Victoria Janssen - The Duke and the Pirate Queen

She laughed. “Pah! I can see it in your eyes. Guilt. You don’t want me right now. The captain hasn’t given you anything, and still you feel loyalty to her.” She dug a handkerchief from the pocket of her jacket and wiped Maxime’s softened cock, a little more roughly than he would have liked. “You are like a girl in the first throes of infatuation.” She tugged him down to her and kissed his mouth, quick and hard. “I already had to endure endless sighs of longing from Henri and Madame as they discovered romance. From you, it is even more pitiful.”

Wonderful. He couldn’t even manage an uncomplicated fuck to console himself. “I see. I’m dismissed, am I?”

“You are, Your Grace,” Sylvie said. She patted his hip. “If you will excuse me, a pair of your largest footmen await me in my chambers. And the little one, too, Volker. The one who does the thing with his tongue.”

Maxime winced. “I’d prefer not to know what you’re doing to my staff.”

Sylvie poked out her tongue at him. “You may come to me again when the delicious captain abandons you barefoot on the docks of a foreign port, and I will consider—consider only—tying you to a bed for my pleasure.”

IMENA WASN’T ABLE TO ENJOY HER SOAK IN THE baths. As soon as she was sure Maxime had truly departed, she dried herself, dressed and returned to Seaflower , heaving a sigh of relief as soon as she felt the deck shifting beneath her feet. Chetri was gone, as was half of her crew, all of them no doubt carousing throughout the town’s shops, brothels and bathhouses, having perfectly licentious shore leave. She would do the same. She stormed into her cabin and swiftly divested herself of her turquoise finery, tossing it onto her wide bunk.

“No, sir! You’ll crush it!”

Imena’s cabin girl, Norris, darted into the cabin, hands outthrust as if to prevent wrinkles by force of will. She darted beneath Imena’s arm and seized the jacket and trousers to her flat chest. Small and slim-hipped, she wore her long ginger hair pinned up with myriad lacquered clips, and her face made up with a careful selection of cosmetics. Though she was, in fact, male, she had dressed as a girl since a young age, and as a result was usually better turned out than her captain. Her tailored green jacket and loose trousers were considerably more elegant and stylish than most of Imena’s garments. Also, she was very skilled at making the most of Imena’s minimal bosom.

Imena scooped up a faded linen singlet and yanked it over her head. “Fine. Pack it away. I won’t need it for a while.”

Norris took the silk garments to the wide table Imena used for charts and spread them carefully atop the glass surface. “I’ve packed a trunk for you, to take to the castle.”

“I’m not going back to the castle.”

“But Chetri said—”

“I’ve already seen His Grace. I’m going to visit Sanji.” Imena snatched a pair of linen trousers from atop a trunk and yanked them on over her knee-length drawers. “Where’s my jacket?”

“Hanging in the wardrobe,” Norris said. “I pressed it. You can’t go ashore all crumpled. You’re the captain.”

Imena slid open the wardrobe’s bamboo door and found her plain black jacket, now crisply tidy and scented with lavender. She grabbed a brimmed cap from the top shelf and crammed it onto her head to shade her eyes. “His Grace did not hire me for my sartorial elegance,” she said wryly.

“No, I don’t think he did,” Norris said, winking. Imena threw her discarded undershirt at her.

A few minutes later, Imena ventured back into the streets of the town. Past the dock area, she was much more conspicuous, and as usual, she steeled herself against stares, most of them curious, a few hostile, and all of them wary. As soon as she could, she hailed a pony-cab and gave Sanji’s address. She leaned back in the padded seat and closed her eyes, forcing herself to replace Maxime’s image in her mind with Sanji’s. It was more difficult than she’d thought. She’d seen Sanji’s body dozens of times, Maxime’s rarely, but she had recent sense memory of Maxime’s heavy muscularity and the scent and texture of his hair and skin. Remembering how his hands had felt on her body made her belly melt. If only he was not the duke. If only.

Sanji’s home adjoined his chandler’s shop. For once, his two young sons were not playing in the grassy back garden where Sanji kept a milch goat; with a twinge, she remembered this was their week to visit with their aunt who lived inland. She had been looking forward to playing with the boys. Imena went into the shop, saw Sanji’s assistant minding the counter and ducked outside again.

She found Sanji in his workshop, mounting a compass into a new protective casing crafted from slender strips of varicolored woods. The navigator in her appreciated his craftsmanship; as apprentice to a starmaster in her teens and early twenties, on Sea Tiger , she’d learned the basics of building instruments, and had a healthy respect for the difficulty of the task.

She leaned against the open doorway for a time, watching him work. He was a tallish man, as dark a brown as Chetri, with narrow stooped shoulders and lush black hair he wore in a messy tail down his back. Wide, thick black eyebrows gave his eyes a severe look at odds with his mild personality. Imena found him soothing. His hands at work were as gentle as his hands would be on her skin.

She waited until he’d set aside the compass before clearing her throat. Sanji looked up and smiled. “Imena. I heard Seaflower was in.”

“Yes.” She swallowed. She opened her mouth to ask if he could spare an evening for her, but instead said, “Sanji, I’m not sure I can see you anymore.”

His welcoming expression changed to mild dismay. “That’s unfortunate for me, but … have you met someone else?”

“Yes,” she said. She might as well admit the truth. Just because she couldn’t have Maxime didn’t mean he wasn’t there, in her thoughts, seemingly inside her very skin. “I’m very fond of you, Sanji,” she admitted. “You and the boys, too. But—”

“I understand,” he said. He rose from his stool and took her hand, kissing her fingers. “I must confess, I’ve been wanting to, well, marry. Give my sons a new mother. And I wasn’t sure what you would say.”

A few weeks ago, she might have said yes. “They need someone who will be here with them,” she said. “You and I, we’re good together, but.” She took his hand in hers and drew it to her mouth, placing a kiss in his palm. “You need someone who will be here always. Don’t you? You just haven’t said so.”

“Yes,” Sanji said, his cheeks flushing. He caressed her cheek. “Will you stay for the evening meal, at least?”

“I can’t,” she said. “I need to find Chetri. A business matter.” She paused, and slipped her hand into her jacket pocket, withdrawing a small canvas bag. “I brought shark’s teeth for the boys. Remind them the teeth are sharp.”

“I will,” he said. When he took the bag from her, their fingers did not touch. He said, “They’ll miss you. You’ll visit now and again?”

Throat tight, she nodded. She said, “There is a pearl in there for you, the purple-black such as you like so well.”

“Thank you,” Sanji said. “I’ll think of you when I wear it.” He slipped the bag into his trousers pocket. He added, “You’re always welcome in my home, you know. For whatever reason.”

“And you are always welcome on Seaflower,” she said. She took a deep breath. “Goodbye, Sanji.”

“Fair sailing, Imena,” he said, and kissed her gently. They shared a long, close embrace of farewell. She walked away, her regret mingled with relief.