by Shirl Henke
Everyone wished Rigo and his bride well, sending them off laden with letters for the Torres family across the Atlantic. The rain had finally abated and the water was almost glassy as the ship reached the narrow neck of the Lacydon and headed past the sprinkling of islands in the Golfe du Lion.
“At least we begin the first leg of our journey with good weather,” Rigo said as he took her arm and turned her from the melancholy sight of Marseilles receding in the distance. “Look ahead, not back, wife.” He gestured toward the western Mediterranean's brilliant blue-green waters.
Obediently she turned as he commanded her, but said nothing. Rebecca’s gift burned in the small velvet pouch at her waist.
“What was it Rebecca gave you?” he asked as she unconsciously touched the purse.
“A simple farewell token, and her wishes for our happiness,” she replied in a neutral voice.
He arched one black eyebrow and looked cynically at her flawless profile. “I can see how much you believe that possible.”
“And you, of course, have done all to assure we will be blissful!” The frayed cords of her control at last snapped.
“You are not the only one to sacrifice, Miriam. I gave up my career in the army and lost Benjamin's love as surely as you did. And I, too, am leaving the only home I know to journey to a distant land.”
“You go to meet your father while I have forever lost mine,” she said softly, fighting the hateful weakness of tears. She could not bear to think of Benjamin or of Judah.
Rigo stiffened. “I go to meet the man who deserted his byblow and left him with savages. Forgive me if I am not overjoyed with the idea of a blessed reunion. But unlike him, I understand duty, Miriam. You, after all, are a white woman and cannot be treated as a savage.”
“Yet I am wed to one!” She responded to his cruel words without thinking, then instantly wished to call hers back. Dear God he looked as if she had just run him through with a Swiss pike!
“Yes, you are wed to one,” he whispered. His face was tight with fury as he scooped her up in his arms and carried her toward their quarters. “As your bridegroom, I would see the goods so dearly bought.”
Their cabin was tiny with only a narrow mattress upon a raised platform. Windowless and bare, but for a small wooden stool and table, it looked like a prison and smelled of mildew and human sweat. Rigo set her none too gently on her feet beside the bed and then lit the fat tallow candle on the table.
Miriam stood watching him. His every step was rigid with fury as he deliberately closed the cabin door and latched it, then turned toward her. The flickering candlelight made his face seem even more swarthy. I am darkness.
His black clothing perfectly suited his expression. He pulled the heavy silver chain from about his neck, and tossed it on a stool. Then the embroidered chammare followed, along with his silk tunic. After sitting on the edge of the bed, he pulled off his boots and rose to stand directly in front of her. She could smell the faint male muskiness of sexual arousal. Perversely her instinct was to reach out and touch that hard dark chest, to run her fingers through the crisp black mat of hair and trace its cunning pattern, leading downward... Her face flamed as she clenched her fists in the folds of her gown, fighting the urge to touch him. I am darkness. His words and his presence bewitched her. She dug her nails into her palms, frightened, frustrated.
She was pale as Alpine snow, and trembling. Was it lust...or revulsion? Perhaps both. He stretched out his hand and toyed with a soft lock of hair that had escaped her veil. “You said I was a savage, but I am your husband. I would see your body—all of it.” She recoiled, but he held fast to the curl. “Our previous encounters were too swift and lusty for us to disrobe.” She blushed prettily, but met his gaze, waiting to see what he would do.
“Do not salve your sensibilities by having me rip the clothes from you,” he began in a low, deadly voice. “Do not push me that far. Remove them yourself.”
“I am with child, Rigo. My body grows fat and ugly.”
“I will judge for myself whether you are ugly.” A slight smile curved his lips but did not touch those glacial blue eyes.
Miriam could tell his patience grew thin. With fumbling fingers she began by pulling the sheer silk veil and its jeweled circlet from her hair. When she dropped it, the headpiece floated over the pile of his black velvet clothing like a caress. The lacings on her gown were not too difficult to loosen, but the brocade was heavy. As she struggled with it, she suddenly felt his warm strong hands assisting her in lifting it over her shoulders. He took the lovely creation and hung it from a peg on the wall while she stood in her long, sheer undertunic, too mortified with embarrassment to remove the last few remnants of modesty.
Rigo's breath felt squeezed from his chest when he turned to see her silhouetted in the candlelight. The shift was gauzy and sheer and revealed the lushness of her body beneath it. Her hair gleamed darkly and fell in a cascade of silk to her waist. He braced his feet wide apart and fought the urge to go to her and enfold her in his arms. “Patrice would envy you those full young breasts,” he said.
“I doubt she would envy me my swollen belly,” she snapped, turning from his lascivious leer.
“Because it contains a half-caste child? At least since tis you who carries it I know it is mine. With Patrice it could have been any man's bastard.”
“A man is as good as the company he keeps, Spaniard,” she replied, feeling a surge of raw jealousy over his whores. “If Patrice Farrier had been punctual that fateful night, we would not be wed.”
“I give you leave to regret that...as long as you finish the task at hand.” His voice was silky, yet under it lay steely anger.
For an instant she considered refusing. Only for an instant. Slowly she raised one leg and rested it on the mattress to slip off a brocade slipper, then peel down her silk stocking. She repeated the process on the other leg, then stood and unfastened the tie of her undertunic. When she finally freed her arms, Miriam could not drop it but clutched it across her breasts and belly protectively.
Rigo still did not move. “Let it fall. I will see all of you.” He could sense her inner struggle as her fingers clenched and unclenched on the thin fabric. Finally it floated to the floor, pooling like ocean foam about her slim ankles. He forced himself to walk slowly around her, struggling to regain control of his passions.
Miriam stood with her back straight, refusing to look at him as he inspected her like a piece of livestock. She knew her waist had thickened, her lower abdomen had rounded and her breasts had grown heavy. I will not cringe!
When he could endure looking without touching no longer, Rigo reached out and covered one tautened breast with his hand. Then, as the nipple hardened, he allowed his fingers to brush past it and graze lightly over the swell of her belly, pausing to press softly against her navel. “My child grows there,” he whispered, half to himself, bemused.
The pain was so great she wanted to cry aloud to him: Is it only the child you care for? What of me? But she said nothing as he continued his maddeningly slow perusal, his fingers evoking exquisite sensations as the calloused tips ran along the curve of her hip, then up her arm. Finally he lifted her chin with one hand and gazed into her eyes.
“Your body still responds to my touch. It remembers.” He pulled her against him with his other arm and she felt the pulsing life of his erection against her belly. “So does my body.” With that he tangled his hand in her hair and kissed her.
Miriam felt weak, drained by the long day's wrenching events, humiliated by his cool inspection of her misshapen body. Yet when his lips brushed her mouth and his tongue teased for entrance, all the old, aching hungers swallowed up her pride and fear, leaving only the hot vortex of remembered passion. She raised her arms and held him fast, opening her mouth for his invading tongue, digging her nails into his shoulders as she returned the kiss.
Rigo savaged her mouth, then trailed soft, wet kisses down her cheek, along her delicate jaw and onto her throat. He could f
eel her acquiescence, then the turbulent release of her passion as she clung to him and moaned deep in her throat, like a small wild creature caught in a snare. He lifted her up and lay her on the narrow bed, Then stood to remove his hose. His eyes never left hers as he stripped naked before her.
Chapter Twelve
Miriam watched him peel down his tight woolen hose and kick them away. When he stood over her with the candlelight bathing his dark body in golden light, he looked like some pagan god, splendid and barbaric all at once. Her eyes involuntarily traveled from his gleaming midnight hair down to his broad muscular chest, then lower to his pulsing staff, hard and ready for her. Now I understand why the ancients worshipped fertility gods, she thought as he lowered himself onto the mattress and covered her body with his.
Rigo raised her arms above her head and held her slim wrists imprisoned in his hands as his tongue circled one upthrust breast until she arched and writhed with pleasure. When the nipple hardened, he did the same with the other, then suckled them as he felt her heartbeat pound faster, keeping pace with his own. He raised up and knelt between her parted thighs, then sank down and slid into her. When she tightened her legs about his hips and arched to meet each thrust, he growled out his pleasure in a guttural Spanish oath. Before the blinding red haze of ecstasy could carry him over the brink he stopped, whispering against her throat, “Hold still, lest I finish without you.”
With a deep, shuddering sigh, she complied, letting him set a slower pace, languidly fueling the aching hunger inside her until it burned brighter than the sun. Then, just when she was certain she could bear the fiery pain-pleasure not an instant more, it burst in an explosion of pure light. Miriam clawed at him, sobbing out his name incoherently. She felt his staff swell and pulse deep inside her, spilling his seed as his body shook with his release.
Fearful of harming her and the child, he did not collapse on her but held his weight on his forearms and buried his face in the rose fragrance of her hair. “What witchery is it you work on me?” he murmured. “You are beautiful.”
“I have never been beautiful but tall and thin, plain...soon I will be fat...and I talk too much for a female or so I have been told.” Miriam could feel the rumble of a chuckle and something inside her melted.
“You do indeed talk too much, but as to the rest...” he let his words trail away as he felt himself growing hard once more inside her. She let out a small, surprised gasp of pleasure and bucked beneath him as he began once more to stoke the flames of their passion.
* * * *
Miriam awoke to the rolling motion of the ship, feeling the absence of Rigo's body heat. She turned over and touched the narrow space beside her. It was still warm. He must just have left the cabin. A pale yellow shaft of light was pouring from beneath the door. She threw off the covers and swung her legs onto the floor, then realized she was naked. Memories of the past night's wildly abandoned lovemaking returned as she lit a candle and then hurried to dress. “What will I say to him? How shall I face him?”
The anger and passion that always flared between them had once again carried her over the edge, but his slow insulting perusal of her body had been deliberately planned. His sense of duty had forced him to wed her but he was going to exact a terrible price—all her pride. God help me, I cannot control my response. He had but to look, to touch and she became a wild thing. After all it had cost her—her father, her family, Benjamin's love and respect—how could she still forget everything the moment Rigo de Las Cases came near her? No, not Las Casas, Torres. He had signed the marriage contracts as Rodrigo Angel Torres, and now they were bound for Santo Domingo to meet his estranged family, to make a life in the wilderness of Espanola.
When Benjamin had asked her, Miriam had refused to leave Marseilles and live in the frightening Spanish Indies, surrounded by dark-skinned primitives. Now she was forced to do so—wed to one of the very savages she feared, utterly cut off from her past life. “Why did I not wed DuBay?” she asked herself as she gazed into the small mirror. Her hands trembled on her brush as she pulled it through her tangled hair. “I chose Rigo in spite of my father's desperate plea.” A sudden rush of tears made her realize how uncharacteristically emotional she had grown of late. “Tis the babe that makes me so,” she temporized. Rigo's child. The link that forged this most unwilling marriage. Yet you chose the Spaniard in place of DuBay.
She finished plaiting her hair, splashed her tear-stained cheeks with cool water and inspected her appearance. “I must face him sooner or later.” Opening the cabin door, Miriam stepped into the early morning light and a brisk sea breeze. Several sailors, rough men in baggy trousers, sat barefooted on the deck, repairing frayed hemp ropes. One leered at her, and she heard him whisper in an uneducated Italian dialect to his companion, “Twas her bridal night just passed.”
She quickly fled across the crowded deck out of earshot of the other fellow's reply, but their snickering laughter followed her on the salty wind. Dear God, did everyone aboard know? She gritted her teeth vowing she would break her fast, not cower starving in the cramped cabin because of such crude oafs. Then she spied the cook's fire box in the center of the maindeck. Although only lit once a day for a hot meal, it was where the crew and passengers were fed biscuits, dried fruits and other cold foods at daybreak and dusk. She walked calmly toward the cluster of men surrounding it, determined to assuage her growling, roiling stomach.
Then she saw her husband standing on the quarterdeck. Miriam steadied herself with one hand on the railing as she studied him. His long raven hair whipped rakishly across his forehead in the brisk wind, making him appear even more barbarous than the heavy sword and dirk buckled about his hips. One dark hand rested casually on his sword hilt as he talked with the ship's master. His long legs were braced wide apart to accommodate the roll of the ship as if he were born to the sea. “That must be his Taino heritage,” she murmured grimly to herself, remembering Benjamin's tales of how desperately seasick Aaron Torres was each time he had to set foot aboard a ship.
Benjamin. Both she and Rigo had hurt and betrayed him. Would he always stand between them? She knew suddenly that it did not have to be so. She and Benjamin were never destined to be lovers, only dear friends. At every opportunity when Benjamin had pressed her, she had turned aside his passion with teasing cajolery, feeling nothing more than mild affection in return for his lusty advances. Never could she feel so calm or be so in control with his brother.
Just looking at Rigo Torres from afar made her heart pound and her throat go dry. Perhaps when he came to terms with his father and they settled in the interior, things would be different. If she could put the past behind her and let go of her guilt over Benjamin, so could her husband. She knew in her heart Benjamin would find his own way.
Rigo felt someone staring at him and turned to the maindeck below him where Miriam stood by the railing. She had plaited that glorious hair and wore a warm fur cloak that covered her supple curves. His eyes met hers and held them until he could see the pink staining her cheeks.
“Your bride is lovely, Don Rodrigo, a grand lady,” the ship's master said as he followed Rigo's gaze. “My men will be sorry to see her change ships when we reach Genoa. Normally we carry no passengers, least of all beautiful women.”
Rigo continued to stare at Miriam as he replied, “Yes, a beautiful lady she is.” From a rich and noble family, far beyond my reach but for a whim of fate. “If you will pardon me, I must see to her.”
Miriam watched the effortless grace with which he descended the steep wooden stairs from the quarterdeck.
“Are you unwell, my lady?” he asked. “You look quite pale.”
“Just a bit faint. I hoped the fresh air and some food would help, although upon seeing the fare I begin to lose my hunger.” She watched as a toothless sailor gummed a stone-hard biscuit until he softened it with saliva, then swallowed the sticky, grayish mass and washed it down with brackish wine.
“Best enjoy some fresh fruit and nuts while they ar
e available here in the Mediterranean. Once we set sail on a Spanish vessel across the Atlantic those biscuits and some moldy cheese will be all there is.”
“How long will the crossing take?” she asked as he steadied her, taking her arm.
“This is not a good time of year for the voyage. Tis best made between June and August. With the cold January winds, it may well take two months to carry us to Santo Domingo.”
Miriam paled. “Two months!”
“You could have remained safely in Marseilles,” he replied expressionlessly.
“But I chose otherwise.” She turned and looked out to sea at the endless horizon in the west.
* * * *
Long after darkness fell Miriam sat alone in their cabin, wondering for the hundredth time if she should venture out in search of Rigo. He had instructed her to rest after their evening meal, saying it was better for the child if she did not overtax herself. Always his first concern is the babe. Does he never think of me? Yet she had found over the past days that he did desire her—at least in the darkness when they joined their bodies in passion. By the rising of the sun he became a cold stranger, solicitous and polite to her in front of others, but deliberately aloof. “Let him pace the deck with his demons all night,” she muttered. “I will not go begging after him for that which he does not wish to give.”
She had just removed her gown and was pulling a warm sleeping shift of heavy cotton from her trunk when she heard the cries of men's voices. “Man overboard!” Seizing a cloak she raced from the cabin. When she reached the gathering crowd of sailors she frantically scanned the deck for Rigo.
He walked through the parting ranks of men, his sword sheathed but his dirk in his hand. In the dim moonlight she could see his tunic was torn. One bare shoulder looked to be bleeding. Stifling a cry she shoved her way past the men to reach him. Upon close inspection she could discern the bloody slash was shallow. “What has happened?” Her eyes flashed from his shoulder to the long, gleaming dirk that he was casually replacing in his belt.