The remnants of the tall forecastle were obliterated. Bits of planking and cartwheeling men flew through the air, blown there by a series of domino-like explosions that erupted in bursts of orange flame along the deck. It was a spectacular amount of damage from one cannonade and while Isabeau knew her husband’s crew was efficient, she did not think they were capable of striking the galleon on both sides at once.
It took nearly half a minute for the second ship to come streaming out of the smoke and reveal herself, and when she did, Isabeau eyes widened in surprise again, for it was not the Dove as she had expected. It was the bristling and battle-damaged Tribute, with its red-haired captain standing before the mast, his raised fist coming down hard as he called for another round of incendiary shot.
“It’s Master Jonas,” Lucifer said, grinning ear to ear. “And lookee what he brought wid him!”
The big black Cimaroon grinned and stabbed a finger north, pointing through the haze of smoke. Geoffrey Pitt’s ship, the Christiana, with Spit McCutcheon at the helm was bearing down from the north leading a squad of three privateers, while a second brace of ships, obviously in Jonas’s company, broke away from the Tribute and raced after the remaining two Spanish galleons, both of whom were attempting to turn and retreat back to the fleet.
Isabeau heard the swish of another keel and saw the Dove coming up fast on their stern. She could see Simon standing on the quarterdeck, his hands on his hips, his long black hair streaming out in the wind. He signalled Lucifer his intentions, then started to peel away in the direction of the Iron Rose, but not before he gave Isabeau a very different kind of signal, one that put a flush in her cheeks and a revitalized edge of defiance in her voice as she turned to relay new orders to the helm.
~~~
Varian was a step behind Juliet up the ladderway. He absorbed the scene on the quarterdeck in one glance but was too late to stop her from taking the wild leap across the path of the falconet. Everything happened so damned fast, it was reduced to a blur of motion! She was there one moment, in the air the next, slamming into Recalde, knocking him hard into the rail. The gun exploded, but without Recalde’s hand to steady it, the recoil swung the barrel sideways so that it discharged its load of grapeshot in a wide spray. Some went wild, whistling through the air so close to Varian’s head that he felt his hair move. Most of it spattered like a hail of pebbles into the back of the huge Goliath who was fending off the efforts of half a dozen seamen with swords and cutlasses. He staggered with the impact, driving himself forward onto the out thrust blades of the Rose’s crewmen. Even so, they had to skewered him several times until he finally gave one last bellow of rage and crashed face down on the deck.
Varian ran to Juliet’s side. She wasn’t moving and when he grasped her shoulders to lift her off Recalde, he could see the side of her face was covered in blood. The Spaniard, meanwhile, struggled to his feet and drew his sword from its sheath.
Varian’s rapier blocked a slash intended to cut across Juliet’s throat. The blades met and slid together, locking for as long as it took Varian to leap to his feet and break Recalde’s hold. Their swords parted and slashed together again, touching, clashing, striking in a series of quick, lethal ripostes that drove the two men forward and back across the width of quarterdeck.
If Juliet’s prowess with a blade had startled him, Recalde’s skill was at least expected, for the Spanish were without equal as swordsmen. It took all of Varian’s considerable dexterity just to parry each stroke, to keep from being driven into the binnacle or over the rail. Like a shark scenting fresh blood, Recalde aimed for the torn shoulder, the wounded thigh; he kept his strokes coming fast and clean, never taking two steps where one was sufficient, rarely executing a feint, preferring to wear his opponent down with cool, slashing precision.
Gabriel, meanwhile, had been cut down from the shrouds and helped to the deck. His feet were still too swollen to support him but he crawled on his knees to where Juliet lay slumped against the bulkhead. His hands were stinging like the fires of Hades and he had regained some movement, but they were clumsy and it was all he could do to cradle her against his chest and probe beneath the blue bandana for source of all the blood flowing down her face.
Varian made the classic mistake of taking his eyes off Recalde for a split second. He had seen Gabriel moving over by his sister, gathering her into his arms, but she had seemed so limp, the need to know if half her head had been blown away overcame Varian’s instincts to keep all of his attention fixed on Recalde’s blade.
The glance cost him dearly. He felt the steel punch into his rib and start to plunge inward. He jerked back before the thrust could be completed, but the blood began to pour from his side, soaking through his doublet and leaking down onto his breeches. When he backed away, Recalde pursued. When he stumbled over the body of the giant Spaniard and nearly lost his balance, Recalde did not give him a chance to regain his balance, but battered him into the corner with a deadly offensive that sent him crashing down hard on one knee and left his head and shoulders exposed.
Standing over him, Recalde raised his rapier, the point angled down on a slant that would carry it down through Varian’s spine for the coup de grace.
“It would seem, after all, that you were the one who blinked first, señor.”
“Not this time, he bloody well didn’t,” Juliet hissed.
Recalde whirled around. Juliet was behind him, swaying on her feet. He saw her sword slash out like a dart of silver-blue light, the tip seeking the gap beneath his arm where the armor met his sleeve. At the same time, Varian retrieved the knife that was sheathed between his shoulder blades, while Gabriel found he had enough dexterity in his finger to wrap it around the trigger of a pistol he grabbed off one of his crewmen.
Recalde’s body shuddered with the three strikes as the dagger pierced his belly, the shot tore through his neck, and Juliet’s blade pushed clear through his chest. He staggered back and came up sharp against a broken section of the rail. The wood gave with a loud cra-a-a-ck and he fell backward over the deck, dead before he splashed into the churning water below.
For several moments, no one moved. There was still fighting going on in the waist of the ship, but the Spaniards were beginning to throw down their arms. The men from the crew of the Iron Rose and the Valor were cheering, watching the Tribute, the Avenger, and the Dove lead their small fleet against the three warships, cutting off their retreat, crowding in with all guns blazing.
Juliet’s knees wavered and Varian was by her side in a stride to support her. There was a deep gash on her temple where she had sliced it on the edge of Recalde’s helmet, but as bad as it looked, she was smiling. She threw one arm around Varian, another around Gabriel who tolerated her sisterly affection despite the squeezing pressure on his wounds.
Varian was hardly better off. There was a hole in his side, a slash in his arm, a stab in his thigh, and someone would have to stitch his head again. For a man who had arrived in the Caribbean with one small scar from a childhood mishap, he was charting quite a few new lines and welts.
Gabriel eased himself out of Juliet’s arms and hobbled to the rail to look down over the ruins of the gun deck.
“My ship!” He cried softly. “Look what you’ve done to my ship!”
But Juliet did not respond to his battered grin when he turned around. Her arms were around Varian’s neck and their mouths were firmly locked together. Clutched in her right hand was her sword, in her left the crushed folds of the Spanish flag that had, until a moment ago, flown on the Valor’s masthead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
On board the Iron Rose, Simon Dante walked from one side of the great cabin to the other. His steps were slow and measured, and when he reached the far side, he turned and paced back. His hands were clasped behind his back and his head was bowed. Now and then he looked over at the berth where Nog Kelly was in the process of knotting the last stitch in his daughter’s temple.
“Skull might be cracked,” Nog declar
ed solemnly. “At the least, she’ll be hearing bells and walkin’ into walls for the next few days—longer if she tries to get up to do more than piss in the pot. Her shoulder will hurt like a bastard too—she’s lucky its only black an’ blue an’ swole up an’ it isn’t broke—but if she’s not planning on throwing herself at any more Spaniards wearin’ steel breastplates, it’ll heal up fast enough. Other than that... few cuts, few scrapes.”
“She will have plenty of time to heal back at Pigeon Cay,” Simon Dante said evenly. He saw Juliet’s eyes swim open and narrowed his own in a warning. “There will be no arguments, either. Nathan has a hole in his shoulder, half your crew is licking wounds, Gabriel’s ship is at the bottom of the ocean and between the pair of you, we couldn’t manage one captain with enough common sense to know when to run and when to fight. Which brings me to the other addle-witted female in this family.”
He turned the full power of his glare on Isabeau, who was sitting on the corner of Juliet’s desk winding a clean strip of bandaging around a wound on her stump.
“That I, of all people, should have been cursed with two women who—”
“Love you dearly,” Beau said sweetly, “and tolerate your bouts of ill temper with enduring patience.”
“My ill temper? Your patience! Madam! You took my ship into battle! You risked your life, the lives of my crew, the wellbeing of my vessel—”
“To go to the rescue of your daughter and son... ”
“To go to the... ?” He stopped and clamped his lips shut. “I should send you back to Pigeon Cay as well.”
She smiled. “You could try.”
He muttered a curse and aimed his stare at the next victim. The cabin on board the Iron Rose was crowded. Gabriel and Jonas stood in one corner slouched against the wall, the former almost unrecognizable beneath a swollen, closed eye, multiple bruises, and lips that looked like two slabs of raw meat. Jonas, who had shadowed the convoy all the way from Havana looking for some opportunity to cut in and regain his brother’s ship, had a gash down his cheek, another on his arm, and a grin a mile wide splitting the red fuzz of his beard. He had his good arm draped around Gabriel’s shoulder and every now and then, ruffled his brother’s hair as if he still could not believe the Hell Twins were together again and both alive.
“You find something amusing?” Simon asked.
“Aye, Father, I do,” Jonas boomed. “A brother who smells like a vat of pickled herring, for one thing. For another, a sister who has ballocks the size of Gibraltar, inherited from a mother who can out-sail and out-shoot any bloody papist on the water. Add to that three fat galleons loaded to the gunwales with treasure, and I’d say we have a fair bit to put a smile on our faces. Oh, and did I mention a father smart enough to find the wife to give him the sons and daughters of whom I speak?”
Dante glared at him a moment, then looked at Geoffrey Pitt. “Am I mad, or are they?”
Pitt shrugged. “A little of both.”
The silvery eyes narrowed. “I knew I could count on you, my oldest and wisest friend, for a definitive answer.”
“Come and sit here,” Isabeau said, patting an empty corner of the desk. “Let Nog have at you with his needle and thread.”
“See to the duke first. By the look of it he has more leaks.”
Varian had been standing quietly by the berth, his wounded arm cradled across his midsection. He had shed his doublet when Juliet had insisted she would not allow anyone to touch her until Nog checked his ribs. But the bleeding had stopped and the pain was manageable, and one look from the midnight eyes had sent the carpenter back to Juliet’s bedside. She was stitched now and so was Gabriel. Nathan’s shoulder had been cauterized and together with Spit McCutcheon, they were organizing the prisoners and assigning crews to sail the prize ships back to Pigeon Cay.
The Valor’s wounds had been too grave to repair and, after removing everything of value, her ports had been opened to let in the sea. Jonas, who had met and joined forces with three privateers who were late reaching the rendezvous at New Providence, had sent them chasing after the pair of galleons that had initially been caught in the ambush with the result that there were now five Spanish ships—six, including the hulk of the Santo Domingo—surrendered to the Dantes and anchored in the lee of the two islets. One was given to the privateers who had arrived with Jonas, the spoils to be divided amongst their crews; another was given to the two ships who had accompanied the Christiana back to port, drawn by the thunder of the guns. Both ships would remain at the ambuscade, as would any crewman from the Valor or Iron Rose still hungry to fight, while the injured would be sent back to Pigeon Cay on the Rose.
Of the three remaining prize ships, one would be taken over by Gabriel until a more suitable replacement for the Valor could be acquired. The Santo Domingo was useless except as a decoy, and to that end, Simon Dante planned to fill her with barrels of powder and send her forth to meet the next wave of Spanish warships. The vanguard had been in such a hurry to flee north, they had dispatched but one pinnace to carry a warning back to the rest of the fleet to be on the alert for ambushes. The Christiana, skimming the waves like a low-flying bird, had intercepted the courier and sunk her before the alarm could be delivered, thus there was an excellent chance of more galleons sailing blithely to their doom on the morrow.
In truth, the day’s work had been more successful than even Simon would have imagined. The damage to the Avenger was not severe enough to send her home yet and the carpenters would work through the night to affect repairs. To have gained five and lost only one ship—the Valor—was remarkable, and if the rest of the adventurers were half as lucky, the flota would be reduced by half before it neared the northern exit of the Florida Straits. There, it was Dante’s further intention to form a blockade line of privateers, whose very presence, after harassing the flota every league of the way up the straits, would surely send any remaining ships scrambling back to Havana.
For the time being, however, it was taking all of his strength and concentration just to keep a stern eye trained on the recalcitrant members of his household, for if a tenth of the pride he was feeling ever burst free, he doubted he would ever gain control again.
To aide in that effort, he focussed on Varian St. Clare, the only occupant of the cabin who had not already begun to chatter like a clutch of boastful gulls and the only one who might still be intimidated by the silvery glare. The duke was finally allowing Nog to attend his wounds, though he had not moved from the side of the berth, and he had not let his hand stray farther from Juliet’s than a breath would take it. With the smallest flicker of pain that had crossed her face, his fingers had been there, curling around hers. Even more remarkable, her fingers curled back.
Catching a fleeting glimpse of himself standing in much the same position twenty-five years ago, the legendary Pirate Wolf smiled and shook his head. “You should have fled when you had the chance, your grace.”
Varian looked over at him. After a moment, he smiled back. “Have you ever regretted that you did not?”
Simon glanced at Beau, who was laughing at something Jonas and Gabriel had said. “No. Not for one single blessed moment.”
“Then that is good enough for me.”
~~~
Two hours later the Iron Rose weighed anchor and slipped away just as the dawn was rising in pink streaks across the horizon. Nathan plotted a course that would take them well to the east before turning south and heading for home, and they were accompanied by three pinnaces who would run far enough ahead to give fair warning of any other traffic on the sea lanes.
Varian left Juliet asleep on the berth and went to stand at the gallery door, watching as the two islands grew smaller and smaller off their stern. His side was aching, his arm was throbbing; if he closed his eyes he could isolate and identify every cut and scrape he had earned over the past twenty-four hours. For a certainty, he was not entirely unhappy to be returning to Pigeon Cay. On the other hand, it had been an exhilarating twenty-four hours and h
e had to wonder again if it eventually became blasé to men like Simon Dante, who lived every day as an adventure.
The smell of gunpowder and burned canvas still permeated the air inside the cabin, and, after a glance back at Juliet, he stepped out onto the narrow balcony. The wind blew his hair and the foam leaped high off the curl of the ship’s wake, sparkling like handfuls of diamonds where it fell back into the sea. A pair of dolphins swam alongside, their bodies sleek and gleaming beneath the blue water; now and then they crossed behind the wake, leaping over the waves and diving below again in gray streaks.
Varian heard a bump behind him and turned just as Juliet slipped out onto the gallery. She was holding her head and swaying slightly with the motion of the ship and he was by her side in half a step, his arms around her waist, a frown creasing his brow.
“You were given specific orders to remain abed, Captain.”
“You weren’t there,” she whispered. “I opened my eyes and you weren’t there.”
He gathered her gently into his arms and felt her press her face into the curve of his shoulder. “I’m here now. And will be for as long as you want me to stay.”
She tipped her face up, slowly, as if it weighed twice as much as usual. Her eyes were glazed, the centers dilated from the steeped decoction Nog Kelly had forced her to drink. But she was smiling. “I think I would like both of you to stay.”
“Both?”
“Indeed. There are two of you. There is two of everything, in fact, and I was hoping I found the right door to walk through on the second try.”
She tried to raise her hand and touch his cheek, but the pain from the bruises across her shoulder and chest made her reconsider. And then something else caught her attention and she looked past the canted hull of the ship toward the eastern sky where the sun was hot and bright and promising a clear day ahead.
“I see two of them,” she whispered softly.
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