Pirate Wolf Trilogy (85 page)

“How long
before the fleet sails, do you suppose?”

Juliet joined
him on the gallery. She had pulled a pair of breeches on, careful
of the fresh wound on her upper thigh, and was in the process of
tucking the back of her shirt into the gaping waist. “It could be a
week, it could be three weeks. We will know more when Jonas and
Gabriel return from Havana.”

Varian sensed
the unease in her voice and knew it was there with good reason. The
Hell Twins had volunteered to take their ships as close as they
dared to the great Spanish port in order to scout the harbor, the
war galleons, the state of readiness of the fleet.

“
Fortuna favet fatuis
,” he murmured.

“Fortune favors
fools,” she translated. “You think it a foolish enterprise?”

“I honestly do
not know what I think, other than it is probably quite mad to
assume we can do more than annoy the Spaniards.”

“True enough,
but then it is also true that we can be very annoying.

Her eyes
shone in the pearly dawn light. Her skin looked satiny and
luxurious and his hand could not resist the temptation to reach out
and brush a lock of hair back from her cheek. His fingers trailed
down her throat and onto the swell of her breast, where he found
the nipple through the cambric and rolled it beneath his thumb
until it was firm and taut. He saw the dark
centers
of her eyes dilate and sent his
hand roving lower, sliding between the unbuttoned edges of her
breeches to curve into the soft cluster of hairs. A single finger,
then two explored the folds and contours. She grew tense as his
fingers probed deeper, undoubtedly remembering the Dutchman’s
brutish manhandling, but Varian was so gentle, his intentions so
sincere, she eventually had to lean against his arm and take her
pleasure, moving into the sleek rhythm with a soft sigh.

When her body
finished melting over his hand, he smiled and brought her into his
arms, kissing away the wetness that shimmered along her lashes.

“
And you
think
me
a madwoman?”
she whispered against his chest. “Do you suppose we could attract
any more attention by standing on deck naked?”

Varian
glanced over his shoulder. The
Avenger
was anchored a hundred yards off their starboard bow,
thankfully not visible from where they stood. There were ships off
their stern, but the light was not strong enough to have won any
curious stares.

“If you are
concerned about your reputation, Captain, we could move back
inside,” he murmured.

“A pox on my
reputation,” she said, laughing haltingly. “Sweet Christ, but I am
going to miss you.”

“I am not going
anywhere just yet, madam. You’ll not be rid of me so easily.”

When she
recouped her senses enough to look up, he saw the same inexplicable
tightness he had seen on her face not five minutes ago. He was not
so misguided to assume he was beginning to know a tenth of her
expressions or what secrets they kept hidden, yet this one bore an
unmistakeable shadow of foreboding, one that was clear enough to
trigger an alarm at the back of his neck.

The feeling
grew when she averted her eyes and pushed out of his arms, backing
up almost to the gallery door.

“Do you recall
meeting Captain Robert Brockman yesterday? A tall, gray haired
Englishman with a patch over one eye?”

Varian
nodded and she needed to take a deep breath before she continued.
“His ship, the
Gale
, is
probably one of the fastest in the harbor; she has made the
crossing to England in under forty days. One of the reasons his
ship is so fast because it carries only eight heavy guns and... and
because of that same reason, he has agreed that his services might
be put to better use in making a run for England. Father believes
the king should at least be made aware of what is happening here.
If we do manage by some miracle to delay or scatter the fleet, it
might give the admiralty back in London enough time to put ships to
sea and intercept the rest of the flota before it reaches Spain.
Since you have made such a big to-do about how much the king and
his council trust you, he thought, naturally, that you should be
the one to carry the warning home.”

When Varian did
not say anything, when he simply continued to stare at her, Juliet
appealed to his sense of logic. “It isn’t as if anyone actually
expected you to fight alongside the rest of us.” She held up a
hand, warning him to silence. “And before you splutter protests,
reminding me of your years in the infantry will win you no favors
either. Little toy soldiers dressed in red, who march in fine
straight lines and oblige their enemy by presenting bright, steady
targets are no match for cannon fired from three hundred yards
away. You said yourself you were well out of your depths here. You
admitted that on a battlefield with artillery and cavalry, you
would gladly fight battles and win wars, but at sea, all the rules
change. And you were right. You have tasted battle on board a ship,
sir; you should know, therefore, that there are no rules but those
of survival. Your own personal survival,” she added with emphasis.
“For in most instances, there is very little time to worry about
the man next to you. There is no room for error. No room for
distraction either.”

“Is that why
you are sending me away? Because I have become a distraction?”

Juliet sighed.
“There is no point in arguing with me. Father made the decision
before we left Pigeon Cay.”

“Really. And
when were you going to tell me?”

“I just
did.”

A muscle
shivered in his cheek. “And is that to be the end of it? I have no
say in the matter?”

“
In all
honesty,” she said evenly, “you never did. You’re a duke, for
heaven’s sake, a member of the British nobility and the king’s
official representative in the Indies. It
behooves
us all to keep you alive, to
keep you breathing long enough to return in your
official
capacity and explain why we
have disobeyed the crown’s orders and attacked the
flota.”

“I am not that
easy to kill; I would have thought I proved that much at least last
night.”

She colored
slightly. “Last night was a display by a master of the sword
against louts who hide in corners and slit throats in the
shadows.”

His gaze
strayed to the faintly purplish bruise on her temple. “You were not
so dismissive when it was your throat being threatened.”

“
Nor am I
so easily swayed by a warm body and a smooth tongue. Are you under
the impression,
your grace
, that
because we have bedded, it gives you leave to challenge me at every
turn?”

“
If I
have learned nothing else these past two weeks,
Captain
, I have learned that you maintain two very
different personalities, one that I am free to challenge, and one
that I am not.”

“Precisely so.
And in this instance, you are not.”

“
You
excel at
dueling
with
words as well as steel, Juliet, but is it because you are afraid of
making friends, of growing too close to anyone, of letting anyone
get too close to you?”

“I am not
afraid of making friends, sir. I am afraid of losing them. As for
growing close... I am not so addled by the wetness on my thighs to
see that it was a huge, unfathomable mistake to have ever touched
you. I should have sent you running back to your room that first
night on Pigeon Cay, at least then you would not be suffering any
illusions of who and what I am. You would still be anxious to
return to your England and your unsuspecting betrothed who has
undoubtedly embroidered your monogram on a thousand pillowslips in
your absence. Go home to her, Varian. Go home to your sixty-five
bedrooms, your bootboys, and your rolling green fields. That is
where you belong.”

“What if I
disagree?”

She
looked startled for a moment, but in the next, her jaw was firm,
her shoulders squared. “Frankly, at this point, it doesn’t matter
if you agree or not. You’re going home, sir. The
Gale
sails tonight, on the evening
tide, and you will be on it.”

~~~

Before they had
departed from Pigeon Cay, Nathan Crisp had grudgingly given up his
quarters for the duke’s use. It was a ten foot by ten foot cabin
located forward on the lower deck containing a narrow berth and a
stool that had three mismatched legs. Beacom had been installed in
the tiny locker adjacent to the cabin, furnished with little more
than a hammock strung between two beams. The bulkheads were thin,
built out of half inch planking, and so it was that the valet
yelped and was spilled out of his hammock when the door was slammed
and angry bootsteps began pacing inside the quartermaster’s
cabin.

He dressed
quickly, smoothed his hands over his hair to flatten the spikes,
then hastened out of his cubby-hole to knock lightly on his
master’s door.

It was jerked
open so violently, the small wooden box Beacom carried was nearly
startled out of his hands. A glimpse at the midnight eyes was more
than enough to warn the manservant that his master was in a black
mood; he did not need to hear the curse that sent Varian back to
pacing the breadth of the cabin.

Beacom cleared
his throat.

“Good morning,
your grace. I trust you slept well. Will you be requiring a
shave?”

Varian turned
away from staring out the eight inch porthole and glared at him a
moment, as if trying to remember who he was and why he was there.
“A tempting thought, Beacom, but do I look like I want to sit down
and have someone press a razor against my throat?”

“Ah... no. No,
in truth you do not, your grace. Perhaps some victuals? Or
ale?”

“Perhaps you
should just stand out of the way and let me think.”

Beacom stepped
prudently to one side and was about to set the shaving box down
when he noticed the lid of the sea chest was open, the contents
tumbled out of their orderly folds.

“Were you
looking for something in particular, your grace?”

“What?” he
followed Beacom’s gaze to the chest. “A clean shirt. Breeches.
Stockings. I am the king’s envoy, dammit. I should at least look
the part.”

Beacom’s
eyebrows inched upward. He noticed, for the first time, that
Varian’s current shirt and breeches bore what looked suspiciously
like spatters of blood amidst the salt water stains, the creases,
the scuffs of dirt. “Indeed, your grace. So you should.”

While Varian
stripped, Beacom hastened to find clean stockings, breeches and a
white camlet shirt. Varian snatched each garment that was held out
to him and made no attempt to do so much as button a cuff of the
peasecod doublet on his own. He stood rigid while Beacom attended
him, he sat and allowed his hair to be brushed smooth, he even
tipped his chin up without complaint when Beacom approached
somewhat hesitantly with the starched neck ruff. But when the valet
searched for the ruby brooch to pin it down in front, it was
nowhere to be found.

“Looking for
this?”

Beacom gasped
and whirled around, slamming himself against the bulkhead, but
Varian merely turned to acknowledge the sound of the door swinging
open and Simon Dante’s presence at the threshold. The tall,
jet-haired privateer had to bend to duck below the lintel, as did
his oldest son, Jonas, who did not come all the way into the room,
but remained in the doorway, filling it with his big body.

Varian’s
reflexes were quick enough to catch the object Dante tossed to him.
Without looking down, he knew it was the egg-sized brooch that had
been pinned to his collar the day before.

“
It was
found on the beach, not ten yards from the bodies of the captain
and eight crewmen from the
Dove
.”

Varian
manipulated the brooch inside his hand, grudgingly aware of the
promise he had made Juliet last night.

“You wouldn’t
happen to know how it came to be there, would you?” Dante’s voice
was level, but his gaze was hard. Hard and cold, just like Juliet’s
had been when she looked him in the eye and told him to go
home.

Dante frowned,
obviously unaccustomed to waiting for explanations once they were
demanded. “If your memory needs refreshing, allow me to tell you
what I know first. Eight bodies were found on the beach late last
night, including that of Anders Van Neuk. At first it appeared as
though he had been stopped in the act of sodomizing one of his own
men, and if that had been the case, it would have ended there, the
Devil take him and good riddance. Unfortunately it did not end
there. Two of Anders’ men, bleeding from various wounds, were found
hiding in the trees and when questioned, told a somewhat different
story.”

“They said they
happened across you trying to climb on top of Juliet,” Jonas
growled. “When they ran to help, you and your manservant fought
them off with swords.”

The accusation
was followed by a muted squawk and a dull thump as Beacom banged
his head on a beam.

“Beacom was
nowhere near the beach last night,” Varian said calmly. “He never
left the ship.”

The pirate wolf
glanced at Beacom and pursed his lips. “Frankly, I didn’t even give
it consideration. Apparently Gabriel didn’t either, and by the time
he had finished bloodying his knuckles, he had managed to wring an
entirely different story from the men’s throats.”

Varian pushed
to his feet. “In that case, you are free to believe the version
that makes the most sense.”