The Captain of All Pleasures (Sutherland Brothers #1)(35)
Author: Kresley Cole

“He can’t see you because he’s at Madam Delgado’s,” she lied. Most in Recife knew of his close friendship with Maria, so it was believable. “He won’t be back until the morning.”

As soon as Maria heard, she blew Nicole a kiss and then crept off the ship and back to her home to cover for her.

It seemed like hours in hell before she’d gotten rid of the man. She returned to her cabin, hating that she hadn’t been able to say good-bye to Maria, hating that she hadn’t learned the one simple rule . She sank down in her chair, weary and feeling grimy from her encounter with the troll. It was then that her eyes trailed to the message folded on her desk.

Eyebrows knitted, she picked it up and ripped it open. In harshly scratched ink, it read, I think you two would suit .

Sutherland, that bastard! He’d signed it in large letters, boldly, sure she could do nothing. He was laughing at her even now, she knew it.

His prank ended up costing them the better part of a day. Scared that the official was watching them, they waited for the sun to go down and then escaped in the dark. Embarking was a celebration in its own, and sneaking away was demoralizing.

He would pay for that.

She wouldn’t have thought the ignominy of being towed by a guano freighter could be matched on this trip. But it had been, and all because Sutherland had a fiendish humor.

That night, as Nicole stood on deck impatient to get to open sea, she recalled she’d wanted to apologize to him. And the entire time, the black-hearted swine was siccing a lovesick port official on her.

All apologies were forgotten.

“Ye think we’ll catch the rest of the ships?” Chancey asked from behind her, silencing her thoughts.

Her face grew hard. “We’ll catch them.” Especially Sutherland .

Hours later, when the sun broke over the water, they spotted several masts just on the horizon. It had to be the first cluster of ships. As usually happened, several were matched in speed and crew, and none could break away. Even over a thirteen-thousand-mile voyage, many would stay within a few miles of each other.

At Chancey’s command, the crew raised nearly all sail, and they began to gain.

Nicole bent over the rock-weighted map on the deck’s chart table, pencil tucked behind her ear. “Head south-southwest,” she advised after rechecking.

“The ships are southwest.”

She raised her eyebrows at him, and he complied; their course was marked even farther south of the other ships.

Nicole felt the need to explain. “They’ll cover all air. We’d have to follow them for miles before we could steal a chance to break through.”

Chancey thoughtfully stroked his chin. “Never bothered us before. Now ye’ve got us going extra distance.”

“It’ll be faster—”

“And harder on the crew.”

She stayed silent and lifted her spyglass again, hoping to ignore him.

“This wouldn’t have to do with Sutherland? Look at ye,” he said with a chuckle, “it’s eatin’ ye alive that he got the best o’ us.”

She turned narrowed eyes on him. “That was a mean trick back there.”

Chancey grinned and said, “It were wily, if ye ask me. And it’s not as if yer father wouldn’t o’ done the same.”

She opened her mouth to protest. But Chancey was probably right.

“And yerself. Did ye forget that ye stole his course?”

“I didn’t steal it, I—”

“Put it to memory and copied it down when ye got home.”

She glared at him.

“All right, I’ll follow yer course,” he said, relenting. “Just tell me where to go.”

And then it began. The ordered chaos of activity on deck, the sound of tamed wind sieving the sails, and the crew’s cheers when they passed yet another ship—she loved it all. Loved the way they all worked as one, the way they could only just control the volatile vessel, making it lurch and rocket past competitor after competitor. She had little time to speak to Chancey, except to order course alterations or speed checks, the entire frenzied time they continued to gain on Tallywood.

During a lull in the wind, the watch called out “No sign o’ Tallywood.” Trailing Tallywood was a slap in the face to her crew, who hated the man. Sensing the change in the men, she called out resolutely, “We can’t worry about Tallywood yet. If he’s anything like he was when I saw him last, he’ll botch his lead somewhere on the way. We’ve got a closer rival to best.”

Then to herself she added, “Now we sprint for Sutherland.”

But Chancey heard her, and frowned. “Don’t ye mean, ‘Now we sprint for the Southern Cross’?”

Chapter 13

As Nicole raised her spyglass to view the stern of the Southern Cross, she felt a welling of relief that they had finally caught him. She bit back a smile.

And now we’ll overtake him.

Though it didn’t appear that Sutherland would cooperate. When they neared him enough to pass, he consistently stayed in front, preventing them from getting clean air.

She watched in incomprehension as he outsailed their faster, more agile ship. She whirled toward Chancey, opened her mouth to speak, then closed it.

“To answer yer question,” he began with a chuckle, “Sutherland can do this because he’s good and he’s cold. Straight, methodical sailin’.”

“You sound like you admire him,” she said in disbelief.

“Don’t have to like him to admire his sailin’.”

She couldn’t take it anymore. “Chancey, head north-northwest,” she directed between clenched teeth.

He scowled at her. “Oh, no. Ye’ll not increase our distance just to get in front o’ him,” he said in a low voice so the crew near them couldn’t hear. “We’ve got thousands o’ miles—ye’ve got to be patient.”

“But I know he’s got that gloating smirk on his face right now. And I know just how to wipe it off,” she said in a nasty voice.

Chancey looked around him at the waves and then the sky. “The winds’ll change soon; then we can cover him.”

She yanked down her cap and said nothing. Chancey was right, of course. If the winds changed, the Bella Nicola would be between them and the Southern Cross . Sutherland wouldn’t be able to get the full benefits. But she couldn’t help thinking that her father would’ve done just as she’d suggested.

Half an hour later, the winds did in fact change to their customary eastward sweep, and they found themselves with the advantage.

“If we’re swift, we can pass him before the straits,” Nicole said. They were approaching the notorious rocky outcroppings that greeted ships following the great circle route just as they turned east away from South America. She’d always imagined that they acted as a gate that separated the lucky and the knowledgeable from the new dross at the bottom of their cold sea.

Chancey shook his head. “We’ll never make that. We’ll be right up beside him and have to draw back.” He caught her gaze. “Sutherland isn’t a man to share his sea room, Nicole.”