Pirate Wolf Trilogy (39 page)

Dante had
not spoken to her since the morning, and it did not look as if he
was going to speak to her now. He did, however, throw an almost
casual glance in her direction, one that halted whatever he was
saying to Pitt in mid-sentence. His gaze raked over the pistols
tucked into her waist and the cutlass slung crosswise in a belt
over her shoulder. A subsequent quick glance around the deck found
Spit McCutcheon, Billy Cuthbert, and a score more
Egret
men similarly armed, and while
Beau detected a faintly mocking smile curl the corner of his mouth,
he bent his head to Pitt again and finished his thought.

The jolly boat
was waiting below the gangway, and with a final nod in Spence’s
direction Dante started for the hatch.

“Coward,” Beau
muttered under her breath.

He stopped.
There was no earthly way he should have been able to hear her, yet
she saw his big shoulders ripple with one, two, slow breaths before
he turned and walked deliberately back to where she stood. His
expression was stony but his eyes sparked blue with anger and
before she could react, his arm snaked out and went around her
waist, lifting her, crushing her hard against his chest. Conscious
of the startled eyes and slack jaws surrounding them, he kissed
her, full and open-mouthed, oblivious to her first furious
struggles, then attentive to her half-cursed surrender.

“If you are
going to call me anything, mam’selle, call me a fool.”

“
You
are
a fool,
Simon Dante. And if you do anything foolish tonight, I will hate
you for it.”

“Hate me?”

“Every minute
of every day.”

“So I will be
constantly in your thoughts?”

“Only to be
hated.”

“Liar.”

He said the
word so softly, it was almost a caress. And the way he looked at
her, absorbing her into his eyes, heart, and soul, caused a hot,
stinging sensation at the back of her throat.

“Please,
Simon,” she whispered. “Do not do anything foolish.”

“I fear I
already have, mam’selle.” He kissed her again, tenderly and warmly,
and this time, when she flung her arms around his neck and kissed
him back, the men on deck grinned and slapped their thighs in
approval.

He lowered her
gently to the deck again and brushed the backs of his fingers
across her cheek.

“We will finish
this discussion later,” he promised huskily. “Do not even try to
hide from me and”—his gaze fell to the open V of her shirt—“wear
very old clothes you have no more use for.”

Drake
stood by the gallery windows of the
Elizabeth Bonaventure
, surveying a great cabin that was filling
slowly with the captains of his fleet. The
Bonaventure
was one of four Royal Navy ships the Queen had
provided for this venture. There were four others that Drake and
his business associates had contributed; a ship belonging to the
Lord Admiral—a pox on his always having a finger in every pie—and
eight others that a consortium of London merchants, prominent in
the privateering business, had supplied, making it a fleet partly
driven by patriotic necessity and partly by the quest for plunder
and profit. Cadiz was the main supply port for the Spanish fleet
sailing to the Indies and the amount of possible plunder should be
more than enough to sway the opinions of the privateers to his
cause. The Queen’s men should see the strategic
significance.

The idea
to raid Cadiz was brilliant. Dangerous, reckless, audacious, but
brilliant. Just like De Tourville himself Drake supposed he should
not have been surprised to see Simon Dante standing on the deck of
the
Egret
It was
just like him to rise up from the dead, like the mythical phoenix,
and appear out of nowhere as bold and daring as ever. Drake had,
along with every other sea hawk in Elizabeth’s fleet, declared the
Frenchman insane for even dreaming up the scheme to raid Panama,
and Victor Bloodstone a fool with a death wish for accompanying
him. Instead, Walsingham’s by-blow had sailed right into London,
all flags and pennants flying. He had delivered over twenty
thousand pounds of plundered Panamanian gold into the Queen’s
coffers and was being touted as the newest Prince of
Privateers.

Hindsight
excuses from the sea hawks for not having joined De Tourville on
his escapade had flown in the air like feathers. Drake, whose own
exploits at Cartagena and Nombre de Dios were no longer lauded as
being the boldest, the most successful, raids on the New World, had
become so short tempered, only his most devoted friends had not
avoided him.

Now this
further insult for the world’s greatest sailor to endure. A
merchant ship, Commanded by a one-legged, eight-fingered pirate who
put his daughter in breeches and likely drank whatever profits he
made … he had taken one of the richest prizes on the Main.

No small
thanks, again, to Simon Dante de Tourville.

Drake squeezed
his fist tightly around his drinking cup, fighting to control the
surge of jealous rage that boiled through his blood. If he had any
hope, any hope at all, of being named Admiral of the Fleet, he had
to return to England with more than just his flags and pennants
flying. He had to leave a mark on Spain and on history that England
would not soon forget.

“Sir?”

Drake’s head
snapped around. Christopher Carleill had been standing by,
discreetly guarding his admiral’s privacy while the other captains
gathered around the long cherrywood table, sharing drinks and
conversation.

“Well? What is
it?”

“Captain
Bloodstone and his second have just arrived.”

Drake
followed Carleill’s glance. He had not liked Walsingham’s bastard
before the raid on Vera Cruz, he had less cause to like or trust
him now that Dante’s unexpected resurrection threw suspicion on his
sworn account of the pirate wolf’s demise. Nor was Drake alone in
his dislike of the man. None of the sea hawks tolerated
Bloodstone’s smug demeanor lightly, for they had all earned their
positions through loyal and daring service to the Crown. Bloodstone
had wormed his way into court through the belly of Walsingham’s
mistress. Any modest skills he displayed at the helm of a ship were
generally overshadowed by his vanity, his arrogance, his
undisguised ambition to further himself at Court.

It was the main
reason Drake disliked him: it was like looking at himself twenty
years earlier, knowing he would have rammed anyone and dragged him
under his keel in order to get ahead.

“Should I,
perhaps, whisper a word in his ear about our unexpected guests?”
Carleill inquired.

“And spoil a
happy reunion for two members of the brotherhood?” Drake smiled
tightly. “I think not. I think I prefer to let them both surprise
each other. It will make for a much more interesting evening.”

Victor
Bloodstone was tall enough, it behoved him to bend his head to
clear the low-slung lintel across the doorway. He was impeccably
dressed, as always, wearing a chocolate-brown velvet doublet with
satin inserts, and skin-tight hose that needed no padding around
the hips to distract the eye from any flaws. Rings glittered on
every finger: emeralds, sapphires, and diamonds mounted on thick
gold bands. He wore a starched white neck ruff from which depended
several long gold chains in varying styles of links. Around his
waist he wore a gold-hilted dress sword and a dagger encrusted with
bloodred rubies.

Cool hazel eyes
surveyed the roomful of ship’s masters. There was not one his
equal, with the possible exception of Drake himself. He was
disappointed, on the one hand, not to find himself in the austere
company of Frobisher, Raleigh, or Hawkyns. On the other, there was
little by way of competition. None of these petty privateers had
done more than plunder a few small fishing pinnaces or sack a
village or two along the coast of Spain. Penny thieves, the lot of
them, hunting for their first real taste of fame.

Fame that
he, Victor Bloodstone, already had. As if it had happened
yesterday, he could taste the sweet triumph of sailing the Talon
into London. Watchers had sighted her from quite a distance out and
sent runners through the city, sounding the alert. Shops and houses
alike had emptied, the men and women spilling onto the Queenhithe
docks in a great, boisterous crowd. The
Talon’s
flags had been up, signaling a full hold, and
because everyone who could walk, talk, or piss upright was aware,
by then, of what her mission had been, the quayside had been so
congested, there were bodies tipping off the edge and splashing
into the sea.

The
Talon
and her
master had been greeted, then swarmed, by a fleet of fishing boats
and small harbor craft. They had acted like a bobbing, cheering
escort up the Thames, their crews bartering and bickering to win
bids for haulage. Coins had flashed through the air like water
droplets from a fountain, for the
Talon’s
crewmen had been just as eager to have ready
transport for their personal bounty, hoping to keep it safe from
the prying eyes of the Queen’s excise men.

Those
sharp-nosed, keen-eyed vultures had lost no time hastening to the
docks either. It was up to them, caped in somber black like birds
of prey, to make a fair accounting of any plunder taken in the
Queen’s name. If they were quick enough on board, they could almost
get an honest tally. If they were delayed, they could hear the
pocketfuls of coin and jewels walking off the ships and marvel at
the remarkably rotund girth of some of the sailors who had lived
months at sea on rations of salted fish and biscuits.

The
Talon
had not
disappointed anyone. The crates of gold and silver bullion taken
from her hold had staggered all but the most seasoned of the
Queen’s men—God only knew what their reaction would have been had
they known he had stopped off first to unload half of her bounty
into his private cache.

As it was,
great roars had risen from the crowds each time a group of heroic
sailors had disembarked, the greatest of all coming when Victor had
appeared on deck. He had stood in the last of the afternoon’s
golden rays, his handsome face bronzed, his sand-colored hair
streaked blond from exposure to the sun and salt air. Large hazel
eyes, sensually hooded and long lashed, had sent many a gawping
female swooning. He had looked magnificent. He had looked like a
man who had defied all odds and sailed halfway across the world to
raid the King’s treasure depot.

Some of
the hopefuls had continued to scan the watery horizon for a glimpse
of the
Virago
and her
dashing captain, Dante de Tourville. Bloodstone had known, the day
they sailed out of port, that no one predicted their success in
Vera Cruz. But Victor had gambled on Dante de Tourville’s star
riding high, and, by Christ, it had risen clear to the heavens.
They had taken nearly four hundred thousand ducats out of the
treasure house—a hundred thousand English pounds, and if not for
the storm that had hammered them in the Atlantic, they would have
escaped cleanly away.

Of
course, if it hadn’t been for the storm and the damage to Dante’s
ship, the opportunity would not have been handed to him to double
his profits, double his fame, double his pleasure in watching the
Spanish zabras send the bastard to hell where he belonged. Arrogant
bloody Frenchman, always giving orders, always
telling
him the way it was going to be, always
looking at him with those cold blue eyes, flaunting his noble
blood.

He probably
hadn’t looked very noble screaming for his last breath, his mouth
and lungs filling with water, his ship spiraling to the sea floor
beneath him.

When word
spread that the pirate wolf was dead, there was another rippling
wave of swooning women and men with downcast eyes, for despite the
exorbitant wagers against success, many had gathered in London,
anticipating the privateers’ return. Most had stared, stunned, at
the
Talon
, finding
it difficult, if not impossible, to believe the infamous
Virago
, her
captain, and crew were gone.

Elizabeth
had scarcely believed it either. She had summoned Bloodstone into
her presence immediately and demanded to hear every last detail of
the raid and the ensuing battle with the zabras. She had questioned
him so closely, he began to suspect she was searching for some
false note in his reporting of the events, which was why, in the
end, he had made the Frenchman out to be a hero and a martyr.
Moreover, he had done such a splendid job, she had wept—actually
wept!—over the loss of the rogue. And Walsingham, the same bastard
who had once slapped him halfway across a room for daring to call
him “father,” had swelled with pride and dared to call
him
son. He had called for the
first toast and nearly wept into his cups when the Queen had
rewarded Bloodstone with two fat estates in Devon. It wasn’t the
knighthood he wanted, but that would come. It was sure to come if
he stayed close enough on Drake’s heels.

Victor was
smiling now as he nodded and accepted the respectful greetings of
the other captains.

“
You
heard he took the
San Pedro de Marcos?”

“
What’s
that you say?” Victor’s sandy eyebrows came together in a sharply
demarked bridge over his nose as he caught a snatch of conversation
between two captains nearby. “Who took the
San Pedro?
When?”