Book Cover of the Month: August

Kate Mosse's The Ghost Ship has a beautiful cover. What intrigued me the most is the center motif. It contains a fleur-de-lis, a sword and a bloody white fabric. I am presuming that the white fabric is the sail on the ghost ship.

I was not able to determine the identity of the book cover designer. It would have been nice to find out why the center image was chosen. As for the background, I saw similar images for sale on the Internet for authors to purchase. Did the publisher take the easy route here?