“Ho there!” Juliet shouted from below. “We haven’t all night. If you fall, just give the barracuda a few sharp kicks and they get out of your way.”
Beacom whimpered and Varian sighed. “Perhaps you would prefer to remain on board? I’m sure the ship’s company will find ways to amuse you.”
The valet’s pale hand fluttered up to clutch his throat. “I’ll not abandon you now, your grace. Lead on.”
“Follow close behind me. I’ll guide your feet and catch you up if you put one wrong.”
Beacom gave a jerky nod and waited until Varian was three steps down before he stretched a foot gingerly over the side. Terror more than aptitude kept him moving down the ladder, and he did not stop or open his eyes until he felt a hand clamp around his ankle and guide it onto the rocking longboat.
As soon as Beacom and Varian were settled, one of the oarsmen used his paddle to push away from the side of the Iron Rose. It presented an odd perspective, gazing up from the water, and Varian felt dwarfed by the enormous bulk of timber, the towering masts that rose high into the night sky. He could see gouges in the wood, scars from past conflicts. He also counted the gun ports and realized what a truly powerful, deadly vessel he had been aboard.
When they pulled around the bow, his attention was caught by the carved figurehead. It was a woman, naked but for a ripple of linen lying on a diagonal across her groin. Her hands were reaching forward as if to support the thick arm of the bowsprit, her legs were straight and shapely, the feet pointed down like those of a ballerina.
They reached the towering hull of the Santo Domingo and waited but a moment for Nathan Crisp and Lieutenant Jonathan Beck to clamber down the side. The two men were sharing a laugh over something the crusty old seadog had said, but when Beck saw Varian sitting in the longboat, he sobered at once and extended a polite bow.
“Your Grace. I had heard you were recovered from your wounds and was pleased to learn they were not fatal.”
“No more so than I, Lieutenant. We have not had an opportunity to speak since the incident, but please accept my condolences over the loss of your ship and the brave men in your crew.”
“Thank you, sir. Captain Macleod was a good man, a fine sailor, and will be sorely missed.”
“He trained his men well, at any rate,” Crisp announced for Juliet’s benefit. “Loftus tells me if it weren’t for the crew of the Argus manning the lines, she would have floundered in the storm and been driven out into the Atlantic. As for the lieutenant here, it’s a shame he hasn’t a larcenous nature. I’d put him at the helm any day. He maneuvered that bitch through the reef like he’d done it a hundred times.”
“I was raised in Cornwall, sir, where the currents and breakers have cracked the spines of many a fine ship.”
“Take the compliment in the spirit it was given, Mr. Beck,” said Juliet. “Mr. Crisp hoards them like a spinster does her kisses.”
The oarsmen took up the stroke again and within minutes they had cut across the bay and were approaching the lights along shore. Higher up on the slope, the huge white house glittered like a cluster of jewels. When the longboat bumped into the dock, Juliet and Crisp leaped out first and while the others disembarked, they stood together talking in low voices.
Varian, after the first few steps on solid ground, was surprised to discover he was as queasy and unsteady in the knees as he had been the during his first days at sea. To his quiet disgust, he recalled he had spent some of that time with his head bowed over a slops pail and it was no comfort to know he was susceptible to the same weakness going from the sea to land.
A carriage was waiting to take them up to the big house. It rattled like the bones of a skeleton over the rough road and Varian’s teeth nearly snapped off at the gums with the effort it took to bear the renewed hammering in his head as well as his hip and shoulder. By the time they rolled to a halt, he was ready to throw his body out the door and hug the closest tree.
“I would like a moment alone to speak to the duke,” Juliet said, waving for the others to step down. “Take these inside for me,” she handed Crisp the sack of charts and manifests that had ridden beside her on the seat. “Have someone show the lieutenant and Mr. Beacom to rooms with clean sheets and hot baths.”
The carriage had stopped in front of the big house. Lamps hung from every pillar and post along the hundred foot length of the wide veranda; every window on both stories blazed. There was only one corner of the coach where the shadows had not been chased away and while Juliet Dante had the advantage of being able to see every crease on Varian’s face, every hair on his head, she remained for the most part in darkness save for the spill of white lace at her throat.
The irony of her wearing lace and velvet was not lost on him. At the same time, he had to admit the black and crimson suited her nature, worn not out of any need to comply with fashion, but simply because it reflected her power, her confidence, her lethal grace.
She sat with her hands tapping lightly together on her lap for a few moments then, seeking some way to occupy them, began stripping off her leather gloves, one finger at a time.
“I was burned once,” she said as a casual matter of fact. “My shirt caught fire and I lost a few layers of skin before the men could douse me. Since then, I’ve had cuts and musket holes that have not hurt half so much. I admire the lieutenant’s fortitude; he must have suffered immeasurably. Do you know how it happened?”
“I am afraid I was not made privy to the information.”
“You were at sea with him for six weeks and never thought to ask?”
“One simply does not ask a man outright how he burned his face.”
“One doesn’t? Plague take my manners then, because I did. It seems he was betrothed and—much like yourself—eagerly returning home to marry his sweetheart when his ship encountered a Dutchman off the Canaries. Shots were exchanged and one of the sails came down in flames. He had powder on his cheek from having discharged his musket several times and the fire caught his shirt, his hair, his face. When he arrived back in England, his sweetheart took one look at him and screamed in horror. He returned immediately to the navy, where he knew life was more tolerant away from the vulgar niceties of a well bred society.”
“I will own that there are those who judge their fellow man more harshly than others, but to say that all of English society as a whole is vulgar—”
“Am I so wrong? Do you really believe my mother would be well received at court? Would she be invited to dance a galliard, to play a game of bowls on the green? Would she find no lack of partners willing to sit next to her at a dinner party when she uses her stump to hold the meat for cutting?”
He searched the shadows. “Are you deliberately trying to shock me, Captain, or are you simply trying to get me to admit that we are all conceited boors? If so, then yes, I will admit it ... if you will admit that you hold a similar degree of conceit—it is merely seen from the opposite side of the mirror. You wear your scars and ferocious nature proudly, and you scorn any man with uncallused hands and silver buckles in his shoes. As you say, it is not likely that the one-armed wife of a pirate lord would be made lady in waiting to the queen, yet how likely would it be for men like Beacom and myself to be treated as equals at your dining table? The very first time we spoke, you insisted I address you as ‘captain’, yet you mock my own rank at every turn. You cannot have it both ways, Juliet. You cannot cry foul when you are guilty of the same crimes.”
She was so still and so quiet he could almost hear her lashes blinking together. It was the first time he had used her proper name and he suspected it did not sit well.
“I did not hold you back to receive a lecture on social conceits, your grace. I thought only to save you from further embarrassment by advising you, in all good faith, against going inside that house and spouting your directives and demands from the king. They will not be happily met.”
“You have yet to tell me why.”
She responded with a shallow puff of disdain
and he spread his hands to show he had won his point. “You chastise me for not asking the lieutenant a simple question, yet when I attempt to do the same with you, you stab me with a blade.”
“I have stabbed you with nothing, sir.”
“You think not? If your eyes were weapons, madam, I would have been bloodied from head to toe a dozen times over.”
She drummed her fingers again. She turned her head when she heard footsteps outside on the crushed stones, but her glare sent whoever it was into a hasty retreat.
Her fingers stopped. Her hands curled around her gloves, and she turned to look at him again.
“Our grandfather was killed on board the Black Swan, in the same battle that cost my mother her arm. After fifty years at sea, he had few of the original appendages he was born with. He had but one leg, one arm, his body was a map of scars and deformations that would have made Lieutenant Beck seem positively handsome by comparison, yet he never once chose to remain behind when there were adventures to be had. He never balked from a fight, never ran from an enemy, never took a half measure when the whole was required. Jonas was always by his side, mimicking his great lusty laugh, catching him when he tipped over from too much rum.” She stopped, thinking perhaps she had said too much already, and finished with an edge of impatience in her voice. “Had you seen the look on my brother’s face when he carried Grandfather’s body off the ship, you would not have to ask why he would never abide by any edict for peace with the Spanish. Neither would my father, or my mother. Or me, for that matter.”
He shook his head. “Would that not make you hunger for peace even more?”
“Peace, aye. Capitulation... never.”
“No one is asking you to capitulate.”
“Are they not? The Spaniards will never honor a peace treaty that allows foreign ships to sail these waters. They have too much at stake. They have an entire New World at their command for heaven’s sake, and as long as they hold it, they maintain their supremacy on the sea. While The Virgin was on the throne, Father used to receive official missives demanding he return to England for an audience with his sovereign, insisting he cease his attacks on Spanish shipping, scolding him, threatening him with all manner of repercussions if he disobeyed. Yet there were other communications, delivered secretly and often encoded so that they made sense to Father’s eyes only. They praised him for his successes, they encouraged him to increase his attacks, to do everything in his power to disrupt the trade routes and strike the Spaniards where it hurt most: in their treasury. The old queen understood that if you stop the flow of gold and silver from the Main, the Spanish king would have no money to build ships, to pay his armies, to garrison ports a thousand miles away from Seville. There were dozens of privateers in these waters, most of whom received the same veiled winks from Elizabeth as my father, and their efforts had results. While Spain’s coffers emptied, England’s filled with the one tenth share of the treasure taken from every captured ship. A good part of England’s navy was built with the ill-gotten gains of Elizabeth’s seahawks.
“But then she died and James Stuart took the throne. He had no knowledge of the queen’s private dealings with men half a world away, or if he did he chose to ignore it. He had his navy, his treasure chest was full, and it was time to woo the Spanish monarch with his good intentions and order men like Father to haul in their guns. He had no control over the Dutch or the Portuguese, of course, but most of the English privateers drew back rather than risk being branded as pirates. They were wealthy, they had lived their adventures. A good many of them returned to England as ordered and retired to their country estates to grow fat and raise sheep.”
“But your father refused.”
She sighed. “He refused to walk away from everything he had fought so hard to win. This is our home now. Are we not supposed to defend it?”
“Defend it, yes, but—”
“Have you heard the phrase ‘no peace beyond the line’?”
“You refer to the imaginary line drawn by Pope Alexander VI that runs down the middle of the Atlantic and divides the world’s territories between Spain and Portugal?”
Juliet nodded. “It was drawn the year after Columbus discovered the New World, at a time when England barely knew how to navigate across the Channel, yet these are the boundaries Spain insists we must all uphold. It is the treaty Spain uses to defend their actions each time they attack and destroy one of our ships, regardless if that ship is engaged in lawful trade or simple exploration.”
“The kings of England, France, and the Netherlands are trying to change that, as is Phillip III of Spain,” Varian said. “But the negotiations for peace and open trade will not, cannot be successful unless the guns on both sides are silent.”
“I am surprised you can even say those words with any measure of conviction after what happened to the Argus. To be sure, Father will never acknowledge them or the notion of peace with Spain.”
He leaned forward, the leather on the seat creaking softly as he did so. “I am more than just a little aware that I am well out of my depths here, Juliet. I admit freely that I do not understand your way of life, that I would likely be dead within a week if you were to set me adrift on an island where you, under similar conditions, could probably survive for a year. By the same token, I am a soldier—a damned good one—and I resent the implication that I would rather fight with words than deeds. Put me on a battlefield with artillery and cavalry, and I’ll fight your battles and I’ll win your wars. But set those battles at sea and frankly ... it changes all the rules I know, all the certainties I have come to expect. There is no room for error. You attempt to surrender honorably and your enemy sinks you anyway. You lose a battle and you do not live to fight another day, you drown. In that respect alone, I cannot even begin to comprehend the strength and courage it takes to sail out of this harbor and know that there are bigger ships with bigger guns waiting just over the horizon to smash you to bits. Nor can I conceive of any reason why you would not support the king’s efforts to negotiate a peace.” He paused and sat back again. “As I said, I am trying to understand, but you make it difficult to say the least.”
A lamp outside the window cast a ring of distilled light on the side of the carriage, swaying as the branch it hung on was moved by the breeze. The light touched her eyes then receded, touched again and held until she turned her face away.
“In truth, there are times I don’t understand it myself,” she admitted finally, “But then I look at my mother’s empty sleeve and the empty seat at the dinner table where my grandfather used to sit, and I don’t have to think about it. That is all the justification I need.”
Varian studied her in silence, his hands clasped together, his forefingers steepled under his chin.
“So now you have your explanation,” she said. “You can see why you have been sent on a fool’s errand.”
“Would it make a difference if I said the king and his ministers intend to rescind all letters of marque, and that to refuse to obey the king’s orders will result in charges of piracy and treason being levied against your entire family and all those who sail on account with you? It would mean that your father would be hung like a common seadog if he was caught.”
Juliet smiled. “They would have to catch him first, would they not?”
“Might I remind you,” he said softly, “that everyone is fallible?”
“And might I remind you that you are in no position to issue threats or point out fallibilities. We could as easily have marooned you with the Spaniards.”
“Yet you took me on board, you kept me—” his chin came slowly off his fingers— “as a prisoner? Or as a hostage?”
She shrugged. “Either way, your grace, you may consider whatever business you have brought from the king to have been lost at the bottom of the sea with the Argus.”
She raised a hand and passed a signal out the carriage window. Varian heard footsteps on the stone again, and a moment later, two burly men were standing at the door.
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br /> “I would not advise you to do anything foolish. You are here under my protection and as such you will be treated with any respect you are due. But you are on an island, there is absolutely no escape, and make no mistake, these men will kill you at the snap of a finger.”
The door opened.
Juliet disembarked first and, after murmuring orders to the two men, strode into the house without a backward glance.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Juliet walked unaccompanied into the house, her sword slapping the heel of her boot with each angry step. The family was gathered in the great room; she could hear them before she could see them and she forced herself to slow down, to relax her face into a more pleasant expression. This was, after all, a night for celebrations. She had almost forgotten all about the damned rudder design, something she and Nog had been tinkering with for some months, but its success was indisputable. The increased speed and maneuverability had allowed her to cut in much closer and faster to the Santo Domingo, bringing the Iron Rose under the arc of the Spaniard’s heavy guns before they could be put to good use.
Juliet arrived at the great room and stood on the threshold a moment while the warm familiarity of one world replaced the salty exhilaration of another. The musky taint of leather books and a crackling fire reminded her of the hours spent pouring over lessons, learning how to chart the sea and stars, how to calculate wind speed and currents, how to mix and measure a prime charge of gunpowder.
At ten years of age, her classroom learning had been supplemented serving time on board the Avenger where she had learned how to translate the practical knowledge found in textbooks into common good sense. When she turned sixteen, she could plot a course and navigate a ship from point to point within a few leagues of error. When she was eighteen, she had proved her mettle during battle by stepping over a crush of dead bodies to take command of one of the heavy thirty-two pounders.
Two years later, she stood at the helm of her own ship, the Iron Rose.
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