Pirate's Rose

by Janet Lynnford

Phillipe sat where she indicated, his eyes still fastened to the page before him. "This is truly wonderful," he said. Where did you get it, Kit?"

  Kit didn't hear him. He was bent over the trunk, examining, another book.

  "I brought it," Roz answered briskly. "In my trunk. The one you thought was full of gewgaws." Neither man appeared to hear her.

  "I also brought a two-headed gargoyle." No reply.

  Troth! I thought so." Roz walked over and snatched the book away from Kit.

  He looked around at her with irritation. "Can't you see I was reading?"

  "I want your attention. Where is the bungler? I expect him as well."

  "Now just one second." Kit rose to his feet reluctantly. "For what purpose do you want the navigator? I said I would think on who should do the navigating and I shall, but I have not yet decided."

  Rozalinde regarded him sagely. "Looking for an excuse to put me off? Never mind, I shall convince you. I'll show all three of you my skill. You, Phillipe, and the bungler. I'll have him down to join us at once."

  Kit returned her look indignantly. "Again you order my crew. I'll not have it."

  Rozalinde marched to the door. "Nonsense. The bungler shall come and bring his instruments, and by the time I get done with him, he'll realize his errors." She flung the door wide and shouted. A cabin boy came immediately, looking shocked. "Send for the fellow who is serving as navigator," she ordered crisply. "Tell him to bring his instruments and maps. The captain expects him."

  Kit waited until she closed the door again. "Whatever you do, you're not to humiliate Wrightman."

  Rozalinde laughed delightedly. "So that's his name, Wrightman. Thank you for telling me. I intend to do noth­ing more than enlighten all of you. Just as you instructed. You seemed to require further proof of my accuracy. You shall have it. You need do nothing yourselves."

  "I'll grant you can do calculations." Kit looked her over, feeling again that strange feeling—he wanted to see her hold the astrolabe, scribble the calculations on paper with pen. "You say you were trained to navigate, but that was under normal circumstances, when you left a port and headed straight to your destination. Are you sure you can deal with the present lack of information? Perhaps I should handle it."

  "Christopher Howard!" Roz shrieked, going over to confront him, hands on hips. "Don't you dare try to cozen me. I shall show you the accuracy of my calculations, whether you wish to see them or no. And the Lord of Hoorne shall serve as judge." She turned to Phillipe, gave him a winning smile. "What say you? If I convince you I'm right, shall Lord Wynford agree to sail by my directions?"

  Phillipe was clearly having difficulty keeping a straight face. "I believe we should give the lady a fair chance," he said. "There is certainly no harm in it."

  Kit looked skeptical. "There may be harm, though not the kind you think."

  Wrightman appeared some several minutes later, clutching a rolled-up map in one hand, his astrolabe in the other.

  Rozalinde guided him to a stool, not giving him a chance to speak. Taking up Kit's rapier, she went to the map tacked to the wall. Awkwardly, because it was so long, she drew it from its hanger.

  "What are you doing?" Kit started up. "That's my best rapier—"

  With sword in hand, she faced him. He stopped. While they all looked on, she deliberately used it to point to a spot on the map. "If I may have your full attention, messieurs, I will begin with an explanation of the determination of latitude."

  Rozalinde talked for an hour. In the beginning, Kit told himself it would be mildly entertaining to hear her mumble through the material. Women couldn't navigate. This would be make-believe. But within seconds, as she held up her astrolabe and discussed the setting of its arm and use of the sighting vanes capture the light of the sun, he saw she knew her business. The realization was followed by a rush of exhilaration. Kit puzzled over this feeling while she left the cabin to take readings. Once again it occurred to him that in many ways she was like a man. Her logic, her direct manner of address, her way of saying what she thought and not what was proper—all were traits of a man, yet she was not a man. He didn't feel in the least about her the way he did about Courte or Ned Ruske or even Phillipe.

  Rozalinde returned from above deck and fell to work on the figures, immersing herself in the numbers. The three men were forgotten as they sat in silence behind her. But Kit's awareness of her heightened. No, he thought wryly as his loins tightened with the familiar excitement, her slender figure moved him in different ways. Her plain, wrinkled kirtle, so unfashionable and mussed from its days of hard wear at sea, draped stiffly around her slender hips. The fine bones of her face, the fragile movement of her hands over the paper, contrasted strongly with her confidence as she harnessed the power of the numbers. His excitement escalated, became a fierce, incoherent longing.

  Why? he questioned, his thoughts blurring as feeling overcame deliberation. The many women he had taken over the years, they had hungered to possess him, not the other way around. He had needed them only to ease the urge in his loins.

  Now he sat transfixed, watching Rozalinde work. She kept up a constant dialogue as she sketched and calculated, explaining what she did in an undertone, almost to herself. Every few minutes she would stop, straighten her back and stand perfectly still, as if listening. Her eyes glazed as they fixed on the wall before her. Just when he thought she was permanently immobilized, she would bend swiftly over her work again, some new insight into the problem rushing from her lips.

  Kit shook his head, marveling. Each step she took in the familiar process of finding their position and plotting a course struck him like the unfolding of a secret only the two of them knew. The haven-finding art was his special love, always had been. And now, to see a female loving it ... obsession struggled to life within his breast, born of a fierce desire—to possess, to have this entrancing oddity for his own....

  "If we are here, in the North Sea," she said, pointing to the map, unaware of his emotional tumult, "as I believe we are, then the prevailing winds will be from the north by northeast." She searched through her chart book, opened it to a page and held up the book so they could see a wind rose showing the north and north by east winds.

  Kit grew still inside. He had a sudden vision of himself as a boy, sitting in Lulworth Castle's stillroom, turning the pages of his mother's great herbal. He could almost smell the heavy scent of rose water the maids had been distilling from flowers in the garden, but it was not those roses he remembered.

  The image of the little English poppy surfaced in his memory—the wild wind rose. It bloomed all through the meadows of West Lulworth in August. No cultivated, spoiled beauty, but an apothecary medicinal used to ease inflammation of the eyes, to cure wounds. It was capable even of expelling deadly poison from the body. A powerful flower, its image took root in his thoughts.

  "If we wish to return to our original point of departure," Rozalinde went on, "we will need to sail by this course." She took up the pencil and sketched a curved line from the North Sea down to the coast of the Netherlands. "However, I expect we'll need to travel east first." She pointed to the coast of Jutland. "No doubt we will require fresh water.

  Well, my lords? Sir?" She turned to the men, for the first time acknowledging their presence. "I have calculated a course that will return us to the location we held before the storm broke. Do you have any other instructions for me?"

  "Mistress Rozalinde, I salute you." Phillipe had been sitting throughout the last hour. Now he gave Kit a brief, searching glance, then stood to take Rozalinde's hand, our skill with ciphering equals that of any mathematician. Or any geographer. My congratulations." He met her gaze with his own as he brought her fingertips to his lips, then he was through, he moved to the map, still holding he:r hand. "I do have instructions for you. I wish you to plot a course for this location." He tapped a place on the map. "Two weeks hence, I promised to meet the rest of my fleet here. Given the distance, we should be able to arrive early, even if we stop to
take on water." Roz frowned at the map, studying the location he indicated. "But that is the head of the Zuider Zee. I thought you wished to go to Antwerp."

  "Antwerp is held by the Spanish. We cannot land there or take on supplies. Our base is at Enckhuysen, here." He pointed to the map. "And to make the destination more appealing, the Prince of Orange will rendezvous with us. We see him so seldom, it gives the men courage. Now then, I will speak to the helmsman and set the ship's course for the day. Come, sir." Phillipe gestured to Wrightman. "We will put Mistress Rozalinde's calculations to work." He moved toward the door, instinctively acting on Kit's desires.

  Kit sent him a mute look of thanks. It was all he could manage, because his thoughts were whirling. That curved line Rozalinde had drawn—it astonished him.

  He stood as the others left the cabin, crossed to her side. Here was a woman who knew as much about navigation as he did—a woman who treasured an old pilot's rutter more than gowns or fripperies, whose happiest moments were spent scribbling calculations for the correction of latitude, who knew that the shortest distance between two points on the flat map was not a straight line. Her slight figure warmed to his eyes. He wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms, to caress her face and whisper his surprise at the many treasures she revealed. "You know about the Mercator projection," he said softly.

  Rozalinde looked at him crossly. "Of course I do. You needn't be so astonished. Now give me your answer. Am I to be navigator of your ship?" She was tired after all her discussion and calculations. It was time for her reward.

  But he was paying no heed to her question. A mass of unruly tendrils had sprung loose from her severe braids, and he put out one hand to smooth them. They flattened temporarily beneath his fingers, then sprang back in defiance of his taming.

  "Don't try to cozen me, Christopher." Roz retreated a step, wanting to escape that intense expression in his face. "I've kept my side of the bargain."

  He leaned down to brush his cheek against hers. His arms stole around her waist.

  "You said you would decide whether I should be navigator," she insisted, wishing her heart would remain slow and steady when he touched her. Instead, it insisted on stepping up its pace, on rushing ahead with breathtaking furor. "My calculations are sound. You can't say no."

  Reluctantly Kit dragged his thoughts back to her statement, saw the anxiety mirrored in her eyes. "It means so much to you?" He remembered when something had once meant so much to him—the image of his mother glimmered painfully in his memory. Instinctively he hardened his heart against it. "No, Wrightman must be the navigator."

  "Christopher!" Her single word spoke her agony. "We'll end up in Finland." Her features crinkled and he wondered if she would cry, but she didn't. A furious expression replaced the previous one and crept over her face.

  "You misunderstand me." He was sure of his decision and wanted to finish the matter. "Wrightman must act as navigator, but you shall be his tutor. You will be the knowledge behind his actions. Outwardly, the men will see him at the helm taking readings, and they will be satisfied. It's for the best, Rozalinde. For both you and the men. I won't be crossed in this."

  "You don't trust me." Her voice was bleak.

  He went to the table, began putting away the charts and books with impatient hands. "Rozalinde, be reasonable. You have a great gift. It will do you good to share it with another."

  "I don't want to teach." She stuck out her lip rebelliously. "And Wrightman is not my choice of pupil. He has wooden head, like this table." She struck the table with her fist, making the books jump. The pencil rolled to the edge and fell.

  Kit sent her a quelling look. "Be fair, Rozalinde. Do you know he is stupid?"

  "He did the calculations wrong."

  "Because no one had taught him the correct way. I had only begun his introduction to the rudiments. He comes from peasant stock and has had no formal tutoring. He has nowhere near the years of experience you have. Give him—"

  "I can't give him experience. I can only teach the mundane facts."

  "Navigation is not mundane facts. Don't teach him as if it were." Kit leaned across the table and again caressed her hair. "Teach him the magic," he whispered, his voice low and tender.

  Rozalinde started away from the turbulence his touch aroused. "Navigation is just numbers. Nothing more."

  "It's not," he growled, his eyes fastened on the swelling outline beneath her smock and bodice. His hand extended, came to cup one breast. "No more than a kiss is just mouths meeting."

  "Oh, troth," Roz wailed, dismay filling her as she strained away from the imprint of his hand. He was going to control her, and the quickest way to do that was to touch her. When he did, she could never resist. No matter how urgent the subject on her mind, the instant he started, everything else fell away. Snatching up a book from the table, she clutched it to her breast, wrapped her arms around it like a barricade.

  "Come, sweetheart." Kit circled the table after her. His arms captured, swept her away from reality and into that magical world he created.

  She wilted. It was not what she meant to do, but his effect on her was overpowering. Against her will, she uncoiled her arms from around the book. It slid to the floor between them and landed with a bump on the floor as she stretched out her arms to capture his heat.

  The kiss was more than just mouths meeting. The tender warmth of his lips searched hers, questing, asking the eternal question. She clung to him, letting her hands love the feel of his solid torso, the splendid muscles of his sides and back. As she moved her hands against him, let them slide lower to caress his narrow waist and abdomen, she could feel those muscles, vital and quivering in response to her touch, followed by an instinctual tightening of his hands.

  "Do you agree?" he queried, leaning forward to stop her exploration. Capturing her hands, he trailed his lips across her cheek, nuzzled her ear. "You will teach Wrightman?"

  "I-I agree to nothing," she stammered, fighting a little- jolt of pleasure that shot through her.

  "You're not angry?"

  "I-I — yes, I am," she insisted as he caught her earlobe in his teeth and worried it until her legs weakened, threatened to collapse. She shivered. "You use unfair tactics."

  He pulled her closer. One of his hands splayed low across her back, bringing her hips to mold against his. She could feel distinctly through his trunk hose the outline of his passion. Why did she always yield to him? This was not in her best interest.

  Her throat tightened with sudden fear. She would be completely at his mercy if he had his way, and she couldn't bear that. Looking up, she prepared to tell him, but her gaze fastened on his throat, where she could see his life's blood pulsing. The smell of fresh salt spray rose from his clothes, his skin, and she was engulfed by a dizzying rush of sensations.

  He caught one of her plaits and pulled off the bit of yarn binding it. Cascades of silk flew free. He captured the other plait.

  "What are you doing?" She struggled, tried to catch the second braid from his hand. "I spent an hour combing out the tangles. Stop!"

  But already he had it loosened. Her hair fell around her shoulders, thick as a veil. He scooped her into his arms.

  "Christopher!" she cried, hitting him with her fists, kicking her legs ineffectively. She knew it was no use.

  He put her down on the soft feather mattress of the bunk and bent over her. "Let me pleasure you, Rozalinde." He tugged off his boots and kicked them away, stood unbuttoning his doublet.

  She stared up at him, her eyes wide, waiting, while tingles of wanting exploded in her belly like cannon fire.

  He stripped off the doublet with one clean movement, pulling it over his head. Roz had a brief vision of flexing muscles beneath his linen shirt, then he slid onto the bunk and stretched his lean, hard body at her side.

  The tingles grew, became waves of flame that licked her insides lasciviously. Rozalinde tried to roll away but found herself trapped against the wall. Kit caught her hands, pinned them against the
bunk and sought her mouth.

  Skillful. Oh, he was so skillful. Roz thrashed beneath him while he plundered her mouth with his own. Gently he probed, seeking her tongue, the taste of him infinitely sweet. His invasion made white hot heat kindle in her body. She felt dampness gather between her thighs. Soon her willpower would evaporate. Through a haze of excitement, she heard his answering groan.

  "Oh, Kit." She turned her head weakly, needing to escape him, if only for a second. "I don't agree to your demands, no matter how much I agree to ... to what you do me."

  "My wind rose—" His hands moved across her breasts, coaxing, teasing. "You must learn to love your passion—to understand your other side."

  "I don't have one."

  "Admit it," he insisted. "What you feel each time I kiss is your passionate side. You were made for loving, made to feel like this." His hand reached. Rozalinde gazed, awestruck, as his fingers came down on her right breast. He stroked his way to its peak, let his fingers coax the hardened tip through the fabric, rolling, manipulating. Violent shivers ran through her. "Come with me, Rozalinde. Enter the dream."

  "I-I cannot. I'm not a dreamer. I never have been."

  "You can be. Try. Take a deep breath." To her own surprise, she giggled. "You don't dream by breathing deeply." She shifted in his arms, suddenly feeling comfortable, as if she belonged there. "That is quite the opposite to dreaming, or so I've been told."

  Kit balanced himself on one elbow so he could look at her and felt his mood change. She was tense as a bowsprit sail and thoroughly likely to tear if he made love to her— emotionally, physically. She was totally unready to receive him. Yet he felt a driving need to prepare her as soon as possible, so that he might indulge his rising lust. Last night he had restrained himself, but he wouldn't wait forever. He would work on relaxing her first. "You know nothing about the subject," he chided playfully, meaning to distract them both. He tapped her shoulder with one finger. "Close your eyes and I shall teach you. You have nothing better to do."

  Rozalinde hesitated. It was true, there was nothing more urgent demanding her attention. Her calculations were done, at least for the time being. Phillipe would set the ship's course for the day. And although she was not pleased with Kit's plans for her to teach Wrightman, he was unwilling to discuss it further. For the first time in months, she was literally without responsibilities. Forcing herself to lean back against the pillows, she closed her eyes. "What do you want me to do?"