Pirate Wolf Trilogy (43 page)

“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.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE

Spence 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 Spani
ards,” 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.

“Most of the
ships in Cadiz have been commandeered by the governor of the
province. They have their sails and their guns removed until such
time as a Spanish crew can be provided, for fear they might sneak
out of the harbor and desert: the King’s service.”

“How the devil
do you know such things, lass?” Spence demanded.

“I am but a
maid, señor. The duchess and her husband talk, and see only the
walls even if I am standing beside them.”

“Did you tell
Pitt this?” Beau asked.

“About the
ships? Yes, señora. And about the cannon and the nets they are able
to string across the channel to the inner bay.”

“Cannon?
Nets?”

“The cannon on
the castle walls, they are very old and have had to be fixed in
place. They can only strike into the very center of the harbor. And
the net is worked by two galleys, which can be sunk to seal off the
entrance to the inner port.”

“An’ Drake will
know all of this before he goes in to attack?” Spence asked
excitedly.

Christiana
lowered her eyes a moment, obviously suffering pangs of guilt, but
when she raised them again, and was confronted by Beau’s curious
frown, they were as proud as the tilt in her chin.