In theory the main thrust of the plan Simon Dante had fomented with the various captains sounded straightforward enough. Each privateer should try to capture at least one enemy ship. Thirty-seven privateers would reduce the size of the fleet by almost half—an impressive postulation until one remembered there would be Spanish warships in the convoy that had anywhere from forty to sixty guns in their batteries. Some of the smaller privateers mounted but ten or twelve and would have to band together if they were to present any kind of a threat.
The Argus had mounted ten guns, most of which had been silenced after the first Spanish broadside.
Varian’s thoughts were dragged unwittingly back to the heat of battle, to the noise, the fires, the cannon blasting, the men fighting like demons with no apparent order or purpose other than to kill the enemy. It had all seemed like so much lethal chaos, yet he must admit—if only to himself—that it had been thrilling. Exhilarating, even. As if he had bared his breast to the Devil and come away unscathed.
But that was not quite true either, for he had become very scathed indeed. He had allowed himself to be seduced by a sea witch, one who encouraged him to relish the sensation of hot sun on his skin, the sweat of hard labor on his brow. He had killed those men last night without hesitation, the lust for blood almost as potent as the lust he was feeling now to spread his hands wide and catch the wind.
“How long before the fleet sails, do you suppose?”
Juliet joined him on the gallery. She had pulled a pair of breeches on, careful of the fresh wound on her upper thigh, and was in the process of tucking the back of her shirt into the gaping waist. “It could be a week, it could be three weeks. We will know more when Jonas and Gabriel return from Havana.”
Varian sensed the unease in her voice and knew it was there with good reason. The Hell Twins had volunteered to take their ships as close as they dared to the great Spanish port in order to scout the harbor, the war galleons, the state of readiness of the fleet.
“Fortuna favet fatuis,” he murmured.
“Fortune favors fools,” she translated. “You think it a foolish enterprise?”
“I honestly do not know what I think, other than it is probably quite mad to assume we can do more than annoy the Spaniards.”
“True enough, but then it is also true that we can be very annoying.
Her eyes shone in the pearly dawn light. Her skin looked satiny and luxurious and his hand could not resist the temptation to reach out and brush a lock of hair back from her cheek. His fingers trailed down her throat and onto the swell of her breast, where he found the nipple through the cambric and rolled it beneath his thumb until it was firm and taut. He saw the dark centers of her eyes dilate and sent his hand roving lower, sliding between the unbuttoned edges of her breeches to curve into the soft cluster of hairs. A single finger, then two explored the folds and contours. She grew tense as his fingers probed deeper, undoubtedly remembering the Dutchman’s brutish manhandling, but Varian was so gentle, his intentions so sincere, she eventually had to lean against his arm and take her pleasure, moving into the sleek rhythm with a soft sigh.
When her body finished melting over his hand, he smiled and brought her into his arms, kissing away the wetness that shimmered along her lashes.
“And you think me a madwoman?” she whispered against his chest. “Do you suppose we could attract any more attention by standing on deck naked?”
Varian glanced over his shoulder. The Avenger was anchored a hundred yards off their starboard bow, thankfully not visible from where they stood. There were ships off their stern, but the light was not strong enough to have won any curious stares.
“If you are concerned about your reputation, Captain, we could move back inside,” he murmured.
“A pox on my reputation,” she said, laughing haltingly. “Sweet Christ, but I am going to miss you.”
“I am not going anywhere just yet, madam. You’ll not be rid of me so easily.”
When she recouped her senses enough to look up, he saw the same inexplicable tightness he had seen on her face not five minutes ago. He was not so misguided to assume he was beginning to know a tenth of her expressions or what secrets they kept hidden, yet this one bore an unmistakeable shadow of foreboding, one that was clear enough to trigger an alarm at the back of his neck.
The feeling grew when she averted her eyes and pushed out of his arms, backing up almost to the gallery door.
“Do you recall meeting Captain Robert Brockman yesterday? A tall, gray haired Englishman with a patch over one eye?”
Varian nodded and she needed to take a deep breath before she continued. “His ship, the Gale, is probably one of the fastest in the harbor; she has made the crossing to England in under forty days. One of the reasons his ship is so fast because it carries only eight heavy guns and... and because of that same reason, he has agreed that his services might be put to better use in making a run for England. Father believes the king should at least be made aware of what is happening here. If we do manage by some miracle to delay or scatter the fleet, it might give the admiralty back in London enough time to put ships to sea and intercept the rest of the flota before it reaches Spain. Since you have made such a big to-do about how much the king and his council trust you, he thought, naturally, that you should be the one to carry the warning home.”
When Varian did not say anything, when he simply continued to stare at her, Juliet appealed to his sense of logic. “It isn’t as if anyone actually expected you to fight alongside the rest of us.” She held up a hand, warning him to silence. “And before you splutter protests, reminding me of your years in the infantry will win you no favors either. Little toy soldiers dressed in red, who march in fine straight lines and oblige their enemy by presenting bright, steady targets are no match for cannon fired from three hundred yards away. You said yourself you were well out of your depths here. You admitted that on a battlefield with artillery and cavalry, you would gladly fight battles and win wars, but at sea, all the rules change. And you were right. You have tasted battle on board a ship, sir; you should know, therefore, that there are no rules but those of survival. Your own personal survival,” she added with emphasis. “For in most instances, there is very little time to worry about the man next to you. There is no room for error. No room for distraction either.”
“Is that why you are sending me away? Because I have become a distraction?”
Juliet sighed. “There is no point in arguing with me. Father made the decision before we left Pigeon Cay.”
“Really. And when were you going to tell me?”
“I just did.”
A muscle shivered in his cheek. “And is that to be the end of it? I have no say in the matter?”
“In all honesty,” she said evenly, “you never did. You’re a duke, for heaven’s sake, a member of the British nobility and the king’s official representative in the Indies. It behooves us all to keep you alive, to keep you breathing long enough to return in your official capacity and explain why we have disobeyed the crown’s orders and attacked the flota.”
“I am not that easy to kill; I would have thought I proved that much at least last night.”
She colored slightly. “Last night was a display by a master of the sword against louts who hide in corners and slit throats in the shadows.”
His gaze strayed to the faintly purplish bruise on her temple. “You were not so dismissive when it was your throat being threatened.”
“Nor am I so easily swayed by a warm body and a smooth tongue. Are you under the impression, your grace, that because we have bedded, it gives you leave to challenge me at every turn?”
“If I have learned nothing else these past two weeks, Captain, I have learned that you maintain two very different personalities, one that I am free to challenge, and one that I am not.”
“Precisely so. And in this instance, you are not.”
“You excel at dueling with words as well as steel, Juliet, but is it because you are afra
id of making friends, of growing too close to anyone, of letting anyone get too close to you?”
“I am not afraid of making friends, sir. I am afraid of losing them. As for growing close... I am not so addled by the wetness on my thighs to see that it was a huge, unfathomable mistake to have ever touched you. I should have sent you running back to your room that first night on Pigeon Cay, at least then you would not be suffering any illusions of who and what I am. You would still be anxious to return to your England and your unsuspecting betrothed who has undoubtedly embroidered your monogram on a thousand pillowslips in your absence. Go home to her, Varian. Go home to your sixty-five bedrooms, your bootboys, and your rolling green fields. That is where you belong.”
“What if I disagree?”
She looked startled for a moment, but in the next, her jaw was firm, her shoulders squared. “Frankly, at this point, it doesn’t matter if you agree or not. You’re going home, sir. The Gale sails tonight, on the evening tide, and you will be on it.”
~~~
Before they had departed from Pigeon Cay, Nathan Crisp had grudgingly given up his quarters for the duke’s use. It was a ten foot by ten foot cabin located forward on the lower deck containing a narrow berth and a stool that had three mismatched legs. Beacom had been installed in the tiny locker adjacent to the cabin, furnished with little more than a hammock strung between two beams. The bulkheads were thin, built out of half inch planking, and so it was that the valet yelped and was spilled out of his hammock when the door was slammed and angry bootsteps began pacing inside the quartermaster’s cabin.
He dressed quickly, smoothed his hands over his hair to flatten the spikes, then hastened out of his cubby-hole to knock lightly on his master’s door.
It was jerked open so violently, the small wooden box Beacom carried was nearly startled out of his hands. A glimpse at the midnight eyes was more than enough to warn the manservant that his master was in a black mood; he did not need to hear the curse that sent Varian back to pacing the breadth of the cabin.
Beacom cleared his throat.
“Good morning, your grace. I trust you slept well. Will you be requiring a shave?”
Varian turned away from staring out the eight inch porthole and glared at him a moment, as if trying to remember who he was and why he was there. “A tempting thought, Beacom, but do I look like I want to sit down and have someone press a razor against my throat?”
“Ah... no. No, in truth you do not, your grace. Perhaps some victuals? Or ale?”
“Perhaps you should just stand out of the way and let me think.”
Beacom stepped prudently to one side and was about to set the shaving box down when he noticed the lid of the sea chest was open, the contents tumbled out of their orderly folds.
“Were you looking for something in particular, your grace?”
“What?” he followed Beacom’s gaze to the chest. “A clean shirt. Breeches. Stockings. I am the king’s envoy, dammit. I should at least look the part.”
Beacom’s eyebrows inched upward. He noticed, for the first time, that Varian’s current shirt and breeches bore what looked suspiciously like spatters of blood amidst the salt water stains, the creases, the scuffs of dirt. “Indeed, your grace. So you should.”
While Varian stripped, Beacom hastened to find clean stockings, breeches and a white camlet shirt. Varian snatched each garment that was held out to him and made no attempt to do so much as button a cuff of the peasecod doublet on his own. He stood rigid while Beacom attended him, he sat and allowed his hair to be brushed smooth, he even tipped his chin up without complaint when Beacom approached somewhat hesitantly with the starched neck ruff. But when the valet searched for the ruby brooch to pin it down in front, it was nowhere to be found.
“Looking for this?”
Beacom gasped and whirled around, slamming himself against the bulkhead, but Varian merely turned to acknowledge the sound of the door swinging open and Simon Dante’s presence at the threshold. The tall, jet-haired privateer had to bend to duck below the lintel, as did his oldest son, Jonas, who did not come all the way into the room, but remained in the doorway, filling it with his big body.
Varian’s reflexes were quick enough to catch the object Dante tossed to him. Without looking down, he knew it was the egg-sized brooch that had been pinned to his collar the day before.
“It was found on the beach, not ten yards from the bodies of the captain and eight crewmen from the Dove.”
Varian manipulated the brooch inside his hand, grudgingly aware of the promise he had made Juliet last night.
“You wouldn’t happen to know how it came to be there, would you?” Dante’s voice was level, but his gaze was hard. Hard and cold, just like Juliet’s had been when she looked him in the eye and told him to go home.
Dante frowned, obviously unaccustomed to waiting for explanations once they were demanded. “If your memory needs refreshing, allow me to tell you what I know first. Eight bodies were found on the beach late last night, including that of Anders Van Neuk. At first it appeared as though he had been stopped in the act of sodomizing one of his own men, and if that had been the case, it would have ended there, the Devil take him and good riddance. Unfortunately it did not end there. Two of Anders’ men, bleeding from various wounds, were found hiding in the trees and when questioned, told a somewhat different story.”
“They said they happened across you trying to climb on top of Juliet,” Jonas growled. “When they ran to help, you and your manservant fought them off with swords.”
The accusation was followed by a muted squawk and a dull thump as Beacom banged his head on a beam.
“Beacom was nowhere near the beach last night,” Varian said calmly. “He never left the ship.”
The pirate wolf glanced at Beacom and pursed his lips. “Frankly, I didn’t even give it consideration. Apparently Gabriel didn’t either, and by the time he had finished bloodying his knuckles, he had managed to wring an entirely different story from the men’s throats.”
Varian pushed to his feet. “In that case, you are free to believe the version that makes the most sense.”
“They said,” Jonas screwed his golden eyes down to disbelieving slits, “you came out of nowhere and put five of them on the sand without breaking stride. Said you looked like a great bloody bat with your cape flying out like wings.”
Varian stared a moment, then turned to finish dressing. He plucked his cloak off the wall peg and tossed it to Beacom, who in turn, had to pry himself away from the bulkhead to carry it forward and drape it over his master’s left shoulder. He ran the ties under the arms to fasten it in place, then fetched Varian’s sword belt and buckled it around his waist.
“Going somewhere?” Dante asked casually.
“Your daughter has informed me I am. To England, with all haste.”
“And... you are not happy with our decision to send you home?”
“I am neither happy, nor unhappy at that particular decision. What does not please me, Captain Dante, is being set forth like a pawn and deemed dispensable once the opening gambit has been played.”
“If you have been given that impression, sir, it was not my intention.”
“Was it not?”
Simon shook his head. “No. It was not. In fact, it was not even my idea to send you home. Certainly not to insist we send you in one of our fastest ships with one of our best and most indispensable captains.”
“Then why... ?” The question escaped Varian’s lips before he could bite it back. The answer was there before him: It was Juliet, of course. It was her idea, much as she had attempted to shift some of the blame. He was, after all, her chattel, her prize, her responsibility and he, like the Santo Domingo, could be disposed of any way she saw fit.
“The captain of the Gale is taking on extra provisions and fresh water,” Dante was saying. “He should be ready to leave on the evening tide. I have all the papers and documents you will need to take with you back on board the Avenger, so whe
never you are ready—”
“I am ready now,” Varian said abruptly. “If you have no objections, I will accompany you to your ship, then leave from there for the Gale. I would be remiss,” he added, forcing a tense smile, “if I returned to England having never set foot on the infamous Avenger.”
“As you wish. Can your man manage the chest or shall I send someone—?”
“Oh, I can manage it sir!” Beacom was so ecstatic at the thought of actually going home that he could have flown up to the deck with the sea chest balanced on his head. “Yes indeed, I shall be right upon your heels!”
Simon nodded once at Varian before he turned to leave. At the door, he paused and looked back. “If it is any consolation, the decision to send you back was made before we left Pigeon Cay. In light of everything that has happened since then, she might not be quite so adamant about it.”
“Nothing has happened to change her mind, Captain,” Varian said quietly. “That much I do know.”
~~~
Juliet was determined that a cut on her thigh would not keep her from going about her daily routine. As much as the fabric chafed, as much as her boots rubbed against the fresh wounds, she spent the better part of the day with Gabriel, having accompanied him out to the Valor. She did not ask about his bruised knuckles and he did not ask about the purple splotches on her jaw and cheek. They knew, just by glancing into each other’s eyes, what had happened, and it was more to Gabriel’s credit that he held his tongue, for he had clearly been surprised to see how close she had come to tears several times throughout the morning.
The Valor and the Tribute weighed anchor just past noon, leaving Juliet no choice but to return to the Iron Rose and it was there, six hours later as dusk was settling again, that she stood on the quarterdeck and watched as the crew of the Gale began maneuvering the nimble ship through the congestion of ships in the harbor. Dozens of lamps and lanterns were hung from her rigging, casting a glittering reflection across the surface of the water as she moved toward the open sea lanes. One by one those lamps were being extinguished, for once she was clear of the outer island, it would be safer to run dark toward the horizon.
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