“I beg your pardon?”
“I said—”
“I heard what you said. I also heard you deny not five minutes ago that you were one of the king’s lackeys.”
“I denied being a lackey. I did not deny being dispatched to this forsaken place to meet with your father.”
“Why?”
“I really am not at liberty to say at the moment. I will tell you this much, however, that if the Argus had made it safely to New Providence, and if I had met with … as an example … Captain David Smith, or Captain Frederick Mounts, or any of a dozen other privateers before ever hearing your father’s name, I would have been able to discharge my commission for the king and be happily on my way back to London on the next ship. The fact that it was you who intervened today, and that your father happens to be Simon Dante,” he added, “who also happens to be one of the men I have been empowered to meet with, bears no extra weight of importance other than it is an incredible coincidence that happens to be incredibly convenient.”
“I do not believe in coincidences, sir.”
“Nor do I. Nonetheless, it would seem that one has occurred, so we can either take advantage … or not. As you see fit, Captain.”
She was standing under the lamp again, the bandana glowing, the fine wisps of coppery hairs catching the light and shining in a fiery tangle around her face. The air was as still and silent as the instant before a lightning strike. So silent, Varian could hear Beacom’s knees knocking together.
“London,” she mused at length. “I have heard it stinks worse than the bilge of a slaver. That the people are so friendly they throw their offal on the heads of neighbors passing on the streets below. I have even heard that the king himself”—she paused and a humorless smile played about the corners of her mouth—“prefers the companionship of pretty men in plumes and purple velvet.”
Varian refused to take the bait. He did push himself up onto his elbows, however, a move that caused the folds of the blanket to slip down, baring his chest and upper arms. It earned what he thought was the first glimpse of a genuinely feminine reaction when her gaze coursed over the exposed breadth of muscle—very hard, well-formed male muscle that was not deserving of the insult. He also paid the price for his little show of vanity when his head thundered and the cabin took a wild spin. But at least he managed to remain upright and not careen facedown out of the bunk.
“Take me to your father,” he said through clenched teeth. “ If he throws me over the side, then so be it; I will at least have met my obligations.”
Crisp snorted. “Sharks’ll like that, aye. A man who has met his obligations. Makes for a tastier meal.”
Juliet smiled thoughtfully. She snapped her compass closed and started rolling up the sheaf of charts. “Very well, my lord, you have won your audience. Not because you plead your case so well, but because we are pressed for time. If the wind holds, we can put another twenty leagues behind us before midnight and should make landfall no later than Friday, three days hence. Between now and then, however, perhaps Mr. Crisp will be able to find a spare shirt and petticoat to preserve your modesty.”
“Or you could simply return my own clothes. Beacom?”
Beacom turned as pale as candle wax, his eyes bugging out so far they threatened to squirt from the sockets. “I’m afraid that is not possible, your grace. Everything you were wearing was either scorched beyond repair or had to be cut away in order to treat your wounds.”
“Everything? All of my clothes?”
“E-even to your linens, sir.”
“What of my personal belongings? My trunks? My books … my papers?”
“Gone, your grace. Everything is gone down with the Argus. A-all except your sword, which I have here”—the valet stood hastily to one side to show that it was hanging on a peg beside him—“and your shoes.”
“Aye, an’ as fetchin’ an outfit as that would make,” Crisp said, chuckling, “I’d not wander about the decks like that or ye’ll be bent over with yer legs spread, takin’ it up the bottle before ye’ve done half a turn.”
“He’ll not be wandering about at all, Mr. Crisp,” Juliet said flatly. “This is a working ship and we have a great deal to do between now and when we drop anchor in port. I’ll not have passengers causing a distraction or getting in the way of the men going about their duties.”
Varian watched her slot the charts into pigeonholes built into the side of the desk. The dark braid of her hair slithered over her shoulder as she bent over and his fingers ached to follow it, to curl around her throat and squeeze until that insolent tongue was bitten off between her teeth. But the urge passed, taking the glowering expression with it, and when she glanced his way before she and her henchman left, she saw nothing but a politely strained smile of compliance.
When the door closed behind them, Beacom spun on his heel and grabbed at fistfuls of the blanket, twisting the cloth with such passion he nearly snatched it off the bed.
“Oh my good gracious God, sir! I thought sure we were done for! We are in the clutches of dread pirates! We are hostages! We are captives! We are prisoners at their complete and utter mercy! We shall be forced to walk the plank. We shall be lashed and smote with hot irons, our toenails drawn from our feet with hot pincers, our tongues cut out, and our entrails fed piece by piece to the sharks! How could you ask to stay on board? How could you provoke her temper with such bald disregard for our well-being? How could you not plead for release at the first opportunity!”
Varian threw the blanket aside and swung his legs over the side of the bed. The movement caused his bruised body to scream in pain but he was too angry to pay heed. “Lashed, smote, and fed to the sharks? You predict a gloomy future for us, Beacom.”
“With good reason, your grace. Have we not been regaled these past six weeks since departing London by stories of the half-man, half-wolf she claims as sire? Have we not had our hair sent rising straight off our heads at the tales of torture and brutality attached to the name Dante? You witnessed with your own eyes and ears how insensible she is to the proper respect due her betters.”
“I doubt she could be rendered sensible by anything short of a blow to the head. Where the devil is the wine?”
Beacom pointed with a hand still clutched around a hillock of blanket. Varian strode naked to a side table and poured himself a goblet of wine from a heavy green flagon. He downed the first cup in three noisy swallows and poured himself another.
“Brace yourself, man,” he said, glaring at Beacom. “For all that he may well arouse fear in his enemies, Simon Dante is still the king’s man. One could pick at nits and say, rather, that he was the queen’s man, but he still flies the flag of England on his masthead. As for the daughter—” He paused to throw back another measure of wine. “In spite of her apparent contempt, did she not come to the Argus’s rescue at considerable risk to her own vessel? You saw the size of that bloody Spaniard. Our shots bounced off its hull like noisome gnats. Now fetch another bottle of wine and for pity’s sake, stop your trembling before you wear through the heels of your shoes.”
There was iron in Varian’s voice, iron in his body, too, gleaming across the broad expanse of his shoulders, down the hard flat plane of his belly, and in the long, sinewed legs.
Though Beacom’s very bowels liquefied at the thought of being caught helping himself to the lady captain’s store of spirits, he was more than passingly familiar with his master’s temper and at the moment, he was not certain which boded worse for the state of his own well-being.
Drawing what comfort he could from the knowledge that he was at least not alone on this dread pirate ship, and that his master was an admirable adversary when it came to dealing with either sex, he released his hold on the blankets, and, after giving the covers a tremulous smoothing, ventured to the cabinet. There was only one bottle on the shelf, the contents amber when he poured them into Varian’s outthrust cup.
“Oh dear. I should think it looks quite off, your grace.”
Varian held the goblet to his nose. For the first time since he had wakened, the smile that spread across his face was genuine and the darkness of his eyes lit with a glint of pleasure. “It isn’t off at all, Beacom. It is quite damnably on. Rumbustion,” he explained with a hearty wink and took a long, satisfied swallow. “As lusty and restorative an elixir as God could provide.”
“Nonetheless, your grace, you … you might want to exercise caution in restoring too much too soon. You have had nothing by way of food or drink for the past twelve hours.”
Scorning his valet’s advice, Varian tipped the goblet and drained it. For all of ten seconds he felt little more than the warming sensation of the tropical spirit gliding down his throat—he was, after all, no stranger to the sharp effects of spirits—but when the ten seconds passed, his body went numb from the waist down and his knees folded like sheets of paper. He would have gone down hard had Beacom not caught him under the arms.
“I have you, your grace,” he said, scrambling to keep his own balance. “Shall I help you back to the bed?”
Varian could not speak, he could only nod. When he was safely back on the narrow berth he allowed himself a gulp of fresh air, but that caused the room to spin faster and the fire in his throat to blaze.
Beacom emptied the goblet into the washbowl and filled it with water from a pewter jug. Varian gulped his way through that and another before he was able to lie flat again, his brain giddy, his flesh prickling as if it had been charred from the inside out.
“She fights like a man,” he rasped. “She smells like a fishmonger’s trollop, and swills rum like a common jackanapes. A truly delicate creature, our Captain Dante—when she and her crew are not sacking Spanish galleons.”
“Or slitting the throats of unwanted guests and feeding them to the sharks.”
Varian’s eyes rolled to the back of his head. “You will have to allow me the luxury of a day or two to decide which may prove to be the happier course.”
Chapter Four
Juliet climbed the shrouds as nimbly as any crewman. She had been doing so almost from the moment she could keep her balance on the deck of a ship. The highest point on the mainmast was her sanctuary; from there she could imagine herself perched on the top of the world. If the ship was shrouded in fog, it felt like being suspended on a cloud; in full daylight, with the wind turning her hair into sleek, dark ribbons, it gave her the exhilarating sensation of flying. There were clouds tonight, fast-moving veils that glowed iridescent blue where they were flung across the path of the crescent moon. The wind was strong from the west, laced with the faint taste of spice, hinting that a storm was brewing somewhere, bringing the scent of the islands out to sea.
Part of her did not want to return home yet, was never anxious to exchange the powerful surge of the sea for the powdered white sand that meant she was land bound. Nor was she particularly eager to explain to her father how a simple sea trial had turned into a rescue of one vessel and the capture of another. Hopefully the sight of the Santo Domingo being led into the harbor behind the Iron Rose would mollify her father’s temper somewhat.
Countering the beneficial effects of the captured galleon would be the presence of a ducal envoy on board the Rose. Perhaps Crisp was right. Perhaps they should have loaded his grace the Duke of Harrow and his valet into the longboats with the Spaniards. The duke, especially, had the look of trouble about him.
Unfortunately the Iron Rose was already long overdue and her father would be climbing the hills daily to watch for a glimpse of her sails. As it was, they would have to take a circuitous route back to Pigeon Cay, sailing well south of their destination to ensure there were no predators lying below the horizon. There was no excuse for failing to take such precautions regardless of the time or energy it took, and if a vessel did show an interest in following them, it could take several more days to lead it astray and circle back.
Pigeon Cay had been her father’s stronghold for the past thirty years and although the Spaniards had been searching for it nigh on as long, none had been able to discover the Pirate Wolf’s hidden base. On each galleon caught or captured, a careful inspection was made of her charts and maps, but none had ever been marked with the tiny island that held the Wolf’s lair. Not even English ships knew the exact location of Dante’s atoll—and from a distance, it looked like just that: a crown of barren volcanic rock thrusting up from the sea. Occasional news, messages, missives from England, were delivered to the port of New Providence in the Baja Más and retrieved at irregular intervals. Once a year, the Dantes sent a ship back to England laden with the crown’s share of their privateering ventures, and while both Jonas and Gabriel had been to London on one of these voyages, Juliet had never been curious enough to trade warm sunshine and salty sea air for fog, coal dust, and rain.
Juliet’s beloved grandfather, Jonas Spence, had overseen these voyages until his death four years earlier. He had been a villainous old sea lion but Juliet had loved him dearly. All bluster and brine as he was, she could only wonder what it must have been like sailing in the company of men like Jonas and her father, Sir Francis Drake, John Hawkins, and Martin Frobisher in the glory days of Elizabeth’s sea hawks.
Were it not for the courage and daring of scores of these privateers, England would not have had a navy to defend her against Spain’s invasion armada. She would likely not have a presence in the New World either, ensuring the need for the Spanish king to divide his naval forces in order to keep a strong and active fleet patrolling the Spanish Main.
Philip II had tried, two years after the Great Armada and again ten years later, to amass enough ships to threaten England’s shores again, but neither fleet had left port. When Philip III had come to power, there had been a marked increase in shipbuilding to counter the fear that Britain’s navy was growing too strong. There had been noticeable changes in Spain’s Indies fleets as well, with galleons like the fifty-four-gun Santo Domingo replacing the smaller forty-gun zabras and thirty-gun India guards. And while the actual number of treasure ships in the plate fleets had been decreasing steadily over the years, the number of warships that sailed in the protective escort had increased to ensure each cargo of treasure arrived safely back in Spain.
Conversely, men like Simon Dante, Captain David Smith, and Captain Frederick Mounts did their damnedest to see that it did not.
Of the original band of Gloriana’s sea hawks led by el Draque, only Simon Dante remained active in the Caribbean, and only he continued to elude the Spanish hunters’ best efforts to bring him to ground. The reward on the Pirata Lobo’s head—whether he was taken dead or alive—had become a large enough sum to tempt more than just Spanish carrion-eaters. It was not that Juliet had any overt suspicions or doubt that Varian St. Clare was here for any reason other than to deliver another of the king’s edicts for peace. She thought it highly unlikely an assassin would travel with a manservant who fluttered and fainted at the least turn of a knife, yet his evasiveness annoyed her.
On balance it was simply the lesser of two potential evils to take the Duke of Harrow to Pigeon Cay and let her father deal with him. To discourage him from making too many forays outside the cabin, Juliet had deliberately sliced his clothes to ribbons, leaving him nothing but a blanket and a swollen temper. Between that and finding himself at the mercy of a “mere woman,” he should be manageable for the three days it would take to sail to Pigeon Cay.
Juliet grimaced and flicked a piece of oakum out into the darkness.
Mere woman. She hadn’t been accused of having many feminine shortcomings in a very long time. One did not live on an island in close proximity to Spanish shipping lanes without learning at a young age how to fight with sword and knife and musket. Her father—no poor swordsman himself—had taught her as soon as she could heft the weight of a blade that while God could be entrusted to take care of their souls in the hereafter, it was solely incumbent upon their own skills with steel and powder to ensure they did not join Him too soon.
It
had been her mother who had taken Juliet’s lessons one step further. Isabeau had taught her to go for the swift and sure kill. A split second hesitation debating the polite rules of engagement could not only cost her her life, but the lives of the men who depended on her to lead them. Regardless of her lineage, there was nary a crew on the ocean-sea who would follow a woman—or man—who demurred at the sight of blood, or who showed the smallest signs of weakness when strength and hard, unblinking courage were demanded.
Juliet’s body bore the scars to prove it.
She had needed to earn the loyalty and trust of the men along with their respect, and while most of the crew on board the Iron Rose would gut any man for looking sideways at her, there had been a few over the years who thought her fair and easy pickings on a cold dark night. Too much rum had sent their eyes and hands wandering but they had quickly and painfully discovered she was neither fair nor easy. She was no swanning virgin either. It had been several years since she had lost her innocence as well as her maidenhead, but it had been by her choice, and on her terms.
Dominic du Lac had been her first lover. A tall, green-eyed Frenchman with a silver tongue and silky hands, he hadn’t been particularly handsome, but he had made her laugh. He had picked wildflowers and braided them into her hair, and he had insisted upon showing her, one garment at a time, how to dress like a proper French demoiselle. Afterward, with equal deliberation and care, he had shown her how to remove each article and by the time he was finished, they had both been naked and eager to release the tension he had so deftly created.
Dominic had died of the yellow fever within the month, but in the short time they had had together, he had taught her wondrous things about her body. He had introduced her to pleasures and cravings that could not remain in mourning for long.
There had been three men after Dominic, each special in his own way, and although none had caused any poetic flutters of the heart, they had enjoyed her and she had enjoyed them without shame or reservation. The last had been over a year ago and the affair had ended, as they usually did when the sea was such a powerful mistress, with the abruptness of a musket shot. In truth, it had been many months since she had even seen a man who stoked her interest. Perhaps that was why she had felt a distinct stirring in her blood when she had sliced away the final layer of clothing and viewed the duke’s naked body.
The Iron Rose Page 5