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Drake drew a breath and laced his hands together behind his back. “And the ship?”

“The San Pedro de Marcos”

Carleill’s head jerked around. “The San —? But she’s— she’s six hundred tons if she’s an ounce!”

“She was big,” Dante admitted blithely—so blithely, it sent Spence’s cup to his mouth again and almost dragged Pitt’s gaze up off the floor, where it had been fixed for the past five minutes.

“How hotly did she protest?” The lieutenant’s voice had a catch of awe in it.

“We peppered her with over four hundred rounds before she brought down her colors.”

“Yet you did not claim her as prize?”

“We did not think she stood much chance of making it to a Spanish port, let alone an English one.”

Drake cleared his throat, which was suffused with a rising red tide of ill-concealed jealousy. “Her cargo?”

“Plate and bullion.” Dante paused and smiled like Clarence the cat after a successful raid on the cook’s stores. “Sixty thousand, thereabout. Only a rough estimate, you understand, having no guild merchant on board.”

Drake shook his head, the movement barely perceptible at first, then with enough vigor to supplement the sudden bark of laughter that erupted from his throat.

“You blackhearted bastard! First Veracruz, then a miraculous resurrection, then a Spanish treasure galleon. You’ll have the Queen appointing you Lord Admiral of the defense of England if you don’t have a care. ”

There was not as much jesting behind the words as his demeanor implied and both men knew it. Drake ached for the command. He wanted it, he deserved it, the people demanded it. But unless he could accomplish something spectacular between now and June, the Queen would likely give the nod to protocol.

And if Cadiz had not been firmly fixed in his mind before, it was now. For an attack on Cadiz could prove to be his most spectacular coup yet.

“We will hold council on the Bonaventure tonight,” Drake said crisply. “You will, of course, join us,” he added, extending the invitation to include Dante and Jonas Spence.

“It will be an honor,” Dante agreed.

Drake waited impatiently for Carleill to gather up the documents. With Spence scrambling out of his chair to follow them, the two men strode out of the cabin and returned topside.

As he passed, Spence plucked at Dante’s sleeve and hissed, “Do ye not plan to tell him about the duchess? What if she’s—” he lowered his voice to an airless whisper— “ye know … the duchess?”

“I did not mention our guest, firstly, because we have yet to determine if she is Medina Sidonia’s duchess; secondly, because I have played at whist with my esteemed comrade too many times to underestimate the benefit of always holding a trump card back in case it is needed.

For that matter, he rarely plays without holding one or two back himself. ”

“Ye think he isn’t tellin’ us everythin’?”

“I think he isn’t telling us something. I just don’t know what it is.”

Beau did not follow the men up on deck. She went to her own cabin instead and stood on the gallery balcony to watch the famous sea hawk being rowed back to the Elizabeth Bonaventure.

She had seen him from a distance many times before—who had passed through Plymouth and had not?

So his abbreviated appearance did not startle her.

Also, she knew from the sailors’ talk that he was cheerful, first to buy a round of ale, and first on his feet to defend his Queen and country with word or blade.

Something about him, however, left her with an odd sense of unease. As if he would not have been above confiscating their plunder from the San Pedro had Dante not been on board.

She sighed and heard voices behind her, recognizing those of Dante and Geoffrey Pitt.

Pitt’s was the sharpest and she surmised they must be discussing the fate of Dona Maria Antonia Piacenza and whether that was her full name or not.

If not, if she was the Duke of Medina Sidonia's wife, Pitt’s little duchess might just prove to be more valuable than ten shiploads of treasure and nothing would stop Drake from taking her.

The voices stopped, rather abruptly, and Dante joined her on the gallery a few angry footsteps later.

“Love,” he said grimly. “Such brief pleasure for such prolonged pain; the one hardly justifies the other.”

She looked at him sidelong. “Some people, I am sure, find the exchange fair.”

“Some people are fools.”

Beau turned her head forward again. “I gather you have asked Mister Pitt to find out if the duchess has any more titles behind her name?”

“I cannot very well ask her myself. She melts into a frightened puddle if I so much as inquire after her health.”

“I was imagining that was the kind of reaction you preferred from your women. Docile, fainthearted, demurring to your every command….”

He glared at her. “If it was, I wouldn’t be taking you into my bed every night, now would I?”

Beau returned his stare for a long moment, then pushed away from the rail with a curse. She gained no more than a pace or two before Dante’s arm snaked out and caught her around the waist, hauling her back.

“Let me go, you insufferably arrogant—”

He kissed her hard, on the mouth, and when he did let her go, he was grinning. “You’re like a keg of powder, did you know that? The smallest spark touches your fuse and blam! Off you go.”

She wriggled and squirmed and tried to wrench herself free, but he only tightened his grip and trapped her closer against his chest.

“If you truly want me to explode, Captain—”

He laughed again and lifted her, wary of the eyes that might be watching from the Elizabeth Bonaventure.

He carried her, still thrashing and spitting like a cat, into the cabin and closed the gallery door behind them.

Turning her into the corner, he kept her pinned there with his big body even as he freed his hands to cradle her neck and tilt her mouth up to his.

She tried to bite him and he bit back. Her gasp allowed his tongue to make short work of her defenses and within a few half-heartedly angry protests, she was all but a puddle herself.

“Bastard,” she gasped when she could. “You don’t play fair.”

“With you? God’s truth, I would not stand a chance. You would have me castrated, and without the use of a knife.”

She opened her mouth to the rovings of his tongue and lips, and curled her arms around his shoulders.

“Besides,” he said between suckling caresses, “I need to talk to you and I need your full attention.”

“You have it,” she murmured. “Talk away.”

“I plan to go on the raid to Cadiz with Drake. He will likely ask me anyway, if I have not put his nose too far out of joint, but even if he doesn’t, I’m sure I can catch a ride with someone.”

Beau’s eyes opened and her mouth stopped moving against his. His dark head lifted, though he was careful to keep her body immobilized against the wall.

“What about the Egret ?”

“What about her? She is going home … and so are you.”

“Thank you very much for the dismissal, but I don’t recall you being named captain.”

“I don’t have to be; all I need are eyes.

You’re carrying several tons of bullion—rather expensive ballast to toss overboard should the need arise.

Your speed and maneuverability are hampered and your rudder is not as sound as it should be.

You are a week, give or take, from port; your men are tired and anxious to see their families or spend their money.

They have already gone through one unnecessary ordeal and survived as much through luck as anything else.

It would not be fair to throw them into another conflict not of their choosing, not of their nature.

You said yourself, the Egret is a merchantman, not a warship, and brave though her captain and crew might be— all of her crew,” he repeated emphatically, “Cadiz is no place for her to be. It is no place for you to be either. This is war, despite what Drake or the Queen prefers to call it, and I want you safe, Isabeau. I want you home in England, safe.”

Her eyes, huge and tawny and glistening like pools of liquid gold, looked up at him without an accompanying word, and he cursed, low and soft in his throat.

“Drake would never let you come along, regardless. You heard him: he handpicked his captains and his ships. They are the fastest, the sleekest, the ones with the most firepower, and in prime fighting condition. ”

“Not all of them. There is at least one in as rough shape as the Egret , possibly even worse.”

“Isabeau—”

“There is!” She pushed him away and wrenched open the gallery door. He cursed again, but obeyed her command to go out onto the balcony and, once there, to follow the outthrust point of her finger.

At first he did not see it, for there were ten or more galleons drifting in to take a position near the Elizabeth Bonaventure. But then a silhouette, etched into his brain like a burning brand, drew his eye and held it; held it until his lids burned and the hatred rose like acid in his blood.

It was Victor Bloodstone’s ship. It was the Talon.