"I see nothing obvious about it, Captain Dante."
"No? The loving husband leaves a beautiful wife at home and is gone for four long years? Hardly sounds to me like he is eager to leave these tropical waters and return to hearth and home. Mind you, having been to Portsmouth on numerous occasions myself, I can see why someone would prefer sun and white sand to fog, rain, and the stench of over-filled gutters."
The rum sang through Eva's veins and emboldened her tongue. "There could be a dearth of reasons why he felt it not safe or not possible to write. And he would not abandon his family or his business interests just to frolic in the sea and sand."
Gabriel leaned against the bulkhead and crossed his arms over his chest. "A dearth of reasons? Well-spoken, with the manners and bearing distinct unto the aristocracy. My future brother-in-law would be utterly charmed to meet another of his ilk so far from home."
"Another of his ilk?"
"Aye. Varian St. Clare, His Grace the Duke of Harrow. He also came to us blustering, full of words big enough to make your eyes cross, and with his nose held so high he kept the ceilings cleared of cobwebs. I have no doubt he will...ah..."
His voice trailed off and Eva saw that he was staring at the open vee of her shirt. His gaze had been attracted by the glitter of silver resting against her pale skin, and she raised a hand, intending to draw the edges of the fabric closer. He was in front of her before the gesture could be completed, his fingers closing around her wrist to halt the movement.
"I thought I told you to leave everything behind on the Eliza Jane? That included trinkets."
Eva tried to pull away but he stood towering over her with a face as dark as the storm clouds outside.
"This... trinket... belonged to my mother," she said. "It holds great sentimental value and I can assure you it was scrubbed as clean as I scrubbed myself."
Dante boldly plucked the chain out of her cleavage. Suspended on the end was a small round locket etched with the ornate letter E.
"E?"
"Her name was Elizabeth, mine is Evangeline," she said breathlessly. "Eva, if you prefer."
“What I prefer, madam, is for people on board my ship to do as they’re told. Those who don’t, find themselves being dragged under the keel getting their skin scraped off on the barnacles.”
She tried to pull back and put her hand above his on the chain to dislodge it but in doing so, the locket rattled, indicating there was something inside. Dante kept hold, watching her face as he did so, seeing the flush ebb and flow in her cheeks as her eyes touched his and darted away, touched again and darted away.
It was not unusual for sailors to wear a gold hoop in their ear to cover the cost of a decent burial. Dante usually wore one, as did every member of his family and crew, though none expected there would be anything decent left to bury if they were caught by the Spanish or killed in battle. In fact, one of the first things his recent captors had done was tear the hoop out of Gabriel's ear to let him know he would end up being food for the sharks.
He continued to study the girl. She had lovely little pink earlobes. She was, in fact, lovely and pink all over.
He had stolen one or two peeks himself while she was dressing.
Eva tried to give another subtle tug on the chain to dislodge the trinket from his hand, but he held steadfast.
"I am trying to decide if you are incredibly brave... or incredibly stupid," he murmured. "And frankly, I am leaning toward the latter."
"I... I don't understand."
Dante released the locket and reached for the bottle of rum again. "You have left what I assume to be the ease and comfort of reasonably substantial means in order to sail to the edge of the world on a wild goose chase. You have witnessed first-hand the pestilence a single man can bring aboard a ship, but that is only one of many perils. Land on any island and the insects will suck you dry within an hour. Dark, thick-skinned Spaniards have had to move entire cities because of infestations. There are cannibals who would think you a fine, succulent feast for a midsummer day, and other natives who, while they might not have a craving to chew on your flesh, would prize that white skin of yours and peel it carefully from your body to preserve the juju."
"Juju?"
"Magic."
She blanched a little but kept her chin high. "I am well aware of the risks, Captain."
"Are you?"
She drew herself up straight, squaring her shoulders. "I am neither as weak nor as helpless as you might think. I've not had proper food or water for several days, but once I get my strength back—"
"You will do what? Swab my decks? Climb the rigging? Man one of the guns? This is a working ship, Mrs. Chandler, and everyone on board does his share. I am not in the habit of ferrying passengers out of charity."
"No, you appear to be more in the habit of mocking them and frightening them half to death."
He stared a moment, then grinned. "It's a family trait. And I've not mocked you, Madam. Just questioned your sanity."
Her eyes were starting to glaze from the rum, and she frowned as she attempted to keep them focussed on his face. "I can pay my way, Sir. I'll not strain the tenets of your catholic charity."
This time, he leaned back, his hip resting on the corner of the massive oak desk, his arms crossing over his chest. "Pay me how? With what?"
Her fingers trembled where they curled around the locket.
“If you take me to New Providence, I—“
“I am not going to New Providence.”
“Granted, it may not have been your intention, sir, but if you take me there—“
“New Providence is already two days behind us. I have battle-weary men on board who would not appreciate me turning the ship around in order to ferry a passenger well out of our way, thus my intention is to keep going forward.”
Eva’s lip trembled and she had to bite it hard to keep tears from flooding her eyes. How many times over the past fortnight had she thought herself near death only to find reprieve? She could not give up now. She could not! She was so close, she could almost sense her father’s presence and nothing else mattered, regardless of the cost.
She moistened her lips and tried one last time to sway the ugly brute. “The Chandler name is well known in the islands.”
“I have never heard it before and I’ve lived in the Indies all of my life.”
“My… husband… will reward you handsomely if you take me to him.”
“How can I take you to him when he is lost?”
The color in her cheeks returned on a flush of frustration. “Then I will pay you to help me find him.”
Dante’s good eye narrowed. “You are a lovely woman, Madam, and under any other circumstances I might be sorely tempted to accept your manner of payment. However…”
“Good God, sir, I am not offering you my body!”
Dante frowned. “Then I confess I am confused. What exactly are you offering by way of payment?”
“This,” she said, and held up the silver locket.
"That—" he glanced at the locket and arched an eyebrow— "would not buy you passage from this deck to the one above."
"Perhaps not,” she agreed. “But what is inside might."
Gabriel felt another tickle across the nape of his neck, and the ghostly filament caused by well-honed instincts warned him not to take the bait. What could the locket possibly contain that a spoiled and pampered noblewoman would think valuable enough to turn his head and strike him dead with awe? A jewel? He had thousands. A dore of gold? He had barrels of the refined little nuggets.
He drew a breath and stood to signal an end to the conversation. “Unless it contains a map to El Dorado, the lost city of gold, I suggest you tuck it away and save it for some bandy-legged lout who might be impressed with big words and big green eyes.”
“Are you not even interested to see—?”
“No, I am not. The only thing that interests me now is making up for the time we lost sinking your ship.”
Eva cl
osed her fist around the locket again. Tears she had been determined not to spill splashed over her lashes and ran down her cheeks but even as she turned to hide them from his mocking gaze, Dante was striding behind his desk, his attention already redirected to his charts.
He took up a quill and started scratching notes in his logbook and when he deigned to glance up again, the rum had done its work and the chit was fast asleep, her hand still clutched around the locket.
CHAPTER SIX
Curled up in the chair, Eva dozed on and off for the remainder of the afternoon and well into the evening. Dante spent most of the time sorting through the small mountain of letters and documents found on board the galleon when it was captured. The ship’s manifests were in Spanish, which had been written clearly and precisely by clerks who knew a hundred people would be checking their work. These, Dante could read with ease. But when he came to the logbook and the large canvas sack full of personal letters, they were written in tightly slanted script, embellished with great swooping flourishes and grandiose pretensions. He set them aside with a grimace, intending to leave them to last.
By eight bells, his one good eye was bleary and his head was aching. Young Eduardo had left a tray of food outside the door, knocking once to let his captain know it was there before scrambling quickly back down the companionway lest the air itself was poisonous with contagion.
Gabriel kept feeling his cheeks and forehead for signs of fever; he examined the skin between the bruises on his chest and arms for spots or a rash, but so far he was showing no signs of plague or pox. Stubs delivered hourly reports on their progress as well as on the mood of the crew. None were happy about having their captain quarantined, but there was no talk of mutiny... yet.
As a precaution, Gabriel kept two loaded pistols on the desk. As loyal as he knew his men to be in battle, fear of dying with gaping eyes and bloody flux could test the limits of the strongest men. He was none too sure what his own reaction would be if his skin began to turn red and blister. The fact the girl had survived was encouraging, but he also knew that some diseased creatures, most notably rats, could live for weeks before they went belly-up and stiff-legged.
"Bah!"
Eva stirred at the expulsion of sound and blinked her eyes open. It took a long moment for her to recognize her surroundings and remember where she was. A further squirming struggle with the tangled blankets saw her sitting upright and straightening cramped muscles.
"My apologies," Gabriel said. "I did not mean to waken you."
She looked around. "I don’t think I meant to fall asleep."
“After two cups of rum, I would have been more surprised if you hadn’t.”
Eva noted the darkness beyond the gallery windows. “How long—?”
“It’s gone past eight bells, so… twelve hours, give or take.”
Her eyes widened. “And… are you… all right?”
He held out his arms and pushed his shirtsleeves up to his elbows. "No spots, no pustules, no rashes. No wine either," he added, indicating his empty goblet. "Since it is right beside you, would you mind?"
His eyes cut to the left and she followed his glance to the ornate sideboard against the wall, where several thick green glass bottles were housed in a wire-fronted case. She uncurled her legs and stood, dragging her cloak of blankets with her as she fetched a bottle and carried it to the desk. There she spied the platter of mostly untouched food and her belly gave an unladylike grumble.
"Go ahead," he said. "Help yourself."
Her belly growled again as she filled a solid gold plate with slices of yellow cheese, biscuits, and a slab of cold meat. She carried it back to her chair and devoured everything to the last morsel, even wetting her finger to pick up the few scattered crumbs that escaped. The cheese was pungent, the meat was heavily spiced with cloves and pepper, and the biscuits had been fried in pork fat but it was possibly the most delicious meal she had ever eaten.
Dante glanced at her periodically from under the dark sweep of his lashes.
"You look as though you have a thousand questions, Captain," she said.
"A thousand and one, in truth."
"In that case, may I ask you one first?"
"Of course."
Her cheeks flushed a soft crimson and she shifted on the chair. "Where might one go to... relieve oneself?"
"Ah." He turned and pointed to a narrow door located beside the canopied bed. "Through there, but have a care. There was some battle damage."
She stood and walked, a brighter shade of red than before, to the door he had indicated. When she opened it, she discovered a narrow closet set into the curved hull of the ship. There was a carved oak bench inside with a hole in the middle, through which she could look straight down twenty feet to the surface of the ocean rushing past beneath. At some point during the recent battle, a shot had struck the hull and crushed one side of the bench, blowing the seat askew.
The space was cramped and she had to temporarily discard the thick wool blanket. A reassuring glance, as she closed the door behind her, told her Dante had not moved from the desk. She wriggled the moleskin breeches down enough to aim her bottom over the hole and tried not to think of falling through. When she was finished, and just as she was standing, the ship took a sudden pitch forward and her hip was driven against a sharp splinter of the shattered wood. The raw edge scraped along her skin, scratching deeply into the flesh and causing her to gasp sharply with the pain.
With tears in her eyes and her lip firmly clamped between her teeth, she hastily dressed again. Returning to the cabin, she retraced her steps to the chair without meeting Dante's eyes.
His, however, were keen enough to notice the fresh dots of blood on the thigh of her breeches.
"What have you done?"
Startled, she looked at him. "I beg your pardon?"
"To your leg," he said, pointing.
"Oh. It... it's nothing. I scraped it on a bit of broken wood."
"Best let me have a look," he said, rising to his feet.
"That won't be necessary, Captain. But thank you."
He sank back down onto his chair and shrugged. "Suit yourself. Simple cuts can fester and turn poisonous here in the tropics. It would be a shame to have to cut your leg off."
Eva arched an eyebrow wryly. "I'm sure it will not come to that, Captain Dante. However, I do have another question, if you don't mind."
"Ask away, Mrs. Chandler."
"My father has owned a shipping company for many years; since I was a little girl, in fact. I used to love to visit his office and sit behind his big desk and watch all the ships out in the harbor. Sometimes the captains would come in and give me bits of candy or strange fruits they had brought from Persia or Morocco or the Indies. And sometimes they would tell me stories of their adventures against the Spanish and Dutch. Thus, I grew up surrounded by tales of privateers and adventurers... and pirate wolves." She paused and her eyes met his. "You would not happen to be any relation to... Simon Dante, would you?"
Dante leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. "I might be, yes. He is my father."
"Oh."
Gabriel tilted his head. "Oh?"
"And Isabeau Dante...?"
"My mother."
"Juliet...?"
"Sister."
Her eyes popped even wider.
"I have a brother as well. Jonas is a blustery, vain fellow, and would likely break a jug over someone's head if he knew his name had not merited a squeak of recognition."
She sighed heavily. "I only wish my father's name had done so."
"And who might your father be? What is his company?"
"My father is William Chandler and his company is Chandler-Ross shipping."
Gabriel frowned. "Hold up there. William Chandler is your father? I thought you said he was your husband?"
Eva bit her lower lip and cursed inwardly, having realized her mistake the moment she blurted it. "Yes. I mean no, you were not mistaken for I did say that, but
yes, he is my father not my husband. When you first asked me, I... I panicked. I thought if I said he was my husband it might... well... it might..."
"Save you from being ravished by me or by the lusty brutes who crew my ship?"
"Something like that," she admitted, adding a mumbled, "yes."
He tipped his head and laughed. "My dear Mistress Chandler, a wedded surname, out here in the middle of the vast nowhere, means about as much as a fly speck on a sandy beach. If I or any of my men truly wanted to ravish you, I can promise you the existence of a husband would offer little protection."
"I... I was frightened."
"Well you need not fear any of my men. They would as soon touch a leper as touch you at the moment. As for myself—" his gaze settled on the oily tangle of her hair— "should I become feverish over the next few hours it will not be out of lust."
She raised a hand self-consciously to touch her face, then her hair, then to smooth her fingers along the shapeless black shirt she had been given. She had not yet seen herself in a mirror but she guessed she must present quite the bedraggled, smelly fright.
Dante laughed again. "You really must make up your mind whether you wish your appearance to appeal or discourage."
She lowered her hand even as her chin tipped up. "Yours is not exactly a countenance one would swoon over, Captain Dante. Not in a good way, at any rate."
Gabriel was taken aback. He was also glad Jonas was not present for he could imagine the gales of laughter and endless teasing that would follow upon discovering there was a female on this good earth who did not instantly melt into a puddle at the sight of the strikingly handsome youngest son of the Pirate Wolf.
"My apologies, Captain," Eva said, having bitten her tongue hard enough to draw blood. "I meant no insult. And you did mention that you and your ship have recently been involved in some sort of fracas."
"A fracas?" Gabriel snorted and uncorked the wine bottle. "A fracas involving over a hundred ships; one in which my own was lost, leaving me to make do with this—" he paused and looked around— "this floating bordello."
Pirate Wolf Trilogy Page 75
