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He drank readily enough, his lean body growing so relaxed and pliant he did not even move as she sank the needle into his flesh. She just wished she could be so steady, could remove herself from the acute awareness of his body heat, his every breath. At last she finished, tying off her thread before she dared glance at his face.
He seemed to be asleep, the harsh lines of his face relaxed so he seemed young again. She was free at last from those all-seeing green eyes, even if only for a moment.
Bianca threw herself into the chair, burying her face in her hands. She longed to cry, to shout out the confusion of this strange night that had borne Balthazar Grattiano back into her life! Yet she was bound in silence, in the tangle of the past come suddenly into the present.
She went to the window, pushing the casement further open to catch more of the night breeze. The sky was a heavy purple-black, dark clouds obscuring the moon and stars, blown in by that storm that damaged Balthazar’s ship. Santo Domingo was quiet enough now, in the hours before dawn. Only a few houses near the banks of the Rio Ozama were lit from within. The governor’s fortress, high on its hill overlooking the town, was a blank, silent behemoth.
Soon, the streets would come to life. She would have to face cooking, and cleaning up the mess downstairs. She would have to face the man in her bed. But for now it was as if she was alone in the world. Alone with Balthazar Grattiano.
Bianca rubbed wearily at her aching neck, turning to the small looking glass hanging on the wall. She almost laughed aloud at the sight that greeted her in its silvery reflection. How could Balthazar possibly recognise her, when she hardly recognised herself? Her curling brown hair stuck every way from its pins, tangled and wild. Her cheeks were a hectic red, her eyes lined with purplish shadows. Her grey wool dress, never fashionable in the first place, was stained with Balthazar’s blood.
She unlaced the simple bodice and tossed it with her skirt over the chair, standing before the glass in only her chemise and stays. As she brushed out her hair, yanking at the stubborn tangles, she knew that Balthazar would not long think he had her confused with some past dalliance. He had always preferred blondes with lush bosoms and full, pink lips. And she—well, she was a thin, dark tavern owner. Any meagre attractions she had as a girl in Venice were surely coarsened by a life of hard work on a tropical island.
Not that it mattered, of course. Balthazar and she would have their reckoning soon enough. And then it wouldn’t matter a bit what he thought of her bosom, or she his codpiece. For now, she was almost too weary to think of anything at all.
Bianca loosened her front-laced stays and slipped into bed, as far from Balthazar as she could get on the very edge of the mattress. She wrapped a blanket tightly around herself, but even as she fell into slumber she could feel his heat, reaching out to wrap seductively around all her senses…
Chapter Three
It was the old dream again, the one that Balthazar always thought long-buried until it rose up to haunt him. Like a monster of the deep—Here Be Serpents. Here lay the past.
A vast storm raged, silver lightning flashing overhead from the bowels of black, roiling clouds. Cold, jagged whitecapped waves broke across the bow; the screaming wind drove past the bare masts, flying the caravel through the air as if it was naught but a child’s toy. Rain beat on the deck’s planks, hard enough to bruise. The ceaseless pitching of the sea, the driving rain, the howling dread of his men who feared to be swallowed by the sea—Balthazar saw it all again. Like a painting of the judgements of hell come to life before his very eyes.
Yet still he dragged on the rudder, trying desperately to steer the ship away from her certain death, even as he knew in his heart that all his efforts were in vain. All he had worked for, all the men who trusted and followed him, were doomed.
It seemed a fitting end. For had he not spent all his life fighting against the dark inevitable? Against his own tainted blood, his sins. And all for naught.
His muscles ached as he strained against the rudder. He would not let it win! Not the sea, that pitiless mistress. Not the black emptiness that always threatened to swallow him. Salvation lay ahead, if he could just fight hard enough. But as he felt at last the blessed yielding of the rudder under his slippery grasp, a terrible sound split the sulphurous air. The crack and splinter of wood.
Balthazar shook the wet strands of hair from his eyes, staring up at the damaged mainmast of his ship. It listed, wavering in the gale. Soon, all too soon, it would crash to the deck, driving a hole through the wounded ship that would take them all to the bottom.
And atop the mast perched his father. Ermano Grattiano, dead these seven years by Balthazar’s own hand, clung to the splintered wood like a demented bat from hell, his black cloak and white mane of hair flying wildly in the wind. Even from that distance, his green eyes glowed, and he held out his bejewelled hand beckoningly.
“I told you that one day you would be mine, Balthazar,” he shouted, his voice clear and ringing over the howl of the storm. “We are one flesh and blood; you cannot escape me. You have killed my body, but I will always be with you!”
Balthazar shouted out his own fury. In his burning anger, he climbed the slippery, tumbling mast, not feeling the cold or pain. He was intent only on destroying the evil within himself, once and for all.
But Ermano only flew higher, ever distant, ever beyond reach. At last the mast fell entirely, sending Balthazar plummeting towards the battered deck—and certain death.
But he did not land in the cold sea. The waves did not rise up to claim him at last. He fell back on to a soft bed, amid a tangle of sheets and blankets.
He opened his eyes, staring wildly up at the dark wooden beams bisecting a whitewashed ceiling. The stench of lightning was banished by a warm, soft breeze from an open window.
This was not his cabin aboard the Calypso. There was no constant pitch and sway of waves, no watch bells or shouts from the deck. For a moment, he could not remember what had happened, he was still caught in the nightmare. In the storm, which had been all too real. And his father, who lived now only in his mind.
He tried to roll to his side, and the sudden stabbing pain in his shoulder reminded him. They had come ashore in Santo Domingo, seeking comfort after their travails in the Mona Passage. The battle with Diego Escobar and his pirate lot, the storm that damaged the mast and crippled them. They sought warm, dry beds, drink, food free of rot and weevils. Perhaps a pretty woman. What he had found was Diego, and his dagger.
“Damn the man’s eyes!” Balthazar cursed, as hot needles of pain shot down his arm. Diego had fought them on the seas, where Balthazar was greater and Diego knew he had no chance of victory. So, he had crept to Hispaniola and waited like a spider for his moment.
Ermano Grattiano might indeed be dead, but there was never any shortage of villains waiting to take his place. Diego was proving to be one of the more determined. Revenge was a potent motivation for anyone; it could even drive a man to piracy and murder. Balthazar knew all too well about revenge.
As he lay back on the bed, the rest of the night came flooding back to him in waves of vivid colour and noise. The flashing dagger, the shouts and commotion of running feet and utter confusion. The explosion. And the woman who peered down at him, her brown eyes filled with sparkling anger, concern and…
And what? He, who had spent years at sea and in rough ports learning to read men as if they were nautical charts because his fortune, his very life, depended on knowing their nefarious plans and deepest desires, could not read her face at all. Her eyes were a beautiful veil, opaque as fine Seville lace. Perhaps her life, too, balanced on knowing the thoughts of others while always hiding her own.
What had she read of him, as she stared down at him in that cacophonous tavern? As she tended his wound so carefully? And where, by all the gods where, had he seen her before?
Suddenly, there was a soft rustle of sheets, and that face was above him as she leaned over him. She must have been sleeping beside him in the bed, for her hair was loose, a river of wild curls over her shoulders, and she wore only a thin white chemise. The candles had burned out, and she was lit by the faint, chalky moonlight streaming from the open window.
He frowned as he stared up at her, studying her in the shadows. That sense of recognition was still there, but it was like a dream that faded with the dawn. The more he grasped for it, the more elusive it was. Yet it was still there, as tantalising as a Venetian perfume.
She was not beautiful, not like the courtesans of his youth, or like Marguerite, Nicolai Ostrovsky’s French wife. Golden, charming creatures of light and air. This woman, his physician tonight, had a thin face with high, sharp cheekbones, a long nose, full lips, and brows like silken raven’s wings. She obviously did not hide from the tropical sun, for her cheeks and nose were scattered with freckles. Her slim hands, slightly rough from work, had been calm and quick as they tended to him.
Not a pampered lady, then, but not a dockside whore either. He had surely never tupped her, or danced with her at some Venetian ball. But still that feeling persisted. She was not a stranger.
She reached out and gently touched his brow with one of those hands, her fingers cool and steady. The sleeve of the chemise fell back to reveal a thin wrist unadorned by any jewelled bracelets or rings. She smelled of clean water and soap, of ale and some rich tropical flower. Sweet and exotic, strange and familiar, all at once, like the islands themselves.
She smoothed back his tangled hair, her touch resting lightly on his cheek. His rough beard, the product of long days at sea, surely abraded her skin, yet she did not draw away. Her dark eyes watched him, gleaming like obsidian in the night.
And Balthazar felt the most unaccountable, irresistible urge to turn his face into her touch, to kiss the soft inside of her wrist, just where her lifeblood beat so strongly. To taste the palm of her hand with his tongue, until she gasped and that veil was torn away. Until she showed him her true self.
But he merely watched her, warily waiting to see what she would do.
“Do you feel feverish?” she said softly. “You are a bit warm. I should change your bandage.”
He felt the ripple of tension in her arm, as if she would pull away, and he reached up to gently grasp her wrist. To hold her touch to him, just for a moment more. It seemed so very long since he had touched a woman, inhaled her essence, felt her softness. It was a refuge, one he knew could not last.
A refuge in a mystery, for he still could read nothing of this woman!
“What is your name?” he said urgently, his hand tightening on her wrist. Here, wrapped in the velvet of an island night, alone with her, it seemed vital he know her name.
“I told you. I am Señora Montero.” Despite the Spanish name, the impeccable cadence of her Spanish words, he could hear a different accent lurking just beneath. A slight, unguarded music that was not there before, emerging only because she was tired.
It was almost like his own accent. Venetian, even after years of sailing the Spanish Main.
“What is your given name?” he asked.
She smoothed her touch along his cheek, her fingertips lightly skimming the line of his jaw. Feathering over his lips.
He captured the tip of her finger between his teeth, tasting her at last. She tasted of salt and flowers, like something deep and needful.
Her breath hissed, and he felt her shiver. In that moment, there was only the two of them wrapped in the secrecy of darkness. No past, no future. It mattered not at all who she really was.
The ache in his shoulder, too, was distant as he wrapped his good arm around her waist and drew her atop him. She also seemed caught in the dream-moment as she slid her body against his. Their lips met in a kiss, soft at first as they explored each other, the tastes and textures and feelings. Then she sighed against him, and the murmur of it, the whisper of her breath mingling with his, awakened something within him.
He touched her tongue with his, and a wave of heat enveloped them, a blue-white flash like the lightning of the storm. Their kiss was fast, artless with a primitive need, a blurry clash of mouths and bodies and sighs.
Through the humid rise of passion, Balthazar felt himself harden, felt her caress on his naked chest. He reached down and grasped the hem of her chemise, dragging the thin cloth over her legs, her hips. She was slender but strong, her thighs parting to straddle his hips and hold him her willing prisoner beneath her.
She moaned as his avid touch skimmed over the soft skin of her inner thigh, the arc of her hip. She cried out, her mouth torn from his as she arched up, her back supple as a bow. Balthazar, too, lurched up from the bed, his hands on her hips as his mouth slid from hers, along the line of her throat.
His tongue touched the frantic pulse at the base of her neck, and he felt her very life flowing into him. After facing death, the raging sea, the dagger, her warmth and lust were intoxicating. He kissed her collarbone, the slope of her shoulder, as he pushed her chemise back to bare one breast.
Her bosom was small but soft, the nipple a dusky disk that lengthened and hardened as he blew a gentle breath over its pouting flesh. He drew it deep into his mouth, suckling it hard as she gasped.
Her fingers drove deep into his hair, holding his mouth to her breast, her legs tight on his hips. Through the thin fabric of his hose he felt the damp heat of her womanhood.
“Balthazar!” she cried hoarsely. “I…”
Suddenly, like a cold wave, she pushed him away. As he fell back to the pillows, she scrambled off his body, her feet landing with a thud on the wooden floor. The ache of his wound came flooding back upon him as she spun around, as he lost her taste and warmth, the passion that came upon him so suddenly, so irresistibly.
He pushed himself up on his elbows, panting as he watched her draw the chemise back over her shoulders, hiding her beautiful breasts. She, too, was breathing hard, her shoulders trembling. She wrapped her arms around herself, until finally she gave one last shuddering breath and peered back at him over her shoulder. Her profile was as pale and pure as an ancient relief in the moonlight.
“You know my name,” he said. “And you speak with a Venetian accent.”
A bitter smile touched the corner of her mouth, still swollen with his kisses. “Of course I know who you are, Balthazar Grattiano. You are famous from Seville to Peru. The captain of the Calypso, the master of the seas—and of ladies’ bedchambers.”
He watched in tense silence as she wrapped a shawl over her shoulders and walked towards the door. There was no haste to her movements, only the taut line of her back, the soft sound of her rushing breath.
Or maybe it was his breath. He felt as if he had been climbing the rigging in a stiff wind for hours.
“My name is Bianca,” she said quietly. Then she vanished, closing the door behind her.
Balthazar groaned, collapsing back to the tumbled bed amid the smell of her soap, the salty essence of their lust. His body was still hot and hard, aching with the need to drive itself into her welcoming womanhood. His blood pounded in his ears, his shoulder throbbed.
And yet—Bianca? Who the hell was Bianca? He knew no one called…
Then, as if in a flash of fire, he remembered all too well. Bianca.
“Bianca Simonetti,” he muttered, pounding his fists into the yielding mattress. Of course. Yet another avenging spirit from the past.
Chapter Four
Bianca leaned back against the closed door, her hand pressed hard to her aching stomach. She had just kissed Balthazar Grattiano! Had let him put her breast in his mouth, straddled his near-naked body like a dockside whore. And, what was even worse, she had liked it.
Nay, more than liked it! The pleasure had been so deep, so hotly overwhelming, that she had forgotten who she was, who he was, where they were, even the terrible past. She had forgotten everything but the sensation of his lips on her skin, the hard steel of his penis under her hips. The raw need that had bound them together, tighter and tighter, until she vowed she would explode like her gun.
Bianca moaned, covering her flushed face with trembling hands. A man she had not seen for years, a man who had betrayed her friendship in the worst way, appeared again in her life, and what did she do? Kill him, take her long-delayed revenge? Nay, she nearly had sex with him in her very own bed!
Behind the closed door, she heard the squeak of floorboards, a muttered curse, as if Balthazar tried to get out of bed. Bianca ran down the narrow staircase, heedless of her bare feet, not even sure where she was going. The tavern was deserted in the pre-dawn gloom; the hot air still smelled of spilled ale and rum, greasy leftover stew and the acrid tang of gunpowder. The broken furniture from the fight, good now for nothing but kindling, was pushed back against the wall.
Bianca turned towards the kitchen at the back of the building. It was hotter in there, the fireplace banked and smoldering for the day’s cooking, but Delores still slept in her pallet by the hearth. Bianca slipped past her and out the door into the night.
It was nearly morning. A greyish-pink light tinged the edge of the thick blackness, and soon flickering lights would appear in the windows of the shops and houses. The bells would ring out for Mass from the half-finished cathedral on the plaza. The governor’s palace fortress, high on its hill above the rest of the town, slumbered behind its impenetrable stone walls, its vigilant cannons. It was silent now, yet soon enough would come to life and tend to its business, the business of every inhabitant of Santo Domingo—tending to the flotas, the treasure fleets that wended their way to Spain a few times a year.
Bianca gazed out over the town, so deceptively peaceful in the dawn. Santo Domingo had been her home for a long while now, longer than most of the European inhabitants. They could not bear the heat, the strange food, the insects and storms. Could not bear to be so far from the culture and comforts of Spain. They came only to make their fortunes, to serve the king and thus win a place at court. Then they made a dash back to Seville and Madrid, putting the strange witchcraft of the islands behind them.
But Bianca had come to love it. Oh, indeed there were times when she longed for Venice, but after so many years of wandering, of hardship and struggle, she had found a home of sorts in this rough port town on the Rio Ozama. She had built a business, one that prospered and required of her only honest hard work, and not the degradation of her body. The loss of her soul.
She gave a wry laugh. It was not always grand to haul unconscious drunkards out her door at three in the morning, to scrub sticky floors and negotiate with hard-bitten merchants for her rum and sugar and ale. There were certainly times, many of them, when she wanted to bash an obnoxious customer over the head with a cauldron and be done with it! To run screaming into the jungle, never to be seen again.
But there were also times when she could leave the jostling tavern behind and walk along the banks of the river. Could smell the salt breeze from the not-so-distant sea, tinged with the sweetness of greenery and exotic flowers. Could see the sky overhead, the purest, clearest blue, lit by a blinding yellow-white sun. Could absorb the natural beauty and peace into herself and hold it close to her heart.
Santo Domingo was rough, true, especially compared to Venice. Despite the fortress, the cathedral on the plaza, the substantial houses where only thirty years before there were just grass huts, it had the air of a temporary holding place. Of a land where the bonds of civility were thin indeed, and the threat of violent raids and rebellion hung heavy. Yet Bianca had lived in worse places, and she had found a refuge of sorts here.
But now that refuge was torn asunder. Balthazar Grattiano was here, in her very home. Bianca frowned. What was he doing here, so far from Venice? From his jewels and silks, his expensively beautiful courtesans. He did seem to be a ship’s captain now, one spoken of with awe, even in a hard place like this. One obviously respected by his men. Something shattering must have happened to him to bring him across the ocean, just as it had with her.
But what could it possibly have been? Balthazar Grattiano was a veritable prince in Venice, the sole heir to a wealthy and powerful, and ruthlessly cruel, father. He had no need for the riches of the New World, unless it was solely Grattiano greed. One kingdom was not enough.
If he could appear so suddenly in her life, would Ermano be next?
Bianca shivered, remembering her mother’s glazed, staring eyes. The blood, the dagger. The terrible fear that drove her to flee, to never see Venice again. Was it all beginning again?
She shook her head fiercely. “Nay! I will not let it,” she muttered. This was her home. She would not flee the Grattianos twice.
And she would discover what Balthazar did here. Then she would know how to act.
The pale pink light of dawn was spreading over the sky, banishing the dark of night and with it her cold flash of fear. She was not the frightened girl she had been then, alone without her mother and heartbroken at the betrayal of a handsome young man. She was a woman grown, and she would not allow the Grattianos to steal one more thing from her. Not her home, her pride or her due revenge.
Bianca sighed. Well—perhaps Balthazar could steal one more kiss from her. She was a woman, after all, and he was still the most handsome man she had ever seen. But that was all, and it would only be on her terms.
She whirled around and hurried back into the kitchen, where Delores was yawning as she stirred the fire. The morning brought a new day’s hard work, and it couldn’t be disrupted by a beautiful ship’s captain lying wounded in her bed.
Unless he had managed to vanish from her life as quickly as he appeared. She could hear no stirrings abovestairs, but she went about gathering water, bandages and a bowl of the reheated stew anyway.
“Is he still here?” Delores asked.
“Of course,” Bianca answered. “He’s not in much of a condition to just be wandering off.” Though, wounded or not, he had been in fine condition when he kissed her, and caressed her naked hip.
Delores sighed. “How very beautiful he is, señora! It would have been terrible to see him killed last night.”
Aye, terrible for him to die before she could get answers—or kill him herself! “Beautiful or not, Delores, we don’t have time to be mooning over him,” Bianca said, suddenly deeply impatient with Balthazar, Delores, the world and especially herself. “We have too much work to do.”
Delores nodded, turning away from the now-blazing fire to start peeling and chopping cassava. Despite the fact that she did rather like to giggle over handsome sailors, Bianca had to admit Delores was a good worker who actually seemed to enjoy the workings of a tavern.
“Especially with all the people seeking refuge from the storm in town. I heard there was even a Spanish contessa at the fortress! But I think we need more meat, señora, if we’re to feed everyone,” Delores said. “I used the last in the stew.”
“I will go to market myself this morning, then,” Bianca answered. She suddenly felt a deep urge to run away. And if she could not go to the jungle, to the tangled interior of the island, she could at least go to the market on the plaza. The warm morning breeze would help clear her confused mind, and she would be away from Balthazar. “You keep an eye on our wounded customer.”
Delores brightened. “Oh, yes, señora!”
“Not too close an eye,” Bianca warned. She left Delores to her tasks, carrying the tray of water and bandages upstairs with her. She lingered outside the door, listening closely for any signs of movement. After what had happened last night, she wasn’t at all sure she could trust herself with Balthazar, even in the clear light of day.
Bianca scowled at the memory of the humid darkness, the feel of his sea-roughened hand on her naked skin. It seemed the armour she had built so carefully around herself, link by impenetrable link, over the long years was more vulnerable than she thought. But she couldn’t allow that to be. She couldn’t be vulnerable.
All appeared silent behind the door, the heavy quiet of early morning. She slipped into the room, finding Balthazar sound asleep in her bed. It had not been a quiet sleep; the bedclothes were tossed and tangled, his arms thrown wide as if he fought a battle in his dreams.
She remembered his shouts and murmurs in the night, the monsters in his nightmares. She set the tray down on the table and tiptoed to the bed, gazing down at him in search of any sign of dangerous fever. A fierce frown creased his brow, but he seemed to sleep deeply. The wound had seeped through the bandage, a reddish-brown colour untainted by yellow infection.
