Across a Moonlit Sea (4 page)

“As close as I can reckon,” said the stranger, running a dry tongue across drier lips as he watched the pipes being distributed among the men. “And rough? It has been hell, sir.”

Beau unslung the two water pipes she carried and handed one to a grateful sailor. The second, she held until she sliced away the wax seal with her dagger, then put it into the blond man’s shaking hands. His eyes, she noted, were the color of jade, narrowed against the painful glare of sunlight. They bore dark, purplish circles of fatigue beneath and his mouth, like that of his leader, looked dry and cracked from thirst.

He was the only other one, aside from the Cimaroon, not dressed in the long breeches and rough canvas shirts of the common tars. His shirt, beneath the heavy soiling, was made of fine linen, his hose were woven, not sewn, from unseamed wool. His hands, though strongly shaped, had not worked a lifetime on ratlines or canvas sheets, and the boots he wore were cut in the Spanish style, molded snug to the calf with a folded leather cuff. Moreover, he had the distinct walk of a landlubber, not the easy, rolling stride of a man accustomed to holding his balance in stormy seas.

Not like the other one, the dark-haired one. He was every inch the seafaring villain, from the square, jutting jaw, to the well-developed arms and upper torso that suggested his preferred place in battle would be feeding thirty-pound iron balls into the snouts of the bronze monsters that crouched along either side of the gundeck. His face was all planes and angles, dominated by a straight nose and a firm, uncompromising mouth. It was not a face that betrayed
emotion too readily or parted with trust too often. Pale, humorless, cold, his eyes had not stopped moving, assessing each man in Spence’s group, starting with the burly captain himself and ending with the prunelike visage of Spit McCutcheon. None appeared to have raised any hackles, yet he had not set aside his muskets. He lowered one, to avail himself of a long, deep swallow of water, but he kept the second tucked under his arm, his forefinger resting a twitch away from the trigger.

He murmured something to the tawny-haired fellow, who nodded and grinned at Spence with the ease and charm of a courtier.

“Your ship, Captain Spence. She looks to be sound and steady. A welcome sight, you may believe.”

Spence swelled his chest. “Aye, she’s a sound beauty, all right. Eight months we’ve been at sea an’ only hauled over once for a scrapin’.”

“You met with no trouble from the Spaniards?”

“We looked for none. As I said, we’re honest merchants goin’ about honest business. Honest enough to share our names as well as our water,” he added, glancing pointedly at the shadowy figure against the bulkhead.

“You are absolutely right, Captain Spence,” said the blonde, hastily stepping forward into the sunlight again. “We have been unconscionably rude.” He thrust out his hand. “My name is Pitt. Geoffrey Pitt. Honored to make your acquaintance. And you truly do have to forgive Captain Dante his manners, not that he ever had any great excess to boast in the first place.”

“Dante?” Spence’s fiery eyebrows speared together over the bridge of his nose. “Not …
Simon
Dante?”

Geoffrey Pitt attempted to look surprised. “You have heard the name before?”

“Heard the name?” Spit McCutcheon echoed the question
with a slackened jaw. “Christ Jesus on a stick … is there a warm-blooded man on either side o’ the Ocean Sea who has not heard the name o’ Simon Dante? As a fact, where we just come from down in the Caribbee, we were told half the bloody Spanish fleet was out scourin’ the Indies for him—that’s why we were able to slip in an’ out again without drawin’ too much notice.”

“Well, as you can see,” Pitt acknowledged with a little too much strain behind his smile, “they found us.”

Spence turned on the stump of his wooden heel, his eyes widened out of their creases as he surveyed the wreckage strewn about them. “Then this—this is the
Virago?”

He did not attempt to keep the awe out of his voice. Nor should he if this was, indeed, the infamous privateering vessel that had—if the reports they heard were to be believed—sailed right into the harbor at Veracruz, only the most heavily fortified stronghold in the Spanish Main, and looted hundreds of thousands of ducats’ worth of King Philip’s gold right out of the royal treasure house.

A second spin had Spence staring up the topmast at the ragged flags that still hung limp against a windless sky.

“It wasn’t a stag or a goat, ye block-brain,” he hissed at McCutcheon. “‘Twas a wolfhound. A crimson wolfhound an’ a blue fleur-de-lis on a black field: the arms o’ Simon Dante, Comte de Tourville.”

Even Beau was markedly impressed as she stared, along with the other members of their boarding party, at the saturnine features of Dante de Tourville. The Spanish called him
pirata lobo
—the pirate wolf—because of his cunning and prowess at stalking and cutting the richest ships out of the plate fleet. The English called him a rake and a hero, often whispering his name louder than those who sailed in the company of the vaunted sea hawks Sir Francis Drake, John Hawkyns, and Martin Frobisher. It was
also rumored that while the Queen called him “that bloody Frenchman” in public, in the privacy of her chambers she called him something very different indeed. A genuine titled nobleman, he was French by birth, half English by blood, and reputed to be all larceny by nature.

Which was possibly why Beau felt some vague uneasiness at the way he continued to hang back in the shadows. Certainly, if he had been hunted and attacked by the Spanish he had every right to be cautious, even wary of strangers boarding his ship. But once those strangers had identifed themselves as allies, should he not have regarded them with more friendship than animosity? After all, his ship was sinking. The horizon, now that the morning fog had completely burned away, was clear in all directions, meaning the Egret was their only means of salvation unless they all intended to go down with their ship.

As if on cue, the
Virago
gave a deep-bellied groan and took a noticeable swoop to starboard. Something in her holds must have given way, for there was the sound of cracking timbers and water rushing through a breach in the hull, and she took a moment to steady herself as her weight settled again.

“We took the men off the pumps,” Pitt explained, looking worriedly toward the bulkhead. “We were not entirely sure what
we
would be facing when you rowed over. Perhaps we should put them back?”

A nod from Dante sent a dozen men scrambling below and brought Spence’s fiery red eyebrows crushing together again.

“Ye can’t be thinkin’ ye can keep her afloat much longer? The first ripe gust o’ wind will push her over.”

“Hopefully, we can buy a little time,” Pitt said, then abruptly changed the subject. “Your guns, Captain Spence. They appear to be eighteen pounders.”

“Aye,” he said slowly. “Culverins. The rest are fivers— sakers an’ minions.”

“An odd question to ask when your ship is sinking,” Beau murmured out of the side of her mouth. McCutcheon, to whom the comment was directed, only frowned and
whished
her to silence.

“And your holds—full or empty?” Pitt forestalled the objection to such a prying question by raising his hand. “I ask only in order to determine if your ship can bear any more weight. Several tons’ worth, to be exact.”

“Several tons?” Spence’s startled gaze went from Pitt to Dante. “So it wasn’t just a tall tale. Ye really did it? Ye really raided the treasure depot at Veracruz?”

“Aye, we did it,” said the Comte de Tourville, emerging into the harsher light for the first time. His hair gleamed blue-black under the sun and there were fat slicks of moisture streaking his temples and throat, sure signs he was suffering from more than just a parched throat and an empty belly. The cause of his discomfort became clearer each time he put his weight on his left leg. His hose, from the knee down, was split, the calf beneath was wrapped in filthy strips of bandaging. And the reason he had not set the second musket aside was because he used it for a crutch. “Have you a winch and cables on board?”

“Oh aye. Aye,” Spence said, striving to supress his excitement. “Cables thick as my arm an’ a winch stout enough to lift a brace of oxen.”

Visions of crates full of gold and silver bars sent a visceral thrill through the members of the boarding party, for surely the grateful Frenchman would offer to compensate Spence for his troubles. As spry as she was and as bold a captain they had at the helm, the Egret had been plagued with nothing but foul luck on this voyage. Two months into the venture a storm had forced them into Tortuga,
where most of their trade goods had been confiscated by greedy port officials. They had some barrels of rum and bales of spices, but it would barely bring enough in Plymouth to cover the cost of the expedition.

Spence’s thoughts had taken a similar turn and were abuzz with so many possibilities, he almost did not hear what Dante said next.

“It isn’t gold we’ll be transferring, Captain Spence. It’s guns.”

“Eh? Guns, did ye say?”

Dante nodded. “A commodity far more valuable than gold these days and as you have already noted, we have a pretty arsenal on board the
Virago.
I may be able to do nothing to save my ship, but I sure as hell can save the guns to use again another day.”

Spence looked again at the monstrous bronze demi-cannon. They were surely beauties, with scrolled snouts and great winged eagles molded onto the barrels; worth a small fortune to anyone whose intent was not honest trade. “But … what of the gold ye took from Veracruz?”

“We have already been relieved of that burden,” said the pirate wolf, his voice rusty with the same anger that kindled in his eyes. “But I promise you, the guns are far more valuable. They are unique, in fact, cast in the royal foundry at Marseilles. Mr. Pitt assures me, if your beams are sound, you can take the weight. Your Egret is what … one hundred and eighty tons, thereabout?”

Spence nodded mutely.

“The
Virago
is one-sixty and she bore up with no complaint. It is well worth the risk,” he added, grinding his teeth against a surge of impatience. “These demi-cannon fire thirty pounds four hundred yards, with enough power behind them to blast any ship clear out of the water.”

“Any ship except the one that found you,” Beau remarked
under her breath. Spit glared at her again, but he was too late.

The startlingly piercing eyes located the source of the whispered sarcasm and Beau felt the tiny hairs across the back of her neck ripple to attention. He walked toward her, pushing past the coughing McCutcheon, whose attempt to camouflage what she had said went for naught.

He came right up and stood in front of her, close enough for the menacing heat that radiated off the masses of muscle and brawn to have melted any man’s courage.

“Did you say something to me, my boy?”

The gunmetal jaw was level with the top of Beau’s head and she had to square her shoulders and tilt her chin up to meet him squarely in the eye. It was a gesture her father knew all too well and she thought she heard him groan but could not be certain; the blood was suddenly pounding in her ears, too loudly for her to hear anything but the sound of her own heartbeat.

This close, she could not help but be awed by the sheer size and presence of the silvery-eyed sea hawk. His legs were long and thick with muscle, barely contained by the filthy woolen hose; his waist was lean, his belly-where it showed through the carelessly open V of his shirt—was flat and hard as a board. Chest and arms would have flattered a gladiator, with power flexing through every sweat-sheened sinew. His neck was a solid pillar, the jaw blunted somewhat under several weeks’ worth of bearding, but as imposing as the man himself, with a deep cleft shadowing the center point of his chin. His lashes were absurdly long for a man, black as ink, framing eyes that burned with equal measures of contempt and arrogance. Beau could feel herself tensing, her blood humming as it did in the hot, still moments before battle. She suspected he was singling her out for a reason, being the smallest and slightest among
the boarding party, wanting to establish his superiority from the outset.

“In the first place, I am not your boy,” she said evenly. “And what I said was, your invaluable guns did not appear to be all that effective against the Spaniards who found you.”

If it was possible for him to become any angrier, he did, and Beau would have reason later to remember the chilling fury that turned his eyes from silvery gray to a clear, crystalline blue. For the moment, however, all she could see were exploding starbursts. His hand had come up with the speed of a striking cobra, grabbing her under the chin and lifting, squeezing so tightly, the air was instantly and painfully cut off from her lungs. Only the tips of her toes touched the decking as he brought his face near enough to hers, she could feel the heat of his breath scorching her cheeks.

“For your information,
boy
, it was six ships, not one, that found us. We sank four on the spot and sent the other two limping off to perdition,
more
than
likely”
—he gave her two violent shakes to emphasize his words—“to sink before the night was out.”

Beau’s hands clawed at the vise clamped around her throat, but it was like trying to pry away bars of steel. She could barely see through the blackness clouding her eyes, could not think for the pain. She tried reaching for one of the guns at her waist, but the attempt was knocked aside. She tried kicking and scuffing him with her bootheels, but he parried her efforts with ridiculous ease.

Some of the crewmen from the Egret saw her predicament and started to surge forward, but they, too, were stopped cold when a large black shadow hurled itself over the forecastle rail and landed with a thunderous roar between Dante and the advancing threat. The polished steel
of the Cimaroon’s two scimitars flashed in the sunlight, causing Spence to throw up his hands with a roar.

“Aye, that’s enough!” he shouted. “Leave go o’ her, ye blackhearted bastard.
Leave go o’ her, do ye hear me!”