Yes, to those questions. He’s not a capitain or dono here. In regard to their relationship, he’s sama, his master. 
Between equals Vincent could be a dono though. But Leo is like a servant really and Vincente’s word is law.
For the crew it capitain or senior, same as for Jeoffey. Captain/ sir.
Still, Leo and Vincent is clearly quite close and there’s leeway Vincente shows him and no one else. 
What I wanted to say is, I feel like 様 is the strongest way of showing respect, or the suffix that widens the gap the most, if you will. It’s just short of throwing yourself into the dust or something, is my perception. So he puts Vicente really high up on that pedestal by using this. And yes, like ekg said, he is also not in a position to do anything else.
Thank you for the further thoughts, guys! I guess I really haven’t had a great grip on Leo as a character, which has led to my questions; this has been really informative, though! I feel like in previous books/manga I’ve read, perhaps 様 is too overused, and so the impact is kind of diluted on me, and so I was undervaluing it when I read it here. 
I could be wrong but I think it’s a lot to do with who Leo is, not a crew member or someone of any social standing. So what I wanted to say is that I think other servants would also default to sama in regards to Vincente, or jeoffrey? I’m struggling to remember Vincente’s conversation at the manor in Spain, before seeing his superior. There was a butler or something like that there?
But, thinking about it…didn’t the tailor use Rockford-dono?
Just thinking out loud at this point. XD
Yes, I think we’re kind of saying the same thing, just in different words 
If somebody is really below another person (or wants to put themselves there) then that’s 様。
If somebody is sort of on-par but wants to show respect towards the other one (and also highlighting their role if there is one) then one would use the role as suffix. (Like 先生 or something).
If there is no special role and the person still wants to be respectful, then さん is in order.
I think 
So I would always expect a servant to use 様.
EDIT: I found this: What is the difference between san, sama, kun and chan? - it of course describes the modern usage of the suffixes and therefore does not touch upon servants, but still gives a good overview, I think (even covering some royal titles we have seen in London).
yeah, for sure, there’s a difference between modern use and historic use. We just don’t have the same social structures anymore. The use of 様 is for all sorts of polite speech, including writing someone’s address on an envelope, then you’d use 様. For how store staff talks to customers, again 様 is used. To name a few from the top of my head.
Chapter 12 thoughts
So, after Kaito’s rescue from the cold water by Vincente, he’s taken care of by him and Leo. Kaito wakes up in turns, but for the final wake-up call he finds himself in bed with a half-naked Vincente - where did the clothes go! XD (well, keeping someone warm is to share body heat, so it’s all pure innocent wish to help, or is it? XD)
In any case, we’re treated to some lovely chapter art here! 
After Vinecente cleared up the situation, Kaito concedes that Vincento is a pretty nice person overall. Vincente promises to protect Kaito with his life, but Kaito is not convinced, knowing all to well how the chain of command works and that Vincente can’t really protect him against any orders by the king. Vincente believes no such orders would ever come, but that’s a bit much to believe just like that.
Also, Kaito is defo starting to re-think what his thoughts about Vincente is. It’s unclear what that means down the line… Jeoffrey, rescue him soon! 
Chapter 13 thoughts
Basically, this chapter ties together this action-filled and dramatic volume, back with a look from Jeoffrey’s POV. He’s on Vincente’s tail, but with these distances, that’s not all too helpful. Gloria also had to weather the storm, but seems to have come away mostly intact.
In any case, they encounter the mast enroute, and so the shipwright goes to examine it closer. He finds the pouch for the key and photo stuck on the mast. Miraculously it has survived, but that tells a very grim story to Jeoffrey. Poor guy! Well, Nigel is staying calm-headed enough to consider an alternative interpretation of what they’re seeing, not just proof that Kaito drowned, but rather, what might be an attempt by Vincente to make them give-up and turn back. Good man! And so, thankfully, this volume ends on a pretty good note all-in-all. With Jeoffrey and Nigel, dead-set on finding and rescuing Kaito! 
(thought they’ll need a much better plan to be able to infiltrate and search for Kaito once in Spain )
Major spoilers discussion
For sure. I totally agree. I’m glad there was nothing of the sort. Instead the whole ordeal has changed the dynamic between Kaito and Vincente, but also between Jeoffrey and Nigel. I like how much character development this story has. it’s very attentively written, imo. And, it’s much more credible as well for Jeoffrey and Nigel to regroup back in England, than making some foolhardy attempt to go after Kaito completely unprepared. As much as I hated them turning around, I also like that better. XD But yeah, those keys should have sunk to the bottom of the sea, but I guess, that would be less interesting, so lets just say it works to this story’s benefit! 
haha
Another two really good chapters~
Chapter 7
So right off the bat we’re introduced to Father Escobar, who’s just covered in that “new villain” smell. I’m curious if Protestantism doesn’t care as much about red hair as the Catholic characters seem to? First the lady (the wife of the lord of Arundel) and now this guy - their first thoughts when they see Kaito are, “whoa, that kid’s got hair like Judas!” Is the fact that Geoffrey’s crew never mentioned it because they don’t care as Protestants, or that they just needed to be set up as “the nice guys”?
Kaito’s just laying there on the floor, having lost all will to live. This kidnapping is the kick in the pants he needed, I think; he (and Geoffrey as well) have swung way too far in the “I’ll die without him!” direction imo. Time for some more character growth!
So the very interesting undressing scene with Vicente and Kaito. I’m so glad we got to be watching this one from Vicente’s perspective, given that he’s not one much to voice his thoughts. It was a nice moment when Vicente noticed the quality of Kaito’s clothes and thought, “Well, I guess that Rockford bastard was taking care of Kaito okay”.
(Speaking of which, Kaito was supposed to be wearing his ultra fancy and expensive black velvet + pearl getup, right? Why was he wearing that in the first place? I would think something that nice he’d only wear for special occasions; could it have been in anticipation for going to the harvest festival?)
And then the drop comes: Vicente gets an eyeful of all the hickeys Geoffrey left on Kaito. I thought this scene was particularly interesting; as far as I could tell, Vicente didn’t seem to have a problem with the homosexuality; instead, he went from “I guess Rockford was okay to Kaito” to “my god he’s using this child as his plaything”. Kind of interesting that, confronted with those two facts, his mind immediately jumps to making Geoffrey some kind of groomer. Makes sense, given the pre-existing animosity, but still interesting.
Speaking of Kaito’s clothing, that was another great opportunity to show the difference between Geoffrey and Vicente: Geoffrey is basically disgustingly rich, and Vicente, despite being nobility, is comparatively extremely poor. Kaito really did hook up with a sugar daddy Piracy truly is lucrative, it seems.
While I can give some props to Kaito being so open about his relationship with Geoffrey, I also kind of wanted to slap him as well (been a while since I’ve wanted to do that). Kaito, please. You will be burned at the stake. They’re already considering it because of your hair color, don’t add more fuel to the fire by loudly proclaiming how gay you are. Vicente remarking that them tying you to the stake being set on fire was a kindness was appropriately spooky too, I thought.
Chapter 8
And man, this definitely felt like a callback to Kaito’s first storm, way back in volume 2. Great stuff; I’ve loved these storm scenes. You really get a sense of the danger, the ship rocking back and forth hard enough to knock someone from their bed, waves vicious enough to destroy one of your masts. You know a storm’s bad when you’re using your own mast as a sea anchor.
(Ch. 8 spoilers)
We get one tiny Spanish word this time around: 『アパレシード…』 = aparecido = ghost. I’m feeling the anti-Spanish bias 松岡先生!
(Ch. 7 spoilers)
As far as I can tell at this point, only Vicente knows about Kaito’s fortune-telling. Otherwise I’m sure Escobar would’ve already tried to toss Kaito back into the sea, haha.
So many great thoughts and ideas. I love it all. I mean, really, that goblin is way too much into Kaito! let it go! lol
But, yes, I also had that reaction to the open chat between kaito and vincente, thinking Kaito was deliberitely digging his own grave. It was a gamble, but for now, it seems to have worked. Vincente knowing a bit more about him, doesn’t seem like a bad idea, if it doesn’t lead to him getting burnt at the stake.
Also, I love the desriptions of the rough sea. It just seems totally real to me, reading about the storm 
clap: Matsuoka-sensei! 
Another one for the harem.
I have officially run out of likes but please take this! 
I finished chapters 9 through 13 today, thus finishing out the volume. Normally I’ve got more in-depth thoughts on each chapter, but honestly, each just blended seamlessly into the next for me, and I’m not sure if I want to go back and skim through to jog my memory, haha. (Note: consider all further spoilers as for the end of the book; I won’t be distinguishing between chapter spoilers here.)
So that whole “throwing Kaito out into the sea” scene was intense. I honestly didn’t think Escobar had the guts to do it, and so quickly, too. Poor Vicente, this whole trip has been a disaster so far, haha. Sure, I feel bad for Kaito, but of course his life is going to suck for a while. Now that ending chapter, where Geoffrey and co. find the wreckage of the Santiago’s foremast and find Geoffrey’s keys in it, dang. Absolutely perfect scene.
Since 松岡先生 never really gives us concrete times to work off of, especially while at sea, I wonder if, had Kaito not been rescued by Vicente, whether he’d still be alive by the time the Gloria found the foremast wreckage. My thought is ‘no’. Now that would be a scene to see, huh. Got a laugh out of Nigel and Geoffrey:
Geoffrey: Kaito
Nigel: Don’t worry! This is probably some evil plot of Santillana’s. He tossed your keys in there to distract us!
Like dang, Vicente wishes he had the time and opportunity to think up stuff this dastardly. The good news is is that Vicente is slowly moving back into Kaito’s good graces; almost everyone else on the ship hating his guts helps with that for sure. I wonder, now that Geoffrey and Nigel are headed back to England for professional assistance, whether Kit will make another appearance? He’s a spy, and I loved seeing him in previous volumes; I’ve been missing him!
I think this might’ve been the quickest I’ve read an F&B book: took me seven days. I could definitely have shortened that too; I didn’t read for two of them off the top of my head, so in theory I couldn’t read it in five days. I’m not going to aim to break any new records with upcoming volumes or anything, but it was really nice to see just how easily I was running through the book. I’m really glad I seem to have reached a point where I can just read the book to enjoy it; I’m still taking plenty of notes on vocab I don’t know, and there’s the very occasional sentence fragment where I’m not 100% of what they’re saying, but the last volume or two have just been so easy to read. 
Onto the next volume!
(Ch 12 spoilers)
I’m okay with finding the keys, I think. I could totally see Kaito having missed seeing them, given how panicked and out of it he was at first, and his condition wouldn’t have improved as time passed. I figured we were going to get at least one Geoffrey scene before the end of the book, but I was having a hard time thinking of something interesting that could be written about the Gloria, since they’re, as it were, lost at sea at present in terms of searching for Kaito. The keys was a perfect dramatic touch, imo!
(ch 12 spoilers)
I’m so used to Nigel and Geoffrey being on good terms that Geoffrey thinking about maybe thinking about forgiving Nigel kind of shook me. I’m also a big fan of the character development in the book; it’s crazy to think how short these books are in the grand scheme of things, but it really feels like 松岡先生 makes the best use of the space that she can.
(Ch 8 spoilers)
I mentioned this later, but wanted to mention it again while I’m going through replies: I believe the ‘aparecido’ was supposed to be ‘ghost/apparition’.
(Ch 10 spoilers)
Fear not, guys (who’ve already passed this point anyway): Kaito mentioned during this scene that Kazuya’s photo was being used as a bookmark in Vicente’s book on the ship when he was tossed into the sea. He was lamenting that he wouldn’t have Kazuya near him at the end, not that it also fell into the water.
The same! I’m honestly astonished by how fast I’m getting through the pages as well. I know I could have taken more care to look up words, but yeah, with all the action going down there, I felt it was more important to just enjoy reading. XD
I’m glad you mentioned Kit. I’ve been missing him too! <3 I hope he’ll get involved in planning for Jeoffrey’s and Nigel’s attempt at infiltration.
I totally missed that or forgot? In any case, that makes a lot of sense, especially with what happens next.
@NicoleIsEnough said as much, and I now think I understand how I misread the passage. I think I read the “stuck inside”, to refer to keypouch. But, I guess, it makes more sense to keep a photo inside a book for safekeeping. ^^;
I guess, we’re now reading at the same pace again. ^>^ I’ve just had a look at the first pages of vol 9, but might try to read some more today. But, basically, I’m just starting the book.
Are you… a time traveller? 
Oh yes you are totally right, must have overlooked that in my dictionary 
Oh, I think now I get at the source of our misunderstanding: Whenever Kaito puts something into his “pouch” do you think of it as being a small bag or a wallet? My take is that it’s part of his garment (as trousers didn’t have pockets back then), like a fanny pack:
From the 15th until the mid-16th century, men and women carried essential items and currency in a pouch that was typically tied around the waist or hung from a belt. As thieves and “cutpurses” became more of a problem in the 17th century, people began to cut slits in their shirts, skirts, and pants, and tuck their pouches inside their clothing for safekeeping. This practice necessitated making the bags flatter and easier to reach into, so they would be more accessible and not create a significant bulge.
Finished volume 8! Couldn’t put this one down. It’s late now so I’m off to bed but I’ll be back with my thoughts on the volume tomorrow.
Turns out 松岡先生 actually mentioned this in the あとがき for this volume. Apparently what Leo calls him is actually Don Vicente but she didn’t like the way that sounds (なんかリズムが悪いきがして) so she chose to not put it in the text.
Sleep well and looking forward to reading your thoughts later! ^>^
Ah, my hero! I really should be reading those あとがき, apparently. Thank you so much for tagging me, Pyororon; that answer is exactly what I was looking for.
So, I’m not alone in giving them a pass for now. They’re part of my “reconciliation-package” of reading once the series is over. 