Across a Moonlit Sea (41 page)

“I admit it freely, mam’selle. I need you. I need you.” He twined his fingers through her hair and angled her face up to his so that there was no mistaking his meaning. “I
need you.
But not on the
Scout
It’s too dangerous.”

Beau pushed herself upright and saw the quick flexing of muscles across his chest. She was straddling his thighs, he was buried hilt deep inside her, and they had been dueling over the finer points of his leaving the Egret long
enough for both of them to be covered in a fine sheen of sweat.

“After all my father and I have done for you, how can you just let Drake send us home with a pat on the head?”

“You’re going home with your holds full of plundered treasure.”

“A pox,” she said, sliding her hips forward, “on plundered treasure.”

He swore again and rolled his head to the side. If the bed had been an inch wider, he could have easily tossed her over and reversed their positions—and then she would have learned the true meaning of torment. As it was, she kept her knees locked firmly to his hips, and braced her hands, when he made any attempt to extricate himself, on an overhead beam, pushing down as hard as he pushed up. Moreover, she was showing remarkable control. His own fault, he supposed, for bringing her to climax half a dozen times before he found himself splayed and pinned like a starfish out of water. If it weren’t so unbelievably arousing, he might have become annoyed.

She cupped his chin in her hand and forced him to look at her again. “You said you thought it might have been one of Bloodstone’s men who ambushed you on the
Bonaventure
tonight.”

“When did I say that? I never said that.”

“Then you were thinking it. And if he would dare to plan an ambush on Drake’s flagship, what will he dare out in the open sea? Or in battle? Or—”

He brought her mouth down hard on his and kissed her so thoroughly, she was gasping when he let her go. Her face was flushed and her eyes were blazing with the effort it was taking to concentrate on something other than the heat beneath her.

“I will watch him very closely,” he vowed.

Panting lightly, Beau combed her fingers through the springy black mat of chest hairs, molding her hands to the shape of his muscles, following each magnificently sculpted band down to his belly. She rocked her hips back and forth, testing his limits even as she tested her own, and stopped moving a shiver shy of overestimating herself.

“We could unburden some of the gold on the pinnace that is going home anyway,” she said, still trying to find a way around all his manly logic.

“The pinnace is going, the
Egret
is going, and you are going. And if anyone should be unburdened, mam’selle”— his hands circled her breasts and his thumbs abraded the taut pink nipples—“it should be me, before you cause irreparable damage to the both of us.”

She reached back and let her fingertips trail lightly back and forth along his thighs. She felt him tense and stretch himself farther up inside her, giving one delicious throb when her fingers danced over an area that was already acutely sensitive to every languid roll of her hips.

“So. Now I am a burden,” she murmured.

He sucked in a breath and released it on a soft oath. He grasped her around the waist and forced two swift, hard strokes before she regained control and stopped him.

“You are not a burden,” he promised on a gasp. “But you might become a dangerous distraction in battle. I might be inclined to worry more about you than the enemy, about what might happen if I took my eyes off you for any length of time. You have seen how fast things can go wrong in battle. You saw how close your father came to losing his other leg. Good God, Isabeau”—he brushed his hands over her breasts, her shoulders, her arms, her legs— “you cannot fault me for wanting to keep you safe and whole.”

She bit back her frustration and leaned determinedly
forward, her hands braced on either side of his head, her eyes a mere inch or two from his. “No one had to keep me safe or whole before you came striding into my life, Captain, and look … I am all here.”

His flesh throbbed in its fullness. “So you are.”

“On the other hand, I have seen
you
in battle and you are reckless. You take unnecessary chances—”

“I swear I will be the soul of discretion.”

“You play careless games with unfamiliar ships.”

“I will stand off a thousand yards and spit my shots harmlessly into the water … is that what you want?”

A shiver sent her focus down to the source of all her trouble: his mouth. “I want you to trust me.”

“I do.”

“Completely.”

“I am trying. Believe me, I am trying. But you are asking me to put aside every law of nature, society, reason, and instinct I have ever known. It might … take a little more time.”

“How
much
more time?” she demanded.

He looked so deeply into her eyes, she thought she felt him climb inside her. “Will the rest of our lives do, do you suppose?”

Her breath came out in a rush. His hands were on her hips, manipulating them as deviously as his words manipulated her intentions. Her pleasure started to come in dark, swirling torrents and she could not have stopped it had she even been so foolishly inclined to do so. She wasn’t, of course. She wasn’t even sure she had won any part of the argument. Later, she would worry about reclaiming the wit to challenge him again, but for the moment, the dissolving liquid heat of the moment, it was enough to hear him cry out her name and feel the power of his shuddering ecstasy fill the last empty place in her heart.

 S
pence appeared on deck the next morning with a head as thick as a post. His tongue was furred and he declared the foot he had left in the Indies ten years ago itched as if he were standing on a nest of red ants. He was not happy, and when Jonas Spence was not happy, he made damned sure the entire crew was not happy. Even Spit McCutcheon was acting like a cat with turpentine rubbed under his tail.

Beau had no sympathy to spare for anyone. She hadn’t had but a moment’s sleep all night, and naturally, that moment had come early in the morning. When she had finally startled herself awake, most of Dante’s men had already transferred to the
Scout
and he probably would have happily sailed away without so much as a fare-thee-well if she hadn’t come up on deck in time.

It did not matter that she had not wanted him to say good-bye, had ordered him not to, and was sullen enough when he did to send him away with less than a glowing flush of warmth and understanding coursing through his body. The heat, the passion, the poignant promises made
in the dark warmth of her cabin, had vanished, leaving nothing but harsh reality in its wake. He was leaving and she was staying behind. The
rest of their lives
had taken on an ugly new meaning in the chilling gray light of dawn.

Her mood was not much improved with her first glimpse of the
Scout

It was a sorry-looking vessel, smaller than the Egret— perhaps a hundred tons in weight, with a battery of eight culverins and six sakers. It was adequate armament for a ship her size and character, but nothing near the heat Dante was accustomed to on the
Virago
—or the Egret since he had supplemented her weaponry with the demis. In the
Scout
he would not have much choice
but
to stand off and let the heavier guns of the six-hundred-ton
Elizabeth Bonaventure
and the five-hundred-ton Revenge and
Golden Lion
soften the enemy’s underbelly. And for that at least, Beau felt some smug satisfaction.

But then she remembered the
Talon
was also out there, bristling with Pitt’s demi-cannon, mastered by a man who would likely stop at nothing to rid himself of the specter of Dante de Tourville. Battles
were
perfect places for confusion, with all the smoke and noise and turbulence. Perfect places for a man who planned ambushes in the dark and had no qualms about abandoning fellow captains to the guns of enemy ships.

Drake’s fleet was already low on the horizon. Dawn had brought their canvas out in bloom and, trusting Dante would have no difficulty making up the time, had set a course due south and turned their sails into a gray, wind-driven sky. The
Talon
had been one of the last ships to get under way, almost flaunting her presence in Dante’s face. Watching her sidle past wearing her disreputable coat of sly gray paint and suit of dirty canvas, Beau could barely
resist the urge to load one of the demis herself and send him off properly.

The itch to hold a gun at Dante’s temple was strong too. He looked as if he hadn’t slept much either—wonder of wonders. His temper was short and his jaw had a tendency to clench around every other word. For fare-thee-wells it was a pretty sorry thing also, with him doing most of the talking—and doing it fast so there was little room for argument—and Beau doing most of the glaring. Spence, McCutcheon, Cuthbert, and the better part of the Egret’s crew stood nearby in glum silence. There was no cheering when the last of the
Virago
men took to the jolly boats, not a single smile anywhere to be seen.

The leaky pinnace was also forced to watch the grand departure. The
Squirrel
was a small vessel of twenty tons with two masts and a row of oars as well as sail. She carried a crew of eighteen, and while there were no heavy guns aboard, there were bow and stern chasers and a row of deadly falconets mounted on each beam. They were favored by smugglers for their speed, and used by naval officers for their ability to sail quickly between warships carrying orders and relaying messages. At the moment she was nudged up to the hull of the Egret, her masts and rigging chattering like loose teeth in a widow’s head. She looked as sound and seaworthy as any other ship in Drake’s fleet, and her captain seemed happy to shout up his relief they were going home.

Spit McCutcheon’s reply sent him ducking to avoid a large splatter of phlegm.

“Cheese-assed bastard. Give him to me for a month, I’ll stiffen his spine.”

Spence snorted and watched the jolly boat make its final crossing to the
Scout.
His eyes narrowed and his beard-parted
around a curse. “Where the devil does Yarwood think he’s goin’? An’ Loftus?”

“They wanted to fight the Spanyards,” Spit declared loudly, sending a particularity acerbic glance down to the pinnace. “An’ I weren’t about to stop them, they wanted to go. Whole damned crew wanted to go but they had space for only a couple o’ our men. If ye’ll notice the bruises on Yarwood’s face, he had to beat off a dozen others just to get one o’ them spaces.”

Spence grunted and shook his head as the
Scout
cast off her lines and unfurled the large mainsail. It was full of trapped rainwater and showered the deck below as the canvas flapped and shook out its wrinkles.

“Sloppy work, that,” Spit remarked disdainfully. “Sails are too loose, they should be trimmed tight, not luffin’ away in the breeze. No wonder she nearly rammed us.”

“She nearly rammed us,” Beau said dryly as she joined them by the rail, “because her helmsman is an ass. If he’s a day over twenty, I’ll have his child.”

“Bold talk for someone barely out in teats herself.”

“Yes, but at least I know what I’m doing. I warrant Mister Carleill has never been out of the Channel, if even out of port. Dante”—she looked back over the side—“will probably feed him to Lucifer for an evening meal.”

“Try to keep the smile off yer face when ye say that, lass,” Spence advised with a snort. “Might hex the poor lad.”

“I fear they may already have picked up a hex,” she said quietly. “Did you see the way the
Talon
prowled past, almost like a mongrel slinking outside a butcher shop?”

“Aye. Spit had a thought for a moment, he might o’ been sniffin’ after us.”

“Us?”

Spit leaned forward to see around Jonas’s girth. “Are ye forgettin’ what we have in our holds?”

“No, I’m not forgetting. But he wouldn’t dare turn away from Drake and come after us; none of them would, there were too many witnesses. Besides, they’ll have more than enough plunder in Cadiz.”

“Aye,” Spence grumbled. “Cadiz.”

“Risky business, that,” Spit muttered. “But God bless ‘em all for havin’ the ballocks to try it.”

“Twenty ships against fifty? Mortal odds. They’ll likely be blown out o’ the water.”

“Perhaps not, señor,” said a quiet voice from behind them.

Spence, McCutcheon, and Beau turned as one and stared at the speaker. It took Beau a moment to recognize the little duchess (it was difficult to think of her in any other way), for she had shed her fancy gown and cumbersome farthingale. She wore what looked like one of Pitt’s shirts and a pair of sailor’s canvas breeches that were several sizes too big, rolled at the waist and tied securely in place with a length of jute. Her eyes were rimmed and swollen, her nose was red, and her face the color of a bleached sheet. There wasn’t a curl to be found anywhere on her head; her hair had been scraped back and braided in such an obvious imitation of Beau’s, it gave all three at the rail a moment’s pause.