Page 53

B eau paced the width of the main deck, then walked back again.

The sun was a round ball of muddy orange, low on the western horizon.

Clouds were moving down from the north, vast black drifts of them bringing the distinctly metallic smell of rain.

Her father stood beside the gangway hatch, eyeing the approaching storm clouds and his daughter’s stormy face with equal trepidation.

Her request to accompany him to the Elizabeth Bonaventure had been flatly refused.

She was not accustomed to being left behind in matters that concerned the Egret , and even though Spence agreed wholeheartedly that Dante going half cocked to a confrontation with Victor Bloodstone could well put the entire ship in jeopardy, he did not relent.

“I need ye here, daughter,” he insisted in a low, rough voice.

“For if aught happens over there , I want ye to put on all sail an’ haul out o’ here like as the devil were snap-pin’ at yer heels.

I’ve given Spit orders to put guards on the armory and powder magazine as well.

The cap’n talked to his men this afternoon, but I don’t trust anyone on a bellyful o’ rum an’ hate—not even myself. ”

The meeting on the Bonaventure had been called for eight o’clock.

Spence had been ready, fidgeting awkwardly on his ill-fitting peg for an hour now.

A nervous hand constantly adjusted and readjusted the stiff white neck ruff he had finally wrested into place.

He had pruned his beard to a less fearsome froth of wire fuzz, which only made him look like a bald version of a portrait Beau had seen once of Queen Elizabeth’s father, Henry VIII.

She swore softly and on impulse went up to him and batted his hand away from his neck ruff, straightening it herself and arranging the starched figure-eight folds.

“Be careful and look to yourself if anyone starts flinging shots about; you cannot afford to lose any more parts.”

Spence chuckled and pinched her cheek, but she wasn’t paying heed.

Simon Dante was emerging on deck. Unlike Jonas he had not made any special efforts to dress for so auspicious an occasion, despite Spence’s offer of anything suitable out of his own wardrobe.

Dante wore the gleaming black silk shirt that made him look like a panther on the prowl.

A wide leather belt circled his waist, notable for its glaring lack of weaponry of any kind.

Not even a dagger was sheathed at his hip.

No pistols, no sword, and for that, at least, Beau allowed a small sigh of relief.

Walking armed onto Drake’s ship might have set the stage for trouble whether it was intended or not.

Stepping out of the hatchway behind Dante were Geoffrey Pitt and Lucifer.

Pitt looked grim, for he, too, had been told he was to remain on the Egret .

Shock of hearing about the Talon’s presence had effectively blunted his own happy news regarding his little duchess, and save for one brief visit to Christiana’s cabin, he had spent the better part of the afternoon with Dante and the men from the Virago.

Lucifer, standing black and enormous behind them, had his massive arms folded over his chest and his twin scimitars strapped across his back.

It was obvious he was going with Dante and her father, and Beau did not know whether to be comforted by the thought of the Cimaroon’s presence at their backs, or alarmed.

Dante had not spoken to her since the morning, and it did not look as if he was going to speak to her now.

He did, however, throw an almost casual glance in her direction, one that halted whatever he was saying to Pitt in mid-sentence.

His gaze raked over the pistols tucked into her waist and the cutlass slung crosswise in a belt over her shoulder.

A subsequent quick glance around the deck found Spit McCutcheon, Billy Cuthbert, and a score more Egret men similarly armed, and while Beau detected a faintly mocking smile curl the corner of his mouth, he bent his head to Pitt again and finished his thought.

The jolly boat was waiting below the gangway, and with a final nod in Spence’s direction Dante started for the hatch.

“Coward,” Beau muttered under her breath.

He stopped. There was no earthly way he should have been able to hear her, yet she saw his big shoulders ripple with one, two, slow breaths before he turned and walked deliberately back to where she stood.

His expression was stony but his eyes sparked blue with anger and before she could react, his arm snaked out and went around her waist, lifting her, crushing her hard against his chest. Conscious of the startled eyes and slack jaws surrounding them, he kissed her, full and open-mouthed, oblivious to her first furious struggles, then attentive to her half-cursed surrender.

“If you are going to call me anything, mam’selle, call me a fool. ”

“You are a fool, Simon Dante. And if you do anything foolish tonight, I will hate you for it.”

“Hate me?”

“Every minute of every day.”

“So I will be constantly in your thoughts?”

“Only to be hated.”

“Liar.”

He said the word so softly, it was almost a caress. And the way he looked at her, absorbing her into his eyes, heart, and soul, caused a hot, stinging sensation at the back of her throat.

“Please, Simon,” she whispered. “Do not do anything foolish.”

“I fear I already have, mam’selle.” He kissed her again, tenderly and warmly, and this time, when she flung her arms around his neck and kissed him back, the men on deck grinned and slapped their thighs in approval.

He lowered her gently to the deck again and brushed the backs of his fingers across her cheek.

“We will finish this discussion later,” he promised huskily. “Do not even try to hide from me and—” his gaze fell to the open V of her shirt— “wear very old clothes you have no more use for.”

Drake stood by the gallery windows of the Elizabeth Bonaventure , surveying a great cabin that was filling slowly with the captains of his fleet.

The Bonaventure was one of four Royal Navy ships the Queen had provided for this venture.

There were four others that Drake and his business associates had contributed; a ship belonging to the Lord Admiral (a pox on his always having a finger in every pie); and eight others that a consortium of London merchants, prominent in the privateering business, had supplied, making it a fleet partly driven by patriotic necessity and partly by the quest for plunder and profit.

Cadiz was the main supply port for the Spanish fleet sailing to the Indies and the amount of possible plunder should be more than enough to sway the opinions of the privateers to his cause.

The Queen’s men should see the strategical significance.

The idea to raid Cadiz was brilliant. Dangerous, reckless, audacious, but brilliant.

Just like De Tourville himself Drake supposed he should not have been surprised to see Simon Dante standing on the deck of the Egret It was just like him to rise up from the dead, like the mythical phoenix, and appear out of nowhere as bold and daring as ever.

Drake had, along with every other sea hawk in Elizabeth’s fleet, declared the Frenchman insane for even dreaming up the scheme to raid Panama, and Victor Bloodstone a fool with a death wish for accompanying him.

Instead, Walsingham’s by-blow had sailed right into London, all flags and pennants flying.

He had delivered over twenty thousand pounds of plundered Panamanian gold into the Queen’s coffers and was being touted as the newest Prince of Privateers.

Hindsight excuses from the sea hawks for not having joined De Tourville on his escapade had flown in the air like feathers.

Drake, whose own exploits at Cartagena and Nombre de Dios were no longer lauded as being the boldest, the most successful, raids on the New World, had become so short tempered, only his most devoted friends had not avoided him.

Now this further insult for the world’s greatest sailor to endure. A merchant ship, commanded by a one-legged, eight-fingered pirate who put his daughter in breeches and likely drank whatever profits he made … he had taken one of the richest prizes on the Main.

No small thanks, again, to Dante de Tourville.

Drake squeezed his fist tightly around his drinking cup, fighting to control the surge of jealous rage that boiled through his blood.

If he had any hope, any hope at all, of being named Admiral of the Fleet, he had to return to England with more than just his flags and pennants flying.

He had to leave a mark on Spain and on history that England would not soon forget.

“Sir?”

Drake’s head snapped around. Christopher Carleill had been standing by, discreetly guarding his admiral’s privacy while the other captains gathered around the long cherrywood table, sharing drinks and conversation.

“Well? What is it?”

“Captain Bloodstone has just arrived.”

Drake followed Carleill’s glance. He had not liked Walsingham’s bastard before the raid on Veracruz, he had less cause to like or trust him now that Dante’s unexpected resurrection threw suspicion on his sworn account of the pirate wolf’s demise.

Nor was Drake alone in his dislike of the man.

None of the sea hawks tolerated Bloodstone’s smug demeanor lightly, for they had all earned their positions through loyal and daring service to the Crown.

Bloodstone had wormed his way into court through the belly of Walsingham’s mistress.

Any modest skills he displayed at the helm of a ship were generally overshadowed by his vanity, his arrogance, his undisguised ambition to further himself at Court.

It was the main reason Drake disliked him: it was like looking at himself twenty years earlier, knowing he would have rammed anyone and dragged him under his keel in order to get ahead.