“You will forgive the brief delay, will you not? Everyone on the island would have known within the hour that you kissed me and I let you.”
Varian waved the sword ineptly. “You had me worried that some wild beast had caught you and dragged you off into the bush.”
“Like most who bear the Dante name, I am not that easy to catch.” She laughed once then dove beneath the surface and streaked away.
Wordlessly, Varian thrust the sword back in its sheathe and set it aside. He stripped off his shirt, tugged off his boots, flinging them into the moss as well, then peeled his breeches down, hopping through a moment of acute discomfort as his enormous erection sprang free.
Juliet was on the far side of the pool, her body hanging in the water, her hair spread out in a wet fan around her shoulders. When she saw him walk into the soft sand, she jack-knifed under again and vanished briefly in the shadows below.
Varian’s long body cut cleanly through the water, reaching the spot where he had last seen her in a matter of a few powerful strokes. He tread water for a few moments, trying to see through the filtered layers of light and shadow to where she might be hiding but did not see her until a splash told him she was back on the opposite bank.
Twice more they crossed paths, with Juliet spending more time under the surface than above. She brushed by his leg once and escaped, but the second time he was able to grasp her around the ankle and haul her back where his feet could touch bottom. Slippery as an eel, she wriggled free again, and would have swam away if he had not planted his feet in the sand and pointed an ominous finger.
“Stay right where you are, dammit.”
She watched him walk toward her, the sand kicking up in small clouds around his feet. It sparkled like a million shards of glass, lit by the same unknown source that fed light into the cavern.
When he reached her side, there was no preamble, no teasing foreplay. He cupped his hands beneath her bottom and lifted her against his body, bringing her down with gentle ferocity over the straining thickness of his flesh. His mouth was there to cover her gasp, and to turn her husky groan into soft, shallow sighs.
Juliet wrapped her legs around his thighs, tightly enough he needed only one hand to support her while the other rose and cradled the nape of her neck. His mouth was warm and ravenous, his hands strong and very sure of themselves as they began to move her back and forth over his flesh.
A shamelessly feverish cry had Juliet flinging her head back, gasping a plea into the steamy shadows above. The water began to churn around them with the movement of her hips, and a twisting, writhing effort to bring him even deeper inside ended with both of them clinging steadfastly to one another, not wanting a single shiver or spasm to go unspent.
Varian held her until the hot, pulsing contractions of her climax faded into warm shudders, then with her body still quivering around his, he carried her to the bank of the pool and lowered her onto the cool bed of thick moss. He ignored her faint whispers of protest when he eased her legs from around his waist and draped them over his shoulders. He kissed his way down the trembling length of her body until his face was buried between her thighs, and when the cavernous walls echoed with her cries again, when he was hard and thick and strong enough to give her all the pleasure she could bear, he surrendered himself completely to the passion that was Juliet Dante. He thrust himself eagerly into the explosion of light that burst behind his eyelids and to the dark, exquisite peace that followed.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Juliet was wakened by the pungent smell from the large booted foot that was planted with a deliberate lack of care beside her nose.
She opened her eyes and followed the leather trail up to the amused face of her brother Gabriel. He, in turn, glanced wryly at the nude body of Varian St. Clare and murmured, “I suppose this helps to explain why Jonas and I could not find you last night.”
She yawned and stretched, then pushed herself up on her elbows. “How did you manage now?”
“Nathan told me what happened on board the Rose, and when I couldn’t find you at the house, I thought you might have come here... though I confess,” he said after a pause, “I didn’t expect you to have company.”
She threw a scowl over her shoulder as she stood and waded into the pool. Gabriel looked away with brotherly disinterest as she rinsed the sand and moss off her body and focussed his attention on Varian St. Clare instead.
Varian had come awake when he had heard their voices, and when he recognized the intruder as Gabriel Dante, he searched unsuccessfully in the shadows for his discarded clothing. His shirt lay like a pale blot against the darker green and it was Gabriel who spied it first and plucked it off the moss with the tip of his rapier.
“I don’t believe we have had the pleasure of a formal introduction,” he said, conveying the garment on the point of his sword. “But then my sister often neglects her manners.”
Juliet emerged from the water. “Varian St. Clare, his grace the Duke of Harrow: my brother, Gabriel Dante, his grace completely lacking.”
Gabriel executed a formal bow, something Varian could not do with a bundle of crushed linen clutched about his waist.
Juliet pulled her own shirt over her head, then found her breeches. “Your concern for my well-being warms me, brother dearest.”
“You require further warming?” He glanced idly at Varian, who sat immobilized on the mossy bank. “Does he speak, at all, or is that another of his appealing qualities?”
“I am quite able to speak,” Varian said coldly. “It’s just that you have appeared rather suddenly, and—”
“And now you fear you are in mortal peril of being driven to the chapel at the point of my sword?”
Varian’s jaw muscles twitched while he groped to find an appropriate response, for that was, indeed, one of many disjointed images that had flashed before his eyes.
Gabriel did not wait for Varian’s tongue to become unglued from the roof of his mouth before he cocked an eyebrow at his sister. “Good God, Jolly, if you were to marry the swiving fellow, that would make you a duchess, would it not?”
“The Devil himself should geld you,” she said on a sigh, “and slice off your tongue while he is at it, for I would sooner hang all day in a suit of tar and chicken feathers as deal with your misbegotten sense of humor. Furthermore, it isn’t as if you have never been caught with your breeches down around your knees, brother dear.”
“No, but all men are lusty beasts and it’s expected, whereas you,” he touched a finger to the side of his nose. “You’re a sly devil and lead all the louts to think the only blade you crave is the one that hangs in their baldrics.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Unless you want to answer to my blade, you will keep your tongue firmly between your teeth and say nothing about this to anyone.”
“Ah. And just what would my silence on this trifling matter be worth, dear sister?”
“Two unblackened eyes and two unbroken legs.”
Gabriel’s handsome mouth puckered thoughtfully a moment, then eased into a smile. “A fair trade, all things considered. Shall I assist you in finding your breeches, your grace?”
“I can manage,” Varian said in a low growl.
Dante shrugged and resheathed his sword. “Fair enough. I’ll wait outside, shall I? Give the two of you a moment for a final sweet kiss.”
Juliet hurled a boot at his head, but he ducked in time and hastened toward the exit in the rocks. When she glanced back at Varian, he was stepping into his breeches and it was obvious from the frown on his brow that he was not amused. If the light had been better, she might have said his mouth was white around the edges. The fine patrician nostrils were definitely flared, the jaw was rigid, and when he raked an angry hand through his hair, the veins stood out on his temples like the veins on a leaf.
“Out of curiosity, what would happen back in London if a man and a woman were found naked together by a member of her family?”
“Assuming one was not the king and the o
ther not a milkmaid, they would probably be wed before the week was out.”
“Even if that man was a duke?”
Varian avoided meeting her eyes. “If he was duke or an earl or even a baron, he would most likely try buy his way out of any further commitment. Unless of course he had a scrap of honor about him.”
“Are you an honorable man, your grace?”
He looked up. “I assure you I am prepared to accept full responsibility for my actions.”
“By marrying me?”
He straightened slowly and his voice was as brittle as a dry stick. “I will happily discuss the details with your father as soon as I am given an audience.”
“Without asking me first?”
The shadows prevented her from seeing more than a faint glint of light from his eyes but she did see that light flicker out for a moment, as if he had closed the lids in utter disgust—at himself for falling into such an obvious trap, and possibly at her for setting it.
“Of course. Mistress Dante, if you would kindly do me the honor—?”
Juliet laughed and interrupted before he went any further. “I would have to rise on a morning and see two suns in the sky before I would even think of marrying you, your grace-ship, and even then it would have to be for a far far better reason than having spent a few hours naked together. Accept that we have enjoyed our little diversion and leave it at that. Unless of course, you were hoping a physical dalliance would put me in thrall and win an ally to your cause?”
“My dealings with your father played no part in this, madam,” he said with quiet resentment.
“Would you have refused and said ‘no, no, do not trouble him at a time like this’ had I taken you to him this morning, all a-blush like a blissful puppy, and insisted he listen to your pleas for peace?”
Varian shook his head, having gone from one ludicrous situation to another so fast he could barely keep up. “No. No... I... I doubt I would even have been able to face your father this morning, much less convince him to obey an edict from the king. Damn and blast, woman—” he twisted his hands into his hair in a gesture of frustration. “You were right! After what happened on board the Argus, I am not even certain I want to convince him. I am half inclined to encourage him and every other pirate and privateer who hunts in these waters to sally forth and smash the treaty to a million bits. Smash it hard, and smash it well enough that Spain will never recover!”
For several long seconds, the startling declaration was met with silence, the only intrusion a faint blip blip of water dripping down the stone wall.
“But of course, I cannot do that,” he said, blowing out a harsh breath. “I am bound by my oath to present your father with the unpleasant alternatives he faces if he refuses to comply with the terms of the king’s Act of Grace.”
“Act of Grace?”
“An amnesty, if you will. A complete pardon for all past transgressions to every privateer who agrees to return to England until such time as a system of fair and lawful trade can be negotiated by the kings of England and Europe.”
She wanted to clout him on the head, but she planted her hands on her waist instead.
"This is the important business you have been holding so close to your breast? This? This... Act of Grace?”
“I was under oath—”
“A pox on your oath, sir. Have you not been listening to a word I have said to you? The only way the Spanish will negotiate is if their cities are sacked and held to ransom. Drake did it. He sailed right into Maracaibo Bay, bold as brass, and demanded five hundred thousand ducats in exchange for keeping his guns from blasting the town to perdition—and he had half the firepower we do right now! Did you know Father sailed with Drake on those raids?”
“Are you telling me he’s planning to raid Maracaibo again?” The question had come out heavily laced with sarcasm, but at the look on Juliet’s face, Varian stopped and stared. “Juliet?”
“No. No!” she exclaimed with more conviction. “But he certainly could if he wanted to.” She brushed past him to retrieve the boot she had thrown at Gabriel and started slightly to see her brother lounging in the shadows.
“I thought you were going to wait outside.”
“And miss bearing witness to what might well be your only proposal of marriage? A sorry opportunist that would make me, would it not? And besides, I am seething with curiosity to hear the rest of the duke’s arguments for peace. He is aware, is he not, that the king has made this generous offer before? Not two years ago,” he said, coming forward to the edge of the pool, “another envoy came bearing documents titled an Act of Grace, and some of our brethren believed in the notion enough to sail into the port of Hispaniola, where they were guaranteed to earn a warm welcome from their Spanish counterparts. It was warm, all right. If you live long enough you could ask Captain David Smith how it felt standing on the deck of his ship, being the only one to have escaped from an ambush that saw four other ships trapped in the harbor, bombarded and set aflame, their crews thrown into shackles and led off to cut sugar cane for the rest of their days.”
The tension stretched out for several long seconds. The eerie greenish light from the water touched the curves and angles of Gabriel’s face and made his eyes glow out of the darkness like those of a big cat. Like his sister, he seemed capable of concealing his emotions until the wrong trigger was pulled and the spark hit the powder.
“I was not aware of any former Acts of Grace, no,” Varian admitted.
“And now that you are? Do you still feel you can go to our father and present your offer without choking over the king’s sincerity?”
“King James is no fool, though he plays the part well at times. He shares the former queen’s disdain of the Spanish and while he sees no reason why they should hold a trading monopoly in these waters, he also knows that a declaration of war now would utterly deplete the resources of both countries. Spain lost their one and only chance to conquer England twenty-five years ago. We have heard rumours in the past that the dons kept trying to rally another armada to revenge their ancestors, but Phillip III is not a zealot like his father and their navy at home has never fully recovered from the devastating loss in men, ships, armaments. Conversely, our strength has grown by leaps and it is only a matter of time before we have a navy capable of challenging for supremacy at sea. A war now would set that back for many years.”
“We have no intentions of declaring war,” Gabriel said, the words so exactingly polite they were obviously meant to bait the recipient. “We’ll settle for cutting out a few of the fat treasure ships when the plate fleet leaves Havana next month.”
“You cannot do that,” Varian said wearily. “You will never come out of it alive.”
Gabriel tipped his head. “Zounds, Jolly. You could at least have picked a lover who had more faith in our abilities.”
“I have an incredible amount of faith,” Varian said. “But I also happen to know the fleet that is scheduled to leave Havana in four weeks time is no ordinary fleet. There has been a drastic shift of power within the Spanish government and many high ranking officials have been recalled home. There are going to be an inordinate number of ships making the crossing—double, treble the number of usual vessels, and not all of them merchant ships.”
“What are you talking about?” Juliet asked.
“As you undoubtedly already know, it was commonplace fifty years ago for Spain to send fleets of a hundred ships or more back and forth across the Atlantic. Over the past couple of decades, those numbers have been drastically reduced, in part because the fleets simply are not as profitable as they once were. The mines are playing out and they have to search farther inland for their gold and silver. Slaves die and have to be replaced, or they rebel and burn out the towns. Easily half the cargo comes overland from the Manilla fleet, which has its own route between Panama and the Far East.”
“You are not telling us anything we do not already know,” Juliet said, buckling her belt with an impatient slap of leather on leat
her.
“Then you also know that the single massive flota was reduced out of necessity to two much smaller treasure convoys—the Tierra Firme fleet, which arrives in Havana in late April and the Nuevo España fleet, which arrives in late summer. Both fleets are escorted from Cadiz to Havana by galleons which merely take on water and provisions before immediately turning around to escort the departing fleets back home. In an average year, it may be that thirty merchantmen arrive, fill their holds with treasure and depart six months later, escorted by fifteen or so armed galleons.”
“Closer to twenty,” Juliet said dryly. “I could impress you with their names, if you like, their tonnage, weaponry... ?”
“I can appreciate that your information is very good, but are you aware that once every decade or so, there is a noticeable overlap, when ships of an arriving fleet remain in port longer than they should, or require repairs, or are impeded by weather? Some that are due to depart in April, for instance, are delayed until the September flota and visa versa.”
Juliet arched her eyebrows. “And? What of it?”
“The last time it happened, there were seventy-five ships in the flota that sailed from Havana.”
“Are you saying it is going to happen again?” Gabriel asked, all traces of indifference erased from his voice.
“I am saying it is indeed going to happen again,” Varian agreed, “but in even greater numbers. Between our government’s sources in Seville and dispatches intercepted for the Spanish Ambassador in London, it would appear there will be closer to one hundred treasure ships—the sum of three overlapping fleets—gathering in Havana to make the crossing home.”
“One hundred ships?” Gabriel whistled softly. “We knew there was more activity than normal on the shipping lanes, but... ”
Juliet looked at Gabriel. “The reports we had from the Dutchman, Van Neuk, said there were an unusual number of ships anchored off Maracaibo. His exact words, I believe, were that he came close to pissing down both legs when he stumbled over a dozen galleons tucked behind a tiny leeward island that was normally used for trading with smugglers. He made away with all haste, but he said the patrols were thicker than he had ever seen them before.”
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