“Forgive me if I repeat myself, but I am neither monkish nor insentient. Bare your breast and I will look. Bare it under moonlight and I will admire. Rest assured, however, there are more than enough deterrents to keep my lust duly restrained.”
She laughed. “None quite as potent, I would argue, as a man clutching a pisspot in his hands.”
Quicker than she thought him capable of moving, he tossed the enamel pot over the rail and moved to the side of the hammock. He caught her by the wrist and wrenched the concealed dagger out of her hand, then with a sniff of satisfaction, grasped the lip of canvas and jerked it with enough force to tumble her out the other side.
Juliet hit the deck in a tangle of arms and legs. When she sprang to her feet, he was ready for her. He caught both wrists and twisted them savagely around to the small of her back, locking them together in one iron fist while he used his big body to pin her against the rail. Conscious of the scab under his chin where she had pricked him last night, he was pleased now to press the sharp edge of her own dagger against her throat and let the cool steel caress the strained white arch.
“Be advised, Captain,” he said evenly. “I learn from my mistakes and rarely make the same one twice.”
“Brave words,” she spat, mocking his accusation from the night before, “with a knife in your hand.”
The knife went spinning away over the rail. He crowded closer and wrapped his hand firmly around her throat so that her chin was in a cradle and his fingers were able to locate and pinch a sensitive cluster of nerves below her ear. There was enough ruthlessness in his fingertips that her body sagged and her lips gasped apart with the pain.
“I am without a pisspot now, madam,” he hissed against her cheek. “Shall I warm myself elsewhere?”
Her curse came out a strangled gasp. Taking crude advantage, he turned his head and kissed her hard on the mouth. When she tried to clamp her lips shut, he gouged his fingers deeper into her neck, winning another cry, another shuddered gasp of pain. His tongue plunged between her open lips and he took what she refused to give, using his mouth, even his teeth to stifle her efforts to dislodge him.
When she managed to wrench her mouth free, he captured it again. When she tried to kick and wriggle out of his grasp, he wedged a thigh between her legs, lifting her until her feet were raised off the deck and she was perilously close to tipping over the rail.
His tongue plundered her mouth without mercy, without allowing a scrap of air or sound to escape. Her hands escaped and in one pounding heartbeat, she transformed all the rage and anger she was feeling into defiance. Fisting her way through his attempts to recapture her hands, she clawed them up into his hair and, instead of pushing him away, held him fast and began to return each thrust of his tongue, to match each slant and turn of his lips as he ate at her mouth.
Shocked by the sudden and completely unexpected reversal, it was Varian’s turn to try to break free but Juliet twisted her fingers around clumps of hair, threatening enough force to tear chunks out of his scalp if he pulled away. She used her body too, pushing her breasts against his, riding the wedge of his thigh until she found something more vulnerable and volatile to abuse. He was already half aroused from his imagined triumph, but now the friction and her eagerness in applying it brought them both straining together, feeding one off the other, neither sure who was the aggressor and who the victim now.
It was that uncertainty that caused Juliet to push his mouth away. She knew it had been too long since she had felt the heat of a man’s body between her thighs, but she also knew this was the wrong man to want there. Any man, at the moment, would be wrong, but this one in particular was too potent, too unsettling, and for someone who decried the very notion of trying to seduce her, he was doing a damned fine job. Her mouth was hot and wet with the taste of him and now her flesh was betraying her. There were tremors in her arms, in her legs, and if the hand that had been sliding boldly down her hip had been allowed to curve a few inches lower, there would have been tremors elsewhere she would not have been able to control.
On the other hand, despite his own obvious arousal and the hard glitter of fury in his eyes, he was making no attempt to overcome her rejection and pull her back into his arms.
“You disappoint me, my lord,” she said harshly. “You call yourself a master swordsman, but even a novice knows better than to attempt a finesse when he has not the strength or wit to see it through.”
His eyes continued to glitter, his hands to flex and unflex by his sides. “It was … an unconscionable reaction to an unconscionable situation and I can only offer profound apologies for my conduct. If I have misrepresented myself in any way—”
“You haven’t,” she assured him bluntly. “I thought you were an arrogant, self-indulgent bastard when we first spoke, and nothing has happened to change that now.”
She dragged the back of her hand across her mouth to wipe it clean and pushed away from the rail, striding past him without another word or glance. She was too furious with herself, too furious with him to trust herself to remain in his company a moment longer. Her mouth was tender, her breasts ached. Her knees were weak and her limbs felt like jelly. Her body was throbbing with a violence that made her want to walk up on deck and ravage the first man she found—to strip him, ride him until they both screamed for mercy, then toss him over the side with the galley scraps.
As a poor alternative, she snatched her doublet off the hook, grabbed her boots, and left the cabin, spending the rest of the long and sleepless night alone on her perch in the mainmast.
Chapter Eight
The sun was well past noon when the shout of “land ho” brought Juliet to the quarterdeck at a run. The faint purplish smear off the larboard bow was no more than a jagged bump on an otherwise smooth horizon, but when they drew closer and that one single bump proved to be five distinct islands, the crew of the Iron Rose was all smiles. Within the hour, the order was given to shorten sail, to reduce the sheets to steerage only. Riding in her wake, the Santo Domingo did likewise.
The reason for this became clear when they passed through a band of pale blue water. A reading off the cable put the depth beneath the keel at six fathoms—roughly six times the span of a man’s outstretched arms—up drastically from the hundred fathoms of inky blue that had been beneath them for most of the morning. Less than a league later, the water became a bright turquoise that changed after another two hundred yards into pale cobalt. In all there were seven distinct bands of blue that formed a shimmering aura around the cluster of atolls. The palest bar measured a mere three fathoms of clearance, the bottom so close and the water so clear, the crew could see schools of yellow tiger fish feeding on the crowning heads of coral.
The broken ribs of shipwrecks were also visible, lying in their watery graves. An untold number of captains had allowed their curiosity to bring them too close onto the reef and for their trouble, they’d had their keels ripped open stem to stern. One ship in particular, whose identity and origin was unknown, lay almost intact on the bottom, her single mast pointed in a southwesterly direction. It was this marker that the lookout in the crow’s nest searched for and located with an excited shout.
Juliet quietly relayed an order to bring the Iron Rose about on a course that followed the outstretched finger of the sunken mast. After calculating wind speed and direction, she turned a specially marked sandglass on its end. There were two men on cables now, one of whom continuously called out depth readings from the bow, while the other dropped the logline off the stern and counted the number of knots that played out over the course of a minute to measure their speed. The rest of the crew stood silent, half of them poised in the yards, ready to act upon any orders the instant they were given. The other half stared forward to where Juliet now stood perched at the very tip of the bowsprit, communicating instructions to the helmsman by way of prearranged hand signals. Although she knew these waters as well as she knew the rifts and valleys of her own body, there was only one way through the r
eef, only one narrow channel of deeper water that took several twists and turns and did not forgive the arrogance of any pilot who failed to show the proper respect.
Almost to the mark, as the helmsman signaled that the last grain of sand had fallen through to the bottom globe of the hourglass, Juliet waved that the bow was over deep water again. Balancing between the taut stay lines, she returned along the bowsprit and jumped lightly down onto the forecastle deck, where Johnny Boy was waiting with her spyglass. She took it, snapped open the brass and leather tube, and trained it anxiously on the much larger Santo Domingo, which was just beginning her run through the reef.
“She turns like a pig,” Juliet muttered. “I warrant Nathan has chewed his cud to mush.”
“I’ll wager Cap’n Simon is chewing a thing or two as well,” Johnny said, grinning.
Juliet swung the glass around and brought the islands into sharper focus. Four of the atolls were just that: caps of ancient volcanic rock that had pushed up through the surface of the sea. They were covered with tangles of brush crowned by a few scattered palms but were inhabited mainly by turtles and lizards. They offered no anchorage and promised nothing to passing ships except a splendid view of massive white waves crashing with spectacular violence against the barren rocks.
It was the fifth island, nestled in the middle and rising higher than the others, that housed the most sought-after secret in the Caribbee. Formed roughly in the shape of a C with overlapping arms, it had once been the uppermost rim of a volcano. An ancient upheaval on the seafloor had cracked the rim and created a natural deep-water harbor in the bowl of the crater, a harbor completely shielded by walls of seemingly impenetrable rock. Simon Dante had discovered the island sanctuary purely by accident some thirty years before when a storm of horrendous proportions had produced fifty-foot waves and swept his ship over the razored teeth of coral reef. It had taken him nearly six months to repair the damage to the keel of his beloved Virago and find a way out again—time enough to explore all five islands. He named the largest Pigeon Cay, after the small clutch of gray birds his quartermaster had brought on board. They had been the first, when released from their cages, to fly straight at the base of the most improbable wall of sheer rock and show them the way through the entrance to the crater.
As keen as Juliet’s eyes were, even aided by familiarity, she would not be able to see the entrance until they were past the two outer islands. In her mind’s eye, however, she could clearly picture the lookouts on the summit clanging the alarm bells that would bring men running to the heavy battery of guns that guarded the approach. Never in all her twenty-one years had Juliet known a single cannon to be fired in defense of Pigeon Cay yet she could not help but smile at the confusion that must be on some of the faces as they watched the massive Spanish warship maneuvering its way through the coral passage.
“If this were the Tribute,” she murmured, “and I was my brother Jonas, I would be tempted to loose off a broadside just to get their blood flowing a little faster.”
“Ye’d best be showing a friendly flag instead,” Nog Kelly suggested over his shoulder. “Unless my good eye deceives me, there be men bristling on them gun emplacements getting ready to offer us a warm welcome.”
Juliet trained the spyglass on the ledges she knew were halfway up the face of the cliffs. Sure enough, she could see the dull gleam of sunlight on metal and knew the snouts of twoscore heavy cannon had been cleared of the vines and brush that concealed them. The sentries would have seen the two ships from several leagues out and while the Iron Rose was as familiar to them as the backs of their hands, the fact that she was accompanied by a Spanish warship of the Santo Domingo’s size and firepower would have set hackles rising.
“D’ye think Cap’n Simon will be pleased with the prize you’ve brung home?”
Juliet lowered the glass a moment to smile at Johnny Boy. “Captain Simon will indeed be pleased with the Santo Domingo. It’s the rest of what we’re bringing him that might cause a vein or two to bulge in his forehead.”
She glanced pointedly down to where Varian St. Clare was standing by the rail and her smile turned into a scowl.
“Why is he on deck? I gave specific orders he was to remain below.”
Johnny Boy snorted. “As much as he knows about the sea, Cap’n, I doubt he could find his way back here in a thousand years.”
Juliet glared at the lad. “And just how would you know how much he knows about the sea?”
“When I fetched him his biscuits an’ ale this morning, ’ee asked me where we were. I showed ’im a chart of the Tortugas an’ Cabecas de los Martyres an’ ’ee nodded like ’ee knew what ’ee was lookin’ at. I also told ’im we were ten degrees off the equator, an’ he just nodded again.”
“Telling him we are two hundred leagues north of where we are is hardly proof of his ignorance, and if you’re wrong, you’ll be accounting to Captain Simon for the lapse. I suppose you were also the one who fetched him those clothes?”
“Weren’t no trouble, Cap’n. I found ’em in some o’ the chests we brung over from the Spaniard an’ I didn’t think ’ee should meet Cap’n Simon in torn breeks an’ a bloody apron. Looks a proper duke now, don’t ’ee?”
Something—probably the heat of silvery blue eyes drilling into the back of his neck—prompted Varian St. Clare to turn and look up at the forecastle. His jaw was cleanly shaven, the moustache and imperial had been restored to precisely trimmed neatness. The bloodstained shirt had been replaced with one of fine Spanish linen, the cuffs and collar edged with lace. In place of the threadbare galligaskins, he now wore dark green Venetian breeches buckled just above the knee with gold silk bands. Dark hose, a pillow hat set on a rakish angle, and a surprisingly well-fitted emerald velvet doublet completed the restoration from shipwreck survivor to royal envoy. If not for the bruising and the line of stitching down the left side of his face, she would have thought he had just come from the king’s court.
The midnight eyes held hers for a long moment before he bowed low to acknowledge her interest. She had not seen or spoken to him all morning and had no wish to do so now. It was enough to feel the residual heat smoldering under her skin and to know that if she did go near him, she might be tempted to throw him overboard and make him swim ashore.
“Arrogant bastard,” she muttered under her breath. “We shall see who mocks whom before the day ends.”
With an effort, she dragged her attention back to the Santo Domingo. It seemed to take forever for the heavy galleon to clear the reef but once through, with the Iron Rose taking the lead again, the two ships made straight for Pigeon Cay. When she was close enough, Juliet raised the glass again and was able to identify some of the tiny specks that stood in clusters along the gun emplacements.
Her father was at the main battery, a tall, imposing figure who was equally at ease standing on the deck of a ship heading into battle as he was manning the defenses of an island fortress. Standing by Simon Dante’s side, as ever, was Geoffrey Pitt, a man of inestimable knowledge who presented a scholarly appearance and gentle demeanor to the world but whose skill and ruthlessness at the helm of a fighting ship was second only to Dante’s.
Towering over the pair, his bald head shining in the sunlight, was the huge, black-skinned Cimaroon who had once been shackled beside Simon Dante in the belly of a Spanish galleass. His hatred for his former captors was near as legendary as that of the man who had commanded his loyalty for the past three decades. Lucifer was Dante’s master gunner and there was not a cannon forged or a pistol made that he could not fire with frighteningly precise accuracy.
There was a fourth figure standing beside the lethal trio, smaller, slighter of build, with an empty sleeve knotted below the left elbow. Isabeau Dante had taken the loss of her arm in stride. She had spent all of her life at sea and just as Johnny Boy had learned to adapt to a missing limb, so had Beau adjusted and invented new ways to keep her husband and family on their toes. She did not seek any man’s sympathy, nor did
she respect it when it was offered. In fact, when Juliet had left on this last sea trial, Isabeau and her aged first mate, Spit McCutcheon, had been working on a contraption that would fit the stump and allow her to hold a sword or a pistol.
“The flags, Cap’n?” Kelly shouted a reminder.
Juliet nodded and one of the crewmen ran out the pennons, the first a crimson wolfhound and a blue fleur-de-lis on a black field: the arms of Simon Dante, Comte de Tourville. Directly beneath it flew a second black and crimson burgee with a swallowtail, this one depicting the wolfhound with a gilded rose clamped between its teeth. A third plain green square of silk went up the mast, a prearranged signal that would relieve any concerns up on the ramparts that a Spaniard had somehow overtaken and coerced the Iron Rose into leading them to Pigeon Cay.
Within minutes of the flags snapping open in the breeze, the massive siege guns were hauled back under cover and their crews stepped forward, waving and hooting even though they were still too far away for the sound to carry. Geoffrey Pitt even removed his hat and raised it in a salute, which Juliet interpreted as a good sign despite the fact that her father had not budged. He stood with his long legs braced wide apart, his hands clasped behind his back while he watched their approach.
Well into his fifth decade Simon Dante was still a handsome man. His body was iron hard with muscle and aside from a few deep creases earned by raising three children and keeping a hot-spirited wife by his side, his face had not changed much over the years. Clear, silvery blue eyes could still strike terror into the hearts of his enemies. The stern, authoritative voice could command the bloodless silence of a thousand men or, conversely, deliver a quip that could send the company around him into gales of irrepressible laughter. His expression gave nothing away that did not want giving and even though Juliet knew that enormous heart loved her beyond any mortal measure, she still felt butterflies beating madly in her belly. An angry word from those lips had the power to crush all her courage and bravado into dust. The smallest hint of disappointment in his eyes could gut her quicker than a knife.
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