Fortune's Bride

by French, Judith E.

  After a long while he began to soap her back. She sighed as he rubbed in slow circles, first her shoulders, then her spine, and down over her buttocks. “Now your hair,” he ordered.

  Dutifully, she turned and let him lather her hair. The rain rinsed away the soap as Garrett turned his attention to her breasts, lingering over her sensitive nipples before moving lower to soap her belly and thighs.

  Finally, he held out the remains of the soap to her. “My turn,” he said. She took the soap and did the same for him, paying careful attention to intimate places that made him groan with pleasure.

  And still the storm continued. The palm trees bent and swayed, and the water poured from the skies. As a particularly strong gust hit them, Garrett put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her down to her knees.

  She knelt before him and with her eyes closed, followed the lines of his legs and thighs with her fingertips. The overwhelming tang of the ocean, musty scents of the jungle foliage, and the taste of the storm lent her a wild courage. She kissed his inner thigh and ran her hands boldly up over his sacs and stroked his swelling manhood.

  “Kiss me,” he said.

  His hair was wiry and wet, his belly as sleek and cool as marble. She laid her cheek against his loins and felt the throb of his sex. He groaned, and she turned her face toward him, brushing his silken rod with her lips.

  To her delight, Garrett’s staff grew under her touch. She kissed him again, running her mouth along the length of his tumescence, then teasing the hot, swollen head with her tongue. His muscles tensed and he shuddered. With curious wonder, she drew him into her mouth, laving him with her tongue. He groaned again as she took his length deep and gave him the erotic pleasure he so desired.

  “Caroline! Caroline,” he cried above the driving rain. And she tasted the sweet, salt taste of seed.

  Shaken, he knelt beside her and crushed her against his chest. “I love you,” he shouted into the wind and rain. “I love you!”

  His hands were on her breasts, sliding down over her belly, seeking the source of her femininity . . . of her uncontrollable heat. He lowered his head and took her nipples into his mouth, kissing and biting, suckling until she thought she would explode with desire. Then, when she thought she could stand it no longer, Garrett rose and swept her up into his arms. He carried her back inside, slammed the doors against the wind, and stood her on the hearth before the spitting fire.

  “Garrett,” she whispered. She was shivering, trembling from head to toe, but she knew it was not from the rain; it was from the storm within.

  “Shhh, love,” he murmured. “Soon. I promise.” He dried her from head to foot with a fluffy towel.

  “Now?” she demanded.

  “Now.” Hand in hand, they ran to the bed and leaped into the center. The posters groaned under the strain as Caroline flung herself back against the pillows and held out her arms for him. He put a hand on either side of her and leaned over her as the single candle guttered and went out. “Are you afraid of ghosts?” he whispered.

  “No.” Her breathing was heavy, her voice low and throaty. “No, I told you that I’m a witch.” She nibbled at his bare shoulder.

  “So you did,” he said, lowering his head to taste her nipple with his tongue.

  She gasped and arched beneath him. His erection rose full and hard again. It pressed against her inner thigh, and she caressed him with her fingers. “I think I’m in love with you too,” she murmured.

  “Only think?”

  “I don’t—” Her words were lost as he tugged at her nipple, drawing it into his hot mouth and sucking until she thought she would go mad with wanting him. One of his hands stroked her belly, teasing her damp curls, and sliding down to dip into her folds with a seeking finger.

  “Admit you love me, woman.” He delved deeper and she squirmed under his touch.

  A cry of joy rose in her throat, and she felt the sweet warmth of happiness flow through her. “You love me? Really?”

  “I’ve said so, haven’t I?”

  “Prove it,” she dared.

  “Like this? And this?”

  She moaned as he sought her breast again. Her nipples ached for him; her cleft was slippery wet with desire.

  “Are you ready for me?” he demanded.

  “Yes, yes,” she cried.

  “Tell me what you want.”

  “I want you,” she cried. “I want you filling me with your love.”

  A gust of wind shook the house and sent the French doors flying open, but Caroline paid no heed. She raised her hips to meet Garrett’s first mighty thrust as the fury of their combined passion blended with the wind and rain.

  Together, they rode the crest of the tempest, giving and taking, binding each other with invisible bonds of love, until at last they reached a soul-shattering climax and fell into an exhausted sleep in each other’s arms.

  Later in the night, when the wind had calmed and the rain fell in scattered showers, they woke, and Garrett closed the doors and added wood to the dying fire. “Where’d you come from, cat?” he demanded.

  Caroline rose on one elbow to see a ragged black cat with one ear sitting on the chair licking his front paws. “Harry?” she asked.

  “Who the hell is Harry?” Garrett asked.

  Caroline laughed. “You saw the cat too?”

  “What is this? A game, and I’m the only one who doesn’t know the rules?” He stood up and looked around. “Where’d he go?”

  “Where’d who go?”

  “The cat.”

  She chuckled. “Did you see a cat? Are you sure it wasn’t a goat?” She beckoned to him, and he returned to the warmth of her bed and made slow, deliberate love to her again.

  “Do you really love me?” she asked when they lay together locked in each other’s embrace.

  “Yes, I really love you, Caroline Talbot Steele. I don’t know how or why, but I do. Maybe you are a witch.”

  She chuckled. “Maybe. But a little sorcery doesn’t hurt from time to time.” The purr of a cat rose noisily in the still room.

  “Now you can’t tell me you don’t hear that,” Garrett said. He kissed her gently.

  “Ummm, just a cat,” she murmured.

  “It will be light soon.”

  “Ummm.” She curled against him sleepily.

  “First thing after breakfast,” he said.

  “First thing, what?” She burrowed deeper in the featherbed.

  His next words shook her fully awake.

  “The gold you promised me to buy a ship, wife. First thing in the morning, you’ll show me this treasure of yours. I’ve done what I promised, and now it’s time for you to fulfill your half of the bargain.”

  “I’ll try to—”

  “No trying, woman. Tomorrow, you’ll deliver the gold you promised—or else.”

  Chapter 15

  Caroline slipped from the house in the pearly twilight between night and dawn. As tired as she was, she could not bear to face Garrett this morning and tell him she’d brought him from the Chesapeake to search for a legend.

  No one saw her. Pilar and her husband slept in the servants’ wing of the mansion; Amanda and Jeremy were so exhausted that they never stirred. As for Noah, she had no idea where he’d spent the night. Caroline helped herself to a banana and a scone from the kitchen and went down to the beach, followed by a small yellow dog with a black ring around one eye.

  The sand was smooth and damp near the water’s edge and covered with palm fronds and other vegetation farther up. The sloop lay at anchor where they’d left it; the misty sea was blue and empty as far as Caroline could see.

  She had come from the house in bare feet, having donned only a shift, her stays, and a gown this morning. She lifted her skirts and waded into the shallow water, laughing as crabs and small fish darted away. The gently rolling waves were as warm as the air, giving no hint of the violence of last night’s storm. She walked out until the soft Caribbean covered her legs and thighs. Then she held up her g
own and petticoat with one hand and washed herself in the salt water.

  Returning to the deserted beach, Caroline bent and picked up an old conch shell. It glistened in the first rays of purple morning light. In a childish gesture, she held it to her ear and listened, but the only sounds she heard were the birds and the lapping of the water. Then, to her astonishment, she heard a woman’s voice.

  And how do ye like my Silkie? The words were English, but so heavily accented in old Cornish that Caroline could barely understand the meaning.

  Startled, Caroline dropped the shell and stared at the open sea. For one instant, she saw a small two-masted boat with a high pinked stern and a sharp-pointed bowsprit riding the mist just beyond Garrett’s anchored sloop. But when she blinked at the glare of light reflecting off the waves, the pink was gone.

  Caroline gasped, closed her eyes, and listened, waiting for the woman’s voice to come again. Nothing. She tried harder, concentrating with all her will.

  “Is that what this one has taught you?”

  Caroline opened her eyes to see Kutii sitting cross-legged on the sand beside her. The one-eared black cat was curled up in his lap, and Kutii was scratching Harry’s gnarled head.

  She jumped back, heart pounding. “Oh, you scared me,” she admonished. “I heard a strange voice and—”

  “You heard her voice—the Star Woman.” He smiled. “Your mother’s mother’s father’s mother. That is good. She has much wisdom to give you. Is this the first time you have heard her calling to you?”

  Caroline shook her head. “I don’t think so. I didn’t see her. I just . . .” She gave him an impatient look. “Where have you been? I was afraid you wouldn’t come. Now that I’m here, I don’t know where to look for the gold.”

  The Indian regarded her stoically with sloe eyes as black as the devil’s well. He was dressed simply this morning in a red cotton loincloth and silver armbands. Two thin braids on either side of his forehead were pulled back to hold the mass of his long hair in place. In his ears were simple shells that tinkled when he moved his head.

  “Have you come to help me or not, Kutii? I promised Garrett gold. He’s going to be furious with me if I can’t produce it.”

  He closed his eyes and tilted his face to catch the early rays of island sun. Caroline could see the intricate patterns of exotic tattoos on his cheeks and chest clearly.

  “This place has memories for this aging warrior,” he said, continuing to stroke the cat.

  “You aren’t aging,” she said. This morning he looked younger than she did.

  “Once this one was guardian to the royal family of his people. The woman given to him as wife carried the bloodline of a thousand years of rulers.”

  “I’ve heard the story.” Caroline looked out at the water again. Only the sloop that had brought them from Port-au-Prince was there; she could see no sign of the strange little boat.

  “In the high mountains you call Peru,” Kutii continued. “The Spaniards came on horseback with armor that gleamed in the sun.”

  Caroline nodded. She knew this tale almost as well as he did. The Indian had related the tragedy of his family’s massacre and his enslavement at least twenty times. She knew how he had fought on alone after his fellow Incan guardsmen had fallen, how he had watched his loved ones die and then been forced to act as a beast of burden. The Spaniards had made him carry part of the treasure he’d spent a lifetime protecting. Bent double with the weight of gold and silver, he had suffered beatings, thirst, and starvation as he traveled with the stolen treasure to Panama City and then along the torturous jungle route to the Caribbean.

  But Kutii hadn’t remained a prisoner of the Spaniards. Before the overland pack train reached the Spanish port, Sir Henry Morgan and his Englishmen had sacked Panama City, then tracked the caravan and ambushed them. Now a prisoner of the privateers, Kutii was taken aboard the Miranda, an English ship captained by one of Morgan’s followers, Matthew Kay.

  “Henry Morgan betrayed his friends,” Kutii said, picking up on Caroline’s thoughts. “He wanted the treasure for himself. And when the ship was attacked and sinking, one man stopped to cut Kutii’s chains so that he would not drown with the Incan gold.”

  “James Bennett,” she said. “My great-great-grandfather.”

  Kutii nodded. “He was a good man, the chosen one.”

  “Chosen to marry my Grandmother Lacy. She was of royal blood, a granddaughter to a king of England. At least that’s what my mother always said.”

  The Incan chuckled. “She was the Star Woman, and she possessed great power. She saved this one—”

  “Yes, yes,” Caroline said. “You were a slave in a plantation sugar mill and she risked her life to rescue you. I’ve heard all that a hundred times. But I don’t understand why you persist in calling her Star Woman. My Great-great grandmother Lacy, was from England.”

  “Her home was the stars,” he corrected firmly. “She was the Star Woman of my people’s legends—the one who could swim with dolphins and see across time. Once, long ago . . .” He waved a slim hand through the air expressively as he began to relay an old Incan myth.

  “The gold, Kutii,” Caroline interrupted. “I know all about you and my grandmother, and how you adopted her so that your bloodline would continue. But I don’t have time to listen to it again today. You must tell me where the gold is hidden. I have to ransom Reed, and I have to give Garrett—”

  Kutii’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Is this what this warrior has taught you—to be without respect for your ancestors? Must you be as rude as the young people of your generation?”

  “I mean no disrespect to you, you know that, but—”

  “Do you always carry on conversations with cats?”

  Caroline spun around to see Garrett striding toward her across the sand. “Oh . . .” she gasped. “It’s you.”

  “It seems to be. Who were you talking to? No—” He shook his head. “I’m sure your explanation would be interesting, but what I need now is to know where the money is. I assume your family hid it somewhere in the house or buried it in—”

  “Buried,” she answered, to stall for time.

  He took hold of her shoulders. “Last night was wonderful. Don’t ruin it by trying to cheat me of my due. There’s too much at stake. I’ve just begun to trust—”

  “Trust me?” she demanded. “You don’t trust me.” She jerked free and began to walk quickly down the beach. “You won’t even admit to me that you blew the powder store,” she said over her shoulder.

  “All right,” he shouted following her. “I blew up the damned powder.”

  She stopped short and whirled to face him. “You did?” A smile broke over her face. “You really did? Then you’re a spy for General Washington?”

  He shrugged. “Hardly. But I will admit to you that I’m not a Tory.”

  She exhaled softly. “Neither am I.”

  “Fine,” he said, his tone indicating he didn’t believe her. “Now that we’re both on the same side of this conflict, can we get down to finances?”

  Caroline glanced back at the water’s edge. Harry, the cat, was batting at a fiddler crab with his paw. Kutii was gone, as she’d expected. “Give me a little more time,” she said to Garrett. “I need to talk to someone.”

  “There’s no one on the island but Pilar and Angus. It’s obvious they don’t know where the money’s hidden, or they wouldn’t be living poor as Job’s turkey.” His gray eyes hardened. “No more excuses. It’s past time. Where it is?”

  “I don’t know . . . exactly.”

  “You don’t know.” His voice went flat with rising anger. “Go on.”

  “The treasure exists.”

  “Now it’s a treasure—not just a store of gold, but—”

  “It’s real, Garrett.” She motioned toward the manor house. “Arawak Hall—Fortune’s Gift. They were built with Spanish gold. Gold Henry Morgan’s men took from the siege of Panama.”

  “Pirate gold?”

&nbs
p; The force of his glare was so virulent that Caroline took an involuntary step backward. “It’s a family legend,” she said her mouth suddenly dry.

  “What!”

  “Don’t shout at me.”

  “Shout at you? You’re lucky I don’t wring your neck. Now, stop all this nonsense about pirate treasure and—”

  “No,” she said. “It’s real. My grandmother saw it, and her grandmother before her. A ship went down off this island carrying—”

  “Son of a bitch!” Garrett knotted his hands into fists and kicked a piece of driftwood as hard as he could. “Son of a blue-faced, double-arsed bitch!” he cursed. “Sunken treasure! You dragged me away from the war to dive for an imaginary fortune lost, what—a century ago? For the love of Christ, woman! Are you sane?”

  She was close to tears. Her throat constricted, and it was hard to breathe. She’d known that he would be angry when he learned the truth, but she hadn’t guessed she’d care so much.

  “I went through with this farce,” he said acidly. “I married you, and I brought you and your sister down here. I even let myself fall in love with you. I was beginning to think maybe—just maybe we had a chance to really make something of this marriage. To—”

  “It’s not like that,” she protested. “I told you I was a witch. You laughed at me.”

  “A witch. I could live with a witch—but not a liar and a cheat.”

  “The gold is real, Garrett.”

  “Just as real as your saying you loved me last night?”

  “I meant it.”

  He scoffed. “Doesn’t it get hard to keep the lies straight?”

  “I want the gold as much as you do,” she cried. “Maybe more. My brother’s life depends on it. Do you think I want him to rot away on a British prison hulk?”

  “What are you waiting for?” He gestured toward the sea. “Start diving for this treasure if you’re so sure it exists. How deep can it be? Twenty feet? Two hundred? Two thousand? Or maybe we can lower a rope and ask the gold to—”

  “Stop it. You’re twisting everything. The gold isn’t under the ocean.”