Across a Moonlit Sea (24 page)

Beau stared stupidly at her hand as Spence took it and sandwiched it with Dante’s between his own huge paws. She felt a thrill of light-headedness and pride, being praised by the father she loved above all else and toasted by a man who regularily scorned danger and cast his destiny to the wind.

Her gaze drifted upward to Dante de Tourville. He’d asked her what had brought her to this point in her life, if she had any regrets that she was not sitting by a hearth wearing silk frocks and sipping chocolate out of tiny porcelain cups.

For the past eight years she had been sipping life and living adventures those safe at home could not even imagine. She’d had salt spray, not rice powder, dusted on her cheeks, and instead of sitting cozy by a fire, she had climbed to the top of the mainmast and gazed out across a moonlit sea, standing close enough to the heavens to reach out and snatch at a handful of stars. Was there anything anywhere half as beautiful as a molten sea at sunrise
or half as intoxicating as the smell of a spice-laden breeze off a tropical island? She had swum in the crystal-blue waters off Tortuga, and she had chipped ice off a floe near Greenland. She had made friends with Indians in the New World and enemies with gunners on board Spanish galleons. She had shared the camaraderie and the danger, the excitement as well as the fear.

And she had been kissed, for whatever reason, by a pirate wolf who would not have passed her a second look had she been sipping chocolate beside the Queen.

A round of laughter intruded on the magic of the moment and she realized, with an odd sense of detachment, that Jonas was no longer holding her hand in Dante’s; it was staying there of its own accord. The long, tapered fingers were closed lightly around hers, cradling her in the warmth of his palm, caressing her with an intimacy that sent a fierce rush of heat spiraling through her body. Her breasts blossomed with it, her belly shimmered with it, and her blood raced until the heat became as intoxicating as the wine.

She was aware Dante’s eyes had not left her face, but she resisted the compelling urge to meet them. The penetrating silver-blue was always dangerous, never more so than now as they challenged her to acknowledge something he already suspected: that she wasn’t as strong as she pretended to be, wasn’t as independent, as sure of herself, as indifferent to the feelings she tried so hard to guard against revealing. He could see that Spence’s praise had set her emotions in a turmoil; was he wondering how deep and how far that turmoil extended?

Beau withdrew her hand and curled it tightly by her side. Jonas was offering another toast to God knew what and calling for a fresh bottle of wine.

“No more for me,” she said quickly. “My head is already spinning in circles. I think I will bid you both good-night.”

Jonas belched, his nose red as paint, and tried to focus on Beau’s face. “Are the watches set an’ armed? We’re twenty feet from an enemy ship an’ we’d not want to be caught with our cods open an’ our pissers hangin’ out.”

It took a second or two for Beau to redirect her thoughts, to concentrate on something as practical as watches and the safety of the ship and crew, but she was thankful for the cold, hard sense required to form an answer. “Lewis has the deck until midnight, then Hubbard, and Simmonds for the ghost watch, all with full crews.”

“Aye.” The bald head wobbled slightly on its barrel neck. “Keen eyes on all o’ them. We can sleep sound tonight.”

She risked another glance at Dante, but he had moved out of the circle of light and had his back turned while he opened another bottle of wine.

“Good night, Captain Dante.”

“Dormez-v
ous bi
en
, Isabeau,
et revez
du
plaisir.”

 S
leep well, he had told her, and dream of pleasure. Beau closed the door to her father’s cabin behind her and stood in the gloom of the companionway, hearing the echo of Dante’s parting words in her head. Dream of pleasure?

An innocent phrase or another subtle mockery?

A round of male laughter drew her eyes down to the narrow slice of light fanning out from the crack beneath the door and she wondered what they would be dreaming about this night. Probably the pleasure of going to war with Spain.

While it was true Sir Francis Drake and others had been warning the Queen for many months of a building frenzy in Spanish ports, it was also true—and the dilemma of any sovereign who did not want to venture into a war unless all avenues of negotiation were exhausted—that Elizabeth could not squander the money of her overtaxed subjects to build a navy on rumor and speculation alone. If Dante had found proof of Spain’s intentions, then war was inevitable and the Queen would need all of her loyal
merchantmen and privateers to defend England’s shores from invasion. That included the Egret, and the sooner home, the better.

Beau looked along the corridor to her own door. There was another weak sliver of light spilling out the bottom, and she supposed Billy had transferred the rest of the maps and charts from the Spanish galleon. She needed her own charts for the morning and it was probably best to find them now instead of stumbling about with a thick head at dawn.

It seemed odd somehow to hesitate on the threshold of her own cabin, to feel like a trespasser when most of the belongings inside were hers. Perhaps it was just the sight of the shirt Dante had cast off earlier, still crumpled in a heap in the corner, or the faint scent of sunshine and leather that lingered behind, that was making her skittish. Even more likely, she could blame the wine and the talk of itching and scratching for making her skin prickle and her throat aware of every breath she took.

A single candle flickered inside its glass lamp on the chart table. There was brighter moonlight streaming through the slanted windows, and drawn by the thought of a fresh breath of air, she crossed to the gallery door and slipped outside onto the narrow balcony.

To starboard the looming hull of the
San Pedro
blocked the horizon. The Egret was anchored off her stern quarter, riding lightly on the gentle swells, kept at a secure distance by the grappling lines. She could hear banging and sawing on the decks above; she could smell pitch and smoke and the metallic scent of spent gunpowder. She would have liked to cross the gallery and have a closer look at the humbled goliath anchored beside them, but to do so she would have to pass the windows on Spence’s side of the
ship and unless she ducked down like a thief, they would think she was spying on them.

She walked instead to the larboard side, where the moon glistened close to the horizon and poured a molten river of rippling silver toward the Egret. An earlier mass of clouds scudded away to the east, glowing blue-white on their underbellies. The brightness of the moon had washed most of the smaller stars out of the sky, but there were enough winking in the darkness to bring Beau’s elbows down on the rail and her chin into the cradle of her hands.

Would she rather have rigid buckram corsets and wire farthingales? Or crow-faced matrons telling her how to wear her hair or chiding her if a freckle appeared on her nose? Not likely.

A frown brought her chin up again and she pulled the bunched linen strips off her hand. The palm was still tender, but luckily she’d had enough calluses to absorb the worst of the rope burns. And probably enough wine to dull whatever sensations were left.

She tossed the bandages overboard and, on a further restless urging, unplaited her hair from the constricting tightness of the braid. Careful not to waken the crease on her temple, she gave her scalp a few good scratches, easing the tension a hundredfold. She stared down at the inky blackness of the water twenty feet below and wished she’d found time earlier for more than just a perfunctory wash to rid herself of the heat and grime of battle. A long, slow, hot bath would be comparable to heaven right now. A hot bath, an oiled rub, and a soft, deep featherbed.

Beau’s head jerked upright and her eyes popped open. She had a hammock in a sail closet waiting for her. Moving reluctantly away from the rail, she started back for the door.

She was not quite there when she saw movement inside
the cabin and froze. Simon Dante was closing the outer door to the companionway; a heartbeat later he was putting toe to heel and scraping off his boots, kicking them aside with the relish of a man unhappy with restrictions of any kind. The thongs on his shirt were already loose and dangling. In less time than it took for a gasp to leave Beau’s lips, his belt was unfastened and flung to the floor and the black silk shirt was pulled up and over his head.

Shocked and too stricken to move, she watched him extend his arms wide and give a mighty yawn. He clasped his hands behind his neck and stretched the bulging biceps, then bent his torso from one side to the other, his muscles rippling in the candlelight, his hair falling in waves over each shoulder as he moved. Unlacing his hands, he reached straight up, easily curling them over the top of a ceiling beam. He arched forward, stretching his chest and belly, then back until he was clinging by his fingertips and balancing on his heels.

The wound on Beau’s temple throbbed once with the sudden rush of blood to her head. Her cheeks were burning, her throat was dry, and she tried frantically to think of a way to escape the gallery without being seen.

She turned her head ever so slightly, knowing the moonlight was behind her, outlining her silhouette. When she looked back again, he was bending over his sea chest, fishing out a stoppered bottle. He opened it with his teeth and poured some of its contents into his hand; a few seconds later, the strong scent of camphor oil drifted out the door.

Beau could not have moved if she’d wanted to. She watched him rub a gleaming film of oil into the powerful display of muscles along his arms, massaging it into the squared bulk of his shoulders, his neck, into his ribs and chest, and as far around on his back as he could reach. She watched
him knead each muscle and work each sinew and by the time he was finished, standing in the light like a burnished war god, Beau’s limbs were weak. Her belly was a moving, liquid mass of heat. Her own skin, she could swear, had shrunk two sizes too small and threatened to burst at the slightest movement.

A fresh, sharp whiff of camphor restored a measure of her senses. She
had
to get off the gallery—but how? There was only one door leading inside and even if she could muster the nerve to walk boldly through it, what possible explanation could she give for having waited so long to do it?

There were more than enough hand and footholds to climb to the upper deck, and it was the mistake she made, lifting her head to locate the first carved groove, that alerted Dante to the dark outline of an intruder on the gallery.

Beau had the advantage of the candlelight to show her the startled look on his face as he spied her through the diamond grid of the windowpanes. He had the advantage of long legs and quick reflexes to carry him through the door and out onto the narrow gallery before she could put a foot to the rails and reach for the first handhold.

Strong hands, rough hands, grabbed her around the middle and dragged her back, slamming her hard against the canted hull of the ship.

“You!” he gasped. “By all that’s holy—
what the devil are you doing out here?
You could have been killed, sneaking around in the dark like this, you little fool, or have you forgotten there is an enemy ship anchored beside us with several hundred angry men just aching to swim across and slit our throats?”

Beau looked down and saw the glitter of a knife in his hand. “I … haven’t forgotten. And I wasn’t sneaking.
I came to get my charts for the morning and—and then I wanted a breath of air, and—and—it
is
my cabin, you know. I am not accustomed to having someone else in it, or to asking someone else’s permission to go inside.”

Dante’s eyes lost some of their murderous intent and he relaxed enough to put away the dagger. “Why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you show yourself right away?”

“I … don’t know. I just … I don’t know. By the time I realized you were there, you were already half naked and—and …” She swallowed hard and raised her hand in an unconsciously sensual gesture, pushing aside the edges of her shirt to press cooling fingers against the rapid pulse beating at the base of her throat.

“If—if you would step aside now, Captain, and let me pass, I would be more than happy to give you back your privacy.”
_t

But instead of stepping aside, he moved forward, keeping her trapped against the gallery windows, cloaking her in the immense shadow of his own frame. “Not just yet, mam’selle.”

“Wh-what do you mean?”

“I mean”—his hands came up and he brushed his fingers over the rich abundance of her hair—“not just yet.”

She tensed as he caressed the back of her neck. She was more aware than ever of the heavily muscled shoulders, the dark swarm of hair that covered his chest, the molded bands of hard flesh that flexed along his arms every time he asked the slightest motion of them.