Pirate Wolf Trilogy (89 page)

He looked past
her shoulder but the staunchly bulked figure of her ever-present
duenna was nowhere to be seen.

“I can promise
you, señorita, it was not the fault of the company,” he said,
bowing gallantly. “If anything, I feel it is my own presence that
must insult the beauty of such tender eyes as yours.”

“You refer to
your wounds, capitán? But I do not find them offensive in the
least. Indeed, with your hair arranged so carefully, they are
hardly visible at all. I have some knowledge of healing herbs,
taught at the Convent of the Holy Sisters in Madrid, and if your
wounds pain you, I might be of some small assistance.”

Recalde stepped
back as she stepped forward, a hand rising instinctively to protect
his damaged ears from her curiosity. He did not need this now. He
did not need a coddling, mewling novitiate keening over his wounded
vanity.

“There is a
chill in the air, señorita. You might be wise to return below.”

“Nonsense. It
is so warm, the dampness wets my skin like dew.” She slipped her
shawl off her shoulders and, ignoring his suggestion, placed her
hands on the rail and gazed out across the harbor. “How beautiful,”
she whispered. “How entirely, wondrously beautiful. I think I have
never seen so many ships gathered in one place. They glitter and
twinkle just like the stars, of which I have never seen so many as
there are here in the New World.” She looked up and her face fell,
for it had rained all day and the sky was still thick with
clouds.

The entire
ocean beyond the harbor was black, not a point of light to be seen
anywhere. It was like staring into a great black void and the awe
was reflected in Marisol’s voice.

“It is so
beautiful, yet so terrifying at the same time. I find myself
looking at the many endless, boundless leagues of water and
thinking we are so small, so insignificant. A few lengths of wood
held together by nails and pitch, afloat by God’s grace, at the
complete mercy of the wind and weather. Does it not frighten you,
capitán, to know your life may be spent on such a whim? That a
storm could strike or a leak could erupt and we would sink to the
bottom without a trace?”

“You worry
yourself needlessly señorita. This ship is as sound as a fortress.
And we will not be alone on the ocean sea. We will be in the
company of a hundred other galleons, an armada that will stretch
from one edge of the horizon to the other until we arrive safely
home.”

“Home.” She
sighed wistfully. “Alas, I was so happy, so thrilled when Father
told us we were coming to the New World. I was so thankful just to
be free of the convent, I thought I would die of excitement before
we ever reached Vera Cruz.” She paused and glanced at him sidelong.
“Do you think that a shameful thing to say? That I was glad to be
away from the prayer stools and the smell of incense?”

“I see little
shame in telling the truth.”

She smiled and
moved her hand an inch closer to his on the rail. “Then I shall
shock you by saying it was nothing at all what I expected. The
villa was magnificent and we wanted for nothing, but Papa would not
let either Lucia or myself outside the gates. In two years, I was
permitted to drive into the city of Vera Cruz only once, and then
with so many guards in our escort, it was impossible to see through
the wall of horses. Lucia was terrified the whole time of being
waylaid and raped, and so Mama punished me for her fears.”

“Then that is a
true shame, for Vera Cruz is an elegant, beautiful city.”

“Yes, I know.”
She sent another smile, another sly glance in his direction. “I
said Papa only permitted us to leave the villa once. I did not say
I only left it the one time. The gardener’s son was very much in
love with me and took me often through the rear gates. He showed me
things that would keep Mama in a swoon for a month if she
knew.”

Recalde
returned the smile. “If she knew you were up here on deck with me
now, without your duenna, she would do much more than swoon.”

“Would she
indeed? Are you a dangerous man, capitán? Have you a reputation for
taking advantage of unchaperoned virgins?”

The girl was
flirting with him. She was pretty enough to make the game
interesting, but she was also spoiled and rebellious and obviously
thought of herself an exotically daring vixen to have snuck outside
the villa walls with the gardener’s son.

“I can assure
you, señorita, your reputation is perfectly safe with me.”

She pursed her
lips and feigned a moue of disappointment. “And here I was hoping
you were different from the others.”

“Different? How
so?”

“The other
officers, they look at me like I am the governor’s daughter. They
prance and simper and speak of nothing but the weather. Whereas
you, capitán, look at me as if you could see beneath my bodice, and
if provoked, would rip it open and take what you wanted without
troubling to ask.”

“And if I did?
What would you do?”

“I might
scream.” She moved closer and traced a fingertip along one of the
prominent veins on the back of his hand. “Or I might tell you that
I have not been a virgin for a very long time and that I would give
you what you want more than willingly.” She looked up into his
face, her own arranged in an expression the gardener’s boy must
have found seductive. “Do you know where my cabin is, capitán?”

“I know.”

“My duenna
snores like trumpet blasts and I have never been able to tolerate
her in the same room with me at night. If you were to scratch on my
door later, you would find me quite alone.”

Recalde’s gaze
flicked briefly into the shadows and he smiled. “If I were to
scratch on your father’s door right now and tell him of our
conversation, I’m sure you would not be alone much longer.”

The girl
stiffened. She withdrew her hand from his, curling the fingers into
a fist that trembled with the childish urge to reach up and scratch
the arrogant face to ribbons. With a swirl of wide skirts, she was
gone, her anger and humiliation making her run back along the
deck.

Almost before
the sound of her footsteps had faded, another figure detached
itself from a niche in the bulkhead behind them, her dark eyes
blazing with anger.

“So. You would
have my little sister kneeling at your feet as well, señor?”

“I did not ask
for her company. She followed me out here on her own
initiative.”

“Really.”
Lucia’s eyes narrowed. “Had I not been standing here, would you
still have sent her away?”

Recalde smiled
and took several measured steps toward her, crowding her back into
the darkness of the niche. He resumed where they had left off
before the interruption, scooping her breasts free of her bodice
and hiking her skirts above her waist. As she had the three
previous nights when they had ‘accidentally’ met on deck, she
welcomed him with a grasping eagerness, whimpering when he impaled
her on his flesh and rammed her repeatedly into the hard planking.
In a trice her flirtatious whimpers turned into voracious snuffles
of pleasure and he was forced to clamp a hand over her mouth, wary
of the watchmen posted on the deck overhead.

His own release
was swift, accomplished with a piquant savagery by imagining it was
Juliet Dante clutching at him in fear, oozing his revenge from
every orifice of her body. When he finished, he simply pushed
himself away, leaving the girl quivering where she stood against
the bulkhead.

“
Por Dios
,” she
whispered, her skirts sliding slowly down to cover her bare legs.
“My little sister would be dead if you did such a thing to her. I
myself wonder if I can survive six weeks at sea.
con la piedad de
Dios
,” she laughed
softly. “I wonder if I can even walk back to my cabin.”

Recalde started
to tuck himself back into his breeches. “If you are displeased, I’m
sure there are others on board who would be happy to show you more
deference, señorita.”

“You jest,
capitán.” She smiled and gingerly tucked back into her bodice
breasts that had been suckled and bitten red. “The oaf I go home to
marry is fat and balding—much like your capitán Aquayo—and the
thought of even letting him touch me is sickening. He is rich and
has the king’s ear, and so I must marry him but you, my handsome
capitán, you will give me the memories I need to see me through the
horror.”

“I am flattered
to have won your consideration,” he murmured dryly.

“Oh yes, you
have won it,” she agreed, reaching out to stop him before he had
fastened his breeches all the way. “As you shall win it every day
and night for however long it takes to cross this vast ocean-sea.
Not only that, but I shall see that you crave me just as much as I
crave you so that when we return to Seville you will not easily
forget me.”

Recalde
had more than half forgotten her already. He was staring out over
the rail, his gaze fixed a point far out where the sea met the sky.
He narrowed his eyes and backtracked to search the blackness more
carefully. There was nothing visible to the naked eye, yet for a
moment he thought he had seen something. Even then, it was not so
much that he had
seen
something,
it was more like he had
sensed
something, had felt a presence lurking out there, crouched
low on the eastern horizon.

His hand fell
instinctively to his waist, but he was dressed for formal dining
and the belt he normally wore that housed his brass eye scope was
back in his cabin. It was probably nothing. There were a dozen
pataches patrolling the approaches to the harbor, not to mention
lookouts on every high point of the coastline. Only a madman would
sail this close to Havana the eve before the armada was due to
sail.

He gasped and
looked down, jerked back to the present by the feel of an angry
hand insinuating itself beneath his clothes and clutching around
his flesh. He was about to swat it away, swat her away when a
startled grunt marked the realization that it was not her hand at
all that was demanding his full attention.

~~

Gabriel Dante
lowered his spyglass. The wide stretch of coastline a league away
showed few lights on either side of the dazzling expanse of bright
glitter that identified the port of Havana. He and Jonas had not
been able to bring their ships too close during daylight hours, but
with the rain and heavy ceiling of cloud shielding them, they had
thought to take advantage of the opportunity before breaking
north.

Both ships ran
dark. No fires, no lights, not even a pipe was allowed. The
smallest pinprick of red could carry for miles on such a humid,
heavy night. They had even gone so far as to change their regular
canvas sheets to those stained with indigo dye, a practise that had
successfully allowed them to get within five hundred yards of an
enemy in the past. Tonight even Jonas was exercising caution, for
there were pataches and pinnaces patrolling back and forth along
the straits and approaches, some of them running just as dark as
they were and equally difficult to see.

They had
both been astounded to see the crowded conditions in port, and they
had not needed to see the larger warships maneuvering toward the
mouth of the harbor to know that the flota would begin making the
massive exodus any day now. Having noted this significant
repositioning of the warships, Jonas was taking the
Tribute
in as close as he dared to see
if he could get a count of exactly how many of the heavily armed
galleons would leave with the first flush. After that, it would be
time to lay on canvas and beetle back to the cays with all
haste.

Gabriel
rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. He raised the glass and
took another sweep of the shoreline, but the four pataches he had
already identified were presenting obvious silhouettes against the
lights of the harbor, and were not giving the hairs on his neck a
reason to stand on end. As a precaution, he walked to the larboard
side and swept the horizon behind them. He did not see anything on
the first sweep, not even on the second. But on the third he picked
up a pale silhouette cutting swiftly in from the west and heading
straight for the
Tribute
. It was
another ship, larger than a patache, with at least three masts and
high towers fore and aft.

A galleon.
Running dark.

Gabriel
aimed the glass at the
Tribute
. Knowing his brother was watching his back, Jonas would
likely have most of the sharpest eyes on board searching forward.
As if that fear needed confirmation, Gabriel saw no visible change
in speed or direction from his brother’s ship. He was moving
necessarily slow, with only his indigo topgallant and topsail
mounted on the foremast, steerage tops on the main and mizzen. He
would have to shake out the sails on all three masts soon if he
wanted to build up enough speed to maneuver away from the galleon
before the Spaniard drew within effective range of his
guns.

“Fuck me,”
Gabriel muttered aloud.

“Might not have
to,” his helmsman said dryly. “Pleasure might be all theirs,” he
added, pointing to two more ghostly spectres closing fast on their
own flank.

Gabriel
swung his glass around and sure enough, the
Tribute
was not the only vessel in trouble. A pair of
bloodhounds, coming from seeming thin air, had taken the scent of
the
Valor
. They must
have found him the same way he had found the pataches, by
pinpointing his silhouette against the bright lights of the harbor.
It was a stupid, careless, and potentially dangerous error in
judgement to have come in so close, and they would be lucky to find
the speed to outrun them before all hell broke loose.