No Rest for the Wicked

1 Port of Cádiz, Spain, 1741 Captain Dominic Greyville was in a most compromising position. This particular position involved a buxom Spanish lady sitting astride him, her skirts hiked up past her hips, moaning his name as she rocked her body against his. The wide windows of the woman’s bedchamber were open, the filmy white curtains blowing gently with the evening breeze as he placed deep kisses to the swells of her breasts. “Oh, Dominic, mi amor,” she whimpered, her nails digging into his shirt. He was still fully clothed, but soon enough he would use her passion to get the answers he needed. He kissed up her throat to her lips, chuckling as she released a feminine growl of frustration. “Why must you tease me so?” she huffed, her husky tone making his body ache with arousal. “Diego will be back any minute!” She tugged on Dominic’s hair, trying to get his attention away from her neck. “Patience,” he murmured as he slipped one hand up her red silk skirts and beneath the petticoats. She hissed as he eased a finger inside her, and he chuckled as he played with her, delaying her pleasure. He kept one ear c****d toward the bedroom door, making sure her husband didn’t surprise them. Dominic didn’t mind if he was discovered with this woman. The man would try to kill him, which was half the fun—the thrill of discovery and a quick escape. He pulled her face to his, tasting her plump lips. “When must you return to your ship?” The woman’s words were layered heavily with her seductive Spanish accent. “Soon.” He moaned as she ground her hips against his. “Will you be gone long?” she asked, her hands running through his long dark hair. He usually kept it tied back with a leather thong, but she’d pulled it loose when he’d first arrived. “One never knows. I’m at the mercy of the winds and tides.” Dominic’s lips lowered to the woman’s breasts again as he nibbled her olive skin. She arched her back in pleasure. “Don’t make it too long.” “What have you heard from the ports, my love?” he asked as he played with her beneath her skirts. “The ports?” she whimpered. “Yes, what has your husband been telling you?” She moved back to look down at him. “If I tell you, mi amor, what will you do for me?” “Anything you wish, my love. Anything at all.” He ran his gaze over her voluptuous body, knowing it wouldn’t be a hardship to take her to bed. She was very lovely, but a bit too unimaginative for his tastes. He liked his women to have wits as sharp as his cutlass. There was no fun in bedding a woman when he couldn’t spar with her with words—it kept things interesting. “Diego said he heard the English are sending a merchant ship, the Fortune, to the Caribbean. It left port yesterday on its way to Port Royal. Apparently, the merchant ship is carrying precious cargo.” “Precious cargo?” “Precious enough that they’re sending an admiral with it.” Dominic’s blood heated in excitement as he considered what precious cargo might mean. Money? Jewels? Whatever it was, he and his crew could intercept the Fortune and relieve the ship of its precious cargo. “You’re quite sure you heard the cargo was valuable?” he pressed again. It was unusual for an admiral to be accompanying cargo which meant the value must be great. “Sí, very precious. Diego was most curious, but he didn’t know what it was. I think it is jewels.” The woman’s eyes gleamed. “Don’t you think I would look beautiful covered in jewels, mi amor? Jewels and nothing else?” She slid her hands down his chest as she spoke, but Dominic’s thoughts were leagues away from her. Dominic used his hands to give her the pleasure she sought, and once she had come, he slid her off his lap. She reached for him, still wanting more, but he slipped free. He didn’t care to finish with her—she’d lost her allure, like all the other women he’d ever had. Whenever a woman started to show signs of missing him, he cut ties and sailed his ship permanently out of that amorous port. It created too many complications if they were to ever cross paths again out in the streets. “Where are you going?” the woman snapped. “My dear, it’s been lovely, but I must go. Until then, Francesca…” “Maria!” she corrected sharply. She rose from the bed and slapped him hard across the face. When she made to slap him again, he caught her wrist, squeezing just hard enough not to hurt her but enough to remind her who was in control. “Fine then, go, you heartless pig!” she spat at him. He released her and gathered his coat, cutlass, and pistol, and without a second glance at the scowling Spanish lady, he ducked out of the open window and eased along the building’s second-story ledge. Dominic at age twenty-eight was captain of a named called the Emerald Dragon. Maria had found him enticing because he was a rogue. There was nothing more enchanting for a married woman who was tired of a neglectful husband who drank too much than to sleep with a man like him. Bringing a seafaring rogue to one’s bed—one whose skin was darkened by years in the sun, his palms rough from climbing seawater-hardened ropes was something ladies in Spain liked to boast about. He was exotic to such women, and he didn’t mind at all that it gained him entry into some of the finest beds in Spain, France, and the Caribbean. The one place he would not make berth was England. He’d turned his back on his old life. He’d had no choice at first, a surviving heartless indentured servitude in the West Indies after he’d been kidnapped from Cornwall. By the time he was eighteen he’d won his freedom by killing the man who’d enslaved him. He’d been pirating along the American coasts and the West Indies for four years now. His father’s harsh words and disappointment still cut deep in Dominic’s memory. He’d comforted himself with the thought that his little brother, Adrian, would be his father’s heir to the earldom, and he would no doubt be better at it than Dominic ever would have been. So he’d embraced his new life and remained a pirate, on his own terms, with his own ship, his own crew, and a code of honor. Pirate was such a harsh word, though. He much preferred to be called an enterprising man, like the privateers a hundred years before. But the truth was, he was simply too fond of breaking the rules to pass up the opportunity to strike at the Spanish, French, and English alike. They were all equal prey in a pirate’s conquest. When Dominic and his crew weren’t chasing merchant ships, they often targeted slave ships, freeing the men and women at the first opportunity. After his own years in s*****y, he swore never to let a slave ship get past him. Dominic slid down the wall of the hacienda, catching his hands and feet against the rough stones to slow his way before he dropped onto the street below. Dawn was a few hours off, and he would be back on his ship soon. He’d gotten what he needed from Maria. She’d happily breathed word of a British merchant ship, the Fortune, on its way to Port Royal, bearing precious cargo. Dominic planned to be there first, before any pirate ships prowling the Caribbean might try to intercept it. It had been a while since he’d chased something of great value, and his mind buzzed with a dozen ideas of what the cargo might be. When Dominic strode up the Dragon’s gangplank, he was met by his bosun, Jon Chibbs, a stout Englishman in his late forties. “Cap’n.” Jon tipped an invisible cap at Dominic. “Chibbs. Are we ready to make sail?” Dominic asked. “Just waitin’ on you, Cap’n. Reese is in your cabin, ready to set the course,” Chibbs added. “Any problems while I was gone?” Jon chuckled and shook his head. “Not a one, Cap’n, not a one, except maybe Mr. Lee. He’s fussing quite a bit since he had to take over for Mr. Bolton.” Lee was the new cook, after Bolton had been shot and killed in Tortuga a few weeks prior when he’d cheated another man at cards. “Lee’s not happy?” “Not so much, Cap’n. He says he ain’t no proper cook, an’ my stomach agrees. My pa used to say, a crew is only as good as its cook.” “Tell him to be patient awhile longer. I’ll find a cook soon.” He was tempted to stop in Port Royal and acquire someone there. It was possible, after all, to land his ship at a private bit of beach in Jamaica. Lee, like Chibbs and Reese, was a loyal man, loyal to the death for Dominic. Most of his crew were. Pirates tended to lack loyalty to all but the codes to which they agreed when entering the secretive brethren. Dominic had asked each and every man on his ship to be loyal to him, and if that loyalty waned, they had the freedom to walk away, no hard feelings betwixt Dominic or the crew member choosing to leave. He kept his men well fed and well compensated for injuries, and their share of profits was always fair, even among the officers like himself and Reese. “I’ll be in my cabin if you need me, Chibbs.” Dominic left his bosun to handle the deck. Dominic descended to the quarterdeck, greeting some of his crew in the hall as he passed them on the way to his cabin. The musical mix of French, English, Jamaican, and Spanish always made Dominic smile. He took men on his ship no matter their station in life. If they worked hard and didn’t mind the dangers of life aboard his vessel, they were welcome. Inside Dominic’s cabin, his quartermaster, Reese Belishaw, leaned over the ornate desk. Maps spilled over the surface, weighed down at the corners with books. A compass sat open, the arrow pointing north along the coast where Reese was mapping a route with a sextant. Reese was eight years younger than him with hazel eyes that lit up when he was planning a course route as he was doing now. His blond hair wasn’t as dark as Dominic’s but it fell into his eyes and he brushed it away in frustration before focusing on the charts again. “How was Francesca?” Reese asked without looking up. “Maria, apparently,” Dominic said with a chuckle, which made his friend look up in confusion. “Francesca must be some other wench here in port.” “Which means we’ll be avoiding this place for some time, I assume.” “Most definitely.” Dominic strode over to the desk and threw himself into the chair behind it, propping his feet up on the desk’s edge. Reese shifted the maps away from Dominic’s boots before studying the coastline again. “Good God, man, we’ll run out of places to resupply if you keep up with your women this way.” Reese’s hazel eyes glinted with mischief as he laughed. He too was a favorite among the ladies like Dominic but he kept his liaisons strictly limited to the brothels and taverns in the ports. “That’s because you’re still wet behind the ears,” Dominic teased, knowing that Reese being only twenty left him defensive as to his tender age compared to Dominic. Reese’s hazel eyes flashed. “So…what did Maria have to report, then?” “Precious cargo…headed to the West Indies by way of a British merchant ship, the Fortune.” “Coin, do you think? Or perhaps goods? The lads love it when we land a prize with goods.” Dominic remembered the last prize his ship had taken, a merchant ship packed to the gills with tea, coffee, tobacco, and silks. They’d sold off all the cargo within a few hours of docking in Kingston, knowing more than one buyer who wouldn’t ask too many questions. The coin that had lined their pockets had allowed them all to fill the taverns and brothels for an entire week. “Maria didn’t say what kind of cargo, only that it was to be guarded by a small naval guard on board the merchant ship. An admiral will be on board the ship, or so she heard.” “An admiral?” Reese puzzled over that. Dominic was less concerned with the nature of the cargo, given that he wasn’t dependent on it for his livelihood. He’d earned a place in Jamaica long ago, carving out a small bit of land for himself. Anything he did now was merely to keep his crew satisfied and to entertain himself. “Lord knows what a stuffy old goat like that would be doing out on the high seas. They prefer to stay on dry land and give orders to their subordinates,” Dominic chuckled. Reese set the sextant down and rolled up the maps, binding them with a bit of blue silk ribbon and setting them in the map chest. “Rather interesting. Sounds like one of the rare merchant ships that belongs to His Majesty.” Dominic shrugged. It was rare but not unheard of for a merchant vessel to be commanded by a set of naval officers if the goods on board were related to the crown. “Whatever is on board will likely be worth the trouble then,” Dominic replied. “When do we leave?” Reese adjusted the gun tucked into his belt as he headed for the door of the cabin. “Straightaway. Go and ready the ship.” “Aye, Captain.” Reese left the chamber. Dominic picked up the compass, flipping open the lid. He watched the arrow spin slowly and stop, pointing north. It was an old, battered bit of brass, but it had never failed him in ten years. He’d earned the compass fighting another boy for it while under his old captain’s orders. A compass, a pistol, and a loaf of weevil-infested bread. Only the strongest survived. He’d proven his strength that day by shooting his captain through the heart with the very same pistol. He stared at the compass a moment longer, and his thoughts drifted deeper into the past, beyond the days of hunger, pain, and misery. He gave his head a shake. The past was just that—the past. A man could not beat against the tides, no matter how much he might wish to. There was only the next horizon, the next golden dawn to chase in search of treasure and glory. Dominic clamped the compass shut, and a grinned as he hummed a little tune and listened to the sounds of the men making ready to sail.