Page 4 of Any Duke in a Storm

There was no hope for it… Lisbeth would have to run and make the jump, or stay and risk whatever it was Captain Delaney was summoning her for. Every well-honed instinct in her brain said it wasn’t good and this was her last chance to get out of here unscathed. Theonlychance.

And her gut had never failed her.

She hauled a breath into her lungs, increased her speed until she got to the very edge of the wharf, and then launched herself through the air. Time sped up and slowed down at the same time, her body careening across the widening divide while her brain processed in slow motion.

Black water churned beneath her. God above, she wasn’t going to make it! She was going to plummet into the depths of the sea, and she well knew the kind of sea creatures that came out at night. The moray eels in the cove were particularly vicious. Sharks would be, too. It wasn’t a huge gap, about five or six feet, but every half second meant that her ship was pulling further away and out of reach. Seven feet was stretching it, eight would be a miracle, and nine would be impossible.

“You’ll make it!” she grunted, but braced for the embrace of cold, dark, dangerous waters.

Luck, it seemed, hadn’t been on her side all night.

Two

Raphael squinted at the ship’s grim quartermaster who kept looking back toward the wharf as if expecting trouble and wondered if he’d made yet another terrible mistake. The fact that the second under the ship’s captain was a woman had made him falter, but in his unpopular opinion, female smugglers were more than capable of being just as merciless as their male counterparts. Perhaps even more so. This one had a cutlass and two pistols strapped to her hips, and eyes that were sharp and hard. It had made him worry just a bit. He’d have better odds with a man who could be more easily fooled. Women tended to be more discerning.

Fortuitously or not, she’d hired him—thank you, charm and false confidence—but only after making him sweat with pointed questions about his experience reading charts and navigational skills. He was proficient in seafaring but had his own sailing masters on his ships, which meant he was out of practice. Since the only way off this godforsaken island was to board a vessel exiting the harbor in short order, which meantthisship, he’d had no choice but to obfuscate. Raphael hadn’t even looked at the name of the ship. Then again, that didn’t matter.

The only thing that mattered was the fact that it was leaving.

It helped that he was familiar with this particular inlet as well as the surrounding seas, at least enough to be hired as a passably competent sailing artist, as the pirates of old called it. In truth, he did not like navigating in the dead of night—there were too many things that could go wrong in the darkness—but a storm was brewing in the winds. He could smell it. Besides, he’d rather be out on the open seas with a chance to outrun a squall than stuck here on a very small island with his uncle who wanted him dead.

Dubois was the only one who knew about Raphael’s ties to Tobago and that from time to time, he dropped off money and supplies to his relatives who lived on the island. Unfortunately, he hadn’t counted on a mutiny…or being thrown into irons the second they’d put into port. He let out a growl. When he got his hands on his treacherous uncle, Raphael was going to throttle the man and feed his body to the sharks!

He could have boarded either of the two ships at the far end of the harbor—both of which were part of his merchant fleet and belonged to him—but sailing required a capable, and clearly loyal, crew. And the truth was he did not have the time to gather up enough new sailors he could trust to get them safely to sea…at least not here. They were probably all Delaney’s men, and by default, his uncle’s. Raphael would rather not be tricked and incarcerated again, thank you very much.

Live to see another day and all that.

“Estelle!”

He frowned as the faint cry reached his ears. Was that a bellow from the dock or the rising wind? A storm was definitely brewing, which made him want to make haste even faster, despite the late hour. He did not want to be stranded because the ship could not leave the inlet due to a reef made more dangerous by the incoming tide and rougher seas.

“Damn it, Estelle, you soulless witch, ease up!”

He frowned. Dieu, that was avoice, not in fact the sound of the billowing wind, and it sounded much closer now. Wasn’t the quartermaster called Estelle? He strode to the stern where the gangway had been pulled aside and peered into the darkness toward the docks. Though he could barely differentiate between the shadows, one of them seemed to be thicker than the others.

Thicker and getting bigger. And person-sized.

What thedevil?

Raphael barely had time to think before what looked like a small boy launched himself from the end of the wharf in his direction over six feet of open space. His lips twitched in admiration at the lad’s sheer ballocks. Jumping that distance in the dark was no mean feat of courage.

Well, it was either courage or madness.

Either way, even if the boy succeeded, Raphael was certain that the surly, hard-as-granite quartermaster didn’t have time for stowaways or extra mouths to feed. She had made it abundantly and sternly clear thathewas a last resort and that he’d have half rations because of his size. No doubt this new arrival would be disappointed to learnthat he’d have to swim back to the dock since Raphael wasn’t giving up his spot!

He had barely locked his stance when the small, airborne mass hurtled onto the deck, rolled, and crashed into him where he stood. A tight cap flew off in the collision, and coils of pale hair tumbled into a chaotic cloud as the unexpected scent of orange blossoms and honey flew into his nostrils. He blinked in shock while his hands automatically reached out for purchase and he found his fingers full of a pleasantly rounded bosom.

An infuriated, savage curse had his eyes widening. “Get your filthy hands off me, you bloody cretin!”

He did and stepped back, even as several crew members cheered and whooped at the newcomer’s entrance. “Who the hell are you?”

“The bloody captain,” the virago who was most definitelynota boy snarled. “Who thehellareyou?”

Raphael blinked in delayed shock.Thiswas the ship’s captain? His eyes took in her petite stature, at least compared to him, and the bold jut of her chin. She looked like a wrathful Viking warrior. “I’m your new sailing master,” he replied, though to his horror it sounded more like a question than a statement.

Lip curling into a sneer, she glared at him. “The fuck you are.”

He smirked at the foul oath dropping from that pair of perfectly plump lips, with a Cupid’s bow on the upper, the only feature he could see beneath the tangled mass of wheat-colored tresses. “Sorry to say but I am,” he saidgenially. “I was hired this very evening by a cheerful quartermaster who assured me that I’d be in excellent company on this here ship for the fair exchange of my services.”

---