Dead Man's Kiss

by Jennifer Bray-Weber

  “Belay,” Valeryn said.

  “But Capt’n,” Cocklyn said. The fellow rubbed at the back of his unruly brown hair, his brow drawn down over his gray eyes. “We must defend ourselves.”

  “How do you suppose we do that? With a few pellet-shooting swivels and a mangy group of wet sailors? How long do you think we'd last against them?

  “We be flotsam and chum ’fore ya could cry fer yer momma,” Henri said, shuffling through the crowd.

  “We can outrun ’em,” a Spaniard with broken English said. “Her hull sinks low from her guns.”

  “And yet she gains.” Valeryn walked back to the railing and pointed to the coming enemy. All heads turned. Indeed the vessel’s sails carried the ship on the wind. She’d be upon them forthwith. “Being battle ready would raise suspicion,” he said.

  “If’n I be arrested...again,” he shot Valeryn a gruff eye, “it damn well ain't gonna be fer suspicion.”

  “Today we are not pirates, soldiers, mercenaries, or whatever the hell this crew is.” He strode back to the ships center. “Today, we are merchants. We let the British catch us, allow them to board, show them our manifest stating Santo Domingo as our port of call. With nothing to seize and no reason to hold us, they'll do little more than harass us and send us on our way.”

  “Tonterías.” Fraco stepped forward and snatched up a flintlock from the box. “We are Spaniards. An enemy to their crown. They, an enemy to ours. They will brutally and without mercy cut us down.

  Fraco was not far from the mark. He passed out more weapons to the men standing close by. Each one committed to the cause of fighting with hardened expressions.

  The bastard wanted to play captain? Undermine his authority? Sod that!

  Valeryn jumped down from the quarterdeck, his boots smacking hard to the floorboards. He grabbed Fraco by the scruff of his collar, pulling him face to face. “You are not captain, Montoya,” he said with the lash of an angry tongue. “Do not cross me, boy. Or I'll gut you open and feed you your entrails.”

  The man’s dark gaze was devoid of fear, or anger, or anything at all. His stale breath was even. But his lips twitched as if he were trying to decide the level of Valeryn's threat.

  He was either foolish or mad. With each passing moment, Valeryn wanted more and more to prove just how dangerous his threat.

  “"raco." A feminine voice sliced through the tensit, Valeryn wanted more and more to prove just how dangerous it was for FracFraco.” A feminine voice sliced through the tension.

  Catalina had to stop Fraco from stirring up more trouble, or from causing a mutiny. He’d surely get them all killed. “Fraco, please.”

  She hastened to climb down the quarter deck ladder. With one hand clutching her journal of sketches and the hem of her skirt and the other on the railing, ’twas more difficult coming down the steps than going up. “Heed the Capitán,” she called over her shoulder.

  The toe of her shoe caught on her dress, and she lost her balance, tumbling backward. Before she could squeal, a steady force nabbed her mid-air. Captain Barone didn’t set her on her feet right away as he should have.

  He smirked. “A girl’s carelessness.”

  His earlier point made painfully clear, the heat of embarrassment burned her face. His comment should have angered her. Instead, she was taken, lost, really, by his golden eyes. In spite of the bruises, weathered lines and hard, level stare, the rise of his blackened cheek briefly hinted to something else. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Mirth, perhaps? She had just made a fool of herself. Whatever it was, she wanted to see it again. Explore it further.

  He set her to her feet and she immediately smoothed her skirts in hopes of whisking away the humility. “Thank you, Capitán. I shall be more careful.”

  Nalda suddenly appeared by her side, dousing the rest of her errant thoughts.

  Catalina spun to her primo before she embarrassed herself further by acting like a weak-kneed girl. “You must listen to Capitán Barone,” she said.

  Fraco heaved an annoyed sigh, shoving his pistol into his waistband. “Know your place, prima,” he snarled, snapping up another weapon. “Go hide below deck and take the old bruja with you.”

  Captain Barone took a step forward. So did Catalina, blocking the captain.

  “You are right, Fraco,” she said. “We will all be slaughtered, merely for our birthplace. But if Captain Barone is all your father and Isaias Ochoa say he is to be, then I believe we should listen to him.”

  Fraco’s smug grin that had appeared when she had first agreed with him, fell.

  “We do not have time to argue,” Luis said.

  “They’ll be on us in minutes,” agreed Cocklyn.

  “We must do as the capt’n says,” Benito asserted.

  “No! We fight!” Fraco turned to the crew. “Para salvarnos a nosotros mismos. Save ourselves!” Some of the men nodded, still others seemed unsure and easily swayed. Couldn’t they see the folly in a battle? Fools! They weren’t soldiers.

  “To save ourselves?” Catalina screeched. “By not listening to a famoso pirata? A man with more experience than the lot of you?”

  “Fight and die!” The captain’s voice boomed, reverberating through her body. “We approach this in peace.”

  “Listen to the Capitán.” She implored Luis, grabbing his spindly arms. Looking beyond him at the crowd of her countrymen, she added, “He will save us.”

  One by one, the crew dropped their weapons back into the chest. Each one, eyeing the would-be mutineer, the pirate captain, and Catalina. Dios mío. She prayed she was right.

  Captain Barone cast her a puzzled glance. Her chest tightened with his nod of acknowledgement for her part in crippling the revolt.

  He turned and rattled off orders, several men repeating them in Spanish, and the ship became alive. Sí, he was impressive in command. He asked Luis for any crewman halfway decent with a long arm. A handful of men would be strategically placed near concealed weapons should it become necessary to defend the ship. They had orders to pick off any officer within range.

  In truth, she couldn’t control the fear swelling within her, agitating her mind into conjuring up horrible images of battle, blood, and death. She wandered to the side of the ship, holding on to the rail to steady her shaking hands. The British ship was close. So close, and she could make out the tiny shapes of men on the decks.

  For a fleeting moment, uneasiness skittered across her flesh. But wasn’t from the impending dance. ’Twas from her disconcerting attraction toward the pirate.

  “Your cousin is right.”

  Catalina startled by Captain Barone’s sudden appearance by her side. She quickly recovered. “Oh?” Fraco was hardly right about anything at all, in her opinion. He was too imprudent.

  The captain studied her reaction. Had he noticed her disgust with Fraco? Had she become transparent now that she was away from Tio and his port town?

  “Aye,” he finally said. “You and your maid should go below. ’Tis safer.”

  “There is no safety in cowering.”

  His eyes traveled down her body and back up. “Nay. Cowering does not suit you. But hiding below will keep you from harm.”

  “Hiding suggests I have something to hide. By certain, the capitán of that ship has already seen two women on board. Nalda can go below if she pleases. I will stay here.”

  “Nay.”

  “If there is to be a fight, I will not count off the seconds until I am found, beaten, defiled, and murdered.”

  “They are the Royal Navy. That will not happen.”

  “You cannot be sure.”

  He frowned. “What makes you think that won’t happen with a band of pirates?”

  “You gave your word.”

  His russet eyebrows rose. “And you trust me, but not the Navy?”

  “Do you trust the Navy?”

  A devilish smirk played at the corners of his mouth. “A fair point,” he said. “I do not expect trouble.”

  “
Then there is no reason I cannot stay right here. Being able to assess the danger yields its advantages, no?”

  “Stubborn little chit. But I am just as steadfast.”

  “A compromise, then. At first sign of trouble, I retreat down to my cabin.”

  Captain Barone rubbed at the stubble on his chin, glancing between her and the encroaching ship. “Very well, but should I order you below, you will go. Or I will have you physically removed to the bilge.”

  “’Twon’t be necessary.”

  He nodded and turned away to give more orders.

  The chest of guns was hidden and everyone was to remain calm. Catalina wished she had the discipline to do the same.

  She hated this feeling, hated being scared. Berated herself for it. It did not make sense. She hadn’t been scared when the British had intercepted and boarded the ship she had been sailing upon before. But her mother had been. Terrified.

  Much like this voyage, her family had set sail from Cuba on a return trip to Spain. What the British were searching for, she never knew. Whatever ’twas, all they found was her and her mother huddled in their cabin. Mamá cried in hysterics, praying. Aged six years, Catalina knew she should have been scared as her mamá crushed her to her breast and rocked. Even when Mamá let out a mournful, ear-splitting wail as a soldier burst through the door, Catalina wasn’t afraid. Not in the way she should have been. Not even after the soldier slapped her mother to shut her up. She was simply curious, watchful, wondering what would happen next.

  Nothing. Nothing happened, and the British left, taking the ship’s sugar and tobacco. Catalina had a sense she was supposed to be relieved. To hear her mother tell the story, they were nearly tortured and raped. She vehemently promised to never sail again. Yet years later, she would have no trouble shipping off her only daughter across the Atlantic to save herself from scandal.

  Whatever good sense to be fearful Catalina had lacked then, she didn’t lack now. Perhaps it was the memory that had her rattled. Or the possibility of losing her dream. Or mayhap Captain Barone had distracted her so, she was out of sorts and befuddled.

  She stole a glance at the captain’s backside—as firm as the thick muscles of his thighs evident in his long strides. He wore no tunic under his vest of knotted blue and buttery brown stripes. A brawny chest, to be sure, but ’twas the thick, raised scars peeking out upon his shoulders on his back that interested her. What were they from?

  Although silent, Nalda screamed her disapproval in her rigid stance nearby. Waves of condemnation battered against Catalina. Catalina sighed heavily, her exasperation spurning the maid to come forth and stand beside her.

  “Not now, por favor.”

  Nalda grunted. She rarely needed words to say exactly what she wanted Catalina to know. That usually annoyed Catalina. But she was too distracted by relentless apprehension.

  The British ship closed the gap. The men of the Amalia adjusted her sails to allow the two ships to become parallel. Their captain, feet apart, hands clasped in front, patiently waited.

  A decorated man stood at the waist of the British vessel, flanked by armed officers. Brass buttons from his tricorn hat to his blue frock coat glinted in the sunlight.

  “Ahoy, there,” the British captain called.

  “Ahoy,” answered Captain Barone.

  “Where do you hail?”

  “Matanzas.”

  “Destination?”

  “Santo Domingo.”

  “What’s in your hold?”

  “We sail with passengers only.”

  “To Santo Domingo.”

  “Aye.”

  The British captain nodded, his skepticism clear upon his pursed mouth. “And if I were to board?”

  “You will find an empty hold,” Captain Barone countered.

  “Then board, I shall.”

  “If I am to have the pleasure of a British naval man aboard my ship, I should think it important to know his name.”

  “Apologies for my lack of conduct. Captain Nicholls of the HMS Arcadia.”

  “Welcome aboard, Captain Nicholls.”

  The staccato exchange between the two captains impressed, if not alarmed, Catalina.

  Captain Nicholls ordered his men to pull their ships closer. Though Captain Barone nodded to his men to do the same, his expression warned them not to make false moves. Henri, limping between the working men repeating orders, wore the same grim expression.

  Grappling hooks flung through the air, thudding and biting into wood, and within moments, Captain Nicholls, followed by a dozen of his armed soldiers, crossed over. He motioned a few of his men to fan out, some going below deck.

  “You look familiar, son. What’s your name?”

  The captain’s mouth twitched. “Captain Valeryn Barone.” He shifted his weight to one foot, relaxed as if this were a friendly visit from an old mate, his wrist resting upon the butt of his flintlock at his hip.

  “Barone...Barone... Aye, familiar. Have we crossed paths before?”

  “Nay. I believe you’d have remembered.”

  “Would I?”

  Dios! ’Twas a brazen statement for the pirate. What was he doing? Catalina could barely stand this game they played.

  “Assuming a captain with a keen eye such as yourself would.”

  “Indeed.”

  Captain Nicholls was not duped, not in the least. But ’twas obvious to Catalina neither man would give much to the other.

  “Barone is an English name. What is a Barone doing skippering a Spanish merchant?”

  “It’s a simple life for a man of the sea.”

  Nicholls, with hands clasped behind his back, strolled the deck. He slowed as he came upon Señor Jeanfreau with bright red bows in his woolly beard. The gruff little man screwed up his mouth in a disgusted grimace.

  Unaffected, Captain Nicholls walked casually away. “Hmm. I find being a pack mule between ports tedious.”

  “Scouring the Caribbean for Spanish and French vessels is not?” Captain Barone said.

  He shrugged. “’Tis more noble, I think. A grand expedition for my King.”

  The casual conversation between the men moved beyond impressive, unnerving Catalina. It seemed nothing more than polite spars—a verbal dance to which both captains were masters.

  Captain Nicholls paused beside her. A good foot taller than she, even without the hat atop his pale, grizzled head, he looked down upon her. Deep channels creased between his small blue eyes and haloed around his thin-lipped mouth. He studied her. Not with unkind or rude scrutiny. Inquisitive, perhaps, as if deciphering her worth, breaking her apart piece by piece.

  “She is young.”

  Catalina bristled. What did he mean by that? She was a woman, not a child. “I—”

  “Aye. A year or two.”

  What?

  The British captain tore his gaze away and ran his hand along the smooth railing. “Her construction is exceptional.”

  They were talking about the ship?

  “Made of Guatemalan wood,” Captain Barone said. “But much too small to commandeer.”

  Captain Nicholls’s brow cinched up. “A forward presumption.”

  “’Tis no secret the British seize Spanish and French ships to return to English dockyards, outfitting them for naval battles. Been doing so for years.” He twirled his hand in the air as if this was common knowledge. “Your shipbuilders are known for quantity, not quality.”

  “Aye. ’Tis easier on the coffers to take rather than foster better skills.”

  How did Captain Barone do that—deliver an insult without injury?

  “Understandable, though I think those who have lost their vessels would disagree.”

  “And you assume this ship’s size would keep me from taking her?”

  “Your commanders would see you to bigger prizes, eh?”

  “Such as?”

  “Pirates.”

  Madre de Dios! What dangerous game was Captain Barone playing? Did he want to have them all killed? />
  “Pirates, you say.”

  “I’ve seen them. Not far from here.”

  A slow smile crawled up the British captain’s face. “Duly noted.”

  The armed men burst through the ship’s hatch door, startling Catalina nearly from her skin. She wasn’t the only one. Several jittery men flinched. One gangly Spaniard tripped over the box of arms.

  Silent unbearable moments followed as Captain Nicholls absorbed the tension. His gaze paused upon the box, the lid slightly askew. He moved forward and bent to flip off the top. Catalina couldn’t breathe. Yet Captain Barone maintained his lax posture. Nicholls’s hand hovered over the lid. They were dead. In mere seconds, they’d be cut down.

  “Nothing in the hold, sir,” one of the soldiers reported.

  The British captain straightened.

  Catalina breathed again.

  “As I aforementioned, Captain Nicholls,” Captain Barone said, “I am a man of honor. We’ve nothing you want.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t be too sure.” Captain Nicholls strolled back to Catalina and plucked a strand of wayward hair between his finger. “Beautiful,” he murmured. “And familiar.”

  She could have sworn she heard Nalda’s grating teeth over the percussion of her heartbeats pounding in her ears.

  “What is your name, señorita?”

  “Ca-Catalina Mon—”

  “She is a passenger on her way to visit family.” Captain Barone edged closer, but kept at a respectable distance. This polite gallantry was driving her mad. “Traveling alone with her maid. A gentleman would not be so bold as to violate her sanctity by touching her without expressed permission, no?”

  Again, the captain’s tight lips flicked into the semblance of a grin. He tucked the strand behind her ear, his fingers skimming down her jaw line to cup her chin.

  “Where do I know you from?” he said.

  She shivered. He was searching her soul.

  Captain Barone breached the distance. “Remove your hand from the lass, Captain.”

  From the corner of her eye, Fraco had neared, too.

  Captain Nicholls was unconcerned by the men closing in. “Who are you, my dear? A Spanish princess? No. A commander’s daughter?”