Pirate Wolf Trilogy (66 page)

Varian
obliged with a solemn, “To the unquestionable valor of the
Iron
Rose
, to the courage of
her captain and crew.”

“Well said.”
Dante nodded with approval and emptied his cup.

“As for what
brings me here, Captain Dante—”

The pirate wolf
held up his hand a second time. “Any business you have that may or
may not interest me can be discussed at a more appropriate
time.”

“Captain, it is
both pressing and urgent. Any further delays could result in
serious consequences to you and your brethren here in the
Caribbean.”

Dante glanced
at Juliet, who only shrugged. “He has not deigned to tell me.”

“Then the
matter cannot be as urgent and pressing as you imply.”

“His Majesty
and the first minister were quite insistent that I convey his edict
at the first opportunity.”

“An edict, is
it?” He glanced down as if to see if Varian was, indeed, stamping
his foot. “You have kept the faith this long, St. Clare, another
day or two will hardly affect the way the sun rises and sets.
Furthermore, you are in another hemisphere, sir, where things move
a good deal slower than they do between chambers at Whitehall. Take
your ease. Enjoy our beautiful tropical air. As my daughter’s
guest, you are welcome to come ashore under her protection, but do
not bandy the king’s name around and expect the walls to quiver in
awe. We are a long way from court, and the whims of a lisping
peace-monger carry little weight here.” He set his cup aside and
draped an arm around Juliet’s waist. “Now then, Daughter, you
doubtless have stories to tell and a fair amount of bragging to set
the ears of your brothers ringing. Shall we save them until we are
ashore where we can toast each one without fear of drowning on the
way to our beds? Oh, and before I forget... Mr Kelly!”

The carpenter
turned too quickly to answer the summons and banged his head on the
lower edge of a spar. His eyes crossed a moment before he was able
to shake them clear. “Aye, Cap’n?”

“
You’re
not forgetting the reason the
Iron Rose
was sent out on sea trials in the first place?”

Nog scratched
the stubble on his chin a moment before the recollection sparked in
his eyes. “No sar! Worked a treat, it did. We tried her at six,
eight, and twelve knots and she turned without spillin’ the soup
out o’ the pot. Rode the storm like a damned princess too.”

Dante
nodded and elaborated for Varian’s sake. “Now
that
is urgent and pressing business. A new rudder
design that increases speed, improves steerage in bad weather, and
provides greater stability in a turn. How soon can you rig the
other ships, Nog?”

The carpenter
tugged his forelock. “Cap’n Juliet has me strippin’ down the
Spaniard, but once she’s done... it’ll take a fortnight at least to
do all three ships... unless ye want ‘em belly up at the same time.
Then it could be done in a week or less.”

“I’ll give it
some thought. In the meantime—” he gave Juliet’s shoulder a
squeeze. “It looks like we’ll have something else to celebrate
tonight. You’ve done well. Next thing we know, you will be
designing entire ships and giving Mr. Pitt a reason to look over
his shoulder.”

“Mr. Pitt did
not come aboard?” she asked, suddenly noting the lack.

“He was
detained elsewhere, I’m afraid. Another boy, delivered
yesterday.”

Juliet’s face
lit up with a wide smile. “Gracious, but is that eight or
nine?”

“Nine boys,
four girls. I will have to start sending him out to sea more often.
He obviously has too much time on his hands. But enough of this.
Tonight, we celebrate the capture of the biggest prize—” he raised
his voice so that it boomed from stem to stern— “taken by the
boldest crew in the Caribbee!”

The ship’s
company broke out in another raucous chorus of cheers and stomping
feet. It was high praise indeed coming from the Pirate Wolf and
many shed unabashed tears of pride. The cheering followed Simon
Dante to the gangway, where he was met by Isabeau, Gabriel, and the
sopping wet Jonas. After cautioning Juliet good naturedly not to
linger on board too long, the four descended to a waiting longboat
and were rowed back to shore to prepare the great house for a
feast.

~~~

As the
oars dipped into the water and carried them farther from the
Iron
Rose
, Isabeau leaned
into her husband’s shoulder and released a tremulous
sigh.

“Dear God,
Simon. What have we done, you and I?”

He could barely
hear her whisper above the rush of the water moving beneath the
keel.

“What do you
mean, love?”

“We both
encouraged her to take this path, though I admit the fault lies
more with me than you. You wanted to send her to France for her
schooling, for a chance to become a proper lady. I was the one who
urged you to let her choose for herself.”

Dante
pressed his lips into the crush of his wife’s hair. “Next to you,
my lovely
cygne
noir
, Juliet is
the most proper lady I know. She has heart, she has courage, she
has honor... and she has fear. More fear than these two
rapscallions, I warrant,” he added, tilting his head in the
direction of their two sons sitting in the bow of the longboat.
“And that is what will keep her safe.”

“A good man
wouldn’t hurt either,” Gabriel said over his shoulder. “If one
could be found addled enough to take her.”

“Eh?” Jonas
swivelled around. “What are you talking about?”

“The size of
your brother’s ears,” Isabeau snapped. “And unless he wants them
soundly boxed, he’ll keep them pointed straight ahead.”

CHAPTER
TEN

Once again,
Varian found himself at odds. Beacom recovered enough to dust
himself off and retire below to fetch the small chest Johnny Boy
had appropriated for their use. There was not much in it: a spare
shirt and stockings, some linens, and a horsehair brush, but it
gave the valet something familiar to do to keep his mind off
slashed throats and boiled entrails.

As for Varian,
he was not accustomed to being dismissed out of hand nor being set
aside like an afterthought, and it angered him enough that he
followed Juliet to her cabin after the revelry had come to a happy
end on deck.

He paused only
fractionally, his hand on the latch, before his fingers curled into
a grudging fist and he knocked on the door.

“Come.”

She was
at her desk gathering up the ledgers, maps, manifests and other
assorted documents they had collected from the
Santo Domingo
and the
Argus
. She had removed her hat and the lantern light was pouring
over her shoulders, gilding the dark waves of her hair with streaks
of red and gold fire.

When Varian
entered, she glanced up and sighed.

“You have the
look of a grievance about you, my lord. Be warned, my patience is
strained and I have my pistols close at hand.”

He clasped his
hands behind his back. “The correct form of address, which you have
thus far chosen to ignore, is in fact: your grace.”

She finished
shuffling a handful of papers and straightened. “I am sure you have
not come here, all puffed up like a quail, to instruct me in proper
manners.”

“
I fear
you are already well beyond salvation in that respect, captain. I
have come to inquire after the meaning of your father’s words: that
I am welcome to come ashore
under your protection
.”

“
It seems
clear enough to me,
my lord
,” she
said, deliberately misusing the address again. “In essence, you
were captured along with the galleon, which makes you part of the
spoils, if you will. It follows then, by the purest definition of
the articles of privateering, that you have become my property and
therefore my responsibility. Trust me when I say I am no more
pleased than you with the designation, but there you have it. Even
pirates have rules of order.” After holding his gaze a moment
longer, she bowed to her task again. “On the other hand, you should
be thankful Father did place you under my protection, otherwise my
brother Jonas might have shot you out of hand.”

Varian’s mind
was still stumbling over the word ‘property’. “Your brother? What
has he to do with any of this?”

“He hates the
Spaniards even more than my father, though one would be hard
pressed to find the grain of sand that weights the balance in his
favor.”

She
glanced up as Johnny Boy came stumping through the open doorway to
tell her the
Santo
Domingo
had been
towed into the harbor.

“Yes, all
right. Thank you. Here, you can take these topside for me—” she
stuffed the last wad of documents into a bulging canvas sack and
handed them to the boy. “Have a longboat made ready, we will be
going ashore as soon as Mr. Crisp gives a signal.”

“Aye,
Cap’n.”

“Hold up there
a moment,” she called, stopping him at the door. “What did you do
to your leg?”

Johnny Boy
craned his head around to look at the dark circle of blood that
stained his breeches above the cup of the carved peg. “‘T’ain’t
nuthin’ Cap’n. I backed into a gun carriage and scraped it on a bit
of wood.”

“Make sure you
clean it well before you go ashore. I’ll not be pleased if we have
to trim another inch off the stump because you were careless.”

“Aye Cap’n.”
The boy grinned. “I’ll scrub it till it squeaks an’ piss on it
twice a day.”

When he was
gone, Juliet noted the look on Varian’s face.

“‘Tis the best
way to clean a wound, sir, and prevent corruption.” Her gaze danced
across his cheek a moment, but instead of compounding his shock by
confirming the nature of the stinging tincture she had dabbed over
his wound, she settled her wide-brimmed hat on her head and
snatched her gloves off the desk. “Shall we go topside, my lord?
I’ve a few more details to attend before we disembark.”

Frustrated by
the fact he had come in search of answers only to be left with more
questions, he reached out and caught her arm as she started to walk
past. Exactly what he meant or wanted to say was cut short when she
glared at his hand, then glared up at his face. He released his
grip at once, but the daggers were already in her eyes, the steel
in her voice. “I thought you said you learned from your
mistakes?”

“I am trying
desperately to do so, believe me. Unfortunately the rules seem to
change every time I turn around.”

“You will just
have to turn a little faster then, will you not?”

“Believe me, I
am spinning now, madam,” he muttered, but she was out the door and
halfway up the steps to the quarterdeck.

~~~

An hour
later, Juliet was finally ready to go ashore. The
Santo Domingo
was securely anchored fifty
yards astern and had become a magnet for swarms of jolly boats. It
was long past full dark and lanterns had been hung from her lines
and rigging, flooding the decks bright as day. Men were already
banging together winches that would be used in the morning to
offload her cargo of treasure.

Juliet
was heading toward the gangway when she noticed how closely the
duke of Harrow was watching the proceedings on board the
Santo
Domingo
. He was
squinting to see through the glare, and when Juliet searched the
far deck to see what had piqued his interest, she saw the English
lieutenant, Beck, moving freely amongst the crewmen on board, even
supervising the men as they lowered huge nets into the belly of the
galleon.

“
If you
want to come ashore, my lord,” Juliet said, drawing Varian’s
attention away from the
Santo Domingo
, “we are leaving now. But take fair notice that if you
make a nuisance of yourself, you will be carried back here like a
sack of grain.”

Apart from a
small muscle that quickened in Varian’s cheek, he remained
silent.

By contrast,
Beacom took one look over the open rail at the gangway and
blanched. It was a steep descent down the outer skin of the hull
with nothing to cling to but the narrow rungs that were set into
the timbers. The sky was black overhead, the water an eerie
confusion of shadows and shapes below. The lights had attracted
schools of fish, some who swam near the surface and darted about
like iridescent streaks. Some of the darker shadows on the bottom
moved independent of the longboats above, huge round, flat
creatures with long whip-like tails snaking out behind.

“Dear me, your
grace.” Beacom melted back from the rail. “I think I should prefer
to wait for a chair.”

Varian watched
Juliet flick the wing of her cape over her shoulder and disappear
below the level of the deck. “I doubt there are more than two ways
of disembarking, Beacom,” he said dryly. “Her brother took the one
earlier today, and you see before you the other.”

“Ho there!”
Juliet shouted from below. “We haven’t all night. If you fall, just
give the barracuda a few sharp kicks and they get out of your
way.”

Beacom
whimpered and Varian sighed. “Perhaps you would prefer to remain on
board? I’m sure the ship’s company will find ways to amuse
you.”

The valet’s
pale hand fluttered up to clutch his throat. “I’ll not abandon you
now, your grace. Lead on.”

“Follow close
behind me. I’ll guide your feet and catch you up if you put one
wrong.”

Beacom gave a
jerky nod and waited until Varian was three steps down before he
stretched a foot gingerly over the side. Terror more than aptitude
kept him moving down the ladder, and he did not stop or open his
eyes until he felt a hand clamp around his ankle and guide it onto
the rocking longboat.