Across a Moonlit Sea (19 page)

“Would you care to try it again?”

Beau was startled. “Try what?”

“Making a fist with your hand.”

She curled her fingers over her palm and although the linen strips hampered her movements, there was definitely less pain.

“Better?”

She nodded mutely.

“Good enough to defend yourself if you have to?”

She nodded again, this time with a faint crease between her eyebrows. “Are you expecting treachery on board the Spaniard?”

“I always expect treachery. In this case I am almost sure of it. You may or may not have noticed, but the
San Pedro
is no ordinary treasure ship. I did not see it myself until we were fairly close, but look to the mizzen top—
merde
, it’s gone. Someone must have worked fast to remove it.”

“Remove what?”

“A small gold pennant, mounted on the mast just beneath the captain-general’s flag. It means a member of the King’s court is on board, probably acting as an ambassador, returning from the Indies or Panama.”

“Is that important?”

“It could be. Ambassadors carry papers, documents intended for the King’s eyes only.”

“I thought you already had documents; the ones you took from Veracruz.”

“They are important, and revealing to be sure, but easily interpreted as nothing more than export manifests. Royal communiqués, sealed for the King’s eyes only, would surely prove interesting reading to a queen’s eyes, especially if she was searching for ways to defend her country against an invasion.” He paused and seemed to debate something for a moment before he added, “And there might be another benefit to having a member of the royal family on board.”

“To ensure our safe passage to England?” Beau guessed.

Dante’s eyes kindled warmly. “You are going to have to stop doing that, you know.”

“Doing what?”

“Being so quick with your tongue and your wit.”

“You prefer a woman to be slow and dull?”

“Not at all. But perhaps just a little kinder to a … what was it now? An arrogant, ill-mannered French bull rogue?”

Beau’s eyes, which grew as large and bright as medallions, remained steadfast on Dante’s face as the heat rose up her neck, darkening the honeyed tan of her complexion. For the first time he noticed a fine spray of freckles glowing across the bridge of her nose.

“When I said that, I … did not know you were listening.”

“Would it have stopped you from saying it?”

She considered the smile he gave her before she smiled herself, openly and frankly. “No. Probably not.”

Her smile, and the total change it wrought in her face took him by surprise again. Beneath the grime and soot and blood smudging her skin and clothes, she still managed to look fresh and far too vulnerable to be so well acquainted with the stench and violence of battle. And those eyes, God love him. They would be his downfall yet. Sparkling like new-minted gold, lashed with strands of pure silk, they were infinitely more desirable to behold with pleasure creasing their corners rather than contempt or anger … and he was not altogether certain he liked this unsubtle shift in his perceptions. Despite Pitt’s advice he would feel much safer if he continued to regard her as a doublet-clad, knife-wielding hellion who fought any suggestion of an underlying softness.

He brushed the pad of his thumb gently over the cut on her lip, wiping off the small smear of blood, then took what he hoped was a casual step back.

“Spit is calling for the grappling lines,” he said, indicating the sudden flurry of hooks, ropes, and planks being readied by the Egret’s rails. “I guess it means we have ourselves a prize.”

Beau followed his gaze, startled to see they had come within hailing distance of the smoking Spaniard. She had left Billy Cuthbert at the helm and he was gently easing the Egret alongside the treasure ship, awed, no doubt, by the sheer size and towering magnitude of what they had accomplished.

“I should help Billy,” she began.

“Billy is doing fine. You should go below and try to restore some of that ferocity I so admired the first time I saw you.”

Beau followed his gaze again and saw where the tear in
her shirt had widened over the sleeveless gap, revealing more than a comfortable amount of soft, sloping flesh over her breast.

She caught up the torn flap and a second flood of heat darkened her skin but Dante was already moving away, descending the ladder to the main deck, looking every inch the pirate wolf with his sword and pistols glittering as he shouted orders for the men to stand ready by the lines.

 W
hen the two ships were within a dozen yards of each other the grappling lines were launched across the gap, the metal hooks biting into the rails and planking of the
San Pedro
, tethering the galleons together. Most of the fires on board the Spaniard had been doused, but there were still clouds of hissing steam and smoke rising from the debris on deck. The Spanish officers were clustered below the forecastle, rigid in their humiliation. Spit McCutcheon and his men had herded all the able-bodied seamen and soldiers together in the stern and were keeping watchful, wary eyes on them as well as on the large pile of weaponry—swords, muskets, pikes, and arquebuses that had been collected on the main deck.

The captain-general identified himself with suitable pomp as Don Alonzo de Valdez, a Knight of Santiago, Marquis of Niebla, twelfth Señor and fifth Marquis of Moncada. He had spent the last four years in the service of his most revered king, Philip II of Spain, and it was, he declared in a high-pitched voice, trembling with outrage, a blatant act of piracy to have attacked them. Moreover, it
was an overt act of war against a country whose king was, at that very moment, engaged in serious negotiations with England’s monarch for a lasting peace.

Dante de Tourville claimed formal possession of the prize ship. He ignored Moncada’s initial outburst and strode purposefully onto the main deck, his eyes moving intently side to side, bow to stern, absorbing everything from the smashed superstructures to the torn and sagging rigging.

Geoffrey Pitt, Beau Spence, and a large complement of smartly armed men flanked Dante as he assessed the extent of damages to the galleon, all of them trying to look as nonchalant as their ebony-haired leader, but none quite managing to keep his excitement in check. Dante was no stranger to laying claim to captured vessels, but for most of the crew of the Egret, this was their first foray onto the deck of a surrendered Spanish treasure ship.

If the
Egret
had seemed dwarfed beside the huge, castellated monster, her crew members felt like urchins stumbling uninvited into a rich man’s drawing room. The rails around the decks, the trim scrolled around the bulkheads, the lavish designs that formed the molding around the doors, hatchways, and portals, were coated in gold leaf. The whole of her high stern, the panels and rails of the quarter galleries, were a solid mass of beautiful carving, all of it painted crimson and gold and resembling a church tabernacle. Remnants of a large silk canopy hung over the fore-deck with shreds of the exquisitely embroidered fabric snagged around the golden crowns that surmounted the two enormous stern lanterns.

Equally impressive in appearance were the Spanish officers, garbed in silver breastplates worn over velvet doublets and slashed satin balloon breeches. There were twenty in all, ranging in age and stature from the captain-general to his adjutants,
obviously all wealthy hidalgos unaccustomed to defeat at any level, let alone at the hands of English heretics. Half a dozen priests swathed in red robes and capes stood in a cluster behind their captain-general, their hands clasped around ivory crucifixes, their eyes blazing with religious fervor. Standing in the rear, lowest in rank, was the captain in charge of the sailors. His helmet was gone, leaving his hair standing upright in sweaty spikes; his plain white shirt was stained from the filth of battle, his breastplate dented and dulled by smoke. He kept his eyes focused straight ahead, fixed on some nameless point on the horizon, refusing to so much as acknowledge the presence of the tall privateer on his gundeck.

Deciding it was too big an audience, Dante removed himself and Lucifer, along with Beau, Pitt, and McCutcheon to the massive great cabin of the
San Pedro
, inviting Moncada and two of his officers to join them there and vent any complaints he might have.

For an hour the incensed captain-general vented.

Dante de Tourville, sitting in the shambles of the great cabin, propped his long legs on the grandly carved oak desk and steepled his hands together under his chin. He listened to Moncada’s shrill denuciations, barely interrupting except to signal Spit to pour more wine. Spit had found several jewel-encrusted goblets in the debris that littered the cabin, and a tall flagon of Madeira wine, which he both served and drank enthusiastically at each crook of Dante’s long, tapered finger.

Pitt, who as usual had managed to set aside his motion sickness during the heat of battle, lounged against a wall of the cabin, his arms folded across his chest as much to help keep his stomach in place as to try to appear casual. Beau, on the other hand, appeared to be vastly amused watching Dante deflect the flecks of spittle and acid vitriol
that flew from Moncada’s lips. She knew her father would not have handled the situation half so well, for Jonas Spence was man of flamboyant blasphemies and great courage, but he was no diplomat. He was quite happy to take what he wanted at the end of a sword, but close him into a room with too many words and he grew impatient with his own shortcomings.

Lucifer hung back in the shadows of the doorway, his eyes fixed on the three Spaniards, the coal-black centers burning like brands. Every now and then he would caress the silver hilts of his scimitars, earning stares and nervous twitches from the two hidalgos.

Their leader, the fifth Marquis of Moncada, was a rotund strut of a man with a face like a boil of dough stretched too thin over spidery red veins. He had small, dark eyes set so close together, they seemed to touch at the bridge, and he had made a feeble attempt to hide a weak chin under an abram beard trimmed to a perfect point. He spoke in faultless, unbroken English, a deliberate counterpoint to Dante’s initial address delivered in equally flawless Castilian.

The two other officers were, by contrast, tall and lean, handsome men with short, curly hair and liquid brown eyes that flicked nervously from face to face.

“Blatant piracy!” Moncada was screaming. “And at a time when you English should be doing everything in your power to convince my king and country you are not ruled by thieves and bloodthirsty heretics.”

“Bloodthirsty,” Dante mused, speaking more out of boredom than a need to defend anyone’s habits. “An interesting turn of phrase coming from a people who advocate the use of torture and mutilation in the name of their faith.”

“The devil can be a difficult entity to eradicate, and his stain must be scorched off the face of the earth, as must
all heretics who worship him! Like you, señor,” he added, lashing the air with an accusing finger. “¡
Picarón!”

“Me?” A pirate, señor? I am but a humble merchant trying to go about my lawful trade.”

Moncada snarled and leaned forward, slamming his fist on the desk. “You attacked my ship without cause!”

Lucifer bared his filed teeth and started forward with a growl, but Dante stopped him, then spread his hands in a gesture of innocence. “If you will recall, señor, you fired the first shot. We were only defending ourselves.”

“Defending?
Defending?”

“Aye, and now we intend only to take a fair measure of compensation for our trouble and for the damage your guns have wrought on our ship. We sail these waters with no intent to commit acts of war. You can see for yourself, we travel with women”—he waved a hand airily in Beau’s direction—“and old men.”

Spit McCutcheon gave a toothless smile on cue. It was enough to send another flush of red fury spreading down Moncada’s face and throat, and another spray of venom across the desk.

“You do not fight like simple merchants! Nor do you
look
like a simple merchant, señor. You give your name as Jonas Spence and you may believe that I will remember it. I will remember your name, your face, your ship, and I will pray hourly for the pleasure of crossing your path again one day!”

“The pleasure will be all mine,” Dante assured him. “For now, however, you may please us all by giving my quartermaster a copy of your cargo manifests so that he might be saved the trouble of having to search the entire ship plank by plank.”

Moncada glared at McCutcheon. “Rot in hell, señor. And you may trouble yourself until that hell freezes, for we
will none of us lift a finger to assist you in this profane act of thievery.”

Spit scratched at his jaw and curled his lips at the corners. “Well, now, I’m pricked to have to disappoint ye, but I won’t be rottin’ anywheres just yet. I already seen me a storeroom bulgin’ with bales o’ spices; another filled with wood crates heavy as a whore’s arse an’ stamped with the mint seal o’ the governor o’ Mexico. Onliest thing profane is our holds might not be big enough to carry it all away. We’ll surely try, o’ course, Cap’n,” he added, winking at Dante. “We’ll surely try.”