Page 21

De Tourville uncrossed his arms and walked over to the table where her charts were spread.

He examined the topmost sheet with its rough scrawls and hasty figurings, then lifted it out of the way to study the more detailed, beautifully painted map beneath.

Beau, like most ship’s navigators, was an accomplished artist, recording by means of sketches and paintings what a particular coastline or island might look like from the sea.

With no other means of recording what they saw on their voyages, and verbal descriptions unreliable at best, these paintings and maps, often displayed in cartographers’ windows, were the only means some people had of envisioning the world beyond London’s city gates.

“Your work?” He touched a long, tapered finger to the painting and added, “It betrays the favor of a woman’s hand, but with an authority I would not have expected.”

“Why? Because I am a woman?”

He glanced up and grinned. “Because I would not have guessed there to be enough patience in you to sit overlong with a single-haired brush just to show the probable variance of shore currents.”

An odd look came over his face and before she had a chance to respond to his mockery, he stared back down, not at the painting so much as at the precisely rendered depiction of a swan in the lower corner.

The first day, her father had referred to her as his little black swan, but the significance of the endearment came clear to him only now.

“You,” he said sharply, his eyes sparking with genuine astonishment.

“You are the Black Swan?” He looked down again, cursing his own lack of perception, for he had seen some of the other charts in her cabin and not made the connection.

It was some small consolation to know that few of the other sea hawks would have guessed the Black Swan to be a woman, for her charts and maps were highly sought after and graced the cabins of many famous ships.

He had himself been outbid on a chart of the Azores, the shoals depicted with such an expert eye, he had looked closer to see if there were fish in the water.

He would be damned if he told her that, of course, but he allowed some grudging interest in her training.

“Where did you apprentice?”

“I didn’t. I used to copy maps from Father’s study. He had a copy of Theatrum Orbis—”

“—Terrarum” he finished for her. “Are you saying you learned how to do this from copying paintings out of a book? No one stood over your shoulder to guide your hand? No one taught you the techniques and methods?”

Beau’s cheeks were warming uncomfortably. “No. I had no time for such frippery.”

“Frippery,” he mused, and looked down again.

“In that case, ’Tis a pity no one thought to salvage some of the master charts off the Virago.

Many of them were works of art, painted by the hands of Mercator and Wagenaer.

You could have made good use of such … frippery—not that I can see much room for improvement. ”

Beau experienced another rush of discomfort. “As it happens…”

“Yes?”

The silver-blue eyes were penetratingly direct and they stalled the response in her throat long enough for her to suffer a distinct, warming flutter in the pit of her stomach.

“I—I did see them crushed beneath a pile of books on the floor, and I thought…”

The blue flecks danced with an odd light. “And you thought it would be a waste to leave them behind?”

“Well, it would have. And you did tell me I could take anything I wanted.”

“I did indeed. But I rather thought you had your sights set on the jewels.”

She squared her shoulders. “I have no need for jewels. The maps were more valuable to me, and I took them. I did not steal them, however. There was heavy damage to some and I was intending to repair them, and perhaps copy them, before giving them back to you.”

His attention, which had begun to stray rather disarmingly over her hair, the slender arch of her throat, the bloom of color in her cheeks, focused intently on her eyes again.

“How very honorable of you … Beau. I, too, would have placed a higher value on the charts than I would on a cask of jewels, although it would be my pleasure to make you a gift of them anyway. Both the charts and the jewels.”

“I told you, I have no need for jewels.”

“Then I shall give them to your father, as payment for his hospitality.”

Standing so close, she was more aware than ever of his imposing height and of the shocking breadth of his shoulders.

He wore the billowing white shirt, still unlaced and left carelessly open over the solid bronzed expanse of his chest. His hose were clean and made of wool woven to so fine a fit, they looked as if they had been painted on, and it did not require much strain to her imagination to remember how he had appeared naked and sprawled on her bed.

The sight of his powerful physique had struck her with the chill of speechlessness then; his nearness was having the same effect now, and she took a precautionary step back, making it seem as casual as she could.

“Have you no one of your own who would appreciate such a gift? A wife? Children? Family?”

Dante regarded her warily for a moment, wondering if she was genuinely ignorant or just attempting to pry.

There were times he did not think there was a soul alive in all of England or France who did not know about his personal life.

About his wife. About the parade of lovers she had taken to amuse her while he was away at sea.

“I had an older brother,” he said at length.

“But Giles died before he could have any heirs of his own to pass on the family name and fortune. It was an unfortunate turn of fate, for he was much better suited to assume the titles and responsibilities. As for a wife, I had one once, when I was young and stupid and too blinded by my own ignorance to see that all she wanted was the family titles and responsibilities. And perhaps a warm body in her bed now and then … though God forbid that warm body should necessarily be the same warm body each time. No, mam’selle, I am as you see me.

Accountable to no one but myself and quite content to remain this way. ”

It was not difficult to understand how the staid, socially regimented life of a nobleman could stifle a man like Simon Dante, although it was somewhat more difficult to imagine a woman tossing him out of her bed for another.

The abruptness of the thought startled Beau and she reddened slightly. “So … you are content living the life of a pirate?”

Dante gave his shoulders a careless shrug.

“I am content living a life that is my own, being accountable to no one.

I sincerely tried being the Comte de Tourville for a while but it gave me very little pleasure.

Even now, I have a flock of gray-cloaked bankers and managers who chase after me constantly with crates of documents, letters, and ledgers to approve or disapprove—it drives the account-keepers apoplectic when I am away at sea for any great length of time.

But for the most part they are all dry, cold men who do not understand the soul of an adventurer, and I think they are quite content to serve me from a distance.

“It was much the same for my wife. She managed to spend my money well enough, and act the part of regal chatelaine to an excess of praise, but for all her charm and beauty—and I will admit she was an exquisite creature— she had no soul whatsoever.”

“Surely you must have felt affection for her at one time?”

More than a hint of cynicism crept into the thin smile that curved his lips.

“Why would you suppose that? Marriages, especially those for whom the proper bloodlines are considered paramount to all else, are never based on affection, ma pauvre innocente. They are based on greed and power and ambition. God save the man who expects love, passion, and loyalty.”

He sounded bitter enough to refute his own words and Beau suspected he must have loved his wife very much indeed.

So much so, he had not yet recovered from her betrayal and used his anger against her as a weapon against others.

Or a shield. He was, in fact, proving to have many shields and cloaks.

He had the demeanor of an aristocrat when he wanted to call on it, the character of a pirate when he needed to use it, and a body that emanated a dangerous combination of elegance and savagery—a combination that sent warning chills up and down her spine even as he tilted his head to one side, trying to read her thoughts.

“And you, mam’selle? Have you no regrets for a path not taken? What brings you to this point, this place in time? Why are you not swathed in satins and silks, sipping chocolate from tiny porcelain cups, and discussing the newest court scandal?”

Beau grimaced. “Court scandals have never interested me. And one can hardly climb rigging and set sails in a skirt and farthingale.”

His eyes gleamed with shared amusement and he let his gaze drift downward, seeming to measure every curve and indentation of her body, lingering so long in places, Beau could have sworn it was his hands, not his eyes, causing her skin to react so alarmingly.

“No,” he mused. “I suppose one could not. But my question had to do with why you were here climbing rigging and setting sails in the first place, You have no brothers, no sisters? No … husband, or expectations thereof?”

“It is doubtful a husband would be content to sit at home by the hearth fire while I sailed away to sea.”

“That would depend a great deal on the husband, would it not? Have you given any stout-hearted lads a fair chance?”

“I have no use or need for a husband,” she insisted. “Therefore no use or need to give any of them a chance.”

“Them? So there have been candidates willing to attempt a breach in that formidable armor you wear? ”