Reckless Seduction

by Jane Feather

  Slowly, he rolled onto the bed beside her and lay for a moment, his hand resting warmly, possessively on her hip. Then, with a mysterious little laugh, he sat up and swung himself off the bed.

  “What is amusing?” she asked, suddenly diffident, now that he had moved away from her.

  “Oh, I was not laughing with amusement,” he said, “but with satisfaction. It is always most satisfying to be proved right.”

  “Right about me?” She struggled onto one elbow, brushing her hair out of her eyes.

  “Yes, about you.” He smiled, bending to kiss her again.

  “What about me?” she persisted when he seemed disinclined to elaborate.

  Dominic shook his head. “That’s for me to know and for you to find out, sprite.”

  “Well, I do not think I have anything further to learn about this loving,” she said, frowning.

  Dominic laughed. “Now there you are quite mistaken, my dear Genevieve. You have but scratched the surface, as you shall find out when we sail to Lake Borgne.” Casually, he stepped into the bath that still stood before the empty fireplace.

  Genevieve sat up. “When will that be? I have Papa’s permission for my visit to the Ursulines.”

  “The day after tomorrow.” He splashed the now cold water over his face and neck, and reached for the soap. “Silas will meet you outside the convent walls at three o’clock and bring you to Danseuse. We will sail with the afternoon tide.”

  “What should I bring?”

  “Bring?” Dominic looked at her in some puzzlement. “Why should you bring anything? Besides, there is little enough storage room on board.”

  “But I must bring a portmanteau,” Genevieve explained, getting off the bed. “I cannot leave the house for a three-day visit without appearing to take clothes and other necessities. Think how peculiar it would look.”

  Dominic muttered a soft but not very fierce oath. “Well, if you must bring a portmanteau, I suppose there is little point leaving it empty. Pack whatever you feel you will need, then. Danseuse has never had a woman aboard, and I have never sailed with one—neither have the crew,” he added. “I hope to God they don’t object too vociferously.”

  “Why should they?” she demanded with a tinge of indignation, taking a sip of the neglected brandy toddy that stood on the side table.

  “Sailors are very superstitious. They may consider it back luck,” he informed her. “Come and wash my back. It is your turn to return the favor.”

  Chapter Nine

  “You may leave me here, Jonas. I will ring the bell myself.” Genevieve stopped outside the heavy wooden gate set into the stone wall of the convent and smiled at her companion who set the portmanteau down on the banquette and looked at her doubtfully.

  “I should see you inside, mademoiselle.”

  “It is not necessary, really.” Genevieve laid a hand on the bell rope hanging beside the window grill at the top of the door. “I wish to compose myself before the nuns admit me.”

  Jonas scratched his grizzled head. Mademoiselle Genevieve could come to no harm outside the convent, and if she wished to prepare herself alone for entrance into the hallowed house, then that was her right, and quite understandable. All the same, he was unsure how Monsieur Latour would view the matter, and that was the important consideration.

  Genevieve had hoped that one of the young slaves would have been given the task of accompanying her this afternoon. With almost anyone but Jonas, who had been in the Latour household since she could remember, a simple instruction to leave her would have been obeyed without question. “You will be late getting back,” she said persuasively. “And I know madame has some commissions for you to execute at the market. I promise you I will ring the bell when you reach the end of the street.”

  After further cogitation, Jonas nodded. Genevieve was a great favorite of his, and her request was far from unreasonable. Bidding her farewell, he turned up the street, plodding to the corner. There he stopped and looked back. Genevieve, seeing no help for it, pulled the bell rope vigorously, the peal reaching the elderly man, who, with a wave of satisfaction, disappeared around the corner.

  Genevieve grabbed up the portmanteau and ran for the opposite corner of the street, before anyone could have time to come and open the gate. Finding an empty street, the nun would assume either a childish prank or a mistake. A closed carriage was waiting on the corner, and the door flew open as she hurried past.

  “Where are you off to in such a hurry?” Silas asked, stepping out onto the banquette. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “I didn’t see you,” Genevieve said breathlessly, relinquishing the portmanteau. “I had to get away from the convent before anyone opened the door.”

  Silas merely grunted. The mechanics of this operation from the girl’s point of view were of little interest. He was interested only in fulfilling his orders, for all that they did not meet with his approval. He gestured toward the open door of the carriage, and Genevieve scrambled inside, anxious to get off the street and well hidden as soon as possible. Silas and the portmanteau followed, the door slammed, and the carriage lurched forward.

  Genevieve peered out of the little window to see which route they would take to the quay. But instead of going down to the levée, they proceeded along Chartres Street, where the carriage drew up outside Maspero’s Exchange. “What are we doing here?”

  Silas did not immediately reply. He opened the door and sprang down, making another of his mute gestures that she should follow him onto the banquette and into the Exchange. They went upstairs to the office where Genevieve had found Dominic a few days before. It was empty on this occasion, however.

  “Monsieur wants you to change into those clothes,” Silas said shortly, indicating a pile of clothes on the table. “I’ll be waiting outside for you.”

  On examination, the neatly folded pile revealed a pair of cloth britches, a lawn shirt, stockings, a knitted cap, and a pair of black shoes with pinchbeck buckles. Genevieve’s jaw dropped. She had never in her life worn a pair of britches, although she had on occasion envied the freedom that such attire must accord. Slipping out of the simple gown of sprigged muslin, old, faded and most definitely out of fashion, she pulled on the britches, finding to her amazement that they were a near perfect fit. Although perhaps it was not that amazing, she reflected, pushing her arms into the shirt sleeves. Dominic’s vast experience both of dress and the female form must have equipped him to make all sorts of judgments.

  There was no mirror in the room, unfortunately, so that she could not examine her appearance when she had finally twisted her hair into a knot beneath the cap and slipped her feet into the shoes. The latter were a trifle large, but a sheet of tissue paper had been beside them, and she used this to pad the toes, assuming quite correctly that this was its intended purpose.

  She could not help her slight flush of embarrassment as she opened the door and met Silas’s objective scrutiny. It would have been so much better if she could have formed her own impression of what he was seeing. But he seemed satisfied because he gave her a terse nod and gestured toward the stairs. They returned to the carriage where she put her discarded dress, petticoat, and camisole, stockings and shoes, into the portmanteau, which had hitherto contained very little—just hairbrush and comb, ribbons for her hair, and clean undergarments.

  “Why am I to dress in this fashion?” she asked to the silent Silas.

  He shrugged. “Monsieur’s orders.”

  “Oh.” Since Silas clearly judged that to be an all-encompassing answer, Genevieve joined him in silence, and the carriage rattled over the cobbles of the quay.

  This time, she jumped out ahead of her companion, looking around eagerly at the ships lining the quayside. Dominic had said his vessel was called La Danseuse, and eagerly she examined the names printed upon the swinging bows. Her initial awkwardness in the unfamiliar costume had quite dissipated, to be replaced with a wonderful sense of ease, caused as much by the effectiveness of the disguise as
by the fluid comfort of the clothing. No one would see Genevieve Latour in this boyish figure on the quay.

  “Over yonder.” Silas touched her elbow, and she turned to follow him as, bearing her portmanteau on his shoulder, he loped toward a gangplank between the quay and a dainty, white-hulled frigate.

  Genevieve looked for Dominic as she reached the crisp, gleaming deck. She had expected bustle and noise, the confusion of departure, but there was quiet and a deep, tranquil sense of order. Men stood, positioned about the deck, in attitudes of alert readiness. She could see no sign of the ship’s master, and Silas was standing at the companion way, beckoning her imperatively. She followed him down the narrow ladder, along a passage and into a square, paneled cabin that came as a complete surprise. Genevieve had not known what to expect of Dominic Delacroix’s vessel, but she had thought of piracy, of cutlasses and pistols, of bottles, both empty and full, of desperados with earrings and belts bristling with knives, of narrow, cramped, dirty quarters used only for snatching a few brief moments of sleep between bouts of combat and adventuring. What she found was a room, like any other except for the windows that were round, not square or rectangular. Sun poured through these windows in the ship’s stern, deepening the rich polished patina of table and chairs, the luster of the jewel-toned carpet, sparking in the crystal cuts of decanter and glasses, shining off the heavy silver candlesticks. A large bed, in no way resembling a bunk, stood beneath these windows.

  Silas deposited her portmanteau on the floor. “Monsieur wishes you to go to the quarterdeck as soon as you have unpacked your belongings.” Without another word, he left the cabin, closing the door behind him.

  Genevieve felt a surge of excitement too powerful to allow her to unpack her portmanteau. She had never sailed on a vessel of this size, although she had scrambled over the hulls laid up in her father’s shipyard, listening attentively to the nautical talk so that the terms and general geography of the ship were familiar to her. But now, a fugitive from convention and all that she knew, she was setting sail on a privateer, right under the eyes of Orleanian society, on a voyage that would bring a significant defeat for her unwitting father and an exceptional amount of shamelessly illicit pleasure for herself. Her eyes lingered for a minute on the big bed. Dominic had said he had never sailed with a woman on board. Perhaps that meant that he had never before shared that bed with a woman. For some reason, Genevieve derived considerable satisfaction from that thought.

  She skipped out of the cabin, back along the passage, up the companionway and out onto the sun-soaked deck. The ladder to the high quarterdeck was to be found where expected, and Genevieve climbed nimbly. As she did so, she heard the rattle of the cable in the hawser, the grinding of the capstan, and the sound of stamping feet. Turning at the head of the ladder, Genevieve watched the steady treading of the men upon the deck as they propelled the bars of the capstan. Someone struck up a low, rhythmic chant, quickly picked up by the rest, and Genevieve felt her heart lift with a wondrous sense of freedom, as if she were a bird tossed into the air, feeling her wings for the first time in pursuit of her own flight path.

  Suddenly, she heard an order called out from behind her in a voice crisp and decisive. Dominic stood behind the helmsman, hands clasped at his back, his face tense and alert as he looked aloft at the great white sails catching the wind, at the curving banks of the Mississippi, at the busy river traffic, his eyes missing nothing of the scene, his mind calculating from his vision. This was not the Dominic of the ballroom and the bedroom, the impeccably dressed Creole gentleman of the cynical tongue and quizzically raised eyebrow. This was the sailor, the pirate, the adventurer at work in shirtsleeves and britches, the strong bronzed column of his throat rising from the open neck of his shirt, the rich nut-brown thatch of hair ruffled carelessly by the breeze, and Genevieve felt suddenly as if she were an intruder, one who might get in the way of the efficient accomplishment of that work. Instead of going to him, announcing her presence, she went over to the rail, standing at a distance from the master and the helmsman, content to watch as the sailors in the waist of the ship below hurried about their accustomed tasks. Dominic’s voice continued to give the course, and the frigate passed down the river, threading her way through the other craft, leaving the water front behind.

  The river widened as the city disappeared around a bend, and the wind, with a salt tang, freshened, bringing the knowledge of the open seas of the Gulf ahead. Genevieve pulled off the knitted cap, stuffing it in the pocket of her britches, reveling in the pull of the wind in her hair, whipping the silver-gold streaks across her face.

  “Do you like it?”

  With a laugh, Genevieve swung round from the rail, looking up at Dominic. She had not noticed him leave the helmsman to come and stand beside her. Now he smiled down at her, the turquoise eyes merry with his own enjoyment, as she nodded enthusiastically in answer to his question.

  “Good.” Cupping his hands around the flame to shield it from the wind, he lit one of his little cigars, inhaling with a sigh of satisfaction, resting his hands on the rail beside hers. “If you wish to change back into your own clothes, you may do so. I did not want anyone on the quay to see a woman coming aboard, but we are quite safe from prying eyes now.”

  Genevieve shook her head. “I like wearing these. It felt a little strange at first, but now it’s wonderfully liberating.” She performed a few steps of a hornpipe for him in illustration, and he chuckled, catching in one hand the tumbled, wind-tangled mass of hair at the nape of her neck.

  “You need to keep this out of your eyes.” Holding her hair with one hand, he pulled the knotted kerchief from around his neck and twisted it deftly around the thick, shining strands, tying it in a neat bow. “There, that’s better.” He ran his eyes over the slight frame and then frowned. “You should be wearing a camisole under that shirt, Genevieve.”

  Flushing, she looked down at her front, seeing the unmistakable swell of her breasts against the thin material, the dark peak of her nipples standing out. “I did not realize,” she muttered. “It felt so wonderful to be free of all those layers and buttons and laces.”

  “Well, if you intend to keep to this costume, you must wear something beneath it,” he told her without equivocation. “Apart from the fact that I do not care to have displayed what is for my eyes alone, it is not good for morale to dangle the unattainable before my crew.”

  “I did not realize,” she repeated, unsure whether it would be better to be accused of naive ingenuousness, or of deliberate wantonness.

  “Fortunately for you,” Dominic said with a dry little smile, making it clear that the former accusation was definitely preferable, “I understood that. Go below and do something about it.”

  When she returned on deck some ten minutes later, she found Dominic on the poop deck, engaged in conversation with Silas and the bosun. All around her, the business of sailing the ship continued, the man laughing, joking and singing as they handled ropes and blocks, climbed aloft in the rigging to trim sails, spliced rope. Genevieve found a sheltered corner of the deck, leeward of the wheel, where the afternoon sun shone warmly. There she sat cross-legged, tipping her face to the sun and the breeze, closing her eyes, allowing her body simply to absorb sounds, smells, and sensations. The deck beneath her, hard yet warm, shifted with the motion of the hull. The rail at her back imprinted itself on her skin through the shirt. She was aware of the scents of the swamp, salt, tar, and oil, the creak of the rigging, the tremendous flap of the mainsail as the helmsman put the wheel hard over. The banks of the river were cut with channels and bayous carving their way inland; fishermen in canoes and small rowboats pulled in the crawfish and crab, the oysters and baby alligators that constituted the river’s rich harvest, and Genevieve listened to their shouts, the rapid patois of the bayou. For this moment, she was at one with her surroundings, as elemental as the river, the wood, the mud, the breeze, or the sun’s glow, and she was at peace.

  Dominic watched her, even as he listened
to the bosun’s report of a weakening of the patch over the gash at Danseuse’s waterline. His eyes were curiously softened, his lips curved unconsciously. Silas, who had already decided that the presence of the little mademoiselle boded ill for all sorts of reasons that he could not put his finger on, was even more alarmed at his master’s expression. Monsieur had only once, to Silas’s knowledge, succumbed to the wiles of the fair sex. He took his pleasure, certainly, but had neither the time nor the inclination for lingering too long or too intensely with any one female. And he had never, in the years Silas had known him—the years of privateering—yielded to whim or impulse in his dealings with women; never involved them in business! Yet here was this diminutive creature, firmly ensconced on board, and monsieur’s face bore an expression the old sailor had never seen before.

  “If this anchorage will serve our purpose, bosun, we’ll be able to haul her up and take a good look,” Dominic said, almost absently. “Until then, keep the pumps going.” Leaving the two sailors, he strolled across the deck to the entranced Genevieve.

  “Who is she?” the bosun demanded of Silas, staring, a deep frown between the beetle brows.

  Silas shrugged. “Daughter of Latour. Monsieur needs her in this business of the anchorage, it seems.”

  “Since when has monsieur needed the help of a woman? Let alone a slip of a girl?” the bosun declared, spitting over the rail.

  Silas shrugged again. “His business, I reckon.” That indisputable truth served to end the exchange, and the two went about their business.