by Shana Galen
could return and attack any time. But he also knew La
Sirena had been damaged in their skirmish. Jourdain
would be supervising repairs and making attack plans
tonight, just as Bastien was—should be.
“Merde.” He set Raeven aside and sat.
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Sleepily, she pushed her hair out of her eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
“Jourdain will come for us in the morning. I need
to call my officers, make a plan.”
She nodded, the sleepiness leaving her face, and her
swollen, rosy lips thinning. He wished he could erase
her serious expression, replace it with the satisfied look
she’d worn moments before. “I know I’m not one of
your officers. I’m an outsider, and on top of all that,
I’m a woman. But I’m good with strategy. My father
always consults me.” She pulled up the bedclothes and
tucked them under her arms. “And he always wins.”
Bastien stood and pulled on his breeches. “I have
no doubt of your abilities, but I think it’s better if you
wait here. You should get some rest.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re not going to rest. And
even if I wanted rest, how could I? If this ship goes
down, I drown along with the rest of the crew. If
the ship is taken, you face death, but I’ll find death a
merciful release.”
She was right. If Jourdain took the Shadow, she
would be fair game for all the men. The captain might
claim her first, but when he’d had his fill, the rest of
the men would all have a turn.
He shrugged his shirt over his head, his wounded
shoulder stiff and protesting. “My men won’t accept—”
She jumped to her feet, pulling the bedclothes
around her. “Your men are—as you told me before—
fiercely loyal to you. If you listen to me, they will.”
He bent to pull on a boot.
“You know you have a traitor on board.”
He stilled, his hands frozen on the soft leather, his
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foot half in and half out. “I don’t know what you’re
talking about.” He shoved in his foot and looked
about the cabin for the other boot.
“Yes, you do. Someone alerted Jourdain to your
position. He didn’t fire randomly in that fog bank. He
knew you were there.”
He saw the other boot and scooped it up. “Perhaps
he was simply lucky.”
“That’s possible,” she acknowledged. “And I might
even entertain the idea if he hadn’t attacked. He didn’t
have time or enough visibility to identify your ship.
If he didn’t know it was you, he would have been
firing on a ship unknown and unseen. That’s foolish,
especially with the number of British and American
men-of-war patrolling these waters. He might stand
a chance against your sloop but not against a man-of-
war. No.” She shook her head, her hair falling about
her shoulders. “He knew it was you. He was sitting in
the fog bank waiting for the Shadow.”
She was right. He’d thought the same thing as soon
as Jourdain attacked. The Barbary pirate shouldn’t
have even expected him to be following, much less
been lying in wait. He glanced at her, and she stared
at him for a long moment.
“But I’m not saying anything you don’t already
know, am I?”
“No.” But she’d forced him to acknowledge his
suspicions. He would have been happier thinking his
crew completely loyal.
He would have been happy, but he would also be
dead. The traitor had to be found and dealt with. But
how to hook a traitor?
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He glanced at Raeven again. She narrowed her
eyes. “Don’t tell me you think I’m the traitor.”
He didn’t, but he decided to play out the idea.
“You have more motive than anyone else aboard this
ship. You and your Mr. Williams.”
“But neither of us had any idea you were going
after Jourdain. How could we?”
“You managed to get aboard my ship. You managed
to incapacitate my guard. You managed to make it to
my cabin and put a dagger to my throat. I think you
could manage to find out our plans.”
She pulled the bedclothes tighter, hugged herself.
“Is that what you think I did?”
He went to the mirror, pulled back his hair, and
secured it with a thong.
“Very well, tell me this. If I knew you were going
after Jourdain, and I had somehow alerted him so he
might surprise and destroy you, why did I sneak on
board? Why did I warn you about the attack when we
were on deck?”
He watched her in the mirror. She paced when she
spoke. Back and forth, back and forth, dragging the
sheet with her. She really should have been a barrister.
“Why did I help with the cannons? Wouldn’t it
have been better for me to…?”
“Enough.” He turned. She was so damn logical.
“You’re not the informant. But I don’t know who is.
Until I do, it suits my purposes to allow the suspicion
to fall on you.”
“You think others will assume there’s a traitor.”
Clearly she didn’t. The tone in her voice was dubious.
“Sailors are a superstitious lot. More likely, they’ll
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consider the incident bad luck. They might chalk it up
to having a woman on board.”
He gathered maps and charts from his desk. “Some
will, yes. But my officers aren’t so foolish. If the idea
hasn’t occurred to them already, it will soon.”
“And you plan to name me? I might as well jump ship
now. It’s better than being forced to walk the plank!”
“Don’t jump quite yet. When the suggestion arises,
I won’t name you, but I won’t discount you either.
Unless there’s a mutiny, you’re safe under my protec-
tion. For a little while.”
“And while I’m the prime suspect, the true traitor
thinks he’s safe.”
“It might be enough to cause him to make a mistake.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
He looked up at her tone.
“Jourdain is coming back for you,” she said. “You
don’t have time to wait.”
He grinned, crossed to her, and took her pointed
chin between two fingers. “Let me worry about that.
You—if you’re so good at strategy—study the copies of
charts I’ve left. Figure out where the hell he’s hiding.”
She nodded, and he went to the door, opened
it, stepped into the companionway. But he turned
right back around, surprising her as she leaned over
his desk. “And Rae
ven, I’ll be back. Don’t bother
getting dressed.”
She did bother to dress. She wasn’t some courtesan,
paid to lounge about in her dressing robe.
Not that she had a dressing robe. She didn’t have
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much of anything, so she raided Bastien’s trunks once
again and donned a black shirt, black breeches, and
cinched all in place with a large belt. She wished she
could find boots that fit better because the ones she’d
borrowed were too large, but she found a pair of
woman’s slippers among the gowns. They were still
too big for her, but she didn’t think she’d trip over
them as much.
She fully expected a guard at the cabin door, but
the companionway was clear. Most of the crew were
using the last of the dying daylight to finish repairs to
the Shadow. At night she imagined Bastien—Cutlass—
would order all portholes covered, all lights extin-
guished. If Jourdain was out there, Bastien wouldn’t
take any chances the Barbary pirate might spot him.
She could imagine the conversations in the wardroom
at present. The men were probably drinking and
smoking and tossing out idea after idea. She could
picture Bastien smoking his own cigar, listening
patiently, and making his own plans.
Was the traitor in the wardroom even now, or was
he one of the mates? Would he try to help Jourdain
again soon or bide his time? It would be easy to “acci-
dentally” leave a porthole uncovered, shine a light on
the deck during the watch…
She missed the safety and security of her father’s
ship. In truth, there were many times she’d been in as
much danger on the Regal as she was here, but for some
reason, she felt more exposed on the Shadow. Perhaps
because she didn’t know the crew here, didn’t know
the ship’s capabilities yet, didn’t trust the captain.
But that wasn’t quite true. She did trust Bastien.
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She’d seen his skills and leadership abilities. She knew
he’d protect her. He’d done so in Gibraltar to his own
detriment. He was more of a gentleman than he prob-
ably wanted to be.
She did trust him with her body. But not with
her heart.
And she was afraid their lovemaking had touched
something in her heart. Something different than
Timothy had touched.
She stood in the companionway and shook her head.
Why should she allow Bastien to touch anything inside
her? Why couldn’t she be like a man—give her body
and nothing else? She knew Bastien wasn’t standing
about, thinking about how she’d touched his heart.
The thought made her smile ruefully. And wonder
what Bastien was thinking. She didn’t know him well
enough to guess.
But she knew who did.
A few minutes later, she made her way along
the companionway until she reached the infirmary.
She couldn’t have said how she knew which it was.
Perhaps she could smell the blood or laudanum.
The door was open, and she peeked inside. Mr.
Leveque sat at a table, folding strips of white cloth.
The men in his care, there were two, slept on cots.
One had a bandage around his head, the other around
his arm and leg. She wasn’t certain of their injuries and
didn’t want the details. Even the idea of blood made
her stomach protest.
“Can I help you, mademoiselle?”
Happily, she turned her eyes back to Leveque. “I
hope I’m not interrupting, doctor.”
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“Not at all. And you mustn’t call me doctor. As I
told you before, Monsieur le Marquis gave me this
position, but I have no qualifications.”
She nodded toward his patients. “They seem well
enough.”
“Eh, well. I knew something about caring for
horses. Men are not so very different, and I have been
on ships for many years. I have seen almost everything,
as I imagine have you.”
She nodded. She’d seen injuries so horrible she
wished she could erase them from her mind. But she
had never tried to deal with the injuries. She had
never tried to save a man’s life. The most she had
done was apply a tourniquet and help the injured soul
to the infirmary.
And she hadn’t stayed to see the doctor work.
She thought at one point her father hoped she might
work as a nurse. When she’d been twelve and her father
had been captain of the HMS Titan, he’d brought her
to the infirmary one day and offered her as an extra
pair of hands. She’d done well for several hours: rolling
bandages, sorting medicines, cleaning instruments. But
later in the day, a man who’d severed his finger in
an accident with a coil of rigging stumbled into the
infirmary, his injured hand clutched to his breast, blood
gushing over his shirt. She’d gone pale and—she was
loathe to even remember this now—she’d fainted.
It was the first and last time she’d fainted, and it
had been the end of her glorious medical career. For
some reason, she could draw blood in battle. Oh, her
stomach grew queasy when she saw it, but she did not
feel lightheaded. But when not in the throes of musket
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fire and booming cannons, she could not even think of
blood without her head swimming.
“How long have you been sailing?” She eyed the
men on the cots. They seemed still enough—unlikely
to convulse or begin bleeding out. Gingerly, she
stepped farther inside.
“Thirteen years. You?”
“Since I was four, and I’ll be twenty this month.”
He shook his head, a reaction she had not expected.
Most sailors were impressed by her many years at sea.
She raised her brows. “You disapprove?”
“You’ve known nothing else,” Mr. Leveque said.
“It dismays me.” He set the bandages aside.
“I love the sea,” she countered.
“That’s what he says too.” He gestured toward the
stern and the captain’s cabin. “But he’s known little
else, either. Jumped on board when he was but eleven.
It was the only way to escape the bloodshed. He could
do anything now, and he chooses this.” The look of
disgust on his face indicated he didn’t approve of the
choice. “Battles, death, risking life and limb.” Leveque
shook his head again.
“Why do you stay?” she asked.
“How can I leave him, mademoiselle?” He
shrugged. “We have no one but each other.”
“Surely you have family bac
k in France.”
“No.” He reached for a pair of wine glasses, but she
shook her head. He filled both anyway. “My family
was the duc de Valère and his family. I began working
for him as little more than a child. I don’t know where
my parents were or who they were, but the duc took
me in. He was a good man.”
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“What happened to him? You said the duchesse is
dead. What about the rest of the family?”
“All killed in the revolution. Monsieur le Marquis had
two brothers. One was his twin, and both were killed
that night. We heard later his father was guillotined.”
“I’m sorry.” And she was. The violence in France
a few years before was unimaginable to her. Whole
families denounced and killed. Children even. “How
did you and… er, the marquis escape?”
The man looked thoughtful then said, “That is a
story for him to tell. It is very personal to him. I may
have already said too much.”
She nodded. She could respect the old man’s
decision, but she knew it meant she would probably
never know Bastien’s story. He seemed unlikely to
reveal it to her. “Might I ask one more question? On
another topic?”
The doctor inclined his head. “Why are we
pursuing Jourdain? Bastien told me it was because the
Barbary pirate killed someone he loved.”
“His father.”
She frowned. “But I thought you said—”
“Not his real father. The man who became his
father, Vargas, the captain of El Cuchillo. That’s the ship
that took us on, and the man who taught Monsieur le
Marquis all he knows about ships and sailing.”
“What happened? Or is it too personal to reveal?”
Leveque shrugged. “The story is widely known.” He
lifted his glass, sipped, and indicated she should drink
also. “Do not make me drink alone, mademoiselle . ”
Obligingly, she lifted the second glass and drank.
The wine was good. From what she had seen on
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board, the crew of the Shadow did not want for what
might be considered luxuries aboard the Regal.
“Jourdain and Vargas were not partners, but they
often worked together for this pasha or that. I don’t
know the politics of the region, but I know both men
became rich.”
Raeven frowned. It was no mystery how pirates
made their fortunes. They ran blockades and robbed