Fires of Delight

by Vanessa Royall

  “I understand,” Penrod said. He pulled a thick, alligator-hide wallet from his waistcoat pocket, and counted out a number of bills. “Here’re both British notes and Continental Congress paper. You’ll be ready for either eventuality.

  “Well, I guess that’s it,” he added, facing them. “I’d best slip out now. Godspeed.”

  The two men shook hands warmly, the hearty grip of comradeship, which is also male affection. Penrod leaned over and bussed Selena lightly on the lips.

  “Don’t let go of him this time,” he advised tenderly.

  “Never again,” said Selena.

  Penrod crossed to the door, then turned. “Oh, Selena, I almost forgot. I gave you that cross in prison yesterday because I was afraid the British would take it…”

  “Yes?” said Selena, who thought he meant that he hadn’t wanted the English to have Erasmus Ward’s last possession. She pulled the sheet she wore a little way down from her neck. “Here it is. I’m wearing it in honor and memory of him.”

  It happened very quickly, but Selena was sure she saw Penrod and Royce exchange a veiled glance.

  “It’s all right, Gil,” Royce said. “The cross is in good hands. Or should I say around a fine neck?”

  “Absolutely,” agreed the businessman, nodding. It was as if the two men were discussing something, something quite important too, beyond Selena’s ken.

  Penrod left then, and Selena set about preparing a breakfast of brandy, hardtack, and strawberry preserves.

  “Is there some significance to this cross?” she asked, keeping her voice even, as if she were not at all interested.

  “Of course not,” replied Royce, with a similar—and equally feigned—insouciance. “Why on earth would you think a thing like that?”

  Selena almost—almost—brought the issue to a head then and there, the issue of the cross and the gems. Later she would wish that she had, but she didn’t. They had a gay breakfast during which Royce allowed that sometime in the future they would be sailing to Europe. But such a trip seemed so far away, the brandy was heady and sweet, and he was hers.

  When he slipped the sheet from her shoulders and breasts, she shuddered. And when he drew it down over the swell of her hips and let it fall to the floor—dropping to his knees as he did so—she closed her eyes, threw back her head, and made a strange involuntary sound of wonder, almost a snarl.

  “Don’t move,” he ordered hoarsely. “Feel everything. I want you to enjoy every bit of sensation.”

  She obeyed until nearly the end, as he worshipped her with his lips and mouth and tongue, sending quicksilver flashes of startling raw pleasure throughout her body. She obeyed, and did not move at all until nearly the end when he lifted her, light as air, to her toes, lifted her with ecstatic kiss alone, and she gave out a stifled wail of joy, both for what he was giving her and for what now had to end.

  Then he rose and Selena fell to her own knees before him, slowly, so slowly undoing the drawstring of his breeches, bringing forth as she had so many times before the mysterious pulsing staff that could so easily rouse her to spasms of delicious frenzy. He cradled her head between his hands as, with her lips, she explored the length of him, and with her fingertips the taut vessel in which nestled the twin orbs that made him a masterpiece. Pleased with the pleasure she gave, rejoicing at her ability to make him jump and sob, Selena exulted when she felt the leaping currents of his essence, all down the long length of him and into her.

  For most of the day, they held each other, sleeping, resting, now and then rising to eat or drink. Later on, in waning twilight, they hurried to dress. They split the bills that Penrod had given them, and as Selena struggled to pull on the buckled shoes—Gilbertus had erred complimentarily in his estimate of her size—Selena saw Royce furtively slipping the pouch of gems into the leather bag.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to carry this,” he told her, handing over the bag. “Servants work, you know.”

  “Yes, milord,” she replied, dipping slightly in a parody of a curtsy.

  Then they opened the window and dropped from the ledge down into the darkened alley, Royce going first and Selena following.

  They left the alley and turned into the street just as Jean Beaumain, captain of the Liberté, left his ship, accompanied by five of his comrades, for an evening of cards and drinks and carousing.

  3

  A Change of Plans

  Before she had walked more than a couple of hundred paces, walking rather slowly so as not to arouse suspicion, Selena’s shoes attacked. Their frontal assault was made upon the joint at which the small toe meets the foot. A simultaneous, dastardly charge from the rear occurred where the hard leather of the low shoes dug into the tender flesh atop Selena’s heels. The stockings were no help at all, thin and old. If anything, they betrayed her as well, showing off her well-shaped calves. Few men had legs like that. To make matters worse, her hair, which she had tied up and jammed beneath the silly little hat, was beginning to loosen. The hat swayed, side to side, to and fro, upon her head like a lily pad on a windy pond.

  “Darling, stop, I’ve got to take off these damn shoes!” Selena declared, bracing a hand against his epauleted shoulder and reaching down to remove the instruments of torture.

  “It won’t look right,” he said, scanning the street ahead of them even as two British soldiers, marching in lockstep and carrying muskets, turned a corner and approached.

  “I’ll be bleeding shortly,” complained Selena.

  “We’ll both be bleeding anyway if we don’t get out of New York fast.”

  Regretfully, recognizing the truth of his words and sobered by the oncoming troopers, Selena stood up and moved ahead.

  The two men wore, respectively, the uniforms of a corporal and a sergeant. Royce was disguised as a major. Under normal circumstances, subordinates would not have dreamed of addressing their superior unless ordered or invited to do so, but sentries on guard, under specific orders to challenge everyone, would have been derelict in their duty had they failed to hail King George himself.

  “Major, sir, please state your business,” the sergeant said, as he and his partner stopped in front of Royce and Selena.

  “Good work, sergeant,” replied Royce smoothly. “I’m glad to see you’re alert. I am Major Shaddy, attached to General Graves’ headquarters.”

  The guard was unimpressed. There were many officers working for General Graves, and an enlisted man savors the moment when he is permitted to deal with a ranking officer on an equal footing.

  “Aren’t you off in the wrong direction a bit? You ought to have turned two streets down.”

  “What? Is that right? My mistake. Thank you. You see, I only arrived from England last week. My man here”—he gestured toward Selena, who sensed trouble in this encounter—“and I have just come from a fitting at my tailor’s.”

  “Is that correct?” demanded the sergeant of Selena, peering at her in the gathering darkness.

  “Yes, sir!” she said crisply, thanking the good Lord or whomever for her naturally husky speaking voice, which she had lowered an octave on this occasion.

  “I don’t believe a ship arrived here last week,” the corporal piped up.

  “What is this, an inquisition?” Royce snapped, making a show of anger that one as cooperative as he would be subject to prolonged scrutiny. “I arrived in the Chesapeake aboard the Princess Rose and proceeded here by carriage. Would you like to accompany me to headquarters for verification?”

  Any trooper worth his salt knows that headquarters is a place to avoid at all costs. Being there means running the risk of being spotted and assigned to any extra duty that might have occurred to some officer coming out of his afternoon nap. Royce had won.

  “No, sir,” the sergeant decided. “Your word is good enough for us. Pleasant evening.”

  “Let us walk up in this direction a bit farther,” Royce said to Selena in a voice loud enough for the departing sentries to hear. “I want to see this part of town
.”

  “Whew!” he added a bit later. “They are certainly on the prowl tonight.”

  Selena agreed. She could not, however, bear the pinching shoes a moment longer, so she took them off and slipped them into the bag, noticing as she did so that Royce was watching her carefully. The sovereigns and gems were on his mind.

  “Now that’s better,” she exclaimed in relief, walking along in her stockinged feet. “How much farther…?”

  She didn’t finish. A splendid hansom, drawn by two sleek grays, was wheeling toward them up the street.

  “Just keep walking,” Royce said.

  The hansom flashed past. Out of the corner of her eye, Selena saw the fine horses, the glittering spokes of the wheels, the flickering lanterns mounted oh the sides of the cab, and the bald, gleaming head of Lieutenant Clay Oakley in the cab, upon whom the lanterns shone. He had been looking their way.

  “Oakley!” she blurted.

  “Are you sure?” asked Royce, turning instinctively. “Oh, no, what evil luck—”

  Selena turned too, and saw that the hansom had begun to swing back around toward them. She could see the booted and liveried driver sawing at the reins and snapping his long whip.

  She and Royce looked at each other.

  They ran.

  “How did he know?” she panted, the coarse gravel of the roadway biting into her feet.

  “He couldn’t have,” muttered Royce. “Everyone is being challenged.”

  “No. He did know. Know it was me. The man is uncanny. There is something about him—”

  Hoofbeats clattered on the road, gaining on the fugitives. “Halt! Halt!” Oakley was shouting. Royce and Selena heard the sharp bark of a pistol, heard the hot ball of lead hiss by. The driver, standing on his seat behind the horses, was holding the reins with one hand and firing with the other.

  “We’ve got to split up,” said Royce, as they came to an alley so narrow not even a single horseman could have entered it. “You go that way. I’ll run on ahead. Cut left after a time. I’ll meet you along the river.”

  “No!”

  The pistol spoke again. A chunk of brick, dislodged from the side of the building in whose shadow they stood, fell at Selena’s feet. The hansom was closing fast.

  “Please get moving,” implored Royce. And Selena obeyed then, racing up the dark, dingy alley—no more than a pathway really—between two bleak, unending rows of shuttered hovels. Dogs barked. Something that must have been a rat skittered beneath her feet, and she was glad for a second not to be wearing a skirt.

  Far up the alley, thinking that she was at least out of sight, Selena turned. The hansom had stopped at the alley’s end. In the light of its little lanterns, she saw Clay Oakley climb out. Disbelieving, she saw him start to come after her, heavily, ponderously, implacably. The hansom rolled on again, its driver hunting for Royce.

  “No, God!” she prayed.

  Oakley was coming. She could not yet hear his footsteps, but the swift currents of air at work in this narrow space already bore the scent of his cologne, mingled with the stenches of ordure and garbage dumped in the alley, as was customary, by the residents of these hovels for the rain to wash away.

  Selena began to run again, more breathlessly perhaps even than Oakley. It was then that she realized the leather bag was still in her hand.

  With the pouch of jewels inside it.

  She also realized that the bag, which was quite bulky even though almost empty, hindered her flight. Without thinking twice, she opened it, took out the pouch and slipped it into her jacket pocket, and flung the bag into the shadows next to someone’s back stoop. She hoped whoever lived here had use for a piece of fine luggage and also possessed small feet.

  Running on, no longer smelling the cologne, Selena saw a light burning at the side of a building up ahead. She slowed down and approached. The illumination came from a whale-oil lantern affixed to the doorjamb of an establishment called the Nest of Feathers. Those, at any rate, were the fading words painted over the door. From within, she heard the sounds of rough laughter and rougher talk.

  It was surely no place for a lady to be, not at this time of night or any other, but there were living, breathing people inside, and her disguise might serve her at least for a little while. The Nest of Feathers seemed more desirable than standing in a cold alley, alone, waiting for Clay Oakley to imprison her again.

  A whiff of cologne urged her over the brink of decision. She opened the tavern door and went inside.

  To her relief, it was ill-lighted. She was particularly concerned about someone noticing her feminine features, her incongruous disguise, and her stockinged feet. A small, squat bar stood at one side of the tavern, covered with dusty bottles, dirty glasses, and numerous puddles of liquor or water that had not been wiped. A whale-oil lamp burned on the bar, behind which a sultry, buxom barmaid lifted her head to stare expectantly at Selena. Candles burned on each of three tables, at one of which five men were drinking and playing cards. There were no other customers. The Nest of Feathers, on this night anyway, was not enjoying an impressive or numerous clientele.

  A couple of the men glanced Selena’s way as she entered, but turned immediately back to their cards.

  “What’ll it be, mate?” asked the barmaid.

  Selena knew she did not have much time before Oakley would stumble in, making inquiries. She had to think of some way in which to ensure her safety. Posing as a toper seemed a likely first step. She had not had much experience in taverns of this sort, however, save one in Liverpool years ago. There she had bewitched and inveigled a, seaman named Slyde into smuggling her aboard his vessel in order to escape Darius McGrover, who had killed her father and wanted to do the same to her.

  “Give me whatever those blokes are drinking,” ordered Selena, stepping over to the dim bar.

  The barmaid, whose rather pretty features were marred by the ravages of smallpox, seemed impressed.

  “A cannonball, eh? You look a mite young, lad, for such poison, but it’s your funeral.”

  She took a large mug and filled it halfway with beer. Then she added a good slug of rum, some brandy, and a bit of dry gin to top it off.

  Selena gulped. She seldom drank anything stronger than brandy, and most of the time just wine.

  “What’s that accent?” inquired the barmaid in a not unfriendly way as she slid the mug across toward Selena. “Scots, eh? Don’t hear a whole lot of that in these parts.”

  Selena had worked on her speech for a long time, and thought she’d been quite successful in achieving the diction and modulations of upper-crust English. Apparently, her roots were still evident to the common ear.

  “Just askin’,” said the barmaid in apology, reading offense in Selena’s mildly startled expression. “Don’t mean nothin’ by it, lad.”

  Now she was starting to take a closer look at her new customer.

  Selena lifted the mug, lowered her head, and letting the inadequate hatbrim partially conceal her face, sipped.

  It was all she could do to keep from coughing as the strong, fiery concoction burned its way down her throat. The cannonball was not misnamed, at least not as to its effect.

  Then Selena noted, on the wall next to the bar, a jumble of flyblown bills which had been posted there. A recent addition had been fastened above the others with a tack, and on it was her own likeness, or a close approximation thereof. The sketch artist had erred by depicting her oval-shaped face as rather square, but he had done well with her small, straight nose and strong, slightly rounded chin. Her high cheekbones and large, exotic eyes were done to perfection, however. It was Selena MacPherson all right, as the notice stated, and the price on her head had been raised to twenty-five hundred pounds sterling.

  She wondered if Royce would be pleased, even as she realized that, for anyone present in the Nest of Feathers, twenty-five hundred pounds would constitute an unimaginable fortune.

  “Damn fine drink, my girl,” Selena said in the lowest voice she could mana
ge.

  “Aye! And much as I appreciate the compliment, I value cash as well.”

  “Oh. Oh, yes.” Selena fumbled in her pocket for the notes Royce had given her. “British or American?”

  “American, if it’s all the same to you. We don’t cater much to the English, a place like this.”

  That was good to hear. She could picture Lieutenant Oakley lumbering up the alley, his heavy body brushing against the bricks on either side.

  She slid a bill across the bar.

  “Hey!” exclaimed one of the men at the table. “You’ve got money, lad? Then come over here and join in a friendly little game of Black Pete.”

  Black Pete was a high-stakes game that Royce had taught her, although he’d beaten her every time. Still, being seated with a group of toughs would make her less vulnerable than standing alone at the bar. Moreover, the man who had hailed her, although roughly dressed in a collarless shirt with wide, horizontal red-and-white stripes and canvas jacket, did not seem unduly threatening. He had a broad, open face. His long, shoulder-length blond hair was partially held in place by a soiled, once-white headband.

  “Come on over, lad,” he invited again, his white teeth shining in the lamplight, “and bring your drink along. You won’t regret it.”

  Selena must have appeared a little doubtful, because as the barmaid gave back change from the bill, she said, “It’s all right if you don’t bet too much. That’s Jean Beaumain, a sailor. As long as you’re not a woman, he’ll pretty much leave you alone. But if you were a woman,” she added with a sly wink, “I’m here as proof you wouldn’t want him to.”

  “Sure, come on over and join the game,” exclaimed another of the men heartily. They were all coarsely dressed, but not at all common. Their teeth were good, and they exuded a confident, vaguely reckless air.

  Selena went over and sat down in the chair that Jean Beaumain had pulled out for her.

  “Put your money on the table, boy,” he said expansively. “What’s your business? How’d you manage to find a dive like this?”