Page 13

There was no mistaking where Fonteyne had seen the velvet frockcoat, the corset waistcoat, the long, lithe legs clad in thigh-high leather boots.

Her features were shadowed by the wide brim of her hat but, after a long moment filled only with the hiss of fog melting on the sides of the lanterns, a throaty chuckle brought Rose St. Clare’s face tipping up into the light.

“My compliments, Captain Fonteyne. You found us.”

Fonteyne glared and said nothing.

Rose studied his face a moment before turning to Duardo and issuing a series of orders in a bastardized island dialect too rapid for Fonteyne to keep apace. The giant nodded and vanished into the thicker fog beyond the ring of golden lanternlight.

Sebastien dashed a hand across the blood that continued to stream over his eye. He clenched his teeth so hard it was a wonder they did not snap off at the gums. The attack had been swift and brilliant. Not a single shot had been fired, not a throat had been cut.

“How the devil did you locate us in this soup, let alone build enough speed to ram us?”

“Oh, come now, it was barely more than a nudge. In truth, I was aiming to come alongside, but we take what we can get. And I cannot reveal all of my secrets, Captain Fonteyne. Suffice it to say I have lived all of my life in these waters and have some knowledge of wind and currents. Some say both are as unpredictable as a woman’s temper, so it would stand to reason I would understand them. ”

As if it had been an accomplice all along, the breeze strengthened, thinning the fog, sweeping hazy drifts of it across the deck.

A scant few moments later it had dispersed enough to reveal the ghostly shape of the Cygnet and the spider’s web of cables and ropes lashing the two ships together.

There were men lining her rails, armed and wary; more with muskets and trumpet-shaped blunderbusses up in the yards.

Gun crews stood at the ready behind the cannon, thin spirals of smoke rising from glowing linstocks.

As the initial shock wore off, Fonteyne’s head started to throb like the devil. The blood was rushing through his ears, pounding in his temples. She was saying something else but her words were muddled into shapeless sounds by his anger.

“Do you have a doctor on board?” she asked again, pronouncing each word slowly as if she was speaking to an addled child.

Penman stepped forward. He ran a hand through his hair then gave the hem of his waistcoat a tug to straighten it. “That would be me, madam. Dr. Archibald Winston Claridge-Penman III, should it please you to know.”

Rose blinked. “I am duly thrilled. You, however, don’t look in much better shape than your captain.”

“I assure you, madam, I …” he stopped, took a small breath to steady himself, then squared his shoulders and tugged on his waistcoat again. “I am perfectly fine. I saw the mermaid and thought … well, it doesn’t really matter what I thought. With your permission, I should like see to the wounded.”

“See to your captain before he bleeds all over my deck.”

Fonteyne’s head jerked up. “ Your deck?”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, my men have taken control of all the decks as well as the armory and helm, Captain.

So yes, I am assuming command of this ship and claiming her as my prize.

I would advise you to discourage your crew from causing any trouble or trying anything foolish.

Duardo, with whom you are already acquainted, has no patience for insurrection.

I have seen him snap a man’s spine in two for merely thinking to offer a challenge. ”

Without warning, she cocked her pistol and pointed it at the white-haired Nathanial Reed, who had been trying hard not to be noticed. “You there. What are you holding behind your back?”

Reed brought his hands forward and took a reluctant step apart from the rest of the crew gathered behind him.

“Just a chart. I was in the middle of trying to figure out where we were when?—”

She glanced briefly down at the wooden peg leg. “You’re the navigator?”

“Reed ma’am. Nate Reed. Navigator, aye.”

She uncocked the serpentine lock on the pistol. “At the risk of losing your tongue, I prefer to be addressed as Captain. Can I rely upon you to pass my orders to your fellow crewmen?”

Reed looked at Fonteyne, whose expression would have cracked a slab of granite.

When Sebastien showed no inclination to sanction the order, Rose moved closer to him, her pale, steely eyes so piercing, he felt the effect down in his belly.

With the next breath he realized the sensation was caused by the tip of the razor-sharp dagger that was pressing up into the tender junction between his thighs.

“I suggest you tell your man … all of your men … to co-operate. I don’t need your crew to sail this ship, Captain.

Nor do I have any qualms about setting them adrift then slapping you in irons and hanging you over the deck in a cage which is, I suspect, what my fate would have been if the tables had been turned. ”

Fonteyne stared. His own fate was not a concern, but without knowing where they were, setting his crew adrift was not something he could risk. Not yet, anyway.

Without looking at Reed, he spoke through the grate of his teeth, “Do it. Do as she says.”

Rose slid the dagger back into the sheath at her waist and smiled.

“I knew, under all that glowering bluster, you were a reasonable man. Now … shall we continue our discussion in your … er, my … cabin, so the doctor can go about his business with needle and thread? I should hate to have you swoon in front of your men from loss of blood.”