"And at his discretion! In return for which she must tend his kitchen, see to his comfort, mend his clothes, and bear his children. It seems to me it would have been better if she had foregone marriage and bent her efforts toward feeding herself."
Peter shook his head. "Unlike Kate, my dear Lorna, your lances are made of steel instead of straw; but, regardless, you could never be a shrew."
"How little you know her," Ramon said, his tone dry as he strolled at her side. Peter, sending him a sidelong glance, did not answer.
Was she a shrew, impossible to please, wanting only her own way? The thought was disturbing, but she had no time to pursue it. The English officers, on half-pay, come to the islands and the war-torn states of North and South to gain the experience only conflict can bring, were in too high spirits to allow anyone time for introspection. They flung quips and insults at each other, using an assortment of nicknames, few flattering, that had nothing to do with either their real names or those they had chosen to sail under. Their manner toward Lorna was teasing, though deferential in respect for Ramon's close guard and Peter's hovering concern. Toward the two or three other women who clung to their party, they were less formal, treating them with amused, if rather lustful, contempt. They had reason, Lorna thought. HThese women were something less than ladies and had a distressing tendency to giggle and turn the conversation toward bonnets and silk dresses they would like to have, and the cakes and wine they looked forward to eating.
They were not disappointed. The fare served up at the house rented by the Englishmen was sumptuous. There was seafood chowder, leg of lamb, roast beef, and fried chicken; vegetables swimming in cream sauces; cakes and custard made with plenty of butter, eggs, and milk. To wash it down were champagne and ale; and, for those not yet interested in alcoholic beverages, ginger beer and soda water. The cook, renown for the lightness of her biscuits, was a freedwoman who had been lured away from a plantation family and sent to one of the best eating places in Charleston for training. As they sat around the board, eating and drinking with a will, all considered she had been worth the expenditure.
Such bounty was not unusual, it was claimed, at least not in the coastal towns. In those centers, people with money still were able to command the luxuries of life. Farther inland, it was different. No one was starving, but imported goods were snapped up before they reached the interior. In many places, women were making do with cakes made of bolted cornmeal; experimenting with roasting corn, rye, and dried okra seeds for coffee; using dried blackberry and raspberry leaves for tea; boiling anything sweet to make sugar syrup; picking out the seams of old gowns to be made over; and making leather out of mule and hog hides tanned and dyed with red oak bark. Medicine was in short supply, and anyone with knowledge of herbal remedies suddenly became popular.
Listening to the recital of such hardships, involved in the flashing repartee that flashed back and forth across the table, Lorna had very nearly forgotten her undressed state under the bell of her skirts. She was reminded as the dancing began, when Ramon took her in his arms. His eyes, as they circled the floor, held a wicked glint. She could not have felt more voluptuous, more piercingly aware of herself as a woman, if she had been completely naked. Her fingers trembled in his hold, and she was aware of heat circulating through her veins. Her gray eyes were dark as she sustained the smiling intensity of his gaze while they whirled to the music.
It was with both relief and annoyance that she was torn from him by the corps of Englishmen, passed in a twirling of skirts from one to the other until she was breathless. Peter rescued her finally, signaling for a slow gavotte and leading her through it. His blonde hair gleamed in the light of the candles that burned in the chandeliers overhead, his smile was easy, the look in his eyes warmly admiring. She asked him about the cargo he would be loading to return to Nassau, and he told her of the cotton, tobacco, and naval stores of resin and turpentine, tar and pitch that he and Ramon were vying for at the moment.
"You could always split it between you," she suggested.
"What would be the fun in that?"
"This is war; must it be fun?"
He shrugged, his smile wry. "Why not? Not everybody wants to have a staring contest with danger. I had as soon be looking the other way in some tomfoolery. Chances are, it will pass me by without a second glance."
He had used the word danger, but he meant death. She managed a light laugh. "It's as good a philosophy as any, I suppose."
The music died away. He turned with her from the floor. "You are enchanting, do you know that? One of the most natural and unaffected women I've ever had the good fortune to meet. Have I told you that-?"
"Has she told you that, for all her enchanting ways, she has been the death of a man?"
Peter looked at Ramon, frowning, as the Creole moved to join them with his smile affable in spite of his cutting words. "I don't believe it."
"I assure you it's true. Isn't it, Lorna?"
The blood had drained from her face as she realized what he had said. Her gray eyes were dazed as she stared at the bronze mask of his face. She thought she had put that terrible night at Beau Repose behind her, but now it rose up before her, and once more Franklin lay dead at her hand, sprawled on the floral carpet. Finally she spoke. "Yes, it's true."
"Fascinating," Peter drawled, his dark blue gaze mirroring concern as he watched her. "I have always had a weakness for adventuresses."
"Oh, the man deserved killing, twice over, but it was a convenient way to be rid of a husband."
Peter stiffened, his eyes narrowing as he looked to Ramon. "Husband? That must have caused…repercussions."
"Unfortunately, and they have followed her to Nassau in the person of Nathaniel Bacon, whom you may have met."
"I would like to hear the full story, I think."
"Lorna will tell you, I'm sure, if you are really interested. But, not now." He took her hand, tucking it under his arm, covering her cold fingers where they lay on his sleeve. "I think, chérie, it is time we returned to the ship."
She allowed him to guide her from the room, to wrap her cloak around her and escort her from the house. She walked beside him without speaking until they had reached the Lorelei and were safe inside the cabin. She pulled away from him then, standing in the middle of the floor, clasping her hands in front of her.
"Why?" she whispered, then said louder, "Why?"
"It seemed something it would be best if he knew."
"As a warning? Before he became too involved with a murderess?" She was becoming distraught, but she could not help it.
"As a precaution. You apparently had said nothing." He began to remove his jacket, having difficulty with the top button.
"It isn't something I use to enliven idle conversation!"
"But, it is something a man overly interested in you should know." He stripped off the jacket, kicked off his boots, and began to remove his shirt.
"You have no right to interfere." She followed his movements without taking them in, so acute was her distress.
"If he cares for you, it won't matter, and it seemed that he might be able to help."
"Help? Help what, convict me of Franklin's murder by my own admission?"
"To prevent you from being harassed by Bacon when I am not, cannot, be there."
She swung from him then, clasping her arms around her body, moving to stand before the porthole that was open to the river breeze. She breathed deep, feeling as if she had been running, chased by a devil, and found it was only a figment of some vanished nightmare. Vaguely, as if from a great distance, she heard the rustle of Ramon's trousers as he stepped from them, the pad of his bare feet as he moved in behind her. He took the cloak from her shoulders, throwing it to one side, then closed his arms around her, cupping her breasts.
"Berate me in the morning," he said, the timbre of his voice husky, the warmth of his breath against the tender curve of her neck. "Claw my eyes out in the morning. But, for right now, come to bed. I have watched you toni
ght, thinking of you without your pantaloons until I am half-crazed with wanting you. The look and feel and scent of you is in my blood like wine. The more you throw up obstacles before me, the more maddened I become. Come love, and let me love you, or I will take you on the floor with your skirts about your waist, and never regret it."
She swung in his arm, staring at him with the vestiges of pain and anger clouding her mind. Then, she flung herself at him, twining her arms about his neck, meeting his mouth with ferocity, driven by the passion that leaped inside her as she ground her lips into his. He caught her to him in a crushing embrace, his breath stopped in his chest. Slanting, bruising, probing, his triumphant kiss fed her desire. His hands roved over her, tearing at the hooks of her gown, jerking them free, so that it fell open down her back. He slipped the knots in the tapes of corset and petticoats, breaking those that resisted as he strove to release her from the cocoon of the clothing that held her bound. She aided him, writhing, swaying, stepping from the billowing mound, pressing herself against him from breast to ankle.
The hardness of his body was a sensuous delight, the strength of his arms a refuge. She was aflame inside, trembling with the force of a raging fire. She clenched her fingers on the hair growing low on his neck, kneading his shoulders, and closed her eyes in dizziness as he swung her from her feet and placed her on the low bunk.
He knelt beside it, bending over her, his hands marauding. She arched her back, turning toward him, offering her breasts to the warmth of his mouth. He took one, worrying the nipple with his teeth, flicking it with his tongue, closing his lips upon it. The muscles of her stomach quivered, tightening convulsively as his hand smoothed downward. Her breathing grew ragged, and she made a soft, imploring sound as his mouth followed, pausing at her navel and the gentle mound below it, seeking and finding that most sensitive, most sensual part of her body.
Her muscles tensed. Reality receded and she drifted into sharp ecstacy. Across her mind flitted the image, soft and shimmering, of Ramon coming to her once more through the French doors of her hotel in Nassau, silent, god-like, bringer of joy. She cried out in wanton release, twisting, drawing him up beside her on the bunk, hovering over him, her loosened hair trailing over his chest. In her fervent gratitude and the tide race of pleasure in her veins, she tried with lips and hands to incite him to that same fury of desire. He accepted it, with his hands locked in the silk of her hair, testing the limits of control until he could bear it no more.
"God, mon coeur," he whispered hoarsely, "let me-"
Drawing her down beside him, he pressed into her, plunging deep as he drew her against him with his fingers digging into her hips. Unsatisfied by the depth of penetration, he heaved aside, pulling her beneath him. She clung to him, drawing him deeper and deeper, her breath gathering in her throat. He lay for a moment, resting his weight on his elbows, finding her mouth, drinking in its sweetness. Then, he began to move, fitting her to his rhythm with tender insistence. She rose against him, eyes tightly closed, hands spread wide and flat on the bunk. She soared, weightless, unbound, transfigured. She had no identity and needed none. He was a part of her, and she of him, linked, inseparable.
It burst upon her with the hot moistness of her own release, mingling with his. It was dark mystery, ancient and consuming, a thing to create life or destroy it, to bring surfeit or gnawing hunger, evil, or joy. It beat in her blood and vibrated through her body, a violent repletion that left exhaustion in its wake. She burrowed her face into the hollow of Ramon's throat, kissing the firm, salt-tasting skin, murmuring wordlessly in the excess of love she felt at that moment. His arms tightened and his mouth brushed her forehead. He held her, staring into the night. Before her heartbeat had slowed, she slept.
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Chapter 15
"I think," he said, his voice warm and lazily content, "that I will throw away all your pantaloons. Maybe your corset. And hoops, yes, definitely your hoops."
They were lying in the bunk with the pure, golden light of morning streaming through the portholes, falling onto the gently moving floor of the cabin. Their bodies were nested together under the covering of a sheet and light blanket, though Ramon was propped on his elbow, brushing his lips over the sweet curve of her shoulder while, with his free hand, he smoothed up and down the molding of her arm. Lorna had been pretending to drowsiness, in spite of the growing heat of him against her naked back and his gentle caresses. She opened her eyes, stiffening.
"You did do it. I knew you did!"
"Do what?" he asked, his voice silky with innocence.
"Get rid of my pantaloons, so I had nothing to wear."
"You were quite adequately clothed, more than adequately."
She twisted from his grasp, pushing herself up in the bunk. "Of all the lowdown, underhanded tricks, that's the worst I've ever come across!"
"I didn't say I did it," he protested, turning his attention to her shapely and slender knee, which she had drawn up within his range. He draped his arm over her leg and began to trace the crown of her kneecap with the tip of his tongue.
"You don't have to, it's written all over your smug-stop that, it tickles!"
He ignored her squirming efforts to avoid his tongue. "What if I did? Admit it, you enjoyed your…unencumbered evening-and everything that followed."
"Oh!" she cried and, driven mad by his tickling and his superior attitude, wrenched the pillow from under them and swung it at his head. He dodged, grabbing for it, and they tussled. She leaned over him, and as she found she could not wrest it from him, tried instead to press it down on his face. He surged up, taking the pillow with him. She would not turn loose. He jerked it, leaning, and a moment later she lay face down across his lap. He released the pillow. She felt, rather than saw, him lift his hand above the vulnerable white skin of her buttocks. Like an eel, she twisted face up and lay panting, glaring at him.
He grinned, the untrammeled pleasure of their play lighting the darkness of his eyes. The white gleam of his teeth shone against the bronze of his skin. He shook his head. "Don't you know, ma chérie, that I wouldn't redden even an inch of your beautiful skin."
"Why should I know any such thing?" The words were sharp if rather breathless.
"I want only to please you."
He placed his hand upon her waist, closing his grip upon it. "To drive me mad, you mean!" she snapped.
"In some ways, possibly," he acceded, pursing his lips as he slid his hand upward to cup her breast. "It seems only fair, since you have not helped my sanity in these last weeks."
"You know-" she began, but he cut her short.
"Yes. Shall we let it go, thinking only of now? I require at this moment simply to know what is your pleasure? If you are dissatisfied, you must tell me what can I do to make you happy."
"I-nothing." She lowered her lashes, feeling the warmth of a flush on her cheeks.
"Nothing? Isn't there anything I have done that you would like again?"
"I…I'm not dissatisfied."
"Nor am I," he said, sliding his fingers into the valley between her breasts, letting them come to rest on the swell above her left side where her heartbeat made the soft white mound tremble. "Nor am I, but you have so thoroughly, if sometimes unwillingly, gratified my most fervent desire, that I would do the same for you. Only tell me what it is."
His voice was low, hypnotically persuasive, oddly musical. The vision she had had of him, coming to her through her open French doors after his serenade, flashed through her mind. She hesitated, then shook her head.
"There is something," he said, his hold tightening, his tone commanding as he said again, "Tell me."
"It…it's silly, and nothing you can help now, even if it wasn't too dangerous. It was…is just an idea, a sort of daydream."
"But, one that excites you," he said, beginning to smile once more as he stretched out beside her, drawing her into his arms. "Now I have to know. You can't keep it from me; I won't let you."
When she
told him, he didn't laugh, as she suspected he might, nor did he mind that her thoughts had gone tumbling into fantasy while she was in his arms. The sound he made deep in his throat might have been of amazement or exultation. A moment later, he was whispering against her ear, "Wait, just wait."
Was it the lasciviousness of their thoughts, or the speaking of them aloud that brought them together then with such hunger? The reason did not matter, only the actuality, the strength and fury of the possession, the physical need that was appeased, the human warmth that was exchanged with clinging mouths and enclosing arms. There was another element. It was as if, above the merging of their bodies, there was the forging of a link between their minds; a link that was tentative, fragile, one that might endure or just as easily be broken in an instant.
It was with reluctance that they dressed, finally, and made ready to go into town. Ramon had business to attend to concerning the cargo they would be loading in the afternoon and, in addition, there was to be the auction of the goods brought in by the different blockade runners. He seemed no more ready to leave Lorna on board alone than she was anxious to stay. Wearing her muslin gown, with a shawl over her arms against the spring coolness at this latitude and a parasol to protect her from the bright sun, she left the gangplank of the ship on his arm.
The business was contracted without incident, Lorna being regaled with tea and cakes by a junior accountant while Ramon drove his bargain in the factor's office. As they were leaving, they met Peter and his English friends once more. She knew a moment of dismay as they crowded around, noisy and exuberant, only slightly more sober than they had been the night before. She cast a quick glance at Ramon, but he was smiling, joking with Peter about the cargo he had stolen from under his nose, ready to be entertained. He did not seem to mind the gallantries paid to Lorna this morning, nor the intrusion upon them. If anything, he appeared to welcome the distraction, readily agreeing to wait for Peter and the others as they arranged their business, so that they could all go somewhere for a noon meal.
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