Swept Away

by Phoebe Conn

  “I’ve just been down at the docks talking with your father. I told him that I’ll supply whatever capital he requires when the War’s over. The shipyard is still in operation, but the Confederate government owes him more money for keeping their ships afloat than they’ve paid and you know as well as I do that he’ll never see it. Like most loyal Southerners, he’s funding the War with his personal fortune and he’ll not be able to recover his losses. While he didn’t leap at the chance to have me as a partner, he didn’t turn me down either. He told me the Sinclairs have been building ships since Colonial times, and I find becoming part of that tradition appeals to me.

  “As for Yadira, I spoke to her before you asked me to send her away. She has a maddeningly superior attitude at times and I had hoped telling her about the baby would make her more sympathetic. Believe me, she’s not prone to gossip and our secret will go no further.”

  Eden preferred Raven’s anger to the arrogance he was displaying now and she felt no less abused. Letting his offer to her father slide for the moment, she concentrated on the baby. “How many others have you told?”

  “I’ve not told anyone else, nor do I intend to.”

  “This whole farce is a mistake, Raven. Neither of us is comfortable with lies, and—”

  “You gave me your word, Eden, and I intend to see that you keep it.”

  Recognizing his mood as an intractable one, Eden simply channeled her anger in another direction. “There are some people who thrive on danger. Most are gamblers and adventurers who don’t feel alive unless something’s at risk. I’m beginning to suspect you’re that kind of man.”

  “That’s possible,” Raven agreed with a slow smile. “The placid life we could lead at Briarcliff has never appealed to me.”

  Briarcliff was associated with too many poignant memories of Alex for Eden to want to talk about it. “No, a quiet country life definitely does not suit you,” she said instead.

  “Going to sea as young as I did spoils a man. There’s only one thing that compares with the constant challenge of sailing.”

  “And what is that?” Eden asked flippantly.

  Raven did not respond with words. Instead he slipped his arms around her waist to draw her near for a kiss he did not end until she had not only relaxed in his embrace, but had begun to cling to him, silently begging for more. At that precise instant he released her. “You were the one I wished to protect when I insisted we marry. Regardless of what your father mistakenly believes, I had no other dark, devious motive. If I have a flaw, it’s that I’m too honest, not that I’m deceitful.”

  “If you have a flaw?” Eden asked sarcastically.

  “You think I have a great many?”

  Eden found it impossible to meet his gaze, and hoping he would not realize how difficult it was for her to respond to that question, she began to unbutton his shirt. “You’re not only bright, Raven, but rich as well, and that gives you a clear advantage over most people. If things don’t go your way, I think you’re capable of taking whatever action necessary to see that they do.”

  As Eden’s fingertips brushed his chest, Raven began to pluck the pins from her hair. While her words were insulting, her actions were so seductive he did not know what to make of her mood now. “Give me an example.”

  His shirt was now unbuttoned, and Eden laid her palms on his chest rather than attempt to move back when she knew he would surely follow. “My father knows he’ll face financial ruin if the South loses the War. So when he questioned your motives, you responded by offering him the money he’ll need to remain in business. That would certainly silence his objections, and it would also make it impossible for me ever to leave you.”

  Scattering her hairpins in a dozen different directions, Raven reached out to grab Eden’s upper arms with enough pressure to lift her clear off her feet. “Is that what you really think, that I want your father in debt to me merely to prevent you from divorcing me? Is that what you and Michael Devane were talking about? Did he beg you leave me and marry him? Well, did he? If I loan your father money, will it put an end to those plans?”

  Raven had again unleashed the violence of his temper, and Eden was more than merely frightened. “Put me down,” she requested with a calm born of stark terror. To her utter amazement, Raven set her down gently, but he did not release his hold on her, nor did his hostile expression soften.

  “I’m not in love with Michael.”

  That was not the answer Raven longed to hear. “He did ask you to leave me, didn’t he?”

  “What are you going to do? Go down to the Southern Knight and beat him senseless for having such childish dreams? Don’t bother, Raven. He understands that I plan to stay with you.”

  “Is it impossible for you to believe that I’d want to help your father simply because he’s your father? Or that any man would be as offended as I am if another man tried to seduce his wife?”

  Eden found it difficult to accept Raven’s assertion of innocence when he continually forced choices upon her she would never make on her own. “You’ve nothing to worry about, Raven. Michael’s talents at seduction do not even begin to compare with yours.”

  That was a challenge Raven could not ignore. While his dark eyes still smoldered with anger, after a moment’s pause his grasp became gentle rather than confining and he began to trail light kisses from her temple to the throbbing pulse in her throat. He retraced that tempting path, straying this time to her earlobe before reaching behind her to unfasten her gown. Eden stood quietly in his arms, fighting him with neither words nor actions, and he continued to lavish tender kisses on her cheeks and throat as he slid her gown off her shoulders. She pulled away for a moment then, but it was only to cast aside the elegant dress, not to escape him.

  There were buttons, hooks, ribbons, and he undid them all to strip her nude and the whole time his lips caressed each tantalizing inch of newly exposed flesh. Finally he dropped to his knees and rubbed his cheek against her stomach, whose smooth flatness still gave no hint of the child growing deep within. Her flawless skin held the delicate fragrance of her perfume, and her body’s own far more enticing scent. When Eden leaned against him and drew him close, he rose and carried her to the bed but this time rather than laying her on it, he sat her on the edge.

  As he again dropped to his knees in front of her, he turned his attentions first to the elegant line of her right leg and then her left. Slender and shapely, her legs were perfect from toe to hip and he spread adoring kisses along them, all the while listening to her breath quicken until it echoed the rapid rhythm of his. He slowed his pace then, savoring the tender flesh of her inner thighs with slow, deep kisses until she could stand no more of his erotic teasing.

  He felt Eden’s hands move over him then, her nails raking his shoulders, her fingers tangling his curls. She wrapped her legs around his neck and pulled him down into the depths of her sweetness, but in driving her mad with desire, Raven had also sent his own passions reeling. The kisses he gave her now were as fevered as his blood, and seared the delicate recesses of her body with a tongue of flame.

  As Eden writhed beneath him, Raven felt her whole body tremble first with the need for release from the unbearably sweet agony of desire, and then with endless waves of ecstatic deliverance. He moved over her then, pulling her up on the bed where he barely had time to free himself from his clothing before he sought his own release embedded deep within her. Her velvet soft center was wet and hot, and enfolded him in convulsive tremors that cost him the last of his sanity. He had never made love to another woman with such untamed abandon but the thrill they had shared was too exquisite to claim as a defeat for either of them.

  Still flooded with her warmth, when at long last Raven could again think rationally, he rolled over on his back and brought Eden atop him where he could hold her in his arms without crushing her with his weight. She was completely relaxed now, languidly draped over his chest, her fair curls spilling over his shoulder, her hands resting lightly on his arms. He
did not want to talk, and was grateful when she fell asleep without murmuring a word of protest at the way he had chosen to make love to her.

  Then with a sudden chill of recognition, Raven recalled there had been no hesitancy in Eden’s gestures. She had not been in the least bit demure or shy, but instead demanding and eager for the intimate kisses that had given them both such intense rapture. A wicked grin graced his lips then, for he had not even suspected Alex would have been that bold with his delicate bride, but obviously the man had taught Eden more than Raven had guessed, and he had taught her well.

  Raven stroked Eden’s curls as he tried to force the image of her lying in Alex’s arms from his mind. To him, his actions had never been devious, but all too painfully obvious. He had fallen in love with his wife, and there was nothing he would not do to keep her. He was not the conniving bastard Eden and her father seemed to see, but merely a lovesick fool who would die for a woman who did not love him, and probably never would.

  When Eden awakened the next morning, the sky was overcast and gray. Raven was seated near the window, his chair tipped back, his foot resting on the sill. While she felt wonderfully rested, he looked as though he had been up all night. He was clad only in a pair of tight-fitting black pants, and the long red trails her nails had cut in his shoulders were clearly visible. She winced when she noticed them.

  Raven glanced toward her then. “There’s another storm brewing. Your father’s gone, but we’ll wait this out before going to Kingston. If the storm’s another bad one, the Jamaican Wind will be better off on the river than in a crowded harbor.”

  He had thoughtfully placed her silk wrapper across the foot of the bed, and Eden donned it before going to him. “I understand. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I’d scratched you so badly last night. Do you have anything to put on those cuts?”

  Raven looked up at her, his stare curiously blank. “Look on the washstand. Yadira makes an herb cream that’s good. It ought to be in a green jar.”

  “Is there anything Yadira doesn’t do well?” Eden asked in an exasperated sigh. Finding the cream exactly where Raven had said it would be, she removed the lid and sampled the aroma. Surprisingly, the thick herbal remedy had a fragrance as light as spring rain. “Well, it smells good at least.”

  Raven was wise enough not to comment on Yadira’s talents and he kept still as Eden began to smooth the cool salve on the deep scratches. Her touch was light now, without the urgency that had caused her to use her nails on him. When she apologized again, he refused to accept it. “Look, it was my own fault, so stop blaming yourself. A scrape or two won’t kill me.”

  “It was most certainly not your fault, Raven.” Eden coated each of the cuts with the salve, then leaned down to kiss his right shoulder, which was still bruised from one of her father’s many blows. When he reached out to catch her wrist and pulled her down on his lap, she did not fight him. It was easier to concentrate on replacing the lid on the jar than on her husband’s face and Eden took her time with the task.

  “Look at me, Eden.”

  He had not combed his hair, nor bothered to shave as yet, but Eden thought him incredibly handsome. She wanted to snuggle against him, to make love slowly, and this time on her terms rather than his. She let neither of those thoughts show in her expression though. “Yes?” she asked sweetly.

  Raven rested his forehead against hers and was silent for a long moment before he finally spoke what was on his mind. “To hear you and your father talk, I’m some hideous spider who’s trying to ensnare everyone in my web. I know you don’t love me, but the very least I expect from you is more loyalty than that.”

  That so astonishingly attractive a man would describe himself as a spider appalled Eden. That he would demand loyalty when in her opinion she had shown him an enormous amount was even more upsetting. But most troubling of all was when they made love, all trace of Alex’s touch was gone from her memory. She responded solely to Raven now, and in ways she had never thought possible. Was that being disloyal to Alex? she wondered fretfully.

  “I have given you my loyalty, and if it doesn’t seem so to you, then I am truly sorry,” she explained hesitantly. “I never gave any thought to why a widow waits a year to remarry, but now I think that custom is a wise one. Had we not gotten married, we’d not have half the problems we do.”

  Raven moaned way back in his throat for her words cut him far more deeply than her nails had. “No,” he denied forcefully. “Marrying you was the most honorable thing I’ve ever done, and even if our lives never run smoothly because of it, I’ll never be sorry.”

  Eden did not want to debate the issue when he seemed so anguished over it. Taking care not to hurt him, she rested her hands lightly on his shoulders and leaned forward to kiss him. Her gesture was both sympathetic and enticing, but Raven did not respond as she had hoped.

  Instead, he tightened his hold on her waist and set her on her feet. “I don’t want to lose myself in you again this morning. Get dressed, and we’ll go downstairs and have breakfast together. Since we can’t leave or tour the plantation, we might as well clean out Alex’s room. That will take us the whole day.”

  While Eden didn’t look forward to that chore, she didn’t argue, and carried Yadira’s salve back to the washstand before going to her room. Once there, she decided to bathe before getting dressed and went outside to the room above the privy to do so. Water was heating on the stove, and not bothering to summon a maid, she poured it into the copper tub herself. She hung her wrapper from one of the hooks on the back of the door, and turned to step into the tub.

  It was not until then that she noticed the small lavender shadows Raven’s impassioned kisses had left on her inner thighs. It seemed each of them had marked the other, but she bore only the pale imprint of his mouth, while he wore bloody cuts from her nails.

  As she sank down into the tub, Eden knew there was a message in that contrast, and while its meaning taunted her, it existed only on the edge of her mind and refused to come clear. She stayed in the tub until the water was too chilly to remain. Then recalling Raven was waiting for her, she got out, dried herself off, tied the silk wrapper tightly around her waist, and hurried back to the house to prepare for the day.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  October 1863

  The storm brought high winds that again left the shore littered with palm fronds and heavy rains that soaked the fields. Although not of hurricane force, it delayed Raven and Eden’s trip to Kingston for a week. They did not count the time lost, however, for Raven’s confident assumption that they could sort through Alex’s effects in a day proved to be woefully inaccurate.

  At first Eden feared they would come across a reminder of Alex’s affair with Yadira, or possibly love letters or tokens of affection from other women he had known, but the room was devoid of any evidence of romantic liaisons. Other than a miniature of Eleanora, there were no mementos of her either. What his bedroom did contain were countless things that called forth a flood of memories for Raven.

  Eden had not been surprised to find he had as perfect recall of incidents that had taken place in his childhood as those that had occurred since she had met him. It took little to catch his interest: a favorite waistcoat Alex had worn until threadbare and then never discarded, a dog-eared volume of poetry, or an unusual piece of jewelry. He would stop working then, take it to her, and with what usually evolved into a colorful tale, explain why Alex had treasured it. She was the perfect audience for him, and deeply grateful, he was willing to share so many of his precious memories. With such distractions frequent, they would often spend more time at the windowseat reminiscing than working to clear the room.

  Occasionally they would look up to find Yadira standing at the door. She would shake her head and wander off, but she made no comment on their project, or the slowness of their pace while completing it. She had soon realized from the reverence with which they handled Alex’s belongings that she need not fear anything he had loved would be thrown away.
She had already known that Raven had idolized his uncle, and assumed Eden listened with such rapt interest as he spoke of him because she adored her handsome husband and would have been content to listen to him talk all day no matter what the subject. Having lost her only love, it saddened Yadira to be around the affectionate couple, and she devoted herself to her other duties as soon as she realized they did not need her help.

  With their days spent in such a loving pastime, no new arguments had sprung up between the newlyweds, nor did they resort to recalling their old ones. At the close of each day, they made love with a touching sweetness rather than a reckless passion, but it was no less pleasurable. When fair weather returned, and Raven announced they would leave the next day for Kingston, Eden hated to see the tranquil week come to an end. Being with Raven was never dull, but she doubted they would have many other opportunities to complete a project with such perfect accord.

  After the blissful calm of the plantation, the boisterous port of Kingston provided Eden with a noisy return to the real world. Bordered on the east by the rugged Blue Mountains, the town had a spectacular natural setting but it was as vulgar and corrupt a place as any in the civilized world. While Raven was eager to show Eden something of the town, he intended to choose those sights with care.

  Eden, however, wanted to go straight to the Fife and Drum to meet Molly McCay. “You haven’t forgotten that I wanted to speak with her, have you? I’m sure if John Rawlings frequented the place, there are others among your crew who do as well. She ought not to learn of John’s death from some careless comment one of them might make.”