Pirate Wolf Trilogy (8 page)

Beau stole a
glance over her shoulder, but Dante had seemingly forgotten her. He
was staring out the broken gallery windows, motionless and
expressionless, his raven hair tinted blue by the hazy light.

Beau lifted the
casket out of the chest and rested it on her bent knees. She
flicked the tiny hasp with the edge of her thumbnail and raised the
lid slowly, half expecting serpents to spill out onto her lap.
There were no serpents, but there was a large gold salamander,
easily the length of her hand and as fat around as two fingers. The
golden beast had two cabochon rubies for eyes and a glittering row
of pyramid-cut diamonds winding down its spine. Its four reptilian
feet were splayed possessively over a bed of loose gems—pearls,
tourmalines, emeralds, and diamonds—most of them uncut and unset,
but all of a size and quality that caused a small thrill of heat to
unfurl at the base of Beau’s spine.

“
Why,
Mistress Spence, can that be the sinful gleam of avarice I see
shining in your eyes?” His voice was deep and soft and very near
and Beau did not have to turn around to confirm he was standing
right behind her. She could
feel
him there, looming extremely large above her, and the small
flutter of heat became a disturbing downpour.

She snapped the
lid closed. “I presume you want this to come with you?”

“Actually, I
had forgotten about it.” A large, well-callused hand reached over
her shoulder and took the casket. “I’m surprised it was missed in
the search.”

“Your ship was
searched? By whom?”

He either
ignored or chose not to acknowledge the question, and after a few
tinkling sounds of a finger raking through the stones, he handed it
back.

“As I said, if
you see something you want, help yourself.”

“What if I say
I want the whole box?” she asked sardonically.

“Then it’s
yours. If I recall correctly there are some topazes in there that,
when cut and polished, should about match the color of your
eyes.”

The entire
exchange had been so out of character, Beau came instantly alert
for a trap. She drew a deep breath and pushed to her feet, rounding
on him with another healthy dose of Spence’s epithets ready on the
tip of her tongue.

They died
without a squeak when she found herself standing so close to Dante,
she felt the brush of his linen shirt as he pulled the hem free of
his belt and shrugged it up and over his big shoulders.

The sheer scope
of muscle laid bare before her took her breath away along with her
intentions. His arms were sculpted out of marble, smooth and
hard-surfaced. His shoulders had deep indentations where the top of
his breastbone met the column of his neck. A thick, luxuriant mat
of black hair covered his chest, whorling down to a silky cable’s
width over his belly. A finer coating of ebony hair covered his
forearms, and above the elbow the tracery of veins stood out on the
bronzed surface, flexing with each movement of his hands.

The scent
coming off his flesh was that of sun and sea and male arrogance.
She should have known. She should have seen it coming.

"
What do you
think you are doing?” she asked with quiet intensity.

Dante’s
eyes lingered a moment on the pout of her mouth. It had been
shocked out of its usual insolence and as he watched, the flush
came back into her cheeks, the color blooming softly on the
sculpted crests, then flowing downward to stain the slender length
of her throat. He knew he had struck another sensitive chord,
physical in origin, and he wondered, for all her acid tongue and
bravado, how many times she had been faced with a similar threat
for which she had no defence. She was bolder than the average
woman, stronger than the average woman, but she was still no match
for a man who had gone several months without sheathing himself in
the velvet heat of a woman’s flesh.

He lowered his
hands with deliberate slowness to the buckle of his belt. “What
does it look like I’m doing?”

CHAPTER
FOUR

Dante
removed
his belt and
slung it over his shoulder.

“It has been so
long since I have felt the need to appear presentable, you will
have to forgive the error. I thought this was the chest that held
my spare shirts and breeches, but I see I was mistaken. Ahh. There
it is.”

He moved
past her, releasing her from the heat of his gaze. Beau felt it as
almost a tangible loss and suffered a mild rush of light-headedness
as he walked away. The blood was humming through her veins. Her
belly, which had been in the process of melting down to her knees,
required a concentrated effort to retrieve and she had almost
succeeded when she turned to glare after him… and saw his
back.

It was a mass
of lines and welts and crisscrossing scars. They were not fresh,
for most of the lines had been incorporated back into the muscle
and were as tanned and weathered as the rest of him. But some had
been severe enough, deep enough, to cut through to the bone and no
amount of time would ever smooth them or render them less
visible.

Beau had
witnessed floggings before. It was the accepted means of keeping
discipline on a ship. Five strokes with the cat-o’-nine was her
father’s usual limit, but rarely delivered with enough heart to
split the skin.

Simon Dante,
Comte de Tourville, had been subjected to ten, twenty times that
many strokes, laid on by a vicious hand that had known no mercy
whatsoever.

What in God’s
name did a man do to earn a hundred lashes of the cat?

While she
pondered the question, Dante opened the second chest and pushed a
few garments impatiently from side to side until he found the ones
he sought. The shirt he drew over his shoulders was white as snow,
cut full with long, loose sleeves gathered at the wrists and edged
in open cutwork. The collar was more of a ruffle, made to extend
over the edge of a doublet, but he ignored the lacing in front and
let it hang open over the vast darkness of his chest while he
rummaged for other articles.

When his hands
went to his waist and began peeling his hose down over his lean
hips, Beau instinctively averted her eyes. She heard the dull thud
of his boots striking the floor and a sharp, half-formed curse when
he disturbed the bandages on his calf. The briefest, smallest peep
sidelong gave her a glimpse of naked, muscular legs and taut
buttocks. A longer, more contemplative look was directed toward the
scrolled wheel-lock pistol he had left lying on top of the
desk.

Dante was bent
over, unwinding the layers of filthy bandages. His back was to the
desk and although he was a pace or two closer to it than she was,
he would be hobbled by his leg and hampered by the unraveling
strips of linen.

Beau sent her
tongue slicking across her lips to moisten them.

With her lower
lip clamped securely between her teeth, she made a dash for the
desk, snatching the pistol off the piles of documents and aiming it
at Dante de Tourville before he had fully spun around.

The gun was
heavier than she had expected, the stock inlaid with ivory and
mother-of-pearl. The lock and escutcheon plate were brass overlaid
with gold filigree, the pyrite holder was shaped like a dragon’s
head with the body curling down in an S to form the trigger. The
spanner key was in the cocked position, meaning the spring was
fully wound and the slightest pressure on the serpentine trigger
would release the wheel, showering sparks into the firing pan, thus
igniting the powder and charge.

Dante’s initial
surprise over her quickness mellowed into cool curiosity as he
straightened and stared into the long, gleaming barrel.

“Well,” he said
quietly. “You do have a knack for creating impasses, don’t
you?”

“I see no
impasse here, Captain. I have the gun. You have about two seconds
to pull on a pair of breeches and walk ahead of me to the
door.”

Dante folded
his arms across his chest. “And if I don’t?”

“You can die as
you are. It matters not to me.”

The silver eyes
looked bemused. “And once we are through the door—what then?”

“
Then
… you call
your dogs off my father’s ship, and if you are extremely lucky,
depending on Captain Spence’s mood, we may leave you another barrel
or two of water before we sail away.”

“You would
leave us here to sink?”

“Gladly.”

His gaze
smoldered thoughtfully for much longer than the ordained two
seconds before the fine creases at the corners deepened and the
wide, sensuous mouth flattened into a wolfish grin.

“So. You have
killed men before, have you, mam’selle? Standing face to face,
close enough to feel the splatter of hot blood on your skin?”

Beau took an
involuntary step back but kept the gun aimed squarely in the middle
of the broad chest. “I do what I have to do, Captain Dante, even
if—as you say—it is not my original intention.”

“No,” he mused.
“Your original intention was to castrate me.”

She
glanced down out of reflex and although the hem of his shirt
covered him to mid-thigh, the light from the gallery windows was
beside him, giving substance to the shadows beneath. He was, she
was shocked to see, impressively large all over.

“Put the gun
down, Mistress Spence,” he ordered softly. “Before I get truly
angry.”

She adjusted
her grip, using both hands to balance the heavy weapon. “Find
yourself a pair of breeches, Captain, before I get truly
angry.”

“I might like
to see that.”

“I don’t think
you would.”

“Why not? What
happens? Do you spit and hiss like a hellcat?”

“Come a step
closer and you will find out,” she promised.

He took the
step, measured carefully against the darkening flush in her
cheeks.

“I will shoot,”
she declared evenly.

He shook his
head slowly. “I don’t think you will.”

Beau sucked a
breath between her teeth and cursed it free as he took another
step. She jerked the gun downward, switching her aim from his chest
to the uninjured leg.

“Maybe I won’t
kill you. Maybe I will just shoot out one of your knees.”

Dante stopped
and pursed his lips consideringly. Soft, ominous flecks of cobalt
were beginning to shimmer in his eyes but he only broadened his
grin and took another step forward. “Remind me not to make any more
brilliant suggestions in your presence.”

“Captain—!”

He took another
step and Beau’s finger tightened on the trigger. She pulled it
until the mainspring released, causing the wheel to spin against
the piece of iron pyrite and create a small burst of sparks.
Another part of the lock worked a brass coverplate, pushing it
aside to expose the powder pan to sparks, but where there should
have been a deafening explosion of gunpowder and a violent recoil
from the discharging shot, there was only a loud rasp and a small
puff of acrid smoke.

Dante halted
again.

“By Christ,” he
exclaimed with genuine surprise. “I didn’t think you would do it. I
took the precaution of removing the prime, of course, but I truly
did not think you would do it!”

Beau gaped at
the gun, then cursed and threw it disgustedly at the dark, grinning
face before she darted for the door. He caught her with effortless
ease, hooking one long arm around her waist, and clamping a hand
over her mouth to cut off the scream of outrage. She felt herself
lifted and crushed back against the wall of muscle. She kicked and
flayed and tried to scratch at his hands, his eyes, his ears, but
he only swore and upended her, swinging her dizzily around and
slamming her down hard on the top of the desk, unmindful of the
flurry of papers and letters her thrashings scattered to the floor.
As she writhed like a fury, the breath driven out of her lungs, he
leaned over her, restricting her movements with the weight of his
body.

“Stop it,” he
hissed. “Stop it right now, before I—”

Her hand,
raking the top of the desk, closed around the gold replica of
the
Virago
and she
swung it hard and fast, missing his temple and eye by the slightest
of miscalculations.

He cursed again
and grabbed her wrist with his free hand, grabbed the ship, and
twisted it roughly out of her grip before wrenching both of her
hands above her head and pinning them flat on the bed of papers.
Her legs were swinging over the edge of the desk, and while she
wriggled and squirmed to gain a good, clean kick, Dante was able to
wedge his hips firmly and forcefully between her thighs.

Her body bucked
against the pressure, her scream was a muffled combination of rage
and pain as his weight all but crushed the breath and fight out of
her. Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut, her chest was rising and
falling as if she had just swum across half the ocean. Her arms,
her legs, were trembling, the latter so painfully close to being
broken off at the hips, she had no choice but to keep them still
and tense beneath him.

“Now, then,” he
muttered roughly, “if I lift my hand away from your mouth, are you
going to make me regret it?”

Her eyes sliced
up at his, burning with a thousand gilt-edged threats, all of which
vowed immeasurable regret.

“Take as long
as you like to decide. I’m quite comfortable myself,” he added,
shifting his hips, forcing her legs to bend even wider to
accommodate him. “Although I cannot promise how comfortable you
will be in a minute or two when your breeches start to annoy
me.”

Beau’s eyes
widened. There was no mistaking his meaning; she could feel the
heat of his flesh where it pressed into the juncture of her thighs
and it was nowhere near as deceptively soft as the threat in his
voice, nowhere near as indifferent as the lazy threat in his
eyes.