Conscious of that very man seated across the room from her, Beau started removing bundles of garments and setting them on the floor beside her. When the chest was almost emptied, she saw something else that made her movements slow, then come to a complete halt. Tucked into one corner, nestled in a bed of silk stockings, was a silver jewel casket. The top was rounded, the base was supported on four small clawed feet; the style and filigree work was French in design, a fact not entirely betrayed by the De Tourville wolfhound and fleur-de-lis engraved on the lid.
Beau stole a glance over her shoulder, but Dante had seemingly forgotten her. He was staring out the broken gallery windows, motionless and expressionless, his raven hair tinted blue by the hazy light.
Beau lifted the casket out of the chest and rested it on her bent knees. She flicked the tiny hasp with the edge of her thumbnail and raised the lid slowly, half expecting serpents to spill out onto her lap. There were no serpents, but there was a large gold salamander, easily the length of her hand and as fat around as two fingers. The golden beast had two cabochon rubies for eyes and a glittering row of pyramid-cut diamonds winding down its spine. Its four reptilian feet were splayed possessively over a bed of loose gems—pearls, tourmalines, emeralds, and diamonds—most of them uncut and unset, but all of a size and quality that caused a small thrill of heat to unfurl at the base of Beau’s spine.
“Why, Mistress Spence, can that be the sinful gleam of avarice I see shining in your eyes?” His voice was deep and soft and very near and Beau did not have to turn around to confirm he was standing right behind her. She could feel him there, looming extremely large above her, and the small flutter of heat became a disturbing downpour.
She snapped the lid closed. “I presume you want this to come with you?”
“Actually, I had forgotten about it.” A large, well-callused hand reached over her shoulder and took the casket. “I’m surprised it was missed in the search.”
“Your ship was searched? By whom?”
He either ignored or chose not to acknowledge the question, and after a few tinkling sounds of a finger raking through the stones, he handed it back.
“As I said, if you see something you want, help yourself.”
“What if I say I want the whole box?” she asked sardonically.
“Then it’s yours. If I recall correctly there are some topazes in there that, when cut and polished, should about match the color of your eyes.”
The entire exchange had been so out of character, Beau came instantly alert for a trap. She drew a deep breath and pushed to her feet, rounding on him with another healthy dose of Spence’s epithets ready on the tip of her tongue.
They died without a squeak when she found herself standing so close to Dante, she felt the brush of his linen shirt as he pulled the hem free of his belt and shrugged it up and over his big shoulders.
The sheer scope of muscle laid bare before her took her breath away along with her intentions. His arms were sculpted out of marble, smooth and hard-surfaced. His shoulders had deep indentations where the top of his breastbone met the column of his neck. A thick, luxuriant mat of black hair covered his chest, whorling down to a silky cable’s width over his belly. A finer coating of ebony hair covered his forearms, and above the elbow the tracery of veins stood out on the bronzed surface, flexing with each movement of his hands.
The scent coming off his flesh was that of sun and sea and male arrogance. She should have known. She should have seen it coming.
“What do you think you are doing?” she asked with quiet intensity.
Dante’s eyes lingered a moment on the pout of her mouth. It had been shocked out of its usual insolence and as he watched, the flush came back into her cheeks, the color blooming softly on the sculpted crests, then flowing downward to stain the slender length of her throat. He knew he had struck another sensitive chord, physical in origin, and he wondered, for all her acid tongue and bravado, how many times she had been faced with a similar threat for which she had no defense. She was bolder than the average woman, stronger than the average woman, but she was still no match for a man who had gone several months without sheathing himself in the velvet heat of a woman’s flesh.
He lowered his hands with deliberate slowness to the buckle of his belt. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
Chapter 4
Dante unbuckled his belt and slung it over his shoulder.
“It has been so long since I have felt the need to appear presentable, you will have to forgive the error. I thought this was the chest that held my spare shirts and breeches, but I see I was mistaken. Ahh. There it is.”
He moved past her, releasing her from the heat of his gaze. Beau felt it as almost a tangible loss and suffered a mild rush of light-headedness as he walked away. The blood was humming through her veins. Her belly, which had been in the process of melting down to her knees, required a concentrated effort to retrieve and she had almost succeeded when she turned to glare after him … and saw his back.
It was a mass of lines and welts and crisscrossing scars. They were not fresh, for most of the lines had been incorporated back into the muscle and were as tanned and weathered as the rest of him. But some had been severe enough, deep enough, to cut through to the bone and no amount of time would ever smooth them or render them less visible.
Beau had witnessed floggings before. It was the accepted means of keeping discipline on a ship. Five strokes with the cat-o’-nine was her father’s usual limit, but rarely delivered with enough heart to split the skin.
Simon Dante, Comte de Tourville, had been subjected to ten, twenty times that many strokes, laid on by a vicious hand that had known no mercy whatsoever.
What in God’s name did a man do to earn a hundred lashes of the cat?
While she pondered the question, Dante opened the second chest and pushed a few garments impatiently from side to side until he found the ones he sought. The shirt he drew over his shoulders was white as snow, cut full with long, loose sleeves gathered at the wrists and edged in open cutwork. The collar was more of a ruffle, made to extend over the edge of a doublet, but he ignored the lacing in front and let it hang open over the vast darkness of his chest while he rummaged for other articles.
When his hands went to his waist and began peeling his hose down over his lean hips, Beau instinctively averted her eyes. She heard the dull thud of his boots striking the floor and a sharp, half-formed curse when he disturbed the bandages on his calf. The briefest, smallest peep sidelong gave her a glimpse of naked, muscular legs and taut buttocks. A longer, more contemplative look was directed toward the scrolled wheel-lock pistol he had left lying on top of the desk.
Dante was bent over, unwinding the layers of filthy bandages. His back was to the desk and although he was a pace or two closer to it than she was, he would be hobbled by his leg and hampered by the unraveling strips of linen.
Beau sent her tongue slicking across her lips to moisten them.
With her lower lip clamped securely between her teeth, she made a dash for the desk, snatching the pistol off the piles of documents and aiming it at Dante de Tourville before he had fully spun around.
The gun was heavier than she had expected, the stock inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl. The lock and escutcheon plate were brass overlaid with gold filigree, the pyrite holder was shaped like a dragon’s head with the body curling down in an S to form the trigger. The spanner key was in the cocked position, meaning the spring was fully wound and the slightest pressure on the serpentine trigger would release the wheel, showering sparks into the firing pan, thus igniting the powder and charge.
Dante’s initial surprise over her quickness mellowed into cool curiosity as he straightened and stared into the long, gleaming barrel.
“Well,” he said quietly. “You do have a knack for creating impasses, don’t you?”
“I see no impasse here, Captain. I have the gun. You have about two seconds to pull on a pair of breeches and walk ahead of me to the door.
”
Dante folded his arms across his chest. “And if I don’t?”
“You can die as you are. It matters not to me.”
The silver eyes looked bemused. “And once we are through the door—what then?”
“Then … you call your dogs off my father’s ship, and if you are extremely lucky, depending on Captain Spence’s mood, we may leave you another barrel or two of water before we sail away.”
“You would leave us here to sink?”
“Gladly.”
His gaze smoldered thoughtfully for much longer than the ordained two seconds before the fine creases at the corners deepened and the wide, sensuous mouth flattened into a wolfish grin.
“So. You have killed men before, have you, mam’selle? Standing face to face, close enough to feel the splatter of hot blood on your skin?”
Beau took an involuntary step back but kept the gun aimed squarely in the middle of the broad chest. “I do what I have to do, Captain Dante, even if—as you say—it is not my original intention.”
“No,” he mused. “Your original intention was to castrate me.”
She glanced down out of reflex and although the hem of his shirt covered him to midthigh, the light from the gallery windows was beside him, giving substance to the shadows beneath. He was, she was shocked to see, impressively large all over.
“Put the gun down, Mistress Spence,” he ordered softly. “Before I get truly angry.”
She adjusted her grip, using both hands to balance the heavy weapon. “Find yourself a pair of breeches, Captain, before I get truly angry.”
“I might like to see that.”
“I don’t think you would.”
“Why not? What happens? Do you spit and hiss like a hellcat?”
“Come a step closer and you will find out,” she promised.
He took the step, measured carefully against the darkening flush in her cheeks.
“I will shoot,” she declared evenly.
He shook his head slowly. “I don’t think you will.”
Beau sucked a breath between her teeth and cursed it free as he took another step. She jerked the gun downward, switching her aim from his chest to the uninjured leg.
“Maybe I won’t kill you. Maybe I will just shoot out one of your knees.”
Dante stopped and pursed his lips consideringly. Soft, ominous flecks of cobalt were beginning to shimmer in his eyes but he only broadened his grin and took another step forward. “Remind me not to make any more brilliant suggestions in your presence.”
“Captain—!”
He took another step and Beau’s finger tightened on the trigger. She pulled it until the mainspring released, causing the wheel to spin against the piece of iron pyrite and create a small burst of sparks. Another part of the lock worked a brass coverplate, pushing it aside to expose the powder pan to sparks, but where there should have been a deafening explosion of gunpowder and a violent recoil from the discharging shot, there was only a loud rasp and a small puff of acrid smoke.
Dante halted again.
“By Christ,” he exclaimed with genuine surprise. “I didn’t think you would do it. I took the precaution of removing the prime, of course, but I truly did not think you would do it!”
Beau gaped at the gun, then cursed and threw it disgustedly at the dark, grinning face before she darted for the door. He caught her with effortless ease, hooking one long arm around her waist, and clamping a hand over her mouth to cut off the scream of outrage. She felt herself lifted and crushed back against the wall of muscle. She kicked and flayed and tried to scratch at his hands, his eyes, his ears, but he only swore and upended her, swinging her dizzily around and slamming her down hard on the top of the desk, unmindful of the flurry of papers and letters her thrashings scattered to the floor. As she writhed like a fury, the breath driven out of her lungs, he leaned over her, restricting her movements with the weight of his body.
“Stop it,” he hissed. “Stop it right now, before I—”
Her hand, raking the top of the desk, closed around the gold replica of the Virago and she swung it hard and fast, missing his temple and eye by the slightest of miscalculations.
He cursed again and grabbed her wrist with his free hand, grabbed the ship, and twisted it roughly out of her grip before wrenching both of her hands above her head and pinning them flat on the bed of papers. Her legs were swinging over the edge of the desk, and while she wriggled and squirmed to gain a good, clean kick, Dante was able to wedge his hips firmly and forcefully between her thighs.
Her body bucked against the pressure, her scream was a muffled combination of rage and pain as his weight all but crushed the breath and fight out of her. Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut, her chest was rising and falling as if she had just swum across half the ocean. Her arms, her legs, were trembling, the latter so painfully close to being broken off at the hips, she had no choice but to keep them still and tense beneath him.
“Now, then,” he muttered roughly, “if I lift my hand away from your mouth, are you going to make me regret it?”
Her eyes sliced up at his, burning with a thousand gilt-edged threats, all of which vowed immeasurable regret.
“Take as long as you like to decide. I’m quite comfortable myself,” he added, shifting his hips, forcing her legs to bend even wider to accommodate him. “Although I cannot promise how comfortable you will be in a minute or two when your breeches start to annoy me.”
Beau’s eyes widened. There was no mistaking his meaning; she could feel the heat of his flesh where it pressed into the juncture of her thighs and it was nowhere near as deceptively soft as the threat in his voice, nowhere near as indifferent as the lazy threat in his eyes.
She tried one last time to squirm free, to dislodge him, but he only chastened her with a slow smile and pressed closer, making her aware of the swelling expansion of his flesh as it responded to her futile efforts.
Shocked that there was any more of him to expand, her body went completely still beneath him. Her breath came faster, the pounding in her blood became distinct enough that he could feel her heart hammering in her chest and see her panic throbbing through the small veins in her temple.
“Was it something I said?” he asked with a wolfish grin. “Or something you might like me to do?”
His face was so close, all she could see was the black slash of his eyebrows, the splash of ebony hair flung forward over his brow and cheeks, and the amused mockery in his eyes. She closed her own for a moment and when she opened them again, they blazed with such fiery contempt, he almost laughed out loud.
“I gather we understand each other?”
She managed a jerky nod and he cautiously eased the pressure from her mouth. He did not remove his hand completely, choosing instead to rest it across her throat in such a way as to lock her head flat and firm on the desk, not allowing her the luxury to turn either way or avoid the further confrontation in his eyes.
“I say again, mam’selle. Quite the ferocious little corsair. Ferocious, warm, and surprisingly tempting,” he added, shifting his hips slightly for emphasis. “I don’t suppose I could interest you in a small skirmish of another nature?”
She swallowed and he could feel the movement of her throat muscles beneath his hand.
“Get off of me,” she rasped.
“Ah. Mam’selle declines,” he said softly. “Pour le moment.”
“Get… off… of me!”
He watched her mouth shape the words and savored the echo of them as they vibrated down his spine. He had made the proposition in jest, yet his flesh was betraying the fact she was soft and warm and extremely tempting. And that there were other needs besides food and water he had gone too long without.
“If I do, I want your word—your blood oath—that you will not try any more of your foolish tricks.”
“My word?” she spat. “My blood oath? How do you know you can trust it?”
“Because you are going to trust me when I give you my word, and my
oath, mam’selle”—he lowered his head, lowered his mouth until the heat of it renewed the flush of warmth in her cheeks—“if you ever … ever draw another weapon of any kind on me, I will bind you hand and foot to the shrouds and flay your backside into bloody strips. And that”—he molded his fingers more poignantly around the arch of her throat—“only after I have sliced out your tongue and fed it to the sharks.”
She swallowed again and her lips parted, trembling as much from the force he was exerting on her throat as from the cool promise mirrored in the silver-blue of his eyes.
“Your word, mam’selle?”
She tried forming the words twice before there was any substance to her answer. Her face felt as if it were on fire. Her hands were curled into fists, cold as ice, and her limbs were aching from the strain of trying to keep him at bay.
“You have it,” she whispered. “You have my word.”
“No tricks?”
“No tricks.”
He allowed a crooked smile to underline the warning in his finger as he lifted his hand from her throat and traced a smooth line along the curve of her lower lip. His other hand released her wrists and he was struck by another image as he straightened: that of her lying exactly as she was now atop the clutter of papers and charts, naked, with her hair unbound and spread like dark silk beneath her.
Across a Moonlit Sea Page 6