12. Jonto #2
Instead, she used men and women from her fleet, people she’d fought with, lived with, and trusted with her life.
She’d arrived with seven ships and had sent five back out to sea after combing through their crews to find people skilled in one or more of the various professions she’d need on her estates.
The hostler, Ruben Mendoza, had been a gunner’s mate on board the Syren, one of her three-masted barques. He’d sailed with her on the Jest until she’d captured the Syren, and he’d been one of the men she’d integrated into its crew.
When Jonto had put out word that she needed two people to work the stables, Mendoza had appeared in her doorway on board the Jest, holding his floppy hat to his deceptively unimpressive chest. As she watched him leading the gray and a second horse down the driveway while his assistant led two others, she remembered their conversation.
Mendoza had come to attention, pulling his forelock out of respect before starting right in on why he’d come.
“Cap’n Larkin said ya needed a hostler. I be yer man. ”
“And why is that?”
“Ya won’t find none better wit’ th’ horses, thas’ why. Grew up trainin’ ’em wit’ me da then trained ’em on me own. Horses be special beasts, an’ I’d take care of yers like they be me own bairns.”
Jonto never asked why a person wanted to join her crew, nor did she ask about their personal history.
She interviewed them, got a feeling for their character and temperament, and if she thought they’d fit in with her mostly honorable pirates and were good with their swords, she hired them.
Ruben was no exception. He worked on her ships but she’d never gotten to know him on a personal basis.
“If you love horses so much, why did you sign on to my crew, what, four years ago?”
“Kilt a cove what were whippin’ a horse ‘till th’ beast ran red wit’ blood, didn’t I? I stopped ‘im. He come after me wit’ th’ whip, so I kilt ’im.”
“Sounds like self-defense to me. You shouldn’t have had to run.”
“He were a baron.”
“Ah.” The man hadn’t needed to say anymore.
“Then Ruben, I’ll take you on a trial basis.
If I’m satisfied with your handling of the horses, you and whoever else I pick will become my hostlers.
You’ll each live in a small room in the barn, and when I take the Jest out to sea, you two will remain behind to tend the horses. Does that work for you?”
Oblivious to what his hands were up to, Ruben had twisted his hat in two fists until the middle was collapsed and the brim jutted out to the sides.
“Well, aye, that’s fine. I’d rather be ‘round horses and th’ smell of a barn to a ship crammed full of stinkin’, fartin’ pirates any day of th’ week. It’s just?—”
He’d paused, and Jonto had waited to hear what had the man squeezing his hat into a misshapen, elongated lump of leather.
Ruben had glanced up from where he’d been studying his boots.
The blush on the man’s weatherworn face had been barely noticeable, but she’d seen the pink beneath his scraggly beard all the same.
“It’s just…me ‘n Will, we be t’gether like.
” He’d quickly averted his gaze and then chanced a second, nervous glance into Jonto’s eyes before looking down and talking to his boots.
“I mean, we thought maybe ya wouldn’t care seein’ as how much time you n’ Cap’n Dubbin spend together when our ships happen t’ meet. ”
There was no “happen” about it. Jonto and Jack ensured they met up at least once a fortnight and more often than that whenever possible.
She hadn’t been surprised by his admission, as one of her questions when taking on new men was how they felt about men coupling with men, or women with women for that matter.
They were out to sea for months at a time, and she’d found her crews were much happier with sex than without.
“And you want Will to be the second hostler. Has he ever worked with horses before?”
Relieved she’d understood his meaning, he quickly looked up from his boots again. “Oh, aye. Well, some. I’ll no lie an’ tell ya he knows as much as me, but he’s willin’ to learn.”
Jonto shrugged. “All right then. He can be the second man on a probationary basis. And I’m the one who decides whether he stays or not. Understood?”
The hat squeezing had stopped, and a yellow-toothed grin appeared. “Aye, Cap’n. He’ll learn, ye’ll see.”
Now, as she watched the two men leading the three geldings and one bold chestnut mare up the drive, she was impressed with how quickly Will had taken to tending the animals.
As Isla had said, these were exceptional beasts, and with that came a strength of body and mind that could be a handful to someone unaccustomed to handling such high-strung animals.
The two men stopped a few paces away from the group and waited respectfully for their master to tell them what she needed.
Jonto took her gray’s reins, and Nico stepped up to an unusual-colored dun gelding he’d deemed big and muscular enough to carry his weight.
Pointing to the chestnut mare and bay gelding Will held, Jonto indicated that Paddy and Lucas should mount.
Both men glanced at one another. It was Lucas who finally spoke up.
“Neither of us has never been up on a horse, Cap’n.
Any chance we could run back to th’ city along th’ cliffs an’ meet ya somewhere?
Say at th’ cooper’s on th’ edge of town? ”
Jumping up and swinging her leg over the saddle without the use of her stirrups, Jonto nodded.
“That’s fine. We’ll meet you there.” It wasn’t unusual for members of her crew, especially those who grew up as paupers on city streets, to be ignorant around any animal other than the occasional alley cat or half-starved mutt.
When they took off at a run, she turned to Ruben.
“I apologize for having you saddle four horses.”
Traditionally, the lord of the manner, or the ship’s captain, would never apologize to an underling. Jonto had never been a traditional master. The respectful way she addressed them was one of the traits that engendered loyalty among her crew.
Of course, if anyone took advantage of what they perceived as weakness and disrespected her or the other officers on her ships, the discipline was immediate and harsh. To be fair, they’d all been made aware of the consequences of any breach of the law she set down when they first joined her crew.
When they’d first set out to sea, she’d had a crash course in thinking like a man.
With the undisciplined, borderline-criminal types attracted to a grueling, dangerous life at sea, she’d needed a heavy hand at first to get them under control.
Once she’d trained her first crew, with the help of Nico’s brawn, of course, word quickly spread as she added more people, and no one dared step out of line, no matter how prone they were to lawlessness and disrespect.
Ruben took the gelding’s reins from Will and shrugged. “It were good practice fer Will here t’ saddle ’em up quick like. No harm done, Cap’n.”
The sun’s radiant warmth, streaming down from a clear, cloudless sky, gently caressed their shoulders as they rode away from the mansion.
Jonto pulled in a lungful of crisp, cool air and turned her mount toward the cliffs overlooking the sea.
There was an outcropping of rocks on the edge of her property she hadn’t yet explored.
She’d seen an opening to a cave from the bay, and when she’d located it on her property maps, she’d discovered that the rocks were the boundary line between Isla’s land and hers.
In fact, the line ran right through the middle of the rocks.
Since the outcropping was a good half-mile distant, she hadn’t found the time needed for a proper visit.
On previous occasions, she’d taken the direct route to the road, but since it would require a bit of time for Paddy and Lucas to get to the carters, she decided to stop by the rocks to see if that was, indeed, where that cave opened up to the sea.
As they drew near, they heard the wind’s deep, prolonged moan as it flowed through the twisting corridors of a cave and knew they’d found what she’d seen from the bay.
Swinging her leg over the gelding’s rear and hopping down to the rocky ground, Jonto handed her reins to Nico. “I’ll be right back. I just want a quick look inside.”
Nature had provided a series of worn steps, which she climbed to a narrow opening.
The wind and weather had carved the fissure into a shape that produced a haunting melody, and when she stepped through, the sea breeze caressed her like a lifelong, beloved friend.
As far as caves go, this one wasn’t cavernous or deep, but it did have a few interesting twists and turns.
It didn’t take more than twenty or thirty steps before she turned a corner and beheld a stunning view of the bay.
That wasn’t the only stunning vision she encountered, though.
Isla sat on a flat rock with her back to the cave’s interior, enjoying the sunshine streaming through the cave’s opening, which framed the contrasting colors of the blue sky above the endless expanse of the seafoam green bay.
She’d let her shawl drop around the waist of a light-yellow walking dress and was reclining on her hands with her shoulders arched, head thrown back, and eyes closed in sun-worshipping ecstasy.
The sunlight accentuated her graceful, long neck as she presented it to the open sky.
The sight took Jonto’s breath away. With Isla’s arms propped behind her, she reminded her of the mermaid on the Jest offering her perfectly rounded breasts to the sea.
Jonto wanted nothing more than to run her fingers along that flawless, lightly pinked skin, and she balled her hands into fists to keep from doing just that.