Pirate Wolf Trilogy (115 page)

"I would only be teasing if I told you the
greatest treasure in the Main was seated beside me. Ahh!" His
leaned back and his eyes lit up as more platters were carried in,
this time laden with slabs of roasted pork, a haunch of beef, and
capons smothered in herbs. He selected the most tender cuts of meat
and served them to Eva then heaped his own plate full. To anyone
observing, which Dante most certainly was, Muertraigo had
undoubtedly decided which treasure he intended to pillage
first.

~~

Eva tolerated the oily attentions of the
Spaniard as long as she could before deciding she’d more than
fulfilled her obligation to Dante. Muertraigo’s dark eyes had
stripped and ravished her countless times, leaving her feeling
naked and dirty and disgusted. His thigh had brushed up against
hers under the table and his hand constantly strayed to touch a
shoulder or an arm.

Contrary to his promise, Gabriel did not
come to her rescue once. Not once. And as her irritation and
frustration grew toward Muertraigo, similarly her anger and
annoyance toward Dante started to show openly in the heated glances
she cast his way. Each time she did, he responded the way an
indifferent husband might respond: with a crooked little smile and
a call for more wine in his glass, which was refilled so many times
she thought it a wonder he could remain sitting upright.

The call for rum and pipes did not come a
moment too soon. Eva excused herself and retreated to the adjoining
cabin, making sure to slide the bolt and lock the door behind her.
Next, she placed Dante’s two pistols within easy reach, ensuring
both were primed and loaded.

Only then did she pour
herself a glass of wine and try to calm her thoughts enough to make
sense of everything she had heard through the evening. Though she
had tried to steer the conversation back several times to the hunt
for treasure, Muertraigo had avoided giving any more details.
Several times she had pressed her hand over her breast feeling the
solid presence of the locket beneath the bodice. It was the lost
treasure of the
Nuestro Santisimo
Victorio
he was hunting, she was sure of
it. Dante had said that rumors spread like wildfire around the
islands and pirate encampments, and if someone had overheard the
captain of the
Eliza Jane
asking questions about the ship or about her
father, it was possible the sharks were, indeed, in the
water.

She had ached to question Muertraigo
outright about the treasure ship, and had hoped Dante might have
shown some interest, but he hadn’t. And while she could understand
why his thoughts were occupied elsewhere, the resentment kept her
pacing from one side of the cabin to the other, stopping only when
she heard them laughing—laughing, for pity sake!—before her pacing
resumed.

Another full hour passed
before she heard voices and footsteps out in the companionway
marking the departure of the unwanted guests. As quietly as she
could, she unlocked the door and risked a peek through the gap, in
time to see the last of the
Spanish
officers being followed up the ladderway by Dante's men. She
breathed a silent ‘good riddance’. The heavy silk overskirt she’d
been dragging back and forth across the cabin started to feel as if
it weighed a thousand pounds and, after some minor struggling she
managed to unfasten it along with the puffed sleeves and the golden
underskirt.

Feeling like a bird in a cage, she loosened
the waist of the wire farthingale, letting the graduated hoops
collapse into themselves as she lowered it and stepped clear.
Regardless of what contortions she tried however, she could not
reach all of the hooks and eyes or release the lacings up the back
of the bodice.

Several curses, whimpers, and another glass
of wine saw her sprawling down crosswise over the bed to rest for a
few moments, but not before she fetched one of Dante's pistols off
the desk and slid it under the bolster pillow.

~~

It had required all of Gabriel's
considerable willpower not to walk up behind Estevan Muertraigo,
yank his head back by the greasy locks of his hair, and run a
dagger across his throat. Dante's blood had pounded savagely each
time he looked at the sly, grinning face across the dining table.
He had been only dimly aware of the inane conversations swirling
around him. Some that were specifically directed toward him he had
managed to acknowledge, but for the most part he heard very little,
and saw only his mother being carried ashore at Pigeon Cay, her arm
gone, the stump wrapped in bloody bandages. Isabeau Dante had lain
in a fever for days, hovering between life and death, and Gabriel
had never seen his father so torn apart. The strongest man he knew
had been reduced to utter helplessness, and the bastard who had
caused it was sitting less than a table’s width away.

Throughout the meal Dante had envisioned
ways of exacting revenge. His grandfather's favorite method had
been to strap the offender to the barrel of a cannon and blow him
in half. His brother Jonas preferred the slower method of tying a
bleeding man to a cable and towing him behind the ship, letting the
sharks tear him apart. Gabriel saw merit in both methods where
Muertraigo was concerned. He thought about throwing the bastard in
irons and dropping him into the hold, but there were still four
galleons out there, three with open gunports and orders, no doubt,
to open fire at the first sign of trouble. Unless he could find a
way to lower the odds against him, he had no choice but to let the
Spaniard return to his ship unmolested.

He stood on deck and
watched the longboat being rowed back to the
San Mateo.
To his further disgust,
the wind had fallen off completely and the sea stretched out like
silvered glass under a brightly moonlit sky. The three galleons sat
in a semi-circle, their decks strung with enough lamps and lanterns
to present temptingly bright targets for his gunners, but he knew
it would be sheer madness to open fire now.

The fourth ship was running dark, sitting
out there somewhere, maintaining its distance. For what reason,
Dante had no idea, but he didn't like it. He didn't like the whole
situation but there was not much he could do about it at the
moment, with no wind and no way to maneuver. He took some small
comfort in knowing his disadvantages were also their
disadvantages.

"Are you detecting a stench in the air?" he
asked Stubs quietly.

"Aye-yup. Smelled it the instant they set
foot on deck. Stopped shy of usin' their fingers and toes to count
the number of big guns we're carryin' and the number of men we have
to crew 'em. Do ye think he believed ye were a bored grandee
returning home to Spain?”

“I think he believed me as much as I
believed him.”

Dante's gaze went again to the western
horizon where the island of Espiritu Santu was crouched, silent and
dark. The hostile shoreline was barren and rocky. The soil was made
of coral and limestone and too sour to grow any kind of crops—which
was why no countries fought over it for possession and no twinkling
lights to indicate any villages or ports.

There were two deep water bights dividing
the chain of islands into three main sections. The northern mass
was the largest, riddled with inland lakes and dense forests. The
middle section was comprised of dozens upon dozens of atolls and
cays divided by a myriad misleading inlets and estuaries that ended
in a jumble of jagged rock or worse, shallow sandbars and swamps
that could suck the hull of a ship into a trap from which it was
impossible to break free. The southern bight was the narrowest of
the two, the approach protected by a solid coral reef.

There were few beaches, no natural harbors
with deep anchorage, and what bays there were had to be entered
with care to avoid being hulled by either rocks or coral.

He had thought earlier, if
this was, in fact, the final resting place of the
Nuestro Santisimo Victorio
, it could take another twenty years of searching all of the
inlets and gorges to find the wreckage.

"I assure you that even the bleakest of
islands can hold many secrets and treasures, senora.” Muertraigo
had whispered.

“
You are hunting treasure?” Eva had
asked.

“
Treasure that has been guarded by ghosts
for many decades.”

Dante stared at the island. Espiritu Santu,
the island of spirits… ghosts… ghost ships…

“Not possible,” he muttered to himself.

His gaze shifted to the
three galleons. That Muertraigo had joined the hunt to find La
Fantasma would be a co-incidence to end all co-incidences…and yet…
the passengers on board the
Santa
Maria
had been carrying personal letters
hinting that the search for the
Nuestro
Santisimo Victorio
had resumed. It was not
impossible for every pirate on the Main to have heard those same
rumors. But why the hell was Muertraigo here, off the coast of
Espiritu Santu? Why was he not looking a hundred miles to the
north, where all of the other searches had been
conducted?

Dante hated riddles even more than he hated
coincidences. He growled low in his throat and turned to Stubs.
“Double the watch. I want to know if any of those ships move by so
much as a nose hair.”

“Aye, Cap’n.”

He pushed away from the rail and tugged at
the buttons on the ill-fitting doublet as he walked, uncaring that
some popped off the threads and pinged across the planking. He
entered the dimly lit cabin and shut the door behind him, scowling
when nearly tripped and fell headlong over the heap of Eva's
discarded farthingale and heavy overskirt. After kicking both
savagely out of the way, he headed directly to the sideboard and
poured himself a cup of rum.

Turning as he held the silver rim to his
lips, he noted the screen was still standing across the corner of
the cabin. A single lamp was burning in a wall sconce, the wick
turned low. Eva’s dark shape was sprawled sideways across the bed,
her arms stretched above her head, feet hanging off the side. She
was face down, covered in the yellow tangle of her own hair.

Gabriel walked to the end
of the bed. From the waist down Eva was clad in the loose white
underskirt; from the waist up she was still laced into the
armor-stiff bodice and stomacher—laces he admittedly had fastened
tighter than warranted. For a moment he debated leaving her like
that. He was beginning to believe along with the rest of the crew,
that he had brought a damned jinx on board. They would have been
well through the Channel by now if they had not stopped to
investigate the
Eliza
Jane
. They would have sailed on past
Espiritu Santu like they had done a hundred times, blissfully
ignorant of lost treasure ships and missing one-eyed adventurers.
Moreover, they would have avoided any contact with Estevan
Muertraigo.

And he might never have known who was
responsible for taking his mother’s arm and almost her life.

Gabriel took another swallow of rum,
savoring the rush as it flowed through his belly and limbs.

He set his cup aside and leaned, with one
knee sinking into the bedding, to release the hooks and eyes on the
rose silk bodice. He had to move her hair to do so and his fingers
lingered briefly in the silky mass, watching the lamplight glimmer
off the smooth waves.

When he was almost finished loosening the
laces on the stomacher, the stiffened edges sprang open and he
heard her suck at a deep breath. The sudden ability to do so
brought her instantly awake and, startled to feel hands tugging at
her clothing, she scrambled onto her side, then to her knees, the
long snout of a flintlock pistol aimed squarely at Dante's
chest.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Gabriel held his hands high and wide apart.
“Hold up there. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I just thought you
needed some help getting undressed.”

“I’m sure you did.”

“I meant… help with the laces.”

Eva wiped a hand across her eyes to chase
away the fog of sleep. “I am perfectly capable of undressing
myself, sir.”

“Yes.” He looked down to where the linen
sheath had been twisted up almost to her waist, baring her hip and
thigh. “I can see that.”

She followed his gaze and hastily tugged the
hem down to cover herself. In doing so the loosened bodice gaped
open, revealing the firm little swells of her breasts. The chemise
had become molded tight around her flesh like a second layer of
skin and was rendered almost transparent by body heat, not leaving
much to the imagination.

While she fussed with the hem, the gun
proved too heavy for her to hold steady, and as the snout drooped,
Gabriel leaned forward and grasped the barrel, plucking the weapon
out of her hand.

“You fell asleep with a loaded gun under the
pillow, yet you left the door unlocked?”

“I… I forgot to lock it again. I heard
voices out in the corridor and went to look.”

He retreated, taking his knee off the bed.
He carefully uncocked the serpentine lock and walked across the
cabin to set the gun on his desk again. With rum in hand, he stood
at the gallery windows, his back to Eva, not wanting her to see how
the gun, the dishevelled blonde hair, the bared thigh and exposed
breasts had put him off balance. In an evening of unsettling
revelations and pent-up frustrations, he did not need to be
distracted by soft female flesh.

Either that, or he needed it very much.

He frowned and stared out over the water.
The moon was directly overhead, bathing the galleons in an eerie
blue-white light that made the yards and rails glow like the
bleached bones of skeletons. The moon itself had a hazy ring around
it, and he thought there was something he should note about it, but
before the message waded through the wine and rum he had consumed,
Eva was speaking.