Amanda McCabe - High Seas Stowaway

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.

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.”