There was iron in Varian’s voice, iron in his body too, gleaming across the broad expanse of his shoulders, down the hard flat plane of his belly, and in the long, sinewy legs.
Though Beacom’s very bowels liquefied at the thought of being caught helping himself to the lady captain’s store of spirits, he was more than passingly familiar with his master’s temper and at the moment, he was not certain which bode worse for the state of his own well-being.
Drawing what comfort he could from the knowledge that he was at least not alone on this dread pirate ship, and that his master was an admirable adversary when it came to dealing with either sex, he released his hold on the blankets, and, after giving the covers a tremulous smoothing, ventured to the cabinet. There was only one bottle on the shelf, the contents amber when he poured them into Varian’s outthrust cup.
“Oh dear. I should think it looks quite off, your grace.”
Varian held the goblet to his nose. For the first time since he had wakened, the smile that spread across his face was genuine and the darkness of his eyes lit with a glint of pleasure. “It isn’t off at all, Beacom. It is quite damnably on. Rumbustion,” he explained with a hearty wink and took a long, satisfied swallow. “As lusty and restorative an elixir as God could provide.”
“Nonetheless, your grace, you... you might want to exercise caution in restoring too much too soon. You have had nothing by way of food or drink for the past twelve hours.”
Scorning his valet’s advice, Varian tipped the goblet and drained it. For all of ten seconds he felt little more than the warming sensation of the tropical spirit gliding down his throat—he was, after all, no stranger to the sharp effects of spirits—but when the ten seconds passed, his body went numb from the waist down and his knees folded like sheets of paper. He would have gone down hard had Beacom not caught him under the arms.
“I have you, your grace,” he said, scrambling to keep his own balance. “Shall I help you back to the bed?”
Varian could not speak, he could only nod. When he was safely back on the narrow berth he allowed himself a gulp of fresh air, but that caused the room to spin faster and the fire in his throat to blaze hotter.
Beacom emptied the goblet into the washbowl and filled it with water from a pewter jug. Varian gulped his way through that and another before he was able to lie flat again, his brain giddy, his flesh prickling as if it had been charred from the inside out.
“She fights like a man,” he rasped. “She smells like a fishmonger’s trollop, and swills rum like a common jackanapes. A truly delicate creature, our Captain Dante—when she and her crew are not sacking Spanish galleons.”
“Or slitting the throats of unwanted guests and feeding them to the sharks.”
Varian’s eyes rolled to the back of his head. “You will have to allow me the luxury of a day or two to decide which may prove to be the happier course.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Juliet climbed the shrouds as nimbly as any crewman. She had been doing so almost from the moment she could keep her balance on the deck of a ship. The highest point on the main mast was her sanctuary; from there she could imagine herself perched on the top of the world. If the ship was shrouded in fog, it felt like being suspended on a cloud; in full daylight, with the wind turning her hair into sleek, dark ribbons, it gave her the exhilarating sensation of flying. There were clouds tonight, fast-moving veils that glowed iridescent blue where they were flung across the path of the crescent moon. The wind was strong from the west, laced with the faint taste of spice, hinting that a storm was brewing somewhere, bringing the scent of the islands out to sea.
Part of her did not want to return home yet, was never anxious to exchange the powerful surge of the sea for the powdered white sand that meant she was land bound. Nor was she particularly eager to explain to her father how a simple sea trial had turned into a rescue of one vessel and the capture of another. Hopefully the sight of the Santo Domingo being led into the harbor behind the Iron Rose would mollify her father’s temper somewhat.
Countering the beneficial effects of the captured galleon would be the presence of a ducal envoy on board the Rose. Perhaps Crisp was right. Perhaps they should have loaded his grace the Duke of Harrow and his valet into the longboats with the Spaniards. The duke, especially, had the look of trouble about him.
Unfortunately the Iron Rose was already long overdue and her father would be climbing the hills daily to watch for a glimpse of her sails. As it was, they would have to take a circuitous route back to Pigeon Cay, sailing well south of their destination to ensure there were no predators lying below the horizon. There was no excuse for failing to take such precautions regardless of the time or energy it took, and if someone did show an interest in following them, it could take several more days to lead them astray and circle back.
Pigeon Cay had been her father’s stronghold for the past thirty years and although the Spaniards had been searching for it nigh on as long, none had been able to discover the Pirate Wolf’s hidden base. On each galleon caught or captured, a careful inspection was made of her charts and maps, but none had ever been marked with the tiny island that held the wolf’s lair. Not even English ships knew the exact location of Dante’s atoll—and from a distance, it looked like just that: a crown of barren volcanic rock thrusting up from the sea. Occasional news, messages, missives from England were delivered to the port of New Providence in the Baja Mas and retrieved at irregular intervals. Once a year, the Dantes sent a ship back to England laden with the crown’s share of his privateering ventures, and while both Jonas and Gabriel had been to London on one of these voyages, Juliet had never been curious enough to trade warm sunshine and salty sea air for fog, coal dust, and rain.
Juliet’s beloved grandfather, Jonas Spence, had overseen these voyages until his death four years earlier. He had been a villainous old sea lion but Juliet had loved him dearly. All bluster and brine, she could only wonder what it must have been like sailing in the company of men like Jonas and her father, Sir Francis Drake, John Hawkins, and Frobisher in the glory days of Elizabeth’s seahawks. Were it not for the courage and daring of scores of these privateers, England would not have had a navy to defend England against Spain’s invasion armada. She would likely not have a private navy in the New World either, ensuring the need for the Spanish king to divide his naval forces in order to keep a strong and active fleet patrolling the Spanish Main.
Phillip II had tried, two years after the Great Armada and again ten years later, to amass enough ships to threaten England’s shores again, but neither fleet had left port. When Phillip III had come to power, there had been a marked increase in ship building to counter the fear that Britain’s navy was growing too strong. There had been noticeable changes in their Indies fleets as well, with galleons like the fifty-four gun Santo Domingo replacing the smaller forty gun zabras and thirty gun India guards. And while the actual number of treasure ships in the plate fleets had been decreasing steadily over the years, the number of warships that sailed in the protective escort had increased to insure each cargo of treasure arrived safely back in Spain.
Conversely, men like Simon Dante, Captain David Smith, and Captain Frederick Mounts did their damnedest to see that it did not.
Of the original band of Gloriana’s seahawks led by El Draque, only Simon Dante remained active in the Caribbean, and only he continued to elude the Spanish hunters best efforts to bring him to ground. The reward on the pirata lobo’s head—whether he was taken dead or alive—had become a large enough sum to tempt more than just Spanish carrion-eaters. It was not that she had any overt suspicions or any doubt that Varian St. Clare was here for any reason other than to deliver another of the king’s edicts for peace. She thought it highly unlikely an assassin would travel with a manservant who fluttered and fainted at the least turn of a knife, yet his evasiveness annoyed her.
On balance it was simply the lesser of two potential evils to take the Duke of Harrow to Pigeon Cay and let her father deal w
ith him. To discourage him from making too many forays outside the cabin, Juliet had deliberately sliced his clothes to ribbons, leaving him nothing but a blanket and a swollen temper. Between that and finding himself at the mercy of a ‘mere woman’, he should be manageable for the three days it would take to sail to Pigeon Cay.
Juliet grimaced and flicked a piece of oakum out into the darkness.
Mere woman. She hadn’t been accused of having many feminine shortcomings in a very long time. One did not live on an island in close proximity to Spanish shipping lanes without learning at a young age how to fight with sword and knife and musket. Her father—no poor swordsman himself—had taught her as soon as she could heft the weight of a blade that while God could be entrusted to take care of their souls in the hereafter, it was solely incumbent upon their own skills with steel and powder to insure they did not join Him too soon.
It had been her mother who had taken Juliet’s lessons one step further. Isabeau had taught her to go for the swift and sure kill. A split second hesitation debating the polite rules of engagement could not only cost her her life, but the lives of the men who depended on her to lead them. Regardless of her lineage, there was nary a crew on the ocean-sea who would follow a woman—or man—who demurred at the sight of blood, or who showed the smallest signs of weakness when strength and hard, unblinking courage were demanded.
Juliet’s body bore the scars to prove it.
She had needed to earn the loyalty and trust of the men along with their respect, and while most of the crew on board the Iron Rose would gut any man for looking sideways at her, there had been a few over the years who thought her fair and easy pickings on a cold dark night. Too much rum had sent their eyes and hands wandering but they had quickly and painfully discovered she was neither fair nor easy. She was no swanning virgin either. It had been several years since she had lost her innocence as well as her maidenhead, but it had been by her choice, and on her terms.
Dominic du Lac had been her first lover. A tall, green-eyed Frenchman with a silver tongue and silky hands, he hadn’t been particularly handsome, but he had made her laugh. He had picked wildflowers and braided them into her hair, and he had insisted upon showing her, one garment at a time, how to dress like a proper French demoiselle. Afterwards, with equal deliberation and care, he had shown her how to remove each article and by the time he was finished, they had both been naked and eager to release the tension he had so deftly created.
Dominic had died within the month of the yellow fever but in the short time they had had together, he had taught her wondrous things about her body. He had introduced her to pleasures and cravings that could not remain in mourning for long.
There had been three men after Dominic, each special in their own way and although none had caused any poetic flutters of the heart, they had enjoyed her and she had enjoyed them without shame or reservation. The last had been over a year ago and the affair had ended, as they usually did when the sea was such a powerful mistress, with the abruptness of a musket shot. In truth, it had been many months since she had even seen a man who stoked her interest. Perhaps that was why she had felt a distinct stirring in her blood when she had sliced away the final layer of clothing and viewed the duke’s naked body.
Crisp had initially balked at settling him into her cabin but in truth, it contained the only real bed on board and even that was not built for comfort. Most nights she slung her hammock on the narrow stern gallery, preferring to sleep to the sound of the wake curling off the stern.
She was also admittedly intrigued. She had heard that all English noblemen were as soft and slightly built as their women yet this one was tall and strapping, his chest and shoulders were well defined, the flesh taut, the muscles solid to the touch. The dark hairs that covered his breast were thick and silky, narrowing to a finger’s width over his belly before exploding again in a crisp nest at the junction of his thighs.
There, her gaze had lingered a few moments longer than necessary, for he was more than adequately endowed. Nudity was commonplace on board a ship and she had seen more than her fair share of men’s privy parts in all shapes and sizes. The most outstanding appendage belonged to Lucifer, her father’s gun captain, and while the duke’s pride and glory was did not come within a league of such prominence, it did raise a small tingle of speculation at the base of her spine.
A scandalized cough from the manservant had prompted her to draw the covers above the duke’s waist, but not before she noted that the muscles in his thighs were as hard as oak suggesting he was an avid horseman as well as an experienced swordsman—one who did not forego practising in favor of a game of cards or dice.
The bruises would heal in a day or two and he could be thankful his clothes had provided enough padding to keep the fire from scorching through to the skin. The lump on his head was more troublesome for there was no way of knowing if the bone was cracked beneath. The fact he had regained his sensibilities was no proof his brains were not leaking and she had seen men with similar wounds emerge from battle seemingly fit and hale only to slump over dead a few days later, bleeding from the nose and ears.
That he was a nobleman in and of itself did not awe her, nor would it win him any special favor on board. Simon Dante’s bloodlines reached well back to a time when England was ruled by wild-eyed Saxons. Being the twelfth of this or the fifth of that would not impress her father any more than it had impressed her, and if Varian St. Clare wanted to keep all his skin intact, he would curb his arrogance and not enter into any meeting with his nose thrust too high in the air.
Juliet let the wind take the last scrap of twine from her hand then walked cat-like out across the yard, testing her balance against the pull and sway of the ship. With nothing to hold her, nothing below to break her fall, it was a dangerous game that would have brought snarls and shouts from Nathan Crisp if he had seen her. Most of the men who worked the yards ran their length several times a day as a matter of course, but they were not the daughters of Simon Dante; bringing them home smashed and broken would only earn a cluck of the tongue and a shake of the head over their foolishness.
She went to the end of the yard and did a graceful pirouette on the ball of her foot. Forty feet below, the deck was all shadows and very little substance for they ran dark, sailing without lights of any kind. Out in the open water, on a starless night, something as small as the glow from a pipe could be seen for miles and Juliet had forbidden all lamps and candles above deck, and only below under extreme caution; the gallery windows in her own cabin had been covered with thick tarps painted black.
Faint snatches of conversation drifted upward but for the most part, the crew was taking full advantage of their respite after the day’s events. It was a warm night and most had slung their hammocks on the open deck. At this height, they resembled so many maggots rolled into small white carapaces, pale worms against the darker boards.
Because of the Iron Rose’s superior speed, it had been necessary to drastically shorten sail in order to keep abreast of the much slower Santo Domingo. Juliet could just barely make out the ghostly tower of sails following in their wake. Otherwise, the ocean stretched out black and unbroken on all sides with only a faintly luminous froth of spindrift here and there to reflect the filtered light of the moon. If she closed her eyes Juliet could isolate the sound of the wake breaking astern, the creak of cleats, the faint hum of the wind straining against the canvas. She could hear the ship breathing, feel the rhythmic throbbing of a heartbeat through the mast. She knew the Iron Rose as well as she knew her own body and could waken out of a deep sleep upon the instant if she sensed something was out of balance.
The ship rolled into a wave and Juliet compensated for the movement with a graceful, upward fanning of her arms. Her feet were swift and sure and she reluctantly climbed back down the shrouds, pausing mid way to secure a loose corner of sail. She could feel eyes on her, marking her descent through the rigging lines, and when her feet landed on solid decking, she heard the growl be
hind her.
“You know, do you not, it’d mark the death of every last one of us if you were to slip and fall one of these nights. Your father would hang, draw, and quarter us all, and that would be if we survived the keel-hauling your brothers would mete out and if your mother did not pluck our ballocks off with hot pincers and force us to roast them over a fire.”
Juliet smiled into the scowling face of the ship’s carpenter, Nog Kelly. He had earned his name through the number of times he had been brained by beams and spars—blows that would have dented the skulls of most men but which merely scrambled his wits for a few moments before he shook it off. Despite the fact he reminded her of a perpetually aroused mastiff who thought himself too fierce and virile to ever be considered harmless, harmless he was. For even puffed up with manly indignation as he was now, he could be reduced to a flame-skinned schoolboy with a suitably inappropriate riposte on mention of the hot-tempered wife waiting for him in port.
“Roasted ballocks,” she mused, “are considered a delicacy, I have been told, on some of these heathen islands, though I’ve yet to sample the fare. ‘Twould make for a tasty meal, would it not?”
“You might not take the threat too seriously, Captain, but there are a hundred men on board the Rose who do.”
“Ahh, but think how much more freely you would be able to move about without all that cumbersome flesh getting in the way.”
She left him pondering the thought and joined Nathan, who she had spied leaning by the rail.
“Nog is right, ye know. Ye take more risks than ye ought. Ye’ve naught to prove to any of us, lass. We’ve all seen ye slit a throat an’ climb a shroud in a gale,” he paused to aim a wry glance upward, “an’ dance a yard in the dead of night.”
“What if I am not trying to prove anything, Nate? What if I just enjoy being able to do these things?”
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