Pirate Wolf Trilogy (84 page)

Two men with
swords were fighting up on the dune, and as Van Neuk watched, one
of them—his own crewman set there to warn of any unexpected
company—screamed and fell, clutching his belly with his hands. The
swordsman whirled and came running down the beach, sending up clods
of sand behind him. Two more Dutch crewmen drew cutlasses and
charged to meet him, but a stab and a slash sent them screaming
onto the sand.

Anders growled
and barked an order. The boot shifted off Juliet’s hair and she was
able to raise her head in time to see Varian St. Clare meet his new
attacker with a fierce display of cuts and strokes that sent the
man’s weapon flying up in the air. Varian caught it and brought
both blades slicing down across his opponent’s neck, nearly
severing the head from the shoulders.

Three more of
the men holding Juliet leaped to their feet and ran into the fray.
Juliet was able to make a grab for the knife Anders still held
poised over her crotch. She caught his wrist and twisted it back,
thrusting it upward toward his chin. He reacted, but too slowly to
deflect the aim, and, willing every ounce of strength into her
fists, she jammed the knife up and in, feeling it cut through
cartilage and bone, splitting the windpipe and scraping all the way
to the back of his skull.

Van Neuk’s eyes
bulged. He clawed at her hand, trying to drag the knife out of his
throat, but it was lodged too deep in his brain and he was already
dying. Juliet rolled out from beneath him as he pitched forward
onto the ground. She sprang to her feet and ran for her swordbelt,
drawing her blade, twirling in a spray of sand to meet the two men
who were hurdling around the rocks and coming after her. Her rage
was at such a peak, that she pierced the first man straight through
the chest, punching the blade clean through his spine and out the
back of his doublet.

The second
brute managed a swipe with his blade before she dropped him, and
when she whirled to find a new threat, the two shadows that had
hung back against the rocks, scrambled up the dunes and were
swallowed into the night shadows.

“Are you all
right?” Varian ran over, wiping spatters of blood off his face.

For a moment
she was too furious to answer. Furious at herself, furious at
Anders Van Neuk, furious at all mankind.

“Juliet—?”

“
Leave me
alone! Just...
leave me alone
!”
She started to walk back down the beach, but stopped after only a
few steps and stood there panting, staring at the lights in the
distance. After all the talk, all the bravado, all the displays of
skill and strength to prove she was the equal to any man, a bastard
with a penis could still have taken it all away from
her.

When she could
trust herself to speak again, she turned and looked at Varian.

“Where did you
come from? How did you know where to find me?”

“
I saw
you slip out of the tent, then I saw the Dutchman leave right
after. I thought, by the look on his face, he was up to no good, so
I made some excuse and followed. Are you all right? Did
he...
hurt
you?”

She followed
his gaze down. The one leg of her breeches was split and hanging
from her thigh like a skirt, and where her thigh showed through, it
was smeared with blood.

“
The
bastard cut me. Other than that... no, I’m not
hurt
. I would not have let him
hurt
me either, so if you’re standing there waiting for
me to thank you for saving me from being
raped
, you will have a long wait.”

She brushed
past him and leaned over the body of the Dutchman. There was no
question he was dead. His eyes were wide, glazed, staring at the
huge dark stain that had spilled beneath him in the sand, his hands
were still frozen around the hilt of the knife protruding from his
throat.

“He’s lucky he
died so easily,” she muttered. She glanced around at the other
bodies sprawled in the sand and pointed at one of the smaller ones.
“That one will do. Help me get his breeches off.”

A few minutes
later, Juliet was lacing herself into the dead man’s garment. She
was cold, suddenly, and thankful for the warmth of her doublet.
Gathering up her belts and hat, she started back down the beach,
but once again she stopped and retraced her steps. With Varian
watching, she dragged the half naked body over beside that of
Anders Van Neuk. She arranged it face down with the buttocks in the
air, then took her knife and sliced the other leg of her discarded
breeches, leaving them clutched in the Dutchman’s bejewelled
hand.

“Let whoever
finds them think he died buggering one of his own men,” she
spat.

After scuffing
any telltale tracks she had made in the sand, she led the way back
toward the lighted end of the harbor, saying very little until they
drew near the long row of beached longboats.

“I would
appreciate it if you did not mention this to my father. I think he
was counting on the bastard’s support.”

“What about the
men who escaped? Will they not tell a different tale than the one
down on the beach?”

Juliet
offered up a crooked smile. “I will be surprised if the
Dove
is still in the harbor come
morning. If it is, then a new captain will have already assumed
command, one who will not care how he came by his captaincy, only
that he was saved the trouble of taking it himself. Murder is a
natural means of attrition in this line of business.” She tossed
her hat into the first jolly boat they came to and shoved the keel
into the water.

“Where are you
going?”

“
Back to
the
Rose
.”

“I’ll come with
you,” he said, following her into the surf.

“
No
! I mean...
no, I would rather you didn’t. Besides, you might be needed
here.”

He tucked a
finger under her chin, tipping her face up to his. She tried to
flinch back but he caught her by the shoulders and made her look at
him.

“Will you not
allow me even one small illusion, madam? That you might need me
just a little more tonight?”

She looked into
his eyes without answering, without moving. His thumb caressed her
chin for a moment, sensing another rejection in the tremor he felt
there, but when his hand started to drop, she caught it, stopping
him before he could turn away.

“Actually... I
might need your help. Just a little.”

She swayed and
started to slump forward. Varian caught her under the arms and when
he lifted her, he felt where her breeches were soaked with blood
along her thigh.

“The bastard
cut me,” she whispered again. The words, muffled against his
throat, trailed away as her body went limp and her head fell back
over his arm.

CHAPTER
NINETEEN

“I do not
faint. I have never fainted in my life.”

“All right. We
will say that you lost so much blood, it was a wonder you lived to
draw another breath.”

Juliet’s eyes
narrowed. “We will say nothing at all, sirrah. And look you here—”
she pointed to the cut on her thigh which, although far from being
a scratch, had certainly not been life-threatening. “Half an inch
deeper and it might, indeed, have pierced the main vein.”

Varian obeyed
and looked, trying not to smile at her sulk. The cut was as long as
his hand and had bled profusely, but the edges were sealing without
the need of stitches. There was a smaller slash further down her
leg and two deeper ones near her ankle where the Dutchman’s knife
had taken several stabs at catching the bottom of her breeches. He
suspected the latter would cause the most discomfort when she tried
to put her boots on.

Varian leaned
over and kissed her thigh, and from there, it was only a matter of
turning his head before he was kissing her somewhere else equally
pink and tender.

The berth, they
had discovered, was far too narrow for the two of them to occupy
with any comfort and so they had ended up dragging the thin
mattress onto the floor. Varian had spent the night simply holding
her, for once they were back on board and he had helped strip away
the bloody breeches, her bravura had finally failed her and she had
begun shaking like a leaf.

The sight had
struck him like a physical blow. She was always so sure of herself,
so much in control, in command of her emotions that the sight of
something so utterly female, so impossibly human made him want to
slay dragons for her for the rest of his life.

He had bathed
the blood from her thigh, tucked her into a clean new shirt and sat
on the chair cradling her in his arms all night.

She sighed and
nestled her head against his shoulder. “I just heard the watch bell
and the sky is growing lighter. Johnny Boy will be knocking on the
door soon to bring me my biscuits and cheese, while your man Beacom
will be ringing his hands, convinced we have slit your throat and
buried you in a sand dune.”

“Beacom is
learning to adapt quite well to my long absences.”

She sat forward
and stared into his eyes a moment before she kissed him. There was
nothing provocative or seductive about it. It was just a kiss, a
coming together of lips and breaths, the touching of flesh to
flesh; nevertheless the contact produced a ripple of pleasure
through both of them.

“Thank you,”
she whispered.

“For what?”

“For last
night. For being on the beach, for bringing me back to the ship and
tending my wounds.”

“Believe me,”
he murmured, “it was my very great pleasure to rescue you. And of
no lesser consequence to discover you are human after all.”

“You had reason
to doubt it?”

“Reason? Do you
have any idea what wealthy young noblewomen your age are doing at
the moment in England?”

“I can only
guess,” she said, venting an elaborate sigh. “Embroidering
monograms on linens? Anguishing over which frock to wear for
dinner? Which of the Bard’s plays to attend?”

“For a
certainty they are not planning how to attack a Spanish fleet. And
had they been assaulted by a brute like Van Neuk, chances are they
would have remained in shock the rest of their lives. Good God,
Juliet. You are the captain of a fighting ship. You wear breeches
and boots and sing sea chanties with pirates until the sun comes
up. You sleep an hour a night, if that. You wield a sword like a
demon fairy and you have a ship full of sailors hanging off your
every word and command. Look, for pity’s sake, what you have made
of me in less than a fortnight. You have me carrying false papers,
bearing false witness, committing acts of treason and sedition, not
to mention corrupting poor Lieutenant Beck into following suit. You
have me sleeping on wooden floors and enjoying it as if it were a
feather bed! In truth, if there were any more women like you in
these Caribbean Isles, I would worry for the safety of all
God-fearing men who trespass here.”

Her face
tightened a moment before she wriggled off his lap. She searched
around the clutter of papers on the desk a moment to locate tinder
and flint, then lit a candle.

Varian stood to
stretch his legs, wincing as he straightened the knuckles down his
spine. He flexed his arms and raked his fingers through his hair,
then wandered out onto the gallery.

Night was
receding as if some giant hand were drawing back the blankets. A
thin band along the eastern horizon was pink and gold and pewter
gray, the colors changing almost moment to moment as the sun rose
higher toward the sea. There were still torches and bonfires
visible on the crescent of the shoreline. The breeze was cool, but
laden with the threat of tropical heat, and it brought the smell of
woodsmoke, of cookfires, of sand and salt and fish over the harbor.
Most of the ships riding at anchor had huge lamps burning on their
upper decks and Varian could see the silhouettes of tiny figures in
the various stages of changing watches.

There were so
many men, yet they entrusted their fates to so few. Did they ever
question the decisions of their captains? Were they ever apprised
of the incredible odds standing against them before they embarked
on a venture such as the one they were about to undertake?

In theory the
main thrust of the plan Simon Dante had fomented with the various
captains sounded straightforward enough. Each privateer should try
to capture at least one enemy ship. Thirty-seven privateers would
reduce the size of the fleet by almost half—an impressive
postulation until one remembered there would be Spanish warships in
the convoy that had anywhere from forty to sixty guns in their
batteries. Some of the smaller privateers mounted but ten or twelve
and would have to band together if they were to present any kind of
a threat.

The
Argus
had
mounted ten guns, most of which had been silenced after the first
Spanish broadside.

Varian’s
thoughts were dragged unwittingly back to the heat of battle, to
the noise, the fires, the cannon blasting, the men fighting like
demons with no apparent order or purpose other than to kill the
enemy. It had all seemed like so much lethal chaos, yet he must
admit—if only to himself—that it had been thrilling. Exhilarating,
even. As if he had bared his breast to the Devil and come away
unscathed.

But that was
not quite true either, for he had become very scathed indeed. He
had allowed himself to be seduced by a sea witch, one who
encouraged him to relish the sensation of hot sun on his skin, the
sweat of hard labor on his brow. He had killed those men last night
without hesitation, the lust for blood almost as potent as the lust
he was feeling now to spread his hands wide and catch the wind.