Already the unmistakable murmur of scandal was sweeping the decks. The deep rumble of masculine appreciation underscored a sea of hissing whispers. Not all the women aboard his ship were whores. Lisbon’s devout señoras would never forgive that shocking display of silk-clad thigh.
To say nothing of the crimson garter.
Calyx himself was certain the searing sensuality of the image would be permanently branded on his brain.
He hoped the lady would not be dismayed if the rapier-sharp tongues at his fiesta left her reputation in tatters.
Indeed, she seemed remarkably undaunted by the prospect of social ruin. Already a short, stocky figure in a lavish uniform strode forward to greet her, arms flung wide in welcome. With utter composure, the lady extended an elegant hand for his kiss.
“Well, well,” Diego murmured in his ear, making Calyx twitch. He’d forgotten his primero’s presence. “So the lady of the hour arrives, and our esteemed admiral himself rushes to welcome her.”
With difficulty, Calyx tore his fascinated gaze from the scene below, where the scarlet lady had been rapidly enveloped by the Armada’s senior officers. She reminded him of a trim pinnace, fast and fleet like any good scout ship—enclosed by the lumbering galleons of the Spanish fleet.
“The lady of the hour? What the Devil do you mean by that?”
“Can it be you don’t know?” Beneath a jaunty cap of russet velvet, his friend’s brown eyes danced with mischief in lean suntanned features. “Truly, amigo, you must spend less time in your cabin buried in star charts, gears and wheels, and more time in the taberna drinking good Spanish wine with your friends.”
“I stand corrected.” Calyx swept him an elegant leg. He and Diego had sailed together for years, but not even to his trusted right hand would he divulge the alarming omens he’d seen in their planets.
Sailors were a superstitious lot. They fought to join Calyx’s crews because he was a skilled captain and his ships were considered lucky. Whatever calamities befell the coming venture, he intended to sail the Arcángel and her crew deftly through them—unless his angels and his luck utterly deserted him.
“Indulge me, Diego.” He waved his cigarro toward the lady who’d captivated the entire senior command. “Who is she?”
Diego pursed his lips beneath his graying mustache.
“She’s our benefactress, or so they whisper. A French countess—one of the Catholic faction—who fled south to escape the turmoil in Paris. On his deathbed, her elderly husband changed his will and poured his entire fortune into Philip’s coffers to support the English conquest. They say he did it at her behest.”
“Generous of her.” Calyx inhaled a mouthful of fragrant smoke. His practiced gaze ran over the countess’s trim, sophisticated figure.
The deep crimson damask that encased her lush curves appeared costly enough. But to a pirate’s eye, the fiery starburst ruby glittering against the breathtaking swell of her creamy breasts appeared a bit too brilliant.
He wondered if the countess’s jewels were counterfeit. If so, perhaps she regretted the madcap impulse that had poured her widow’s inheritance into the bottomless hole of Philip’s war chest.
But the lady appeared anything but melancholy. He could see naught of her face from this angle save the brim of a stylish French hood framing a rather stubborn little chin. But as the visiting capitán of the galleass Girona lingered over her hand, the husky chime of her laughter floated over the din. The don looked captivated as he gazed into her face.
Evidently the French countess had just made another conquest.
Calyx realized he too was staring at the mysterious beauty, cigarro dangling neglected from his fingers. Grunting, he knocked a burning cinder from the tip into the night-dark sea.
“Tell me, Diego. What’s the name of our alluring French widow?”
“Jayne Boleyn, the Comtesse de Boulaine.” Diego had a sailor’s inveterate love of gossip. His comprehensive knowledge of the social fabric aboard ship and in port stood Calyx in good stead.
This time, he wondered if his primero had made a rare mistake.
“Boleyn? That can’t be right. Elizabeth Tudor’s mother was a Boleyn—the ill-fated Anne, who lost her head for witchcraft and adultery. It was the scandal of Europe, si? There was some relation called Jane, I seem to recall, somehow mixed up in the escándalo. But that was fifty years ago.”
Diego raised a callused finger. “But Anne Boleyn was raised at the French court, eh? Her father was the English ambassador in Paris. There was a bastardo or something, later ennobled by French Louis, who chose a Catholic wife. The old Comte de Boulaine sprang from that connection.”
The older man paused. “Besides, Lady Jayne there is Ingleza. She only married into the French Boleyns.”
“An Englishwoman? Loyal to Spain, against her own Queen?”
“Ah, there was some royal scandal at the Tudor court, quickly hushed up. Young Lady Jayne was bundled off to Paris and a hasty marriage to the old Comte.” Diego tutted. “Imagine! The poor muchacha was booted out of her homeland and married off to a gouty old invalid. There ought to be a law against it.”
“Cristo!” Calyx muttered. “Not surprising there’s no love lost between the countess and her old sovereign. Even so—an Englishwoman aboard my ship?”
“What are you going to do, pitch her over the side?” Beneath his mustache, Diego’s lips quirked. “You’re half-English yourself, amigo.”
Calyx’s gut knotted, as always at any mention of his antecedents. If the rest of Spain knew what he did about his father’s fate, he’d lose his command and the King’s commission. Not to mention the finca—his rural estate in Castile, the childhood prison he would not miss—and the damned title he despised.
His father must be turning in his grave, the old devil. Not that Calyx cared.
Rodrigo, the old Conde de Zamorra, had repudiated him.
The title and the finca could go to Hell, as far as Calyx was concerned. The Arcángel was all that mattered, the life he’d built for himself with his own blood and sweat after he lost the privileged life of a Spanish grandee.
That was what he stood to lose, along with his royal patron and the letter of marque that lent the protection of the Spanish navy to his risky ventures on the high seas, if the incendiary allegation of his English mother’s infidelity slipped out.
The exposure would ruin him.
“Never fear, Diego.” Beneath his primero’s sharp eyes, his mouth curled in a mocking smile. “If I pitched our Ingleza overboard, I’d have the entire Spanish command howling for my blood, by the look of it.”
Below them, the tall capitán of the San Juan de Portugal was leaning to murmur in the countess’s ear, one swarthy hand curled intimately around her elbow—a bare inch from the enticing swell of her breast. As he watched, Jayne Boleyn tapped her fan playfully against the importunate hand and slipped away. In a swirl of scarlet damask, she reclaimed the admiral’s attention.
But she coupled the maneuver with a coy backward glance that pulled her spurned suitor after her like a lodestone, undismayed by her graceful rebuff.
Smoothly done. Calyx grinned appreciatively. Clearly the countess knew how to manage her admirers.
“You’re intrigued by her, of course.” Diego nodded. “Like every other red-blooded male who crosses her path. She has quite a reputation with the señors, that one—nearly as bad as your reputation with the señoras! Even before the old Comte died, her string of lovers included the most influential monsieurs in France. King Henry himself was said to be taken with her, if you can credit it.”
“Oh, I can credit it,” Calyx murmured, fascinated by the scandalous beauty holding court below. Clinging to the admiral’s arm, she’d managed to detach herself from the rest of her admirers. Together, the pair drifted toward the fighting deck, high and private in the stern.
He’d yet to see her face, but the very air around her sparkled with charm and wit. How effortlessly she enchanted everyone around her�
��even that stiff, pious prig of an admiral.
The Comtesse de Boulaine moved with a languid sensuality that drew men after her like a compass swinging to true north.
Yet to his eye, her casual progress toward the less populated decks seemed far too purposeful. There was nothing aft to interest a lady—except the officers’ cabins, including his own. Could she possibly be so brazen, so hot-blooded, that she sought an assignation with the Admiral of the Ocean Sea in another man’s bunk?
If so, the lady’s audacity was staggering—and his admiration for her sexual appetite knew no bounds. A woman of Jayne Boleyn’s spirit and passion had no business in the bed of a timid-hearted monk like Don Alonso. That liaison would be a crime against nature—especially when Calyx himself was more than willing to oblige her.
One last tumble before the protracted abstinence of a sea voyage. His angels must be watching over him.
Grinning, the capitán of the Arcángel took a last pull from his cigarro and flicked the burning stub into the briny deep.
“Come, Diego,” he murmured. “Go down to the orlop deck and check on the sentries at the powder store and the gunroom. Any man asleep or drunk on duty will answer to me.”
“Si, capitán.” Diego’s brown eyes gleamed. “Where should I find you if there’s a problem?”
“Don’t look for me, you old salt.” Anticipation and arousal simmering in his blood, Calyx aimed a friendly clout at the older man’s shoulder and strode past him. “Tonight I plan to savor the warm hospitality of England.”
Chapter Two
Don Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, the Admiral of the Ocean Sea, had a reputation for piety and restraint. Or so they said.
If not for the desperation and fear that drove her, Jayne would have said it was almost too easy to lure the admiral from the crowded confines of the gun deck to the high perch of the fighting deck in the stern. Her breath quickened as she scrambled nimbly up the ladder in a froth of lace-trimmed petticoats, her wheel-shaped farthingale flipped neatly around her shoulders.
Hot on her heels, Don Alonso climbed, eyes riveted on her silk-sheathed legs.
Cheeks warm at the immodest display—embarrassing but necessary—she hopped onto the fighting deck and pretended not to notice the admiral’s labored breathing.
You can manage him, she told the anxious butterflies spiraling in her belly. Just the way you managed Antoine all those years, and the lustful monsieurs of Versailles. You’ve always been able to manage them.
Except for Dudley, of course.
Yet she’d been a lovesick virgin at fifteen. At five-and-twenty, she was anything but.
Cautiously she glanced around. They stood alone behind the towering trunk of the mizzenmast, ranks of furled sails stacked above her, a forest of spars and rigging slanting upward. Beneath her feet, well-scrubbed decks rose and sank gently with the tide.
From the lower decks rose the muted hum of music and laughter, mingling with the slap of waves against the oaken hull. Overhead, the vast expanse of Heaven glittered with the pinprick brilliance of the constellations.
Clear as a bell, damn it to Hell. After the spring of unseasonable squalls that delayed the launch, the weather had finally failed her.
“Good clear night for it,” Don Alonso rasped.
Jayne contained a small start. She must be more nervous that she’d allowed herself to acknowledge. So terribly much rode upon the outcome of this night’s work.
“Is it indeed, Excellency?” she murmured, letting the soft husk of a French accent blur the Spanish syllables. Better if the admiral saw her as French and forgot her English antecedents. “A good clear night for what, pray tell?”
“For the launch, of course,” he said gruffly. “Every day the weather delays us, a few more fainthearts slip ashore and don’t return. The King will have my head if I don’t put this fleet to sea come dawn.”
Jayne slanted the Spanish grandee a cautious glance and found his hot eyes pinned to the swelling curves of her breasts, pressed against her tight-laced bodice. The spring air was balmy against the exposed skin of her décolletage, but her hands were ice.
She’d never meant to undertake an assignment so risky, sailing straight into the maw of the most overwhelming naval force the world had ever seen. When she agreed to spy for England—given little choice in the matter—Walsingham had sworn she’d do nothing more hazardous than circulate through the salons of the French elite, picking up useful tidbits and seeding the occasional false rumor.
But his latest command, issued in response to her coded message, had ordered her to delay the mighty Armada from sailing.
And so she’d done. This bout of unseasonable weather, as fierce squalls raced across the Bay of Biscay and battered the ships in harbor until they nearly slipped their anchors—well, God had been on her side.
But not even her unruly weather magick, an unreliable witchcraft not seen among the Fair Folk in centuries, could stand against the might of Spain forever. In time, her strength had failed her. The weather had blown itself out.
At dawn, Philip of Spain’s Great Enterprise would sail.
England’s small but valiant navy would mount its best defense. They must, for Elizabeth had next to nothing for an army. For the Queen’s cobbled-together troops to defend her vulnerable shores, they must know where the fearsome Armada would land.
God save her, let it not be Kent.
Her son was confined in Kent at one of Dudley’s great houses, on a high bluff overlooking the Channel. That house would be among the first overrun if the Spaniards landed there.
Let it be anywhere but Kent.
A week of reconnaissance in the casas and tabernas of Lisbon had yielded naught but rumors, each contradicting the next. So Jayne found herself with no choice but to fling herself into this foolhardy business.
Steeling herself, she raised her eyes to Don Alonso and gave him a dazzling smile.
“The hopes and prayers of Catholic France sail with you, señor,” she said. “You must know I was the recent guest of King Philip. He places enormous trust in you.”
Beneath his neat spade-shaped beard, a shadow darkened the admiral’s face. “As I have reminded him, Philip places too much trust in a commander whose military victories have always occurred on land. But, with God’s help, I shall prove equal to this sacred trust. Never forget we are about His work, condesa.”
When he crossed himself, Jayne bowed her head demurely and followed suit.
Before the Christian symbol, her full-blooded Fae ancestors would have fallen to their knees screaming. Fortunately for her, Jayne claimed only a tincture of Faerie blood. Of all her Carey and Boleyn kin, only she had inherited the magick of their distant forebears.
On his deathbed, her French husband had cursed her for a witch. Antoine had vented his spleen with a right good will when he left her penniless.
Of course, she’d turned that to her advantage as best she might. Philip of Spain believed Antoine’s bequest had been her idea.
Gazing up at Don Alonso, she allowed her brow to furrow in sudden doubt. “But is it wise to sail so soon, with the weather so unsettled, Excellency? I’d heard there were severe shortages of guns and ordnance, and your provisions—”
“We’re armed to the teeth, but foodstuffs are a concern,” he conceded. She carefully filed that fact away. “With the launch so delayed, our supplies are spoiling in the hold. But the King will see us sail when the tide turns, condesa. Once we launch, it’s a short sail under calm seas to England.”
Your seas will not be calm if I have anything to say about it.
A premonitory tingle swept over her skin. Inside her crimson slippers, her toes curled. Jayne lifted her face to the playful touch of the sea breeze, tangy with salt, and pushed the willing wind ever so slightly. The fleeting zephyr strengthened, flapping the furled bulk of the canvas sails. The swelling euphoria of her magick left her breathless.
“I am certain you’re correct, señor.” She crossed to the gunwale t
o put distance between them. “I am fully reassured that my husband’s investment in this fleet was a wise one.”
She gazed over the harbor, the shimmering expanse blazing with a thousand lanterns swinging from a forest of masts and yardarms. Directly before her towered the looming menace of that floating fortress, the Spanish galleon, the steep sides of its fighting decks brightly painted in crimson and gold. The gilded letters on its hull floated in the darkness.
San Martin.
“How do you like her?” Don Alonso’s husky voice in her ear made her start. “That’s my flagship you’re admiring across the way.”
“She’s impressive—well suited to her commander.” She uttered a breathless laugh as the enemy’s hands closed around her waist. God be thanked for the whalebone cage of her corset and the intervening layers of silk and brocade between them. Her hands clenched the gunwale until her fingers throbbed.
She’d planned to wend her way gradually to the matter of interest, but the harsh rasp of Don Alonso’s breath made her revise her plan. This was no man to dangle and tease while she coaxed forth the crucial intelligence she must have.
Jayne took a deep breath and consigned caution to the Devil.
“I had not realized your Spanish galleons are so monstrous large.” She tinged her voice with just the right note of admiration. “Will you sail her right up the Thames to Westminster Palace?”
“No es fácil—it’s not that easy. We must anchor in a suitable port and march inland to take the city and its Queen. This is why you see so many soldiers stuffed into the hold of Lord Calyx’s ship and all the others, si? Each ship has her tercio of fighting men, above and beyond her crew.”
“So many swords under your command?” Her fan fluttered. “I vow ’tis sufficient to make a woman breathless! Where can you possibly land such a fearsome force?”
“Never fear, condesa. Lord Calyx has a plan for that.” A trace of sourness invaded his tone. “That mixed-blood bastard will guide us through the tricky shoals and currents. He’s a loose cannon, no doubt of it, an adventurer who follows no will but his own. But he’s an uncanny fine navigator. I’ll trust him for that much.”
Mistress by Magick Page 3
