The Pirate's Lady

by Julia Knight

  He wondered how it would be to kiss her, whether she was as deadly as a laceflower to taste.

  “He’ll die first, while she watches, knows it was her fault.”

  “If you like.”

  Her smile changed from sly to coquettish and she looked up at him from beneath feathery eyelashes in a way that made him want to kiss her forever. He drifted his hand up her neck, around to a soft cheek and leaned in. “And then what do you want?”

  That did startle her, made her jump under his hand, the naive look back, making him want her even more. “I—I’m not sure.”

  “Maybe I could give you an idea?” he murmured. Her lips were soft and warm when he kissed them, only briefly, a taste to show her. “You could have everything.”

  “I shouldn’t, Rillen. I mustn’t—”

  He kissed her again, harder this time, relishing the way she didn’t cringe from him as all the rest did. He kissed her down onto the lounger, felt the warmth of her through her dress, the softness of her, the slight tremble as he pulled away. “I don’t care about shouldn’t,” he said in her ear. “I don’t care about mustn’t either.”

  Again the soft tremble of her, the sly hate disappearing before round-eyed naiveté, as though she’d never kissed a man before, never felt want or need or desire. An intoxicating mix, for someone like him. He kissed her again, let himself get swept away by it, by her. One hand trailed up her leg, bringing the hem of her dress with it, letting him in to clear, smooth skin.

  She pulled away, breathless, with an “I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t,” but didn’t move from the lounger, didn’t stop his hand as it crept up her leg.

  His fingers reached her thigh, slipped in between shivering muscles and still she didn’t stop him. Another inch, a stroke as light as air, a shuddering gasp from her…

  “Do you want everything?”

  Another shift of his hand, a gust of her breath across his lips. “Yes,” she said, and kissed him.

  * * *

  Holden was on deck when Van Gast came back near to dawn, swearing under his breath, glaring at everyone and slamming shut the door to his quarters. It slammed open again a minute later, for Van Gast to shout, “Someone bring me some brandy, for fuck’s sake!”

  Holden waved away the crewman who ran to find the brandy, and took it himself. He had a lot to talk to Van Gast about.

  Van grabbed the bottle out of his hand without a word and sloshed a good measure in his glass. “Gilda, fucking Gilda!”

  Holden said nothing, let the brandy and the swearing calm Van Gast down enough he could actually talk properly. Van flopped onto his back on the bed and Holden took the chair.

  “Gilda, all along,” Van said when the glass was empty and he’d poured another. “I knew I knew the voice!”

  “Gilda set you up in the square?”

  “Sure as I’m a rack. Saw her going into the licensed docks, saying she was there to see Rillen.”

  “So it wasn’t Tallia then.” Holden couldn’t help the smile. He poured himself some brandy. He wasn’t a drinker, as a rule, but for this he felt in need of a toast, though he’d feel better if he knew where Ilsa was. Gone to the all-night market was all the crew could tell him. This city seemed one that never slept. Maybe she’d be back soon, cheerful again as she had been the last time, having bought something for herself, something pretty. “Who’s Rillen?”

  “Good question. Someone people don’t like to talk about much, or at least not to someone who looks like I currently do.” Van Gast leaped off the bed and set about cleaning himself up with the ewer of water in the corner. “Pass me the blue shirt, would you? Thanks. All I could get was that he’s not a very nice person, a lot of people are afraid of him, and if he’s inside the licensed docks—I don’t think a merchanter, people are too wary of talking about him for that. Spends his evenings in Kyr’s Palace, often as not. Kyr’s Palace again. Keeps cropping up. I wonder…anyway, if he’s not a merchanter, he’s still from inside the palace. Which means very definitely not a nice man, not if you’re a rack. What did Tallia say?”

  The sudden change of tack startled Holden so he spilled brandy on his hand. “What? Oh. Gilda came down, said she’d seen Tallia come in here. Tallia admits she left a note. She wouldn’t say much else. But if it was Gilda…Tallia did show me where Josie’s ship was. She did get us the crew.”

  Van Gast finished getting changed and flopped back on the bed. “Including Gilda. Maybe that was the plan, to blame each other when really they’re working together. Gods damn it all to buggery, why do women have to be so fucking twisty?”

  “Because all the women you know are racks? Not all women are like that. Anyway, I thought that’s what you loved about Josie.”

  Van Gast threw him an evil look. “Yes, well, there’s twisty and twisty. All right? Do you think Tallia knows who this Rillen is? I mean, she’s probably Estovanian, right? She worked in that inn, she must have heard a fair bit. Maybe we should have another chat with her, because she makes me itch about something.”

  With that, he was off the bed and halfway out of the door before Holden got out of the chair. The sheer vitality of him made Holden tired.

  Van Gast slowed as they got onto the deck, checking the sky, tasting the wind, noting the rigging and ropes were all as they should be. “Your men aren’t bad sailors, I’ll give them that.” Then a crafty look. “How’s Ilsa?”

  Holden glared at him and moved past to the steps. “Fine.”

  Even with his back to Van Gast, Holden could hear the grin in his voice. “Really? Bet her and Tallia are getting on famously.”

  “Van—”

  In the blink of an eye, Van Gast was blocking his way, his face dark and intense with something. “Look, Holden. You and Ilsa…you don’t have to. Not anymore, not if you don’t want to. You’re a free man now, free to think and feel whatever you want. She’s free, too, and you’re both just now finding out who you really are. And for a start, you’re a rack now. You don’t have to do anything. Rack rules, remember?”

  Holden found he couldn’t look at Van Gast. “That means I don’t have to keep Tallia in the brig, or have to do what you say, or…but I do have to, on this. Ilsa doesn’t know anything but Remoria, anyone but me. And I want to make everything right for her.” He managed to raise his head, look Van in the eyes. Say what he’d been struggling with in silence all these weeks. “I already risked her, with Josie. I can’t, not again. She never knew about that, but I don’t want to hurt her. I have to do this, Van. I do, for me. For her. Do you see? I have to know that the person I’m finding out I am is a good man. The man I was under the bond—I wasn’t a good man, though I tried. But I brought Josie to breaking, made Skrymir cut off his braid and honor, made Ilsa…I don’t know. I wasn’t a good man then, but I want to be now. So I’m going to try, whatever it takes. I want to make her happy. I just don’t know how.”

  Van Gast sighed enough it seemed it might lift him out of his boots, and glanced around at the crew on watch. Looked at all their bond scars, their newly open faces. “You poor bastards. You most of all, Holden. No man truly knows how to make a woman happy. Didn’t you know that? All you can do is love them, hard as you can, and hope like fuck it works out.” He flashed a grin. “Come on, we’ve got a game of Find the Lady to finish off. Lady number one is with this Rillen. Lady number two is down in the hold, just waiting for a nice chat with us.”

  “And lady number three?”

  “I have no idea.” He ran a distracted hand through his hair, and Holden could almost see him reject the first thought. Josie. “Let’s concentrate on one and two now, I think.”

  Darkness seemed to breed down in the area of the hold where the brig sat. Dank, humid, airless. Van Gast lit a lamp, and the flame stuttered and popped, but held.

  Tallia glared at them through the bars, and again Holden had the urge to open the brig, let her out. Too long chained himself, he couldn’t bear that she was locked away, a free thing trapped.

  Her l
ip curled as she considered them. “Ah, the infamous Van Gast. Come to gloat? Or to do the stupid thing and leave me here?” She turned reproachful eyes on Holden. “And what about you? How’s Ilsa today?”

  Van Gast didn’t give Holden a chance to reply, but strode to the brig and crouched so he was at eye level with Tallia as she sat on the bench. He raised the lamp so they could see each other clearly. “It’s you we’ve come to talk about, Tallia. You make me itch, make my little-magics burn. You’ve heard of them, I’m sure.”

  Tallia shrugged, offhand, as though she wasn’t in a brig, as though she had the upper hand or a gun aimed at Van’s heart.

  Van’s grin flashed out. “Why is that? Why is it you ask me if I’ll do the stupid thing? What do you know about stupid-but-exciting?”

  “What do you know about anything other than getting drunk and being a bastard?” The tone was sharp, but a flush crept up Tallia’s neck. Caught out saying something she shouldn’t, but Holden couldn’t see what.

  “Not much, admittedly. But I’m out here and you’re in there. Holden says you left a note. What did it say?”

  Tallia glared at him but said nothing.

  “How about I tell you what it said, and then you tell me what the fuck you’re up to? The note you left said for me to meet Josie at Kyr’s Palace. Right?”

  “Yes.” The word came grudgingly.

  “But you didn’t want me knowing it was Josie that sent you. Or that you had anything to do with her. Or are you going to try to tell me some random person just gave you the note and you decided to deliver on a whim of goodhearted charity?”

  Tallia’s lips twisted and for a moment Holden thought she’d lash out, but she gripped her hands together. “I thought she was going to get you back, going to make you pay for what you did. You hurt her like nothing else, and if I could I’d fucking stab you myself right now.”

  “But she hurt Van too.” Holden surprised himself by speaking. “He thought—she told me she loved me. Everything I made her do pointed to her betraying him.” He couldn’t watch her as he said it, ashamed that he’d been that man once. Clipped Josie’s wings, tried to tame her. No one could, and he’d almost killed her by trying. He wasn’t going to do it again with Tallia.

  “He didn’t trust her. Why should she trust him now? Ever? What makes him any different to all the other racks just trying to get in her breeches and prepared to say anything to do it? I told her, told her again and again, that Van was nothing but trouble for her, that she couldn’t trust him, but she wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t hear a word against him. Until now, now maybe she will, because he’s proved himself an untrustworthy rack through and through, who thinks of no one but himself.”

  “Enough!” Van’s voice was rough and cracked. “Please, enough. I know what I did. I know what I have to make up. Why did she get you to send the note?”

  “Didn’t say. I just brought the note and hoped she’d get you good. Or that I’d get a crack at you with my gun.”

  “Why does it matter to you?” Holden asked, and again, when he looked at her he was reminded somehow of Josie, despite their different looks.

  It was the air of confidence, the way they appeared to have control of any situation, even when that situation should mean they were at the disadvantage. Josie facing up to Skrymir while she was in shackles, looking up at him, insulting him as though she was free, as though she had a knife to his groin and every kind of jump on him. Tallia wasn’t so obvious, not so wild or brittley sharp, but it was there, a subtle riptide lurking under the surface, waiting to drown the unwary.

  The way she was glaring at Van Gast, insulting him as though she was free… It wasn’t much, but something, something in her reminded him of his dreams when he was young. Of freedom, of the uncatchable moon and wild winds, of far horizons and no ambition but to see what lay beyond.

  Holden asked a question he thought he might know the answer to. “How do you know Josie?”

  Van Gast had been pacing in the small space but now he stopped and rattled the bars of the brig. “Does it matter? We came down here for one thing, and one thing only. What do you know about a man called Rillen?”

  “Nothing I’m going to tell you. Except…except Josie’s been friendly with him. Very friendly.” She smiled at Van Gast, all smug as a well-fed cat.

  Van Gast twitched at that, but his voice came measured enough. “Fine. Be stupid. Stay in the brig. Don’t help me find whoever’s fucking me over, and maybe fucking Josie over too.” He leaned in, so that only the bars and a few inches of air separated them. “I don’t know who you really are, and it probably doesn’t matter, but I am going to prove to her that she can trust me. I’m going to have her say it, just once, that she loves me, even if it kills me. If she kills me. It’ll be worth it. And I’m going to find out who’s the traitor round here, who’s playing us both around, and then I’m going to kill them.”

  With that he dumped the lamp, turned on his heel and stalked up the steps. Tallia watched him go, her head cocked as though she’d seen something she didn’t expect.

  “Rillen’s one of the Yelen’s sons,” she said to the empty air. “A cruel bastard, the cruelest, and one to beware of. He keeps the dungeons, and what’s kept there. And he hates Van Gast with a passion. He’s not the only one.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Van Gast stilled the flutter in his stomach, tried the same for the itch in his chest but nothing would shift it. He was dressed in the finest merchantman clothes Guld had been able to find. A light frock coat in muted gold and green, a shirt with a ruffle down the front that tickled his chin, slim-fitting breeches in a pale brown and new boots to match. He kept his bells though—he’d go nowhere without those, and besides, many a merchantman was a sailor made good. Enough of them wore the bells for it not to be too noticeable. The worst parts of the whole disguise were the hair and the corset. Pig’s fat slicked Van Gast’s hair back to his head, making him smell like a side of bacon. That was bad enough but the corset—the corset was a living nightmare.

  Most merchanters were fat and sleek, at least the well-to-do ones, yet the fashion was for a slim silhouette, a flat stomach. The richer merchanters, unhampered by anything so uncouth as actually sailing a ship, climbing rigging or doing anything other than shouting orders or sitting and talking, tried to outdo the other. The pinched-in waist was a sign of wealth, of indolence, of having men to do that for them so they needn’t worry about how the corset hampered movement. They cinched themselves tighter and tighter till it had got to the point of ridiculousness. Van Gast was sure if he breathed too deeply, he’d break a rib. As always when dressed as Mr. Ibsen, he felt an idiot.

  “Are you sure about this, Van?” Holden, being all sensible again. “This Rillen, if Josie’s really—”

  “It’s not her. It’s a twist, that’s all.” Even if he harbored doubts about Josie’s motives, he wasn’t going to let her down. Not again. This was his last, only chance, he knew that.

  But Holden’s worried eyes bothered him too.

  “Look, it’s not her. I’d—fuck, I am staking my life on it. On her. Gilda, Tallia, someone else is the traitor. It’s not Josie. Not her style. Guld’s going to do his best to keep an eye on me, make sure if it all goes tits-up you can get away. Or, you know, help me live. The ship is yours while I’m gone. You’re captain, you give the orders. Except one. You keep that Tallia in the brig. Don’t fall for her mooning all over you like a lovesick puppy, all right? You just make sure everyone’s aboard so we can get out quick.”

  All that was forgotten as Van Gast made his way to Kyr’s Palace, acutely aware that Josie hadn’t told him a damned thing about this twist. To begin with, as he moved outside the city walls, he got a few interested looks from likely-looking racks checking out his purse, wondering if they could roll him for his coin. A knowing look, just a hint that he knew what they were about, a subtle hand on his pistol butt, was enough to send them looking for an easier mark. That interest faded as he entered th
e city proper, strolled along the broad thoroughfares in the more well-to-do areas, past inns that would rather shut forever than have a rack pass their door. He returned genteel nods of greeting and quizzical looks with a serene nod of his own, laughing under his breath.

  Kyr’s Palace came into view just as the sun sank below the horizon, pitching the masts in the docks to sullen orange flickers. He strolled up to the entrance and spotted Ansen hunkered down in a nearby alley, pretending to beg but keeping a sharp eye on the street. Van Gast wandered over, playing the indulgent, benevolent gent, and threw a few copper fish-heads into his bowl.

  “Hello, Ansen. Looking for me?”

  The boy, sharp featured and dark, scowled up at him for a long moment, then his face cleared and he nodded. At least the lad had stopped sucking his thumb. Van Gast leaned down so he was on a level with him. “Can I have my knife back?”

  Ansen spat on his boot. “Don’t know why she’s doing this. Should keep away from you. Josie’s nice. Nicer than you.”

  “Now there’s a fine way to treat your own father. And probably she is. Are you going to tell me where I can find her or not?”

  “Nope.”

  Van Gast sighed. He’d never really got the hang of children, as evidenced by the fact his son was on Josie’s crew, not his. It wasn’t even as if Josie was Ansen’s mother—Van Gast’s Tilly had died, and her family hadn’t even told him he had a son—but the boy had clung to Josie like a limpet and resented everything his father did. Van Gast was rather proud of the fact that the little sod wouldn’t do a damn thing he was told though. Just like his father. Van Gast fought back an urge to ruffle the boy’s hair—he’d probably get bitten for his trouble.

  “Look, Ansen, I’m here because I want to make it right, what I did, all right? Because she asked me to meet her here, and so I’m here, trussed up like a fucking chicken. Because she asked. Because there’s a twist here like never before, and she wants me to help. Now, are you going to tell me, or should I rattle it out of you?”