Raile left her looking out to larboard and went to consult with MacTavish over some matter. Leaning lazily on the rail, dazzled by the sea’s glitter, she decided that she was glad Raile had come to get her, for it was indeed a glorious day.
After a while she felt eyes watching her. They seemed to bore through her back.
She swung around, but there was nobody there. Just Raile and MacTavish, and the men scrambling in the rigging. In the distance, near the prow. Heist and the ship’s doctor argued over some small matter. Still the uneasy feeling persisted. She felt it as she walked restlessly about the deck, a kind of prickly feeling that told her all was not well.
She forced herself to stay on deck, hoping to spot her watcher and covertly studying the ship’s officers as they came and went. Derry Cork might be a giant, but there was a steadiness in his green gaze. And the Dutchman, Jakob Heist, might look like a blond, blueeyed cutthroat, but his smile on her was friendly and open. MacTavish she would have trusted with her life. And André L’Estraille—well, perhaps with her life, but not with her virtue! Not a man among them that she would have been afraid to meet alone.
And yet she could feel it rippling along her spine. She was being watched.
At last she gave up her fruitless search for the watcher and strolled back to her cabin.
Although she said nothing about it, the incident had clouded her day and she was still troubled by it when Raile joined her for supper. It made her more silent than usual.
She took a small bite of the fish one of the men had caught to vary their monotonous ship’s diet, and sighed.
“Are you not feeling well?” asked Raile with a sudden frown, for to him Lorraine looked a little wan.
“Oh, no. I’m very well,” she assured him.
“But your needlework goes slowly?” he guessed on a note of sympathy.
Lorraine laughed and shook her head. After working on her new gown for several hours yesterday, she had found herself getting back her skill.
“Perhaps you are tired? . . . No? Then we will stroll about the deck after supper. Soon we will be in waters to see flying fish. Who knows, we may see one tonight!”
The stars were out when they walked, and the ship scarcely rolled, seeming to glide mysteriously over a glassy phosphorescent sea. The night seemed to close them in and the breeze was scarce a sigh through the rigging.
“A windless night,” he commented. “Soon we will be in more southern waters.”
Southern waters ... it had a lovely sound. And it was lovely standing there beside her tall captain in the starlight, feeling the broadcloth of his coat brush her arm—for, hot or not, he had worn it to please her. Lovely to look down at his fine hand resting lightly on the rail and see the white lace spilling over it—in her honor. And yet his clothes, she realized, did not really matter so much, for it was the man who made the clothes—his sinewy body overwhelmed them, shaped them. Indeed she felt he would cut a dashing figure in whatever he wore!
And yet it was far more than Raile’s strong masculinity that appealed to her. She cherished his kindness, his unfailing gallantry toward her, that warm, protected feeling that swept over her whenever he came near.
I think I’m falling in love with him, she thought dreamily—and jerked herself up short.
She had fallen in love with Philip, who had never had any intention of marrying her, who had only wanted her virginity—on a wager! And now she was falling in love with this smuggler who had told her brusquely he was “not the marrying kind.”
She must guard herself well for she knew this too-attractive captain wanted her—and he was not going to have her on his terms! She did not want another affair that would be gone like smoke.
Still, the night was treacherous—and soft.
She knew she should go in, away from him. But she could not bring herself to do it. The lure of the night, of the man, was too strong.
“Lorraine ...” His voice was caressing and he bent his dark head down toward her own fair one.
Sternly she warned herself that he would take her, love her—and one day he would leave her to mourn. She knew that! She with her hard-won recent knowledge about men!
But he was so close and the soft night air was filled with tender magic. It lulled her. As he bent down, involuntarily she swayed toward him. In the stillness of the night their lips would meet . . . and meld . . . He would whisper words he did not mean and she would respond with senses swirling. For long exultant moments she would tremble against his breast, all her defenses flown away into the night.
And after that he would bear her away to his cabin and they would share—really share—that bunk of his for the very first time. Passionately.
She knew it, she knew it!
The world seemed to wheel about slowly, she was almost in his arms, nothing could stop it now.
But something did.
Abruptly a sultry flash of green lightning rent the sky. Sea and sky became momentarily a vivid fleeting green. Thunder rolled ominously and Lorraine jumped back as if the lightning had flashed a warning to her personally.
“What is it, lass?” Raile asked huskily. His hand had been about to slip behind her, to fit against the small of her back. His lips had been so near, so close to her own softly parted ones. And yet . . . He saw how pale she had suddenly become, and . . . Did he imagine it? Was that real terror—no, perhaps it was just anxiety—in her eyes?
“That ... the flash of green . . .” she muttered, confused, and leaned away from him.
Raile tried to reassure her. His hand crept behind her head, cradling it. “ ’Tis but a lightning flash, and I’ll wager the storm will go around us. Anyway, the Lass is a stout craft, as I’ve good reason to know.”
But the moment was broken, the magic departed. Lorraine pulled away from him.
“It ... it wasn’t that,” she murmured, and memories were flooding back to her as she spoke.
“What, then?” he demanded.
“It was the color—green,” she admitted diffidently.
“So?” He shrugged. “I’ve seen pink lightning, lavender, yellow—all shades.”
“No, it was something my mother told me once.” Lorraine’s mother had spoken of it but once, and perhaps later regretted it—but her comments had made an indelible impression on Lorraine.
Back in Rhode Island on a winter’s night, her father, Jonas London, was out chopping dry kindling in the moonlight, for the fire had gone out and fires once extinguished were hard to relight. Young Lorraine and her mother were huddled near the cold hearth. Lorraine was stirring the ashes disconsolately with a poker, trying to revive a spark. Her mother was attempting to sew with fingers gone stiff from the cold, straining her eyes to see her mending by the light of a single candle.
“Do you think I’ll ever live in a fine house like the one you grew up in?” Lorraine had asked of her mother wistfully. “One where servants make the fires and mind them and never let them go out?”
Carefully the older woman had pushed her sewing aside and gone to stare out of the rude cabin’s single window. Outside in a panorama of moon-drenched white, the Rhode Island countryside lay covered with a blanket of fresh-fallen snow, bridal white, and the icy trees were glistening against a night-blue sky, “Lorraine,” she said softly, “there is something I want to tell you, while Jonas is outside. Something I have been meaning to tell you for a very long time.” Caught by something portentous in her mother’s tone, Lorraine had stood the poker against the hearth and sat down on a small three-legged stool, hugging her flannel skirts tight around her to keep warm. How frail her mother looked tonight, how thin. . . .
It was then her mother told her about the Green Flash.
“It is something that happens—oh, so rarely! But sometimes just as the sun is setting, all the light seems to break apart and there is this wondrous flash of green that turns the sky to emerald. It foretells the future, Lorraine, for if the Green Flash should chance to light the sky when you are with an admirer,
it is that man and no other whom you will love for the rest of your days.”
“Why did you tell me about it now?” wondered Lorraine.
Her mother had been looking out the window as she spoke, watching Jonas chop wood in the snow. Now she turned and faced her daughter. Her voice was stern.
“Because I saw how you looked at young Philip Dedwinton today, Lorraine.”
Lorraine had flushed bright red and had looked down at the floor in confusion. She had loved Philip forever, but she hadn’t known it showed!
“He will offer for you, Lorraine, I am sure of it. When you are a little older. But don’t marry him. Wait.”
“Why?” The words were wrenched from Lorraine.
“Because he’s not good enough for you.” She sighed at Lorraine’s discomfiture. “Wait for the Green Flash.” She turned back toward the window and the falling snow. “I ... I tell you this now, Lorraine, because I may not be there when it happens.”
It was the first warning Lorraine was to have that her mother felt her life might be drawing to a close—and in the tumult of her thoughts about Philip, she missed that warning.
But her mother’s voice had caught on her last words, and Lorraine, uneasy in the presence of such great emotion—and wanting desperately to change the subject—asked in a small voice, “Did you . . . did you see the Green Flash with Father?”
“Yes.” Her mother nodded and dabbed at her eyes. “I had run down to the beach to meet him. I was peering about among the rocks as I ran, wondering where he could be—for I could not see him. I was looking for him and not at the sand beneath my feet. I tripped over a length of seaweed and would have fallen full-length on the sand had he not appeared suddenly and leapt forward to catch me. He lifted me up and there was a light in his eyes I shall never forget. . . .” She paused, reliving those magic moments when the air had whirred with the sound of wings and the waves beating against the age-old rocks had thrummed a throaty distant love song. When she spoke again, her voice was husky. “And just at that moment—while he was holding me in his arms—the sky seemed to burst apart into a flash of vivid green that took my very breath away. It was then I knew.” She turned and looked at her daughter very steadily. “It was then I knew that your father was the man for me and that I would always love him.”
Lorraine thought of her father, who had let the fire go out, and of all the difficult times, the hard life this man of her mother’s choice had given her, and for a treacherous moment she wondered if her mother might not have been better off with someone else.
As if she had caught her thought, her mother said slowly, “Perhaps you will see the Green Flash one day, Lorraine. Then you will know what I mean.”
Then, with the coming of spring, her mother was gone.
And now the snows of Rhode Island were far away and melted, and moss was growing on her mother’s headstone. The man her mother had loved too well was gone too, lost in some uncharted wilderness. All their fortunes scattered to the winds. . . .
But just now there had been all that vivid green in the sky—and the Green Flash at sunset, her mother had insisted, was the harbinger of a great and lasting love.
It wasn’t sunset, of course. It was already quite dark, the moon was out. And the flash had been a flash of green lightning on the water. Or was it? Was this perhaps another form of the fabled Green Flash her mother had told her about?
“You see,” Raile told her patiently. “There’s no more lightning. The storm is going around.”
But the storm I feel in my heart isn’t. . . . Perhaps I have been swept here by design, perhaps I was meant to belong to you and you to me. .. .
It was a troubling thought.
She stared at him, distraught. She had been about to make a terrible mistake! A casual affair wasn’t what she wanted. That wasn’t good enough. With her it was going to be all or nothing. No matter how damnably attractive the man was.
“It’s very late,” she muttered, and turned softly away from him, heading for the cabin and safety.
Raile watched her go. Fleetingly a sad expression crossed his strong features.
He thought she did not care for him.
CHAPTER 11
The Lady of the Lilies
RAILE DID NOT come back to the cabin until after Lorraine was asleep. The next morning he was gone before she waked, and to her surprise, did not come back to share her breakfast.
“Where is the captain?” she asked Johnny Sears as she sat down at the table.
But the cabin boy only shrugged. He seemed anxious to get away. Lorraine did not deter him.
She ate her breakfast feeling perplexed, for Raile had made it a point to breakfast with her, bounding into the cabin exuding masculine vitality. Without him breakfast was a lonely meal. Ah, well. . . . She told herself he must be occupied with ship matters, and after breakfast sat down determinedly to her sewing, for this was to be the gown of her life!
She sewed all day, making good progress, and was looking forward to showing the results to Raile when he arrived at dinner. So it was really upsetting when Johnny Sears brought her dinner along with a message that the captain would be dining with his officers and sent her his compliments.
“He sends me his compliments!” she repeated, amazed. “Is something important happening, then, Johnny?”
“Not as I know,” mumbled the lad.
“Oh, come now, Johnny, you always know everything!”
But he was not to be cajoled. He served her and fled, leaving her to poke at her food.
She went out on deck for a few moments after she had finished her dinner and heard sounds of roistering coming from the room where the ship’s officers ate. Ah, that was it! Some celebration, no doubt—perhaps of somebody’s birthday. Satisfied, she turned her heel and went back inside.
But when Raile did not show up for breakfast next day and later sent her “his compliments” again instead of his presence at dinner, there could be no doubt.
He was avoiding her!
Bent over her needlework, Lorraine considered that. She frowned down at the lovely, slippery cloth. Surely there could be no reason—She gave an irritated gasp as she stuck her finger with the needle and drew blood, put the finger in her mouth, and continued to puzzle.
Had she mistaken the hot look in his eyes? Was he really not much interested after all? Was it only compassion that had driven him to help her to escape in Rhode Island? When he did not show up the next day, she was forced to take action.
“Johnny,” she told the cabin boy when he again brought her her dinner and the “captain’s compliments,” “will you please tell the captain that I will be joining the gentlemen for dinner tomorrow night? I will be wearing my new gown and I would like him to escort me.”
If the cabin boy looked a little surprised, at least he made no comment. When he came back to clear the dishes, he told her that the captain would be delighted to escort her.
Will he indeed? thought Lorraine tartly. Then why did he not come to tell me himself? One would think this was some towering galleon instead of a small craft where he could be at best but a short walk away!
She set about her sewing again with a vengeance, for she must be ready when he came—indeed she had hardly stirred from her task these last three days!
When she had quite finished, when the last stitch was taken and the thread bitten off, she shook out the dress and tried it on at last.
The dress felt right. The full sleeves seemed to be puffed out the same amount on each side, the bodice smooth, the hem even, the neckline . . . Well, it was a bit low, but she had designed it that way. Still, how could she be sure the gown was right from every angle? She wished again for a mirror, but that was something the ship did not possess. Raile scraped his face clean with a razor with the skill that came of long practice; he did not use—or need—a mirror.
Still, when she heard his long step approaching the cabin door, she knew a moment of panic.
Oh, for a mirror!
&nb
sp; He knocked once, then swung open the door and stood transfixed.
Lorraine needed no mirror once she saw the look of approval in his eyes.
“You are bravely gowned indeed,” he murmured, his keen gaze passing over her from head to foot.
Lorraine stood queenly and proud for him to observe her handiwork. She was flushed with pleasure that all her hard work should have turned out so well.
What Raile saw was heartbreakingly lovely—an aristocratic girl dressed for a ball in some manor house, not for dinner on a smuggler’s ship. But if he sighed in his heart for her, he did not show it.
Lorraine knew that the taut blue silk of the bodice emphasized her tantalizingly tiny waist, but she could not realize how dramatically or how elegantly the wide rippling blue silk skirt moved with her slim hips as she swung about to display not only her silvery satin petticoat but the sweeping back of her gown.
Raile took down his coat, and as he dressed, she kept up a running flow of conversation.
“Do you think the dress really becomes me?” she worried.
Raile sighed. It became her far too well.
“It is not too short? The hem is not uneven, the seams skewed?”
“Perfect, I would say.”
“Do you like the way I used the fleur-de-lis on the bodice? I could have used it on the back of the skirt, you know.”
She stood before him, graceful as a swaying flower in her sky-blue gown. Soberly Raile considered her back as he was tucking in his shirt.
“Such a beautiful back needs no decoration,” he said slowly, observing the long shimmering hair which she had let cascade down.
Lorraine felt a little thrill go through her.
“I made these satin rosettes for my shoes out of scraps of material that were left, and decorated them with gold tassels from the pall.” She turned around and lifted her skirts so that he might view her transformed workaday shoes, giving him a glimpse of her slim ankles as well. As he inspected the shoes, she wished fervently that her legs were not encased in much-mended cotton stockings but in elegant silk stockings like Lavinia Todd’s!
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