“Poor Jean,” Isabel murmured. “He loves you so. This must be terrible for him.”
Kathleen’s face clouded. “I feel so awful, hurting him this way. I love him, too, and I ache for all of us.”
“There is nothing else you can do,” Isabel comforted. “You are Reed’s wife, and you must return with him to Savannah and your children.”
“I know, but Jean does not deserve to have this happen to him. Why is life so unfair to the nicest people, Isabel? Why do the good get hurt, while the evil prosper?”
Isabel shrugged. “We can only do our best and struggle on.”
At noon the next day, Kathleen and Isabel made their grand entrance on Grande Terre. Since this was supposed to be her first glimpse of her beloved husband in a year, Kathleen played her part to perfection. Alighting from the boat, she stood staring at Reed with disbelieving eyes. Then, when his arms opened wide to receive her, she rushed into his embrace, skirts and copper hair flying.
“My God, Kat!” Reed groaned aloud, crushing her to him. Then, in a whisper, he added, “I had forgotten what a superb actress you can be.”
Stung by his sarcasm, tears rose to her eyes, adding an element of reality to her performance as she pulled back to gaze at him. Only Reed noticed the anger and the glint of promised retaliation lurking there. “I can’t believe this is happening!” Kathleen sighed rapturously. “It is too wonderful!” Then, without warning, she executed a perfect swoon, falling limply into his arms.
Isabel, standing quietly next to Dominique all this time, concealed a giggle with an exclamation of dismay.
Reed, stunned by Kathleen’s actions, barely managed to catch her, as the others, including Sally Simpson, looked on. Muffling an oath, he swung Kathleen into his arms, and headed for the house. “You will pay for this, my sweet,” he promised in her ear.
“So will you,” she murmured back, hiding a smile against his shirt front.
While waiting for their vessel to be readied and stores laid in, Kathleen and Reed played the part of newly reunited husband and wife. They were constantly together, touching and gazing into one another’s eyes, completely ignoring everyone and everything around them.
Kathleen took immense satisfaction at the stormy look on Miss Simpson’s face, but felt terrible about the hurt reflected on Jean’s. In order to escape Jean’s pained looks, (and in the process anger Sally further), Kathleen suggested that she and Reed take a private walk along the beach. Reed readily agreed, for he wanted Kathleen’s last recollections of Grande Terre filled with memories of him, not of Jean.
Together they walked along the sandy beach. Bright sunlight danced on the aqua waves and white sand, dazzling their eyes and turning Kathleen’s red-gold tresses to shining copper. Birds chattered and butterflies flittered from flower to exotic flower. The light breeze sent the heady scent of hundreds of blossoms their way. Palm fronds swayed, creating a whispering music of their own. Knowing she would never see this tropical paradise again, Kathleen drank in the sights and sounds as deeply as she could, storing mental images to take back to Savannah. “God created a masterpiece when he made Grande Terre,” she said reverently. “Another Garden of Eden.” They had stopped in a perfect spot; a small glade of fragrant, brilliant flowers beneath the shade of a palm tree. A few yards away, the sea glistened, and the waves splashed rhythmically against the shore.
Here, in this secluded place, it was easy to imagine they were alone on the island. A spell seemed to be weaving itself about them. Reed gazed deeply into the endless emerald depths of her eyes, his own now sapphire pools of desire. “Do you suppose Adam and Eve made love on beds of tropical flowers?” he murmured, clasping her body close to his, his hands skimming her curves.
Kathleen raised her lips to nearly touch his. “I don’t know, but we will, won’t we?” she whispered seductively, her breath fanning his lips.
For answer, his mouth claimed hers in a kiss of sweet torment, his hands pushing her dress from her shoulders, while hers tore at his shirt.
There, amidst the sunlight and flowers, birds and butterflies fluttering about them, they came together in dazzling passion. For a few absolutely perfect minutes, the world was theirs in all its beauty and glory, their problems forgotten as ecstasy claimed them.
They left on the evening tide. Reed’s wife, now recovered from her first shock, was obviously dismayed at having discovered her husband had spent the past year of his life secluded on an island with another woman. Kathleen’s disdain was very genuine. She and Isabel pointedly ignored Miss Simpson, putting Reed in an awkward situation and raising his hackles in the process.
“Surely you didn’t expect this to be a pleasant voyage,” Kathleen jibed.
“You could at least be polite to her,” Reed countered gruffly.
Kathleen’s eyes flashed. “I will not acknowledge your doxy in any way,” she said. “I will not speak to her, look at her, and I certainly shall not entertain her! You have done quite enough of that in the past twelve months!” Gone was the sweet emotion of that afternoon, washed away by Sally’s presence aboard ship. Kathleen marched away, leaving Reed to stew in a broth of his own making.
A problem arose when Reed attempted to make love to Kathleen that night. Resigned to having to occupy the same quarters with him, Kathleen was still determined to exercise her will. “I refuse to make love with you while your mistress is just across the passageway,” she stated firmly. “I have had just about all I can take of both of you!”
“Is that so?” Reed ground out, his temper straining at its last threads. “Let’s just see about that!” he growled, pinning her to the sheets.
It was their old test of wills, one Kathleen was doomed to lose. At first she fought him, determined for once not to let him arouse her passions against her will; but as his lips played masterfully over hers, and his hands skillfully found all those points of exquisite pleasure, she found herself weakening. Flames of passion were coursing through her, turning her blood to molten lava.
Kathleen’s lips molded to his, as demanding now as were his, her body arching to meet his hot flesh as his body covered hers. “Damn you, Reed Taylor!” she moaned in reluctant surrender. “Damn you for doing this to me!”
His triumphant laugh echoed in her ears, as together they spun helplessly into that wondrous world of rapture.
Afterward, he pulled her to his side, stroking her soft bright hair. “You are a copper-haired spitfire, whether in anger or passion,” he murmured into her hair. “My own adorable kitten with sharp, slashing claws—but I will forgive you.”
“I shan’t forgive you,” she retorted, stung by embarrassment at her traitorous body, “for taking what I did not want to give.”
“Ah, but love, you know it is always like this with us. You can no more help yourself, than I can stop desiring you. It will always be this way between us, Kat,” he said softly.
The next couple of days were a trial to everyone. Simpering Sally Simpson clung to Reed like a barnacle to a ship’s hull, as though Kathleen did not exist. Kathleen’s temper escalated several notches with each recurrence. As for Reed, he seemed to be enjoying the game. Though Kathleen suspected he was doing his best to arouse her jealousy, she could not stem the rising anger or the ache inside each time she saw the two of them together. With Isabel’s aid, she managed to maintain a cool, indifferent manner, difficult though it was. Even in the privacy of their cabin, she strove to hide her feelings. It would not do to let Reed know how deeply he was hurting her. Her pride would not give him that satisfaction. It was bad enough that she betrayed herself in his embrace each night, unwillingly yielding to his passions and her own, clinging to him and calling out his name at the height of her rapture.
At one point, Reed came upon her as Kathleen was gazing longingly up into the high shrouds of the mainmast. “Don’t even think of it, Kat,” he warned. “I’d haul you down from there so fast your head would spin. Then I would blister your bottom until you couldn’t sit for a week.”
Throwing him a spiteful glare, she answered, “You would, brute that you are!” and stalked off in a huff.
But it was when Reed casually informed Kathleen that he had invited Miss Simpson to Chimera to recover from her ordeal before traveling on, that the feathers really flew.
“You did what?” Kathleen shrieked, flying into an immediate rage. “Oh, no! Definitely not, Reed! It is bad enough having to put up with her aboard ship! I refuse to
have her at Chimera. Enough is quite enough!”
Reed’s face darkened with an answering anger. “She will come as I say she will!” he shouted back. “Chimera may be your home as well, but I am still master there!”
“Lord of all he surveys!” Kathleen quipped sarcastically. “And how will you explain her to your mother, pray tell?”
“That will not be a problem, if you would be more cooperative, Kathleen.” At her outraged look, he continued, “There are several secrets I am sure you would not care to have known about yourself. What would Mother think if she knew you had been carrying on with Jean?”
“You have no proof of that, Reed!”
“I need no proof. You may have thought that I would forgive and forget, but it is not as easy as all that. You may deny it all you want, but I know you and Jean were lovers.”
“You know less than nothing!” Kathleen faced him defiantly.
His face hardened in stubborn determination. “I know that Sally is coming to Chimera with us—and I know you will accept it. I also know that I am tired of your belligerence and your hostile attitude. Next to you, Sally is an angel.”
Kathleen snorted. “A fallen angel,” she reminded him. “Sullied and used.”
“No worse than you, my dear wife,” he shot back, “and perhaps better. The more hateful you become, the better Sally's impetuous fabrication sounds. Perhaps I really ought to consider divorcing you and marrying the sweet Miss Simpson. What would you do then, my pet?”
Kathleen blanched at his words, but stood her ground.
“I would go to my grandmother, of course. Kate could hardly refuse to take me in.”
Reed’s look was bitter, and his next words sliced like knives into her heart. “You would go alone, Kathleen, without Katlin and Andrea. I would never let you take our children with you, and you would never see them again.”
Kathleen’s face crumpled at his deliberate cruelty. “You wouldn’t!” she cried. “Besides, what would your family say if you were to divorce me? They would never stand for it. You would estrange yourself from them forever.”
Reed’s crooked smile was demonic, and his eyes flashed blue fires of revenge. “I am sure they would understand if I told them of your adventures as Emerald, and your affair with Jean Lafitte. How could they blame me for not wanting a piratess for a wife and the mother of my children? Could they condemn me for ridding myself of my ‘widow’, who so quickly flew into the arms of another man?”
“That is blackmail, Reed!” Kathleen sank quickly into a chair before her knees gave way beneath her.
“True,” Reed drawled. “If you recall, you once blackmailed me into keeping our marriage a secret; threatening to tell the world that I was a pirate! How does it feel now that the shoe is on the other foot, my dear?”
The thought of losing Reed and her children forever was unbearable. That Reed might actually cast her aside in favor of the insipid Miss Simpson made Kathleen nauseous. White-faced, she raised enormous green eyes to his. “What do you want, Reed?” she whispered in defeat.
“I want you to settle down and behave as a wife should; to become a model mother—the very picture of decorum.
I want a sweet, obedient wife, not a screeching shrew! Learn to control that nasty temper and sharp tongue of yours, or pay the price, Kathleen. I am tired of being at odds with you. You either mend your ways, or by God, I’ll carry out my threats. And don’t think, even then, I would let you go running back to Jean. I would see you dead first!”
Under the weight of Reed’s threats, the remaining days aboard ship were agony for Kathleen. Forced to accept his edicts, she curbed her tongue and temper. Only Isabel heard her wild ravings.
“Surely he would never go so far!” Isabel exclaimed.
“At this point, he could do anything, and it would not surprise me,” Kathleen replied tearfully.
Isabel was as furious as Kathleen. “He is a heartless, unforgiving beast!” she proclaimed. She got no argument from Kathleen. “He intends to see you pay for your happiness with Jean, even though he was with another woman for a year! Men! I swear they have no conscience or sense at all! Does he really mean to install his mistress in the same house as his wife?”
“Evidently,” Kathleen moaned. “He is out to humiliate me in every way he can think of, and he has made damned sure I can do nothing about it.”
“We’ll see about that,” Isabel promised, not elaborating on her thoughts.
Although Kathleen could not force herself to be congenial to Sally Simpson, she did nothing to antagonize Reed further. While Isabel shot darts across the table at them with dark eyes, Kathleen struggled not to choke on each mouthful of food. Not by word or glance did she object when Sally clung blatantly to Reed’s side much of the day.
Kathleen had stopped trying to resist Reed’s lovemaking, but she continued to silently condemn both herself and Reed when she inevitably succumbed to blind passion in his arms each night. It was as if she lost all self–control at his touch. Only while he slept, holding her tightly to his side with strong arms, did she let down her guard. There, in the protective darkness of the late night, Kathleen wept bitter tears. If, in order to keep Reed and her children, she had to humble herself and become his obedient slave, she would. If there was no other way, she would grovel at his feet, though every cell in her body cried out in protest, urging her to find another way out of her predicament.
The sky was just lightening to the pearl-grey of dawn as their vessel slipped quietly into dock at Savannah. As they prepared to debark, Reed took Kathleen’s arm in his. She started to pull away, and his hand clamped over hers in instant anger. His cool blue eyes resembled chips of ice, as he stared down into her face, daring her to defy him.
“You are walking a fine line, Kathleen,” he warned ominously, causing chills to dance up her spine. “Don’t cross it, my love.”
Chapter 20
Their arrival in Savannah caused quite a stir. Everyone was stunned to see Reed returned, as it were, from a watery grave. Kathleen managed to present the image of a deliriously happy wife, reunited with her beloved husband. She even pretended a rather frosty solicitude for Sally Simpson, whose adventures enthralled the Bakers. By the time they were ready to leave for Chimera, Kathleen thought her face would crack from the perpetual smile she kept plastered there. The smile never quite reached her shadowed eyes, however.
Susan was ecstatic at her brother’s safe return, as was Ted. Ted babbled on about how bereaved Reed’s friends and family were on learning of his presumed death, and how inconsolable Kathleen had been. He raved about her courage and determination to find him, lauding Kathleen’s spirit and refusal to give up hope against all odds.
Reed raised a skeptical black brow in Kathleen’s direction. “How admirable and touchingly loyal!” he said, with hidden disdain. “That’s my loving Kathleen.”
Susan insisted upon being present when Mary Taylor discovered her son was alive and well, so they all piled into the Bakers’ carriage for the trip to Chimera, and Kathleen found herself crushed next to her husband’s former mistress in the crowded carriage.
“Would you be so kind as to remove your elbow from my ribcage, Miss Simpson?” she asked coolly, earning a sharp look from Reed that Susan was quick to catch.
“Is anything wrong, Kathleen?” she asked solicitously. “You have been so quiet this morning.” Susan’s grey eyes scanned Kathleen’s pale face, noting the violet shadows beneath emerald eyes that lacked their normal glow.
“I’m just tired,
Susan,” came the subdued reply. “It was a wearisome journey.”
“To say the least,” Isabel put in meaningfully, shooting a dark look at Reed.
If not for Susan, it would have been a silent ride. Ignoring or unaware of the friction between Kathleen and Sally, she chattered gaily about friends and events in Savannah these past months, then turned to her brother, asking him to elaborate on his experiences.
As Reed told of the shipwreck, the months spent on the deserted island, their rescue by the British and then by Jean, and his reunion with Kathleen, Kathleen silently noted the omissions in his tale. Reed glossed over his time on the island with only the lovely blonde for company; to hear his version, one would think they were as innocent as babes, and Kathleen dared not contradict him.
Sally sat demurely next to Kathleen, her blue eyes wide in her guileless face. When Reed had finished speaking, she added adoringly, “He is being gallant and gentlemanly, but in reality, he saved my life. I would not be here today if not for Reed’s care all those long months. He was truly wonderful!”
Kathleen thought she might be sick.
Susan’s puzzled gaze traveled swiftly between her brother and the young blonde, and she suddenly knew that Reed was not telling all. She glanced then at Kathleen, who nearly winced at the pity in Susan’s grey eyes.
Evidently, Susan wasn’t the only one not buying Reed’s and Sally’s tale, for suddenly from his cage at Kathleen’s feet, Peg-Leg squawked a loud “Bilge!”
The bird’s raucous statement captured everyone’s attention. “Where on earth did you find such an unlikely pet, Kathy?” Ted asked.
Kathleen laughed nervously. “Peg-Leg comes from New Orleans, where he formerly resided in a tavern. His vocabulary is outrageous, and his manners are atrocious, but I have become quite attached to the noisy rascal.”
“He also has a nasty habit of biting,” Reed said darkly, rubbing the scar on his thumb.
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