Pirate Wolf Trilogy (22 page)

Pitt frowned.
“Since she has already been in prison nineteen years, you may have
a long wait.”

“
Blasphemer! Heretic! Murderer!
Pirate!”

Pitt
offered a wry smile and repeated his captain’s words. “The
San Pedro
fired the first shot, it
therefore attacked us. As to the charge of murder, your vaunted
captain-general
fainted
without
suffering so much as a scratch to his person. If I have shattered
royal protocol by not knocking on a door that is no longer there …
I do offer my humblest apologies, but”—he looked over the duenna’s
head and, trying to temper the fear shining in the duchess’s eyes,
in her own language added, “I swear on my honor and on my life we
have no intentions of ravaging anyone. My captain has dispatched me
to offer his personal protection, and to this I add my own blood
oath that no harm, however slight, will come to Doña Maria Antonia
Piacenza.”

The
duchess held his gaze a moment and blushed so beautifully and so
noticeably, the harpy took her by the shoulder and turned her
around.

“Indeed.” The
duenna snorted derisively. “Why should we believe you?”

Pitt’s green
eyes descended again, “You don’t have to, of course, but you might
find the alternatives somewhat less appealing.”

Something, a
twinkle in Pitt’s eyes or a faint movement in the shadowy corridor
behind him, drew the duenna’s attention to where Lucifer stood, the
expanse of his gleaming, bulging black torso and limbs broken only
by the scanty width of his loincloth and the twin scimitars tucked
into the folds. Her jaw sagged and she sucked in such a horrified
mouthful of air, the shock of it sent her eyes rolling back in her
head and her body teetering on her heels.

Pitt managed to
catch her before she slumped to the floor and was in the act of
passing half the burden onto the Spanish officer when Billy
Cuthbert skidded to a breathless halt outside the door.

“Spit says
you’re to go back to the great cabin, sir!” he gasped at Pitt.
“There have been shots fired and the captain’s dead!”

Pitt’s response
was delayed a split second before he shoved the duenna into the
Spaniard’s hands. He shouted at Billy and Lucifer to stay where
they were, to let no one in or out of the cabin until he returned.
He drew his pistol and raced out into the companionway, taking the
steps topside two at time.

Beau returned
to consciousness slowly. Her limbs felt weighted, her whole body
felt as if it had been submerged in some heavy liquid that would
not let her rise to the surface. Sounds were distant and muffled.
Someone was talking—to her, she thought—but the words were garbled
and distorted, making no sense at all. She tried to turn her head
and open her eyes but a dull throb of pain caught her unawares and
she grasped instead at the solid wall of muscle that was holding
her and tried to bury herself deeper into the warmth.

“Isabeau?
Isabeau, it’s all right. It’s over.”

She knew that
voice. It was not her father’s, but she knew that husky, deep
voice. And something told her she knew whose arms were holding her
and whose fingers were smoothing gently over her cheek and throat,
trying to coax her back into the light.

“Isabeau, can
you hear me?”

She groaned and
nodded her head.

“It’s me,
Simon, and you’re all right. You’re safe.”

“Wh-what
hap-pened?” she gasped.

“
You were
shot,
mon
enfant.
Moncada was
attempting to play the hero and waited until I had my back turned,
then …” He stroked her hair, her cheek, her throat again. “It was
meant for me. I guess everyone’s aim was off today.”

“Y-your shot
was deliberate,” she said weakly.

“Indeed it was.
The second time too.”

“The second
time?”

She lifted her
head, wincing and shivering again as a stab of pain sliced through
her. She could not see much beyond the breadth of Dante’s shoulder,
for he was on the floor beside her and held her cradled in his lap.
What she could see were two booted feet sticking out from the
corner of the desk—Moncada’s booted feet, lying lax and
motionless.

She looked up
into Simon Dante’s face. “You shot him?”

“He did not
leave me much choice.”

She blinked,
but found the silver-blue of his eyes too intense to bear and
looked instead at the strong, gunmetal jaw.

“You’re
bleeding,” she whispered.

Dante followed
her gaze and reached up, touching his earlobe. The shot had passed
so close, the gold loop he wore had torn a wider hole in the pulpy
flesh.

“
You are
bleeding as well,” he pointed out. “All over yourself
and
me.”

Beau lowered
her gaze reluctantly from his wide, sensual lips and saw the blood
spattered extravagantly down his shirt. Even as she stared, she
could feel a warm, wet trickle starting down from her temple again.
She tried to squirm upright but Dante urged her head back onto his
shoulder.

“Luckily it’s
just a crease, and luckily your head is as hard as your father’s,
but I wouldn’t recommend acting with too much haste just yet.”

Beau was still
too dizzy to argue. The pain was fading, or she was starting to
control it better, and she could hear men shouting and footsteps
hurrying along the corridor. A few seconds later, Geoffrey Pitt
burst into the cabin.

“
Billy
said there were shots. He said the
captain
was dead, and I just assumed … Christ Jesus! He
doesn’t have a head.”

“
He lost
it in a moment of carelessness,” Dante said dryly. He adjusted
Beau’s weight in his arms and rose unaided to his feet “I was about
to take Beau back to the
Egret
.”

Pitt stared at
all the blood. “Is she all right?”

“She will be;
it’s just a scratch.” He paused and Beau could feel the strong
cords in his neck shift as he looked down. “Damn little fool threw
herself in front of a shot meant for me.”

“Damn little
fool,” Pitt agreed, tucking his pistol back into his belt. “Saved
your life, did she?”

Dante scowled.
“Did you manage to find the duchess?”

Pitt nodded.
“She’s hardly more than a child and terrified half out of her wits.
She has two maids with her and a draconian matron, but … I would
not want to see her frightened more than she is already.
Unfortunately, there was only Lucifer and Billy to leave with them,
so if you have everything under control here—which it seems you
do—I would like to get back.”

“
When you
do”—Dante tilted his head to indicate the concealed cabinet—“have
Billy bring all of these papers over to the
Egret
.”

“Charts,” Beau
murmured.

“What?”

“Charts. Maps.
Have him search the pilot’s cabin”—she lifted her head again—” or
better yet, let me do it. A ship of this size and importance is
bound to have accurate charts of every current and shoal along the
Spanish coastline. If we are bound for war with Spain, the Queen’s
Navy might find such things invaluable.”

Dante stared
down at her, disgusted at himself for not having thought of it
first. “You are absolutely right … of course. But you’ll not be
searching for anything yet. At least not until you can walk a
steady line.”

“I can walk …
if you will put me down.”

“You think
so?”

“I know
so.”

He lowered her
feet without further comment, though he kept an arm circled loosely
around her waist.

Beau staggered
a moment before she found her balance. A bright stab of pain sent
her head on a wild spin, causing the walls, the floor, the
furnishings, to slide back and forth with sickening irregularity.
She put out a hand to steady her-self and it met with Dante’s
chest. Luckily, she’d had nothing to eat all day or there would
have been more than just her blood on the privateer’s shirt.

Dante grunted
and the next thing she knew she was scooped up into his arms again
and was being carried out the door and up into the daylight. A film
of thin clouds and lingering smoke was obscuring the sun, but there
were still two to three hours of natural light in which to work.
The deck of the galleon was swarming with activity and some of the
men stopped as Dante passed. Word had already spread through the
ranks concerning what had happened in the captain-general’s cabin
and several—including Spit McCutcheon— crowded the gangway to see
for themselves that Beau was not seriously harmed.

After
they crossed to the
Egret
by way of
a steeply canted bridge of long, wide planks, Dante took her
directly to her cabin. He sat her on the edge of the bed and,
seeing the look on her face, stripped out of his bloodied shirt and
donned another from the
meager
supply that had been salvaged from the
Virago.
He then fetched a basin of water and
bathed the red from Beau’s cheek and throat, dabbing gently at the
musket crease and reaffirming it to be hardly more than a
cut.

“Are you
certain you are not a physician?” she asked sardonically.

“No, but if you
keep on as you’re going,” he said, glancing down at her hand, which
was still bandaged from earlier in the day, “I may have to become
one.”

“I have been
eight months on this voyage without so much as a bee sting,” she
remarked crossly. “You come aboard and look what befalls me.”

“Look what
might have befallen you had the shot struck an inch to the left.
You would have lost an eye, mam’selle, and more than likely we
would have been denied the pleasure of your company for the journey
home.”

She made
the effort to raise her lashes, which she had kept firmly shut
while he bathed and dressed her wound. “If I hadn’t moved at all,
it would be
your
company we
would be despairing.”

“I won’t even
ask why you did it,” he murmured.

She bowed her
head. “Even if you did, I probably would not have an answer.”

“You know”—he
tucked a finger under her chin and tipped her face upward, struck
once again by the unsettling combination of tangle-haired urchin
and soft-lipped vixen—“if I were Moorish, you would now own my life
until such time as I could repay you in kind by saving you from
mortal danger.”

“You are not
Moorish,” she pointed out.

“No. But I find
myself in your debt nonetheless. And I always repay my debts.”

Beau smiled
crookedly. “Is that why you look like you have a mouthful of hot
peppers? Because you find yourself indebted to a mere woman for
saving your life?”

He released her
chin, thankful she interpreted his discomfort as harboring a
mouthful of hot peppers rather than a craving for something
else.

"
I do not
consider myself indebted to a woman,” he said carefully. “Did you
not say yourself—and most emphatically—that on board this ship you
were just a part of the crew, no more, no less?”

The outward
nature of Beau’s smile did not change, though inwardly she chided
herself for having almost fallen into the trap. Such concern. Such
solicitude. Fool that she was, she had almost succumbed to the
oozing charm, the easy smiles, the soft, husky timbre of his voice.
She had even almost succumbed to the heated lure of his body.
Cradled in those powerful arms with the beat of his heart just
beneath her hand, she had felt swamped by the heat and sheer
animalism of him. All the time he bathed her wound she could not
look up, could not move for the cool, prickling thrills that
showered through her body. Her belly had turned to mush and her
breasts had grown so taut and sensitive, the slightest breath
chafed them raw against her shirt.

“
You are
absolutely right, Captain,” she said evenly. “I should have said a
mere
lackey.
And as
such, you would therefore owe me nothing, since such action as I
took to save your life would have been expected of any loyal member
of a ship’s crew.”

He scowled.
“That wasn’t exactly what I meant.”

“But it is
exactly the truth.”

Dante’s
hands actually curled by his sides in an effort to supress the urge
to take her by the shoulders and shake her. He was saved by the
arrival of Billy Cuthbert, who came into the cabin with an armload
of papers and documents taken from the
San Pedro. A
young, strapping lad of eighteen years, he
seemed to possess unflagging strength and exuberance, neither of
which amused either Beau or Dante at that particular
moment.

“’Nother load
as big as this one,” he reckoned, “Then two or three trips to the
navigator’s cabin. Took me a quick look, I did, and blink me if
there ain’t a whole library o’ maps and charts to choose from.”

“Perhaps I
should go back with him,” Beau said, starting to climb down off the
bed, “He won’t know what to look for.”

“I will,” Dante
said, reaching out his hand to stop her. “If you’re up to it, and
you want to make yourself useful, go next door and calm your
father. He’s been hollering for attention the past hour, I’m told.
Or you might even try getting some rest; you were dead on your feet
two hours ago.”

“
I’ll
rest when you do, Captain,” she said firmly, “And when the rest of
the crew, equally dead on their feet, get a chance to close their
eyes. For now, yes, I will go to my father. I suppose he should be
told he has just killed the captain of the
San Pedro de Marcos.”
She took a few steps toward the
door, then halted and looked back. “May I ask you something before
I go?”