Page 59

S pence appeared on deck the next morning with a head as thick as a post. His tongue was furred and he declared the foot he had left in the Indies ten years ago itched as if he were standing on a nest of red ants.

He was not happy, and when Jonas Spence was not happy, he made damned sure the entire crew was not happy.

Even Spit McCutcheon was acting like a cat with turpentine rubbed under his tail.

Beau had no sympathy to spare for anyone.

She hadn’t had but a moment’s sleep all night, and naturally, that moment had come early in the morning.

When she had finally startled herself awake, most of Dante’s men had already transferred to the Scout and he probably would have happily sailed away without so much as a fare-thee-well if she hadn’t come up on deck in time.

It did not matter that she had not wanted him to say good-bye, had ordered him not to, and was sullen enough when he did to send him away with less than a glowing flush of warmth and understanding coursing through his body.

The heat, the passion, the poignant promises made in the dark warmth of her cabin, had vanished, leaving nothing but harsh reality in its wake.

He was leaving and she was staying behind.

The rest of their lives had taken on an ugly new meaning in the chilling gray light of dawn.

Her mood was not much improved with her first glimpse of the Scout

It was a sorry-looking vessel, smaller than the Egret — perhaps a hundred tons in weight, with a battery of eight culverins and six sakers.

It was adequate armament for a ship her size and character, but nothing near the heat Dante was accustomed to on the Virago —or the Egret since he had supplemented her weaponry with the demis.

In the Scout he would not have much choice but to stand off and let the heavier guns of the six-hundred-ton Elizabeth Bonaventure and the five-hundred-ton Revenge and Golden Lion soften the enemy’s underbelly.

And for that at least, Beau felt some smug satisfaction.

But then she remembered the Talon was also out there, bristling with Pitt’s demi-cannon, mastered by a man who would likely stop at nothing to rid himself of the specter of Dante de Tourville.

Battles were perfect places for confusion, with all the smoke and noise and turbulence.

Perfect places for a man who planned ambushes in the dark and had no qualms about abandoning fellow captains to the guns of enemy ships.

Drake’s fleet was already low on the horizon.

Dawn had brought their canvas out in bloom and, trusting Dante would have no difficulty making up the time, had set a course due south and turned their sails into a gray, wind-driven sky.

The Talon had been one of the last ships to get under way, almost flaunting her presence in Dante’s face.

Watching her sidle past wearing her disreputable coat of sly gray paint and suit of dirty canvas, Beau could barely resist the urge to load one of the demis herself and send him off properly.

The itch to hold a gun at Dante’s temple was strong too.

He looked as if he hadn’t slept much either—wonder of wonders.

His temper was short and his jaw had a tendency to clench around every other word.

For fare-thee-wells it was a pretty sorry thing also, with him doing most of the talking—and doing it fast so there was little room for argument—and Beau doing most of the glaring.

Spence, McCutcheon, Cuthbert, and the better part of the Egret’s crew stood nearby in glum silence.

There was no cheering when the last of the Virago men took to the jolly boats, not a single smile anywhere to be seen.

The leaky pinnace was also forced to watch the grand departure.

The Squirrel was a small vessel of twenty tons with two masts and a row of oars as well as sail.

She carried a crew of eighteen, and while there were no heavy guns aboard, there were bow and stern chasers and a row of deadly falconets mounted on each beam.

They were favored by smugglers for their speed, and used by naval officers for their ability to sail quickly between warships carrying orders and relaying messages.

At the moment she was nudged up to the hull of the Egret , her masts and rigging chattering like loose teeth in a widow’s head.

She looked as sound and seaworthy as any other ship in Drake’s fleet, and her captain seemed happy to shout up his relief they were going home.

Spit McCutcheon’s reply sent him ducking to avoid a large splatter of phlegm.

“Cheese-assed bastard. Give him to me for a month, I’ll stiffen his spine.”

Spence snorted and watched the jolly boat make its final crossing to the Scout. His eyes narrowed and his beard- parted around a curse. “Where the devil does Yarwood think he’s goin’? An’ Loftus?”

“They wanted to fight the Spaniards,” Spit declared loudly, sending a particularity acerbic glance down to the pinnace.

“An’ I weren’t about to stop them. Whole damned crew wanted to go but they had space for only a couple o’ our men.

If ye’ll notice the bruises on Yarwood’s face, he had to beat off a dozen others just to get one o’ them spaces. ”

Spence grunted and shook his head as the Scout cast off her lines and unfurled the large mainsail. It was full of trapped rainwater and showered the deck below as the canvas flapped and shook out its wrinkles.

“Sloppy work, that,” Spit remarked disdainfully. “Sails are too loose, they should be trimmed tight, not luffin’ away in the breeze. No wonder she nearly rammed us.”

“She nearly rammed us,” Beau said dryly as she joined them by the rail, “because her helmsman is an ass. If he’s a day over twenty, I’ll have his child.”

“Bold talk for someone barely out in teats herself.”

“Yes, but at least I know what I’m doing. I warrant Mister Carleill has never been out of the Channel, if even out of port.” She looked back over the side. “Dante will probably feed him to Lucifer for an evening meal.”

“Try to keep the smile off yer face when ye say that, lass,” Spence advised with a snort. “Might hex the poor lad.”

“I fear they may already have picked up a hex,” she said quietly. “Did you see the way the Talon prowled past, almost like a mongrel slinking outside a butcher shop?”

“Aye. Spit had a thought for a moment, he might o’ been sniffin’ after us.”

“Us?”

Spit leaned forward to see around Jonas’s girth. “Are ye forgettin’ what we have in our holds?”

“No, I’m not forgetting. But he wouldn’t dare turn away from Drake and come after us; none of them would, there were too many witnesses. Besides, they’ll have more than enough plunder in Cadiz.”

“Aye,” Spence grumbled. “Cadiz.”

“Risky business, that,” Spit muttered. “But God bless ‘em all for havin’ the ballocks to try it.”

“Twenty ships against fifty? Mortal odds. They’ll likely be blown out o’ the water.”

“Perhaps not, senor,” said a quiet voice from behind them.

Spence, McCutcheon, and Beau turned as one and stared at the speaker.

It took Beau a moment to recognize the little duchess (it was difficult to think of her in any other way), for she had shed her fancy gown and cumbersome farthingale.

She wore what looked like one of Pitt’s shirts and a pair of sailor’s canvas breeches that were several sizes too big, rolled at the waist and tied securely in place with a length of jute.

Her eyes were rimmed and swollen, her nose was red, and her face the color of a bleached sheet.

There wasn’t a curl to be found anywhere on her head; her hair had been scraped back and braided in such an obvious imitation of Beau’s, it gave all three at the rail a moment’s pause.

“Most of the ships in Cadiz have been commandeered by the governor of the province. They have their sails and their guns removed until such time as a Spanish crew can be provided, for fear they might sneak out of the harbor and desert: the King’s service.”

“How the devil do you know such things, lass?” Spence demanded.

“I am but a maid, senor. The duchess and her husband talk, and see only the walls even if I am standing beside them.”

“Did you tell Pitt this?” Beau asked.

“About the ships? Yes, senora. And about the cannon and the nets they are able to string across the channel to the inner bay.”

“Cannon? Nets?”

“The cannon on the castle walls, they are very old and have had to be fixed in place. They can only strike into the very center of the harbor. And the net is worked by two galleys, which can be sunk to seal off the entrance to the inner port.”

“An’ Drake will know all of this before he goes in to attack?” Spence asked excitedly.

Christiana lowered her eyes a moment, obviously suffering pangs of guilt, but when she raised them again, and was confronted by Beau’s curious frown, they were as proud as the tilt in her chin.

“I wanted senor Pitt to come back to me,” she said simply. “I wanted him to take me with him, but this he most angrily would not do.”

“A plague o’ that goin’ around,” Spit remarked under his breath.

“He wishes to marry me and I wish to marry him, but we are not married yet and he should not be able to tell me what I may and what I may not do.”

In all the time the ‘duchess’ had been aboard, Beau estimated she had probably not sent more than two or three words in her direction, but she stared at her now, dumbfounded.

“She’s right,” Beau said, and looked at Spence. “She is absolutely right, you know.”

The two pair of tiger eyes read each other’s thoughts and brought a groan up from Spit’s throat .

“Ahh, Jaysus. Tell me ye’re not thinkin’ what I think ye’re thinkin’”.

Spence’s eyes narrowed. “I’m only thinkin’…

that sometimes ye have to take heed o’ the flag we fly up top.

That’s England’s flag, an’ she’s in trouble, an’ that means, by my mind, we should be doing what we can to help, not slinkin’ away with our tails tucked ’atween our legs. What say you, daughter?”

“I say it is a sad day indeed when someone tells Jonas Spence where he may and where he may not sail his ship.”

Spence drew a deep breath to swell his chest. “Aye. So it would be. We’d have to put it to the whole crew. Wouldn’t be right not to; they’ve earned the right to go home an’ spend their hard-won gold.”

“Then let’s put it to them, and see what they say.”