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It was said even Sir Francis Drake had begun to look over his shoulder, fearing the pirate wolf’s exploits were beginning to surpass his own.

And while Drake had the Queen’s ear, he was also short and squat and bowlegged; no match for a villain who exuded virility.

If it was true Simon Dante enjoyed private suppers with the Queen— private enough to call her Bess!

—then nothing he did or said to a mere merchant trader would earn more than a perfunctory reprimand.

Beau’s attention shifted to the broad chest, the long, muscular arms, the strong, square-tipped hands that had already shocked her with their power and savagery.

He was a beast in his prime and Beau had encountered enough of them, most so full of their own potency they could not fathom how anyone could resist falling under their spell and into their beds.

Beau could resist. She was under no fainthearted delusions as to what someone like Dante de Tourville wanted from a woman, or, once he had it, how quickly he would deem her soiled and dispensable goods.

Beau had learned that unpleasant lesson the hard way, having had a man fill her eyes with stars and her body with pleasure, only to discover he preferred to take a virgin to his marriage bed and have a wife who simpered and fawned over his every whim, who fainted at the mere mention of blood, and who would never dare challenge his opinions—whether she had the wit to understand them or not.

Beau, on the other hand, was her father’s daughter.

Having lost her mother’s influence at an early age, she had been raised by a man full of blasphemies who called a fool a fool to his face and damned the consequences.

Spence had honestly tried to settle her with a spinster aunt who had, in turn, tried to instil the rigid values of young womanhood on her recalcitrant charge.

But the first time the Egret had set sail without her, Beau had stood in the parlor, wired into a farthingale and stiff velvet skirts, shouting such obscenities, her poor beleaguered aunt had swooned into a dead faint.

The second time he had sailed, she had stolen a single-masted skiff and followed, battling the strong currents and errant winds of the English Channel on her own, catching him three days later, half dead from fatigue but stubbornly refusing to be turned around and sent home.

The crew had been amused. Spence had been enraged enough to order her into the tops, determined to break her spirit by making her stand watch in stormy weather until she begged to be relieved.

Beau had remained there, lashed to a trestletree for seven days and nights, and in the end it had been her father’s guilt that begged her to come down.

That was eight years ago and she had been a member of the crew ever since.

During that time she had dined with pirates and lords, kept company with princes as well as scoundrels, and not once had she met a man who could melt her resolves or cause her a lingering moment’s worth of regret for the course she had chosen.

And except for that one brief lapse—a lapse she now credited as a necessary learning experience—she had not fallen into anyone’s bed or under the spell of any man’s charm, however roguish, virile, or darkly handsome he might be.

Thus, she stared at the pirate wolf, part of her responding in an odd, ticklish way to the fact that they were alone in his cabin; that he was easily twice, if not three times, her size; and that it was doubtful a threat against touching a single hair on her head would dissuade him from touching anything else he wanted.

Another part of her was admittedly curious to know what he was thinking as he sat there returning her calm, casual appraisal with an equally detached reserve.

As it happened, Dante was thinking she was rather small for the rigors of shipboard life, even if she served as cook’s mate or cabin boy.

Her waist was a trifling thing, easily spanned by two large hands.

Her arm, when he had held it to guide her belowdecks, had been taut enough to suggest she possessed more supple strength than the average woman of her size and build, yet nothing so ungainly as muscular.

She did indeed possess a long, slender neck.

One that led to an equally long, slender body.

Breasts? Aye, she had them. Round, firm little expressions of her femininity thrusting against the confines of her doublet.

Probably too small to give a hungry man more than a taste.

Her face was the true paradox. Standing in the shadows of the bulkhead, he had carefully appraised each member of Jonas Spence’s boarding party and not one had set off any alarms or seemed to be anything other than what he appeared to be.

He retrieved their images one by one but could recall nothing that should have forewarned him.

She had struck him as a slim dark-haired boy who stood shifting his weight slightly from one foot to the other, probably due to the extravagant armory of weapons he had strapped about himself.

She was seated across from him now. There seemed to be a similar restlessness in her body, though there were no overt movements he could detect.

The air surrounding her was a haze of dust motes suspended in the heat of the light streaming through the gallery windows, sparkling just enough to mock him for having failed to see what seemed so obvious now.

She was no raving beauty. Her complexion was too dark for one thing, tanned beyond any hope of redemption from rice powders or milk washes.

Yet the warm honey glow paid perfect compliment to the long auburn lashes and dark wing-shaped eyebrows that might have looked too bold on a more toneless palette.

Her hair was gathered back into a single glossy braid, the color as rich and deep as roasted chestnuts.

Her mouth was far too sulky for his liking, but he could imagine how a softly formed word—if she could manage one—would send a shiver down a desperate man’s spine.

The nose was delicate, the cheeks almost too smooth to believe they could bear exposure to harsh elements of the weather.

And her eyes. They were cat’s eyes, molten gold, dangerously obstinate, dangerously defiant. …

Just plain dangerous.

They did not relent by so much as a flicker—an odd enough sensation to deal with, especially since most females of his acquaintance normally avoided looking directly at anything above the level of his chin, regardless how brazen or uninhibited they might be.

Geoffrey claimed it was his own fault, that he looked at women the same way a hawk looked at its prey.

But that was only because Geoffrey Pitt tended to fall in love at the first flutter of an eyelash.

Dante preferred his freedom, guarded it like a crown jewel.

Women were fine in their place—preferably beneath him with their backs arched and their limbs wrapped tightly around his thighs—but he had no room for encumbrances in his life, no desire for any more shackles or chains of any kind, especially if they came burdened by emotion.

Her eyes commanded his attention again. Lush amber-gold, flecked with every subtle shade between green and brown, they were as bright as polished gemstones.

And direct enough to cause an unsettling tightness in his groin.

They were not the eyes of a virgin, for they held no fear.

Neither were they the eyes of an experienced courtesan, for there was no hint of an invitation in their depths.

Again he found himself comparing her to other women he had encountered, recalling none who could provoke, anger, challenge, and temptation all at the same time.

He wondered what she looked like naked.

Dante blinked first, breaking contact.

It was a singularly unfamiliar experience, knowing the wench was able to break his concentration. She still had not looked away, flaunting, it seemed, her ability to keep his level of irritation high enough to be a distraction.

He decided the best way to defuse her was to ignore her.

He lifted the golden ship—his Virago —and started collecting up the letters and documents beneath.

Most were written in Spanish; some bore official seals and ribbons and flamboyant signatures belonging to governors and dignitaries in the New World.

Dante spoke six languages fluently, including Spanish, and had translated most of the papers into his own bold script.

Some were important, some not. Some went into great and boring detail about crops and harvests, weather conditions, even the hell of living with swarms of bloodsucking insects that attacked day and night in the jungles.

Other documents, of more interest to a seafaring gentleman of private enterprise, concerned the staggering amounts of gold and silver that would be shipped to Lisbon with the next flota .

These so-called plate fleets were tempting to raiders of all nationalities because of the enormous quantity of gold stolen from temples and villages throughout Mexico and Panama, most of it already hammered into plates and large sun medallions.

All of the papers, letters, and documents had been in the treasure house at Veracruz awaiting the ships that would carry the correspondence home to Spain.

Pitt had snatched them up almost as an afterthought, speculating there was always something of some interest to someone who cared to know the state of affairs in Spanish-held territories.

What he hadn’t counted on was finding something that would irrevocably alter the course of their destiny.

Dante glanced up. The wench was still staring.

“If you want to make yourself useful,” he said irritably, “you can start rolling these charts and stacking them in a chest.”