Pirate Wolf Trilogy (119 page)

~~

Eva was not sure where she should go when
she was finished wrapping the last bandage around the last wound.
After washing her hands and face in a bucket of water, she was
still hot and sweaty, so she went up on deck hoping for a breeze to
cool her skin.

The shock of seeing nothing was startling.
The fog was a thick blank wall of gray water droplets that clung to
her skin and clothing; the air was tainted with lingering scents of
gunpowder and wet canvas. The two inch thick cast iron barrels of
the cannon hissed as they cooled, and rigging lines dripped puddles
on the decking. She shivered not so much out of any relief from the
mustiness below but because she could not see anything apart from a
hazy, cloudy circle of faint light that glowed around a single
shuttered lantern that sat deep in the belly of the gundeck; a tiny
beacon used by the ghostly figures of the crew to gain their
bearings.

"Spooky, ain't it Miss?" Eduardo's eerily
disembodied whisper beside her nearly sent her jumping out of her
skin "Ship could drift right to the edge of the earth an' we'd not
know it. A man could spit over the rail and hit a dragon in the
eye."

Eva smiled, for chartmakers who did not know
what lay past the horizon simply wrote on the side of their maps:
“Beyond this place there be dragons”.

"I thought London fogs were thick, but
this...!" She shook her head in awe.

“I never been to London,” Eduardo confessed.
“Cap’n Dante says I’m not missing much, but I think I would like to
see it anyway. I never seen a proper castle or a moat. Is it true
the rain freezes and turns white in winter?”

“Yes, it’s true. And if you catch it on your
tongue it melts and turns back into water. Children roll it into
big balls and make snowmen, but it’s so cold, you need gloves or
your fingers freeze.”

The boy was intrigued and clearly wanted to
ask more questions but he saw Eva attempt to stifle a yawn.

“You want I should walk you back to the
Cap’n’s cabin so you don’t get lost in the dark?”

“Thank you, Eduardo, if it’s no trouble.

He touched her arm and led the way to the
aft hatchway, then down and along the companionway to the cabin in
the stern. He tapped on the door but there was no answer.

“Must still be topside, Miss, but I’m sure
he’d say: try to get some rest. You earned it.”

She sighed and tucked a stray hair behind
her ear. “Thank you Eduardo. You as well.”

The boy melted away into the darkness and
Eva entered the cabin, the door making no noise as she closed it
behind her. She was thankful to see a light on the desk and did not
see Gabriel at first. He was slumped over, his cheek resting on one
hand, the other curled limply around the stem of a goblet. His dark
hair was tumbled across his brow, his mouth was completely relaxed,
not a smirk or scowl to be seen.

An odd, shivery kind of tingle spun its way
down her spine and pooled in her belly. It was not long ago that
those lips were on her body and those hands were firm in guiding
her toward an immense pleasure that had caught her as unaware then,
as the small pleasure she was discovering now, watching him
sleep.

She had been warned countless times by
tongue-clucking matrons that “doves were not to be despoiled before
marriage”, yet she did not feel the least bit despoiled. The tender
ache between her thighs was a constant reminder of what she had
given to this man… although, in that regard… she was not entirely
certain she had given as much as she had taken.

She glanced from Dante to the bed and
debated tiptoeing past and trying to reach it without waking him.
She barely lifted a foot when his head came up off his arm.

“Who goes there?” he asked, shielding his
eyes from the lamplight.

“Forgive me, Captain,” she said quickly. “I
did not wish to disturb you, but I did not know where else to
go.”

He drew a deep breath and scratched the nape
of his neck, blinking to try to clear away the haze of sleep. His
right cheek bore the imprint of his cuff in red lines and his hair
was stuck flat to the side of his head. The latter he remedied by
running his fingers through the thick mane. The former made him
look slightly comical, though Eva dared not laugh.

“Thank you,” he said, “for what you did for
my crew tonight. They’re a hard-headed lot of bastards but not
without gratitude. And I rather like the appellation of ‘Mermaid’.
It suits you.”

“Better than squirrel?” she murmured.

“Much better. And… since the crew seems to
have accepted the fact you’re not carrying the plague or the flux,
we can see about getting you a cabin of your own… if you like.”

Eva’s smile faltered a little. “Whatever is
most convenient for you, Captain.”

"What would be most convenient," he said
with a scowl, "is for a wind to come up and blow this cursed fog
away. I would feel a thousand times better if we had some steerage.
Until then there is nothing much I can do except keep crews in the
boats rowing and sounding the depths, hoping we do not run
aground."

"You think the Spanish will come after
us?"

"I think Muertraigo is not going to take the
insult we delivered lightly.” He leaned back and propped his arm on
the chair, casually stroking his lip with a forefinger. "No thanks
to you, however, I have been sitting here not pondering how to make
good our escape, but rather how to see what they are about and
follow them."

"Thanks to me?"

"To your baker's son, actually." The amber
eyes were steady on hers, watching her face for a reaction.

“Billy Crab?” she whispered. "I don't...
understand.”

"What
exactly
did Billy say in the letter
about your father nearly being caught by the Spanish?"

Eva's head spun for a moment and her hand
rose instinctively to curl around the locket. She realized,
guiltily, that she had not spared a thought for her father all
night and certainly had not expected Dante to squander one either.
"Only that he and my father were nearly caught once or twice at one
of their wells."

"One of
their
wells? Was that exactly how he
said it?"

"Yes. Acutally... no. To be precise, he said
the Spaniard's wells, but I just assumed—" She stopped and her
frowned deepened. "Why are you grinning? Did I say something
amusing?"

"Come and look for yourself."

Eva approached the big desk and walked
around behind it, standing next to Dante's chair so she could peer
down at the chart. It was all lines and squiggles and arrows
showing currents and a myriad of roughly drawn islets in the middle
of two larger blotches of land.

"What am I looking for?"

"Just look. And read."

She was far too tired for riddles but she
did as directed and noted a few of the scattered names written
beside bays and little clusters of peaks which she presumed
indicated towns or settlements: Bay of No Hope, Rugged Isle, Gull
Island, the Sleeping Giant.

Her gaze flicked back and she leaned over,
the better to read the chartmaker's elegant writing in the dull
lamplight.

Her lips moved, once, twice before any sound
came forth. "Spanish Wells."

She turned her head and found their faces
were close enough she could see the tiny flecks of gold that
lightened the color of his eyes, making them nothing so ordinary as
brown or hazel. "You don't really suppose... that it could
be...?"

"It is one of the very few accessible places
in these islands to get fresh water. Most of the other sources have
too many obstacles, like forests and hills, to make them
practical."

"You think the wreck of
the
Nuestro Santisimo Victorio
could be there?"

He shook his head. "No. She would have been
found long before now if she was. However. If your father went to
Spanish Wells to replenish his supply of fresh water, it could mean
they were within a few miles distance."

"A few miles?”

He read the disappointment
on her face and smiled. "Better than a few
thousand
miles of open ocean. What
puzzles me, however, is how Muertraigo knew to begin his search in
the bight."

"The bight?"

"The passage, if you will. There are two
that bisect this chain of islands. Here—" he pointed to one, then
the other. "And here."

She followed the motion of his finger as it
traced across the chart and once more felt the tingle ripple down
her spine. She shook herself inwardly and frowned to focus her
attention on the chart again.

“You said it would be the coincidence of all
coincidences if that was the reason he was here.”

“And so it would be,” he nodded. “Which is
why this could all be mere conjecture.”

The amber eyes were waiting for her as she
turned and looked at him again. "But you believe me now,” she said
in on a husky breath. “You believe my father may have found the
treasure galleon."

"Let us just say… I am admittedly
intrigued."

Excitement sent a soft flush into her
cheeks. "Intrigued... is better than not being interested at
all.”

"Sometimes, not being interested at all...
is safer."

She had the distinct
feeling he was not referring entirely to her father or to
the
Nuestro Santisimo
Victorio
. Her gaze drifted down to his
lips... which were altogether too close and distracting. Her body
was suddenly awash with alternating cool and warm rushes of
sensation and she knew she ought to move before her knees gave way
and she ended up in his lap.

She straightened and took what she hoped was
a discreet step away from the desk. She faced the gallery windows,
but there was nothing to see but the sheets of planking that
covered the banks of glass. She clutched the locket again and
turned it over and over in her fingers, torn between trying to
conjure her father's face to remind her why she was here in the
first place... and trying not to remember how it felt to have Dante
naked and wedged snugly between her thighs.

And then he was suddenly there, standing
behind her. She could feel the warmth of his body even though they
were not touching.

“You never said if you wanted Eduardo to
find you that other cabin.”

She closed her eyes. Was it only a day ago
she had wondered whether to trust him or not with knowledge of the
escudo? Now she was willing… eager… to trust him with so much
more.

“No,” she whispered. “No, I do not.”

There was a long, silent pause, and as it
stretched out she crumpled a little inside, wondering if he would
laugh or simply reject her out of hand. She thought of all the
times she had discouraged Lawrence Ross’s advances by not even
obliging him with a paltry kiss on the cheek.

“Or I could go… if you want me to make my
bed elsewhere.”

She heard a sound very much like a low growl
and then she was in his arms. He spun her around and his hands were
pushing into her hair, holding her head cradled in his palms while
his mouth put to rest any lingering doubts she might have as to
where, exactly, he wanted her to make her bed.

~~

Eva stretched and purred, then sought to
curl up tight against Gabriel’s big body… only it wasn’t there. She
lifted her head and found him in the shadows attempting to find his
breeches and boots. After staring at his naked flanks for a very
long moment, she settled back onto the rumpled bedding with an
exaggerated sigh.

“Go back to sleep,” he said, glancing over
at the sound. “It is nowhere near dawn.”

“Then why are you awake?”

“Because, Mermaid, I am the captain and this
is my ship and the bell for the ghost watch just sounded, so I
think I ought to relieve Stubs or he’ll steer us into a bank of
rock out of spite. Where the devil is my other boot, can you see
it?”

Eva rose on all fours and crawled to the
edge of the bed. She spied the boot under his desk but sat back on
her heels and said nothing, content to watch him search. He had
very long legs, splendidly taut and powerful. His waist was trim
and his belly flat, and the pale wrapping of bandages around his
midsection only emphasized the breadth of muscle across his chest
and shoulders.

She smiled and shivered deliciously, then
smiled again.

Dante looked over. She was kneeling at the
edge of the bed, her hair spilling every which way around her
shoulders. The pale, firm rounds of her breasts peeked through the
curls, the nipples ruched into tiny pink buds.

“For someone who was uncertain of whether
she knew how to seduce a man or not,” he murmured, “you seem to
have acquired the knack rather quickly.”

“If I have, the fault is yours,
Captain.”

He dropped the one boot he had located and
approached the side of the bed. “Indeed? How so?”

She had to tip her face up to meet his gaze,
but then her eyes slowly meandered down his body until they came to
a halt at the junction of his thighs. She tilted her head to the
side, the fascination not yet waned as she watched his flesh start
to rise and swell. A fingertip traced lightly down the hard, flat
surface of his stomach and followed the narrow strip of fine dark
hairs to the explosion of darker, tighter curls.

“You are a very good teacher,” she whispered
as she kept tracing, circling, exploring, teasing.

She saw the quiver passed through his belly
as he threaded his long fingers in her hair and forced her to look
up again.

Despite how they had spent the last two
hours her cheeks darkened with shy young blood, for those eyes that
normally guarded his every thought were telling her how beautiful
she was, how much he wanted her

“On second thought,” he mused, easing her
back onto the bed, “Stubs can wait.”