Pirate Wolf Trilogy (76 page)

Varian slapped
again and spared a scowl at Gabriel’s broad back. The younger Dante
did not seem to be bothered by the fog of gnats; he kept to a fast
pace and only slowed when he knew they were approaching a sentry
post. His clothes were as wet as the dark curls of his hair, and
his boots squeaked with moisture at every step. Despite the ready
wit he displayed in the cave, he did not appear to have too much to
say while they walked, and only spoke if asked a specific
question.

“
Your
ship,” Varian ventured at one point. “It is ... the
Tribute
?”

“
The
Valor
.”

“A regal
name.”

Gabriel stopped
so suddenly, Varian almost walked up his heels. “Near the end, just
before we went for a soaking, you did something with your wrist. An
imbrocade that followed through with a quarter twist. A pinch more
pressure and you could easily have broken the tension in my wrist
and sent the blade spinning out of my hand. You had the advantage,
sir, but did not press it.”

Varian would
have answered but for the bug that flew into his mouth the moment
he opened it.

“If you thought
to win me as an ally to your cause, you were mistaken. Had you
followed through, disarmed me honestly, then put the blade to my
throat and held it there until I conceded the point, you would have
scored higher.”

“I will know
better the next time,” Varian said evenly. “I merely thought
to—”

“Save me the
embarrassment in front of my sister? Believe me, she probably saw
what you did and it saved me nothing but endless entendres from her
tongue. She is a clever girl, our Jolly. And if I might offer a
word of caution, should you ever find yourself locking blades with
her, you had best give it your all or she’ll sliver you just for
the insult.” He paused and smiled faintly. “She’s rather prickly in
that respect.”

“So I have
noticed.”

“Will you show
it to me again? The imbrocade? It is a move I have not seen
before.”

Varian inclined
his head. “Certainly. Though I could not find too many faults in
your attack. You had me on my guard more than I would care to
admit.”

Dante grinned.
“The devil you say. And were you speaking the truth? Did you
honestly study under Alejandro de Caranca?”

“If you knew me
better,” Varian said evenly, “you would know that my word is my
bond and men have died for doubting it.”

Gabriel crossed
his arms over his chest. “If you knew my sister better, you would
know she is not easily swayed by a pretty face and a strong pair of
arms. Whatever words you whispered in her ear while you had her
beneath you will carry no weight if it ever came to a choice
between you and the lowliest seaman on her crew. Speaking for
myself, if I thought you intended to hurt the smallest hair on her
head, I would slit you open stem to stern, tie you down in the sun
and watch the sea birds peck away your flesh until you screamed
yourself into madness. Jonas would be even more creative, I’m sure,
and Father... well... suffice it to say madness and death would be
a blessing. Be wise and keep that in mind the next time you open
your breeches.”

Varian was
accorded another flash of the handsome grin before Dante ducked
back under the veil of greenery and began walking again. They went
the rest of the way in silence, and by the time they arrived at the
bottom of the slope, the air was purple with dusk and there were
lights blazing in windows on both storeys of the sprawling white
house, more twinkling below in the harbor.

~~~

Juliet had not
lingered outside the cave. When she was fairly certain the two
fools would not kill each other, she had left and returned down the
path, too furious to trust herself not to take her sword to both
men.

Some of her
anger had been vented with savage glee on the palm fronds that had
gotten in her way on the trek down. Some continued to burn in her
cheeks when she arrived at the house and started pacing to and fro,
still wishing she had a pair of heads to break between her bare
hands—Gabriel’s for defending her when she needed no defending, and
Varian St. Clare’s because... because he was clever and deceitful
and because she should have been able to leave his bed this morning
with nothing more than a stretch and a yawn of satisfaction.

He admitted he
was a spy. He admitted he had come to the Indies to experience one
last adventure before retiring to his castle and the virtues of
wedded bliss. Was Gabriel right? Was she just part of the
adventure?

Even if she
was, where was the harm in confessing it? She was more than happy
to admit on her part that it was lust, pure and simple. Why
complicate it further by seeking hidden motives? Why offer marriage
like it was some kind of panacea? And why, by the Devil’s wrath,
was it perfectly fine for men to act on their feelings of lust, but
when a woman ventured into those waters, she had to be redeemed
instantly from the depths of the perceived sin and cloaked in
respectability, regardless if she wanted to be or not? He’d looked
like he had a bone stuck in his gullet when he tried to spit the
words out; had she said yes, would he have spun into a swoon like
his wretched little manservant?

Juliet cursed
and kicked an offensive pot of flowers out of the way. Her toes
took the worst of the blow and she hopped over to the veranda to
sit on the edge.

She heard
footsteps and looked up. They were just emerging from the path at
the far end of the garden, Gabriel in front, St. Clare lagging a
few steps behind. They seemed to be walking easily enough in each
other’s company, with no further evidence of the fight having
continued after she left. Their clothes had dried for the most
part, but the wind had played havoc with Varian’s hair, leaving it
wild and shaggy around his shoulders.

“You may check
his shirt for extra holes if you like,” Gabriel said cheerfully.
“But you will find him all of one piece. Is Father back yet, do you
know?”

“I’ve not gone
looking, but I heard horses arrive out front a few minutes
ago.”

“Ah. In that
case, I will just go along and find myself a tall glass of rum to
ease the pain in my jaw. By the way, his grace has generously
offered to show me that pretty little twirling fillip he did at the
end.” He paused to swish an imaginary blade through the air. “And I
have promised to let him feed the seabirds if he is so
inclined.”

He offered a
polite bow and touched a dark curl before he continued on his way,
leaving Juliet frowning up at Varian.

“Feed the
birds?”

“With my own
entrails,” he explained succinctly, “if I unfasten my breeches
again without giving it serious thought.”

Juliet sighed
and shook her head as he took a seat beside her. “There are barely
ten months between us in age. I expect that makes him feel the need
to play champion.”

“
I
thought he showed remarkable restraint. Were our positions
reversed, and I found him
in
flagrante
with
my sister... ” His voice trailed off a moment. “Juliet... I meant
what I said back there. My offer was genuine.”

She frowned.
“And your mouth is just as stiff with terror saying it now as then.
Save your chivalrous gestures, your grace, they are not needed or
wanted here. I have enjoyed our trysts, truly I have, but if you
keep plaguing me with offers of marriage, I will have at you myself
with a blade. Speaking of which—?”

She held out
her hand and Varian hesitated a moment before handing back her
sword and baldric.

“You realize,
of course, my dear mother—who has been trying to get me to propose
to someone, anyone for the past few years—would be crushed if she
knew that the first time the words actually left my mouth, they
were rejected out of hand. Twice.”

“Your dear
mother should have raised a more honest son.”

He sighed and
took a seat beside her. “I have been more honest with you, Juliet,
than with anyone else in my life thus far.”

“When were you
thinking of telling me you were a spy?”

He pursed his
lips. “Since the role was a small one, played many months ago, I
did not think it was relevant. I am not here for any other
nefarious purpose other than the one I have already stated. I am
not here to write down the names of your father’s fellow
privateers; we already know them. I am not here to assess your
power or strength, that too is quite well documented. I grant you
the exact location of this island comes as somewhat of a
revelation, but since the best I can estimate is that we are
somewhere within a day’s sail of the Windward Passage, your lair is
perfectly safe from exposure by me.”

Juliet found
the dark eyes waiting for her when she turned. “So much for Johnny
Boy thinking you could not read a chart,” she murmured.

“I am just as
likely to be a hundred leagues out one way or the other but I do
know the constellations that lie over the equator and we are
considerably north.”

“Is this
supposed to win my trust?”

“Would it help
to nudge you closer if I told you I am also aware of the upcoming
rendezvous on New Providence Island? If my dates are not as muddled
as my thinking, I would estimate the annual meeting of all the
privateers should happen some time within the next fortnight.

“Did Gabriel
tell you that?”

He shook
his head. “I knew before I left London. That was where the
Argus
was bound.”

“You were just
going to sail into a harbor full of privateers? Demand they haul in
their guns and follow you back to England like docile lambs?”

“I was
empowered to offer some excellent incentives aside from the amnesty
and the pardons.”

“Titles? Lands?
Estates? Tossing a knighthood at someone who already rules the sea
is rather like tossing someone a coin to fetch their trunks, when
that someone already has so many chests filled with coins, there is
a lack of warehouses to store them.”

He held her
gaze a moment then spread his hands with a helpless shrug. “In that
case, I have nothing else to offer but the truth. I am not here to
spy on your family. I have no intentions of studying stars and
charts and landmarks with the intent to reveal the location of this
island to anyone, nor do I have any tawdry ulterior motive for—” he
leaned forward, kissing her hard enough to suck the breath from her
mouth— “doing that. And if my proposal appeared stiff with terror,
it is because you are a very terrifying young woman, and because it
has confused the bloody hell out of me to see how easily you have
managed to twist my entire world... everything I knew up until a
few days ago to be solid and real and unchangeable... into
something I hardly recognize at all.”

He raked a hand
into her hair, but while it remained there and while his eyes
continued to search her face, he did not try to kiss her a second
time.

Juliet
did not know whether to be disappointed or relieved. Nor did she
know if she would have kissed him back or pushed him away if he had
pulled her into his arms again. It was not even faintly comforting
to know that she was not alone in her confusion, for if nothing
else, she had assumed... she had
known
, dammit, that she could rely on his ingrained sense of
ducal propriety to keep this thing between them on the lowest
possible level of complication.

Next, he would
be spewing declarations of love, and she would be expected to know
how to respond.

She surged to
her feet. “We should go inside. I am famished and my mouth tastes
like seawater.”

Varian was
slower to rise, slower to clear his face and rearrange it in a less
compromising expression. “If I am to meet your father, I would beg
the chance to make myself a little more presentable.”

“The clothes
you wore yesterday make you look arrogant and self-serving. In
truth, you will make a better impression in calfskin and
cambric.”

“I bow to your
better judgment, madam.”

“Do you indeed?
Then brace yourself, sir, for the real judge and jury awaits you
inside.”

~~~

Varian had not
yet made the acquaintance of either Lucifer or Geoffrey Pitt,
though their reputations had certainly preceded them. The Cimaroon
was possibly the tallest and broadest man he had ever seen in his
life; a huge black mountain of muscle glowering in one corner of
the room. His eyes were like two bottomless holes burned into his
head, and when he peeled his lips back in a grin, the filed points
of his teeth glinted like white daggers.

Pitt was only
slightly less intimidating. He was not as tall nor as solidly built
as the other men who crowded the great room but the bulk of his
muscle, Juliet had warned, was between his ears. He was of a
similar age as Simon Dante—mid fifties—but wore less weather lines
on his face, and showed no gray in the sun-bleached waves of his
hair. His eyes were the color of jade, pale green and intently
focussed. A man who thought to tell him a lie was a fool indeed,
for although his smile was deceptively friendly, his instincts were
as sharp as a blade. Proof of this was in the way his mouth drifted
upward into a speculative little smile as he looked from Varian to
Juliet, then back to Varian as she finished the introductions.

“You will join
us in a glass of brandy?” Simon Dante asked. “Or would you prefer
to try our island rum?”

“Brandy, thank
you. I’m afraid my stomach has not acquired a keen enough tolerance
for your rum.”

Dante was also
studying the rumpled hair, the damp clothes, the fresh nick on his
temple as he filled a glass and handed it to him. “You look as if
you’ve had a rough time of it, lad. What new torment has my
daughter been putting you through?”