To admit her own secret, to say the shame of not being able to bear children aloud was like saying she wasn’t a woman.
She wanted Nicholas. How she dared to dream. Yet the vagaries of life were as wide as they were severe, leaving her with no choices. Like continents they were, undiscovered, and sitting apart, with oceans of uncertainty between them.
His kiss was the kiss to end all kisses, but never could she cross that line again. Yet how could she stop from falling desperately in love with him?
He had fired a latent primitive force inside her, making her yearn for what was forbidden. Her longings were a young girl’s fantasies, a fool’s dream, causing a choking bitterness to rise, for the very thing she wanted the most and could not have—Nicholas. He need only to look at her—really look at her, to let his eyes fall on hers, deeply blue and penetrating, to see her soul laid bare.
The wind blew, flipping the pages of the diary, touting the unfortunate lives of Captain Sharp and Lady Jane. Alexandra’s heart ached for the sea captain and his lover, their bond wider than the plains of England. If they were ever to get off this island, she’d give the diary to Lady Jane.
Her hands worked quickly weaving the fronds, in and out, up and down, over and back. Parrots chattered in the treetops and she lifted her head. Two of them perched side by side, one leaning into the other for support, their bright colors gleaming in the sun. She smoothed a hand over her weaving and sighed. How their lives were entwined, she and Nicholas so like Captain Sharp and Lady Jane, a mirror image of their own difficulties.
She dropped the hat and picked up the journal, loosened the straps that bound it together and flipped open the corroded metal latch. A tightness in her chest held her rigid, held her in suspense. The book spine was worn from the binder. She held it up to the sun and a sliver of light protruded. A paper was stuffed in the tiny space. With care, she grasped the end of a parchment and pulled.
Her mouth went dry. A treasure map? Had Captain Sharp hid a map in the spine? With trembling fingers, she unfolded the paper.
“If anyone should read this diary, please give it to Lady Jane Dabney of London, England and tell her that I will always Treasure her in these terms, Lovely, Only, Valuable and Enthralling and that all the riches of my heart I hold for her, are on this island.”
How strange. No map and the sentence was not like the prose written on the former pages. Disjointed. She had to find Nicholas.
Prohibited to see what he was working on, she strode through the gardens to the tree line. His dark head was bent over an odd bamboo contraption, his calloused hands, fitting and gluing segments together.
When her shadow crossed his, he looked up and beamed. “You were not supposed to come until I called you, but since you ae here, what do you think?”
“What is it?”
Before she could protest, he grabbed the book from her hand and placed it on a stump. “Come,” he ordered, impulsively grabbing her hand. They ran along the path, following a line of bamboo. She was breathless when he stopped at the river.
“Let me demonstrate.” He tilted a bamboo segment to catch the descending waters. Water gurgled and gushed down the bamboo pipes. He grabbed her hand again, racing with the flow, and ending up where they had started, a clear stream of water pouring from the end piece.
Her laughter bubbled over and she clapped her hands. “You are absolutely wonderful.”
Shoulders back, chin–up, he exaggerated the puffed-up arrogance of an academic, and waved a hand over his invention. “Channeling water down a bamboo tube from the river to the house will solve the many hours of backbreaking hauling. Our plants can be watered and washing can be done at the house with minimal effort.”
She picked up the frayed hems of her shift and curtseyed her approval. “I am in the august company of a scientific genius.”
He leaned into her and for one frightening moment she thought he was going to kiss her again. She skirted away and said, “Nicholas I’ve something important to tell you. I have made a discovery. I believe Captain Sharp’s treasure is here. She presented him with the note tucked in the spine. Nicholas sat on the stump.
She read the phrase aloud over his shoulder. “Note how Captain Sharp capitalizes the first initials of Lovely, Only, Valuable and Enthralling. He even goes so far and to run his pen over the letters twice to give accent. In case the diary fell into Lady Jane’s hands, he wanted to make her aware.”
Nicholas nodded. “Definitely code. The T is capitalized in treasure to draw the eye. Well done, Alexandra except what does the emphasis on the other letters mean?”
“LOVE. I believe the set of initials represents a code for something else. We must convert the letters and discover Captain Sharp’s intended meaning. L could stand for anything as well as O, V, and E. Think Nicholas, what on this island would be characteristic to serve as symbols?”
Nicholas shrugged. “L might stand for London Tower.”
She smacked an insect on her thigh and slanted him a knowing look. “We are not in England. We must think of the secret meaning and how it relates to our present environment. Lookout or lake come to mind except there is no lake.”
She tapped her finger on her lip. “You are not helping much. You can step in with an idea anytime you want.”
Nicholas ran his fingers through his dark hair. “Captain Sharp did mention lagoon in his writings. “O” could be for oranges but more likely ocean which won’t help us much because we are surrounded by the ocean and that is a big area to narrow down.”
Alexandra walked around him. “V means what?”
“I can’t think of a thing. ‘E’ could stand for escarpment. We have explored that part at the island’s summit.”
“Brilliant logic, Nicholas.”
He stood and walked to the house.
Alexandra hurried after him. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to fill the gourds with water. If we are to hunt treasure, we will need hydration.”
Chapter 13
Nicholas readjusted the gourds slung over his shoulder. “We are on a fool’s errand, governed by the ravings of a man gone mad in his isolation.”
Alexandra leaned on a gumbo limbo to catch her breath. “I think you are frustrated. Let’s go to the summit again. Maybe we can glean an idea standing on the escarpment.”
“No. It is a stupid idea. I’m not going to try one more insane notion doomed from the start.” He reached in his sack, pulled out a piece of smoked pork and ripped it with his teeth.
“Clearly, I have overstepped my bounds,” she said, unapologetic and undaunted by his anger.
“For days, we have traversed the island looking for treasure, coming up with nothing. Clearly, you have been wrong about a treasure.”
She brought up her chin. “Being right all the time must be a burden.”
“You have dragged me to the north, south, west and east on this island with no results.” He turned her toward the cottage. “I want rum.”
She stopped dead in her tracks. “I refuse to listen to your cantankerous outbursts. We will keep looking.”
He propelled her onto the path again.
“And I refuse to be bullied, Lord Rutland.”
How he hated her sarcastic inflection when she resorted to calling him, Lord Rutland.
As the smoked pork took the edge off his appetite, he felt himself afflicted with hunger of another sort. The curves of her lovely derriere rendered nicely by the fall of her shift, presented a delectable picture. Ever since he kissed her, he had been unable to deal with the sweetness of her lips and the tightening in his loins. He was ready to upend trees and toss them into the ocean.
A cold edge cracked in his voice. “Alexandra, I’m sick to death of your common platitudes. You lived with coarse, unrefined commoners all your life and you have become one.”
Her eyes flashed, dipping to the pork he chewed. “I’m sorry, I’m not a refined, polished, sophisticated aristocrat. Hail the pitiful, Lord Rutland,
caught in his superiority and trapped in his arrogance.” She stabbed a finger in his chest. “What an ungrateful creature you are. I am the one that saved your miserable life. I’m the one who has taught you how to survive.”
He towered over her. She was the most beautiful, enraged angel of retribution, her chest rising and falling with fury as she confronted him. Suddenly, she pivoted and ran.
Nicholas raked his fingers through his hair. What an ass he’d been. He had deliberately picked a fight, taking his anger out on her for being stuck on this God-forsaken patch of earth. He called for her. No answer.
He threw a few punches into a tree, and then laughed aloud. That wasn’t the entire reason. Every night he resisted the urge to pull back her quilt and gaze at her slender white body. Every night he’d suppressed the almost overpowering desire to take her in his arms and let go inside of her.
He pushed through the undergrowth.
At times, Nicholas could feel her watching him and he’d look up. She’d cast him a modest sidelong glance, a morsel to tempt him, to leave him panting like a hound of summer on the scent of deer.
Blast it, where had she gone? She was a thorn in his side. He crisscrossed the lagoon, river and cottage. Nowhere. Another part nagged him. Every time he got close, she skittered away, made-up excuses. She was hiding something. He slapped several palmetto branches away. With all the time they spent together, why didn’t she trust him?
For the same reason, he hadn’t told her about Lady Susannah Tomkins. Alexandra deserved the truth.
He made his way down to the shoreline. When she didn’t answer his shouts, his apprehension gave way to alarm. Had she fallen? Was she hurt? Unable to answer? A nauseating wave hit his stomach.
Hopping over fallen trees, he pushed through palmettoes and thick undergrowth to get to the beach. Sweat poured down his back. He stopped to catch his breath, wiped the moisture from his head and blinked. Footprints. Her footprints. He followed her trail up to a rocky cliff. Of course, her favorite place to watch the sea.
Soberly, Nicholas looked at Alexandra, sitting beneath a bright green sea grape tree. Sea lavender rippling around her knees, the land sloped upward behind her. The thong holding her braid had been torn, and her hair hung wild about her shoulders and down her back. The sun, shining through the leaves, caught the gold in bits and pieces, exposing her as the siren she really was.
“Will you come down?” he asked in a more pleasant tone.
“What for?”
He couldn’t think of a thing. A moment later he blurted, “I want you to go for a walk with me.”
“You will have to do better than that,” she sniffed.
“I want you to go for a walk with me, and…I’m sorry.”
“What’s the second part?”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s more than that. I’m not common. I’m tremendously exceptional.”
“You are exceptional. Now come down from there and go for a walk with me.”
She stared at his proffered hand and dammed if she didn’t look down her nose at him like a queen, acknowledging an undesirable serf. “I’m a brute, Alexandra. I blamed you for my misfortunes.”
“I know.”
The woman had uncanny discernment, always divining his moods.
“I find myself with no purpose here. So it’s hard to shake off the intentions of my life at home where my day’s brim with helping tenants, buying horses. The island makes my time filled with not-doing. And then, there is the looming threat the island will become my sepulcher.”
Alexandra dropped his hand and faced him. “Not doing? Since we have been incredibly busy with the purpose of trying to survive a kidnapping, potential slavery, farming, hunting, fishing, hauling water, curing our food, and surviving the elements. Our lives have been chaotic. But sometimes chaos is the very thing that deliberately shakes up our neatly ordered world to get us out of our neatly ordered ruts that keep us stuck.”
Nicholas blew out a breath. She had the ability to lash him with common wisdom.
“Is it also the helplessness of not getting off the island and the vengeance you seek?”
She cut him a sharp look that dared him to argue with her. He gritted his teeth. “Yes. Now do you forgive me?”
“I have similar emotions since I would do anything to avenge the wrongs done to me by my stepmother, and seek justice for Molly’s death.” Alexandra picked up stones and pitched them into the sea. “You know I forgive you.”
His melancholy started to evaporate as he watched a half-dozen sandpipers skitter up the beach, his foul mood of the morning fading like the darkness before the dawn. “Alexandra, what do you want?”
She gave a half-hearted shrug, intent on pitching stones in the surf. “You’d think I was silly.”
“Nothing about you is silly,” he challenged.
Silence as thick as wet sand oozed between them. Alexandra pitched stones into the sea with greater rapidity.
“When I was a girl, I saw a lady get married in a neighboring village. She had a beautiful bridal gown, so regal and fine, and roses and lilies in her bouquet. There was a pretty coach pulled by two dancing white horses. To have a fairy tale wedding.” A wistful expression of longing covered her lovely face.
“Why?” He had always loathed such affairs as nothing but pomp and circumstance. Yet he hated the despair etched in her voice when all he wanted to do was pull her into his arms and soothe her. Hands at his sides, he stood, patiently listening while watching her eyes gloss over with moisture. To speak could break the fragile hold she had on her emotions.
She shrugged. “I suppose it is every girl’s dream but mine is more important.”
“Why is that?”
She stopped throwing stones, dropping them one by one to the ground. “Remember the Cornett sisters? My name is smeared. Just for once, I’d like to be someone special.”
His hands fisted with anger at what had happened to her in her village. To be an outcast. He’d do anything to eradicate the cruel ghosts of her past.
“There is something I want more than anything else in the world.”
She continued to surprise him. Just when he thought he knew all there was to know, she revealed another layer yet to be peeled away. What else had happened beyond the guilt she suffered from the loss of her surrogate mother, Molly?
“So many words get lost. They stay in my throat and lose their courage, wandering aimlessly until they are swept away like dead seaweed on an outgoing tide. I wish to ignore it, but how can I hide from something that will never go away?” She gave him a tremulous smile. “As a child, I loved to climb trees.”
Trees? What did climbing trees have to do with anything?
“I was nine summers, it was such a fine day. The sun was glorious. I climbed higher and higher, immune to danger as children so frequently are, just to get a bird’s eye view. The view at the top was like a heady aphrodisiac, the tree so alive I could feel it breath, the winds scented with coming rain swished and swayed the branches. I was so mesmerized, I barely heard the branches crack….and then…falling. And darkness.”
Alexandra scrubbed her hands over her face. “I drifted in and out of consciousness, as if in a dream. Molly crying. Samuel wringing his hat. The doctor shaking his head. Molly had labored for three days, despairing if I’d survive, her expert nursing skills, bringing me back. I survived, but I learned I’d never be able to have children.”
She turned her gaze on him, would know instantly he’d see differently. He’d see her not as a fertile woman who could bear children, but as a…spinster. When he didn’t speak for full minute, tears pricked at the corner of her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice a little hoarse.
I’m sorry. Numbness overcame her. Her knees buckled and she sank into the sand. She covered her face with her hands, unable to see the look in his eyes. She was sorry, too, but that didn’t change the facts. “I-I know what it means, so don’t feel sorry for me. I don’t need
anyone’s pity.
He pulled her up and into his arms and she tilted her chin upward, unable to discern the darkness in his eyes. More than anything she wanted to melt into the warm comfort of him, wanted to be all the things she knew she would never be. She could never be the woman he needed.
“Do you pity me?”
She pulled back. “Of course not.”
Good. Because your injury was the result of an accident and out of your control…as was my punch that killed my adversary.”
Her heart melted with his words. Just looking at him made her tremble, making her yearn for things only a husband had the right to offer. His large hand held her face and gently, his calloused fingers brushed the wetness away, his touch almost unbearable in its tenderness. His hands slipped into her hair and brought her closer.
“I have wanted to confide in someone, but the stigma—”
“Never could I think less of you, Alexandra.”
Nicholas’s mouth descended on hers and her body started at the first brush of his warm lips.
“I was so ashamed.”
“You are very brave to have shared with me.”
Her body came alive as his lips pressed against hers. The heat. It was not just her cheeks that burned. She was sipping liquid fire. It flowed over her tongue and down her throat and spread through her entire body. She leaned into him.
“For so long, I have carried that burd—
He groaned into her mouth. “Your gravest error was to despair. You should have told me sooner.”
She leaned into him, her hands slid up his arms and linked around his neck. “You do not judge me?” she asked, some part of her still unable to believe what was happening.
Nicholas took a ragged breath. “No more than you have judged me. It is your faith in me I find admirable. I wish I was as strong as you.”
“But you are strong. The strongest man I’ve ever known.”
Breathing hard, he stopped. And suddenly, he took her arms from his neck. He broke away, leaned against a palm across from her. Casual but not casual.
She straightened. “Forgive me, Nicholas. I have forgotten myself.” She turned to leave, wanted to be alone, anywhere away from the mortification she was drowning in.
Only You: Duke of Rutland Series III Page 13