‘You’re an impudent wench,’ he muttered and would have wrapped his arms about her on the instant but that she struggled away from him protesting, ‘You will tear my chemise! And where in these godforsaken islands am I to get another?’
He desisted then, gentleman that he was, and stood at gaze, watching her slither out of her dress, unfasten the waist of her petticoat, delicately step out of it, turn with a smile, then fold it carefully.
She wanted him to wait. She wanted him to be impatient. She wanted him to fall in love with her.
Whether she broke his heart was of no consequence. All that mattered now was to erase the Duchess of Lorca from his heart and from his thoughts!
‘Turn off the lamp,’ she insisted. ‘I am shy.’
Her previous boldness had given that the lie and he protested that he was eager to see the chemise - which hid so little, sheer as it was - fall from her shoulders and leave all revealed.
She pouted prettily. ‘You are wicked,’ she murmured and slipped behind the curtain of the bunk.
A minute later a pale arm came out with the chemise dangling from her fingers. She leaned far out - far enough that her long fair hair, which she was unloosing with her other hand, streamed down over her shoulder, and the bunk’s curtain for a moment did not obscure one beautiful naked breast.
He must have ripped off his clothes, she decided, for his naked form was beside her almost before she had closed the curtains over the alcove that hid the bunk.
Every artifice Carolina possessed she used that night. Bent on enchanting him, she was laughing and playful, by turn teasing and passionate. Her hands, her lips, were everywhere - promising untold delights. He himself was an experienced lover, she was to learn, but there was that about her that drove him wild. A certain storminess of the spirit perhaps, that was communicated to him through her soft open lips, her firm agile young thighs, her slender amazing body that seemed to match him, stroke for stroke, heartbeat for heartbeat.
She knew it wasn’t right, she knew she was making love for all the wrong reasons - in her heart she knew it. But lying in that tumbled bunk she wasn’t listening to her heart. She was listening to her brain, which told her - cold-heartedly, ruthlessly - that in this simple way she could achieve vengeance.
And then her woman’s body took over, her sensuous physical self, that self that loved life and loved men and loved sex. Her female body let itself go in a wash of pleasure, of passion, of release . . . And it was a release. She had a beautiful sense of unreality lying there beneath him, of floating somewhere between heaven and hell, and the glow that surrounded her now was a fragile thing - like sheerest crystal, it would break at a single strong beat of the heart. But that break would come in the morning when she had had time to think - not now, not in these breathless moments of passion when their strong young bodies strained together in silent bliss.
There was about her tonight a wild tenderness for she had never played at love before. Love had always come first with her, the most important thing in her life - and now she brought to their joining a kind of teasing half commitment that intrigued this jaded roué.
What a courtesan she would have made! he thought. Half child, half woman, all female. All desirable.
He spoke little. He was not a man who talked while making love. But he knew the moment when her fiery spirit joined with his in a reckless rhythmic race to the heights, he knew from her involuntary quiver and from the soft moan in her throat when she had reached the brink, and exultation filled him, that he could enthrall this woman of light.
He let her go with a kind of wonder.
She lay against his damp body, cradled in the crook of his arm. ‘You are tired?’ she murmured impudently. ‘Rest a few moments - it will refresh you!’ She buried her face against his chest.
‘Witch!’ he accused her, laughing. ‘Insatiable witch!’
She sat up and swept aside the curtains of the bunk. ‘It is warm -I would seek the sea breeze.’
Naked, she strolled through the moonlight towards the bank of stern windows that let in the soft breezes that caress the Azores.
Feeling strangely content - and yet excited as well - her captain lay on his side, holding open the curtain of the bunk with one hand, and watched her, marvelling at the beauty of her body, at the cleanness of her lines, at the subtle grace with which she moved.
‘Wonderful,’ he murmured, not realizing he had spoken aloud.
She turned then and the breeze took her hair, blowing it in a dishevelled cloud of light around her face.
Lying there, he knew he would never forget that sight; it would be with him always: the wild haloing tendrils of white-gold hair blowing about that smiling face and perfect body in the moonlight.
It was a good thing her eyes were shadowed for they were not smiling. They were the haunted eyes of a woman who seeks - and does not find. She had revelled in his masculinity, for he was a magnificent animal - although not quite so magnificent as one she had known. But now she felt again restless, unsatisfied. And somehow cheated.
She wondered if it would always be so.
Perhaps ... if he made love to her again? Perhaps that was the answer. Perhaps that would still this restlessness of the heart.
‘Come here,’ he said hoarsely and she moved towards him, a golden moon-washed temptress, endlessly enticing.
This time she did not reach up and draw the curtains of the bunk. This time she let his hot gaze scan her up and down at close range, acknowledged with a slight deprecating movement of her shoulder his murmured, ‘Lord, you’re beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like you.’
‘You are prejudiced towards women you’ve made love to,’ she said calmly - and they both laughed.
It was a laugh that broke the ice for them, and this time his lean body bore down upon her in a spirit of lighthearted camaraderie as well as passion.
‘Impudent wench,’ he said as his hard masculinity found its goal and he felt her body stir again with desire. ‘I’ll make you cry “Enough!”’
She was but a breath away, matching her throbbing rhythm to his own.
‘Will you, my captain?’ she murmured with a tantalizing smile. ‘You can try!’
And try he did. It was sheer exhaustion that pulled them apart at last and left them lying side by side on the damp sheets of the bunk, their bodies warm and touching in the afterglow of passion.
‘Dear lady,’ he murmured tiredly as he drew away. ‘There is no one like you - anywhere.’
Carolina did not answer. She lay staring upward into the darkness.
Someone else had said that to her once.
And he had proved untrue.
27
Carolina woke in the great cabin with the sun streaming in over her naked body - and at first she was bewildered and did not know where she was. Pulling aside the curtains of the alcove, she sat up and looked about her. She was alone. The man who masqueraded as Kells had gone off somewhere - and closed the bunk’s curtains when he left.
Silently she lay back, remembering last night.
She had done what she had never before thought conceivable: She had broken her vows, she had let another man make love to her.
Not that Rye’s vows counted for much, she told herself with a curl of her lip. But her own vows - both those she had taken on board a buccaneer ship in Cayona Bay and those she had taken again before a smirking fellow in Fleet Street - those vows she had taken in her heart and had meant to keep. Always.
A shudder went through her. She felt dishonoured, vile.
Trembling, she turned over and pressed her face into the pillow, wishing she could end her life.
But ... it was not in her to run away in that fashion. Indeed she would have called that a coward’s way. Whatever she had done, she must face it, live with it. She alone was responsible for what she did.
For a long time she lay in silent aching misery face down in the bunk, half smothered by the pillow.
It was there the tall English
man found her. He paused as he entered the cabin door to drink in the beauty of the girl lying naked, face down on the bunk with her dishevelled pale hair spread out in a gleaming mass around her. His hard eyes softened at the sight. Last night she had been wonderful, driving him on to new feats of passion.
Now in morning’s light her smooth young body had all the fresh dewy loveliness of a very young girl, an appealing innocence that made him suddenly wish to shield her from life’s hurts.
Such thoughts were a new experience for him.
He moved towards the bed, leant over and passed a caressing hand down her spine - felt her quiver at his touch. Carelessly, he played with her buttocks.
She turned over abruptly and sat up, facing him. Her eyes were very bright but he did not guess it was the shimmer of tears that made them so.
‘Good morning,’ she said - and eluded him when he sat down on the bed and would have caught her to him.
‘Good morning,’ he said, adding a little wistfully, ‘Would you not like to go back to bed for a time before breakfast? You were up late.’
Late indeed! But this morning a reaction had set in and she did not want the touch of his flesh - it would only serve to remind her of what she had become.
‘No, I am going to dress,’ she announced briskly. ‘And I’m ravenous. Cannot that cabin boy who blushes so prettily whenever he looks at me, be persuaded to bring us some food, my captain?’
‘Breakfast you shall have, dear lady.’ Her captain rose as briskly as she. He went out while Carolina took a quick sponge bath in the basin she found in a small cupboard and looked about for something to wear for she did not wish to spend the day on deck in this elaborate gown.
She noticed now what she had somehow missed last night. Reba’s boxes and Mistress Wadlow’s had all been brought to the great cabin and stood inconspicuously in one corner - obviously someone believed that they belonged to her! Ah, he had been very sure of her, this masquerader! she thought grimly. Or perhaps all the luggage from her cabin on the Mary Constant had been gathered together hastily and brought in this morning while she was asleep . . .
In any event, she folded away her ice-green satin and dressed herself instead in the sprigged yellow muslin she had borrowed from Reba. The dress seemed to impart to her a gaiety she did not feel and she looked a carefree lass indeed when ‘her captain’ and the cabin boy returned, bearing food and drink.
His eyes lit up at sight of her, standing so jauntily.
‘Faith, you’d grace any board,’ he murmured appreciatively as he seated her at the battered oaken table.
‘I think it is a courtier speaking,’ she said drily.
‘And you have heard many courtiers speak, I don’t doubt?’ he teased.
So he was still curious about her, still did not accept her story entirely at face value . . . Perhaps it was women like the Duchess of Lorca who had made him so distrustful.
The thought of the Duchess hardened her weakening resolve. She gave him a shadowed tantalizing look from beneath her lashes. ‘Perhaps . . .’
He studied her as they ate. It was pleasant to breakfast on eggs and delicious little hot cakes. She wondered whimsically if this pirate who could not face going to sea without forks had brought along some treasured cook from his country house as well! Oranges, bananas and pomegranates filled a large tarnished silver bowl at the centre of the table - another gift, no doubt, of the Duchess of Lorca, Carolina thought resentfully. Considering its condition, it had been cherished no better than her memory had been last night!
Still, one could not be sure, she thought as she bit into the juicy flame-orange pulp of a pomegranate. And she must find a way to bind him to her if she hoped to rout the wily duchess!
‘I am surprised you could be persuaded to turn to piracy since you have told me you are in truth no sailor,’ she commented.
His graceful shrug rippled the flowing cambric of his white shirt. ‘I took what was offered,’ he responded with equal frankness. ‘Had an opportunity even half so good turned up on land, I would have preferred it.’
‘Yes,’ she laughed. ‘I cannot see you dining eternally on mouldy sea biscuits as one must on long voyages! Indeed, I am sure you must have scurried here to the Azores as fast as you could, to get away from a tiresome ship’s diet!’
‘Indeed you are right.’ He smiled on her with perfect candour as he lazed across from her. ‘I sailed direct to the Azores under a mountain of canvas and then did a bit of prowling round about the islands to see if there was some easy prey to be pounced upon.’
‘And found the Mary Constant,' she said ruefully.
‘To my infinite relief!’ He lifted his tankard of wine. ‘A toast to your eyelashes, dear lady!’
‘It is too early to toast eyelashes,’ she objected, giving him a challenging look.
He was very striking this morning, she thought, and he did not look tired despite his efforts of the night before. In deference to the weather, which was warm, he had removed his satin coat and was dining in shirt and trousers. The ruffled cambric of that shirt was spotlessly clean and well pressed. She little doubted that he had found some island woman to do his laundry - and possibly to share his bed.
She voiced the thought.
‘The laundry, yes - the other, no,’ he said with amused regret. ‘For these Portuguese guard their women well. Indeed they shroud them from head to ankle in a black hooded cloak they call a capote e capello - and all you can glimpse of them is a pair of bright eyes or perhaps a smiling wind-burned face as they turn away from you.’
‘Then I should hate life on the Azores,’ Carolina said with feeling, shuddering at the idea of having her lithe young body enveloped day and night in a long black hooded garment!
‘Oh, I am sure there are island beauties under the cowls,’ he said with an impudent grin. ‘Do you think I should search them out?’
‘Not on my account,’ she said - and he laughed.
‘No, I rather think you are a woman who jealously guards her own.’ He regarded her narrowly.
I was once, but perhaps I am changing . . .
‘The ship has been in motion ever since I woke,’ she observed. ‘We are obviously heading somewhere.’
‘For Pico,’ he said. ‘It is one of the islands in the Azores’ central chain.’
Restless, and wishing to avoid going back to bed with him in her present mood, her captain had no sooner laid down his napkin than Carolina expressed a desire for fresh air.
As she came up upon the deck, with the tall Englishman just behind her, Carolina saw past their stern the sails of the Mary Constant. Unharmed, the fat little merchant ship bobbed nearby, looking as if her passengers might be gone down somewhere below and would at any moment return. It gave Carolina an odd turn to see the ship riding there, looking so innocent - as if she had never been plundered by pirates, her crew and passengers set adrift. She could almost believe none of this had ever happened and that a moment from now she would wake up and see Reba rising and hear Mistress Wadlow gibbering in her sleep - on her way to Bermuda. She turned, startled, to the man who accompanied her.
‘But you have not destroyed the Mary Constant?' she exclaimed. ‘I thought - ’ She let her voice die away at what she had thought.
‘You thought I would have burned her by now and sunk her.’ He frowned. ‘But she is a goodly vessel, dear lady - and worth a deal.’
‘And you think to put a prize crew upon her and sell her in Tortuga to one of the traders who come there to buy captured ships?’ she suggested.
The tall Englishman gave the wench beside him a frowning look. It was indeed what had occurred to him - what had in fact deterred him from promptly firing the trim little merchant vessel. But Tortuga was Kells’s stamping ground and he feared to show his face there. It was indeed a knotty problem.
‘I have not yet decided what to do with her,’ he said shortly.
Carolina turned her head away to hide her suddenly knowing expression. It was easy for her
to guess his predicament!
Definitely on her bad behaviour this morning, she now turned to the cabin boy who had served them their breakfast. He was just passing by in tattered shirt and trousers torn off at the knees. ‘You can throw away your blonde wig and your dress,’ she told him flippantly, and was amused to see the dark-haired lad start in surprise and turn crimson.
‘The lady means that we have found our Silver Wench, Ned,’ translated his captain. ‘And she knows us for what we are.’
The ship’s doctor was leaning on the rail nearby and heard that. He turned and looked Carolina insolently up and down; she felt his gaze tearing right through her muslin gown. ‘She looks the part,’ he admitted. ‘But the real Wench is said to be a lady. How does this one talk?’
‘Watch your tongue, Yates,’ said his captain roughly and the ‘doctor’ subsided. ‘This lady is under my protection.’
With a shrug Yates turned away but Carolina felt a shiver go through her. She was very much alone on this vessel and playing a desperate game - with none to save her if she slipped up.
The tall Englishman had noted Carolina’s slight shiver. ‘Don’t mind Yates,’ he said quietly as they took up a place at the rail. ‘We needed a ship’s doctor to sail with us and he’s a fair barber surgeon in case of accident.’
‘Keep him away from me,’ she muttered. ‘I don’t like the way he looks at me.’
‘No, nor do I - ho, there!’ He clutched the rail and reached out to steady Carolina as a sudden list of the ship almost threw both of them off their feet. ‘I hope that navigator knows what he’s doing,’ he muttered. ‘He came well recommended, but I had to have a man who was above all else discreet, and God knows he has got us here in one piece, but these are treacherous waters!’
Carolina glanced back at the Mary Constant, sailing along briskly behind them, manned by a small prize crew. ‘You should have kept Captain Dawlish in charge,’ she remarked. ‘He is a good sailor. He would have had no difficulty negotiating these waters.’
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