"Why am I always waking up naked on this ship?"
"You're not naked, you're wearing one of young Master Pitt's shirts."
"I am mostly naked."
"There was little point in dressing you while you were sweating and your wound was bleeding."
Bella frowned and looked under the blanket again, this time drawing the hem of the shirt above her waist. There was nothing but a narrow band of cloth wrapped around her midsection, cloth that happily showed no signs of spotting or leakage.
"Digger was quite thorough cleaning out the wound this time and burning it shut again."
"Burning?"
Molly nodded enthusiastically. "He heated the tip of a knife until it glowed red hot then…"
"I don't want to know!"
"Oh. Well. He said it would heal faster than stitching, and he put some dreadful brown ointment on it that he swore would take the pain away."
"He lied."
In truth, the pain was not nearly as bad as it was before the fever brought her down. Moreover, she had wakened with an appetite that needed far more than weak, lumpless soup. If she recollected correctly, she'd had nothing solid to eat since leaving the home of Lord Parker Seville.
"How long have I been laying here? Are we close to the Lizard? Has the duke found someone to row us ashore?"
Molly blinked then averted her gaze. "We sailed passed the Lizard four nights ago, mistress. We're off the coast of France now and heading south."
"France!"
"The captain had little choice in the matter. You were too sick to move, far too sick to put into a boat and row ashore. As for the ugly lout who volunteered to row us, I vow he would have thrown us overboard and kept the five hundred pounds for himself."
"Five hundred—?"
"Oh." Molly flushed and nibbled on her lower lip. "I might not have been supposed to mention that. The duke gave it to me and said it was to help us make a fresh start."
Bella digested the words for a moment then jerked her head up off the rolled bolster. "My purse!"
Molly lifted the hem of her skirt and showed Bella where the small leather pouch that contained the hoard of jewels was tied to her waist. "Do not fret yourself, mistress, I have kept it safe."
Bella sank back onto the bolster. Twice, while the fever gripped her, she had imagined herself back on Gutter Lane, her hair a rat's nest of knots and tangles, her clothes little more than tawdry rags. Peter Dimcock had been sitting nearby counting his coins warning her that if she did not spread her legs for more men each day he would take the whip to her back again.
The nightmares had left her cold and sweating and she hoped she would waken in her own soft bed with Molly standing there with her usual cup of chocolate and bowl of sweet egg flummery.
But this was not a nightmare, this was real. Molly was beside her, holding a spoon filled with boiled-shoe broth. Bella pushed it away. She stared at the ceiling, alternating between being furious at the world and feeling sorry for herself, with no idea which mood would win out in the end.
~~
It was another two days before Bella regained enough strength to wobble to the captain's cabin. She did so after setting Molly at the door to listen for boot-steps and peek out into the corridor to identify who passed by.
When the time came and Molly signalled that Jonas Dante had returned to his cabin, Bella winced herself down off the coffin-like berth and approached the captain's door, pausing a moment before she knocked.
"Enter."
Dante was at the sideboard pouring himself a cup of wine. He was hatless, his hair flowed loose around his shoulders, the auburn locks glinting brighter red where the light from the lanterns struck them.
His head turned at the sound of the door swinging open and without troubling to ask, he filled a second cup.
"You have decided to rejoin the living, have you?"
"So it would appear," she said. "Though my stomach is still uncertain whether to stay down or come up with each wave."
Dante pointed to a chair. "You will get used to it."
"I did not think I would have to get used to it, sirrah. You promised to set me ashore."
"You were too ill to move. Even Grundy, who has no love to spare on the opposite sex, advised against it."
"Well then, what now? What do you expect me to do now?"
"What would you like to do?"
"Obviously, I would like to go ashore. Anywhere will do. France, if that is the most convenient."
"I am not within a hundred leagues of the coast of France thus it would hardly be convenient."
"You are refusing to let me off the ship?"
"You can leave any time you wish, dear lady, no one is stopping you."
"A hundred leagues from land?"
"Aye, well, that might pose a bit of a problem."
He walked across the room and held out the cup of wine. When she didn't take the cup from his hand, he set it on the table beside her.
"Consider this as you fume with indignation. Depending on the weather, it will take us another five to seven weeks to reach Pigeon Cay. Once there, however, you can board one of our supply ships to New Providence, where it should be easy enough to buy passage back across the Atlantic. That would give you time to decide where you want to go and what you want to do when you get there. More importantly, it should be enough time to convince this Dimcock fellow that you have left the country for good. A wealthy widow could easily establish herself in Ireland or Scotland or France with few questions asked."
"Wealthy? I am far from wealthy, Captain."
"You will be when you return. Especially if you choose Ireland. Rub two coins together and prospective new husbands will flock around you like geese."
"I have but a handful of jewels, sir. That hardly constitutes vast wealth… even in Ireland."
Dante heaved an exaggerated sigh. "I understand my brother-in-law gave you five hundred pounds. I will happily add a further five hundred to ease your mind."
Her eyes narrowed. "You would do that?"
"I would."
"In return for what?"
His gaze dropped and lingered over her breasts a moment before rising again. "For nothing. For a day without having to duel with the sharpness of your tongue. For a week of amiable company at my dinner table. For a month of having you occupy yourself with something other than wanting me to admit to wanting something that interests me not at all."
Bella opened her mouth to respond, but closed it again. In silence, she watched him cross over to his desk and select a rolled chart from an open barrel full of such scrolls. He spread it flat on the desk, then moved a brass inkwell and a purple rock to hold the upper corners; a dagger and a pouch of shot anchored the lowers.
He glanced up. "Are the terms agreeable?"
"Do I have a choice?"
He arched an eyebrow. "I could always try to win you over with my charm."
Bella blinked. "Where is the charm in kidnapping?"
"Kidnapping implies an intent to seek ransom. Just who might want to ransom you other than the man who wants to kill you? A brother who also wants to kill you?"
"Half-brother."
He straightened and crossed his arms over his chest. She held his gaze for a long moment, but could not think of a single thing to say that might persuade him to change his mind.
"If you have no other complaints at the moment, I have a course to plot."
What, indeed, was there not to complain about? The food so far was dreadful, the bed was hard, the cabin she was expected to share with Molly for the next few weeks was stuffy and small. But when he gave his head an impatient, questioning tilt, she said nothing more and stood to go, but not before reaching over and snatching up the cup of wine.
Chapter Eleven
Two more days passed before Bellanna saw sunlight again. Her reticence was partly due to the fact her legs felt as if she had never used them before. Every roll of the ship required her to brace herself before the next wave wobbled her o
ff balance. She felt like a toddler, having to clutch at walls or tables or the edge of the berth to keep from toppling over.
Eventually she found her sea legs and ventured up on deck with Molly, nearly weeping as the crisp, cool wind blew through her hair. She was not quite as thrilled at the way the crew looked at her, some of whom were seeing her for the first time. They stared and whispered and snickered at the canvas galligaskins and excessively large shirt that Bella wore and she imagined them speculating lewdly on what lay beneath.
The girls stayed on deck a brief half hour before returning to the cabin, but after a night's reflection, emerged the next day determined to ignore the crew's stares. They remained on deck for two hours before the incessant rise and fall of the horizon sent them reeling below. This too was eventually conquered as much by stubborn resolve as by the biscuits dipped in pickle brine Young Pitt encouraged them to eat when they felt queasy.
Gradually, they spent more and more time on deck until the hours stretched into full days. The crew began to ignore them, hardly paying any notice other than to step around them if they were in the way of some task.
Most days Bella caught glimpses of Jonas Dante standing on the quarterdeck taking readings with a sextant or plotting course changes on his charts. Occasionally she would see him high up in the rigging, balanced on a yardarm, his face dark and brooding as he stared toward the southern horizon. While she could not be entirely certain he was deliberately avoiding her, he was definitely not seeking out her company either, a fact which troubled her not in the least.
Several times she and Molly were chased off the deck by Hobson Grundy as Dante ran the men through drills on the cannon. On those occasions the two women huddled together in their cabin, the floorboards shaking, the walls quivering, sprays of dust and grit falling from the ceiling beams as the guns roared overhead.
Bella's wound was healing remarkably well. Aside from infrequent twitches of discomfort if she lifted her arms too high or turned too quickly, she almost forgot it was there. Almost. The scar was ugly to look at, with the skin puckered and raw where Digger's knife had enlarged the hole to clean out the putrefaction. But there was no more leakage and the brown sludge Molly applied each morning on Digger's orders prevented any thick, dry scabs from forming.
Varian St. Clare appeared to be the distinctly more civilized member of the crew. He smiled and nodded when he saw her and on some days, stopped what he was doing to accompany Bella on a stroll around the deck. On one such promenade she discovered that he was just as anxious as Jonas Dante to return home to Pigeon Cay, in a great part because his wife was expecting their second child.
"Your wife is Juliet Dante, yes?"
"Yes. Sister to Jonas and Gabriel."
"And she has her own ship?"
"The Iron Rose. The Spanish have dubbed her with the same name, la rosa de hierro."
"You say that with obvious pride, Your Grace. I should think it would cause you endless worry to have a wife who commands a pirate ship and does battle with Spanish galleons on the high seas."
"Not just the Spanish," he said with an easy smile. "She's taken on the Dutch and the French and the Portuguese. Even some English vessels if they've gone up her nose for some reason. She is one damned fine woman and I have every reason to be proud of her."
When Bella's expression remained dubious, he chuckled. "In the beginning, yes," he admitted, "I had the same doubts any sane man would have. As it happens, being a distant cousin to the king, I was raised with all the pomp and ceremony expected of one slated to achieve a high position in court."
"Yet you cast it aside."
"Aye, that I did. And I would do so again in half a heartbeat. And no, you are not the first to question my common good sense, nor will you likely be the last by any measure. But having spent so many years stifled by politics and court intrigues, trussed like a sacrificial peacock in padded doublets and layers upon layers of brocaded armor… the simple freedom of standing on a deck in a shirt and breeches, the salt air blowing the ship any which way she wants to go, answering to no one but God and the woman I love has no equal."
"But you are a duke. You have responsibilities outside of court… obligations, commitments."
"Words that come with chains around the neck and the prospect of dying old and fat in front of a fire, having had no adventure beyond the front gates."
Bella considered his answer a moment before she smiled. "I suspect you are, indeed, a little mad, Your Grace. But it is, admittedly, an intriguing madness."
"My Christian name is Varian, and it would please me if you would use it, for there are no dukes or lords on board this ship."
"Only a man who thinks he is a demi-god?"
Varian laughed. "Jonas thinks like a man who holds the fate of over a hundred men in his hands every day. If he pranced about the deck in lace and feathers, sipping wine out of a crystal glass, do you imagine a single one of these scrofulous louts would follow him? If he appeared indecisive or quick to turn tail and run, would he have gained their respect to such an overwhelming degree? He will ask their opinion on occasion and he treats every man as equal, even the blacks who have known only slavery all their lives. I have seen him place himself between a sword and a mere cabin boy on more than one occasion without giving it a second thought.
"If he appears harsh and crude at times, it is because he has absolutely no pretensions. He is exactly what you see before you. He speaks his mind. There are no lies, no deceits, no attempts to pretend he is anything other than what he is. If a man is loyal to him, he will return that loyalty tenfold. By the same token, if a man betrays his trust, Jonas will choke the life out of him without hesitation."
On subsequent days during subsequent strolls she learned more of the Dante family history, namely how the patriarch, Simon Dante, had once been one of Queen Elizabeth's vaunted sea hawks, helping to stave off the attempted invasion of England by Spain's armada. She discovered that his wife, Isabeau, was famous in her own right as The Black Swan, a navigator whose charts and maps went for exorbitant prices and were much sought-after for their beauty as well as their accuracy. She learned that Isabeau had lost half of her arm in battle and that the other son, Gabriel, had found a sunken treasure ship that carried so much gold and jewels, it had taken almost a year of diving to salvage it all. And while it could not be said that her opinion of Jonas Dante changed overmuch, she might concede to a grudging respect for his family's ability to survive and prosper in the heart of the Spanish Main.
She also began to think that his "generous" offer of a mere five hundred pounds did not sound like nearly enough compensation for the weeks of monotony that lay ahead.
~~
Bella was no sailor, but even she could follow the path the sun took across the sky and on the fourteenth day out of London, that path no longer carved an arc across the bow of the ship. Rather it began slightly abeam and cut on a diagonal course toward the western sky. From conversations she overheard, she gathered they had turned onto a south-westerly course heading toward the Azores. Her stomach was thankfully settled into the rhythm of the waves, her legs were steady; she could eat solid food and enjoy the captain's rather fine red wine. She could stand at the rail to watch the sun go down without feeling her head spin and her belly lurch up into her throat.
On this particular night Bella had lingered on deck after Molly went below. The day had been warm and sunny and she was loathe to return to the airless little cabin. Young Pitt had provided both her and Molly with wide brimmed straw hats to keep the sun from burning their faces, but there was no help for the wind, which was constant and blew away any hope of retaining a milky white complexion.
Even with dusk approaching there was no lack of activity on deck, for the crew was rarely idle. They practiced with guns or pistols or pikes and had endless races up and down the rigging to see how quickly they could change the set of the sails. The decks were kept remarkably clean and clear of clutter and there were always groups of men stitching ca
nvas off in a corner for spare sails, or splicing ropes, or honing the edges of cutlasses to keep them razor sharp.
A movement further along caught Bella's eye and she saw Jonas Dante standing below the quarterdeck near the rail. He was naked and her first instinct was to turn quickly away, but curiosity got the better of her and she looked again, angling her head down to use the brim of her hat to shield the fact that she was watching.
He was bathing, rubbing a mixture of sand and sawdust across his chest and down his arms. Young Pitt was standing on a cask by his side, ready with a line of five full buckets. Despite being half the length of the ship away, she could see the scars that criss-crossed Dante's entire body. A thick ragged line ran across his ribs, a puckered disk marred his shoulder; visible evidence of slashes and cuts and a multitude of healed wounds marked his legs and arms. The freshest scar, she knew, was on his neck where Lugo's blade had sliced him.
On a signal from Dante, Young Pitt tipped one of the canvas buckets of water over his head. It was sea water, as cold as the ocean that surrounded them, but Dante seemed not to mind. As the water sluiced over his head, he kept scrubbing with the sand mixture, bathing himself completely. The orange ball of the sun made his skin gleam like polished bronze. Water darkened his hair, weighing it down so that it hung below his shoulders, and when Young Pitt made some remark, Dante shook his head like a big sheepdog, laughing robustly and spraying the lad with silvery droplets.
The last bucket contained fresh water. It was dribbled over his head and shoulders and by the time Dante had rubbed it over his chest and down his belly, Bella was feeling a strange, skittish tingling along her spine. Worse, when he started to manipulate and rinse the impressive presentation of flesh between his thighs, her gaze flew back up to his face only to find that he was studying her just as boldly as she was studying him.
Nothing, not even pulling the hat down over her face could possibly have salvaged the moment and she turned abruptly and went below. When she reached her cabin, she leaned against the closed door trying with very little success to erase the image of those amused amber eyes from her mind.
The Far Horizon Page 10