She once heard Ward tell Uncle Horace, when they were discussing the sale of his father’s business, “I’d rather be a first-class passenger on a ship than build one.” She also remembered her uncle calling Ward a “soldier of fortune” and a “modern-day pirate, who could turn a deal with a merchant anywhere in the world as quickly and as easily as he could turn a pretty woman’s head, with his silver tongue and ready smile.”
She’d heard her aunt and the other society matrons describe Ward as “a prime catch.” But Ward seemed determined not to be caught. He obviously enjoyed female companionship, but was seldom seen with the same woman twice.
Pandora glanced his way, wondering what it was that Ward Gabriel wanted in a woman that he had yet to find.
“You’d better get out of those wet things,” Ward said from across the room. “You’ll come down with God-knows-what if you don’t.”
Pandora stared down at her ruined gown. Aunt Tabitha would be furious, but there was no help for it.
She cast a quizzical glance at Ward. “In the bedroom, behind that curtain,” he replied to her unasked question. “There’s a heavy robe on a peg by the bed. That should warm you up in no time.”
She watched him pouring brandy into their coffee mugs. That, too, she thought, would warm her. She took the thick, white cup from him and went into his bedroom, never worrying for a moment about being alone with a man—a man she really hardly knew—in the middle of the night.
When she returned—stripped to the skin, covered in an oversized robe—Ward was standing by the fireplace, gazing down into the flames. His dark eyes glowed like obsidian.
“Do you suppose it will dry or simply fall apart?” she asked, handing him her dripping garment.
He took the gown from her and looked it over with the practiced eye of a professional importer. “French, isn’t it? And quite expensive. Worth?”
She nodded.
“It won’t see any more balls, but it should hold together to get you home in decent fashion.” He draped it over the back of a chair near the fire, then turned on her. “Pandora, what the hell were you doing out there?”
Pandora looked away quickly. “You sound like an outraged father, Ward. Please don’t scold me. I couldn’t stay at the party any longer, that’s all.”
He reached out and touched her hand. “I’m sorry,” he said in a softer tone. “I didn’t mean to be harsh, but you had no business out there on the beach all alone. Not at this time of night, storm or no storm. Why, anything could have happened to you!”
She looked up again, a half-smile curving her full lips. “Nothing did, did it?”
“No. But only because I happened along at exactly the right moment. Two minutes later and I would have been gone. I wouldn’t have seen you at all.”
“Gone? Wherever were you going at this time of night, Ward?”
He started to tell her that was none of her damn business. For no good reason, he found that he was angry with Pandora Sherwood. How dare she put herself in such danger? She knew better than to come right into his house and sit there beside his fire—all but naked, mind you—looking so soft and feminine and utterly, maddeningly appealing. She needed to be shocked to her senses and he was just the man to do it.
“If you really want to know, before you sidetracked me into my errand of mercy, I was headed for Abbie Allen’s.”
Pandora wasn’t shocked, but she was embarrassed. She had ruined serious plans. A soft “Oh!” escaped her lips as she felt her cheeks flush warmly.
“I could leave now,” she offered meekly.
“Wearing that?” He tugged gently at the sleeve of the burgundy velvet robe. “Don’t be ridiculous, young lady! Why, I’d be tarred and feathered by the good citizens of Galveston as soon as the sun came up. You’ll stay here until your gown dries. And so will I.”
Several long moments of silence followed as they both sipped their brandied coffee and stared into the fire. Finally, Ward said, “You still haven’t told me what you were doing out there tonight. What happened? Why did you leave your party?”
Pandora shook her head. “I’m not sure I can explain it. I’m still confused.”
“All right. We’ll talk about something else.” Ward broke another long silence, asking, “Don’t you think you’d better call your uncle?”
Pandora bit her lip and stared at the newly installed telephone on the wall, trying to decide. “What could I tell him?”
Ward shrugged. “If I were in his place, I’d want to know that you’re safe, that you’ll be home soon. Otherwise, he’ll have the sheriff’s men and every volunteer fireman in the city out in this storm searching for you. You don’t want that, do you?”
Pandora shook her head. Ward was right, of course. She’d better call. As she went to the phone and turned the crank to ring the operator, Ward disappeared through the curtain into the bedroom, allowing her privacy.
The conversation was brief. Uncle Horace was relieved and then furious. He demanded to know where she was. She refused to tell him. He ordered her home. She said she would return when she was ready. Then she hung up.
Ward came back into the room, a worried expression on his face. “You’re in deep trouble, I take it?”
Pandora puffed out her cheeks in imitation of her heavy-jowled uncle and in a gruff voice said, “I demand you return at once, young lady! If you won’t think of your own reputation, consider your poor aunt, your distraught cousin, and Jacob.”
“What about Jacob?” Ward interrupted. “What will he think of all this?”
Pandora expelled a long sigh. “He’ll be upset with me, but he’ll understand. He’ll have to. He’s the only one who ever does. I certainly don’t understand it myself.”
Ward could see that she was withdrawing again, growing more depressed by the minute. He cast about for a change of topic.
“Do you remember the first time we met, Pandora?”
She looked at him suspiciously. Was he asking for more mental tricks from her? No. He was only thinking back to that hot summer day at Laffite’s Grove several years ago. She grinned at him, looking much like the eleven-year-old imp she’d been at the time.
“How could I ever forget? You were with a beautiful young woman,” she recalled with a mischievous grin.
“Ah, yes.” Ward leaned back, nodding at the fond memory. “Estelle Armitage. What high hopes I had for that affair.”
Pandora laughed. “You mean you had high hopes for that afternoon, Mr. Gabriel. Why else would you have taken your lady fair to such a secluded part of the island?”
“We only wanted a little privacy for our picnic.” His tone made him out as the injured party. “How was I to know that there were spies lurking about in the oaks?”
Pandora suppressed a smile. Ward obviously had no idea that she had been on the scene for a good while before she climbed up into the oak tree to get a better view. She had seen far more than he knew.
She could still remember the odd warmth that had flooded through her as she sat hidden in tall grass a few paces from the oak grove, watching the lovers. Ward and Miss Armitage had been stretched out on a blanket in the shade of the trees. For a time they talked quietly, laughed softly at private jokes, then Ward leaned over his golden-haired beauty and kissed her—a long, deep kiss that had set Pandora’s pulses racing. A moment later, she had watched, wide-eyed, as Ward’s large, sturdy hands crept to Estelle’s bodice, fumbling at the ribbons there. Even now, a blush stole over Pandora’s cheeks as she recalled what he had done next. Freeing the woman’s breasts at last, he had leaned down, kissing the rosy nipples until Estelle squirmed beneath him and cried out for mercy. As young as she’d been at the time, Pandora understood that mercy was far from what Ward’s lady truly desired.
At that point, Pandora had decided to climb one of the three trees in Laffite’s Grove so that she might get a better view of the proceedings. After all, this was her introduction to the sensual side of life
. She hadn’t wanted to miss a thing.
“If that branch hadn’t broken…” Ward interrupted her thoughts. He was laughing heartily. “Well, I just don’t like to imagine what you might have seen.”
Pandora offered him a look of sheer innocence. “Why, Ward! You were only having a picnic, weren’t you?”
“It was a picnic all right. But you spoiled my dessert.”
She turned fierce. “I should have told my uncle what you did. No one else has ever spanked me, before or since, Ward Gabriel!”
“Are you saying you didn’t deserve it—spying on us that way?”
“Well, yes, I probably did. But, oh, how I hated you for it!”
Ward’s voice dropped nearly to a whisper. “If you hated me, I feared you. I had no idea you were Horace Sherwood’s niece—the prim and proper young girl I’d heard about who’d just come to live with them. You looked like a wharf urchin—a rough little boy in ragged knee pants and that big floppy hat, and shirtless to boot.”
Pandora dropped her gaze when Ward described the way she’d been dressed. Her shirt had been discarded on a nearby bush. But what really embarrassed her was the fact that when other girls her age had been quickly maturing, the absolute flatness of her chest at the time had convinced Ward that she was a boy.
“I was sure, the moment you told me your name, that my career was finished,” he said. “Pandora, I’ve always wondered, why didn’t you tell your uncle? I was baffled at the time. I expected to be dismissed that very day and ordered off Galveston Island besides. I’ve always admired you for keeping silent about the incident.”
Now it was Pandora’s turn to laugh. “Well, you needn’t have worried. And there’s certainly no need to think of my silence as noble. I couldn’t tell Uncle Horace. You see, he’d forbidden me to go to the grove. If I’d told on you, I probably would have received a second spanking for disobeying his orders. When I first came to live with them, my aunt and uncle tried awfully hard to control me.”
“Obviously, it did no good.”
Pandora giggled. “Obviously.”
“You were an outrageous child.”
“And now I am an outrageous adult.”
He smiled at her. “And loving every minute of it, I’ll wager.”
She turned pensive. “No, Ward. Not loving it. Simply trying to survive as best I can.”
He stared at her in silence. How could her life be as complicated as she hinted? She had everything—family, wealth, beauty, intelligence. Why, there wasn’t another woman in all Galveston with such true elan. But perhaps her elegant swagger only hid deep insecurities. He’d never thought of that possibility before.
Pandora leaned forward and touched his knee with one finger, her eyes glittering with green devilment. “But, Ward,” she whispered, “I have to admit to you—only to you, because the others must never know—that I do gain a certain satisfaction from watching others watch me. If they didn’t provide quite such a wonderful audience—so easily shocked and inflamed—I doubt that my performance would be half as magnificent.”
He laughed and gripped her hand. “I guessed that about you some time ago, Pan. I happened to be at a dinner party one evening a couple of years ago when you spied Mrs. Landes staring at you. You immediately sneaked a puff of your uncle’s cigar, blowing the smoke directly at her. I thought the poor woman would go into a coma on the spot.”
Pandora groaned and clasped her belly. “Oh, I was so sick that night! Even now, the smell of cigar smoke turns my stomach. But I had to do something. The woman had been staring at me all evening, waiting for me to perform some outrageous act. The cigar was there and available, and much more suitable, I thought, than dancing barefoot on the dining room table. Poor Mrs. Landes! That was so long ago, but she still looks on me with a jaundiced eye. I’m afraid she’ll consider me the enemy forevermore.”
They both lapsed into fits of laughter that left them gasping and coughing.
“I’m glad we didn’t stay enemies,” Ward confided.
“How do you know we didn’t?” Pandora asked teasingly, her hysterics fading at the warmth of his smile.
“Well, look at you,” Ward said, returning her fond gaze. “You’re even wearing my clothes now.”
Pandora smiled. “Yes, thanks, Ward. You did save me tonight. And, really, I didn’t hate you for long. Actually, I had sort of a soft spot for you when I was younger. You know how it is with little girls. They always choose some older, attractive man for their fantasies. You were mine.”
Now it was Ward’s turn to blush. His tanned skin turned a ruddy hue and he avoided Pandora’s large, green eyes.
“I’m flattered, I think. But do I seem that old to you?”
“Not anymore,” she answered with a soft laugh. “It seems somehow that you got younger while I was growing older. Does that make any sense?”
“Probably not, but I like the sound of it.” Ward grew serious. “Pandora, I don’t want to press you.” He moved closer so that he could look directly into her eyes. “But I wish you’d tell me what’s troubling you tonight. I’m a good listener, if you feel like talking about it.”
Maybe it was the rich, soothing tone of his voice that persuaded her. Or perhaps it was the brandy that loosened her tongue. At any rate, the words came pouring out.
She told him about the strange vision she’d had of the woman named Isabel. She described the party and the way she’d felt when she first saw Jacob waiting for her at the foot of the stairs, how she knew they were meant to marry, but she wasn’t sure she could please him. And, finally, with a deep shudder, she told him what she had seen that so terrified her when her aunt insisted she look into her own future as Jacob Saenger’s wife.
“I saw nothing, Ward. Absolutely nothing! I closed my eyes and willed my mind into the future as I’ve always done before, but no visions came.” In a moment of renewed fear and confusion, she gripped his hand and sobbed, “I don’t understand. What can it mean? What’s going to happen to me?”
Ward pulled her into his arms and let her cry on his shoulder. Any other time, with any other woman, he would have taken full advantage of the situation. When had female hysterics ever meant anything more to him than a perfect opportunity to move right in? A touch here, a stroke there, a kiss, another, and they always succumbed with willing, trembling pleasure—their sobs quickly turning to sighs.
But somehow it was different with Pandora. He tried to tell himself that it was because her uncle was his employer, because she was engaged to be married, because she was so young. But none of those excuses held up. Pandora was different; Pandora was special. It all boiled down to that. He would not take unfair advantage of her because he could not. Somewhere deep down in his jaded, much-scarred heart, there remained a faintly flickering ember of decency. He couldn’t decide if he was relieved or disgusted to realize that fact.
Still, he had to admit that the feel of her unbound breasts pressed tightly to his chest stirred up a coursing of blood that no visit to Abbie Allen’s could arouse. Pandora Sherwood might be young, but she was all woman—warm, tempting, passionate woman.
“Pandora,” Ward whispered softly, “listen to me. I’m no doctor and I know nothing of these powers of yours. But I don’t think what happened to you tonight is anything to worry about. Nothing works all the time. You simply had a slight lapse of memory in the reverse. It was probably all the excitement, all the people.”
Pandora’s crying subsided and she drew back, looking up into the warm darkness of Ward’s eyes, feeling safe and reassured. “Do you think that could be it?”
He smiled. “I’m sure it is. And certainly it’s not worth crying over.”
“I thought when I couldn’t see the vision, it meant I was going to die,” she admitted. Then she clung to Ward more tightly. “I don’t want to die,” she whispered. “I have too much to live for, Ward.”
Ward clenched his teeth as he held her. She was so warm and soft, and her hair s
melled of limes and salt sea air. The ache in his groin intensified by the minute until there was no other course but to put her away from him.
Gently, he removed her arms from around his neck, rose, and walked over to his desk. “I have a surprise for you. A birthday present,” he said lightly.
“A gift for me?” There was a child’s delight in her voice.
“Of course for you. I would have brought it to the party, but…”
She gave him a sly, amused smile. “But you had to work.”
He lowered his dark brows, looking serious and solemn. “Exactly. And don’t you dare tell your uncle otherwise, young lady.”
He sat down again next to her and placed his special gift in her hands.
“I figured anyone named Pandora should have her own special box.”
“Oh, Ward!” She cradled the antique lovingly, smoothing her hands over the rich, age-darkened wood. “It’s beautiful.”
He nodded and said simply, “Look inside.”
Carefully, Pandora turned the old-fashioned lock and lifted the lid. She gasped softly. “Oh…” Why was she feeling dizzy? she wondered. She shook her head to clear it. Her hand trembled as she reached inside and drew out the two silver coins.
“They’re Spanish,” Ward told her, “and quite old. Probably part of some pirate’s treasure trove.”
Then the gleam of gold caught her eye. She reached into the box and held the trinket up to the light—a single golden earring set with fire opals. The stones seemed to glow with an inner flame, flashing vivid green and orange.
“It’s lovely,” she said. “But only one?”
Ward shrugged. “That’s all that was in the box when I found it. But there’s something else. See?”
Forever, For Love Page 4