Pirate Wolf Trilogy (19 page)

When Dante
mounted the ladder to the afterdeck, he saw Beau’s head turn
slightly to acknowledge his arrival.

“I have
dispatched a man below to check on your father, but I do not hold
much hope of his being able to savor his victory just yet.”

She offered up
a weary imitation of a smile and looked out over the rail again. “I
am not even sure I have enough energy left to savor it. I think …
if I had a bed beneath me right now, I could sleep until we reached
Plymouth.”

Dante
surprised himself with a thought of what
he
might want to do if she had a bed beneath her
right now. The sun was behind them, bathing her head and shoulders
in a golden light. Despite the dust coating her hair, it gleamed a
rich auburn and the floating wisps betrayed a stubborn tendency to
cling in soft, feminine curls against her temples and throat. Her
one bare arm seemed at once too slender and exposed and he wanted
to remove his own leather doublet and offer her the protection of
its warmth.

“I also came to
apologize,” he said after another long moment.

She turned and
gave him an odd look. “What could you possibly have done that
requires an apology? You saved the day, Captain Dante. You saved
the ship, saved the crew, won the battle.”

“I should not
have taken command so … arbitrarily.”

She frowned, as
if the thought of anyone else taking command had not occurred to
her, especially the thought that it might have been her place to do
so. “Perhaps not,” she said consideringly, “but I am thankful you
did. This was … not my first fight, you understand, but … it would
have been my first command, and … I do not know if I could have
handled it. I have always had my father behind me, you see, and …
well …” She paused and caught her lower lip between her teeth. “I
just never gave a thought to what we would do or what it would be
like without him. Foolish of me … I suppose.”

Her voice
trailed away and Dante moved to the rail beside her.

“You have no
reason to doubt yourself or your skills. In fact, I would offer a
confession freely, mam’selle: Despite your father’s confidence in
your abilities, I did not believe a woman’s place was at the helm
of a ship going into battle.”

She smiled
wryly and averted her eyes. “You made your belief quite obvious,
Captain. You looked as though you had a gull’s egg stuck in your
throat.”

“Aye, maybe so.
But”—he tucked a finger beneath her chin, forcing her to turn and
look at him—“I swallowed it quickly enough when I saw the way you
handled yourself and this ship, I did not find you lacking in
either skill or nerve.”

The
praise was as honest and sincere as the smoky light that came into
his eyes, and Beau felt an oddly satisfying flush of pride wash
through her. She
had
done a good
job. She
had
kept a level
head even after weathering the shot that had almost blown Jonas
Spence into the sea. She just hadn’t expected to hear it from a man
who regularity executed such feats and would likely have kept a
helmsman beside him who would act on his orders without hesitation
or fault.

“
Perhaps
I should have been more cautious with an unfamiliar ship,” he
admitted, reading the concern in her eyes. “I did not know if
the
Egret’s
beam was
sound enough to take the strain and should have heeded your
warning.”

“If you had,”
she said evenly, “we would likely not be standing here waiting for
the signal to board a treasure ship.”

Their eyes
remained locked together a moment longer, a moment wherein his
touch became almost a caress under her chin, and the urge to take
her in his arms and hold her washed through him like a slow
fire.

“Mam’selle,” he
murmured, “since it appears I cannot win you over with immeasurable
amounts of flattery, might I try with my limited knowledge of
physicking?”

A small frown
knitted her brows together and did not ease until she followed his
gaze down to where her hands rested on the deck rail. Both palms
were burned from the coarse jute cables; the heel of the left was
scraped enough to be leaking blood.

“’Tis nothing,”
she said quickly, trying to put them out of sight. He was even
quicker, however, in reaching down and capturing her wrists.

“Nothing a
simpleton would not have the sense to seek help for,” he quoted
wryly, “until they become infected and you find you cannot bend
your hands or touch anything through the pain. Can you move them at
all? Make a fist?”

“Of course I
can,” she said, and showed him. The discomfort was minor, but he
insisted on leading her over to a bucket of seawater and plunging
her hands in the brine.

He kept a firm
hold on her wrists, fighting her shock as well as her stubbornness
as he did so. He held them long enough to weather the stream of
curses that started off as strong as the stinging in her palms and
faded, after a time, to disgruntled mutters.

“Better?”

“I was better
before.”

“I’ll have
Lucifer blend up one of his special decoctions to rub into them
tonight. It will make your hands a little rough for dancing, but
the skin will heal faster.”

She was not the
least amused by his attempted wit and her eyes flashed upward.
Dante grinned handsomely and although he did see the faint hint of
a blush glow through the grime on her cheeks, she did not falter or
look away in discomfort. It was rare enough to find a man willing
to meet and hold his gaze for more than a few seconds without
faltering. With women he was more accustomed to admiring the sweep
of their lashes and wondering what it was about his feet that could
possibly hold their interest for such long stretches at a time.
Unless of course, it was their intent to seduce him, which he did
not, for the smallest instant, believe was anywhere in Beau
Spence’s repertoire of tricks.

He was, in
fact, becoming convinced she had no tricks at all. If she had a
thought, she either spoke it aloud or wore it brazenly on her face.
And those eyes, by Christ. They were starting to get under his
skin, distinctly affecting the way the blood flowed through his
veins.

“What are you
staring at?”

He met the
challenge in her voice with a crooked smile. “You,” he said simply.
Then to cover himself, he added in a more matter-of-fact tone,
“Your mouth, actually. You have a rather nasty cut on the
corner.”

The moist, pink
tip of her tongue came out to find it and Dante was thankful it was
still daylight and there were men working all around them.

“Because if you
were thinking of kissing me again,” she warned, “I have my
filletting knife handy.”

He covered his
bemusement with a frown. “The thought had not even entered my mind.
I am intrigued, however, to know why you would suppose it
would.”

“Because it
obviously entered your mind a few minutes ago.”

“It did?” His
frown deepened.

“Right over
there,” she charged, indicating the tiller, “—after we cleared the
galleon.”

“
Ahh.”
His brow cleared and his mouth curved upward at one corner. “That
kiss. Surely you do not take
offense
at a harmless little peck on the
cheek.”

“It was not a
peck, it was a kiss. Nor was it on the cheek; it was squarely on
the mouth.”

“A matter of
poor aim, I promise you. And it was not a real kiss, not by any
measure. It was more an expression of relief, or gratitude, like a
handshake. Or a snapping of the fingers to show approval. Or a
cheer of ‘huzzah’ to show enthusiasm.”

“It was a
kiss,” she maintained flatly. “And the devil will explain you the
difference if you ever dare to do it again.”

“
If I
ever dare do it again, I promise I will take greater pains to
show
you
the
difference between a peck of friendship and a kiss. And speaking of
the devil,” he said, “our Spanish friends will be expecting to see
Satan himself stalk through the gangway.”

“Then they will
not be disappointed when they see you,” she retorted.

“What I meant
was, your father would have met their every expectation, but since
he is in no condition to go anywhere—”

“You think the
honor should fall to you?”

He sighed and
lifted one of her hands out of the water, inspecting the palm
closely for embedded rope fibers. “As opposed to you? Yes, I
do.”

“Another
outpouring of confidence in my abilities?” she asked sourly.

He saw a piece
of cloth lying nearby and tore off a strip to bind around her hand.
“Have you ever negotiated for prize monies before?”

It took a
moment for the answer to grate through her teeth.
“
No
.”

“Are you at all
familiar with the order of command and authority on board a Spanish
treasure ship?”

“I cannot say I
have ever cared.”

“Well, you
should, if only to save you from insulting the wrong man. The
feathered peacocks you see in their velvets and armor are the
hidalgos—nobles and sons of nobles who were likely given command of
the ship in return for some favor they have done the King. They
know very little, if anything, about the actual sailing of a ship,
but they like to strut about the decks, brandishing their swords
and wishing death upon all the heretics of the world.

“Helping them
drink wine, pray, and count their gold ducats are the priests, who
know even less about currents and weather gauges, but who strut
right alongside the captain-general, exhorting him to follow God’s
counsel rather than the advice of any of the real sailors on board.
One of the reasons I encouraged your father to attack was because
the hidalgos and priests would be in such a sweat trying to
outmaneuver each other and dazzle their captain-general with their
brilliance, the sailors on board—well down in the ranks of
authority and the only men who would know what their vessel was
capable of doing—would be standing there with their hands tied,
unable to act without orders, unable to mount any kind of defense
whether it was tactically sound or not. The captain in charge of
these sailors would have to watch his men being blown to hell while
listening to the priests vow they were all going to glory in the
righteous service of their most Catholic king.”

Beau’s
eyes widened in surprise. “You sound as if you feel sorry for them.
You pound hell out of them, destroy their ship, force their
surrender … and now you feel
sorry
for them?”

Dante ignored
her sarcasm. “The captain, were he to believe he had been defeated
by a woman, would probably reach for the nearest sword and throw
himself on it. The captain-general, on the other hand, would be too
appalled to even deign to address you, and even if he did, whatever
he said would be so insulting or so patronizing, I would likely be
angered into killing him.”

“You … would
kill a man for me?” she asked haltingly.

“I would kill
any man who insulted a member of my crew, wouldn’t you?”

She lowered her
lashes quickly. “Of course. Of course I would.”

Dante finished
bandaging the first hand and drew the second out of the water,
bathing it with enough gentleness to send her lip curling between
her teeth and a spray of gooseflesh rippling down her arms. She
could not fathom what it was about the man that made her skin hot
and her throat close like a trap every time he offered a glib
compliment. The fact he was standing so close, touching her, made
it even worse. Her chest was constricted so tightly, she was forced
to breathe through her mouth. Her blood was pounding through her
temples and her feet were rooted to the spot like sticks simply
because he was showing concern for her wounds, tending them
himself.

She searched
his face for an answer, studying the rugged squareness of his jaw,
the bold straight line of his nose, the pale blue-gray of his eyes.
It was indeed absurd for a man to have eyes like that, with lashes
so long and thick, they lay on his cheek like silk crescents when
they were lowered. And when they were raised, as they were now, the
very blackness of them made his eyes dominate his face in such a
way, she could not have looked away had she wanted to. She should
have been mortified that he caught her inspecting him so closely
and she would have been, she supposed, if her senses had not
suddenly deserted her completely.

She had
only had one lover—Nate Hawethorne—in all her twenty years. The son
of an earl, he had paid Spence handsomely for the opportunity to
sail on the
Egret
during one
of her voyages to the Indies. He had been looking for adventure and
excitement, and his enthusiasm for the romance of the sea had been
contagious. Beau had lost her virginity on a beach in the Azores,
and while she had felt warm and trembly when they were in each
other’s arms, it was not what she would have called an
earth-shattering experience. It was … warm and trembly, with a lot
of sweat and stickiness to clean up afterward—mostly
his.

A single glance
from Simon Dante roused far more stunning responses in her body,
disturbing in their intensity, unsettling in their discovery.

“Would you care
to try it again?”

Beau was
startled. “Try what?”

“Making a fist
with your hand.”

She curled her
fingers over her palm and although the linen strips hampered her
movements, there was definitely less pain.

“Better?”

She nodded
mutely.

“Good enough to
defend yourself if you have to?”

She nodded
again, this time with a faint crease between her eyebrows. “Are you
expecting treachery on board the Spaniard?”