by J. D. Robb
Isabelle turned her head toward the light, and the illusion of well-being disappeared. A man stood beside the bed, surrounded by darkness. How could he be in shadow when so many candles lit the room? Her heart began to race and anxiety twisted in her stomach.
He was not tall, but powerful in build, but that was all of him she could see. Isabelle wished he would say something. Even as she had the thought, she realized his body spoke a language all its own. Anger radiated from him.
Maybe I’m the one who should say something. But she was too tired to speak; too tired to do anything but stare at him and wish for comfort.
“Sleep for now. You were almost dead but you will live.”
Isabelle gave a little nod and closed her eyes. As she fell asleep she gave the man a name. Sebastian Dushayne.
Sleep was the perfect escape at first. Then the nightmare of the shipwreck overwhelmed her. She was in the water, being tossed by the waves like a piece of driftwood, held under by some current until her lungs would burst, then freed and allowed one more breath.
Fighting, fighting to reach the shore until it became too much of an effort, giving in and floating until finally she was washed up onto the beach like flotsam.
She felt a hand on her head, heard a voice whispering. “You will live. You are safe. You survived.”
He must have spoken the words. She most definitely heard them, but the comfort of his hand smoothing her hair was what convinced her. If she had a drink of water, maybe she could speak, could ask him if the others had survived.
The next thing she knew he was smoothing her hair off her face, sliding his arm under her neck, raising her as though he knew how much even that small movement would hurt.
His hands were cool, but they sent a shock of warmth through her. A shock that overrode the discomfort of her bruised body. A feeling so welcome that she turned her face into his shoulder.
“Drink a little.” Sebastian Dushayne held the glass at her lips and she drank, her eyes on his, though he watched the glass and the water and nothing more.
He was handsome and unsmiling, with a straight nose, a rather fine mouth and a dent in his chin. She thought he might have dimples when he smiled. If he ever did smile.
Settling her back on the pillows, he poured more water. “You can have another drink in a few minutes.”
Sebastian Dushayne knew something about trauma care, she thought. Sometimes even a little water was more than the stomach could tolerate.
He pulled up a chair and sat down. Now he did look her in the eye. His brown eyes were not at all friendly. She saw none of the warmth or comfort she had felt when he touched her. She braced herself.
“Joubay is missing. As is the boat and its owner.”
Isabelle’s throat clogged with tears. She knew it was true, though her heart begged for their lives.
He gave her a handkerchief and stood up.
“Are you a doctor?”
“A nurse,” she answered in a rusty voice.
“It hardly matters which. You are a woman. Joubay knows I will not allow a woman to live here. Now neither one of us can ask him what he was thinking.”
“I want a phone. I need to arrange for their funerals.”
“First you must rebuild your strength. Then we will talk about what you can and cannot do.”
Where had the kindness gone? she wondered.
“I want answers.” She cleared her throat and hoped she sounded determined.
“You will not have them today.” He stood up as if he was going to leave without another word.
“Father said there was a curse. What did he mean?”
“Joubay lived a fool and died one.” Now Sebastian Dushayne did walk away, but stopped at the door and asked, “Can you sing?”
If Father Joubay had not warned her, she would have thought him mad to ask such a question. “I can only sing hymns.” The way her throat felt now, she doubted she could sing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”
His laugh was cynical and not at all appealing. “Of course you sing hymns. Next you will tell me that you are a virgin with a heart as pure as snow.”
Isabelle wanted to know where the cynicism came from, but he did not give her a chance to speak. “I don’t care what you sing. It has been years since I heard a new voice, new songs. Perhaps your hymns will convert me.”
Before Isabelle could agree, argue or ask for more water, he left the room.
She fell asleep almost immediately, her dreams such a mix of nightmare and grief that it was a relief to wake up.
Dushayne was there again and she wasted no time, determined to move, to speak and to find some answers. She struggled upright in bed, then realized she was naked and pulled the sheet up to cover her breasts. He did not turn away but watched her with a disinterest that told her she was the only one who was embarrassed.
Isabelle reached for the water and groaned as the pain of damaged muscles spread from her fingers to her neck. Forcing herself to drink the water, she thanked God for the feel of it sliding down her throat, freeing her voice.
“You are Sebastian Dushayne.”
“Yes, and you are?”
“Isabelle Reynaud.”
He bowed with old-world courtliness. “How do you do, Mistress Reynaud.”
“I am not married.”
“Yes, I know, but mistress is a term we use for every grown woman.”
“Where am I?”
“You are in the Castillo de Guerreros on the Isla Perdida.”
“The Castle of Warriors on the Lost Island?”
Dushayne nodded and Isabelle wondered what it would take to get more than basic answers from him.
“The village healer sent some of her salve to ease your bruises and sore muscles. Sit up and I will put some on your back, where you cannot reach.”
Isabelle wanted to say no, but she also knew that to reject his help would send all the wrong messages, to him, to the healer, even to the servants. She could see one peeking around the corner of the door. “Let the servant do it.”
“Are you afraid I will seduce you?” Genuine humor made her blush. “Believe me, Mistress Reynaud, I am not the slightest bit interested in a woman with a body that is no more than bruises and hair still filled with sand and seaweed.”
Even though her arm blazed with pain at the action, Isabelle raised her hand to her head. Her hair felt like lengths of used raffia. Who knew what was in it besides sand. “I need to wash it. I hate the sand. I want to wash it right now.”
“Yes, I will send my housekeeper to help you. But first the salve. It will make it much easier to move.” He added, “Please,” as though it was a password of some kind, and Isabelle gave a half nod and looked away from his smile. He did have dimples.
She leaned forward. Even that hurt. She held back the groan and kept the sheet in front of her. The air felt warm on her back and she waited for the even warmer touch of his hand.
Isabelle could not see his face, but watched him scoop a portion of the salve from a stone dish, and rub his hands together. They were strong, well-shaped hands, tanned, with long fingers and blunt-cut nails, with a pronounced curve of white cuticle. There was a scar on one knuckle, the white of it in contrast to the warm tan of his skin. The scar did not look very old.
He raised his hands to her back and Isabelle stared out the window at the water, today looking as benign as a baby’s bathtub.
Sebastian Dushayne smoothed the cream, warmed by his hands, from the back of her neck all the way down her spine, then began to rub it in with the most sensual of pressure, not too soft and not hard enough to hurt, but just firmly enough to make her feel wonderful. He might not be interested in seducing her, but that did not mean she was oblivious to it.
Dushayne ran his hands very slowly down the outsides of her arms and then, even more slowly, up the insides of her arms so that his fingertips brushed the edge of her breasts.
She straightened instinctively but said nothing, wondering if she was overreacting, decid
ing she was when he stepped back a moment for more salve.
Dushayne used both hands to massage the cream into her lower back, the feeling so relaxing that Isabelle dropped her head, her long hair falling around her face, loosened crystals of sand spilling onto the sheet.
Moving his hands over her hips, he cupped her buttocks and she wondered whether the magic was in the salve or in his hands.
“That is quite enough.” Isabelle used as firm a voice as she could command, the kind she used to the children who were using markers to make tattoos on one another.
Dushayne ended the treatment abruptly. The next thing she felt was his breath near her ear. “No,” he whispered. “Do not lie. It is not nearly enough and we both know it.”
Isabelle wasn’t lying. It wasn’t nearly enough pleasure, but it was quite enough temptation. She turned around to tell him that and saw the door closing.
How could she even be thinking about something so physical when she still ached, when her friend was dead, when Sebastian Dushayne himself was such an unknown?
For now, all she wanted was sleep. The scent of the ointment was part of its power, she was sure, so soothing.
She pulled the sheet up to her neck and prayed for strength to resist and tried to recall all the questions still unanswered.
Sebastian closed the door quietly.
“Sit here,” he told the servant, indicating the chair near the door. “Come to me for help if she is upset or has nightmares.” The servant nodded and Sebastian headed for the beach. He needed a woman or a swim in cold water, and right now there was only one woman he wanted.
Isabelle Reynaud was a sweet confection. Tiny, not so much short as fine boned and perfectly proportioned, what a Regency man would have called a “Pocket Venus.” Her hair was so dark and so long that he wondered how her neck could bear the weight of it. He could hardly wait to feel that hair once it had been washed, to taste her, to make himself part of her.
But the woman would need to grieve awhile. He understood that, even if death no longer moved him.
Anticipation would make her surrender all the more satisfying. He could spend weeks tutoring her in the finer points of erotic pleasure.
What a lovely surprise Joubay had brought for him. Sebastian decided she was meant as a consolation if Joubay’s idea for ending the curse did not work.
Damn, damn, damn. The old man was free now. Even worse, without him in the world searching for the solution, there was no hope of ending it. A dozen women were not consolation enough.
Shedding his clothes, Sebastian walked into the water, dove into a small wave and swam out to the deeper, cooler part of the harbor.
Three
Isabelle closed her eyes and prayed, for Father Joubay, the ship’s owner, herself and Sebastian Dushayne. She was not sure which one of them needed it more.
Her dreams were filled with grief this time, the dead, bloated bodies of Father Joubay and the captain and a Sebastian Dushayne who did not care if the birds feasted on them. Just as the dream verged on a nightmare, Father Joubay rose from the water and walked through it to the shore, looking like his mortal self. “Do not grieve. We are buried and our souls have gone to God.”
She fell more deeply asleep, sure she could feel Father Joubay’s hand comforting her.
“Do you remember that moment in New Orleans?” he asked. “How I threw out my prepared sermon and talked about how much help was needed on this little Caribbean island?”
“Of course I do. How no one had the most routine vaccinations, and health care was centuries out of date.”
“The Church of Lost Souls was filled with people who understood, who’d been through Katrina.”
Their eyes met as Isabelle remembered, as Joubay announced he was looking for someone trained in medicine willing to accompany him and volunteer for a year. Isabelle had smiled and Father Joubay had smiled back, and their pact was made.
“Dearest Isabelle,” Father Joubay spoke with some urgency as his body began to fade and drift upward. “Do not abandon your commitment. Do not grieve, or better yet, let grief fuel your good deeds. There is so much need here and you are the key.”
All right, Isabelle decided as Father disappeared into the clouds. Let her grief fuel her good deeds. She would stay for the year she had promised. She would sing hymns as Sebastian Dushayne demanded. She would do her best to update the medical care, introduce routine inoculations and set a standard that could save lives. It was what Father Joubay had asked her to do. It was why she had come.
From her own experience she knew that if God wanted her to do something else, she would know.
Finally, at last, Isabelle’s sleep was as pure as her body and as sweet as her heart.
When she woke the third time, Isabelle had no idea what time of day it was or even if it was the same day. She did feel one hundred percent better and decided that the healer’s salve was worth investigating.
The sun shone, so she pushed up from bed, wrapped a sheet around her nakedness and went to the window.
The opening looked out onto a village that was a few hundred yards from the castle, or was this a fort? The one main street was quiet, only a woman and a girl walking its length.
That meant it was probably noontime. This part of the world still understood the merits of a siesta, though more sleep was the last thing Isabelle needed right now.
If she could find some clothes and dress, she would ask someone to show her to the cottage that was going to be her clinic and her home.
There was a shy knock at the door and Isabelle turned back from the window just as a woman came into the room, carrying a bundle of neatly folded clothes.
“Good afternoon, Mistress Doctor. It is a surprise to see that you are up and about. Are you feeling that much better?”
“Yes, thank you, amazingly better. What is that ointment that Mr. Dushayne gave me?”
“Ointment?” She seemed uncertain for a moment. “Oh, yes, it is the curing cream that the healer makes. It is all most of us need.”
Isabelle heard the defensive tone in that last sentence and recalled Father Joubay’s They do not want you. Well, she had faced that before in so many different guises that she was not surprised.
“I can see why you find the cream essential. It really worked. I am so looking forward to meeting the honored healer.”
The woman cackled. “She is no more honored than a witch doctor. She drinks too much, demands the finest pieces of fish and gives the best care to those who bring her anything that shines.” The woman raised her index finger, making the final point. “But she does know how to heal almost everything and that makes us tolerate her shortcomings.”
“Thank you for the insight.” She gave the woman, most likely the housekeeper, a deferential nod. Isabelle would judge for herself, but every piece of information was useful, so she told herself this was not gossip. “My name is Isabelle Reynaud. And I am not a fully trained doctor but a physician’s assistant.”
The woman shrugged as if that made no difference. “I am Vermille, Mistress Housekeeper of the castillo. You may call me Mistress Vermille. I will take you to the bathing room and give you these clothes.” She held up the folded clothes. “All your things were lost or ruined in the storm but these will fit you. The master sent to the hotel for them and he is very good at estimating the size a woman wears.”
“Thank you, Mistress Housekeeper,” Isabelle said, even as she cringed at the use of the word “master” to describe Sebastian Dushayne. His was a small world but he did control all of it.
“I would love to wash my hair. After I bathe and dress, could you spare someone to show me to the cottage in the village where my clinic will be?”
“Yes,” she said bluntly. “Come with me.” Mistress Vermille did not wait but left the room. Isabelle followed her, feeling silly using the sheet as a bathrobe, but the passageway was empty so it really didn’t matter.
“When you are dressed, follow the passage and turn right at every o
pportunity.”
With that, Mistress Vermille left her at the door of what she called “the bathing chamber.”
The bath defied conventional description. The toilet was no more than a hole in rock and there was no shower or sink, but the bath was more like a small swimming pool, big enough to float freely in. There were hooks on the wall, a very comfortable-l ooking chaise longue and a mirror that was bigger than she was.
The room had three windows, the shutters were pulled closed at the moment and the space was lit with candles. A sybarite’s delight. Isabelle had never been a hedonist, could never afford to live like one, but thought the adjustment would not be hard to make.
She walked around the bath and found some steps at the far end. The water was warm, comfortable, but not as hot as she would have liked. It felt like silk, liquid silk, and she enjoyed the sensuality of it as much as the feeling of being clean.
There were five elegant stone containers with various soaps, all the fragrances different. She chose the one that smelled like jasmine. It was heaven to wash her hair.
The experience would have been perfect if the door had a lock on it. It did not, and the whole time she was bathing she was aware that anyone could come in. The only “anyone” she worried about was the master, Sebastian Dushayne. This bath was definitely big enough for two and she suspected that he would not hesitate to invite himself to share it with her.
And, because honesty was such a fundamental part of her, Isabelle admitted she might enjoy it. Her imagination headed down that wayward path and it was not hard to imagine him naked. Too easy, in fact. Broad shoulders, strong arms, powerful legs. She hurried out of the bath before she could visualize any more of his body and left the image behind, swirling in the deep end of the water.
The toweling was different from the kind she was used to. More like an absorbent linen than fluffy cotton.
With her hair wrapped in one of the lengths, she dressed as quickly as she could. Isabelle had never worn a thong before and found it more comfortable than she thought it would be. The bra was a stretch of lace that was more sexy than useful. She had never been able to decide if it was fortunate or unfortunate that she did not need much support, but in this case it was a good thing.