She followed his gaze. “I thought you might be hungry. And I wanted to thank you for last night.”
Hairs that had not already risen at the sight of all this domestication, riffled upright into spikes. “Thank me?”
“For providing sanctuary. My brothers searched high and low thinking to haul me out in my bedclothes and play one of their nefarious pranks—one, I am told, that involved paste and chicken feathers. They found the bundle of blankets I had left in my bed, but they did not find me, nor would they have thought to look in your room so aye, I have you to thank for my reprieve.” Her eyes narrowed and a smile lifted the corner of her mouth. “What did you think I was thanking you for?”
Varian had the grace to flush, and he did so in a magnificent flare of crimson that shaded everything, even the lobes of his ears.
“Rather an arrogant assumption, is it not?” she said softly.
Their eyes remained locked for one, two heartbeats before Juliet broke first and looked away. “You really shouldn’t expose all that untouched skin to the sun too long. You wouldn’t want to look like me, would you?”
She tipped her face up, letting the sun bathe a complexion that was already tanned to a golden hue.
“I would happily oblige, captain, but my clothes seemed to have disappeared.”
“No they haven’t. I brought you new ones. You’ll find them at the foot of the bed. I did not think you should walk around the island dressed like a Spanish don. You might present too pretty a target.”
Varian turned, but halted again. “May I ask what you’ve done with Beacom?”
“You prefer his company over mine?”
“I didn’t say that.”
She opened her eyes and looked at him. “Get dressed, your grace. It is well past noon already and my father’s patience has its limits.”
“Noon?” He glanced up at the sun with a start and realized it must be on its descent, not ascent. “Good God, why did no one wake me earlier?”
“I did try, but the only part of you that seemed interested in rising was not the part of you my father would care to see so early on in your acquaintance.”
Varian’s jaw clamped shut and he retreated hastily into the bedroom. He found a plain shirt and buff breeches folded neatly at the foot of the bed. Both garments fit surprisingly well, as did the tall knee boots that were made of such soft leather, they molded to his feet like slippers. The shirt laced up the front and he was tying the last knot in place as he walked back out onto the balcony again.
Juliet was not in the chair.
He glanced down either side of the wide veranda, but she was nowhere in sight.
“I guessed you and my father would be about the same size. I see I was right.”
He whirled around. She was leaning against the wall, her arms folded over her chest, one foot crossed over the other and balanced on the toe of her boot. Something flickered in her eyes a moment as they swept the length of his body again, but it was gone before he could put a finger to it.
“The cheese is excellent,” she said, indicating the tray. “We appropriated it from a Dutch merchantman not long ago. The mutton we grew ourselves and the ale is passable.”
“I am not overly hungry,” he lied. “And if your father is waiting—?”
She gave her shoulders a little shrug. “Alas, you seem to have missed him. He has gone down to the harbor. You can just see him... there... through the trees.”
Varian followed the thrust of her chin and saw Simon Dante, mounted on a huge bay stallion, cantering down the road away from the house.
“You have not gone with him? I would have thought you had a hundred things to do today.”
“More like a thousand,” she agreed grimly. “But I have already been to the ship and... and Mr. Crisp seemed to think I was only getting in the way. My mother reads Spanish far better than I, so she is locked away in the study with the manifests we took from the Santo Domingo. My brothers, having been thwarted of one pleasure, are amusing themselves by counting the barrels of pearls and coin being offloaded from the galleon. Lieutenant Beck is being entertained by Geoffrey Pitt, while the rest of the English crew is being introduced to hot baths, good food, and sweet rum. As for your man Beacom, I sent him down to the warehouses with Johnny Boy to search through some of our vast inventory of velvets and lace to see if he could restore your wardrobe. That would appear to leave only you at odds, sirrah, and me to think of some way to amuse you for a few hours.”
It was becoming all too commonplace of late to feel his skin tightening and his blood pulsing through his veins, and Varian did not know what to make of it. The rush was stronger now, having experienced first hand what his mind had only imagined until last night, but before he could dare question the sparkle in the crystalline eyes, she offered up a short laugh.
“Come. If you’re not interested in eating, we can take a walk. I have something to show you.”
She turned and headed for the stairs at the far end of the veranda, the blade of her sword reflecting flashes of sunlight. Varian cast a grudging, hungry glance at the tray and snatched up a wedge of cheese and a crust of bread before he followed.
There was a stone path at the bottom; one direction led around to the front of the house, the other led through a garden and a small orchard of lime trees. They took the latter, with Juliet striding into the lead and Varian pressed to keep an even three steps behind. Her pace belied any notion they were out for a stroll and after five minutes, when the path turned to dirt and began taking a steep upward slant, he could feel the muscles in his thighs protesting.
The trail meandered and turned sharply to circumvent the occasional outcropping of rock, but for the most part it went straight up. Ferns grew over the path and brushed their arms and shoulders. The vegetation was lush and fragrant, heavy with moisture, and after a few hundred yards Varian began to stare at Juliet Dante’s shapely backside, wondering if or when she ever tired. She seemed to possess boundless energy and did not look the least winded or dragging, not even when they broke clear of the treetops and had to follow some tangled, rock-strewn goat path to reach the top of the ridge.
“There is an easier way around the point,” she said with vulgar cheerfulness. “But I thought you might appreciate the view from up here.”
Throughout the climb, he had deliberately resisted the urge to look behind him. He was not particularly enamoured of heights and knew that as steep as the path had been on the climb up, it would seem twice as precipitous looking straight down.
He stumbled over a crust of rock and used it as an excuse to catch his breath. Sweat crawled through his hair and down his neck, soaking his shirt to his back in great wet patches. Insects—who had blessedly remained behind under the shade of the trees—had stung his neck and arms in a dozen places. He spared a scowl upward at the boiling yellow glare of the sun, but when Juliet turned to glance over her shoulder, he smiled and waved her on.
“Just stubbed a toe.”
“It is not much further. I could carry you, if you like.”
Her laughter drew another scowl, but when he looked up again, she had disappeared behind a gnarl of rock, leaving him alone and drowning in his own sweat on the goat path.
Biting off a soundless oath, he scrambled up the last few feet and saw her standing on the crest of the volcanic ridge. A quick and justifiably breathless glance around in all directions told him they had also reached the highest peak on the island. The endless shimmering blue of the ocean surrounded them in a vast blue circle, the surface gleaming pewter where the sun glanced off the waves. Varying shades of aqua, cobalt, and turquoise ringed the island, the shadings and striations created by the sandbars and reefs. The four outlying atolls looked like barren cones of rock, tossed there by some giant’s hand to be beaten by the surf, while far below they could hear the thunder of the waves smashing against the cliffs of Pigeon Cay.
Turning a slow, full circle, Varian could also see down into the bowl of the volcanic crater, th
e green of the pastures, the swaying tops of the palm trees that looked like green-haired men listening raptly to some unheard chorus. He guessed the island was ten, twelve miles long at its widest point and rose perhaps a thousand feet above the sea. The roof of the big house was hidden from their vantage point, but the harbor looked like the inner surface of a seashell, deep blue in the centre rising to a pearly gray along the beach.
This was Dante’s kingdom. The secret lair of the Pirate Wolf, and although Varian had found many veiled references to such a mythical place in the ledgers and documents he had studied before embarking on his voyage, he never dreamed it actually existed.
“Tell me, your grace, when you are at home in your English castle, can you walk outside your door and see a sight such as this?”
She had her face turned into the sun and tendrils of her hair were streaming back like rich dark sheaths of silk. She had her arms stretched wide to catch the wind and her shirt was molded against her chest, outlining the perfect shape of her breasts, the tantalizing peaks of her nipples.
“I confess I cannot,” he admitted softly. “But then, should one not fear that to see such beauty every day might render it less spectacular?”
“When I was young, I climbed up here every day and always found something new that I had not seen before. The color of the water, the pattern of a bird gliding on the air currents, the passage of a cloud... it was never the same as the day before.”
“Have you no desire whatsoever to see what lies beyond the scope of the horizon?”
“‘Beyond this place, there be dragons’,” she quoted softly. “It was the warning written on all sea charts by the ancient mariners who believed the world was flat. Father has sailed over that edge, and I will too some day. He says there are islands far on the other side of the world that are as different from these as the sun and moon, with volcanoes that spew molten rock into the night like crimson fountains, and where spices are so plentiful you can smell them a week’s sail away.”
When he said nothing—and good God, what could he say when it was taking all his strength not to reach out and pull her into his arms—she turned and looked directly into his eyes.
“Tell me about your England. Is it always cold and wet, as I have heard?”
“We endure more than our fair share of rain and fog, true enough. But when the sun does shine, the land is almost greener than you can bear.”
“Not in the cities, surely.”
“No,” he smiled. “Not in the cities. Nor can I think of a one that smells of anything closely resembling a spice. But a great country cannot survive without thriving cities, and in order to thrive they must house the people who keep the factories and shops full.”
“I do not think I could survive in a city. I detest walls and crowded places.”
“You would like Harrowgate. It is well out in the country, surrounded by miles of green, rolling hills. There are sections of the house that are three centuries old, with rooms so large you have to shout to be heard from one end to the other. As children, my brother and I were only allowed in certain areas lest we become lost and get dragged away in chains by the ghosts.”
“You had ghosts?”
A sinfully roguish smile crept across his face. “Ask Beacom if you doubt me. He’ll tell you there are noises and odd occurrences that cannot be explained, and he is convinced one of our more shadowy ancestors creeps into his room some nights and rearranges his belongings while he sleeps. It was just brushes and shoes in the beginning, but then they started moving desks and chairs. Once they reversed his entire suite and when he rose to relieve himself, he did so in his wardrobe by mistake. It drove him quite mad for a while. He even threatened to leave Harrowgate Hall and seek employment elsewhere but Father said he was far too valuable a man to lose and sent me away to school instead.”
Juliet’s eyes sparkled. “You were the ghost?”
“He was easy prey, as you can imagine.”
Juliet was imagining far more than he was inviting her to do. She was imagining him as she had seen him when she stormed back to the house, his arms still clutched around the bolster pillow she had given him as a substitute when she crept out of bed earlier that morning. Seeing him like that, realizing he would still be holding her so closely had she stayed, had taken the wind out of her sails, had stripped her of her anger, had left her standing there in the doorway feeling helpless and bereft.
Some of that helplessness flooded back now as she gazed into the midnight eyes. His face was unreadable, his thoughts untouchable, and she had no way of knowing if he was aware of how the blood pounded sluggishly through her veins each time he looked at her. Indeed, why should he? He’d made no attempt to touch her or broach the subject of what had happened between them last night. True, she hadn’t mentioned it either, but that was only because she didn’t know quite what to say. It was also true that he didn’t need to touch her. The simple act of him standing there looking at her made her feel as if his hands were running up and down her body, stroking the tender places, making them hunger for more.
He smiled, and after a small hesitation, she smiled back.
“We can take the easier way down, if you like,” she said casually.
“I am entirely in your hands, Captain.” He bowed slightly and when he straightened, she caught her breath, for the guarded look in his eyes was gone. In its place was something else, an apology perhaps—to her, to himself—for his inability to pretend he did not want something that he wanted very much indeed.
Juliet felt a shiver deep down inside. It was a strangely isolated sensation, for the rest of her body had gone suddenly numb. She was vaguely aware of him moving closer, of his hand reaching out to catch at a lock of hair that had blown across her face. He tucked it behind her ear then smoothed the backs of his fingers along her cheek and the resultant thrill of pleasure that rushed down her spine nearly took her down onto her knees.
Seconds ticked away on heartbeats and still he held her at arm’s length. Then, just as he tucked his hand beneath her chin to tip her mouth up to his, she shook her head and warned him away.
“There are lookouts on every point of every ridge around the island. Easily six or seven are watching us right now.”
He dragged his eyes away from her face with an effort and looked along the crest of rocks. She could see by the way his gaze flickered, then halted, flickered, then focussed again that he located at least two of the sentries.
His thumb caressed her chin and without looking back at her, he murmured, “Then you might very well have to carry me back down the hill, Captain, for I am not altogether sure I can walk without grave difficulty.”
Juliet glanced down. A second welter of prickles and shivers washed through her body and it was with some difficulty of her own that she took a subtle step back, then turned and started walking down the path.
Varian’s hand remained hovering in empty air for a long moment and did not drop to his side until the crunch of her footsteps had faded away. He hung his head a moment and cursed his own stupidity, then forced himself to follow after her.
The path she had taken wound around the outer rim of the rocks where there were fewer trees and sharper breezes, but the descent was markedly less steep and gave the hardness in his body a chance to ease. Twice Varian caught sight of her ahead of him, but then he would round a bend or traverse a clutter of rock and she would be gone. He continued to curse himself ten ways to Sunday and almost missed the narrow fork in the trail that broke off from the main route. Something lying on the path caught his eye and he slowed.
It was Juliet’s swordbelt.
He hurried forward and picked it up, a flash of alarm sweeping through his body as he unsheathed the blade and looked around.
He searched the path, the surrounding bushes...
There! Just ahead, something else...
It was a boot. A tall black kneeboot, and ten yards further on, its mate.
Almost running now, Varian’s first thought
was that a wild animal had been stalking them, had leaped out of the bushes and attacked her. His second, more rational but equally paralysing thought was that it might have been a two legged animal laying in ambush. An animal who could remove a belt and boots and...
A splash of white turned him off the path and had him slashing through the tangle of ferns and vines to snatch Juliet’s cambric shirt off the branch. He saw an opening just ahead, hardly more than a deep fissure in the wall of rock, and looked around one more time, his fist gripping the hilt of the sword.
There was no one else in sight. There had been no sounds of a struggle, no torn branches to suggest she had been dragged here against her will. He looked at the shirt again and realized how precisely it had been placed, with an arm stretched out and pointing to the crack in the rocks. He glanced at the boots, at the belt, and realized they had all been left as markers as well, guiding him toward the fissure.
Bending low, he ducked through the split in the wall. Ten feet on the other side, he emerged into a cavern, the ceiling rising to a thirty foot vault, the sides spanning fifty or more feet across. The pungent smell of damp stone and thick moss mingled with the warm steam that rose off the pool that took up much of the space inside. Although there were no torches, no visible cracks in the ceiling overhead, no other sources of light that he could see, the water shimmered an iridescent green. It was so clear he could see the pale, sandy bottom and the dark coiling shape that streaked below the surface.
Juliet rose to the top with one strong stroke, her hair and face streaming sheets of water. She saw him and swam easily to the side where it was shallow enough to stand. There, she rose like some gleaming marble goddess, her skin shining, reflecting green lights from the pool, her hair clinging in a sleek curtain down her back and over her shoulders. She walked right up to him, naked as a sea nymph, and drew his mouth down to hers.
The kiss was brief, lush, and full of wicked promises as she smiled and backed slowly into the water again, the steam curling around her thighs like soft caressing fingers.
Pirate Wolf Trilogy Page 52
