Pirate Wolf Trilogy (25 page)

“Harvests and
such?” Jonas guessed, wanting back into the conversation.

Dante
nodded. “I’ve a dozen like this in the papers we took from Vera
Cruz, and there are twice as many more on the San
Pedro.
I had nothing much to do while
we drifted at sea for two weeks, so most of mine are translated. If
there is a code there, I have not found it yet. A fresh pair of
eyes might help, though, if you had someone on board who could read
Spanish and perhaps see something I missed.”

“Spit,” Beau
said.

Dante’s dark
head came around again with a frown. “I fail to see how that would
help.”

“Spit
McCutcheon,” she explained on an exasperated sigh. “He reads and
writes Spanish. Latin as well. He was a church cleric at one
time.”

“A minister of
the Lord?”

“Try his
patience sometime and you will have him spouting psalms.”

“From the
pulpit to a gunport is still an interesting leap for the
imagination to take.”

“So is the one
from a French chateau to the deck of a pirate ship.”

A smile was
startled into his eyes, and a moment later it turned into quiet
laughter, directed as much at himself as at anything she had
said.

“Touché,
mam’selle. Rarely have I been called a pompous goat with such
delicious finesse.”

Spence laughed
as well and clapped his hand to his thigh to call for another
toast. “Paintings be damned! Spain be damned! Philip an’ all his
blatherin’ papists be damned! Come here, the pair o’ ye, an’ take
my hand. Captain! Ye already know what I think o ‘yer skill on the
seas; there’s naught I could say to add to it, save that I was
honored to share a deck with ye today. An’, Beau! I’m not
forgettin’ I’ve got the finest damned helmsman a sailor could ever
want guidin’ the keel! I’m that proud o’ ye, Isabeau Daria Spence.
Proud enough to burst the heart clear out o’ my chest!”

Beau stared
stupidly at her hand as Spence took it and sandwiched it with
Dante’s between his own huge paws. She felt a thrill of
light-headedness and pride, being praised by the father she loved
above all else and toasted by a man who regularily scorned danger
and cast his destiny to the wind.

Her gaze
drifted upward to Dante de Tourville. He’d asked her what had
brought her to this point in her life, if she had any regrets that
she was not sitting by a hearth wearing silk frocks and sipping
chocolate out of tiny porcelain cups.

For the past
eight years she had been sipping life and living adventures those
safe at home could not even imagine. She’d had salt spray, not rice
powder, dusted on her cheeks, and instead of sitting cozy by a
fire, she had climbed to the top of the mainmast and gazed out
across a moonlit sea, standing close enough to the heavens to reach
out and snatch at a handful of stars. Was there anything anywhere
half as beautiful as a molten sea at sunrise or half as
intoxicating as the smell of a spice-laden breeze off a tropical
island? She had swum in the crystal-blue waters off Tortuga, and
she had chipped ice off a floe near Greenland. She had made friends
with Indians in the New World and enemies with gunners on board
Spanish galleons. She had shared the camaraderie and the danger,
the excitement as well as the fear.

And she had
been kissed, for whatever reason, by a pirate wolf who would not
have passed her a second look had she been sipping chocolate beside
the Queen.

A round of
laughter intruded on the magic of the moment and she realized, with
an odd sense of detachment, that Jonas was no longer holding her
hand in Dante’s; it was staying there of its own accord. The long,
tapered fingers were closed lightly around hers, cradling her in
the warmth of his palm, caressing her with an intimacy that sent a
fierce rush of heat spiraling through her body. Her breasts
blossomed with it, her belly shimmered with it, and her blood raced
until the heat became as intoxicating as the wine.

She was aware
Dante’s eyes had not left her face, but she resisted the compelling
urge to meet them. The penetrating silver-blue was always
dangerous, never more so than now as they challenged her to
acknowledge something he already suspected: that she wasn’t as
strong as she pretended to be, wasn’t as independent, as sure of
herself, as indifferent to the feelings she tried so hard to guard
against revealing. He could see that Spence’s praise had set her
emotions in a turmoil; was he wondering how deep and how far that
turmoil extended?

Beau withdrew
her hand and curled it tightly by her side. Jonas was offering
another toast to God knew what and calling for a fresh bottle of
wine.

“No more for
me,” she said quickly. “My head is already spinning in circles. I
think I will bid you both good-night.”

J
onas belched,
his nose red as paint, and tried to focus on Beau’s face. “Are the
watches set an’ armed? We’re twenty feet from an enemy ship an’
we’d not want to be caught with our cods open an’ our pissers
hangin’ out.”

It took a
second or two for Beau to redirect her thoughts, to concentrate on
something as practical as watches and the safety of the ship and
crew, but she was thankful for the cold, hard sense required to
form an answer. “Lewis has the deck until midnight, then Hubbard,
and Simmonds for the ghost watch, all with full crews.”

“Aye.” The bald
head wobbled slightly on its barrel neck. “Keen eyes on all o’
them. We can sleep sound tonight.”

She risked
another glance at Dante, but he had moved out of the circle of
light and had his back turned while he opened another bottle of
wine.

“Good night,
Captain Dante.”

“
Dormez-vous bien
, Isabeau,
et revez
du
plaisir.”

CHAPTER
FOURTEEN

Sleep well, he
had told her, and dream of pleasure. Beau closed the door to her
father’s cabin behind her and stood in the gloom of the
companionway, hearing the echo of Dante’s parting words in her
head. Dream of pleasure?

An innocent
phrase or another subtle mockery?

A round of male
laughter drew her eyes down to the narrow slice of light fanning
out from the crack beneath the door and she wondered what they
would be dreaming about this night. Probably the pleasure of going
to war with Spain.

While it
was true Sir Francis Drake and others had been warning the Queen
for many months of a building frenzy in Spanish ports, it was also
true—and the dilemma of any sovereign who did not want to venture
into a war unless all avenues of negotiation were exhausted—that
Elizabeth could not squander the money of her overtaxed subjects to
build a navy on rumor and speculation alone. If Dante had found
proof of Spain’s intentions, then war was inevitable and the Queen
would need all of her loyal merchantmen and privateers to defend
England’s shores from invasion. That included the
Egret
, and the
sooner home, the better.

Beau looked
along the corridor to her own door. There was another weak sliver
of light spilling out the bottom, and she supposed Billy had
transferred the rest of the maps and charts from the Spanish
galleon. She needed her own charts for the morning and it was
probably best to find them now instead of stumbling about with a
thick head at dawn.

It seemed odd
somehow to hesitate on the threshold of her own cabin, to feel like
a trespasser when most of the belongings inside were hers. Perhaps
it was just the sight of the shirt Dante had cast off earlier,
still crumpled in a heap in the corner, or the faint scent of
sunshine and leather that lingered behind, that was making her
skittish. Even more likely, she could blame the wine and the talk
of itching and scratching for making her skin prickle and her
throat aware of every breath she took.

A single candle
flickered inside its glass lamp on the chart table. There was
brighter moonlight streaming through the slanted windows, and drawn
by the thought of a fresh breath of air, she crossed to the gallery
door and slipped outside onto the narrow balcony.

To
starboard the looming hull of the
San Pedro
blocked the horizon. The
Egret
was anchored off her stern quarter, riding lightly
on the gentle swells, kept at a secure distance by the grappling
lines. She could hear banging and sawing on the decks above; she
could smell pitch and smoke and the metallic scent of spent
gunpowder. She would have liked to cross the gallery and have a
closer look at the humbled goliath anchored beside them, but to do
so she would have to pass the windows on Spence’s side of the ship
and unless she ducked down like a thief, they would think she was
spying on them.

She
walked instead to the larboard side, where the moon glistened close
to the horizon and poured a molten river of rippling silver toward
the
Egret
. An
earlier mass of clouds scudded away to the east, glowing blue-white
on their underbellies. The brightness of the moon had washed most
of the smaller stars out of the sky, but there were enough winking
in the darkness to bring Beau’s elbows down on the rail and her
chin into the cradle of her hands.

Would she
rather have rigid buckram corsets and wire farthingales? Or
crow-faced matrons telling her how to wear her hair or chiding her
if a freckle appeared on her nose? Not likely.

A frown brought
her chin up again and she pulled the bunched linen strips off her
hand. The palm was still tender, but luckily she’d had enough
calluses to absorb the worst of the rope burns. And probably enough
wine to dull whatever sensations were left.

She tossed the
bandages overboard and, on a further restless urging, unplaited her
hair from the constricting tightness of the braid. Careful not to
waken the crease on her temple, she gave her scalp a few good
scratches, easing the tension a hundredfold. She stared down at the
inky blackness of the water twenty feet below and wished she’d
found time earlier for more than just a perfunctory wash to rid
herself of the heat and grime of battle. A long, slow, hot bath
would be comparable to heaven right now. A hot bath, an oiled rub,
and a soft, deep featherbed.

Beau’s head
jerked upright and her eyes popped open. She had a hammock in a
sail closet waiting for her. Moving reluctantly away from the rail,
she started back for the door.

She was not
quite there when she saw movement inside the cabin and froze. Simon
Dante was closing the outer door to the companionway; a heartbeat
later he was putting toe to heel and scraping off his boots,
kicking them aside with the relish of a man unhappy with
restrictions of any kind. The thongs on his shirt were already
loose and dangling. In less time than it took for a gasp to leave
Beau’s lips, his belt was unfastened and flung to the floor and the
black silk shirt was pulled up and over his head.

Shocked and too
stricken to move, she watched him extend his arms wide and give a
mighty yawn. He clasped his hands behind his neck and stretched the
bulging biceps, then bent his torso from one side to the other, his
muscles rippling in the candlelight, his hair falling in waves over
each shoulder as he moved. Unlacing his hands, he reached straight
up, easily curling them over the top of a ceiling beam. He arched
forward, stretching his chest and belly, then back until he was
clinging by his fingertips and balancing on his heels.

The wound on
Beau’s temple throbbed once with the sudden rush of blood to her
head. Her cheeks were burning, her throat was dry, and she tried
frantically to think of a way to escape the gallery without being
seen.

She turned her
head ever so slightly, knowing the moonlight was behind her,
outlining her silhouette. When she looked back again, he was
bending over his sea chest, fishing out a stoppered bottle. He
opened it with his teeth and poured some of its contents into his
hand; a few seconds later, the strong scent of camphor oil drifted
out the door.

Beau could not
have moved if she’d wanted to. She watched him rub a gleaming film
of oil into the powerful display of muscles along his arms,
massaging it into the squared bulk of his shoulders, his neck, into
his ribs and chest, and as far around on his back as he could
reach. She watched him knead each muscle and work each sinew and by
the time he was finished, standing in the light like a burnished
war god, Beau’s limbs were weak. Her belly was a moving, liquid
mass of heat. Her own skin, she could swear, had shrunk two sizes
too small and threatened to burst at the slightest movement.

A fresh,
sharp whiff of camphor restored a measure of her senses. She
had
to get off the gallery—but how?
There was only one door leading inside and even if she could muster
the nerve to walk boldly through it, what possible explanation
could she give for having waited so long to do it?

There were more
than enough hand and footholds to climb to the upper deck, and it
was the mistake she made, lifting her head to locate the first
carved groove, that alerted Dante to the dark outline of an
intruder on the gallery.

Beau had the
advantage of the candlelight to show her the startled look on his
face as he spied her through the diamond grid of the windowpanes.
He had the advantage of long legs and quick reflexes to carry him
through the door and out onto the narrow gallery before she could
put a foot to the rails and reach for the first handhold.

Strong hands,
rough hands, grabbed her around the middle and dragged her back,
slamming her hard against the canted hull of the ship.