Where had she come from? Whom did she work for? He had a nagging feeling he didn’t want to know. What he wouldn’t mind knowing was how good her lips would taste. Or how she would look naked beneath him.
Damn it! He didn’t want to think of her in that way. She couldn’t be trusted.
Ah. But when there’s nothing between you but naked flesh, there is nothing to steal.
He smiled at the thought.
* * *
The thin morning fog hung low over the water, hugging the sea in the last minutes before the early rays of the sun absorbed the briny mists. Marisol paused at the top of the ladder of the quarterdeck to take a deep breath of the fresh new day. The clean air filled her with a renewed joy of finding Monte. Today would be the day.
“Stop dallying, girlie.” Henri’s tone barbed with impatience. “Come along. Capt’n is waitin’.”
She let him lead her along the deck, though she didn’t need the little man’s guidance.
Tyburn stood with his back to them, next to the wheel like a hardy beacon. His shirt strained against the defined muscles across the expanse of his shoulders as he scanned the horizon with his spyglass. The sharp lines of the sword that hung from his hip rivaled those lines that rounded in the seat of his pants. She bit her lower lip.
Henri grunted. “Ahem.”
She tore her eyes away from the captain’s arse. Henri shook his head as she mouthed the word What? at him.
“The lass, Capt’n.” He hobbled away and continued to shake his head.
“A fair morning to you, Miss Castellan,” Tyburn said. Still searching the sea, he didn’t wait for her reply. “After leaving your chambers last night, I took stock of the situation. The winds have favored us and I decided to make good use of the generosity. We should be upon the Gloria soon.”
So much for the humiliating show she’d put on. Obviously begging had not worked. She had known better. Begging had never swayed Alain, either. She needed to do something to preserve her dignity. Perhaps she should start by helping him survey the sea properly.
“Shouldn’t you be looking beyond the bow with your bring-em-near instead of behind us?” By the way he brought down the telescope to stare at her, questioning his tactics was not the way to redeem herself.
“That’s why I have a man on the fighting top.” The breeze distracted her from his sharp tone as it rustled his sandy hair against his whiskered cheeks.
“Then someone is following us? Is that it?” She sidled up next to him to get a better view of the ocean spanning in their wake. The haze had all but disappeared from the farthest reaches of the open water. Nothing there, nothing but the masculine presence beside her that sucked up all available good sense. His musky smell wafting on the wind sent awakening signals to all her womanly parts that would betray her rationality. How nice it would be to see him smile again. Even if not at her.
“Aye. A light was spotted on the break and stayed with us for some time.” He slid the telescope short. “It disappeared about an hour ago.”
“Undoubtedly falling back out of view before the sun gave them away.”
His eyes tightened with suspicion. “A probable stratagem.”
“Be at ease, Tyburn. I told you I’m not working with anyone to steal that silver cargo. I’m only interested in her crew.”
“You’ll excuse me for taking your words with a shaker of salt.”
“I suppose I deserve that.” She knew she did. Tyburn had every reason to call her a liar. She hadn’t exactly been forthcoming with him. Though he would claim she deliberately deceived him, she preferred to term her behavior as bending the truth. She only did what she felt was her right in her means to an end. Besides, her falsities were far less harmful than those with no moral boundaries.
She might live amongst the belly of scurvy men, but the inherent good her mother had fought so hard to teach her children had taken root within Marisol, just as the stubborn impetus of will lent from her father had seeded deeply. All too often, her paternal traits were stronger than those of her mother’s and she hated that people got hurt. But once she got an idea stuck in her mind, nothing would stop her from seeing it through. Whatever it took to get what she wanted.
“Let me explain how this is going to measure.” He shoved his scope into his pocket and faced her. “Once we make the Gloria, you will stay here on my ship until she is secure. Then you will be allowed to board with me as an escort. You find your brother and return to the Rissa. You will not be permitted to stay on the Gloria. If your brother is a free man, he may join you. If, however, he is under contract with Windham’s captain, there is nothing I can, or will, do. He will stay on his ship. But, again, you will not.”
“But, Captain Tyburn, you know he will be under contract. A sailor not signed on to a ship’s crew would be either a prisoner or a fugitive. You’re being unreasonable.”
He tilted his head. “Am I?”
“Yes. I’ve waited a long time to be reunited with Monte. It’s beastly to let me see him just to separate us again.” She wanted so much to embrace Monte, to tell him she was sorry for not saving him. She needed time with him. For Tyburn to dangle a reunion in front of her then rip it away before the warmth of a cheerful hug faded was cruel.
“You seem to forget, lass. I am in no way obliged to reunite you with your brother. I find it a kindness to have permitted you to board the ship in the first place. You can do all that mawkish reunion rubbish when we get to port.”
She stiffened her spine at his rude tongue.
“After, of course, you return my cameo,” he added.
What was it about this cameo of Tyburn’s? Why was he so determined to get it back? Beautiful the shell was, but a treasure worth risking a fortune over it was not. It had certainly been a good bargaining tool. She shouldn’t forget it had been her decision to stay on his ship.
“All right. I’ll play by your rules, Captain.” That was, until she could make rules of her own.
He gave her a nod but his drawn brow negated that she had him convinced.
Still no smile. She wished he would, even for a moment. He had such an attractive mug when he grinned. She longed to see those dimples of his.
“Why did you kill him?”
Stunned by the turn in the conversation, she frowned. “What?”
“Why did you kill him?” Leaning his hip against the rail, he crossed his arms, obviously expecting her answer.
She stammered, unable to speak the words that were not there.
“My messenger. You killed my messenger. Why?”
“I…”
“And don’t lie to me, Marisol.”
Trepidation flushed over her. She felt like a rodent caught by a stalking cat—trapped and about to be devoured.
She sighed and looked to the brightening sky. Pity about the poor fool. Talking about the man humanized him, something she struggled not to do. If only the light of the new day could bleach away her crime.
“I overheard him on the pier talking to a fish just arriving,” she said. “I happened upon them quite by accident.” While sneaking away from Alain’s ship looking for an evening of excitement. She had found excitement, all right.
“From what vessel?”
“The Sugar Lady, I believe.”
Tyburn scratched his chin. He looked straight at her, but for a moment, seemed to not see her at all.
“I heard them speak something about Windham’s ship,” she continued, hoping to regain his attention. “If the rumors I’d been hearing were true, I knew this time I might find Monte. There was an exchange but I couldn’t see what it was. So, I followed him from the docks into the alley. I was simply going to pick his pocket but the idiot pulled his pistol. We scuffled and, well…” Would it be too much to ask to let the matter drop? She offered a sheepish smile.
“I’m to believe you were defending yourself?”
Nuh-uh. No letting the matter drop. “Believe what you like, Captain. He pointed that pistol at me claiming he’d
see the devil before he’d let some woman foil his mission.” Men, humph. Always failing to appreciate a woman’s ambition. “I merely helped him see his proclamation through.”
“You raise another question.” He lifted his brow in mild curiosity. “Where is it you lay your head at night? Where do you call home?”
He was crafty. Her answer would tell him much about her. If she told him the truth, that is. She would reveal nothing that could get her further into trouble. “I come from Île-á-Vache. Cow Island.”
“Nice try. But I was referring to the ship your cabin is in. Forgive me for saying as much, but you are no windswept flower plucked from the grassy dunes of paradise.” His stare grazing over her was no less sharp than a scythe cutting down a ripened harvest. “You’re more like a scavenging gull circling a fishing vessel waiting to snatch a prize while no one is looking.”
A fair assessment. She’d been called worse. “I told you, Cow Island. My mother was born in Spain to a mercantile family. During Queen Anne’s War, she fell in love with a French seaman. Against her family’s wishes, she married him. Together they absconded to Cow Island where she raised three children and he took to sailing on merchants. She has a cottage near the wharf. There she plies her trade as an apothecary, selling healing herbs.”
For a moment, Marisol could smell the spicy twigs laced with leaves and flowers her mother hung in the windows to dry. Warmth spread throughout her as she thought of her mother, of sitting at the table watching her prepare the small pots of remedies. Marisol missed her, missed the way she hummed while she worked, missed the love and understanding only a mother could give.
But not Cow Island. She did not miss that wretched spit of land.
“That is where I call home,” she said.
“You live by the sea, that much is clear.”
“I have occasion to sail at times.”
“Ah, yes. Especially after pillaging unsuspecting victims, beguiling them with your beauty.”
“Victim? I wasn’t aware you consider yourself a victim.”
“Hardly, that. I would never allow as such. But that is why you are here, is it not?”
“I detect bitterness.”
“Ho, ho.” His fleeting chuckle gave way to what she’d been waiting for.
Delighted, she smiled as those dimples made an appearance. Her knees weakened with his trifling grin. She knew why he reserved his good nature in her presence. There would be no mistaking his intentions and what he expected from her. This had all been unpleasant business to him. She felt saddened by the thought, saddened that he didn’t smile at her more.
“I harbor much more than bitterness, sweet lady.” He closed the gap between them. “Would you care to find out just what I harbor? Or where?”
His crude remark did not appall her like she imagined he intended. Living among a ship full of scum counting down the days until they would make the next port so that they could prig a cheap blouse, she had heard it all.
“I’m uninterested in the docking habits of a draughty dinghy.”
His deep laugh lengthened the cut of his dimples. “’Tis a shame, I’d say. Wherever I drop anchor, my man-o’-war is usually well received in berth.”
Ah. Now she remembered where she’d heard of him. The girls in Port Royal. They had treated her with tales of raunchy affairs about the man standing before her. Captain Blade Tyburn, the libertine, known to seduce women all over the Caribbean and the far reaches of the Atlantic with his charm. It was said that fathers locked up their daughters or sent them to the country at first mention of him sailing in nearby waters and that women of all statuses swooned at the sound of his name.
Well, she could certainly see why. No doubt he was a dashing rogue spreading devilish fantasies meant to make the heart flutter with unbound desires. But she had no use for being another conquest. She had grown tired of being insignificant, of being little more than a strategic ornament. A swift rendezvous would serve to fortify his debauchery while lessening her own feelings of importance. Unless she seduced him. As tempting as that seemed, she had a more pressing objective.
Besides, Alain would flay them both alive should she indulge in such a dalliance. Especially after that incident with Bobby Bones in Tortuga, God rest his soul. What was good for her captain was a far cry from what he permitted from her.
But Alain wasn’t here, was he?
“I don’t doubt your influence over the childishly lovesick lasses pining for a tryst with a legendary lover blowing in from the high seas. Aside from your mildly pleasing features, I see no other reason to entertain the idea of testing your mariner skills.”
“Skills beyond your imagination, to be sure.” He reached out to brush the loose strands of her hair behind her ear. The backs of his fingers trailed down her neck to her collarbone, scraping immense rifts in her composure. “No worries, though. I’ve no intention of entertaining a troublesome showpiece with a wily tongue such as the likes of you.”
“Bastard.”
“Guttersnipe.”
Ooh. Her bosom to her ears prickled in heated anger.
“Ship ho! Portside!”
Marisol looked up to the sailor. He pointed north off the masthead.
Tyburn had already made his way across the deck and Willie had joined him. “What does she hail?” Willie asked. “Is she our quarry?”
Tyburn adjusted his scope. “I can’t tell. She flies no flag.”
Marisol leaned over the rail, straining to see the ship in the distance. The faintest of haze lingered, clinging to the only solid object on the surface of the sea. It was as though the vessel strove to disappear. An eerie feeling crawled across her skin.
“Take us to her,” Tyburn said to his first mate.
“Aye, aye.” Willie strode to the midship and hollered up to the helmsman on the quarterdeck. “Two points forward off the larboard beam, lad!”
The Rissa cut through the waves as she turned on her larboard. Marisol held on to a ratline with the sudden shift of the ship. The rise and fall over the swells sent shallow gusts of wind across her face, blasting a feel of urgency in her chest with each dip of the bow.
That could be the Gloria out there. Monte could be on that ship. Oh, to see him again. The ache in her heart dwindled with the swell of anticipation.
“Do you mind, Captain?” She wanted to take a look for herself at the target.
The corner of his lips twitched with unmistakable enjoyment and he placed the scope in her outstretched hand. “By all means, dear lady. Take a look.”
She sighted the ship in the scope. In the rounded distortion, the image in the center cleared. It was difficult to keep it in sight with the swaying Rissa. But even with the unsteady movement, she could tell something was not right. Her intuition triggered a chilling warning signal.
“Something is wrong.” She passed the telescope back to Tyburn.
He peered through it for a moment. His facial features hardened into stony severity. He paused to take in the currents of the ocean then focused again on the nearing vessel.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Tell me what you see,” he said.
She took back the scope and scanned the ship again. Her heartbeat picked up in pace as she realized what she saw. Or, rather, what she didn’t see. “Nothing. I see nothing.”
“Exactly.”
No one on deck milling about, no crew manning the sails, no one at the wheel. She swept the boat from bow to stern but saw no signs of life.
“It may be a trick.” He spared her another cynical glance. “They could be trying to give us a false sense of safety.”
“Another pirate ship?”
“Hiding below deck ready to attack is a reasonable tactic among buccaneers. But brethren don’t usually attack brethren.” He pushed off the railing. “Or do they, Miss Castellan?”
A captain who takes nothing for granted, including a woman. He must think her a pirate. A pitiful excuse for a pirate, too. She didn’t know if she shoul
d be insulted or laugh.
He called to the crew. “To arms,” he commanded.
A seaman brought up a crate from below and dropped it in the middle of the deck. He cast off the lid and handed rifles to the eager tars.
“Man the guns, men.” Tyburn directed the gunners. “Be ready for an attack.”
As they neared the other ship’s starboard, Willie shouted, “She’s the Gloria, Capt’n. Right and true, she is.”
Tyburn called up to the lookout. “Any sign of the Widow Maker?”
“Nay, Capt’n!”
“Bring her alongside, Willie,” Tyburn said. “Let’s see what this is about.”
Willie called the orders to the helmsman.
Marisol’s grip on the rope line tightened as they sailed closer. Still, the ominous deck on the ship cloaked in thin mist remained empty. It drifted aimlessly as it rolled along the tidal flow. Sagging ropes drooped from spars. Slackened sails flapped without any acceptance of wind. The rustle of the canvas and the bumping of an overturned barrel sounded like a spectral warning to stay away. Marisol shuddered as an uncanny sense of dread seeped into her every pore.
She stepped closer to the captain.
“Watch it, lassie,” Henri snapped. “Damn near broke me toes with yer big foot.”
“Pardon, Henri. I didn’t see you there.”
“Humph.” He grumped before stretching his neck up like an old turtle to peer over the side.
“Ship ahoy!” Tyburn called out.
No answer came.
“Willie, give the command. We’re to board.”
With one hand on his hip and the other leaning on the rail, Tyburn reminded Marisol of Alain. Relaxed by his outward appearance but poised for deadly action.
Willie hollered out the order and grappling hooks flung across the span, drawing the ships together.
The men poised around the cannons and readied their weapons. Every passing moment came wrapped in a cocoon of tension. Marisol wanted to take a gulley knife, cut open the constricting wall of disquiet and step through. She felt she would seize up from the strain. And she didn’t dare break the silence with a twittering faint. She’d die from embarrassment.
A Kiss in the Wind Page 7
