Page 44 of Any Duke in a Storm

At any rate, she hadn’t gone alone. Ballsack—damn it!—Balzac and Gibbons were both capable men, and ones he trusted. That mollified him somewhat. Then again, Lisbeth was a fierce, proficient seafarer in her own right. She wasn’t some damsel who needed defending. But sometimes, in his own head, it was hard to separate the two.

“I wanted to go with them,” Narina muttered in a morose tone. “But she said she had important hornswaggling business to attend to.”

Raphael blinked at the expression. He doubted it had anything to do with swindling people out of money, but with Lisbeth, one could not be sure. Bonnie Bess had her own contacts on the American mainland as well as in the wider West Indies. “Business?”

The child pouted. “People business, savvy?”

His hackles rose. What was the secretive harpy up to? “I beg your pardon,” he said. “Did she say where she was going?”

“No.” She made a swishing motion with the makeshift short stick that served as her sword. “You talk funny sometimes. All fancy-like. Like Bess does sometimes when she’s well into her cups. ‘Squiffy,’ the pirates say. It means foxed.” Narina scrunched up her face. “Most sodheads mix up their words or slur. She just gets more and more proper. It’s fucking funny.I do beg your pardon, kind sir, may I have some more.” She snorted laughter through her nose and stabbed her sword. “Now walk the sodding plank before I skewer yer insides with me blade!”

“What did we say about how we speak on this ship, lassie?” Raphael asked, turning his face to hide his grin. The child’s language was truly atrocious, and hearing those words from such a cherubic face was rather diverting. Lisbeth, however, would be appalled.

Speaking of the petite pain in his arse, he frowned. Other than perhaps attempting to send word to theSyrenin Tampa overland that she was alive, did she have any other reason to meet with someone in Cedar Key? He glanced down to where Narina was staring longingly atthe wharves in the distance. Lisbeth was right to leave her behind. She was safer on the ship.

“Go fetch Boisie for me, will you?” He stooped down before she ran off and took the hat off his head and plopped it on hers. “Now, avast ye, lassie. I’m going to leave you in charge of the ship. It’s a big job. Do you think you can handle being captain until I return?”

Her dark eyes went wide even as the brim of her faux tricorn nearly swallowed up her small head. “You wantmeto be the captain?”

“Only if you’re up to the task,” he said grimly. “It’s a big responsibility. I can ask Boisie, if you can’t do it.”

Narina straightened her small spine, standing tall and letting out a growl worthy of Blackbeard himself. “Blow me down, Cap’n! Boisie’s a scallywag! I’m your lass! If anyone comes close to theAvalon, I’ll run a warning shot across their damned bow.”

Raphael chuckled. “No firing cannons until I get back.”

“Ay, Cap’n!” He watched as she ran off, shouting orders that men would get the cat-o’-nine and be scuppered if they didn’t listen, and bit back a laugh. She was truly incorrigible.

He waited until Boisie, his acting quartermaster but also a capable captain in his own right, strolled down from the quarterdeck. He trusted the man with his life, considering Raphael had saved his several years ago, and Boisie hadn’t batted an eye when Raphael had asked him to be part of the crew.

“Can you tell the lads to get the second rowboatready?” he asked. “And keep an eye on the lass, will you? She’s slippery.”

Boisie cracked an uncharacteristic smile, teeth white in his dark-brown face. “That she is.”

“I’ll take Peppers and Jim with me.” Raphael lowered his voice. “Keep watch. I still don’t know if we can trust everyone on this ship. If there’s any sign of mutiny, you take the girl and go, you hear me? If all’s well, get the ship ready to sail in an hour.”

“Aye, Saint.” Boisie frowned. “You expecting trouble?”

Raphael let out a breath. “Always.”

Lisbeth knew it was a huge risk to bring the two men from the ship with her, but she couldn’t take the chance to come ashore alone. Not to mention she was wearing a bloodydress! She missed having her weapons strapped around her hips, clearly visible to everyone that she was not a female to be toyed with. Lisbeth let out a low huff. She hadn’t realized how dependent she’d become on the swagger of Bonnie Bess and the liberties it afforded her.

No one dared cross the ruthless captain. Petty thieves and cutpurses scattered when theSyrenput into local ports. Lisbeth had always been a strong woman, but Bonnie Bess had a pair of balls bigger than most men in their walk of life. Even here on American shores, her name and reputation held weight.

Cedar Key was a notorious smuggling hub, perhapseven worse than Tampa. The trade ties between Cuba and Florida meant that it was a convenient port for ships trafficking a little extra liquor and cigars, which would be sent inland for resale on the black market. In recent months, the Treasury Department had grown fixated on capturing smugglers and had sent undercover agents to assist the customs officers.

There’d been a slew of new hires, and Lisbeth did not care to be detained and interrogated by some greenhorn out to make a name for himself. She was certain that was what Dubois had had in mind—to have theAvalondetained and searched with contraband goods hidden somewhere in its hold and its captain and crew taken into custody. If Saint was arrested, she would not be able to help him without revealing her biggest secret. And that she could not do…not when her target was so close.

Not even for him.

Something ached in the vicinity of her chest and she rubbed it hard. She could not afford softness with Saint because they’d been intimate. Shipboard liaisons happened in close quarters from time to time, and such brief interludes did not mean anything. The scorching-hot memory of Saint crouched down between her legs with his tongue laying fire to her drenched core begged to differ, however.

Or worse, what had come after…

Lisbeth flushed at the recollection of what she’d done—whathe’ddone—feeling her neck heat under the already hot afternoon sun. What on earth had possessedher to kneel in front of him as she had? Inviting him to…mark her with his spend. It had been brazen and wickedly erotic, and nothing she’d ever done before.

Enough. Exasperated with herself, she pulled the brim of her bonnet down and adjusted her suddenly itchy collar.Stop obsessing about him.Hell, she had bigger fish to fry, like how to make contact with her handler in the American government without raising the suspicions of the two men with her. Problem was…her contact might be in New York and not in Florida. But how to get rid of Gibbons and Balzac was her first hurdle.

What would Bonnie Bess do?

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