This Loving Torment

by Valerie Sherwood

  Never having been allowed to ramble about, Charity was surprised when Court showed her a stable half hidden in the vines and pimento trees some way from the house. And in that stable two handsome Arabian horses, cared for by a smiling one-armed buccaneer.

  “Hal can’t swing a cutlass any more,” Jeremy explained, “but in better days he was a groom in Dorset.”

  Charity nodded to Hal, who proudly displayed his prancing charges, two magnificent horses, one black, one white, both with thick waving manes and tails.

  That morning Jeremy took her riding with him over the wild rough land. As she watched the lean centaur before her, Charity marveled at his strength and control of his spirited mount. It was all she could do to stay aboard her own horse, but she set herself to follow him, and follow him she did across the rocky trails. On a high point he reined up.

  “Hispaniola lies there.” He waved across an empty stretch of blue water. “A lovely island.”

  She knew it had once been the home of the buccaneers and looked where he pointed with interest.

  He dismounted and lifted her from her horse. At the contact of their bodies his eyes kindled and she felt his body grow taut. Instead of setting her on her feet, he held her against him and gently explored her mouth with his lips and tongue. She felt herself grow hot in response as her soft breasts pressed against his hard lean chest.

  They stretched out on a soft patch of grass and Court swiftly undid the hooks of her bodice, slipping his hands beneath the material. As he undressed her, his hands explored her body so that she shivered against him and her arms wrapped fiercely around him as, triumphantly, he entered her. His arms about her were firm, his hands and voice as steady and gentle as they had been on the reins of his nervous steed, and the spirited woman relaxed even as the spirited horse had. Soon she found herself clinging to him in a wild embrace and moaning his name.

  Once their passion was spent, they lay side by side in the sunlight, and talked of many things. He told her of his boyhood in Devon. As he told her of his past—of his schooling, of his love for the sea—he stroked her breasts and kissed their firm pink nipples, so that her blood roared in her ears and sang in her veins and she only half heard him.

  His mother, he said, had died at his birth and he had been brought up in an almost womanless household in a tall half-timbered Tudor house on the coast. His older brother had been killed in an engagement with the Spanish—here his voice rang with his hatred of Spain. And his father had lost heart when Jeremy, the younger son, had decided not to follow the sea but to become a trader in the Colonies and had set sail with that in mind. From that unfortunate voyage with its resultant capture and slavery in the galleys, Court had returned to find his father dead. He blamed himself for his father’s death—grief and despair at the reported loss of his second son had been too much for the elderly man. Had he stayed in Devon, Court told her bleakly, his father might be alive today.

  Charity turned and caressed his face with a gentle hand, smiling up into his eyes. “Twas not your fault, Jeremy, that you were captured. But for that, you would have returned in good time and your father would have taken heart again.”

  “Ye’re good for me, Charity,” Court said huskily, and again enfolded her in his arms.

  After that, on nice mornings, they often rode out together to their own secluded spot that looked out across the diamond-blue water. And their lovemaking on those mornings was wondrous for Charity, casting a rosy glow over her whole day.

  She had found a life in Tortuga with her lean buccaneer lover.

  She enjoyed running his house. Mid-mornings she did the marketing at stalls behind the quay, accompanied by the impassive Ravenal and Ella. There she selected carefully from among the baskets of plump silvery fish and piles of fresh mangoes and avocadoes and breadfruit and oranges and limes. Ravenal, always somewhat abashed at this duty, carried home baskets of fruits and vegetables, while Ella proudly carried special items such as a plump fish wrapped in green palm fronds.

  Patiently, Charity gave the cook her instructions and the food, which was already good, improved. Court, who enjoyed a good dinner, complimented her on her culinary achievements, and she flushed with pleasure, feeling personally responsible for the succulent roasts and delicious soups and meat pies and pastries that emerged from the kitchen. Their conversation at mealtime was vivacious, sprinkled as it was with small housewifely triumphs that she had stored up to amuse him, and countered with items from him about the refitting and provisioning of the Sea Witch.

  Sometimes they discussed politics—Court hated King James almost as much as he hated the Spanish—and sometimes the future of these islands over which so much blood had been spilled. There always seemed so much to talk about.Almost like husband and wife, she would think, as she regarded him across the table enjoying his roast.

  In the afternoons, she strolled down along the quay with Ravenal, enjoying the medley of languages, the laughter and excitement as traders and buccaneers bargained for laces and rum and furs. Rarely did Court accompany her on these strolls, and never to market, for he was busy by day with matters to do with provisioning and reconditioning the Sea Witch. Charity had learned that he cared for his ship almost as tenderly as he cared for his horses.

  But once she paused wistfully beside a shipment of stringed instruments from a galleon some buccaneer had intercepted and studied the guitars. Guitars were very popular in England and were to be found on many ladies’ dressing tables. Stéphanie, she remembered, had played the guitar occcasionally. Charity found herself plucking at the strings and wishing she owned one.

  “It is yours,” said a resonant voice behind her, and she looked up to see Court who had emerged from the crowd and now stood beside her.

  “But—I know not how to play it,” she admitted. “Even though I’ve always longed to.”

  “That can be arranged,” he said crisply, and she waited, as he bargained for his purchase with a heavy-set swarthy buccaneer.

  After that Charity had a new interest to occupy her afternoons, for Court found a Spanish prisoner who could give her music lessons. Soon, she could pick out simple tunes, and she played and sang for him in the courtyard on warm scented evenings.

  Once as she sat practicing “Greensleeves,” he said, “I sang that as a heedless lad, running along the cliffs, dreaming I’d have my own great fleet and be an admiral of my country.” He laughed shortly.

  She learned that Jeremy too, pursued studies. His chart room had many well thumbed books on mathematics, and he was studying navigation, which was why he spent hours with Timothy Hobbs both at sea and on land working to improve his skill and knowledge.

  On one memorable occasion, Court took the Sea Witch out for Charity, and cast anchor on the lee side of a small uninhabited island. He rowed her in a small boat across the silvery phosphorescent water to a sparkling beach.

  She leaned back and trailed her fingers in the water as he rowed. The night air so pleasantly scented with spices was soft and warm, and above them hung a low pale yellow moon, like a slice of lemon in the black velvet sky. A romantic night, a night for lovers....

  On the secluded white beach beneath that wanton moon, he took her in his arms and held her through the long night. Their naked bodies were wrapped in close embrace, now straining in passion, now spent and resting. Court caressed her breasts, her stomach, her hips, touching her lovingly, making soft explorations across her unresisting flesh that tingled delightfully at his touch. Charity sighed and gave herself up to the seductions of this luminous night—and to her lover.

  Morning found them lying in the sand exhausted as the white surf lapped at their toes and raucous gulls screamed overhead. Charity opened her eyes to see Court already sitting up and watching her with a wonderful smile that softened his dark face. She sat up and stretched luxuriously, tossing back her tangled hair to free it from the sand, and as she did he reached around her and gently touched both pink nipples with his lips. She sighed, and he laughed and picked
her up and ran with her into the surf where they lolled lazily, letting the warm water suds up around them. They dried themselves in the sun while sea birds swooped and whirled overhead and brown pelicans fished the shoals. As she dressed, Charity dreamily considered the palm fronds that swayed in the trade winds, the big green turtle that came lumbering out of the sea to trudge through the sand, and wondered if ever a place was so seductive ... a trap to maid and man.

  When she turned, Court was already dressed in leathern breeches and white shirt opened to the waist. He stood before her, buckling on his rapier belt, thrusting into that belt a pistol.

  “We’d best away,” he said. “We’re near to Spanish ports and it will not do to linger here by daylight. We could be surprised by a strong force and I’ve only a skeleton crew aboard. Tis not the gold of the dons I seek today but the gold of a lady’s shining hair.”

  Gravely, Charity nodded to him, her eyes deep and mysterious. Her world seemed to have changed in these last weeks. Gone was the shadow of Marie, gone was the shadow of Alan. No ghosts came back to haunt her on these fair islands sprawling in the sun. She reached out and took his hand—trustingly. For a moment Court looked surprised, then very pleased. With a jaunty stride, yet careful to match his steps to her shorter ones, he brought her to the spot where the rowboat waited. Again he bent his broad back to the oars and rowed her over the glittering water back to the Sea Witch.

  As they boarded, the crew watched their captain and his captive beauty with envy in their eyes and a certain wistfulness. Then at Court’s orders they made ready to sail and, gray sails billowing, scudded back to Tortuga with the wind freshening and a squall in sight.

  But no squall appeared on their private horizon. That night in the big house in Tortuga, Charity, clad in a gown of delicate gold lace that drifted over petticoats intricately wrought of embroidered cream satin, ran lightly across the courtyard in the rain, a big silk shawl protecting her carefully dressed hair.

  At the gleaming table in the dining room she sat and faced Court across the silver trenchers. Flickering candlelight played over the gleaming white skin of her upper breasts, tantalizingly revealed in her low-cut bodice. Candlelight caressed her throat and flushed cheeks, wrought miracles of depths in her topaz eyes shadowed by their dark gold lashes.

  As sudden gusts of rain struck the shutters and rattled them, the candle flames wavered and danced in Court’s gray eyes. In her honor he had dressed in the Spanish style tonight and he was a miracle of rich black silks and silver braid and buttons. Ignoring fashion, he had tied a wide red silk sash about his waist. His rapier was tossed onto a chair, and his periwig came down around his shoulders and framed his saturnine features.

  “I prefer your own hair,” she said. “For all that you hack it off with a cutlass.”

  He laughed and, sweeping off the wig, tossed it aside. “Cursed thing that it is,” he said, “I wore it only to please you. But we’re at home, so we are, and can do as we please.”

  At home. . . . Just as a husband might, he had said they were at home. Here in Tortuga, in what the world considered a vile den of iniquity, Charity felt at home.

  “Yes,” she said, studying his thick dark hair that fell gleaming to his shoulders. “I do prefer you this way.”

  “For myself,” he said, eyes narrowing humorously, “let me say that glass of fashion though you may be, I prefer your hair tumbling free around your shoulders.”

  “Then—since we are at home. . . .” Charity reached up and, loosening her carefully coiled hair, let it tumble down in a silken mass.

  “So you should always look,” he said.

  “But . . . then I would not look like a lady,” she protested.

  “You are a lady, Charity. You have no need of fashion.”

  She was surprised at the richness of his tone and gazed at him uncertainly.

  “Were we in England now,” he said, “I would be hard put to keep the county bucks from cutting me out.”

  “I think . . . you would have no trouble, Jeremy,” she said in a soft tremulous voice.

  “Can it be true?” he murmured. “I always believed I took you against your will—and felt shame for it.”

  “I—I was unwilling at first . . . but not later.” Holding her gaze, he rose and offered her his hand. Forgetful of their wine, they drifted out into the courtyard and up the stairs. There he undressed her, caressing her as he did so with his lips and hands. Then he carried her to the big square bed and pressed her to him so gently that she felt fragile and precious. As his ardor rose, Charity yearned toward him, her body arching upward, a low moan rising from her throat at the sheer ecstasy of being held in his arms, of being one with him.

  Charity’s life seemed an idyll now, filled with wonder and love.

  With Jeremy, she explored the craggy rocks and far shores of Tortuga. Together they sat beneath the pimento trees, the lemon trees. Together they found avocadoes and, once, he pulled her back from the dangerous manchineel tree that hung over the water with its poisoned apples.

  “Even the fish that eat those damned things become poisonous,” he muttered. “Touch it not.”

  Laughing, Charity ran away from him toward a far height of rocks where he caught up with her. She thought of Eden and the forbidden fruit as they sat and looked out to sea ... a pirate sea where resolute men in wooden ships sent nine-pound shot tearing into each other’s hulls ... a world of death for all its brilliant beauty, while here in this reputed sinkhole of the world, they lived as if it were paradise.

  CHAPTER 41

  Marie’s letter, when it came, was a terrible shock to Charity.

  Somehow she had forgotten Marie. Lulled by what seemed an endless summer on this buccaneer’s island, Charity had put Charles Towne and Magnolia Barony from her mind. Here on Tortuga she was suspended between worlds, idyllically becalmed on a great wild ocean full of sawtooth rocks and shoals. She had lingered here, content. Then the letter arrived.

  Charity, who was standing in the hall near the chart room, went to the door as Ravenal flung it open and greeted the messenger.

  “I’ll take it, Ravenal,” she said as she reached out a slender hand. Her fingers shook when she recognized the mannered handwriting with its big flourishes. How often had she seen that flowery script at Magnolia Barony! Marie . . . she was holding a letter from Marie in her hand.

  She was still staring at it when Court, who had come up behind her with surprising softness, took it from her hand. “I believe that’s addressed to me,” he said coldly.

  With an angry look, Charity flung away from him. Unperturbed, he went into the big room she thought of as his English room and closed the door. In the courtyard Charity stormed about, suffering. He had shut himself away to read Marie’s letter. What a fool she had been to imagine that he cared for her. He cared only for Marie. Her own body was a mere convenience for him; to be used and enjoyed—and forgotten.

  He was in the English room a long time. When he emerged, he strode out looking formidable and left the house. Of the letter, when Charity rushed in to look for it, there remained only a tiny pile of ashes in the stone fireplace.

  Her lascerated feelings were rubbed entirely raw when at dinner he inquired as to her unwonted silence.

  “I shall write you a note later,” she answered woodenly. “Like your other whore. The one in Charles Towne.”

  His face whitened under his tan, and he leaned forward. “You have my leave to go,” he said evenly, “before I thrash you!”

  Shaking with rage, Charity got up and ran to her room.

  The menacing and seductive shadow of Marie Bellingham had returned to hover over her. One day Marie would be coming back to Tortuga—perhaps the letter had been notice of an impending visit. What then? Endure the humiliation of being shoved into a corner, confined to her room, be the woman whose body he used while his heart roamed with someone else back on a hill in Devon?

  When, much later, Court came up to bed, she sprang up tensely and announce
d in a mutinous voice, “I have a headache! Why are you disturbing me?”

  Without a word, he turned on his heel and was gone.

  He was gone all the next day and she dined alone.

  Dusk had fallen when Kirby dropped by, ostensibly to see Court. Still simmering over the letter, Charity spoke bitterly of Marie. Kirby said reflectively, “You might call it a marriage. Court’s married to the woman Marie was, his memory of her. Better for you if you’d left him alone. Now you’re mired deep in his problems, Charity. You’ll never get out.”

  “I’ll get out,” she muttered grimly, studying the courtyard tiles.

  He gave her a thoughtful look. “If it’s Charles Towne you want to see, I could take you there.”

  She looked up, startled. “But you’ve a price on your head there, Leeds.”

  He laughed. “Aye, but I go there from time to time nonetheless. None recognize me in a fiery red periwig, dressed as a mincing gentleman and speaking only French.”

  “Would you really take me there, Leeds?” Her eyes grew dark with entreaty and she moved toward him.

  For answer he put an arm lightly about her shoulders, lifted a lock of her hair. “Charity . . .” he murmured. “A sweet name for a sweet lady. And have you other virtues? Such as compassion?”

  She pretended to misunderstand him, but he was not to be put off. From her hair, his hand slipped to the back of her neck, caressed her white throat.

  “Court . . . would kill you if you took me away,” she warned.