“This is not possible,” he murmured. He checked the inlay on the walnut barrel and there indeed was the entwined couple, the woman’s neck and back arched as if in the throes of an intense orgasm. “You have my apologies, Captain, I was assured my guns were unique.”
Juliet, still seated on the floor, found herself at eye level with the duke’s groin. She had, of course, already seen all there was to see when she had examined his wounds, but there was something to be said for gravity and the way it altered the appearance of appendages that were impressive at the outset. There was also a good deal of muscled thigh to distract the eye; this close she could see the indent of taut sinews at his hip, the soft furring of light brown hairs that followed down his calves.
“Do all Englishmen take such extraordinary measures to ensure the sun does not creep beneath their collars? I vow I have never seen a body half so pale as yours nor one that was smothered under so many layers of clothing this close to the equator. The rash you bear would benefit greatly from a day or two with nothing more confining than air.”
Varian was startled into looking down. The rash to which she referred was indelicately located in the vicinity of his privy parts and under his arms. Soap, as Beacom had discovered to his unmitigated horror, did not mix with seawater, and since seawater was all that had been permitted for laundering during the six-week voyage, the ducal linens had acquired an irritating salt residue. The aggravation had worsened when the Argus had sailed into tropical waters, for the infernal heat and sun offered no relief, nor did the sight of the ship’s crew stripping down layer by layer as the heat increased. Most of them worked barefoot, dressed in airy canvas pinafores and loose trousers.
Bereft of such heathenish options himself, Varian had remained in his stockings and padded trunk hose, his fashionably quilted doublets, shortcoats, and capes, itching without mercy in the silent knowledge that he cut an imposing figure on the deck. The thought of walking anywhere naked was almost as absurd as the picture he presented now, standing bare as birth in front of a woman who was inspecting his privates with a shamelessly arousing curiosity that caused his flesh to jerk.
Since it was neither the experience nor the pleasure of Varian St. Clare to have any part of his body come under such close and uninvited scrutiny, he thrust the pistol back onto its rack and started back to the bed. Her smile broadened into a chuckle, then a laugh—a sound that pricked more than just his vanity and caused him to stop cold in his tracks. Without thinking ahead to any consequences, he turned around, bent over, and roughly pulled her up by her arms to stand before him.
What the devil he planned to do with her once they were eye to eye, he was not given the chance to decide, for despite the quantity of rum she had consumed, her reflexes were as fast and deadly as a cobra strike. She had a knife drawn and the point thrust under his chin before he had finished hauling her to her feet.
“You should be advised,” she said, her voice as cold as the blade kissing his throat, “there are few men who would dare touch me without a very specific invitation to do so. Even fewer who have survived calling me a liar.”
Varian tilted his chin higher in response to the dagger’s steely inducement to do so. He released her arms and spread his hands slowly outward. “Forgive my impertinence. The guns are identical to mine; it was an instinctive reaction and I have already apologized for the infraction—something I rarely do, and hardly ever to someone who is too full of rum to respect it.”
“Is that so?” she murmured, her eyes narrowing.
“Just so, madam. As for repercussions—” He clenched his jaw and lowered his chin, defying the pressure of the knife, feeling the sharp jab as the tip pierced his skin. “Considering the course our conversation has taken thus far, I find the greater concern lies in wondering if there would be consequences for refusing an invitation.”
Juliet stared for a long moment. The sheer insolence of his presumptions—that she would invite him to touch her in any kind of intimate manner—nearly drove the blade deeper of its own volition. Instead, she traced the point of the dagger down his throat to his breastbone, down through the swirls of dark hair to the hard, flat plane of his belly. When the cool steel scrolled lower and rested across the base of his manhood, she angled it so that the weight of his flesh lay across the flat surface of the blade like a plated offering.
He did not even flinch.
“You show more courage than I would have credited you with, my lord,” she said quietly.
“And you more bravado, Captain. Not surprising, however, with the advantage of a knife in your hand.”
Juliet expelled a disbelieving breath. She rid herself of the weapon, tossing it with an expert flick of her wrist, sending it across the cabin and biting into the wood beside the door. At the same time she raised a booted foot and brought it smashing down on Varian’s bare instep.
Before he could react to either action, she grabbed his arm and gave his wrist a savage twist, bending his thumb back so far the joint popped. The pain flared up his arm, doubling him over at the waist; a further twist and he was crumpling down onto his knees before her.
Juliet leaned over and pressed her lips into the waves of silky hair that covered his ear. “I have no knife now, my lord. Are my words still full of rum and bravado?”
He bared his teeth, girding himself against the agony as he reached around with his free hand and hooked his arm around the back of her right leg. He wrenched it forward, feeling the tension break and throwing her off balance. A second tug brought her crashing down onto the floor beneath him, hard enough that she was forced to release her grip on his wrist and thumb.
Barely had he gasped enough breath to form an oath when another whiplike twist brought her rearing up onto her elbows. Her legs snapped together like pincers and clamped tightly around his throat, squeezing off his windpipe, trapping whatever air he had managed to suck into his lungs. He tried clawing at her thighs to loosen them but it was like trying to pry two iron bars apart. He attempted to roll, to wrest himself free that way, but she countered his efforts with a savage wrench in the opposite direction, one that locked him even tighter in her grip.
The blood started to swell behind his eyeballs. Large black splotches began spreading across his vision, and his chest began to burn, his muscles to scream for air. He uncurled his hands from around her thighs but before he could slam his palms on the planking to indicate his surrender, a brusque knock rattled the cabin door.
At the sound of Juliet’s snarled curse, it was flung open by a skinny lad of no more than twelve or thirteen balancing a large wooden tray in one hand, a thick crockery bottle in the other.
He hesitated a moment on the threshold, but if he thought it odd to see his captain lying on the floor with a naked man being choked between her thighs, the expression on his face did not betray it.
“That funny little man came lookin’ fer rum an’ Mr. Crisp thought ye might want summit to eat with it,” he said. “Should I just put the victuals ’ere on the table?”
“Aye. Thank you, Johnny Boy,” she said on a panted breath. “Take a bite of cheese for your trouble.”
“Aye, Cap’n. Thankee, Cap’n. Mr. Crisp also said to tell ye we’ve had to shorten the mains’l again, cuz the … the ‘great ’eaving sow’ has dropped off another point.” As he said this, he cheerfully plucked a knife from his belt and helped himself to a huge wedge of yellow cheese from the wheel on the platter. He took a bite and tucked the rest inside his shirt. “ ’Ee also says to tell ye the wind ’as shifted an’ the sea ’as picked up a chop. We’ll likely be in a hard blow afore mornin’.”
Juliet swore. She unclamped her legs from Varian’s throat and sprang to her feet, leaving him splayed like a starfish on the floor behind her, gasping for air.
“How far astern is the Santo Domingo?”
“We couldn’t ’it her with a double-charged long gun blowin’ a light load.”
The boy’s standard of measurement indicated half a mile, perh
aps more. Too great a separation if a squall was blowing up.
“Tell Mr. Crisp I’m on my way.”
With his cheek puffed out over the chunk of cheese, Johnny Boy asked if there was anything else the captain needed.
“A hammock for his lordship,” Juliet said. “He’ll be sleeping elsewhere from now on.”
The lad paused in his chewing and cocked an eyebrow. “Where’ll I put ’im?”
“Empty one of the sail lockers. It should be private enough.”
The boy looked at Varian, looked at Juliet, then chuckled. “Aye, Cap’n. A locker it is.”
The muted thump that marked the boy’s departure brought Varian rolling over in his misery. From his position, lying prone on the floor, he was able to turn his head enough to see through the curtain of his hair. The lad was missing a leg. His right knee was bound to a padded cradle that sat atop a wooden peg. In itself, the sight was not uncommon, for seamen were often without any kind of medical treatment save the knife and saw. What caught Varian’s eye was the carving on the stump and cradle. The former was whittled and polished to resemble the body of a serpent; the latter was an open mouth complete with glittering glass eyes and sharp teeth.
The duke groaned and closed his eyes again. His thumb was dislocated, his hand was burning like coals in a forge, his throat was only just beginning to respond to his efforts to swallow.
Juliet retrieved her dagger from the wall and crouched down on her haunches beside St. Clare. She could not see his face. Dark puffs of hair were being dragged in and blown out in the vicinity of his lips, and using the tip of the blade, she edged aside the curtain of gleaming locks and waited for one of the midnight blue eyes to roll up and look at her.
“Perhaps next time, sirrah, you will show more caution when you throw out your challenges.” She glanced down at the hand he held cradled against his chest and clucked her tongue once in sympathy. “I’ll wager that hurts a devil. Shall I pop the thumb back in for you, or can you manage it yourself?”
Through the white grate of his teeth, he released a hiss of air to coincide with the sharp twist and shove he gave his thumb. The bone clicked back into the socket with a dull thwock and though a shiver went up his arm, he did not take his eyes away from her face.
“Like you, madam,” his voice rasped with fury, “I would prefer if you did not touch me again without a specific invitation to do so.”
She let the hair drop back over his face and sent her gaze sweeping down his back to the tautness of his buttocks. “Depending on how one interpreted that, milord, it could be mistaken for another challenge.”
He drew and expelled a breath before he answered. “Never believe for a moment that it is, for I would sooner invite the attentions of a toothless, three-bellied hag.”
Juliet grinned. “Faith, if that is where your preferences for female companionship lie, I shall endeavor to keep any lusty thoughts I might be tempted to have to myself.”
“Do so and I shall expire in a state of eternal gratitude.”
“Not too soon, I hope. You have put the thought into my head that you might be worth a ransom after all. Your intended bride, for instance. What would she pay to have you back safe and sound and”—she glanced along the muscled length of his body a second time—“unsullied by the depravities of a rapine pirate wench?”
His hair had fallen over his face again but she could see the glitter of his eyes through the silky strands.
“Or perhaps,” she said, leaning closer to whisper seductively in his ear, “I should endeavor to win you over with my charm?”
“Since the necessary tools are entirely lacking,” he spat, “the risk is negligible.”
Juliet braced her hands on her knees and pushed to her feet.
“Savor that feeling of righteous piety, milord, for you have yet to meet my father. You think me quick to take offense? Lift your nose too high in his company and he will slice it off without a thought.”
Chapter Six
The weather held to occasional gusts through the night, but the dawn came up gunmetal gray with seas high enough to send gouts of green spume over the deck rails. A wide, growling swath of black thunderclouds was circling in the western sky, and while the Iron Rose could easily have piled on more sail and outrun the storm, the galleon could not. Compounding the stubbornness of Spanish shipwrights who refused to alter the design of vessels that were square-rigged and could only go where the wind took them, they insisted upon building huge castles fore and aft—towering wooden decks that severely hampered speed and made the already top-heavy ships unstable in bad weather.
Juliet would be damned, however, if she lost such a grand prize to the wind and the sea.
“Lash down everything that is not already nailed or tied, Mr. Crisp. We’re in for a sweet one.” She lowered her spyglass and squinted up at the roiling mass of cloud. “We did both say it had been too easy, did we not?”
Nathan blew out an oath and went aft, shouting orders at the men as he passed.
A jagged fork of lightning cracked open the clouds and Juliet counted the seconds before the sound reached them. Calculating one league for every three seconds, she guessed the blow was four leagues away and swirling in on them fast. The wind was cold and damp; it snatched off hats and rattled deadeyes. It changed direction sharply from one minute to the next, making the sails overhead boom like cannon.
Apart from the men assigned to stand by the lines, the crew remained below. Gun captains checked that the culverins were tied down, the ports sealed against water coming inboard, and wax plugs fitted into the noses and priming holes of the guns. The powder barrels were secured and the several hundred balls of shot were safely confined in the magazine. The pumps were oiled and manned. Lanterns that had not been lit during the night remained cold, for the greatest hazard on board a ship was fire; even the coals in the galley were smothered to guard against any accidental spillage.
Juliet tracked the approaching storm from the quarterdeck, her feet braced wide to counter the rolls and dips the Iron Rose took riding from one swell to the next. She had her bandana knotted snugly around her forehead to keep her hair from lashing into her eyes, but strands were constantly being torn loose, making her look and feel like Medusa.
One stony figure who undoubtedly shared her impression stood down in the belly of the main deck, his hands clutching the rail, his face turned out to the sea. Juliet had been surprised to see the Duke of Harrow venturing out in such heavy weather. She was frankly surprised to see him at all, dressed as he was in a rough-spun shirt and canvas galligaskins, neither very clean nor anywhere near a proper fit.
The shirt, which might have been loose on the wiry frame of an average-sized seaman, was tight across the shoulders and absent any laces, so that it gaped open across his chest. The breeches were similarly stretched at the seams and so threadbare she wondered how safe they would be if he had to bend over in haste. In combination with the fine leather shoes beribboned with rosettes that were the only personal items salvaged in the rescue, he made a somewhat comical figure and she suspected it was sheer stubbornness that had brought him topside at all.
She had not seen him since the incident in her cabin, had not troubled herself to inquire which locker Johnny Boy had elected to transform into his cabin. She only knew her berth was empty when she had fallen into it sometime after midnight.
A rare twinge of guilt prickled Juliet’s conscience as she studied him. It was possible she had consumed a tad too much rum last night and her reaction to his touching her might have been slightly out of proportion to the actual crime. She had been startled, more than anything else, when he’d pulled her to her feet, for she had just been wondering, not half a moment before, what it would be like to have all that naked flesh pressed up against her body. The knife had been in her hand before she knew it, after which of course, there could be no backing down. Especially not after he accused her of having an unfair advantage.
From where she stood on the quarterd
eck, she could not see his face. He did not seem the least interested in glancing her way either, which was rather like dragging a line baited with fresh red meat in front of a shark. She had one foot on the ladderway when the sky rumbled, the wind abruptly dropped off, and the underbellies of the clouds lit up with an ungodly green glow.
In the sudden, unearthly silence, Varian glanced upward and held his breath. Fiery, brushlike discharges of static were crackling and snapping from the mastheads and yards. Bright orange in color, they were like little bolts of lightning playing across the skeleton of the ship, leaping from spar to spar, traveling down the masts and setting the air hissing overhead.
“Most seamen have a superstitious fear of St. Elmo’s Fire,” Juliet said quietly. “They believe that anyone who dares to let the light fall on his face will be dead within a day.”
Varian lowered his gaze grudgingly from the dancing lights. His hair had been blown about his face and clung to his cheek and throat where two days’ worth of dark stubble snagged the strands.
“I have heard of the phenomenon, but never seen it.”
Juliet tilted her head up, but the flickers of light were already beginning to fade.
“You are not superstitious?” he asked.
“About some things, yes. I would never begin a voyage on a Friday, for instance, nor would I bring a black cat on board. On the other hand, I do have the caul of a newborn babe hanging in my cabin and I never set sail without pouring a fine bottle of wine on the gun decks for luck. Mind, since the most dreaded curse on the high seas is supposedly having a woman on board, I tend to be more skeptical than your average cabin boy.”
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