released the matchlock.
The exploding recoil nearly knocked her from her feet. Whitewash from the blasted hole rained down on them as the explosion reverberated deafeningly. Thick clouds of acrid smoke billowed in the suddenly silent air.
“I told you I’ll not have riots in my place of business,” she said calmly. “Now, everyone get out. Unless you mean to make yourselves useful and clean up this mess.”
She swung the pistol in a wide arc, and most of the would-be brawlers fled, leaving the door swinging in the breeze. Soon only Delores and the men from the Calypso were left.
Bianca shoved the gun at one of them and knelt down beside Balthazar, ripping off her apron to press it against the wound. It was not terribly deep, but she could tell from a cursory glance that it would need cleaning and stitching. A mere few inches lower and the blade would have found his heart.
She was not the only one who hated Balthazar, then.
One of the men leaned over her, his bearded face peering down intently at the captain. “Is he dead, señora?”
Before Bianca could answer, Balthazar opened his eyes and growled, “Of course I am not dead, Mendoza. My hide is tough enough to resist such a puny blade and bad aim.”
“Not so puny as all that,” Bianca said, lifting her wadded apron to peer at the wound. “It’s caused enough bleeding. You are fortunate the man’s aim was off, Captain Grattiano, or I’d have to deal with a corpse in my tavern.”
He stared up at her with his moss-green eyes, his gaze sharp and steady, as if he sought to peer into her very soul. “How do you know my name?”
Bianca had no answer for him. She tore her gaze from his, shifting him so his head rested on the lap of her grey wool gown. The apron was becoming soaked, and Delores’s sobbing was so loud Bianca could scarcely think.
“Oh, shut up, Delores!” she cried. “Go fetch me some water and some clean rags for bandages. Now! And you—Mendoza, is it?”
The bearded man nodded. “I’m quartermaster of the Calypso.”
“Mendoza, what happened? My tavern is usually a peaceful enough place. The governor doesn’t appreciate those who come here to deliberately cause trouble.”
It was Balthazar who answered, his voice rough and taut with suppressed pain. “It was Diego Escobar,” he said. “He vowed he would find me, and so he did. I was a fool to let my guard down even for an instant.”
“I said we should have stayed aboard ship, captain,” Mendoza said gruffly.
“We’ve been aboard that poxy ship for weeks,” Balthazar said. “And, as the señora says, her tavern is usually peaceful.”
“Until you arrived,” Bianca answered.
“We will pay for the damages.”
“Yes, you will. Along with all the drink you consumed,” Bianca said. Delores came back with the cloths and a basin of water, and Bianca peeled back the sodden apron. The bleeding seemed to have slowed, and the edges of his torn shirt were dark brown and crusted.
Balthazar turned his penetrating stare to the men who hovered around. “And why, may I ask, didn’t you go after the knave?”
“We thought you were dead, captain,” one of them answered.
“Oh, so there was no need to hurry after my murderer, then,” Balthazar said. Bianca thought she heard a note of wry humour in his voice, beneath that pain, “if I’m not here to see him brought to justice.”
Another man tossed aside the would-be assassin’s cloak. “He just vanished, captain! Like a puff of smoke. Just like last time…”
“Mayhap the man is a wizard after all,” Balthazar muttered. Bianca swiped a wet cloth at the edges of his wound, and he arched up with a hiss. “Damn it, woman! Are you trying to kill me, too?”
“I am trying to help you,” Bianca said, pressing him back down. As his head rested again in her lap, a long strand of his hair fell over her hand, silken and binding. “Despite the trouble you have caused me. Infection takes hold fast in this climate; the wound must be covered.”
She glanced down at the floor beneath them, sticky with rum and sand. The toxic mixture would be sure to kill him as fast as any dagger-wielding madman. And, for some unfathomable reason, Bianca wasn’t quite ready to let him go.
Not until he gave her some answers.
“Help me carry him upstairs,” she told the men. “I can clean the wound better there.”
They hesitated, looking towards the captain for any orders. And Balthazar, in turn, gazed steadily at Bianca, as if he, too, sought answers. Finally, he nodded. “Do as she says,” he ordered. “And then get back to the ship to make sure the villain causes no trouble there.”
“But, captain,” Mendoza protested, “should we not stay watch here?”
A wry smile touched the corner of Balthazar’s lips. “Oh, I would vow I am protected enough by the señora and her harquebus. I’m sure that’s not her only weapon.”
“Indeed not,” Bianca murmured. She led the way up the narrow staircase to her living quarters, Delores following with the water and bandages. Balthazar let out one deep groan as his men lifted him, but was silent when they carried him to Bianca’s bed.
After the men reluctantly departed, and Delores was sent to bed, the silence grew thick and hot around them. Bianca’s bedchamber was small, a whitewashed chamber tucked beneath the eaves with room only for a bed, a small table and chair, and her husband’s old sea chest. Balthazar Grattiano, despite the fact that he lay flat on his back, seemed to fill the whole space with his overwhelmingly masculine presence.
Bianca felt more tense, more frightened, than she had in the midst of a threatened riot.
She drew in a deep breath, and was surrounded by the smell of the tropical night wind from the open window, the wax of the candles—and of Balthazar. He smelled of clean linen, leather, salt air, sweat, blood, and that dark, mysterious scent that was his alone. She remembered that scent all too well from years ago.
But she was not that infatuated girl, hanging about hoping for one glimpse of him as he passed by, for one whiff of his cologne. And he was obviously not that young man, either. So beautiful. So angry.
She carefully removed his boots and his leather jerkin and cut away his torn shirt, conscious at every moment of his steady gaze levelled on her. Oh, the beauty was still there, undeniably. As she smoothed the damp cloth over his wound, she couldn’t help but notice the lean, sculpted muscles of his torso, the smooth, gleaming skin a light golden colour, as if he worked on deck without his shirt. There were scars, too, pale, thin old ones, and one long, jagged pink cut along his ribs.
So, presumably, the anger was still there, too. That darkness that gave an edge to his angelic beauty, and once made her flee in fear.
But he was in her home now, in her very bed. At her mercy.
She traced the cloth from the wound along his collarbone,
