Pirate Wolf Trilogy

by Canham, Marsha

  As the ship reared to climb above the next trough, he swung back on board and this time was able to get a hand around the boy’s arm before they parted again. The rope he was holding cut into his wrist and his arm was nearly wrenched from the socket as he caught the boy and dragged his weight behind his own, but before the ship careened again, he was able to shove the lad in the direction of the shrouds where Juliet was now standing high enough to snag him.

  Varian saw her reel Johnny Boy in. A second later, he was sailing outward over the side of the ship again, reaching the end of the arc with such a hard jolt, he felt the rope start to slide through his hand. Fighting to claw his way fist over fist up the cable, he was caught by the next wave, his feet sucked forward by the force of the rushing sea. As the wave broke across the deck, his vision cleared long enough to see the solid shape of the mainmast coming up swift and deadly in front of him. A moment away from slamming into the oak, he felt hands reach up to grab at his legs. Someone shouted at him to release the “farkin’” rope and when he did so, he was plucked out of the air and thrown by his shoulders and thighs through an open hatchway.

  He landed in the same wet heap as Johnny Boy, who had been tossed there only moments before. Nathan and Juliet stood glaring down at the pair a moment before closing the hatch behind them and returning to the haze of beating rain and sluicing water on deck.

  Another shadowy figure loomed out of the corridor beside them.

  “Mother, Mary, and Joseph,” Beacom cried. “I thought you were gone, your grace. Gone! What possible madness could have inspired you to venture out of cover in this tempest?”

  Varian’s teeth were clenched too tightly to offer any explanations and the boy had already disappeared into the gloom. He accepted Beacom’s help to rise first to his knees, then to his feet, but he shook off the older man’s offer of a shoulder to lean on and staggered on his own through the gloom of the lurching gun deck in search of the tiny, airless locker he had been banished to last night.

  After opening three narrow wooden doors and having sails, holystones, and spars fall on him, he swore and stumbled along another narrow companionway that led to the stern. The captain’s cabin was empty and relatively clear of sloshing seawater, and he stood there dripping like a great shaggy dog, his hair hanging over his face, his borrowed clothing sopping wet and clinging to him like a soaked layer of parchment.

  “Your grace... ?”

  The agony of his previously bruised shoulder and hip did not bear dwelling upon but when he looked down, the front of his shirt was covered in a wide red smear of blood with more splattering down each second. He remembered the end of the rope lashing his cheek and searched his face with his fingertips, gasping at what he found.

  “Your Grace—?”

  Varian whirled around with a roar and slammed the door. Over further protests and pounding fists, he threw the bolt to lock it, leaving Beacom outside in the companionway.

  ~~~

  The storm battered the Iron Rose for another two hours before relenting and driving east. By late afternoon the rain had eased, though the wind remained at strength long after the thunder and lightening had been chased far out into the Atlantic. With the peculiar character of a tropical storm, the sky cleared enough by nightfall to offer a late glimpse of the setting sun where it sank like a coppery fireball beneath the choppy sea.

  One man had died in a fall from the rigging, another had been washed overboard. There were tangled lines and torn sails, broken spars and debris on all the decks, but that was not what concerned those who stood on the quarterdeck searching the empty horizon behind them.

  The Santo Domingo was nowhere in sight. With darkness rapidly descending, they did not even know in which direction to search; the sea appeared vacant for miles around. Juliet sent men with the sharpest eyes up into the crows nest and refused to leave the quarterdeck or even hand off the spyglass until a twinkle of light was spotted well down on the horizon. She gave orders to bring the Iron Rose about, and as a precaution, cleared her guns for action in case the lights were not the ones they were expecting. Another anxious hour passed before they had closed the distance enough to be assured it was the Santo Domingo.

  The galleon had been hammered, but the English crew had helped pull her through. When the Rose drew alongside, extra men were transferred aboard, including Nathan Crisp. With the seas rough, Juliet wanted to take no chances during the last stretch to Pigeon Cay.

  Coming about again, they resumed their steady south by southeast course and it was only then that Juliet took time to go below and search out dry clothes. While it was still daylight, she had ordered the galley fires lit long enough for the cook to bring his cauldrons up to the boil, and she did not know which she was more eager for, a bowl of hot mutton stew or a stiff glass of rum.

  The need to make a choice was delayed by the sight of Beacom standing miserably outside her cabin door.

  “What the devil are you doing here? Where is your master?”

  “He ... he is inside, madam,” Beacom said, wringing his hands. “I did my best to deter him. However—”

  “He’s inside? He is inside my cabin?”

  “Yes, madam. I am afraid he is. And... and I am afraid he has locked the door behind him.”

  Juliet’s eyes widened. She approached the door, put a hand to the latch, and rattled it. When nothing happened, she moved back a pace and kicked the bottom of the planks.

  “Good my lord, you have two seconds to unlock this blasted door, before I shoot off the damned hinges!”

  When there was no immediate response, and knowing full well her pistols were locked inside with the duke, she cursed and kicked the door again, this time hard enough to send splinters flying off the timbers.

  She was about to take a run at it with her shoulder, when they heard the bold slide across wood and the latch was turned from the inside. The door swung open half an inch before she hoofed it the rest of the way, slamming it with enough force it bounced off the wall.

  Juliet strode into the cabin, her eyes sparking with hot blue flecks. “How dare you! How dare you come in here and—!”

  She stopped cold and the breath left her lungs in a startled rush. Varian St. Clare was swaying on unsteady feet in front of her, his shirt scarlet to his waist, his breeches red to the knee. His eyes were so dark they looked like holes burned into his skull, part of which could be seen gleaming white where his cheek had been torn open to the bone.

  An empty bottle rolled to and fro on the floor below the berth. The cup that dangled in his hand spilled a few drops as he took a few halting steps back.

  “You seem to have acquired a fondness for my rum, sirrah,” she said quietly.

  He said nothing for a moment, then reached up and touched the flap of flesh that was hanging down his cheek. “I find myself requiring its effects more and more as the pleasantries of each new day in this tropical paradise unfold.”

  Juliet turned her head slightly and spoke softly to Beacom. “Go and fetch the ship’s sailmaker. No, wait. He isn’t on board, dammit!”

  Varian started to pitch forward, forcing Juliet to scramble fast to catch him up under the arms before his weight bore them both down onto the floor. He made a peculiar sound in his throat, followed by a belch that reeked of too much rum.

  “Puke on me, my lord,” she warned with a grunt, “and you’ll not live out the day.”

  “Is that a threat or a promise?”

  “Both.” She glared over her shoulder at Beacom. “Don’t just stand there gawping. Help me get him onto the berth.”

  The valet fluttered his hands once before hastening forward. Together they manhandled the duke over to the bed and forced him to lie down. Juliet splashed some water into an enamel bowl and fetched some relatively clean cloths. She set Beacom to bathing the blood off his master’s face and throat while she rummaged through her sea chest and produced a small gold sewing case she had appropriated from some long forgotten ship.

  When she ret
urned to the bed, Varian’s eyes were closed, an arm was draped across his forehead.

  “Is he passed out?” she asked Beacom.

  “No, he is not,” Varian answered thickly. “Despite his every good intention.”

  “In this case, it might be better if you had succeeded. Shall we wait, or are you braced enough to bear up under a bit of stitching?”

  “That depends upon who is going to do the stitching.”

  “Unfortunately you are rather limited in your choices at the moment. The sailmaker is still on board the Santo Domingo tending the wounded from the Argus, and since you have expressly forbidden me to touch you without an invitation, that would appear to leave Beacom.”

  She held the needle out to the valet, who blanched the color of old ashes and quailed loudly enough to bring Varian’s eyes open again.

  “Oh for pity’s sake,” he sighed. “Touch me, kill me, sew my cheek to my foot, it is of no consequence.”

  “Come now,” she said. “You were far too pretty anyway. A scar will give you character.”

  Juliet nodded at Beacom to bring a chair over beside the berth. She lit a lamp, then gave it to the valet to hold while she threaded a needle with silk. “Truth be told, I did sew two fingers together once—quite by accident, of course. The wounds were such that I could not tell where one digit ended and the other began.”

  Varian swallowed hard. “Perhaps I will have more rum.”

  “Just try not to move. And if you feel the need to scream, warn me first so I do not stab you in the eye.”

  His chest rose and fell through a deep breath. The muscles in his throat constricted and his fingers curled slowly into a fist, remaining that way as Juliet eased the torn flap of skin gently back into place and began stitching the raw edges together with quick, efficient strokes.

  “‘Tis a good thing it bled so much. The wound is clean and should heal without too much trouble. Furthermore, the stitching follows your hair and should only be visible within, oh, a hundred paces or so.”

  The midnight eyes opened and found hers only a couple of inches above his face.

  “Truthfully,” she said, drawing the thread slowly up through the puckered flesh, “it could have been much worse. You could have lost your eye, or your ear... ” She worked for several more minutes, the tip of her tongue stuck at the corner of her mouth in concentration. When she was finished, she leaned back and frowned.

  “What think you, Mr. Beacom? Will his lordship’s sweet betrothed-to-be not find such a scar dangerously attractive? God’s love, man, you can turn your head forward and look now.”

  One of Beacom’s hazel eyes opened a slit, followed by the other.

  “Oh. Oh!” He leaned forward and almost smiled. “Verily, the captain speaks the truth, your grace. The cut is near the hair and the stitches are as fine as any I have seen on a silk gown.”

  After returning the needle and thread to the sewing box, Juliet replaced it in the sea chest. When she came back to the berth several minutes later, she carried a cloth soaked in some noxious tincture as well as a small jar wrapped in oilcloth.

  “Do you think, Mr. Beacom, that you can find your way back to the galley? The cook should have put some hot stew on to warm the men’s bellies and mine is so empty it is rubbing on my backbone. There should be biscuits too. And cheese. You might as well fetch a jug of ale while you are about it, and some cold beef if there is any to be sliced. Furthermore, just tell Cook his captain is ravenous, he’ll know what to do.”

  Beacom glanced at Varian but did not wait for his assent this time before leaving the cabin. Juliet took her seat again.

  “This might sting.” She pressed the warm, wet cloth over his cheek, holding it there so long Varian thought his lungs would burst from the pressure of holding back a scream. By the time the incredible burning subsided, he was half sober and she had already shifted her attention to his hand. It was his left, the same one that had had the thumb wrenched out last night, and which now had angry red rope skids on the palm and wrist.

  She dipped two fingers into the jar and scooped out a brown, viscous paste. It smelled like the devil’s offal but the instant it touched his burned palm, the pain cooled.

  “It was a foolish thing you did,” she said finally. “Especially in wood-heeled shoes with silver buckles.”

  The dark eyes studied her face a moment before responding. “Is the boy all right?”

  “He was shaken more than anything else. And you’ve impressed him enough that you’ll likely not find yourself lacking a defender if someone raises their hand and sniggers behind your back.”

  “Including you?”

  “I mock you to your face, sirrah, or hadn’t you noticed?”

  “I have indeed,” the duke agreed dryly.

  Studiously avoiding his gaze, she turned her attention to his thumb, applying more of the salve and massaging it gently around the swollen joint.

  “You’re lucky this did not pop out again.”

  “I would have been luckier had it never come out in the first place.”

  She curled her lower lip between her teeth and nibbled fitfully. “Yes, well ... my reaction last night might have been a little over-wrought. As it happened, you just chose the wrong time to test my patience.”

  “Good God,” he murmured. “Is that an apology?”

  She stared into the inky darkness of his eyes and felt a disquieting warmth at the base of her spine. “It is as good as you are likely to get.”

  “Then I shall accept it... on the condition you accept mine.”

  “Yours? For what?”

  “For not knowing when to keep my mouth shut.”

  The self-deprecating bluntness brought a hint of a smile to Juliet’s lips. It also brought a second rush of heat flowing through her body, stronger this time, centered between her thighs, and as he continued to stare at her, the pleasure intensified, spreading through her body in the most extraordinarily soft waves.

  “Spare me the trial of a long answer, my lord, but what the devil are you doing here? What could possibly have induced you to leave your cozy hearthside in London when surely, as the twelfth duke of Harlow, you could have appointed someone more suited to the rigours of a sea voyage to take your place.”

  “Harrow. And I must suppose that the king considered me adequate to the task.”

  “Which is ... ?”

  He grinned faintly. “I’ve not had that much rum, Captain.”

  “Whatever your business here, it will likely be explained in my presence anyway.”

  “Then that must be by your father’s choice, not mine.”

  Juliet expelled her breath on an impatient puff. “Faith, but I am losing interest anyway.”

  “I can see that. And if you rub my thumb any harder, you might just as well wrench it out again, for the pain could not be any worse.”

  She scowled and flung his hand aside. “I hope you know how to swim, sirrah. If Father finds your wit half as amusing as I do, you may have need of the skill.”

  Varian’s smile hovered between amusement and curiosity. The only thing he had need of at the moment was more rum, for it had dulled most of the aches and pains in his body for the first time in two days. Moreover, he found himself increasingly intrigued with this sharp-tongued, clever-witted pirate urchin—and not just with her mind.

  Several hours in the driving rain had accomplished what a neglect for soap and water had not, for the grime of battle was washed away, leaving her face clean and smooth. Her hair, half in, half out of the braid, was rid of its layers of dust and gleamed a rich dark auburn in the lamplight. The long strands that curled down her neck lured the eye into the deep, open vee of her shirt, and where the fabric was not completely dry it clung to curves that would have been better left to the imagination. Shapes and shadows that he had found unsettling the previous night set the blood flowing thick and insistent through his veins now, making him begin to entertain a notion that she was even beautiful in a raw, untamed sort of way.


  Varian forced himself to look away, wary of the turn his thoughts were taking. If there had been one redeeming benefit to this hellish voyage, it was the refreshing absence of any women on board. Because of his family’s wealth and prominence, he had been plagued for most of his eight and twenty years by grasping females who threw themselves in his path at every opportunity. In his youth, he had enjoyed their attentions well enough, had enjoyed his share of mistresses through the years. But after his brothers' deaths had made him the sole heir, the efforts to bring him to ground had risen to almost frenzied proportions. His own mother had been the worst of the lot, haranguing him unceasingly about the need to choose a bride and take the appropriate steps to produce a legitimate heir.

  He supposed Juliet Dante’s scorn had been justified when she said he had finally just succumbed. The dowager had culled the herd of potential brood mares down to the three richest virgins pure enough to carry the St. Clare seed, whereupon he had simply chosen one. All three had impeccable manners, the same faultless, flawless education that prepared them for nothing more strenuous than being the perfect wife, hostess, and chatelaine. In essence, they were all replicas of the dowager herself: cool, beautiful, sexless in a pale, elegant way.

  Try as he might, he could not imagine his intended, Lady Margery Wrothwell letting him see her with her hair dishevelled, her shirt damp and clinging to breasts that were practically begging him to tear aside the damned fabric and bring them into his hands.

  He shifted his legs, knowing the stirring he felt was mostly a product of his rum-soaked meanderings, but he was troubled by it anyway. The celibacy he had enjoyed for the past six weeks had its drawbacks and he would be lying to himself if he thought he had reached a state of pre-marital purity where the curve of a lush breast had no effect on him.

  Where the devil was Beacom?

  As if reading his mind, Juliet glanced at the door and muttered the same question.

  “He has been known,” Varian said lightly, “ to take a wrong turn at Harrowgate Hall even though he has spent the past thirty years in service there. Mind you, with sixty-five bedrooms and God only knows how many main chambers, I have erred a time or two myself.”