High Seas Stowaway by Amanda McCabe

Author:Amanda McCabe
Language: ron
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

B althazar peered through his spyglass at the horizon, searching for a hint of land, some cove they could make for before nightfall. He didn’t like the look of the water, so smooth, nor the wispy clouds racing overhead. The weather was changing, and after the fierce storm they had weathered in the Mona Passage he was doubly wary.

The Calypso carried a fine cargo now in Bianca, and he could not put her in danger.

He heard a ripple of laughter, and it made him smile in response. The sound had an almost startled quality, as if the laugh was not used much, and thus was all the sweeter. He lowered the glass, turning to peer along the railing to the quarterdeck.

Bianca was stirring something in the large pot hung over the fogon, still wearing her boy’s clothes with her hair pinned atop her head and bound with a scarf. The warm breeze stirred the loose curls, and she brushed them back impatiently from her flushed cheeks. Two of his men sat close to her, slicing onions and cassava root, gazing at her raptly as if they were suddenly her willing slaves, drawn in by the enchantment of her smile.

And they were surely not the only ones caught in that spell! He could not look away from her, and found himself longing to hear that laughter again.

She shook her head as she stirred, listening as the men told her what was no doubt some wildly exaggerated tale of their seafaring exploits. The rest of his crew still went about their tasks, yet he could see how they all glanced in her direction, how they drifted ever closer in their chores.

Women on board ship could be a curse indeed. Yet sometimes they could be a blessing. Marc’s wife Julietta had sometimes gone aboard the Elena Maria, the flagship of the Velazquez fleet, for shorter voyages, and she always seemed to inspire everyone to work even harder. She brightened the hard world of the ship with just a smile, a flick of her satin skirts.

And Bianca had that same quality. She was dark and quiet, self-contained, just as Julietta was. Hard to read. Yet he sensed her keen interest in all that happened around her, her easy, unobtrusive manner aboard ship that proclaimed her experience with a seafaring life. She asked the men questions, nodding and smiling at their answers as she cooked a meal that would no doubt be the tastiest any of them had aboard ship.

Balthazar felt a sudden, unfamiliar emotion—peace. Calm. Despite the uncertainties of the weather, despite his own uncertainties of having Bianca so close, he felt peaceful and still, for the first time ever.

It was a dangerous feeling indeed, lulling him into that dream of smiles and laughter, of a soft, warm bed, kisses and talk. A friend who had understood what he was before he became Captain Grattiano. Understood, perhaps, because they were the same deep down inside. Seekers, craving home even as they needed freedom.

When all they had, really, was this one moment.

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