“She means to send word of what she’s learned in a few days, sir.”
“Frankly, I’m surprised they’re willing to help,” Duilio admitted, “so that’s just fine. Is there any other news?”
“I’ve sent the correspondence from the embassy to the ambassador already,” Vas Neves said. “I merely wanted to inform you of our interactions with the Americans.”
Only the parts that directly concern me. Duilio swallowed his irritation. “Thank you, then, Captain.”
The captain nodded again and, before stepping out of the courtyard, said, “Also, the ambassador told me to tell you she’s impressed with your . . . audacity. I believe that’s the best translation of the phrase she used, which was, admittedly, rather vulgar. I’m not certain she’s aware that I speak English.”
Duilio grinned at the image of dainty Madam Norton spouting vulgarities. He suspected the American knew more about Vas Neves than he did. With their ample resources, the American Foreign Office had probably had every member of the Portuguese mission investigated before they’d even set foot on Quitos.
He hadn’t been sure the Americans would honor an implied debt several years old, but he was glad now that he’d taken the chance.
* * *
THE OPEN OCEAN
Joaquim sighed as he descended the ladder into the cabin, thinking only of the bunk and a good night’s sleep. It had been too long since he’d spent an entire day sailing. In the morning he was going to have sore muscles in spots not often used.
He’d left João and Aga on deck. While the yacht wasn’t in the normal shipping lanes, the sea was calm, and they’d put out the sea anchor, they still couldn’t afford to take chances. There was almost no moon tonight, and they had no idea where sereia waters began. Fortunately, Aga wouldn’t be affected should a sereia attempt to misdirect them away from their course.
Joaquim peeled off his salt-stiffened shirt, then his undershirt, and draped them over the rail. It was dark in the cabin, but he didn’t need a lamp. He slipped off his boots and slid under the blankets on the bunk. It was a haven of warmth. After shifting about to find a comfortable position in the small berth, he dragged one pillow about so that he clutched it in his arms, and laid his head on the other.
When he closed his eyes, his earlier cares flooded back. What is Marina doing? Is she thinking of me? He mentally checked his gift, certain he could find Marina even a day’s sail away from shore.
Only his sense of her was all wrong.
Joaquim sat up, banging his head on the shelf above the bunk in his haste. He rubbed at his temple and swung his legs over the side of the bunk. Cool air assaulted his bare chest. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness by then. “Marina?”
A cough came from the closet nearest the foot of the bunk. Joaquim rose and opened the door. A hint of light showed him Marina’s slim form huddled in the bottom of the closet, arms wrapped about her knees. Her face lifted, revealing reddened eyes.
Stifling the urge to laugh in relief, Joaquim knelt down to help her up. “How long have you been in here?”
“Since before dawn,” she whispered, sounding guilty about it. Her small hands shook as they settled on his arms.
Oh God. That was far too long to be hiding in that cramped spot. “Are you hurt?”
“No. I’m fine,” she managed. He drew her to her feet, but she slumped against him. “I’m sorry. My . . . my legs are asleep.”
Joaquim wrapped his arms about her. No point in being reserved now. He helped her toward the bunk. “Here, come sit down with me.”
When she sat down on the bunk’s edge, he wrapped one arm about her shoulders. Her hands touched on his side, her chilly fingers reminding him that he was only half-clothed. He used his free hand to tug the blanket around both of them. Marina’s face pressed against his chest. He wanted to hold her like this all night.
No, he wanted more.
He’d intended to propose to her on the first of May. It wouldn’t be too far off his schedule to ask her now. He’d wanted their marriage to start off better than this, though. To try to make love to her in this cramped cabin wasn’t what he’d planned at all. “Marina, does your father know where you are?”
“Please don’t send me back,” she whispered. “Please.”
She hadn’t answered his question. He found her chin and tilted her head up to peer into her eyes. “I won’t. Either I will leave you with your sister on the islands, or you’ll come with me. But I don’t want your father to worry.”
She clutched at the blanket. “Ana will tell him.”
Miss Ana had something to do with this; that suggested planning. “You do know that João and his wife are on the ship as well, don’t you?”
“Yes. They were . . . down here, earlier.”
Oh dear. João and Aga had come down earlier to nap so they wouldn’t fall asleep on the deck. By the hesitant way Marina spoke, Joaquim suspected they’d done more than doze. The cabins were close enough that she would have been able to hear everything that passed between the couple. “Why didn’t you tell us you were here earlier?”
Marina sniffed wetly. “I was afraid you would take me back.”
And so she’d stayed in a closet most of the day. No, she had to have visited the water closet once or twice, but she could have managed that without being noticed. Then again, she could have just sat on his bunk all day. He hadn’t come down here at all save to toss his bag atop the chest.
“Are you angry with me?”
Joaquim laughed and drew her closer into his arms. Now I know why I’ll marry before I return home. A weight lifted from his shoulders, making him almost giddy with relief. “No. I did worry you’d run off with your father’s assistant while I was gone.”
Her father’s assistant was an officious young man, very skilled at his job. But Joaquim hadn’t missed that the man showed an interest in Marina.
“Don’t be silly. He’s seeing one of the maids from the Ferreira house now.” Marina drew back and whispered, “I thought this would be romantic.”
He fought the urge to laugh again. He had spent the whole day on the deck. The wind had dried his skin, and he must smell of sweat and salt. His hands were roughened by the lines. For her part, she’d evidently been hiding among Erdano’s spare garments and carried more than a hint of seal musk. That was not romantic, at least not by his definition. And yet he wasn’t going to send her away. “Marina, we need to be practical about this.”
Her cheek pressed against his bare chest. “You don’t want me here?”
Nothing could be further from the truth. His body tightened, not as exhausted as he’d believed, but he was not going to rush this, even if it took every ounce of self-control he had. He located one of her hands under the blanket and drew it to his lips. “I do want you, but as tired as I am, I doubt I could please you. And João might come down that ladder at any moment.”
“Oh,” she said softly. “I didn’t think of that.”
Joaquim smiled in the darkness. He wished he could give her that romantic interlude she’d pictured in her mind, but reality didn’t favor her chances. He stroked a hand over her hair, his fingers catching on a lock that had come loose from her braid. “Perhaps if we both got a bit of sleep, everything would seem better when we woke.”
She sighed dramatically, much like she did everything else. Everything was urgent to her. It reminded him that she was several years younger than him, barely twenty-three. “Here,” he said, finding the edge of the sheet. “Lie down.”
It took a moment for her to wriggle her way under the sheet, but he lay down next to her, facing her, worked one arm under her head, and drew her closer with the other. She was wearing trousers and a shirt, with no corset. That realization sent another bolt of fire through his groin, but if nothing else, he had ample practice denying that particular urge. He tucked his head atop hers and felt he
r hand settle on his waist. He could wait a few more hours, he reminded himself, or a few more days. The boat groaned in response to a wave, a strangely reassuring sound.
“I love you, Joaquim,” she mumbled in the darkness.
He pressed a kiss to her hair. “I love you too, darling.”
“I’m glad you’re not angry with me.” She sighed and nestled closer.
With her soft hair against his cheek and her body pressed against his, it was going to take him hours to get to sleep.
* * *
Marina woke tangled in Joaquim’s arms, recognizing that only after a panicked instant where she’d dreamed herself entangled in seaweed. But his body was warm and solid. One hand pressed against the small of her back, keeping her close. He smelled of seawater and perspiration.
Not that she smelled any better. The clothes in that closet stank of something acrid, and that scent was all over her now. Her hair must be mussed and she needed to visit the tiny water closet again. And she was thirsty and hungry atop all that. Her careful plan had gone all awry.
But she was still here. With him.
Joaquim hadn’t taken her back to Portugal. Nor had he told her to take the bed and gone to sleep on the deck as she’d half feared he would. He’d always been so proper and polite with her until the afternoon before. It was as if telling her his secrets had let loose some flood of passion she’d never known he possessed. Perhaps his other reservations about her would fade too.
She slipped out of his arms and off the narrow bed as he slept on. She stared down at him in the darkness, but then the boat rolled on the water and she nearly fell atop him, so she went to visit the tiny water closet before she accidentally woke him. When she returned a few minutes later, she slipped back under the warm blankets and he folded her back into his arms without even waking. His cheek came to rest against hers, stubble pricking her skin. Sereia males rarely had facial hair, so she found the mustaches so common among the men of the Golden City a little off-putting. She hoped Joaquim didn’t decide to grow one.
But this was warm and comfortable. It wasn’t all she wanted, but it was a good start. She spread her chilled fingers and laid them against his bare chest. He flinched at the cold, but didn’t wake. Very softly—so softly that it was no more than a whisper—she began to sing.
Her sister, Oriana, had amazing power when she called, one of the reasons her aunts had pushed Oriana to join the Ministry of Intelligence. Oriana could use her call to influence humans from a distance, but Marina’s magic was far more limited. She could barely draw humans to her at all, not more than a few feet. She had to be touching them to have any true effect.
Even so, she could wrap her meager power around Joaquim to guard him from the magic of other sereia. Headed as they were to the islands, she didn’t want him ending up in some other female’s grip. She wasn’t going to let any other woman have him.
So she hummed a wordless call, pouring into it every bit of her longing for him, declaring that he was hers, asserting her claim on him. She only hoped her limited powers would be enough to hold him.
CHAPTER 9
WEDNESDAY, 22 APRIL 1903; THE OPEN OCEAN
Joaquim woke with a start when he heard his name called. He was confused for a split second, unsure what was happening and where he was. He was overwarm, tangled in Marina’s arms and the blankets.
He’d never woken in a woman’s arms before. It put thoughts in his head that his body . . .
“Mr. Joaquim?” João called down again. “Are you awake?”
Oh, hell and damnation! So much for any lustful ideas his body might have. “Yes,” Joaquim yelled back.
Marina blinked up at him blearily. “What?”
“Shhh,” he said. “I’ll be up in a few minutes, João,” he called toward the ladder.
The shadow at the head of the cabin’s hatch disappeared. Joaquim let loose a frustrated breath. He had Marina to himself, but the situation wasn’t what he wanted.
He’d been thinking of a fine wedding, a small one, with just their families. Perhaps taking her to Sintra and Lisboa in Southern Portugal for a week afterward, down to see the Algarve, or up to the mountains of the Douro River Valley. Instead they were on a cramped yacht, and not alone. Joaquim gazed down at Marina’s face.
She still seemed only halfway awake. Her delicate scarred hand came to rest on his chest, and he wrapped his own around it. “I have to go help João,” he said. “You can come up on deck if you want.”
The corners of her mouth turned down as if she wanted to frown, but she nodded quickly.
What am I supposed to say now? And how was he supposed to escape this bunk? He was pinned next to the hull of the boat. Crawling over her wasn’t a graceful option. Joaquim huffed out a sigh, reflecting then that his breath must also be far from perfect. “I need to go up there, Marina. Would you let me past?”
Her cheeks flushed. She jerked her fingers out of his and struggled with the blankets to free herself. But instead of rising to her feet, she overbalanced and slid from the bunk onto the decking with a dismayed cry.
Cursing under his breath, Joaquim swung his feet over the edge. He got out of bed without stepping on her, and then hauled her upright. Her face was red and she looked on the verge of tears again. Leaning down to meet her eyes, Joaquim cupped her cheeks with his hands. “We’ll work this out,” he promised. “Just be patient with me.”
She nodded again wordlessly.
Yes, I’ve done everything wrong. But he didn’t know how to fix it, so he grabbed his portmanteau off the floor, set it on the unmade bunk, and dug out a clean shirt. “I’m going to use the water closet and then head upstairs,” he said. “You can join us when you like. Did you bring any clothes with you?”
Marina shook her head, her lower lip enticingly caught between her sharp teeth.
Seeing that, he felt his heart thumping a little harder. For a moment, he actually considered ignoring João. “You’re welcome to dig through this and see if anything of mine would work for you. Or I can ask João if you can borrow something of Aga’s.”
“No, don’t do that. I’ll just . . .” She made a vague gesture in the direction of his bag.
“Very well, then.” He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her cheek, then went off to the water closet before he said anything else stupid.
* * *
Marina sat down on the unmade bunk. What she’d wanted to do was urge Joaquim to stay with her, but João and his wife had been on deck all night. That was one thing she’d learned on the English ship she’d been on. Someone had to be on duty at all times, even when the sails were down and the motor quiet.
She considered his bag, so trustingly left open. Does he have any more secrets? She could go through his things, find out what was in there. Perhaps there was a journal in which he confessed his love for her. Or perhaps there was a journal in which he didn’t. Given how poorly things had gone so far, she probably didn’t want to know.
But her borrowed garments smelled now, both from the stench in the closet and from a day’s worth of sweat. She could wash these when they arrived on the islands, but while she was on this boat, she didn’t want to stink. She should have brought a bottle of fragrance.
I’m going to make the best of this, she told herself firmly. There was no excuse for maundering on about a situation she’d created herself. She had crept aboard this ship during the night. She’d hidden in the closet. It was all her own doing, and she was going to keep her wits about her.
She glanced into the bag and saw a neatly folded pair of linen shirts on top. She picked up one and shook it out. It would be ridiculously long on her, but she exchanged her dirty shirt for the clean one. She picked up the worn garments and laid them aside, set Joaquim’s portmanteau on the floor again, and neatly made up the bunk. There was no mirror to check her hair, but she located a comb lying on a shelf near the ladder. That
must be Joaquim’s. She combed out her tangled hair and braided it.
If she was going to face the morning, she would look tidy while doing so.
Once she’d climbed the ladder to the deck of the ship, she stood still for a moment, blinded by the morning sunshine. The light reflected off the water, making it worse. She shielded her eyes with one hand and looked out over the deck. Joaquim and João were hauling on ropes to raise a third sail—the middle one—that billowed and puffed as it slid up the mast. The ship rolled on the water as that sail belled out. Full sails meant good speed on their way to the islands. Well, she assumed that was what it meant.
This ship had two masts, the one toward the front where Joaquim was, and a smaller mast near the back. The sail in the back was already up. Marina spotted a steam pipe protruding from the deck behind the cabin, but it wasn’t belching smoke at the moment, so they weren’t using the engine now. It was a small steam pipe, nothing like the huge ones on the English steamer she’d traveled on. But she’d heard the engine when the ship had first begun to move on the river the previous morning, so they did use it.
João’s young wife, Aga, brushed past Marina where she stood with her back against the cabin. The lovely girl paused and appraised Marina for a second, and then walked on as if she saw nothing surprising about another woman on the ship’s deck. Likely Joaquim had warned them about her unforeseen presence. Aga went to the back of the ship and began coiling a rope attached to a huge wet mess of canvas on the deck.
Marina watched all the activity warily. The wisest thing to do is stay out of the way.
Once Joaquim and João had finished tying off the third sail, Joaquim came back toward where she stood and eased past her. “I need to check our heading,” he said, and then was gone off to the back of the boat.
The Shores of Spain Page 8