Windsong

by Valerie Sherwood

  ‘I am not your “dear lady”,’ said Carolina - a trifle unevenly for she was feeling the effects of the wine. ‘And I must know more of what I am getting into if I am to become this Christabel Willing.’

  He hesitated, frowning. Then, ‘Why not?’ he said blithely. ‘For you will be as committed as any of us, once the venture is well begun. I will tell you, dear lady, that locked in a cabin of this ship there is a certain gentleman whom I now hold for ransom.’

  In the name of Captain Kells . . .

  ‘And who is this gentleman?’ she interrupted. ‘He must be some very great lord if he can afford to pay such a ransom as would merit all these preparations.’

  ‘Indeed he is.’ The voice of the man across from her had gone languorous. He leant back and toyed with his tankard, his amused gaze considering her. ‘His wife, dear lady, is even now on her way to pay this ransom, which is to be fifty thousand pieces of eight and a ruby necklace beyond price which has been held by his family.’

  ‘But who is this man? You must tell me if I am to help you, for I could be trapped into saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.’ Her lovely face was serious now for she most earnestly desired to know what sort of trap was planned - and who was most likely to fall into it.

  He leaned forward and there was a gleam like that of distant candles in those strange empty grey eyes of his.

  ‘He is the Duke of Lorca, Spain’s emissary to the Court of St James. And the lady who carried this treasure to me is his Duchess.’

  For the moment Carolina was rendered absolutely speechless. She felt as if a great thunderbolt had just split open the skies.

  ‘This woman who is bringing you the ransom is the Duchess of Lorca?' she heard herself say incredulously. ‘Oh, no, it cannot be!’

  He laughed. ‘Indeed it can, dear lady. And make no mistake about it. The lady is sailing towards our rendezvous at this very moment, for it is she who has planned the whole thing!’

  ‘She is - she is your confederate?’ gasped Carolina, her head whirling with this new knowledge.

  He nodded. ‘She is a most unusual lady,’ he added with a grand gesture. And then, giving her a level look, ‘She fancies me.’

  ‘These delftware plates, this wine - they are the gifts of the Duchess of Lorca?’

  ‘The same,’ he told her, smiling. ‘She desires to leave her husband who is elderly and, I gather, tiresome. And she has chosen this novel way to do it. It would seem that she has heard of this pirate Kells - ’

  ‘Buccaneer,’ she murmured in correction.

  His dark brows lifted but he went on. ‘She has heard this man Kells discussed at great length by various aggrieved dons whose ships he has plundered. They have quite a dossier on Kells in Spain, it would seem. She had noted his description well and when we met, she realized how closely I fitted it. We became - friendly.’ His tone implied just how friendly! ‘And she realized I was in sore need of funds for I made no bones about it. She seeks a new life.’

  ‘With you?’ whispered Carolina, who felt the windows of hell had just opened wide and all the troubles of the world flown out towards her. ‘She seeks this new life with you?'

  ‘So she says,’ he declared urbanely.

  Suddenly joy washed over Carolina. This was why Rye had run away with the Duchess. Not for love - to get at the man who had dared to impersonate him! Her heart soared.

  But it was a flight of short duration for his next words dispelled that illusion.

  ‘The Duchess has kept everything about the kidnapping secret - not even the Crown knows of it, only his family back in Spain who after all must come up with the ransom. She plans to dupe some ship’s captain into bringing her to the rendezvous - and then he will be a good witness to the crime committed by “Captain Kells”.’ He chuckled. ‘And who can disprove it? We will all go back to our own lives again, this ship will become once again the Alicia - nothing will be traced to us. You see how foolproof it is?’

  Oh, yes she saw! The Duchess planned to dupe some ship’s captain - and she had done it! Rye had run away with a woman who cared nothing for him, who was callously using him for her own ends. The Duchess had seen the impression she had made on him that day at Drury Lane, she had connived to meet him again, she had entrapped him on a sea of memories! Oh, Rye, Rye, you have thrown me away for nothing! Carolina thought wildly. So tightly were her hands clenched that her fingernails bit into her smooth palms. And that woman, who had stolen from her all she held most dear, was even now sailing towards a rendezvous in the Azores and a reunion with the lover who would shortly replace Rye!

  Ah, but she would not . . . The Duchess of Lorca, whom Carolina now hated with all her heart, would not gain what she sought. She would not allow it!

  Filled with fury and indignation, Carolina unclenched her hands and leant back in her chair to give the lamplight a better chance to highlight the pearly tops of her breasts in her low-cut gown. The pose she had chosen was a seductive one - and she knew that too. That this masquerader was attracted to her was very obvious from the sudden softening of that hard dissolute face before her.

  ‘But if I became your Silver Wench’ - her voice held a soft note of complaint - ‘would that mean that I would shortly be deprived of your company, whenever this Spanish lady chose to join us?’

  She could see his chest expand in his grey satin coat as he took a deep surprised breath. He leaned forward and there was laughter low in his throat.

  ‘Dear lady,’ he said, and his gaze was lazily tracing the curving line of her throat, lingering over her delicately moulded breasts as he spoke. ‘Our fortunes are all on the knees of the gods. Who knows what will happen? The night is soft. Shall I sail you ashore to a black sand beach to discuss it?’

  Tense as she was, Carolina could feel her heart stirring. For not only did she feel rage to make her quiver, but the man before her was an interesting fellow - one who in other days would have made her heart beat faster on his own merits and not merely as an instrument of revenge.

  ‘Why?’ she murmured in some surprise. ‘Are we then so close to the Azores?’

  ‘To one island at least,’ he told her, smiling. ‘We can reach it before the moonlight has departed.’

  Carolina lifted her tankard in a mocking salute - and it was a salute to a nameless future and a farewell to her past. ‘To black sand beaches lit by moonlight!’ she said and touched her tankard to his.

  ‘And to silver wenches gleaming upon that sand,’ he murmured. He pushed back his chair and went up to give the order to take them to shore.

  Carolina remained at the table, trembling slightly.

  For her the cards had long ago been dealt, far away in a sunny courtyard in Salamanca, Spain. She would play out this hand and when it was over, she promised herself, she would have stolen away the Duchess of Lorca’s lover - even as the Duchess of Lorca had stolen her lover away!

  When the man who pretended to be her buccaneer returned, she looked up questioningly. She saw that he was carrying another bottle of wine, and a crooked half smile played over his mouth.

  ‘Dear lady,’ he said whimsically. ‘It seems that I was wrong - as I so often am on matters nautical. We cannot make the black sand beach by moonlight’s end. Indeed I find that there is a dangerous channel which lies between here and there that is best negotiated by daylight. I have said it is no great matter, we will reach the black sand beach by tomorrow’s moonlight. And so, dear lady’ - he threw his arm wide in an expansive gesture that included the curtained bunk - ‘the night is ours to do with as we will.’

  Carolina drew a quick ragged breath and the blood seemed to race to her head.

  The moment was upon her.

  PART TWO

  The Silver Wench

  How will I face the morning?

  For that’s when my tears will start . . .

  How will I square with my runaway pride

  That I let you break my heart?

  SOMEWHERE OFF THE AZORES

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  This too attractive man who called himself Kells was looking down at her now with hot eyes that seemed to disrobe her.

  ‘More wine?’ he asked softly.

  And Carolina, her throat suddenly gone dry, nodded. In that moment she almost sprang away from him in revulsion, she almost cried out, No, I will never lie in that sumptuous rumpled bunk with you for I belong to Kells - the real Kells, not the imitation! But the moment passed. She took the wine with shaking fingers.

  "Tis the best the Duke of Lorca’s cellars could offer,’ observed her newfound captain, standing close by. ‘Furnished by his Duchess.’ He gave a wry laugh.

  Carolina, who had just taken a sip of the strong wine, choked. And as she tried to catch her breath, there rose up before her a vision of the Duchess of Lorca as she had seen her that day at the theatre - regal and elegant in rustling black. And masked, as if to hide the soul. She seemed to see a mocking smile on that challenging olive-skinned face, a derisive smile that she had not seen at the theatre.

  It was that sudden stabbing vision of the Duchess that made up her mind for her. Like a burr beneath a saddle was that vision. Her heart lurched and then it was off and running. The Duchess should not have them both! She might have snared Rye but when she arrived at the Azores she would find this tall Englishman had another lady in his heart - and in his bed.

  Recklessly Carolina swallowed down the rest of the wine, felt it burn down her throat.

  She set down the blackjack tankard and rose sinuously, pretended to lose her balance.

  Gallantly he stepped forward and caught her against his chest.

  ‘I think I have had too much wine,’ she murmured with a little laugh and looked up at him, saw the delight in his eyes as she continued to lean against his broad chest.

  This would be the most cold-blooded thing she had ever done in her life, she knew. Back in London she would promptly have struck down anyone who even hinted that she might do such a thing. But now she had a heart full of fury to drive her onwards. Not only would she drive a wedge between the Spanish duchess and this cat’s paw of hers, this man who pretended to be Kells, but she would in her own way get even with Rye. In a way too she was punishing herself for being fool enough to love a man who did not love her when she leaned against the stranger’s chest, and in quite another way she was assuaging her feminine pride which had been struck a blow as well as her heart when Rye had left her.

  It was a tantalizing woman, a seductress who smiled up through a fringe of lashes and trailed experimental fingers down her captor’s chest.

  ‘Did you say,’ she murmured, ‘that I was to occupy the doctor’s cabin?’

  ‘Only if you wish to,’ he answered, smiling down at her, and she could feel his urgent masculinity in his very gaze. ‘I had hoped you would prefer better quarters.' With a gesture of his arm that rippled the froth of lace at his wrist he indicated the great cabin that surrounded them.

  She gave a low laugh. ‘You are right,’ she said. ‘I do prefer the best. And it would be naughty of me to disturb the doctor’s sleep, would it not?’

  His face burned suddenly for he had not expected this lustrous wench to fall so readily into his arms. It was a triumphant moment.

  ‘I will see to it that we are not disturbed,’ he said hoarsely and moved to the cabin door and locked it.

  When he turned she stood bathed in the golden glow of the lamplight - a spot she had deliberately chosen. She was running her slender fingers in leisurely fashion through the pale blonde ringlets at her neck - and letting him view her tempting figure in profile. She turned sinuously, in a gesture designed to emphasize the feminine beauty of her lines, to show him the grace with which she moved. For she was out to lure this man, to stun him so with the fiery femaleness of her that he would forget his Spanish duchess.

  She stood there posing, as if undecided.

  ‘Perhaps I should not . . .’ she murmured, to goad him.

  Why not?’ he asked, coming quickly to her side.

  ‘Well, my wedding vows may have been taken in Fleet Street, but I still am a bride, for all that.’ She sighed.

  All this heat over a wandering husband?’ he said lightly and those grey eyes narrowed. He laughed. ‘Permit me the honour of helping you exact your revenge!’

  She gave him a sudden frowning look. ‘Revenge?’

  Of course,’ he said lightly. ‘Do unto him as you tell me he’s already done unto you.’ His smile broadened. ‘Take a lover. Myself, for example.’ He made her a courtly bow. ‘At your service, Mistress Willing. Unless’ - he rose from his bow smiling wickedly - ‘I find you unwilling.’

  She ignored his pun. ‘It would be a lovely revenge, would it not?’ she murmured. ‘Still . . .’

  He sensed that she was wavering and he put his arms around her as if to keep her there. ‘I will make you forget him,’ he said urgently.

  ‘Will you?’ She gave him an oblique look. ‘But then it could all end so badly . . .’

  ‘What are you saying?’ he asked, puzzled.

  ‘I am saying’ - her hands had slid beneath his satin coat, she was unfastening his shirt as she spoke, her slender fingers moving delicately, ruffling the hair of his chest - and causing his body to lurch as he responded to her touch - ‘that if I find that bed attractive’ - she nodded significantly towards the bunk - ‘that I should take it amiss if I were to be pushed suddenly out of it for another, be she titled or no!’

  His rich chuckle interrupted her last words. ‘If you are speaking of the Duchess - ’

  ‘I am, of course.’

  ‘You need have no fear. My interest in the lady has run its course. There have been too many others before me and there will be too many after. The Duchess of Lorca is not a woman to be faithful to one man for long. I dare say that by the time her ship arrives she will have found some new lover.’

  ‘But if she does not?’ Those small, softly moving hands held him off when he would have drawn her close.

  ‘It will make no difference,’ he said thickly.

  ‘Then, my captain’ - her dazzling smile promised endless delights - ‘I think we have struck a bargain.’

  That it might prove an empty victory did not even occur to her. The wine had warmed her, perhaps clouded her judgement, but her resolve was firm. She would conquer him as he had never been conquered before!

  He took a step towards her but she waved him away. Not yet . . . her slight shrug seemed to be saying. She moved towards the bunk so that again she stood sideways to him and with a little gesture kicked off her shoes.

  ‘These are so tight,’ she murmured, and of a sudden she had pulled her satin skirts and petticoat up over her smooth white knee and had bent to unfasten one green rosette garter, half-seen in a white froth of chemise lace. Then slowly, with infinite care, she slipped off her silk stocking and stood contemplating it for a moment, then tossed it lightly over a chair. Standing now on one bare root, she lifted her other foot to the edge of the bunk, tossed her skirts lightly up over a bent knee dusted with gold by the lamplight, and with great care removed her other rosette garter, held it up as though to inspect it, then tossed it on to its mate on the seat of a nearby chair.

  ‘I could help you with that,’ he said hoarsely, for he had stood rooted in his tracks, watching her.

  She laughed. It was not her usual laugh - indeed it could have been some other girl laughing. ‘No, you would tear my stockings,’ she objected. ‘And they are my only pair.’

  ‘I will buy you more stockings than you can ever wear!’ he protested gallantly.

  She gave him a mocking look. ‘But not tonight. . .’

  He subsided, watching the sheer silk slowly leave her leg.

  The last stocking removed, she turned to face him, smiling, as with both arms behind her she struggled with the hooks that ran down the back of her bodice to her waist. This pretty exercise, she knew, caused her round breasts to move and ripple beneath the ice-green satin, their pearly
bare tops gilded by the golden light.

  She could see him take a deep breath and guessed that it took an effort on his part to keep from pouncing on her then and there.

  But she wanted to drag this out, she wanted him to savour the moment, she wanted to build up the tension so that when at last she was in his arms they would be fevered arms yearning to possess her - so that she would seem to him more than a woman when he took her at last, she would seem to him a goddess!

  At last she sighed and moved towards him, turning about to present her back to him in a little gesture of mock defeat.

  ‘Hooks have always given me trouble,’ she murmured. ‘And these down the back of this bodice are entirely beyond me. Could you - ?’

  He could. He did. His fingers trembled with anticipation as he unfastened the last hook and eased her bodice away from her smooth pale back, tantalizing in the lamplight through her sheer chemise.

  She felt the ice-green satin bodice slide away from her. She told herself dreamily that this was the only logical course of action to take, the only way. And besides, she was a woman of tinder, and she was catching fire at his touch.

  She turned to him, smiling, and let him receive full force the splendour of her eyes, silver and luminous and golden-flecked in the yellow glow of the lamp. Half out of her satin bodice now, she reached up and pressed both palms against his chest.

  ‘I am not wrong about you, am I?’ she murmured.

  ‘Wrong?’ His tense face showed some alarm, for he wanted this splendrous wench to come to his arms willingly, desiring him. ‘How so, dear lady?’

  ‘You are not owned by this’ - her voice flicked the word contemptuously - ‘this duchess? You are not her little lap dog to be ordered about?’

  Her words stung him. ‘I am nobody’s lap dog!’

  She laughed that she had drawn fire, and traced little patterns on his face with the tips of her fingers. ‘I am glad to hear it, my captain.’ She had decided to call him ‘my captain’ for it would have jarred her to call him ‘Kells’. ‘For myself, I like a man of strength - and independence.’