Dragon Tamer Read online

  And she had to be ready to explain exactly how she planned to repay the loan. She went over it step by step in her head. She would hire a captain and a crew and explain that she had been to sea and had worked alongside the men. In her mind, there wasn’t one reason why she should not be given her ship. She was practical, efficient, hard-working, and experienced.

  Finally, she stood, dusted off her skirt, and went to the warehouse district in search of the Whispering Winds offices.

  Dante had slept in his clothes. His business meeting the night before hadn’t gone well. The Layton Fisheries vessel had returned from its voyage with nearly a thousand sea otter pelts. Too many. At this rate the sea otter would be extinct in a few years. He had invited the captain to dinner, hoping to convince him to temper his kills, explaining that if other vessels were doing the same thing, the captain would have no work in the years ahead.

  The captain’s response was typical. What did he care if the otters were all gone? He would make a fortune, live comfortably, and not worry about the future.

  Dante had already had this conversation with the captain of a whaler. These men were so hungry for profits they would wipe out half the animals of the sea if it meant they could get rich doing so.

  He rested against the wooden cabinet and pressed a cold cloth to his eyes. Trying to reason with fishermen was like pissing in the wind. They both came back to slap you in the face with something unpleasant. But if there was a way to stop even one whaler from leaving Boston harbor, Dante would do it.

  He rubbed the tight muscles at the base of his neck, trying to relieve the headache he’d awakened with. When he got angry, he drank too much, and when he drank too much, he woke up feeling like he’d been mauled by a bull. Last night he hadn’t even made it home; he’d fallen asleep on the couch in his office.

  He finished shaving and wiped his face with a damp towel, then checked his reflection in the mirror. Puffiness and dark circles were evident under his eyes. Too little sleep, too much brandy. Too much anger polluting his blood.

  Hell, he couldn’t even escape the topic in sleep, for he’d dreamed about dead sea otters all night, their blood turning the oceans red. Now he felt sluggish and surly.

  Mouthing a curse, he slung his shirt over his shoulder and started down the dark hall toward his office.

  He heard a sound behind him and turned. A dour woman dressed in black stood not ten feet from him. In the dim light, she had the hollow-eyed look of the dead.

  Hell, he didn’t feel that bad.

  Her horrified stare moved over him, stopping at his bare chest. He quickly slipped into his shirt and buttoned it.

  She blinked and glanced away, suddenly bringing her gloved hand to her heart and breathing hard.

  Dante swore. She looked like she was going to faint on him.

  He took her arm and led her to the bench outside his office. “Wait here. I’ll bring you some water.”

  With surprising strength, she pulled her arm from his grip. “No, you will not. I’m perfectly fine.” She swallowed hard and took another deep breath. “Just tell me where I can find Mr. Dante Templeton.”

  He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. “Why are you looking for him?”

  Her gloved fingers shook as she smoothed the hem of her frayed cape. “I don’t see that it’s any of your business.”

  “I make it my business,” he answered. “If you want to see Mr. Templeton you’ll have to tell me why. If I think it’s important I’ll get him for you.”

  She pursed her lips. “I would prefer to deal directly with Mr. Templeton.”

  “Anything you have to say to Mr. Templeton, you can say to me.”

  “I don’t think so.” She gave him a stubborn look.

  Now this was getting interesting…The brown mouse had courage. He gave her a quick bow and started down the hallway toward the front of the building.

  “Well, if you must know,” she called after him, the merest hint of discomfort in her voice, “I’ve come about my late husband’s whaler, the St. Louis. He…he was the captain.”

  Dante stopped. Bile rose in his throat and his stomach clenched like a fist. Drawing in a calming breath, he turned and slowly walked back to her.

  The first word that came to mind when he studied his nemesis’s widow was stiff. It wasn’t her clothes that made him think that, although she wore them like armor; it was her body, like it had been dipped in starch and hung on a line to dry. “Mrs. Rayburn.”

  Surprise lit her eyes. “You know who I am?”

  “I make that my business, too.”

  She studied him hard, although his predatory instincts told him that if he peeled away her high starched collar, he would find her pulse pounding hard at the base of her throat. “Who are you?”

  “I’m the man you want.” I’m the man who can destroy you.

  There was a slight, almost imperceptible lift of one dark, well-arched eyebrow. “I rather doubt that.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  A cold, disdainful smile barely touched the corners of her mouth. “I said I was looking for Mr. Templeton, not a painted peacock.”

  His shirt was open slightly, exposing the top edges of the flames from his dragon’s nostrils. He looked at her again.

  “It’s not a peacock. It’s a dragon.”

  “It’s not the tattoo that offends me.”

  He continued to hold her gaze until she finally looked at her lap.

  After a moment, she lifted her head and gave him an icy glare. “Didn’t your mother teach you it isn’t nice to stare?”

  “I didn’t have a mother.”

  Her skin flushed a bright pink, the only color in her pathetically dreary wardrobe.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He wasn’t. It was his purpose to make her suffer, and he had not yet begun to do just that.

  At that moment, Dante’s dapper bookkeeper, Percy Pogue, walked purposefully toward them wearing a handsome cutaway jacket. He carried a sheaf of papers.

  The Widow Rayburn released a sigh of relief. She stood and rushed to him. “Oh, Mr. Templeton, I’m so glad you’re here. I’m Eleanor Rayburn and I’ve come about the loan against my late husband’s share of a whaler.”

  Dante leaned against the door to his office, crossed his arms over his chest, and waited.

  Percy stopped, clearly puzzled. First he looked at the woman, then at Dante. “What’s this all about?”

  The widow dug into her purse and brought out a piece of paper. “I was told that you carry the note on the St. Louis, and I was hoping we could discuss some terms for repayment.”

  Percy frowned, still puzzled. He looked over her head at his boss. “Terms? Dante, what’s this all about?”

  The widow turned slowly, her eyes wide. “You?”

  With a dramatic flourish, Dante opened his office door and motioned her inside.

  She issued him a haughty look as she passed him. “You could have told me.”

  He offered her a chair, then took a seat at his desk. “I did. I told you I was the man you wanted to see about your husband’s debt.”

  The word “debt” appeared to have an abject effect on her. She paled and some of her starch seemed to abandon her. “It’s a debt I have every intention of repaying.”

  Dante settled into his chair and laced his fingers over his chest. “Go on.”

  She leaned forward, suddenly enthusiastic. He almost felt sorry for her, because it didn’t matter how she presented her plan, the end result would be the same.

  “Let me tell you what I plan to do with the St. Louis. I won’t captain it myself, although I could. After my husband died, it was ultimately up to me to get the ship back to New Bedford. But that’s another story,” she said with a wave of her hand. “I know a number of good men who would take the job. And I can find a crew, too. I’m a good judge of people.”

  Dante kept his expression blank, but beneath his veneer he seethed each time she mentioned the word “husband.�
�� How in hell could she be a good judge of people if she had married that murderous bastard?

  She hurried on. “Many of my late husband’s men would be willing to work for me, or my choice for a captain. I had quite good rapport with them.”

  She studied Dante, appearing to look for a response. He gave her none, so she prattled on.

  “I understand that he must have had a few bad years, or he wouldn’t have had to borrow the money in the first place, but I promise you I will pay back every cent.”

  Dante noticed her wide, gathering, misty brown eyes. There was honesty there, and eagerness. And—he nearly frowned, intelligence. A useless and unflattering quality in a woman.

  She cleared her throat and blinked nervously. “I’m very hard working. I’m efficient and practical. I can’t abide waste. The ship would be run most effectively. I would strive to make it the best. You will get every cent of your money back.”

  Dante allowed her to squirm.

  She cleared her throat again. “I worked alongside my husband on his…his last voyage, so you see, I have experience.”

  She had worked with the man Dante despised; was she despicable as well? He preferred to think she was.

  She took a deep breath. “Well, I guess that’s about it, then. How much did he borrow?”

  If Dante had had any sympathy for her, he would have applauded her enthusiasm. “Ten thousand dollars and the vessel is yours.”

  Her jaw dropped. “Ten thousand dollars?” She emitted a nervous laugh, her gaze flitting about the room before she stared at him again. “You must be joking.”

  Dante languidly toyed with his fountain pen, maintaining an aloof expression. “I never joke about money.”

  She wilted into the chair and pressed her drab purse to the front of her black cape. “It would take a year of good whaling to make that much money.” Her voice was weak with stunned surprise.

  She could bring him ten times that amount, and he would find a way to deny her the vessel.

  “I’m sure we can come to an agreement of some sort, sir. I’d be happy to pay you monthly from the proceeds of each voyage, if you’d prefer.”

  He gazed out the window, pretending to give it some thought. But he knew he wouldn’t let that ship sail again. “I’m afraid not. I’ll need the balance.”

  Her expression was frantic. “But surely we can arrange something—”

  “Mrs. Rayburn,” he interrupted, his voice harsh, “this is not a debt incurred at a church social over a picnic basket.”

  “I never said it was,” she shot back. “You’re being unreasonable.”

  “I’m in a position to be.”

  “But, why?”

  He stood and went to the window. He could tell her that it was because there were already too many whalers on the seas. He could explain that he’d seen so much mindless slaughter, he couldn’t look a whaling captain in the face without getting sick to his stomach.

  Dante could tell her that he’d been acquainted with her late husband, and that was reason enough. Instead, he turned and looked at her. “Because I can.”

  She stood, her spine rigid as a mast. “If I were a man, you wouldn’t treat me this way.”

  “Madam, your sex has nothing to do with it.”

  The word “sex” offended her, for she blushed a bright pink again. “I will not allow you to take advantage of me. I may be a woman and a widow, but believe me, sir, I demand to be treated fairly.”

  Dante crossed to where she stood and brought his face close to hers. “I do not run a charity here, Mrs. Rayburn.”

  “I’m not asking for charity. I’m only asking that you be fair. You know very well I don’t have that kind of money.”

  He returned to his chair and shuffled some papers. “Borrow it.”

  She stared at him a moment, then walked to the door, one fist on her hip. Suddenly she turned, her skirt swishing against her sensible shoes. “I don’t know why I expect you to, but will you give me a reasonable amount of time to get the money?”

  “You have forty-eight hours.”

  Something in her eyes changed, but she showed no other emotion. “Fine. I shall return in two days with the money.”

  He watched her leave, his gaze narrowing. Let her try to get the money together. Dante knew she wouldn’t succeed. Once he had learned of Rayburn’s death, he had delved deeply into the bastard’s history. Probably more deeply than anyone else in Massachusetts.

  He had learned more than he’d wanted to know, if truth were known, and these truths he had kept close to his chest. Not for fear of hurting anyone, but because they meant nothing in the greater scheme of things. But Amos Rayburn had not been an honorable man. Even if he hadn’t been a cruel captain, he had done something no ethical man would. And if Dante chose to, he could ruin the Widow Rayburn with the information.

  He considered the woman, his mood morose. She would not succeed in regaining her late husband’s whaler. It just wasn’t done. No woman could successfully do what a man had been doing for decades.

  What had surprised him, however, was that he discovered the St. Louis had returned to New Bedford harbor immaculate and well-run, despite the death of the captain. This had spoken well for the first mate, and, if the widow were to believed, her, too.

  But it was unlikely she could get funds. Her only relative, her brother, Calvin Simmons, was hounded monthly by debtors. Dante was quite certain she couldn’t come up with the money to pay off the loan on the vessel.

  And he was glad. She had been married to his enemy—the one man Dante truly hated. He needed to take from her that which her husband had so cruelly taken from him. He needed to make someone suffer as he did. He needed someone to twist in the wind.

  He returned to the window and watched for her. She left the office and strode purposefully down the street.

  The sun briefly broke through the clouds, the light capturing a lock of her brown hair and filling it with the rich color of mahogany. In the office, her hair, scraped back severely from her face, had lacked color.

  Meeting her had disgusted him. She disgusted him. It was obvious by her drab garb that she was in mourning. How could any woman mourn a man like Amos Rayburn?

  Before this meeting, he had no feelings about her at all. She was merely a woman, like any other, who had made a bad choice. Now, after this encounter, he realized he hated her. Passionately. Guilt by association. And she was in a very vulnerable position. At his mercy. And he was going to make her pay for her late husband’s sins.

  She was intelligent. He saw that in her quick brown eyes. It was a trait often lacking in women, and a trait he didn’t like in women at all. But some people seemed to have the ability to look into a man’s soul. She was one of them.

  And God help him, he didn’t want Amos Rayburn’s widow looking into his stained and tattered soul. If he even had one.

  Eleanor fumed as she left the office. What an obnoxious, unfeeling, pompous man! He was intolerable. He was indecent and shameful, and he flaunted it. She had hoped to find a reasonable man to whom she could relate with some dignity. Instead, she found a man who was anything but reasonable. A man who prowled the building half dressed, barely civilized.

  She thought about his naked chest and the fiery dragon tattoo. She’d been momentarily taken aback by the serpent, for she had learned that years before, when Amos was a young man, he had fancied himself “The Sea Dragon.”

  But Eleanor had seen her share of tattoos on shipboard. Some were crass, some were foolish. But there was danger in a man who tattooed a massive dragon on his chest. He was not a man to follow convention.

  She hadn’t meant to tell him anything at all, until he walked away from her, leaving her in that dark corridor. And he would have left her there, too, knowing full well that he was whom she had come to see. Insidious man.

  Before she had turned her gaze away, she had noticed the deep white scars that the tattoo had probably been meant to cover. So, he’d been whipped. If, as a boy, he had
been as defiant as he was now arrogant, he no doubt deserved the whip.

  She would raise the money. She had to. And not just because she needed the ship, but because Dante Templeton made her angry, and she didn’t want him to win.

  And what sort of name was Dante, anyway? Dante’s Inferno came to mind. Inferno. A pleasant term to attach to a man like that. Burn. Fire. Hell. Perdition.

  She had the distinct impression he’d been baiting her. Right this moment, he was probably laughing at her. At her.

  She turned the corner, seeing the bank at the end of the street. She would have the last laugh when she marched into Mr. Templeton’s office and threw a check for ten-thousand dollars in his face.

  But somewhere in her head, she also wondered what Amos had done to incur a debt of such magnitude.

  Two

  Eleanor sat in her brother’s parlor on Pinckney Street and sipped a cup of tea. It soothed her churning stomach. Oh, how she hated to ask Calvin for money, but he was her last hope.

  Attempting to take her mind off her problem, she glanced around the ostentatious room. It was furnished with showy, oversized pieces in garish colors. Her sister-in-law had the taste of a bawdy house madam.

  There were a few pieces worth noting, like the tall-case mahogany clock that stood sentry in the foyer and the rosewood veneer piano-melodeon that sat all but abandoned in the far corner of the parlor. Many times Eleanor had longed to sit down and play it, but today anything she played would be filled with too much melancholy.

  Her gaze locked onto the painting of a whaler in a storm-tossed sea that hung above the white marble mantle. It reminded her of the St. Louis. Her stomach continued to churn.

  The more she thought about it, the more she realized that had she not been so intent on her purpose, she might have predicted the outcome of her mission. Her forty-eight hours were almost up, and she had seen every banker in Boston. And to a man, they had all turned her down. It was almost as if each had known she was coming, for none of them appeared surprised by her request.