These Golden Pleasures

by Valerie Sherwood

  He looked very imposing tonight, she thought, with his black three-button cutaway coat which fit his arrogant shoulders so jauntily. Black trousers encased his narrow hips and long muscular legs and broke slightly over his feet. A frosty expanse of white shirt, a vest and a tall detachable collar that reached to his square jawline completed the ensemble. In his tie was stuck a horseshoe tiepin with a single ruby. Smiling, his green eyes considered her too.

  “You’re looking very fetching tonight,” he murmured, and sweeping off his hat, he bent down to kiss her. “Ah, Roxanne, Roxanne,” he sighed, his voice muffled deep in her piled-up hair, “must you be so set on marriage?”

  If she had had any doubts, as he took her in his arms, they were swept away. Take tonight! her heart cried. Forget your scruples and your fears—take tonight!

  She stirred in his arms. Her voice was dreamy. “Rhodes . . . Rhodes, I want you to take me to the Virginia Lass'’

  He held her off from him in surprise. “Now? Tonight?”

  She nodded, her sapphire eyes burning blue in the gaslight. Her voice was soft and caressing, light as gossamer. “Because it’s your ship, Rhodes. I want to belong to you there.”

  For a moment he gazed into those sapphire eyes for confirmation. It was there in her steady blue gaze.

  He needed no further encouragement. Downstairs and out the front door he swept her, and into his waiting carriage. He shook the reins and wheeled the horse around the corner, and they reached the docks at a gallop. He’s hurrying before I change my mind! thought Roxanne, amused. As if I would! With a luxurious sigh, she leaned her body against him, cuddling into the warm circle of his arm. Her thoughts had a bright glaze, just as the buildings they clattered by seemed to have a glow in the moonlight. This was so right, so right. . . . She loved him, she would not deny him. He was hers by natural right—as she was his; so it would be.

  Roxanne was trembling as she stepped into the little rowboat and saw, at anchor across the glittering dark water, the tall furled sails of the Virginia Lass, riding in the fitful moonlight. She was aware of Rhodes’s compelling gaze, from eyes brilliant yet shadowed in his dark face. As he rowed, his strong muscles rippled beneath his coat, attesting to his powerful physique. When they arrived at the ship, he “ahoyed” the watch and helped Roxanne up the ship’s ladder.

  On deck, she looked about her dreamily. A lovers’ setting, she thought: the creak of the great ship, so eager to be off and away, its tall masts casting their lean shadows across the clean-scoured deck. The salt wind blew tendrils of Roxanne’s fair hair around her face. It was unseasonably warm for February, a false taste of spring to come. Here in the sighing winds, as she listened to the faint creak as the ship rode restlessly at anchor, the voice of her heart was louder than the voice of her conscience, the voice of reason. Her joy fluttered and expanded as the sails would billow when the tall ship took to the sea, and around her the anchored ships were mysterious hulking shapes in the night, spice laden, bound for romantic lands.

  She smiled up at Rhodes, a slow lovely smile, and in silent answer to those hot green eyes that held hers, took out the pins from her hair, letting it cascade around her shoulders in pale moon-washed loveliness. She looked up at him with parted lips, and the midnight sky was no deeper than the depths of her eyes.

  “Roxanne,” he said in a husky voice, and gathered her to him. His lips brushed her ear and her shining hair, wandered over her high arched brows and touched her long silken lashes, caressed her hot cheeks, and found her lips in a long lingering kiss.

  That kiss had in it tenderness and love—the love of a man for his mate. Roxanne felt that tenderness, that yearning reach out to her through the gentleness of his caressing lips, the warmth of his embrace, and she surged toward him with a broken cry, flinging her arms around his neck. Her knees felt weak. Here was the lover she had waited for, here to take and hold her.

  “Rhodes,” she whispered. “Rhodes.”

  “Let’s go to my cabin,” he murmured against the perfume of her hair.

  “Yes. Oh, yes.”

  Snapping out a curt order to the watch, Rhodes swung her up in his arms and smiled down at her. There was a glory in his face tonight, she thought. As if he felt it too, this sweet wild magic that had enveloped them. And she was content to rest in those arms, to feel against her breast the strong rhythmic beat of his powerful heart. She felt the buttons of his coat dig into her soft flesh as with long strides he carried her to his cabin, kicked open the door with his foot and took her inside.

  The cabin was lit only by moonlight. And in her heart she felt she had been carried across a threshold—just like a bride in a trailing white veil. Her breath sobbed in her throat as she felt her body being gently lowered onto his bunk. With a broken sigh she relaxed and let his lips blot out reality as he lowered his body onto her own.

  His hands were moving now . . . caressingly. Along her pulsing white throat, across her tingling bosom. He was unfastening the lacy ruffles at her throat and undoing her bodice. Her trembling hands reached up to help him and he laughed deep in his throat, a triumphant laugh that thrilled her. Now his hands were questing inside her bodice, finding her breasts, which sprang to vibrant life at his touch. She lay there quivering as those strong hands caressed her, aching for him, dreamily expectant of the moment when he would take her and make her his own.

  She sighed and closed her eyes and gave herself up to love.

  Suddenly, there was a noise outside the door and Rhodes’s head went up sharply, to listen. Her own eyes snapped open as she heard running footsteps and a pounding on the cabin door.

  “Mr. Rhodes!” It was Greaves’s voice, sounding excited. “Mr. Rhodes, it’s your father, sir. He’s been taken bad, and the doctor’s been called. Mrs. Hollister said I should find you, sir, and I didn’t know where else to look—”

  With an oath, Rhodes landed on the cabin floor with both feet, fastening his trousers as he did so. “Wait here,” he muttered. “I’ll be back.”

  “No.” Confused and shaken, Roxanne sat up. She did not want to be left on the ship to wait and wonder, They had been so close . . . her heart still beat too fast. Had Greaves waited only a little while, their love would have been consummated and then—then she would have waited for him anywhere. But now she knew this cabin would seem cold without him. “No, I’ll go with you,” she said hastily, her feet finding the floor as she fumbled with her bodice.

  “As you like,” he said tersely. “Hurry.”

  With nervous fingers, embarrassed now, she managed to dress while Rhodes waited impatiently. “You’re dressed,” he said. “Come on.”

  “My hair!” she cried. “I can’t go out with it streaming down like this!”

  “Let it go,” he said impatiently. “You can pin it up on the way home.”

  “Yes, all right,” she said. After all, his father might be dying.

  Greaves was apologetic. He did not seem particularly surprised to see Roxanne. Her face flooded with color as she realized that Greaves—and probably the rest of the staff—already believed her to be Rhodes’s mistress. They got into the small boat in which Greaves had rowed out to the ship.

  “I hope we’re in time, sir,” Greaves said anxiously. “Mrs. Hollister thought we should hurry.”

  “What happened?” demanded Rhodes. “He was all right at dinner.”

  “It happened later, sir. He had these sharp pains around his heart, sir, and he called me and said, ‘Greaves, you’d best get the doctor,’ and clutched his chest. The pain got so bad he could not speak, sir.” Rhodes cursed under his breath. “I hope you went for the doctor first,” he cried, “before you came looking for me?”

  “Oh, yes, sir.” Greaves bobbed his head earnestly. “I brought the doctor to the house myself, and then Mrs. Hollister said I should find you, sir. I asked at one or two of your regular”—he coughed and gave Roxanne an unhappy look—“and they said you might be here, sir,” he added weakly.

  “You did right,
Greaves,” approved Rhodes. “Here, man, give me an oar and we’ll get there faster.” Ashore, they hurried into the carriage that had brought them, while Greaves returned in the horse-drawn hack that he had hired. Roxanne rode beside Rhodes in silence, her heart a shambles. Now she was pressed against him. His arm was thrown carelessly around her and her right breast rested tinglingly against his forearm. Every time the carriage jolted over the uneven street she felt her breast bounce against him, felt the slight pressure as he held her more securely. She was half suffocated with desire—and with something else: anxiety. She was convinced that Joab Coulter was not Rhodes’s father—whether he knew it or not—and somewhere, dimly, she perceived a threat in that: a threat to Rhodes.

  They found the place in turmoil when they arrived. The whole household was up and gaslights burned everywhere, announcing something extraordinary had happened. Mrs. Hollister, pale and distracted, met them at the door.

  “Doctor’s with him,” she reported, and then her voice broke. “Oh, Mr. Rhodes!”

  “There, there, Holly.” Rhodes patted the housekeeper’s plump shoulders and the little woman collapsed against him. “He’s a stout fellow; no need to cry over him yet.”

  She gave him a look of such trust and confidence that Roxanne was moved. Then Mrs. Hollister stepped back, dabbing at her eyes. “You’ll want to go in to see him,” she said more calmly. “Mr. Gavin’s there.”

  Rhodes said sharply, “Gavin’s back?”

  “Yes, sir. He arrived right after you left.”

  Rhodes’s eyes narrowed.

  As if hearing his name mentioned, Gavin came out of the room. He looked tall and very elegant. His arrogant gait was arrested and his eyes widened as he saw Roxanne standing close beside Rhodes, her ruffled collar askew, her blouse unevenly buttoned, her hair in disarray and long blond streamers of it cascading down the shoulders of her blue suit. Startled comprehension flooded his face, and Roxanne’s own face turned a guilty scarlet that he should see her this way. She wanted to run upstairs, but she also wanted very much to know if Rhodes’s father was going to die. If he died, it could make a difference, overturn everything. Rhodes would be his own man then. He would be free to marry her, if he chose. For she knew that Joab Coulter would consider Rhodes’s wild life climaxed in shame if he married one of the housemaids, and that he would disinherit him without a qualm.

  So she stood, disheveled but reluctant to move, while Rhodes strode into the big bedroom and shut the door behind him. Greaves motioned to Mrs. Hollister that he wished to speak with her, and the housekeeper accompanied him into the long dining room and shut the door.

  That left Gavin alone with Roxanne in the front hall.

  “How—how is he?” she asked.

  “Well enough,” said Gavin. “He’ll survive. But it gave us all a bad scare. Angina pectoris, the doctor says; he must keep out of the cold winter winds.”

  She gave a sigh of relief. Whatever she’d been thinking, she didn’t want the man who called himself Rhodes’s father to die.

  Now Gavin advanced upon her, his eyes narrowing. Roxanne stood her ground defiantly. She belonged to Rhodes; Gavin might as well face it.

  “I might have known,” he murmured heavily, looking down at her with angry eyes. “Rhodes. . .

  She lifted her chin.

  A smile twisted his saturnine features. “Rhodes is a ladies’ man,” he mused in a low contemptuous tone. “I always have company matters to keep me occupied. What chance have I to compete against him?” She flinched as Gavin reached out and gently fingered a golden strand of her hair. “I hoped to waken that look in your eyes myself, Roxanne,” he murmured sadly. “I am away too much, though I thought your prim self-righteousness would make you proof against him. But I see I was wrong—you’ve been able to forgive my brother his little indiscretions.”

  Some warning bell tolled within her.

  “What . . . indiscretions?”

  His dark brows elevated. “Why, poor Mary Bridey, of course.”

  "Mary Bridey?” she whispered incredulously.

  “Of course,” he said. “I found the poor girl a place to stay because Rhodes had left her in the lurch. But Mary Bridey was Rhodes’s paramour, not mine. I thought you knew that by now.”

  She felt as if she’d been slammed into a stone wall. Rhodes ... it was Rhodes who’d seduced Mary Bridey, who’d gotten her in the family way and let her have her baby alone, let her die alone. . . . She remembered that Mary Bridey had never actually named the father; they’d always delicately said he. But Mary Bridey had said wistfully, “And he’s back now, isn’t he?” She hadn’t meant Gavin back from Boston— she’d meant Rhodes back from the seven seas! It was so plain, and it struck Roxanne with such force that she swayed. But when Gavin reached out to catch her, fearing she might fall, she brushed away his hand and stared at him, stunned.

  “I’ve upset you,” he muttered. “Come with me into the dining room, Roxanne. That door could open, and my father mustn’t hear what I’ve got to say.”

  Mechanically her feet carried her into the dining room. Her world seemed slanted, crooked, the pieces of her life slipping crazily this way and that. It couldn’t be true, she told herself wildly, that Rhodes—Rhodes, who was everything to her—had callously seduced and then deserted that sweet little Irish girl. Why, he was—he was directly responsible for Mary Bridey’s death!

  She was dimly aware that they were in the dining room now, that she was leaning against the hard edge of the table and Gavin was speaking.

  “Get hold of yourself, Roxanne,” he said in a concerned voice. “I wouldn’t have broken it to you like this. I thought you knew. Everyone else does. Do you want some brandy?”

  She shook her head numbly.

  “When I saw you standing there looking rumpled, it came over me: Now he’s gotten her too. . . .”

  She flinched, her mind in turmoil. “I’m not his mistress, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she choked. “We haven’t—I’ve never—” she floundered and broke off before the light that flared up in his eyes. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, “for the way I’ve treated you. I thought—”

  “Ah, I’m well aware what you thought. It isn’t the first time I’ve let people think ill of me on my brother’s behalf. But you . . .” There was a bittersweet note in his voice now. “I wanted you to think better of me than that, Roxanne.”

  She stared at him, her heart only half-accepting what he was saying. “Your brother should take the consequences for his own deeds,” she said bitterly.

  “Like enough you’re right,” he said indifferently. “But I’m older, and Rhodes—well, in some ways he’s more like a son to me than a brother. I’ve always felt responsible for him. And since my father insists on regarding Rhodes as the devil himself, I try to shield Father from knowledge of certain—ah—transgressions.”

  “That’s very decent of you, Gavin,” Roxanne said, her blue eyes dark and unhappy.

  He looked troubled. “I’ve talked rather freely to you, Roxanne. I wouldn’t want this to go any further. No—” He held up his hand sternly at her indignation. “No, let’s not worry about my reputation. It is what it is. But if Rhodes crosses my father one more time with his merry ways . . .”

  “What then?” she asked alertly.

  “Even I wouldn’t be able to shield him,” he sighed. “Father will disown him. I wouldn’t want that to happen, Roxanne.”

  She subsided, biting her lip. “Your father is right about him!” she said reluctantly. “Rhodes is a devil!”

  The smile that broke over his face was like sunshine. “I suppose I wanted to hear you say that,” he admitted.

  “The truth should always be known,” cried Roxanne, and caught herself up short. Wasn’t she too living a lie? And didn’t Rhodes have the power to bring her house down at any time? Ah, but she had harmed no one, she told herself. She’d merely taken a ticket and a letter the owner would no longer be needing, and assumed another woman’s identity fo
r no evil purpose. But poor Mary Bridey . . .

  She seethed inwardly, hands clenched. She could hardly wait to accuse Rhodes!

  “Say nothing to Rhodes,” warned Gavin sternly, guessing her intention. “You’ll only bring out his nasty side. It won’t change anything, but he’ll be angry that I told you. He’ll storm about and make a loud scene—oh, you’ve never seen him that way; he’s putting his best foot forward now. But a stormy scene right now could kill my father.”

  “I’ll wait till he’s away from the house!” cried Roxanne.

  “No, he’ll only come looking for me and the result will be the same. Promise me, Roxanne!”

  Her face was haggard. She wavered.

  “Promise!” he repeated sternly.

  “All right, I promise!” she cried hoarsely and flung away from him.

  He stood and watched her go, a melancholy half smile upon his face.

  Upstairs she threw herself down on her narrow bed and wept ... for Rhodes, for young love, for all that could never be.

  And then she sat up and dried her eyes and stared into the dark, hugging her arms around her, and a coldness such as she had never known closed around her heart.

  After a while she heard Rhodes’s step on the stair, heard his soft knock, and when she didn’t answer, his insistent “Roxanne.”

  “Go away,” she said harshly.

  He hesitated, and then after a moment she heard his retreating footsteps.

  She lay there, shivering, wanting him, staring into the dark, and all the while that icy cold feeling gripped her heart.

  Chapter 13

  The next morning Roxanne, tired and heavy-eyed, brushed by Rhodes as if she did not see him. He frowned.

  “Roxanne, I had to return last night!” he cried. “My father could have been dying!”