Across a Moonlit Sea (22 page)

“If it is there, yes. I would prefer to know a beam is sound and trustworthy beneath me before I put my faith into walking upon it.”

He raised one eyebrow as though amused, but she could see a muscle jump in the tautness of his jaw.

“Then we have something in common at last, mam’selle, for I trust no one, put my faith in nothing, and walk nowhere without checking the shadows at my back.”

 “Y
e look befuddled, daughter. Is yer head painin’ ye?”

Beau had been preoccupied, pulling at a frayed edge of the bandage still wrapped around her hand. At her father’s querulous prompting she touched the cut on her temple and although it was tender, she could not say in any honesty that it was the source of her sullen mood. She was bone weary, and that did not add an excess of charm. If not for the stupid, pigheaded statement she had made to Dante de Tourville, she would have crawled into her miserable little sail closet hours ago.

The seemingly tireless Frenchman had returned to the
San Pedro
and, the last she’d heard, was supervising the transfer of cargo from one vessel to the other. It was not unusual for a treasure ship of that size to take a week or more to load; Dante wanted the bulk of the plunder transferred by noon the next day. With the drastic difference in the sizes of the ships—and the fact that it took nearly two hundred men just to work the sails and rigging of the huge Spanish galleon—it would not be possible to either
sail or tow the vessel as far as England, and so Dante had ordered only the richest cargo be selected and stowed in the Egret’s holds. To that end Spit burst periodically through Jonas’s door waving a new list of “selections” under his nose. And Spence, with a bandage wrapped askew around his head, propped in his bed like a one-legged king, toasted each new addition to the Egret’s manifests with a fresh goblet of prime Madeira wine.

Twice he had ventured up on deck, enlisting the aid of several stout crewmen to carry him. But there was nothing he could do to make himself useful and nowhere he could go without a crutch or an arm to help him, and in truth, he was enjoying all the attention he was receiving in his cabin.

Among the more toastworthy items Spit’s men removed from the
San Pedro
were barrels packed with gold plate, candlesticks, cutlery, crucifixes, gold and silver coins. One large chest was crammed full of ropes made of gold links— one hundred and fifty-three chains in all, with loops as thick as a man’s finger. There were two thousand bars of solid gold bullion and four thousand of silver, all stamped with the official seal of the treasure house in Panama. Of no lesser importance were the thirty tuns of Madeira wine, twenty of cocoa beans, and assorted numbers of indigo and island spices.

From the personal items of the officers and soldiers were swords made from fine Toledo steel, their hilts crusted with gold and precious stones. Even the plain, unadorned cutlasses were of superior quality and would have brought a tasty price from the London merchants, but these were considered of little value now and tossed overboard with the casual aplomb of men drunk on excess.

For treasure of a different sort, there were casks of salted beef, bacon, and rice; wheels of cheese and earthenware
crocks of olives. A squealing platoon of pigs and sheep had been herded across the planks and there was already excited talk of a celebratory feast planned for the morrow.

“Fasten yer lovely eyes on this; it’ll shake the sleep out o’ yer bones,” Spence said, swinging a pendant hypnotically before her. Suspended in the crux of the chain was a pearl the size of a hen’s egg, the surface gleaming like a candle through frost.

“I’m told she likes pearls, our Queen Bess does. Drapes herself in ropes o’ them, even pins them in her hair. D’ye think she’ll like this? This an’ the other trinkets I’ve set aside so far?”

With a benevolence kindled by the warming effects of the wine, Spence had declared his intentions to send, along with the jewels, the most exquisitely wrought sword, a selection of the finest plate, and the sheerest bolt of silk as gifts to his most royal sovereign.

“I think she will find a warm spot in her heart for all you send her. Warm enough to forgive you your rashness in turning your trade from simple merchantman to hell-raising pirate.”

Spence looked over and a slow, wide smile parted the red froth of his beard. “A Heretic Scourge on the Holy Faith? Is that truly what he called me?”

“Truly.” Beau nodded. “Along with the Devil Incarnate—which we knew already.”

Spence chuckled heartily. “I don’t mind sayin’, lass, twixt you, me, an’ the lanterns, this devil near fouled his breeks when he saw the size o’ that sow up close. God’s truth, I could die tomorrow an’ never know a prouder moment. Lift yer cup, girl, an’ toast the best bloody damn ship an’ crew on the Ocean Sea!”

Beau echoed his words and tipped her cup as unsparingly as Spence did, though she managed to drain hers
without spilling any down her chin, and she finished without a loud, raucous growl of enthusiasm.

“Damn their zealot hearts anyway, but one thing ye cannot fault the Spanish for is their Madeira. Red as blood, sweet as sin; lies like a slip o’ crimson velvet on the tongue.” He saw Beau’s smirk and rubbed the stump of his leg with a pained look on his face. “Aye, an’ great medicinal qualities too. Almost makes a man forget
the incompetence o’ some men on board this ship who would rather count their coins than carve their captain a new limb so he could get up out o’ this infernal bed!”

His shout echoed down an empty corridor, as he expected it would, and he grinned his way through another oath as he shoved the bandage back up over his ear. He shoved it too high and the ugly gash, swollen and mottled, stitched with thick black threads, caught the light.

“We do make a fine pair,” Beau said, touching her own temple again.

“Do we not, though,” he agreed with a chuff of laughter. “Aye, an’ if yer mother were here, she’d say ‘twas lucky we got cracked on the heads, for it’s the hardest part o’ both o’ us.”

Perched against a small mountain of canvas, bemoaning the inconvenience of having to wait on the carpenter’s pleasure, Beau supposed her father did not want to think of how truly lucky he had been today. A step slower and he could as easily have had the other leg shot out from under him. She remembered all too well the night he had been brought home in a two-wheeled cart, straight off the ship, his flesh burning with fever, the stump of his leg a bloody, festering mess. The doctor had not given him much hope of living through the night and Beau, only ten years old at the time, had refused to move from his side through the night, the next day, the next night, and two full weeks
after that. She had made her decision then and there that if he survived, she was not going to stand on shore and watch him sail away again. Not without her.

Beau pulled at the threads of her bandage again.

“Do ye remember her at all, lass?” Spence inquired softly, seeing the melancholy expression creep over his daughter’s face again.

“Mother? I remember everything. The way she looked, the way she smelled—like cinnamon, all the time.”

“Aye. I used to liken her to sunlight, hot an’ clean, an’ bright as flame. Why she ever stayed with the likes o’ me, I’ll never know.”

“The way I have heard you tell it, she had little choice in the matter.”

“Only because I knew she were the one I wanted. Knew it the minute she flashed them hot eyes at me an’ told me she wanted me too.”

“You knew because of the way she
looked
at you?”

“Well, that an’ a few other things.” The bandage on his head slipped down and he nudged it back in place with the stub of his finger. “She had this funny way o’ always makin’ my skin feel two sizes too small for my body, an’— an’ my hair—when I had it, that is—stand up on end like I pricked my finger on lightnin’.” He cocked an eyebrow. “There wouldn’t be a particular reason yer askin’, now, would there?”

“No. No particular reason.”

Spence pushed himself up on one elbow. “Ye’d tell me if that Dante fellow were pesterin’ ye, wouldn’t ye?”

“He isn’t pestering me, and, yes, I would most certainly tell you if he was.”

“Is it that ye
want
him to pester ye an’ he’ll have no part of it? I’ll skewer his gizzards just as deep for the insult.”

“No! No, it isn’t anything like that at all, it’s just…”

“Just what, daughter? Spit it out!”

Their amber eyes met through the glow of the overhead lamp. They kept few secrets from each other. Beau had spoken to him openly and freely when she had lost her virginity and with whom she had done the deed. Conversely, she knew all of his mistresses and his favorite whores and exactly what it was about them that made them his favorites.

“It’s just that … there are times he makes me so angry I feel like I could explode. And others …”

“Aye? Others?”

“Others … when he doesn’t make me angry at all, but I feel like I could explode anyway.”

Spence pursed his lips and gave her a long, contemplative look from the top of her head to the scuffed toes of her boots. “Mayhap yer doublet’s too tight.”

Beau, who had not realized she had been holding her breath, released it on a curse that was not as casual as Spence was expecting, and he recanted immediately.

“Bah, I’m sorry, lass. ’Tis the drink an’ all. Ye know I’m not good at givin’ advice on such things. For a man it’s different. He sees somethin’ he wants, he takes his ease an’ walks away with a clear head in the mornin’. For a lass, well, what kind o’ father tells his daughter to go an’ scratch the itch if she’s got it?”

“The itch?”

“The itch, lass, the itch.” He waved a flustered hand in the approximate vicinity of his crotch and scowled. “Ye’re not a virgin, for pity’s sake, ye must know what I mean. An’ don’t go puffin’ yerself up like a peahen tryin’ to deny it. He’s not the ugliest bastard on this earth, an’ neither are you, an’ if he makes ye feel like ye’re wantin’ to come out o’ yer clothes all the time, well then, ye’ve got the itch for him, plain an’ simple.”

Beau stared and Spence glowered an addendum. “As long as that’s all it is, is an itch. Ye wouldn’t be expectin’ anythin’ more from him, would ye?”

Beau’s mouth sagged open to reply, but she was cut short.

“Because he’s had one wife already he couldn’t tame, an’ I doubt he’d be lookin’ for another. Ye knew he was married, did ye not?”

She found her voice and her indignation. “Yes, I knew, and I wasn’t—”

“Did ye also know she whelped two bastards on him while he was away at sea?”

“No,” she admitted softly. “I didn’t.”

“Aye, well, it’s not the kind o’ thing a man like him would talk about too freely, nor is it the kind o’ thing he would forget or forgive too soon. Seems she got caught twice with her legs too wide an’ her belly too full an’ tried to tell him they were his. He knew they weren’t, bein’ as how he were away at sea both times. With the first, I heard he forgave her an’ even offered to give the brat his name. With the second, he disowned the lot, petitioned the court for a divorce, an’ took himself off to sea nearly two years before he ventured back home. It’s likely he’d keep himself well away from any more graspin’ females for fear o’ bein’ duped again—just like you carve a man’s liver out if he smiles at ye, all on account o’ what that nob-licking Nate Hawethorne did to ye.”

“I am hardly a grasping female,” she said with a flush of resentment. “And Nate Hawethorne is not the only reason I keep to myself.”

“Maybe not. But he’s the best excuse ye can think of in a pinch. God above, girl, ye can’t judge all men by the measure o’ Nate Hawethorne. He was a bastard an’ led ye by the nose, promisin’ ye all manner o’ things he had no
intentions o’ givin’ ye. Use him to take yer soundings an’ yell dry up like a piece o’ salted fish.”

“Are you telling me I should keep the door to my cabin open all the time?”

“No, I am not!” He surged forward, pointing a stubbed finger at her. “I’m not tellin’ ye in any shape or form to go out an’ jump on every man who waves his nethers at ye, for I’ll not have any daughter o’ mine called whore!” He bristled himself back against his prop of cushions and glared. “But I am sayin’ it’s a hard life ye’ve chosen for yerself an’ sometimes ye just have to take yer pleasure where ye can find it. Bah!” He dropped his chin to his chest and swirled the last dregs of his wine around his cup. “Yer mother would have my ballocks for earrings for tellin’ ye such things, but it pains me sometimes—as I know it would pain her—to see ye so afeard o’ the very thing that gave her one o’ the greatest pleasures in life.”

“I’m not afraid,” she protested weakly.

“Ye are! An’ I blame myself for not takin’ ye back to yer aunt Mavis an’ tyin’ ye hand an’ foot to the newel post when I should have! Look at this—” He waved a hand around the cluttered cabin. “What kind o’ life is this for a young wench?”

Another minute, Beau feared, and he would be weeping into his cup. She jumped to her feet and crossed to the side of the bed, bringing the bottle of wine with her as she did.

“It is the only kind I want,” she insisted. “And if you have any thoughts of leaving me behind with Aunt Mavis
… ever
… you
will
be wearing your ballocks for earrings!”