Falcon's Angel

by Judith E. French

  He rolled up the blanket and laid it next to Angel's. Then he helped himself to the piece of corn bread nestled in a wooden bowl and drank the rest of the water in the gourd.

  When half an hour had passed without her appearing, Will decided to look for her. His first thought was to return to the beach where the wreckers had put them ashore. With a final glance around, he took his directions from the sun, and set out east.

  The game path was narrow and twisting, but occasional heel marks and broken grass stems kept him on the trail, first through the sparse pine forest, and then over and between the dunes until he reached the shoreline.

  He smelled and heard the ocean before he saw it. The rhythmic ebb and flow of waves and the cry of seabirds were comforting. His father had accused him of having salt water in his veins, and he supposed he did. Nothing cheered him like the feel of a sea breeze on his face.

  The tide was low, the broad beach littered with shells and pieces of driftwood. He didn't see Angel anywhere, but he found her discarded clothing on the sand. Skirt, bodice, and shift lay neatly folded on the sand beside a fish spear; and dainty prints of high-arched bare feet led to the water's edge.

  He scanned the water, expecting to see her. When he didn't, he looked up and down the strand before calling her name. When there was no answer, an uneasy feeling settled over him.

  A shrieking gull hovered over the waves. But other than a scuttling crab and a pair of ducks winging high above, Will saw no living creature.

  Fear twisted in his gut. The tide was receding. The sand was wet and smooth except for the single set of footprints. If she'd gone in here, she should have come out....

  "Angel!" If she was playing some trick on him... "Angel!"

  Nothing.

  Suddenly, just beyond the breakers, he saw a large creature break the surface and rise out of the water. A second shape loomed up, and then a third.

  Dolphins.

  As he watched, one leaped into the air, followed by another and then two more. Then a red-gold head bobbed up in the waves where he'd first seen the dolphins.

  "Will!"

  He let out a pent-up breath and felt relief wash over him. "What the hell are you doing out there?"

  Angel waved. "Come on in!" A sleek form appeared beside her, dark beside her pale body.

  Will stiffened. The dolphin dwarfed her. They were reputed to be friendly to people, but one bite of those razor-sharp teeth could take off a hand or—

  She reached out and stroked the animal. It uttered a squeak and vanished in a spray of water. Angel laughed. "Don't be afraid, come on!"

  "I've had swimming enough to last me. You come out."

  "Nay! They won't hurt you!" She laughed and plunged under, giving him a brief but tantalizing glimpse of luscious unclad buttocks.

  Dolphins be damned! Will tore off his boots and clothing, waded out until the tumbling breakers reached his chest, and began to swim toward her. The salt water was cool and stinging on his back and chest, but he didn't care. She drew him like north pulls the needle of a compass.

  Angel waited, treading water, until he'd almost reached her before she ducked under. He swam to where he'd seen her last and followed her down. The water was clear and blue-green. He could make out the bottom, but saw no trace of her.

  When he came up for air, she was laughing at him. She splashed water at him and dove again. He went after her, bewitched by her lithe, graceful movements and the long red hair streaming behind her like coppery seaweed.

  Midway between the surface and the sand, she let him catch her around the waist. Her arms encircled his neck, and her bare breasts pressed against his chest.

  His lungs ached for air, and he kicked upward, carrying them both. But when she twisted away, he couldn't hold her, and she surfaced just out of arm's reach.

  He took a deep breath and reached for her. She splashed him again and retreated, laughing. "You are crazy," he said.

  "Nay, I'm the only one sane."

  "Swimming with dolphins."

  "I like dolphins." She flashed him a glorious smile. "Ye frightened them away. I don't think they like outlanders."

  Will's heart hammered against his chest wall. She was a mermaid, too beautiful to be real. Her eyes were as green as emeralds; her thick, dark lashes glistened with diamond-like drops of water. Specks of sea foam clung to one bare shoulder and frosted the tops of her breasts.

  "There were six of them," she said. "Two were young ones." She paddled out a few yards. Her skin was a golden-peach, sprinkled with a few tiny freckles, her neck as slender and shapely as that he'd once seen on a statue of Diana in the governor's mansion.

  "I couldn't find you. I saw your clothes on the beach."

  She smiled shyly at him. "You worried about me?"

  He didn't answer.

  She laughed. "I don't know what was the finest sight. Those lovely beasties or you, as naked as God made you."

  He took several strokes toward her. "Last night—"

  "You were right to be vexed with me. But this being a wife is new to me."

  "For the last time, woman, I'm not your husband."

  "You agreed there would be peace between us," she reminded him.

  "I did that, but I didn't agree to marry you. I'm used to being skipper of a ship, commanding men, not taking orders from a woman."

  "So I see."

  "If you're looking for a soft bunk, there's many a man would gladly have you."

  "I displease you?"

  He paddled toward her, and once again she backed off. "Angel... you're a beautiful woman, but you don't want me, nor I you. When I take a wife—if I take a wife—she'll be of my choosing. I'm not a fish to be hooked and hauled in."

  She laughed and then became serious. "A handfasting is not forever, Will. Can you not play at being my husband for a few weeks... a few months at most?"

  "No, I can't. And I don't know why you want me. If it's money, I haven't got any. My family house was sold on the auction block, and I'm deeply in debt. Hell, the sheriff's probably sold off my wardrobe to pay my creditors."

  "'Tis not money I want."

  "What then?"

  "I told ye... I mean you," she corrected herself. "'Tis fair hard to learn a new way of speakin'." She sighed. "I know I'm ignorant, but I've no wish to stay that way. I want to know about your world. I want to see in my mind's eye the sailing ships and the far-off ports. I want to hear about Charleston and London and all those places."

  "You want me to take you with me when I leave."

  She shook her head. "These islands are my home. I'd be as out of place in your world as you be in mine. All I want from you be answers to my questions."

  "And if I tell you, what do I get in return?"

  "Whatever you wish, husband. Whatever you wish."

  Chapter 8

  Will's stomach clenched. They might not speak the same language, but there was no mistaking Angel's offer. Despite what had happened last night when they'd kissed, he knew that he could have her—all of her—whenever he wanted. She was his to do with as he pleased.

  He could cup and fondle Angel's satin breasts, tease and suck her sweet little nipples, explore the curves of those delicious buttocks, and nibble every inch of her alluring body.

  Sweat broke out on his forehead. Cool ocean water or not, just imagining the delights of parting those long legs and sheathing himself to the hilt in her soft, wet folds made him rock-hard and throbbing with need.

  All he had to do was reach out. Carry her up to the beach and throw her down on the warm sand, or do it here. A thrill of anticipation bubbled up in his chest. He could do it, make love to her here in the rushing tide and breaking surf.

  A black-haired Carabee girl had taught him that trick on the night of his sixteenth birthday. He'd been so drunk that he could barely walk, but he'd never forgotten the sheer intensity of that encounter. Those erotic sensations could happen again with Angel, if he wanted it.

  The trouble was, the price for Angel
's taking was too high.

  He had no illusions about her virginity. No woman who lived among pirates could remain intact past her first bleeding. He didn't know or care how many men she'd lain with. It wasn't his right to ask or fault her for what she'd had to do to survive.

  But regardless of her past, he could not escape the realization that she was an innocent. Angel didn't understand the rules he lived by. She was neither a whore nor a woman he could take home to Church Street and introduce to his friends and relatives.

  A southern gentleman, a South Carolinian, a son of Nicholas Falcon, was careful where and how he took his pleasure. A trollop could be paid with silver; a man could dally with a jade, each taking joy from the moment and neither expecting anything more than a good-natured parting in the light of day. But a gentlewoman, a lady, must be protected, cared for, and honored.

  When he chose a wife, if he ever did, she would be someone of his own kind. Cultured, born of an old, respected Charleston or Savannah family, she would be quality in the truest sense.

  If his future bride was an heiress, so much the better, but she must possess grace, education, piety, and sterling character. Falcon women were above reproach, fit mothers for any children the Almighty might be pleased to send. Falcon wives were worthy to be introduced at the governor's palace.

  Angel was not a wench he could buy off with a few coins or a silken petticoat, and she was not a woman he could consider as a partner. Taking advantage of her naïveté for his own lust, or even hers, would be an unforgivable breach of his code. Some men did use unfortunate females that way, but to his mind, they were not and never could be called gentlemen.

  As much as he hungered for Angel's body, he could not take what she was offering and live with himself. "Shit," he muttered.

  "What's wrong?" Angel asked, swimming closer.

  Without answering, damning his own stupidity, Will turned and swam toward shore.

  * * *

  "I don't understand," Angel said later as they shared a breakfast of grilled red drum and raw clams back at their campsite. "Even though we're handfasted, married according to old custom, you say you can't lay with me because I'm not a whore?"

  "That's not what I said," he insisted.

  She shrugged. "Trull. Trug-moldy. Draggle-tail. All are insults men fling at a poor wench who trades her favors for a living." Licking the final delicious drop of juice from the clamshell, Angel sent it spinning into a garbage pit she'd dug in the sand.

  She wore a rough skirt of sailcloth that fell just below her knees, and a green linen bodice. Bare-legged and barefooted, she settled onto a fallen log well away from the small outcrop of poison ivy to enjoy her portion of the still-warm fish.

  "A lady shouldn't know such words, let alone speak them," he scolded.

  She laughed and fixed him with a shrewd stare. "Will Falcon. Ye are such a liar. You don't think me a gentlewoman. To you, I'm but a merry-begotten island wench."

  "Merry-begotten? Speak the King's English, for God's sake."

  "Briar-patch child. A bastard."

  He scowled at her so fiercely that she laughed again. "Charleston must be a grand place that men hold themselves so high to tell their women how to speak." She retrieved another clam, this one no bigger than Will's thumbnail, opened it with her knife, and offered it to him.

  He shook his head. "It's not personal, and you shouldn't feel offended that I can't—"

  She popped the tiny clam into her mouth and chewed slowly, savoring the salty flavor. "Am I as ugly as a mud dauber?" she asked him.

  "Hell, no. It's not that."

  "Then what? What is it about my naked body that offends you?" It was strange that she was not the least afraid of him today, when last night she had fled his heated kisses as though the haints of hell were on her heels. "I can tell you that I find no fault with you beneath your shirt and breeches."

  His face flushed red beneath the shadow of his dark beard. "I'm used to seeing women with their clothes on."

  "They wear dresses when they swim?"

  "Charleston ladies don't go into the water."

  She found that funniest of all. "More pity if it's true," she said as she covered the pit full of clamshells and fish bones, then dusted the sand off her hands. "Proves that I could never go to such an outlandish place. I'd soon stop breathin' as stop swimming."

  Will got to his feet. She could tell by the way he moved that he was still hurting, but he was on the mend. She'd gotten him into the salt water, and that was the best thing for a wound.

  Old Sisi had taught her that when she was ten and had cut her foot on a clamshell. When the injury had festered until her foot swelled, Bett had taken her to Sisi's cabin back in the swamp on the mainland. Folks said that the African woman was a runaway slave and a witch. Mayhap she was. But Sisi had taught her more about healing than anybody else in her whole life. Sisi had claimed that salt water was good for the poison ivy, too. And if those red blotches on Will's forearm rose to blisters, he'd have to do a lot more swimming, lessen he wanted to suffer a powerful itch.

  Will took his shirt off a branch and eased it on. "I want to explore this island," he said, "unless you have objections."

  She smiled at him. "If I did?"

  "I'd do it, anyway."

  "Nothin' much to see. But suit yourself. You can walk around it in a day, long as you don't founder in the low spots. There's a freshwater pond near the south end. You'll likely see a few horses there, and maybe a deer."

  "You'll be all right here alone?"

  She nodded. "I thought to hunt for some bird eggs and maybe catch a few crabs for supper. If you get lost, follow the beach. You'll come to the place where we landed." She'd hoped they could sit and talk awhile. She had so much she wanted to ask him, and just looking at Will gave her a curious fluttering feeling in the pit of her belly. But she reckoned he was restless and still out of sorts with her. Will would be easier to handle once he'd walked a few miles and cooled the fire in his bowels.

  * * *

  An hour later, Will stood on the beach and looked out to sea. He'd guessed that he was a half mile or less south of the place where he and Angel had landed. He was thirsty, and would be thirstier yet by the time he returned to camp. If he hadn't been so damned determined to prove that Angel couldn't stop him from leaving, he would have brought water with him.

  Worse, he was sweating, and the rash on his arm was itching. Tugging off his boots and stockings, he waded into the surf and eased his discomfort in the salt water.

  A flock of red knots landed on the wet sand. He'd heard they were good eating, but without a gun he wasn't likely to find out for himself.

  He didn't suppose that he and Angel would starve, but subsisting on a diet of fish and clams for a month would definitely have its drawbacks. Not that he was hungry; food was the least of his worries.

  It was the woman he couldn't get off his mind. She was infuriating... yet she drew him like deep water draws an old sailor. He'd never met a wench to match her, not in voluptuousness, or in that sexual appeal that a man can't find words to explain—a raw feminine essence that caused his palms to sweat, his chest to tighten, and his sack to feel full and heavy.

  A movement farther down the beach caught Will's eye, and he turned to see three shaggy ponies break from the dunes to trot along the water's edge. One was spotted, another white as sea foam, and the third, a chestnut foal that leaped into the spray with playful abandon.

  "A pretty sight, aren't they? I told you you might see horses."

  He snapped around as her honey-soft voice came from behind him. Frowning, he said, "Angel?"

  He started to ask how she'd found him, but bit back the question before making even more of a fool of himself. It was obvious she'd followed him through the woods without him knowing she was there. "Keeping guard over the prisoner?" he asked.

  She giggled. The sound didn't come out high and foolish as a girl's might. Instead, her rich laughter flowed over him like good whiskey, making h
is chest tight and an odd prickling sensation run down his spine.

  Amusement danced in her green eyes. "You're free to go, Will. I know you're planning to get as far from me and this island as you can."

  He scowled. "Without a boat? Where do you expect me to go?"

  The stroll through the tangle of the island's interior obviously hadn't fazed her a bit. There wasn't a drop of sweat on her face, and other than a few pine needles caught in her thick, glossy braid, she looked as though she'd been resting in the shade.

  He tried to tell himself that he wanted to get away from her, but nothing could quell the rush of excitement he felt on seeing her.

  This boyish infatuation troubled him. He liked women, liked talking to them, watching them. Age or race didn't matter; since he was a boy, he'd felt both protective and intrigued by them. Hell, one of his best friends was Lizzy Graymoor. And she was what? In her seventies? But Lizzy aside, he'd not lost his heart, ass over head and blind-staggering, to a woman since he'd been twenty and found out the object of his desires was already married.

  Too bad the Lady Elizabeth Graymoor was too old for him. They'd be a perfect match. Lizzy never complained when he went to sea, and she welcomed him with open arms whenever he returned. Lizzy was worldly, elegant, wise, and rich. And in her day, he was certain she'd caused heads to turn at King George's court. "Maybe she'd still have me," he said only half aloud.

  "Who will have you?" Angel demanded. She moved closer, looked up at him through thick lashes, and moistened her bottom lip with the tip of her tongue. "For sure, fever's come over you, if you're starting to talk to yourself."

  He'd been wrong, he realized, as desire stabbed through him. She had worked up a sweat. Just above the neckline of her bodice, in the hollow between her breasts, Angel's dewy peach-gold skin shimmered with a damp sheen.

  He wondered if she would taste of salt....

  "Not quamished are you?"

  "Quamished?"

  "Sick in your gut. I vow, you're fish-belly pale."

  "Damn it, woman," he snapped, "quit fussing over me like a wife. I'm not feverish. All I want is to get off this God-forsaken island."