never hear the last of this, but injured pride did not provoke him to try anything stupid. The cold glitter of those sapphire eyes, so warm and beseeching a moment ago, assured him the girl wag in no mood for rash behavior. He could almost feel Flannery shaking his head in disdain as he backed gingerly across the threshold.
    The countess motioned him to a point several feet from Flannery and waggled the gun briefly at the big man's belly. "Drop your weapon, sir; call your companion and shed your jacket and boots. This man is dead if you delay."
    Flannery calmly unhitched his belt and shrugged out of his jacket as he called briefly, "Come forward, Reagan. We're in the lady's company now." He indicated his inability to let go of the wheel long enough to remove his boots.
    "Lash it. And you, Fair Hair, off with your top clothes."
    Liam frowned. "Do you mean for us to freeze to death?"
    "Letting you turn to ice would be an admirable way to preserve ammunition." She eyed the third man moving forward. "But I leave such tactics to you Irish . . . unless you continue to spew lies about my father. Hurry up!"
    Liam sullenly tugged at his jacket as the third man joined him and was motioned to discard his clothes and weapons with the others. Catherine felt a growing uneasiness. They were too calm, too acquiescent. Seasoned villains could not be impressed so easily, unless . . . a fourth man was aboard. She leveled the pistol with both hands at the big man's belly. "Call the other one."
    Flannery's bushy eyebrows went up slightly. "What other one? Ye're lookin' at the lot of us, little lady."
    "Tell him to sing out, or you'll be lying amidst your dinner on the decking. I want that dinghy launched posthaste; these men can manage that very well without you. I shall count to three. One . . . two . . ."
    Flannery interrupted, still with the same slightly amused look. "All right, Jimmy boy, the jig's up. Introduce yourself."
    Abruptly, a crushing weight dropped onto Catherine's shoulders from behind and flattened her to the deck. The pistol was plucked quickly from her fingers as a tenor voice whistled reedily in her ear, "How d'ye do, ma'am. Sorry to drop in on ye like this." Red suns seemed to explode in her skull and her ears pounded as Catherine watched the redhead's big boots dance crazily toward her across the planking. He's going to kick me in the head, she thought dully. She tried to push the boots away but her fingers would not obey. The deck faded into blackness.
    Flannery stood looking down at the unconscious girl and prodded Jimmy's leg with his foot. "Up with ye, lad, or ye'll crush the life out of her. She don't have the backbone of a cavalry nag."
    Freckled, carrot-haired Jim Cochrane grinned as he hauled his two hundred lanky pounds off the captive who lay with black hair spilled across the wet deck. "She's got sufficient to put a fatal leak in a man's gut." He slipped a sly look at Flannery's belly. "Thought fancy doxies only knew how to crook their dainty fingers through teacup handles . . . and rings in men's noses." Now, he openly grinned at