by J. D. Robb
“I’m sorry I—” Isabelle began but stopped at the anger she saw. “What is it?”
“You made an agreement, Mistress Nurse. You are to come sing at the castle every night. And you have not visited for three weeks. Do you think to punish me because I am not interested in taking any pleasure from your body?”
“You make it sound as though my body exists for your use.” She did her best to sound reasonable even as her temper seethed. “Men are not that sexist these days and it’s not how I see sex. It’s a way to express affection, to share love in a physical way. It is about the mind and heart as much as the body.”
“Isabelle, we each exist for the other’s ‘use’ as you call it. Let me demonstrate.” He pulled her into the dining room entry hall, pinned her against the wall and kissed her. His lips touched her neck below her ear. Isabelle raised her arms to push him away, but the kiss enchanted her and she encircled his neck instead.
This is more than lust, more than wanting; this is the deepest of feeling. Isabelle tried to convince him as his mouth met hers and she opened to him. Opened more than her lips, opened her body, her mind, her heart as she had the first time Sebastian had kissed her.
He ended the kiss abruptly. His hardness pressed against her, arousing her even though they were both fully clothed.
“This is not the mind and heart, you simpleminded virgin. This is lust at its most powerful. If you think this is the ultimate sharing, then you are amazingly uneducated. This is only the beginning, though I wonder if you will ever free the wanton that is hiding inside you.”
Isabelle’s cheeks burned, and not only because she knew what she was capable of, had dreamed of the two of them together in ways that were very creative and slightly shocking.
It hurt physically to push him away, to deny herself what she wanted to give and he wanted to take—for all the wrong reasons.
“You do have a way with words, Sebastian. Were all men this insulting in 1810? Or have you become so used to being called ‘the master’ that you think of yourself as above everyone else?”
“You annoy me.”
That was stating the obvious, Isabelle thought. He looked like a chastened schoolboy pretending not to have a crush on a girl, but she reminded herself he was definitely not a schoolboy, and the depth of his feelings on the subject of lust and love made the idea of a crush laughable.
“Your talk of love and union is a fantasy.” He stood with his hands on his hips, not angry with her, she saw, but very, very frustrated. That made two of them.
“No, love is not a fantasy,” Isabelle insisted. “I know I will be yours as well as I know what day this is, but you will be mine, Sebastian Dushayne, and that makes all the difference in the world.”
Isabelle smoothed her pants and shirt into place and stepped away from him. “I have come to the castillo every evening since I last saw you and am told every evening that you are ‘entertaining privately’ and have no wish for me to sing.”
Sebastian did not answer her with any more than narrowed eyes, so she left the dining room and began a brisk walk to her clinic to gather the supplies for the day.
“Wait!”
“I am already late,” she said, without breaking stride.
Sebastian fell into step beside her, smiling now. “You have been very busy. Cortez tells me that the immunization program has started.”
“Yes, I was very pleased that Mistress Esmé was so receptive to the idea.”
“I’m sure she was.”
At his cynical tone, Isabelle slowed and looked at him. “Why do you say it that way?”
“Isabelle, my sweet, I never left word that you should be turned away from the castillo.”
Now she stopped walking completely. “You didn’t? But then why would they tell me to leave?” She had a niggling feeling she knew the answer.
“You know why. Because Esmé does not want us to be together. I can guess that she told the gatekeeper to send you away. She is keeping you busy and me distracted.”
“Then you are entertaining privately?” Isabelle did not want to sound coy, but it was such a gentle way to ask if he was having sex with someone else.
“Every night,” he said with rueful nod. “Esmé has a long and deep connection with the concierge at the hotel. The woman on the desk is her cousin and the man is her grandson. They are always on the lookout for guests who suit my taste.”
Isabelle tried not to show her disgust.
He laughed. “Your striving for sainthood is as amusing as it is obvious. Make up your mind, Isabelle. You can be a saint or a woman. Not both.”
“Then you do not understand faith or God at all.”
“Oh, it will be a joy to have you educate me.”
“Yes, it will.” Isabelle had never once heard him use the word “joy.” It was the smallest, tiniest step in the right direction.
“Come tonight, Isabelle.”
“Yes, I will.”
Sebastian watched her leave. Her joie de vivre was endearing. Her honesty amazing and amusing. He was not in a hurry to have sex with her. The dance they were sharing was so much less predictable than what happened in bed.
By the time he visited all the villagers, the noon bell rang for the midday meal, as he was walking through the castle gate. While he had no need for food, he did like the afternoon rest that was a part of island life. He would sleep a little and then head to the beach for his time with the children.
While he dozed, Joubay came to him, sitting beside him on the huge rock that was the shadiest spot on the west-facing beach. They did not look at each other, but watched a sailboat approach, both of them afraid, both of them pretending they were not.
“So Esmé is up to her old tricks,” Joubay began.
Sebastian had not heard his voice in two hundred years but recognized the gravelly sound that came from too much tobacco.
“Doing her best to keep Isabelle Reynaud away from me.” Sebastian threw a rock into the water gently slapping the outcropping beneath their feet. “Does the healer actually think the girl is a threat to the curse?”
“Yes, I do believe so.”
“There could never be another as pure of heart, as generous, as compliant as Angelique was.” He felt the breeze stiffen and the fear became dread. “My love for her caused her death and I deserve every year of this curse. It is not all bad, you know.”
“Nonsense. You cannot lie to me. Sex is an endless seeking for what is lost. You know as well as I do that sex alone is not the answer.”
“Don’t preach to me. You have not been celibate for two hundred years.”
“For more of it than you think. The difference between us is that I knew it was not the answer.” Joubay raised his head as the breeze became a wind and the first of the clouds crept up from the west. “And I had faith that I could find redemption. I have, and I am at rest at last. Need I remind you that Isabelle was the key?”
“I am not going to watch this again, Joubay.” The sky was darkening. Sebastian could feel the rain in the air.
“Then wake up and stop torturing yourself.” Joubay had to shout now as the wind whipped around them. “Sebastian, give the woman what she gives to you and see what happens. It cannot hurt more than you are hurting now.”
Sebastian woke up to the sound of something crashing to the floor and the muffled curse of a servant. Standing up, he shook off the last of the dream and readied himself for an afternoon with the only true innocents on the island.
Eight
The children always refreshed Sebastian in body and spirit. Their teacher was a truly gifted woman, and they had learned from the first that sharing was its own reward. The one little blind girl never lacked for someone to help her down the walkways or to read her the arithmetic problems.
By the time dusk settled on the castillo, he had rinsed off the salt and sand and dressed, ready for his next guest. Sitting in the chair near the fireplace with the smallest of fires, totally unnecessary but very comforting, Sebastian thought about
what Joubay had said in his dream. Or it could be that some of the children’s innocence touched his heart. Before he could decide, he heard Isabelle’s voice and walked to the door and out onto the passage that overlooked the inner bailey.
“I will come to you when you need me. I will free you from all your fear. All you must do is accept me and believe that I am always near.”
He felt wet on his hand and brushed another tear from his face. As she finished the song, the words that touched him echoed through his head. “I will free you from all your fear. All you must do is accept me.”
No one had ever named it “fear” before. Sebastian realized that he had not even thought of it that way until the moment the words were out of Isabelle’s mouth.
Fear. He was afraid, afraid of a hundred things.
Afraid that if he loved again, he would die. Not that death frightened him, but it would mean that there was so much that he would never have a chance to do.
He would like a chance to give back to more than his island home. To see the world denied him for so long. To meet men and women like his villagers. People who thought more of others than of themselves.
Fear hounded him. Fear that he did not know how to love. Love was as imperfect as the lover. His way of loving had cost Angelique her life. Was the fear of losing another lover what had kept him from finding someone in two hundred years? He’d never been able to decide if that was part of the curse or his own failing.
The biggest fear of all was that Isabelle would die if he even tried to love again. He put his head in his hand and let the tears fall. Fear weakened him so completely that Sebastian put his head in his hands and cried like a child.
Isabelle left the castillo, annoyed that the master had not shown himself when she had finished her song. He took time to encourage everyone else in the world, everyone but her.
She searched out the spot she called her own, a small grove of very old palms that had the feel of a holy place. She sat on one of the stumps and wished for someone to talk to.
The palms clacked in the light evening breeze. Isabelle did not think that was a divine message. No more than the surf or the sound of the night was. But it did inspire her to sit in silence, and lift her heart in prayer, to be part of nature as nature was part of her. She tried to convince herself that she was not lonely.
An amazingly bright shooting star lit the sky and Isabelle laughed. “Yes, I know I have only to speak from my heart and I am heard. I know some hymn that teaches that truth. But at this particular moment I would like someone to talk with.”
“You could talk to me, Isabelle.” Sebastian emerged from the shadows and sat across from her on the trunk of a palm tree that had fallen in some storm ages ago.
“Where were you tonight?” she asked with an edge to her voice.
“You sang ‘Be Still and Know I Am Here.’ Doesn’t that apply to you too?”
“Yes,” she said, which showed how good she was at preaching but not at living what she preached. “It’s one thing to say the words and another to live them.”
“It took me a while to deal with my fear.”
“What fear?”
“The list would take too long. But the biggest fear is that I will lose what I love the most.”
“It’s inevitable, Sebastian. We all face that fear.”
“Yes, but we don’t all cause death like I did.”
“You do think of yourself as ‘the master,’ don’t you? It happened for a hundred reasons, dear man, and one of them was to bring the two of us together. How else to match two destined souls born almost two hundred years apart?”
“Now, that is a fantasy.”
She laughed. “No more than being lost in paradise for two hundred years.”
“So you think predestination brought us together?”
“Not for a minute. I think a hundred things could have kept us apart. But by some miracle I came here and you listened.” Tears filled her eyes and tracked down her cheeks, not tears of sadness but an overflow of such profound belief she could not hold them back.
“Father Joubay called your curse a miracle of the devil’s making. I think he is wrong. This is a miracle of the highest order.”
“Miracle as torture?” he asked, and she had to agree that it had not been easy for him.
“Maybe all heartache is a gift in disguise. Maybe all good events have some darkness shadowing them.”
She came to him, the tears gone, and looked up into his face, overwhelmed in the best possible way by his physical power and presence. “Sebastian, maybe there is no pure good and bad in the world, but one grand invitation for us to live life to the fullest.”
He smiled, not quite showing his dimples, and kissed her as if it was the only answer he could give. That kiss, filled with a sweetness she had never felt before, gave her hope. He leaned back and now there were dimples showing. “This is too much theology for me. I came to invite you to watch the moon rise with me.”
“All right.” Indeed she had said quite enough. “I imagine you know the perfect spot.”
“I do.” He bowed a little and offered his arm.
She took his hand. It startled him and she decided it would be an evening of discovery for both of them. “Is it far?”
“On the top of the fort.”
“Let’s hurry. I don’t want to miss a moment.”
Isabelle held tight to his hand as they hurried up a ramp, to move guns, he said. They dashed around the outer wall where the gun mounts stood empty and up three sets of stairs. At the very top of the castillo there was a long line of guardhouses that marked the side of the fortress that faced the harbor.
All the while they held hands. His hold was awkward and she loved him all the more for it.
Isabelle let go of his hand, walked over to the wall and looked out to the harbor.
She loved him.
Of course she did. Stupid girl, she chided herself. How else was this story to play out? She could hardly give herself to a man without love. Had actually worried about it a little, knowing how much she wanted him. Now she did not have to worry about it anymore. This was living life to the fullest for her. She had no doubt.
Isabelle twirled around and leaned back on the rock and instantly felt the rock give way. She choked out a scream as she fell, the backs of her knees hitting the broken part of the wall and sending her into the black night.
“No!” Sebastian roared. He grabbed her hand, pulling her into his arms. They fell to their knees. Isabelle held on to him as if he were the only real safety in her world. She buried her face in his chest as she heard the broken chunk of the wall bounce off another rampart and fall into the sea.
“I was going to tell you how perfect that spot was,” Isabelle whispered. “But this spot with your arms around me is even better.”
Sebastian leaned back and took her face in his hands. “Do not die, do you hear me? I cannot have another life on my conscience.”
“I’m fine.”
Sebastian kissed her as if the touch of his lips would make her safe. She felt the sweetness again, and desire. On their knees, his lips begged for acceptance and when she gave it to him, he deepened the kiss. It was everything she wanted. The kiss ended, or at least he moved his lips to her hair and the way he rocked as he cradled her against him was as exciting as it was soothing.
She touched the spot below his ear with her lips and whispered, “Have we missed the moonrise or do you think the moon will wait for us?” Isabelle hoped he would laugh, but when she raised her head to look at his face, she saw that she would have to settle for a smile.
Sebastian stood and took her hand. “Come this way. And do not go too close to the wall.”
“All right,” she said and let him lead the way. Isabelle looked up to see that the stars seemed only just above her reach. “This is one of the most perfect places on earth.”
Sebastian pressed her fingers to his lips and turned her to face the east where the moon had just popped up over th
e horizon. With his arms wrapped around her and her hands over his, they watched the moon make its graceful climb. It was lemony yellow and huge, though it grew smaller in size as it found its place in the heavens, surrounded by the stars that beckoned and twinkled.
What did the moon see in them? Isabelle wondered. Two people from completely opposite times and places, who found each other. Who, together, were going to end a curse with the miracle of love that was God’s gift to humankind.
Sebastian led her to a bench just like the ones that lined the walls in the castle’s courtyard. This one was more weathered, still comfortable enough if they sat very close together.
Sebastian played with her hair. “Your hair is so thick I cannot believe you can hold your head up. But when I touch it, it feels like the finest-spun silk.” They kissed, and kissed again.
“Tell me about the convent, Isabelle.”
Tears filled her eyes as she squeezed his hand before pulling hers away. She closed her eyes but nodded, and Sebastian sat back, folding his arms, waiting with the patience of a man who had tested that virtue to its limits.
This was how trust began. Isabelle knew she would have to be the first to give. It was about more than the way a man was made. This man had forgotten how to trust a long time ago.
But he had actually asked, cared enough to want to know how she became who she was.
With her eyes closed, Isabelle pictured the huge convent, now much too big for its small community, with echoing halls and the sound of hymns at all hours. The memory still touched that part of her that longed to be closer to God.
“I went into the convent right after high school. I’m from Nebraska.” She glanced at him. “Do you know where Nebraska is?”
“Somewhere in the American midsection,” he suggested without much confidence.
“The Midwest, yes. My parents had a farm that was fifty miles from everyone else. So they sent me to a girls’ boarding school run by a very progressive order of nuns. Then my mom and dad died my second year of high school and I spent vacations for the next two years with relations who really did not want me.”