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T here were six of them strung out along the horizon.

Six India guards in full suits of sail, riding easy on a south-southwest wind that was at least twenty knots in strength—a square-rigger’s wind and one that would push them straight past the small crust of an island that was, at the moment, shielding the two English sea hawks from sight.

“Damn our luck,” said Victor Bloodstone, gripping the galleon’s toprail with his powerful hands. “First the bloody storm out of bloody nowhere, ripping us to bloody shreds. Now this.”

Bloodstone was a tall, elegantly lean man with sharp, handsome features that attested to his noble English ancestry.

He was captain of the Talon, an eighteen-gun privateering vessel that currently sat at anchor a hundred yards to larboard.

He had just been rowed across to the Virago , responding to the alert sounded from the lookout posted high on the mainmast. The Virago was similar in size and general silhouette to the Talon , though she carried four extra guns in her main battery and flattered them with half a dozen smaller-caliber chasers in her bow and stern.

The captain of the Virago was Simon Dante, Comte de Tourville.

He stood half a head taller than the Englishman and although there were fourteen generations of French aristocracy flowing through his veins, he had the massive shoulders and dark determination of a man who cared less for titles and estates than he did the sound of heavy cannon and booming sail.

Both were a thousand miles from home, at the helm of ships that had suffered potentially crippling damage from the storm that had wreaked havoc upon them for the past seven days and seven nights.

The Virago had borne the worst of it with damage to her rudder and a cracked mizzenmast that had cost her the use of her topgallants.

More pressing was the gurgle of water that flowed through the wide gash in her hull, the result of being rudderless and wind-driven across jagged reefs.

The two crews had spent the last four hours transferring the Virago’s cargo onto the beach of a small island.

Everything not bolted down or deemed necessary for making repairs had been off-loaded, including excess barrels of food and water.

There were already cables attached to her hull in preparation for heeling her on her side to raise her wound above the waterline.

On the island, huge black cauldrons of pitch bubbled in readiness.

Fresh timber and a patching compound of oakum and tar was waiting to repair and caulk the gash as soon as she was careened.

It was a job requiring at least half a day, more if the caulking was expected to set properly. But with a strong twenty-knot wind warping their sails, the six squat Spanish mercenaries would be on them long before then.

“Those bastards are at least a hundred miles off course themselves, if they are who you think they are. ”

Simon Dante narrowed his silvery blue eyes in an attempt to separate the distant galleons from the dancing points of sunlight that reflected off the surface of the water.

He saw nothing to make him change his earlier guess.

The India guards were small, stubby vessels carrying three masts and a deck bristling with armaments, designed for only one purpose: to discourage raiders and privateers of any nationality from attacking the rich plate fleets that sailed regularly between Spain and the New World.

They were usually part of an escort of fifty zabras or more, protecting as few as twenty treasure ships at a time.

The fact there were only six surging along at full sail suggested they had become separated from the main body of the fleet they were protecting, probably during the same storm that had battered the Talon and Virago.

“Three masted,” Dante reiterated grimly. “Most likely ten guns apiece, demi-culverins at best, sakers at least. We should have no trouble with them.”

“No trouble?” Victor Bloodstone arched a sand-colored eyebrow.

“It will be like sailing into a nest of enraged hornets. And in case you haven’t noticed, my dear Comte, we are somewhat at a disadvantage-the result, I might also add, of another of your rash decisions, made without any consultation or discussion. ”

Dante’s gaze remained fixed on the horizon for a moment before turning coldly to Bloodstone.

It was the kind of stare he normally reserved for scullions and fools, or for very large bugs that made a very sticky mess under his boot, and it did not take but a heartbeat for Bloodstone to interpret the look and flush warmly under the deep bronze of his tan.

Over the past three months it had become blatantly obvious the two men could barely abide each other.

Both were brilliant seamen, and equal only to each other as far as nerve and boldness in battle.

Both struck terror as well as awe in their crews for having dared to go where none had ventured before, and for coming away with their holds bulging with bars of Spanish gold and silver.

But where Bloodstone was eager to return to England, to bask in the praise and reap the rewards for his success— fully anticipating a knighthood would be in the offing— Dante had no such aspirations.

He had already earned more accolades than he could reasonably tolerate.

Moreover, the Comte de Tourville was not yet finished with the Spanish.

He and the Virago would, in fact, have parted ways with Bloodstone a full week earlier had the storm not intervened and forced them to remain together.

Now there were six enemy warships bearing down on them—odds neither captain would have hesitated to defy alone had his ship been in prime condition—but they needed each other again if they were to emerge with their ships and their prize intact.

“Very well,” Dante said, the huge muscles in his shoulders rippling as he folded his arms across his chest. “My ship is rudderless and leaking like a sieve; yours is storm damaged with a crack in the mainmast and no spare canvas. What do you propose we do?”

Bloodstone pressed his thin lips thinner in an imitation of a smile. “I expect we have little choice but to fight our way past them.”

“We have no choice,” Dante said flatly. “And we will have to destroy them in order to keep our presence here quiet, at least until we can finish our mission.”

“Your mission,” Bloodstone corrected him succinctly.

“Mine is finished. We did what we set out to do, and we did it well enough to set Philip of Spain spinning around on his royal papist heels. Whatever business you now deem to have unfinished is yours alone. I agreed to one raid and one raid only.”

Dante’s opinion of the Englishman sat on the back of his tongue, souring it like the taste of stale beer.

Bloodstone was nephew to Sir Francis Walsingham, the Queen’s first counsel and chief advisor.

He had sailed with Sir Francis Drake—another arrogant strut of a man—and was reputed to be one of Elizabeth’s favorite supper companions.

Fawning over popinjays and seducing aging queens did not rank high in Dante’s estimation of character qualities, and the sooner he was clear of Bloodstone, the sweeter the air he would breathe.

His cold eyes flicked back to the growing pyramids of sail.

“If they have any eyes at all on board, they will have seen the Virago by now. The Talon , luckily, is still out of view and should remain so until they are almost on us. The wind is behind them and they will keep it to their advantage as long as possible. I propose, therefore”—he looked back at Bloodstone—“to sail the Virago across their bows and draw their attention away from this islet. We will engage and hold them long enough for you to bring the Talon around and come at them from upwind. We won’t have to try very hard to appear to be mortally wounded, and should present a prize too tempting for the bastards to resist.”

Bloodstone nodded consideringly. It was an audacious and risky plan, and Dante would undoubtedly draw heavy fire from all six zabras.

There were few Spaniards on the Main who did not know the Virago by sight, and seeing her wounded and apparently running away in distress would, indeed, attract them like leeches to blood.

It would be up to the Talon to come to his rescue and blast the Spaniards in a crossfire.

Bloodstone reached up and tugged on a gleaming gold forelock. He wore rings on all four fingers of both hands, and the jewels glittered as brightly as the sudden avarice in the liquid brown eyes. “My compliments, Captain Dante. It should be like picking ducks off a pond.”

Four hours later, with the sun glaring in the westerly sky at eye level, Captain Dante ordered his men into the shrouds.

With a temporary patch sealing the gash in the Virago’s hull, they had left the shelter of the island and started a run south by southeast and, as Dante had predicted, the India guards had turned, almost as one, and set after him with their noses high and the water sheeting off their hulls in scrolls of blue-white spume.

Dante had set his own suit carefully, leaving slack in the square mainsails so they appeared full and straining to catch every ounce of strength and speed from the wind.

He had fore and aft maneuverability in the remainder of his sails, but those, too, he kept on an angle not favorable to the Virago’s reputation as a flying sea witch.

Standing on the foredeck, his hair whipping in the breeze like black silk, he passed quiet, steady orders to his helmsman, who knew better than to question why he should make the Virago seem erratic and unsteady, when he also knew, even with a jury-rigged rudder, they could have sailed circles around all six of the charging Spaniards and left them reeling in their wake.