Pirate Wolf Trilogy (69 page)

“Yes? As if
what?”

Juliet
shrugged and took a sip of wine. “As if they wanted no witnesses
left behind to report seeing them in the vicinity. There was
something else. Later that night, the men in the tops reported
seeing lights riding very low on the horizon. They thought they
counted at least seven ships, headed north by northeast. I went up
to take a look, but either they dipped below the sea line or spied
us first and doused their lights, because I saw nothing. I didn’t
dare risk closing for a better look, not with the
Santo Domingo
in tow.”

“It could give
substance to the rumors we have been hearing for the past couple of
weeks that the plate fleet is planning an early return to Spain,”
said Geoffrey Pitt. “Some of our normal sources of information have
been showing an unusual reluctance to accept our gold, but we have
sent out a scout to have a closer look.”

“And what of
this other treasure you have brought us?” Jonas planted his hands
on his waist. “This... envoy from the king. What is it this time? A
demand for Father to return to court and kiss his ring? Or does he
want a larger share of the purse, perhaps?”

Juliet shook
her head. “From what I have managed to pry from between the duke’s
teeth, it would seem the king is seeking to uphold the terms of the
peace treaty between Spain and England. He has sent our lord
peacock with his fine plumage and threats, to warn all the brethren
against further hostilities while the king of England and the king
of Spain negotiate the terms of a peaceful co-existence. He says if
we refuse, we risk being branded as pirates and traitors.”

Jonas snorted.
“In truth, I have never understood the differences between a pirate
and a privateer save for a poxy piece of paper giving royal
permission to ‘trade by force if permission is denied.’ I’m
surprised you did not toss him overboard long before now.”

“
He is
annoying enough that I probably would have... had he not saved my
life on board the
Santo Domingo
.”

Like
bloodhounds scenting fresh meat, all ears perked in her direction
and she felt an uncomfortable warmth spread up her throat to her
cheeks.

“
It was a
trifling thing, of no account, and I repaid him tenfold by saving
his mangy neck from the
Argus
.”

“Then why is he
here?” Gabriel asked.

“Mainly because
we needed the English crew to help bring the galleon home and it
would have looked a tad peculiar to go out of our way just to
disembark a duke and his manservant.”

“I would have
solved the problem in a more practical way,” Jonas muttered.

Simon
Dante held up his hand to end the discussion. “There is no harm in
hearing what he has to say. But not tonight. Tonight we celebrate
the victory of our
rosa de hierro
.
Come. A feast awaits us on the dining table and I want nothing to
spoil our mood.”

~~~

It was hours
before Juliet could excuse herself and climb her weary way up to
her bedchamber. She had eaten far too much and drank far too much,
and after Jonas had shaken off his displeasure at the presence of
the king’s man under their roof, they had sung too much. All the
people she loved dearest in the world were in that room, and,
looking at Jonas with his flame red beard and raucous laugh, she
could even feel the spirit of her grandfather beside her.

As tired as she
was, she ordered a hot bath and soaked away the salty rime that
made her hair feel like wire and her skin like parchment. When the
last vapors of steam had expired, she towelled herself dry and
donned a shapeless shirt for sleeping. She had learned from
experience that while her brothers may have appeared to collapsed
into drunken stupors, they were not adverse to creeping into her
room an hour later and playing a prank that proved costly if they
found her. The last time she had outfoxed them, they had thrown her
naked into a vat of indigo dye and the stains had taken weeks to
fade away.

As a
precaution, she bundled a roll of pillows under the blankets of her
bed and arranged it to look like a sleeping body. She doused the
lamp and crept to the opposite wing of the house, careful to light
no candles or leave any clues behind. With luck the Hell Twins
would search her room and assume she had gone back to the
Iron
Rose
.

The furniture
in the room she had chosen was covered in white sheets, the windows
latched shut. Needing air, she raised the sashes and opened the
french doors, then went out onto the wide balcony to wait for the
room to cool. Most of the lanterns on the lower tier had been
doused and apart from the glow that came from several windows
closer to the front of the house, the rest were dark. There was
nothing as extravagant as the sixty-five bedrooms Harrowgate Hall
had to boast, but there were half dozen chambers on the upper floor
that were furnished for phantom guests who never came.

The shrill
humming from the cicatrices was constant, a sound that took a day
or two for Juliet to adapt to after several weeks at sea. The
breeze rustling through the palms was similar to the rush of waves
beneath the keel, and helped ease the transition. Far below was the
lighted circle of the harbor with its cluster of ships riding at
anchor. They looked almost insignificant from such a height, like
toys in a pond.

She was not
exactly sure when she realized she was not alone on the balcony, or
how she knew the identity of the dark silhouette leaning back
against the wall. The tingle in her breasts, perhaps, or the
feathery shiver that ran down her spine.

“This is not a
good night for you to be creeping about in the dark, your
grace.”

“I merely came
out of my room, which is there—” he said, turning slightly to
indicate a set of open doors— “for a breath of fresh air.
Furthermore, with all the shouting and singing going on below,
sleep was proving to be somewhat elusive.”

Juliet smoothed
back a lock of hair that had blown across her face. “We are not
accustomed to catering to the needs of house guests.”

“Or
prisoners?”

“As it happens,
we do have a sturdy hut on the beach with bars in the windows and a
bolt on the door. If you would prefer those accommodations—?”

“Mea culpa.” He
held his hand over his breast. “It was a poor riposte. All things
considered, you have been more than generous.”

“
Benedicamus domino
’.” She issued the blessing with a mock bow.

“
Ex hoc munc et usque in seculum
,” he murmured. “You know the Catholic
liturgy?”

“I make it a
point to know my enemy’s weaknesses and strengths,” she replied in
Castilian. “I know their faults,” she added in French, “I know
their foibles—” in Dutch— “and I know how to play one against the
other,” she concluded in Latin.

“All that,” he
mused, “and you can sail a ship through rip tides, shoot a pea off
the masthead—which Johnny Boy was only too proud to inform me—and
wield a sword like the devil’s own angel.”

An eyebrow took
a brief quirk upward. “I suppose you think a woman should be
nothing more than an adornment for a man’s arm?”

“Good God in
heaven, no. I am in consummate awe of any female who can discuss
more than fashion and the state of the weather.”

She
humphf
-ed and
muttered disdainfully in Portuguese, “As long as they are soft and
plump and lay beneath you like submissive starfish.”

“A soft body
can be a comfort at times,” he agreed quietly.

His Portuguese
was not quite as effortless as Juliet’s, but the fact he understood
what she said succeeded in unnerving her again.

“Do you enter
into every conversation with the intent to annoy?”

“Not every
one,” he admitted.

“Just those
with me.”

He smiled
crookedly. “You cannot deny that you throw down your own share of
gauntlets, Juliet.”

“
Which
you pick up and fling back at every opportunity...
Varian
.”

His smile
turned into a soft laugh. “I take my points where I may, for you do
not allow too many openings. Your tongue is as sharp as your sword
and I confess your proficiency with both weapons intrigues me. I
believe I can say with complete and absolute honesty that I have
never met a woman quite like you before. One who provokes the most
violent urges to throttle one minute, and the next... ”

She arched her
eyebrow again. “Yes? And the next... ?”

Varian clamped
his teeth and cursed inwardly. He had seen the trap and fallen into
it anyway. Even worse, his eyes had lost the battle to remain fixed
above her chin and were making a recklessly slow and dangerous
journey down the length of her throat to where the collar of her
oversized shirt hung loosely open.

He had not been
able to sleep. Delivered to his room by the two stout bulwarks, he
had been given stern orders he was to remain inside. Beacom was
nowhere in sight, locked away in another room, he supposed. With
not much else to occupy his time, Varian had taken advantage of the
hot bath and hearty meal provided, but the instant he had stretched
out on the feather mattress, the queasy feeling he had experienced
on the jetty had returned. The room was on solid foundations but he
was still moving, rolling with imaginary waves, and to avoid
spewing his fine meal into his lap, he’d paced a while. He’d sat
with his heads in his hands and pondered his situation. He’d
listened to the muted sounds of singing and revelry from somewhere
below, and in the end, he had flung the french doors open and
stepped out onto the veranda, fully anticipating another brace of
guards posted there to turn him back.

What he found
was a wide, deserted sweep of balcony. There were no barriers
between the rooms, no guards to bar his way as he walked the full
length of the one wing then rounded the corner and strolled across
the front of the house. He counted off more than a hundred paces
before reaching the end. There he met an ivy covered lattice wall
that barred intrusion along the western wing of the house and he
assumed that those were the family’s private quarters, including
the rooms that would be occupied by Juliet Dante.

He had remained
a while to admire the truly spectacular view of the harbor but when
the effects of the hot bath began to wear off and his various
wounds began to ache, the thought of a little nausea became a small
price to pay for a soft bed and clean sheets. He had retraced his
steps, only to find he was no longer alone on the veranda. Someone
else was standing in the shadows at the far end. Someone dressed in
a thigh-length cambric shirt with her long dark hair left unbound
in the night breezes.

“And the
next... ?” she said again, jolting his attention back up to her
face.

Varian’s hands
curled into fists by his sides. He had come perilously close last
night to doing something that defied all logic; he could not afford
to make the same mistake again.

“The next,” he
said offhandedly, “is of course an urge to turn you over my knee
and paddle you until your face turns blue.”

Juliet’s
eyebrow remained arched. She studied his face for a full minute in
silence before the smile trembling at the corners of her mouth
broke free of her efforts to restrain it. A tilt of her head
released a deep, resonating laugh which lasted so long and was so
completely uninhibited, the joy of it caused Varian’s rigid
expression to falter and collapse.

“Well, it is
true,” he said. “And you must know you have that effect on people
else you would not have perfected it over the years. Look at poor
Beacom. You need only glance in his direction and he is reduced to
a quivering puddle.”

“
Beacom
is
a quivering
puddle. I am surprised you tolerate his company.”

“He came with
the title, unfortunately, and I have not had the heart to send him
out to pasture. He has no other family, no other interests; I have
even caught him polishing boots at four in the morning when he is
displeased with the job the boot-boy has done.”

“
You have
a
boot
boy?”

The question
was asked with the same sarcasm she had slathered on the query of
sixty-five bedrooms at Harrowgate Hall.

“It is a very
old castle,” he explained with a sigh. “It is also an extremely old
title, and whether I like it or not, it comes with a great many
responsibilities and obligations, not the least of which is to
ensure the employment of the hundred or so villagers who have
relied on the family for generations. It is not unlike the
community you appear to have fostered here,” he added, nodding in
the direction of the bay. “If not for your family, where would they
be? What would they be doing now?”

“Whoring and
drinking somewhere else, I expect. It would be of little concern to
us or to me.”

The
midnight eyes returned to scrutinize her face. “Now that you do not
do well, Captain,” he said quietly. “You declare indifference, yet
you care a great deal what happens to those close to you. Johnny
Boy, for instance. If you worried so little about the people around
you, you would not have noted a pinprick of blood on his leg in the
heat of all that was going on today. Nor would you have asked
Lieutenant Beck how he burned his face, or gone below each day to
check on the men who were injured in the battle with the
Santo
Domingo
.”

“‘Twould be a
foolish captain who did not see to the welfare of her crew.”