Mistress of the Stone (8 page)

Before she could talk herself out of it, she stripped off her shirt and cotton shift and replaced it with this delicate morsel of decadence.

Sinful.
No wonder courtesans sold their favors for these lovelies.

Papa would box her ears if he knew.

Her crime committed, she dug to the bottom of the chest where a fine mahogany box lay buried. ‘Twas her favorite treasure of all. Nervous fingers felt for the latch.

She sat cross-legged on the floor and laid the box on her lap, opening the lid carefully. The uppermost item was a lady’s mirror in alabaster so pure, it was almost translucent. Luísa stroked the handle covetously. When she first came aboard the
Coral
, her trousseau included a very fine mirror, but it had broken many years ago, leaving her only with the shards.

This indulgent prize more than made up for the loss.

There was a matching alabaster bowl filled with fine white powder that smelled like roses. She lifted off the lid and bent her head to take a sniff, then sneezed, sending a cloud of powder drifting all over her and the floor.

“Maggots!” She dusted the powder off her clothes. Papa would have tossed the entire chest overboard if he’d known she bandied with cosmetics. Only tarts and the royal hag, Queen Elizabeth, painted their faces like harlots, he’d say. And then he’d repeat it in three other languages just to make sure she got the message.

Luísa didn’t care. It was pretty and it smelled good. Better than the sunburnt men she toiled with every day.

She picked up the puff and dabbed a little into the bowl of powder. The puff touched her nose ever so lightly and she sneezed again, this time tumbling the remains of the bowl out of her lap and all over the floor.

“Son of a whore!” She slapped a hand to her mouth almost as soon as the words spilled out.

A moment later came a knock at the door. “Everything all right, Captain-ma’am?” It was Black Barbosa, the quartermaster.

Luísa cursed under her breath. All that beautiful powder, lost. “Aye, Tomas. All is well,” she said as calmly as she could, then winced at the travesty of spilt powder.

She scooped up whatever white heaven she could salvage then wiped the rest into the seams of the floor. “Wasted,” she cursed. “Wasted on mice and floorboards.”

Her fingers still white with powder, she wiped the perfumed residue on her face and throat. The silkiness on her fingertips was as slick as new butter. What harm could a little more do? She daubed the powder puff across her chest and down her breasts. Her indulgence complete, she’d have to spend a week in confession to repay all her sins for this day alone.

Luísa pulled out a blue silk gown festooned with ribbons that had come with the chest. How she wished she had a reason to wear such a thing. Perhaps if Daltry had seen her in this, he’d know she was a woman and not just a brigand.

Blasted heretic. Even for an
Inglés
, the look of him, so feral and stalwart made her weak in the knees. He was like an itch she couldn’t scratch. If a lady’s trousseau wasn’t enough to distract her than all she had left was work.

Luísa hid away her treasure and dressed, concealing any hint of the chemise beneath a stiff bodice, coarse enough to bury the woman inside.

She discussed course corrections with the sailing master, argued over charts, and listened absently as the quartermaster repeated the sounding reading. It took her several minutes before she realized Black Barbosa kept sniffing her.

He had said nothing. Neither did any of the other men who drifted past her, pausing only momentarily to swallow a breath of perfumed air before moving on.

Luísa was mortified, but it was too late to do anything about it now.

Dooley passed by her next, then promptly smacked into a beam.

“Watch where yer goin’, ye mangy cur!” Black Barbosa grabbed Dooley up by the elbow then swatted him across the back of his head.

Dooley saluted. “Sorry, sir. Sorry, ma’am. Won’t happen again.”

Barbosa kicked an orphan bucket at the nearest man in a mob of seven. “Get to work, ye bilge rats, or I’ll drown ye with yer own spit.”

The men scrambled to the deck with buckets, holystone and scrub brushes, with not a peep from the lot of them.

What did Papa say?
Never look weak in front of the men. Instead she looked the fool.

“Aye, well, Tomas. You’ve got things well in hand. I think I’ll go below.”

“Best, I think, ma’am.”

He tossed her a dour look that said he’d get more work out of the men if she were anywhere but here.

The winds remained good, and there was no need for her on the top deck. Even Paqua had taken to his quarters, though he did so for days after every reading. The cost of knowing the future was dear.

The sun waned as well. Perhaps it was time for another visit to the prisoner and to put her sweet-smelling powder to better use.

She marched to the hold like a soldier to war, making sure she didn’t make eye contact with any of her crew. If she so much as caught a snicker from any man, he’d pay for that smirk with thirty days of night watch.

Luísa took a sharp breath before climbing down the ladder to the hold. Someone had to check on the prisoner. He had turned a pistol on her after all. This was a dangerous criminal and not to be trusted to his own devices, even if he was in chains.

She jested only herself. All she really wanted was another look at this devil, a wicked dream to sleep on.

The hold sat abysmally dark, so she lengthened the wick in the lantern to give them more light. What good would it do to flirt with her prisoner if he couldn’t see her? She didn’t speak, pretending to inspect his shackled wrists and raking a glance across an exposed chest of hair.

Unable to find any more reason to stay, she climbed the stairs, shamelessly jutting her buttocks in the hope that he would at least make one lewd remark.

Still he said nothing and it shamed her for acting the fool. Worse yet, it made her want him more. A damp spread between her thighs and it had become suddenly hot despite the mild weather.

Luísa hurried back to her cabin. She wiped the sweat from her throat and waited until her composure returned. What was she thinking, flirting with a prisoner, and an
Inglés
at that? Her face flushed with heat. She was no better than a common tart.

She pulled out a little shrine of the Virgin Mary that she kept in a cupboard, then made the sign of the cross and asked the Blessed Virgin for forgiveness.

“Will I burn in hell,
Madonna
?”

The statue said nothing to her and perhaps it was for the best. Luísa was sure she was way past saving. Impure thoughts besieged her regularly, and this heretic had made things worse. If Paqua or her father didn’t marry her soon, they’d have to fish her out of a Turkish brothel.

When she looked presentable again, she made her way to Paqua’s quarters and knocked softly.

“The door is open, Luísa,” a calm voice called out.

She opened it, thinking to find him at his altar of dried flowers and rice, but instead he sat with his eyes downcast, resignation on his face.

The shaman looked older than his years and it frightened her a little. She’d already lost a father; she couldn’t afford to lose Paqua too. He was her North Star, and a more faithful guide she had never known. He protected her with a ferocity bestowed only to blood kin.

Around his neck was the stiffened foot from Khourru, the dead chicken.
A warding charm.
Had he seen danger in the entrails? His rheumy eyes refused to tell her more.

A bottle of rum and two glasses sat in front of him. In the center of the table was a small ivory box no bigger than the palm of her hand. He nodded to a chair. “Sit down,
querida
.”

Querida.
This meant either a lecture or a reprimand.

“What’s wrong,
Grayhair
? You’ve been awfully quiet since you dispatched that old biddy. What exactly did you see in her innards?”

“The future, of course.”

She frowned. “Riddles again, old man?”

He paid her no mind, but mumbled something in his native tongue. He seemed to mumble a lot lately.

“What was that, Paqua?”

“I said Inácio would not appreciate you wearing a harlot’s powder.” He cast a glance her way and continued fondling the chicken foot.

Luísa’s face turned hot. “It was just a little powder. All the nobles wear it. Even the men.”

“Only to hide their ugliness,
niña
. You have no need of such things.”

“Aye, well, if it makes you feel any better I spilled most of it on the floorboards. I’ll probably be sneezing from now until the second coming.”

Paqua didn’t even have the kindness to keep from smiling. But at least he wore a smile. She’d not seen him fair-humored in a long time. And yesterday’s reading made him even more cheerless.

Unlike his other performances with all their pomp and glory, this reading had been somber, even grim. That night after his reading, Paqua kept himself to his cabin and he neither drank nor ate his dinner. Whatever he saw in the entrails of that dead chicken scared the devil out of him.

“Will you give me some answers now? Is Papa on the island?”

He nodded. “
Sí
. He is there.”

She heaved a sigh of relief then jumped from her seat. “I’ll be back. I want the men to unfurl every sail. We might make it in two days more if the winds are willing.”

He grabbed her by the arm. “Sit down, Luísa. There’s more.”

His gaze drifted to a window. A lone gull sailed past it then disappeared, winging its way to land, searching for a perch for the night. “Do you remember where we were when your father ordered us to sail without him?”

“Tortuga. We had stopped to celebrate my eighteenth birthday.”

“Aye. Your father wanted to give you a special day.”

Luísa’s brow crinkled. “Saint-Sauveur landed that day. I remember the messenger he sent to Papa, asking for parlay. Papa invited him to the banquet.”

“Humph,” Paqua grunted. “That devil danced with you. Did he say anything strange?”

“No. He…”

She didn’t want to tell him how Saint-Sauveur grazed his fingers down her bare arm. She had worn a gown that day, one Papa had bought for her in Spain. Saint-Sauveur breathed in her scent like a man needing air. His vulgar desire smoldered openly and it had frightened her.

“He said I looked pretty.”

“Saint-Sauveur belies his priestly robes. He came to the feast to offer your father a deal.”

Luísa peered over at him. “What sort of deal?”

“A devil’s bargain. He offered Inácio ten thousand gold doubloons for your hand in marriage.”

Luísa shot up from her seat. “Ten thousand! In gold? That can’t be. Papa said no such thing.”

“He didn’t want you to know.”

His fingers feathered across the top of the ivory case. He pulled it toward him and traced the carved outline of a gibbous moon. “Your father didn’t order us into African waters because of some bounty-hunter, Luísa. Saint-Sauveur is far more dangerous than that. The brigand offered many incentives. A huge bride price, and a guarantee that he would protect this ship from any French-owned court should we be caught and put on trial. It was a tempting offer.”

“Papa would never have given me to the likes of him.”

“Of course he wouldn’t.” He said it as if it were ludicrous to even bring it up. “That’s why he sent you away. That’s why he stayed. His plan was to dupe Saint-Sauveur into thinking you and he were still on the island. He hired a young woman to sit in your room.”

“But why didn’t he follow us? We could have rendezvoused at any time.”

Paqua shrugged and let out a long sigh. “We were supposed to meet in Istanbul. That was the plan. Saint-Sauveur must have discovered our plot and held him hostage. Inácio could be dead.”

“But you said he was still alive.”

“I said he was on the island. But I have no idea what condition he’s in.”

Paqua leaned over and rested his hand over hers. “Someone betrayed us,
querida
. Someone captured your father before he could leave and turned him over to that French cutthroat. I don’t believe Saint-Sauveur worked alone.”

Luísa’s hands clenched into fists. “That traitor will be found and punished by my oath. First, we get Papa.”

“Aye, Luísa. We will go to the
Isla de Sempiterno
and find your father. The signs have told me so. But know thee well there’ll be a price to pay. Many will die.”

Luísa wet her lips, unwilling to admit they were risking every man on board in order to save her father. “No man turns pirate without knowing the risks,
viejo
.”

“Aye,” he said softly. “But as pirates, we fight mortal men for earthly treasure. If we go to
Sempiterno
, we might very well fight for our eternal souls.” He pushed the ivory box toward her. “Yours,” he said. “You might need this now.”

Luísa opened the box, half expecting something to crawl out. Instead she found a silver chain attached to a blue stone so pale and soft, it looked almost ghostly. It sang to her. “
Dios mío
,” she gasped. “What sort of deviltry is this? It throws my brain in a swoon.” Luísa braced herself against the edge of the table.