Elusive Flame

by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

  “I begged him not to tell you,” Cerynise mumbled into the cup as he pressed it back insistently to her lips.

  “Drink!”

  “Oh, Beau…I can’t! Not any more!”

  “I said drink!”

  “’Twill only come up.”

  “Not this time. Trust me.”

  “Only a little,” she groaned in petulant tones, but he refused to take away the cup until she had drained it down to the last drop.

  Despite her attempt to fall back upon the bed again, he drew her to her feet, braced her upright with his own body as he wrapped a blanket around her, and then swept her up into his arms. Kicking the door aside, he strode from the cabin, bearing her toward the companionway.

  Cerynise cast an apprehensive glance over her shoulder and saw the stairs looming before them. “Please, Beau,” she whimpered, hating how frail and helpless she sounded. “I don’t want to go up on deck where your men can see me.”

  “You need fresh air, madam. ’Twill help you feel better. Besides, after the way Billy came racing up to me in an anxious dither, my men will probably be expecting to see a funeral at sea.”

  “That will come,” she assured him ruefully. “As soon as you finish me off with all that cold air you’re insisting upon!”

  Beau smiled down at her but never broke his stride. His long legs closed the distance to the companionway in short order as he murmured, “I’ll keep you warm.”

  The short twilight of autumn had already deepened into a dark gloom, but the moon, shining overhead, poured a silver ribbon across the water. Chilled breezes wafted across the deck, making Cerynise catch her breath, but they did nothing to bring her relief from her anguish.

  “If you don’t put me down, you’re going to regret it,” she warned.

  Beau complied only when he reached the nearest bulkhead and lowered her to it. Cerynise had little strength to hold herself upright and sank forward against him, leaning her brow against his neck and nestling her head against his shoulder. Had she been feeling better, she might have enjoyed his arms holding her close against him, but under the circumstances, she could only dread what might happen.

  “Please, Beau,” she breathed against his neck. “I feel as if I’m going to be sick again. I’d like to return to my cabin. At least there, I won’t embarrass myself.”

  “Staying down there will only make it worse, Cerynise.”

  “But this isn’t making it any better,” she argued.

  He turned her away from him, braced her slender form with his body and held her secure with an arm wrapped about her midriff as he pointed out to sea. “Look out over the top of the railing.”

  “Nooo,” she moaned, and rolled her head in anguish. Was the man so merciless? Absolutely the last thing she needed to do was look at the water!

  “Not at the waves,” he whispered against her hair. “Look at the horizon. There’s enough moonlight for you to see it, so fix your gaze there.”

  Cerynise squinted in an effort to see the faint dark line between sea and sky. After focusing her gaze upon it, it took several moments before she became aware of its stability. “It isn’t moving.”

  “Well, actually it is,” Beau replied with a soft chuckle. “The earth is turning, but you needn’t worry about that. As far as you’re concerned, it isn’t moving.”

  Glancing up at him, she sighed wistfully. “I wish I weren’t moving.”

  He smiled down at her. “Don’t look away from the horizon, Cerynise. Just keep your eyes fixed on the line, and keep breathing in the cool, clean air.”

  Cerynise obeyed, for the moment satisfied to lean back within his encompassing arms. Time slipped past, but she was hardly aware of anything beyond the sheltering comfort of his large body. By slow degrees she became cognizant of the fact that she was beginning to feel better. Drawing in a long, slow breath, she released it again in a pleasurable sigh. “I do believe I’m going to live.”

  Beau laughed and folded the blanket up close around her neck. “Warm enough?”

  She nodded, snuggling back against him. “Quite comfortable now.”

  The seasickness that had plagued her since the Audacious sailed from the Thames into the open sea was swiftly disappearing. But in its place was an exhaustion more profound than any she had ever known.

  Her head found a niche between her husband’s neck and shoulder and, with a sigh, she closed her eyes. By slow degrees her breathing slowed.

  Beau didn’t dare move. He was content to hold his young wife in his arms as the night deepened into a silky blackness studded with a myriad of stars. During her lengthy reclusion, he had been plagued by a nagging suspicion that something was not quite right in his life, a feeling that was, at the very least, unsettling. He had had to face the realization that he missed not being with the girl. Certainly those lively little wenches whom he had visited in the past had not been able to claim his mind longer than his departure from their doors. Yet day and night he had thought of Cerynise until he had been brought sharply to the awareness that he desired her company far more than the usual palette of women with whom he had been intimate.

  The ship bucked at the contrary winds and, beneath the surface of the water, battled the Gulf Stream currents. Early in his sailing career, Beau had become cognizant of the fact that sailing westward was known as the uphill passage across the Atlantic. A downhill crossing could be accomplished in little over a month with prevailing winds blowing from west to east. But on the return leg, it could take as much as three months. Although that was hardly an appropriate length of time for a normal courtship, perhaps it would be enough for him to settle his mind on just what kind of commitments he wanted to make to this young beauty he held so closely within his arms.

  When the watch changed, Beau carried Cerynise back to her cabin. She didn’t rouse as he laid her in the bunk, and he could detect no evidence of continuing sickness. He pulled off her robe and briefly admired her loosely flowing nightgown with its rounded neck trimmed with a wide ruffle of handmade lace. He dared not linger beyond the simple task of tucking her beneath the covers. If the experience of their wedding day had taught him anything, he would do well to limit such ministrations to nothing more than a brotherly concern.

  “Don’t move,” Cerynise bade, focusing intently on the lines that she was swiftly applying to the nearly completed sketch of Billy Todd. “I’ll be finished in a moment.”

  Anxious to see what she had drawn, the lad squirmed in mounting suspense.

  “Hold still now,” she implored.

  Curbing his curiosity, Billy managed to comply long enough for her to complete the drawing. But then, with such a view for him to look at, it was hardly any task at all. The lady had returned to her former health and beauty in a matter of days, and since then had been completely absorbed in something that had kindled the attention of nearly everyone aboard the Audacious. To say that she was talented would have been putting it mildly by an extreme measure.

  “Done,” Cerynise declared in satisfaction, and finally turned the parchment around to let Billy see the results.

  His eyes widened in growing amazement as he perused the results. “Would ye look at that, mum? That’s me!”

  “Or at least a reasonable likeness,” Cerynise replied with an effervescent laugh. She studied the portrait with a fair amount of satisfaction, pleased that she had been able to catch the lad poised somewhere between childhood and maturity. There was still a telltale hint of softness in his cheeks and mouth, but the eyes were clear and steady. The chin was firm and hinted of strength to come.

  “Do I really look like that?” he asked with a sheepish grin.

  “Aye,” Stephen Oaks confirmed, halting close behind the cabin boy’s shoulder. “But it’s not your winsome face she’s caught, lad,” he teased. “She’s captured your nature right on the mark.”

  “Thank you, kind sir,” Cerynise said, laughing as she dipped her head in an impromptu curtsy. “No artist could ask for higher praise.”
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br />   “You wouldn’t be in the mood to sketch another one, would you, ma’am?” Stephen inquired hopefully.

  “I think I can be persuaded.” Cerynise reached for a fresh piece of parchment and, with a graceful sweep of her hand, motioned for the mate to sit down in front of her. The site she chose for him afforded her a view not only of her subject but also of the horizon, toward which she continued to glance from time to time. Even after more than two weeks of fine health, she still refused to take anything for granted. Feeling well had certainly buoyed her spirits and changed her attitude toward sailing. She was fairly confident now that she could survive another voyage, but right now she was going home. Home! For so long now the Carolinas had been little more than a distant memory. Yet circumstances had changed, and with each passing moment she was drawing closer to all the things she had remembered and cherished over the last few years. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder what awaited her there.

  Since regaining her health and falling into a daily routine aboard ship, Cerynise had returned to her art and soon found herself sketching the seamen and their life aboard the Audacious. Most of her work she gave away, keeping only a few for herself, among them the ones she labored on in the privacy of the mate’s cabin. She was beginning to suspect that she had the largest collection of drawings of Beau Birmingham in existence and, with each passing day, she was adding to it.

  The afternoon watch came on deck before she finished Stephen Oaks’s sketch and handed it to him with a smile. “A handsome man you are, Mr. Oaks.”

  “Well, I’m not sure about that, ma’am, but this drawing is a fine one,” he assured her with a pleased grin. “Why, I bet the fancy folk of Charleston would pay a pretty sum for you to do this sort of thing for them.”

  Cerynise tossed her head upward with an amused chuckle. “I fear the contrary will be true, Mr. Oaks. People seem to look dimly upon a woman painting portraits, perhaps because all the great masters have been men. I’m sure the people in Charleston will be just as skeptical as those in England.”

  “Then ’twill be their loss, ma’am, not yours.”

  “Thank you,” she replied cheerily, accompanying her words with another pert dip of her head.

  Becoming aware of a presence looming over her, Cerynise marveled at the tingling rush of excitement that affirmed Beau’s presence even before she glanced around to find him standing close behind her, studying the sketch of the mate. He had come upon them unawares, unnerving her with his penchant for appearing without a sound from almost out of nowhere. She doubted that it was a propensity he consciously strove to maintain, for there were times when she was able to catch some warning of his approach and could fortify herself against the trembling that would then beset her. Today she found herself decidedly disarmed and equally aghast at her own fluttering response. She was sure if he ever became mindful of her reaction, he’d be wont to think her unchanged from that little girl whose heart had always leapt with joy whenever she had espied him coming down the narrow lane toward their house and the nearby school. To think that he’d perhaps be wont to dismiss such weaknesses as something only a silly youngling might suffer made her cautious about revealing her strangely chaotic emotions. The inhibiting constraints she suffered in his presence only served to remind her that thus far he had made no promises to keep her as his wife upon their arrival in Charleston.

  “I really don’t understand how someone so large can move around so quietly,” she scolded, as if he might have startled her.

  Beau gave her a slow grin that did strange things to her pulse, for it started leaping like frogs cavorting on lily pads. “I’ll endeavor to give you more warning, madam,” he replied. “Will tripping clumsily over my own feet be enough?”

  Gaining no answer, Beau stepped around to look at her drawings, which she had spread out alongside of her on the deck and had weighted down against the whipping of the wind. He was ever amazed by the realism of the likenesses she portrayed, for he readily recognized each face she had drawn.

  When Cerynise glanced up, she was surprised to find him so close. Indeed, she could see the pulse beating steadily at the base of his throat where his shirt fell open. If only she could remain equally unaffected, she thought. She closed her eyes for a moment against the sudden whirling of her senses. When she opened them again, she nearly stumbled backward in surprise as she found Beau leaning over her, reaching for the cloak that had fallen from her shoulders. She felt his chest brush her sleeve and peered aslant into the opening as his shirt fell away from his chest. All too keenly she recalled his hand leading hers in a leisurely caress of that tautly muscled expanse and to what it had quickly led them.

  Beau straightened and became momentarily engrossed in spreading the cloak around her shoulders and fastening the silken frogs beneath the hood. “You shouldn’t be out here without your wrap, madam,” he admonished softly. “I wouldn’t want you to come down sick again.”

  “I won’t,” she whispered, lifting her eyes to the ones that slid slowly upward from her throat. When his gaze paused on her lips, she had the strangest sensation that he was going to kiss her, but she quickly dismissed that notion as some fantasy of her own and rebuked herself for having such faulty illusions. Still, when those green orbs captured hers, she found the simple act of breathing normally had become an impossibility.

  “I’d be honored, madam, if you would dine with me this evening,” Beau murmured, smoothing the hood of her cloak around her shoulders.

  Sudden visions of them lying naked in his bunk came unbidden to her mind, halting her breath with the ecstasy that always came with that apparition. She could only assume from the way she came undone whenever he was near, that such a simple invitation as dining with him might well lead her into nine months of seclusion without a name to give their offspring. Since the onset of the voyage, she hadn’t dared a return to the captain’s cabin for fear of that happening.

  “Mr. Oaks will also be dining with us,” Beau added, seeking to ease the qualms she was apparently suffering.

  “Oh.”

  A raven brow lifted wonderingly as Beau perused his wife’s face. He could almost swear that he had heard a note of disappointment in her voice. He pressed a hand to his chest, solemnly promising, “I shall seek to garb myself more appropriately for the occasion, madam.”

  Cerynise accepted his statement as an invitation for her to gown herself with equal care. Dipping into a winsome curtsy, she tossed him a coquettish smile. “I shall attempt to do the same, Captain.”

  A silver-blue taffeta seemed the best choice for the evening, Cerynise decided after careful consideration. The bouffant sleeves and ankle-length hem were well in fashion, certainly as much as the demure baring of her shoulders. She wore no adornment on her throat, for the garment needed none. A draped sash of more brilliant blue swept upward from the right side of her waist to her left sleeve, where it was gathered in a flamboyant bow. Her hair was pulled back smoothly from her face, and from behind each ear, narrow ribbons of the brighter blue dangled prettily, adorning the small clusters of springy curls that bobbed there. The remaining tresses she had intricately woven in a weighty mass above her nape. The fact that she had spent over an hour fashioning the coiffure attested to her desire to win her husband’s approval.

  Beau swung open his cabin door at the first light rap of her knuckles, and for a moment he stood before the opening, drinking in her beauty in silent appreciation. Cerynise accepted his slow, exacting scrutiny as an unspoken compliment, for the warmth of those emerald eyes had intensified significantly by the time they arrived at the smooth crown of her head. He seemed to enjoy taking his own sweet time perusing her, for he gave her a slow grin that was no less than hypnotic.

  No doubt her own expression revealed a deep appreciation of the sight that greeted her, for Cerynise was once more struck by his penchant for garbing himself in fashionable garb. Crisply tailored buff trousers defined her husband’s narrow hips superbly, while a tan waistcoat and a dark green swal
lowtail coat complemented his wide shoulders and lean waist. The high folded collar of the coat was set off to perfection by a creamy silk cravat, which had been neatly addressed prior to her entry.

  “Too bad Mr. Oaks is coming,” Beau remarked with a wayward grin that had turned a bit roguish. Taking her hand, he drew her into his lair and swung the door closed behind her, leaning near to whisper, “You look sweet enough to have for dinner.”

  His suggestive talk brought a blush of pleasure to Cerynise’s cheeks and hastened the chaotic beating of her heart. Breathlessly aware of his encroaching nearness, she stood rooted in suspenseful alertness as he seemed to mold his long form against her slender back. She could feel his warm breath caressing her ear and his eyes devouring her. His fingers lightly brushed a bare shoulder, quickening her pulse.

  “Lest you be confused by my recent efforts to avoid your cabin, madam,” he breathed, nuzzling her hair, “I haven’t stopped wanting you. The distance between us merely forestalls the possibility of rape.”

  Cerynise briefly considered the probability of his excuse being nothing more than a wily ploy, for she deemed it totally out of character for the man to evade any meeting with her that might have ended in his desires being placated. Despite the overwhelming and equally titillating evidence of his unswerving dedication to seducing her, she banished her suspicions, but only because she wanted to enjoy the evening with him without a quarrel arising between them. The presence of their chaperon guaranteed that nothing inappropriate would happen between them.

  Cerynise braced herself against the sizzling assault on her senses as Beau’s hand ventured slowly upward from her slender waist, but she could not subdue a soft fluttering gasp when his palm settled warmly around a breast. Indeed, the fires he lit as his thumb slowly strummed across a pliant nipple came nigh to stripping away her will. Of a sudden, it seemed a pulsing flame licked across the pinnacle, igniting a burning hunger within her womanly loins and setting her whole body ablaze with ravenous yearnings. She told herself that she should turn tail and run to the safety of her quarters before his hand moved on to other conquests, but her legs felt leaden and refused to obey her feeble command.