The Duke and the Pirate Queen

CHAPTER THREE

THE WALK BACK TO HIS QUARTERS DID NOTHING to ease Maxime’s agitation. He hadn’t been so maladroit since he was a boy. Imena had enjoyed his seduction, it was clear, but it was also clear to him he’d misjudged how to ease her mind about marriage. Or misjudged something else entirely. Or—

He stopped in the middle of the staircase and glared down at his erection until it subsided somewhat. He might have done better to remain distant, but such a thing was impossible when he was faced with her. He had never wanted anyone so much in his entire life. At least not since he’d been a young man ruled entirely by his genitals.

Resuming his climb, he muttered, “I seem to be ruled by them even now.” Next time—if there was a next time—he would plan. He would make sure to take himself in hand before he saw her, to be able to ignore his own desires for long enough to convince her of his sincerity. Even if he had to take himself in hand several times.

He flung open the door to his rooms, strode in and stopped. Sylvie, a trusted courier of the adjacent duchy, sat cross-legged on a padded hassock, idly selecting from a tray of grapes and other dainties. Her blond hair hung loose to her waist, contrast to the snug riding leathers and matching jacket she wore, which clung to every sleek curve of her body; that lushness balanced nicely with her sharp features and the sarcastic intensity of her expression. He wondered if she was about to cut another swath through his staff. Her visits usually resulted in a string of besotted glances.

Sylvie never had problems with her unending stream of lovers. He should take a lesson from her, and not let a physical act affect his emotions in this way.

“The reports are on your desk, Your Grace,” she said, looking up at his entrance. She popped a marzipan starfish into her mouth. After she’d swallowed, she added, in a more formal tone, “Her Grace the Duchess Camille and her consort, Henri, send greetings.” She took a sip of wine. “Henri said Aimée sends her greetings, as well, though I think this is unlikely, since the child doesn’t yet speak intelligibly, and I doubt she remembers you at all. It has been so many months since any of us have seen you. If you recall, she fell asleep during the ceremony when you were made duke.”

“Have you done putting me in my place?” Maxime asked. “Was there anything specific Camille wished from me, that you couldn’t leave with my aunt or one of the secretaries?” Camille was enough his friend—they’d once been lovers—that she likely would have sent him a detailed document if she’d needed anything from him personally. And Sylvie would have told him before now if she’d carried any queries that could not be committed to paper.

Sylvie sampled a few aniseed comfits, uncurled and rose effortlessly to her feet. “I think you have a sea urchin shoved in a delicate place,” she said. “Has the exquisite captain refused you?”

Maxime swallowed outrage. Sometimes he liked Sylvie’s impertinence. Today was not one of those times. Rather than answer, he passed through a doorway into his office and opened the diplomatic pouch. He spilled letters, reports and other dispatches onto the desk’s marquetry surface. Camille had sent a drawing of her plump baby daughter: her lover, Henri, held the child atop a sleek pony. Maxime reflected that the child might be his if things had been different. In the normal way of things, one duke might marry his daughter to the son of his neighbor, forming local alliances. Instead, Camille’s father had slain both Maxime’s parents, taken their duchy as his own protectorate and kept Maxime as a political hostage. Camille’s father had let Maxime know, in more ways than one, that he would not be permitted to marry his captor’s daughter or even to think himself worthy of her.

Perhaps it was for the best. He and Camille were far too much alike. Maxime was happy and relieved she’d displaced her insane husband in order to rule her own duchy, and found love in the process, however much she might deny how she felt about Henri.

His mind snapped back to the present when Sylvie said, “I don’t think you normally walk about your castle clad only in a robe. And the lady Gisele told me Captain Leung had gone to speak with you. Are your bollocks still in a clench over her?”

He grabbed his own diplomatic pouch and thrust it into Sylvie’s hands. “I am going to marry her.”

“Madame tells me the king says different.”

“Julien can go and suck a splintery arse-dildo,” Maxime snarled.

Sylvie laughed. She tossed the diplomatic pouch onto a latticed chair. “The exquisite captain is a fool, refusing both me and you.”

“She has no interest in women,” Maxime said. “She’s interested in me. I know it.”

Sylvie stepped closer, and closer still. She laid her small hands inside the open neck of Maxime’s robe. “Quiet,” she said.

“I’m running out of time,” Maxime said. He hadn’t intended to say it, but her soft touch had bypassed his control.

Sylvie slid her hands down, parting his robe as they went. “This will help,” she said. “You needn’t fear. I do this merely as a favor given out of pity for your sad state, and will have forgotten it by tomorrow. Let me help.”

“I can—”

“Oh, be quiet. It will help me, at least. I’ve been wanting to get my hands on your cock.” True to her words, she grasped him firmly in both hands. She pricked him briefly with her nails, and he gasped. “Pay attention.”

He’d been aroused for a considerable time already, and her touch had made his painful erection rigid again. He closed his eyes as her hands stroked him firmly. “Sylvie, you really don’t have to—”

“I have never heard any man protest as much as you! Not even Henri!” Her grip changed, and when he looked, she’d dropped to her knees in front of him. Thoughtfully, she said, “You have the biggest cock I have ever seen.”

“I’ve heard that before,” Maxime said glumly. “I’ve thought of giving it its own title and lands, a signet cock ring, maybe commissioning a special song from the ducal musicians.”

She wasn’t listening to his attempt at humor. She said, her tone still speculative, “I’m sure I can swallow it.”

“Sylvie!” Maxime tried to step back, but gently, afraid she wouldn’t loosen her grip. Or perhaps afraid she would loosen it. “Don’t you have business elsewhere?”

“You look very uncomfortable. Do you want me to suck your cock?”

Her touch felt wonderful. She wasn’t Imena, but. “Yes?”

Keeping a firm grip on him, one hand over the other, Sylvie licked the ridge beneath his cock, end to end. “I need a better answer than that,” she prompted. She licked him again.

“All right! Go on!”

“That’s the answer I wanted,” she noted approvingly, and nestled her mouth over his cock’s head. Her tongue dipped into the slit and he grasped her slender shoulders, leather crumpling softly beneath his fingers. Sylvie smelled overwhelmingly of leather, with hints of aniseed and marzipan. Nothing like Imena.

If she’d only given him another chance, it might be Imena’s mouth on him now, her full lips grasping and pulling at his cock’s head, her soft tongue swirling beneath his foreskin. She’d liked it when he’d caressed her scalp. He would do that for her, caress her with palms and hard fingertips and the gentlest of scratches.

Sylvie. This was Sylvie, not Imena. He was letting Sylvie suck his cock because it was less lonely than bringing himself off, alone in his rooms. He needed to tell her how much he appreciated this, but she was so skilled it was difficult for him to form words. A groan fell from his lips, and she rubbed his hip approvingly.

“Sylvie—” he said.

“Yes, Your Grace?”

She nibbled at his foreskin, fondling him with both hands. This wasn’t as encompassing as her steady suction, and he breathed easier. He said, “I’ll never be able to watch you eat anything again without remembering this.”

“I know.” She reached around and slapped his buttock. “I think you would like this to be fast and hard.”

“I would prefer that, yes.” Fast and hard would blank his mind, stop him yearning for the woman he could not have.

Sylvie let go of his erection and dug her fingers into his buttocks. “You are pathetically in love with her, aren’t you?”

“Just get on with it, Sylvie. Are you going to swallow that or not?”

Sylvie pinched him sharply, an exquisite thrill down the length of his cock, and sucked him into her mouth, unmercifully torturing his tenderest spots. Seconds later, all his thoughts were gone, whited out with rapidly climbing, painful need.

He came hard, his spine unkinking with each spasm. Gasping for breath, he threw out a hand and caught himself on the desk. Warmth shuddered over his skin, leaving relaxation in its wake, but also burgeoning despair. “Thank you,” he said to Sylvie, who still crouched on the carpet. She was smirking with arrogant satisfaction. At least she had enjoyed herself. “And you?” he asked.

Sylvie rose to her feet, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. “You’re already wishing you hadn’t let me, aren’t you?”

“Of course not!” Maxime said. “You’re amazing, Sylvie. What would you like from me? The same? Or would you like to take your pleasure with me otherwise?”

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.”

CHAPTER FOUR

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.

Imena refused to admit she’d failed at shore leave by returning to her ship. She left Sanji’s shop and wandered the streets until darkness fell. She spotted Seretse, the ship’s carpenter, at an open-air stall buying clusters of fine steel needles for the tattooing he practiced. Twice, she saw groups of her crew amusing themselves. Her purser, Arionrhod, rambled through the night market in company with One-Eye, the cook, their apprentice mates and several of the other youngsters. Later she saw a cheerful group of sailors led by Nabhi, the armsmaster, and her unofficial master’s mate, Kuan, chatting and laughing beneath the awning of a crowded coffeehouse. The opulent smell of roasting beans and honeyed pastries emanating from the latter almost enticed her to stop, but she walked on, not caring that even her callused feet were beginning to hurt from cobblestoned streets and stone pavements.

Her feet led her to the cluster of tavern-boats anchored off the far end of the docks. The licenses for such taverns cost less than those on shore, and customers could enter by boat as well as from the docks, creating privacy for business deals. Imena routinely visited offshore taverns and brothels in every port to obtain information for Maxime, but she’d never been to these. She assumed Maxime’s local staff kept their ears open here.

The carved and painted wooden sign for the Squirting Squid depicted a squid whose tentacles closely resembled long, stiff cocks, each given a distinct shape that might have come from nature. Noise spilled out from the tavern, heavy with male voices and the thwacking of leather tankards on wood; she could smell bread fried in lard and sour wine. The next tavern along looked more welcoming. Glass lanterns in bright colors hung from its railings. She could go there, if she wanted to be welcomed.

She chose the Squid, stooping through its low doorway, brushing aside the curtain of shells that served as a door. The decking was tacky with spilled wine and pine tar, and she regretted not wearing shoes. She halted in the doorway and took in the single narrow room. Its sole purpose appeared to be drinking, though trenchers of fried bread were available to soak up the alcohol if one desired. A plank propped on barrels ran the length of the space. A young man stood behind the plank, splashing wine from a skin flask directly into a row of tankards. The drinkers crowded on the other side of the plank, jostling for position. Most of them wore padded harnesses of one kind or another, with leather gloves or gauntlets shoved through their belts, the garb of porters and cargo handlers. Two men at the far end wore no shirts at all and were shaved as bald as she was; she recognized their large shoulder tattoos as those of divers, who were often employed to cut free trapped anchors, scrape hulls or retrieve items lost off the docks. She didn’t see any of Maxime’s spies whom she could identify. After a moment, she also realized she saw no women at all. Given the sign outside, she decided it had to be a men’s den, intended for quick pickups of a sexual partner for the night, or perhaps just for a few moments. Good. No one would look for her here.