Page 38

T he grappling lines between the Egret and the San Pedro de Marcos were cast off two hours after sunrise.

There was plenty more cargo in the holds of the Spanish galleon, valuable cargo that would have brought a small fortune with the London merchants.

But there was simply no room left onboard the Egret.

They had already made one hard decision to dump the weightier bars of silver overboard rather than leave it on the San Pedro to benefit the Spanish king.

After the gold was loaded, what little storage space that remained was saved for the lighter, more exotic, and therefore more profitable bales of pepper and cloves.

Jonas Spence had already been on deck when the sunrise spread orange and pink clouds across the horizon.

Spit had come to fetch him when the last available cranny had been stuffed and sealed.

Crews had been working all through the night on repairs; and with their holds bulging, their next priority was to put as much open sea between the two ships as possible.

With the Marquis de Moncada dead, command of the San Pedro had fallen to the next senior officer, one of the two who had been in on the original discussions of surrender in the captain-general’s great cabin.

His name was Recalde, and he had been standing less than a pace from Moncada when Dante’s shot had torn away most of the Spaniard’s face.

He would not soon forget the name of either Jonas Spence—as Dante had given it—or the Egret.

Spence had been carried on deck to supervise the ungrappling.

Thomas Moone had still not fashioned a new limb, and as the irascible captain was already bleary eyed and thick tongued, there were few men brave enough to venture onto the foredeck where their bullish captain hobbled along the rail roaring orders until his face was as red as his beard.

Used to her father’s temper, Beau appeared on deck ten or fifteen minutes after Jonas but preferred the company of Billy Cuthbert and her charts.

It would be her job to plot the course least likely to be intercepted by any ships sent to hunt them down, not to mention the many predators from England, Portugal, or France who regularly stalked the sea lanes looking for easy prey.

Dante’s guns would act as somewhat of a deterrent, as would the obvious signs of a battle hard fought and won.

Even so, Beau would have preferred a little heavy weather and stronger winds to hasten them on their way.

Before the confrontation with the Spaniard, she had estimated they were three weeks out of Plymouth, but that was also before adding several tons of plunder to their ballast. Their speed would suffer, as would their maneuverability; there would be a detectably heavy difference in the way the Egret responded to orders from the helm.

But she was fixed with a new arm for the tiller, stouter and stronger than the first, and a crew determined to reach the shores of England with their newfound wealth intact .

The last transfer between the San Pedro and the Egret may not have been the most valuable in terms of monetary compensation, but to some on board the English galleon, Dona Maria Antonia Piacenza’s presence was as comforting as Dante’s demi-cannon.

She crossed the ladeboard with only her duenna and Geoffrey Pitt as escorts.

Her two other maids had, for lack of any comfortable quarters to house them, been left behind.

She was permitted to bring only three of the twenty-three leather trunks that held her personal possessions and, for her protection, was assigned hastily cleaned and reconfigured quarters opposite the captain’s great cabin.

Beau’s tiny sail locker and the weapons armory were consolidated into one cabin and refurbished with a bed, a washstand, and Persian carpets taken from the San Pedro.

It was one of the few times Beau’s head came up from her charts.

She stood by the after rail and watched as Geoffrey Pitt led the tiny duchess across the planks, one gingerly taken step after another.

She was bundled head to toe in a hooded velvet cape, with only a suggestion of huge frightened eyes and a pale face peeping out from the circle of fur trim.

Her gloved hand was clutched to Pitt’s arm as if it were a lifeline.

Equally dainty satin-slippered feet stepped down onto the deck of the Egret with all the confidence of a bird fluttering to its doom.

Dante had said Pitt was smitten by her beauty, so it was no surprise to see him acting so protectively and attentively.

It was surprising, however, to see some of the weathered tars doff their caps and stare, with their mouths gawped open and their normally lewd and ribald catcalls choked back into their throats as the Duchess of Navarre passed.

As chance would have it, she had to pass directly under where Beau was standing in order to make way to her cabin.

The large eyes, darting every which way in trepidation, looked up and, for a moment, registered shock at seeing another woman on board.

The hood slipped back and the creamy white, heart-shaped face was exposed.

And if all the sweetness, innocence, and virginal na?veté were not cloying enough, a traitorous breeze pushed aside the edges of the duchess’s cape and revealed a gown of polished lavender silk beneath.

The hem was decorated a foot or more with a banding of elaborate gold tracery; the overskirt was parted almost to the waist and pinned back to display the elegantly brocaded petticoat of dark, rich rose.

Around her neck she wore a crucifix, the cross positioned directly over her heart; around the impossibly narrow span of her waist, she wore a long, jeweled belt, the ends falling in a cascade of rippling gold links.

Beau looked down at her own dull hose, shirt, and doublet, none of which could be called perfectly clean or perfectly whole.

Her hair was once again pulled back and fettered in a braid, leaving nothing to camouflage the large blue bruise on her forehead or the scabbed crease that ran into her scalp.

Her hands, where they rested on the rail, were tanned and weather-roughened, the nails chipped and stained.

The palms, at least, were minus a few layers of calluses, but the rope burns had left them as red as if she had dipped them in crushed berries.

Her mouth was probably no better off, having been suckled and kissed for the better part of the night.

Her chin and throat were tender as well, chafed by an irreverent jaw stubbled blue-black with coarse hairs.

As for the rest of her body … dainty, delicate , and virginal were hardly the words she would use to describe how she felt.

Despite the fact that Dante had spent an inordinate amount of time massaging each muscle, each square inch of skin, with his scented oil, she was aching and tender in places that brought a blaze of hot color to her cheeks just thinking about them.

And where was he, anyway?

He had not been in the cabin when she had groaned herself out of bed at dawn.

He had not been on the fore-deck with Spence or on the main deck to greet Pitt and his delicate little duchess, although she imagined the pretense of his being the captain of the Egret had ended the moment the ladeboard planks had been withdrawn from the San Pedro.

“Good morning.”

Beau jumped an inch or so out of her skin and whirled around.

He was standing behind her, dressed in a clean white shirt and tight black hose, looking as fresh and roguish as if he had slept another three-day stretch.

He had shaved and bound the waves of his hair back with a leather thong.

The ends of each strand glistened with water, suggesting he had just emerged from the sea.

“Good morning,” she said, and hastened back to her charts.

“To everyone’s good fortune it looks like we will be under way several hours ahead of schedule.”

It was more of an observation than a question and she barely gave it a glance by way of acknowledgment.

“Pitt and his princess are on board, I see. Rather a lovely little thing, is she not? Like a rosebud with dew on the petals, so fresh, she fairly begs for a man’s protection. Poor Pitt. He’ll likely be stammering like a schoolboy before the week’s out.”

Beau slapped down her charcoal stick and straightened. “Was there something specific you wanted, Captain? I have readings to take and a course to plot. If you are so taken by her freshness , why don’t you go below and enjoy a closer look?”

If either her rebuke or her mood surprised him, he gave no sign.

In fact, the only response he offered was through his eyes, and what Beau saw there made her catch her breath and hold it.

He was subtly telling her what she knew already, that she looked thoroughly and utterly debauched, that she could lace her doublet twice as tight and he would still know what lay beneath, that she could scrub her skin raw with lye soap and he would still be able to detect the scent of camphor and musk.

That she could pepper her every word with brimstone and cordite and he would still be able to hear the echo of her begging gasps.

“No,” he said quietly. “There is nothing specific I want. Not at the moment, anyway.”

“Then please—” she released her pent-up breath in a soft gust— “leave me to my work.”

The smoky, silvery eyes narrowed. “It’s a small ship, Isabeau. You won’t be able to hide behind your work forever.”

“I can try.”