Lovesong

by Valerie Sherwood

  There was no use going toward the wing that contained Kells’s officers’ quarters—even if she managed to penetrate it, it would be full of men in varying stages of undress for there were some still recuperating from their wounds of the other night. And the guest wing where she had slept when she first came here was barricaded and still aswarm with Spanish labor, for in this heat men took a siesta at noon and worked in the cooler morning and late afternoon until dusk closed down.

  Afternoon came—a still afternoon with almost no wind. The heat was oppressive. She tried to recline in the hammock stretched between two palms in the courtyard with the rustling palm fronds above her for shade, but it was no good. After a while she jumped up and paced the stones of the courtyard until the hot sun drove her back into the cool dim interior. She went to a window and stood looking down through the open jalousies at the sprawling town below, then turned her troubled gaze toward the massive pile of the mountain fort bristling with stolen Spanish guns that could sweep the channel of blue Cayona Bay.

  Panic settled over her as time passed. Why wasn’t Kells back? Why did she not hear his firm booted step in the hall? Hear that deep resonant voice speaking to Hawks, settling some household matter with Katje? Every moment increased her foreboding. She could not rest, she paced about as restlessly as a caged tigress. Something must have happened to him! Dear God, she would be to blame for that too!

  Eventually her anxiety grew so intense that she could not stand it. Unable to find Katje, who seemed to have disappeared forever, she went back to the front door and spoke to the big silent buccaneer who guarded it.

  “Can you find Hawks?” she asked. “I must speak to him.”

  He studied her, then beckoned her toward the passage that led to the officers’ quarters. “Hawks!” he bellowed.

  Carolina waited what seemed an interminable time and then Hawks appeared.

  “Where is Kells?” she demanded.

  He thought a while before he answered her. “The captain’s gone to settle some personal business in the town.”

  “I know that! Has he been hurt?”

  “Not as I know of,” said Hawks cautiously. His puzzled gaze said plainly, Would you care?

  Carolina flushed before that gaze. She read reproach in it. After all, it had been kindly Hawks she had tricked in her effort to arrange her escape.

  “Could you take me walking down into town?” she asked plaintively, hoping that somehow she could still straighten out this mess and no one would be killed.

  Hawks gave her a look of total amazement. “No,” he said in such a definite tone of rebuke that she made a hasty retreat. Once she looked over her shoulder and saw him glowering after her.

  Time dragged by, the shadows lengthened, and the dying sun sent its last long bolts of gold across the sea. The bay shimmered its last hot reflection before dusk settled—and still Kells had not returned.

  Had he not been able to find O’Rourke and Skull in town? she wondered. Was he tracking them down, relentlessly combing the twisted streets, alley by alley? She shivered, thinking of the whisper of the cutlass in the night, the sudden plunge of cold steel, the scream. And she was the cause of it. Alarmed, growing more tense with each passing moment, Carolina felt dismayed—and then ashamed of her dismay. Surely she was not anticipating the lean buccaneer’s return!

  She walked restlessly in the courtyard, she paused to eat a bite at the table that was set at dusk—but she was too excited to swallow. She went back to her bedroom, determined not to undress, not to seem to be awaiting his pleasure! She tried to lie down, to rest, but she could not. She leaped up and continued her pacing. Where was he?

  And then when the soft black velvet night of the tropics had fallen, when the cool moonlight shimmered upon the dark waters of Cayona Bay and bathed the red tile-roofed town with a magic it never knew by day, she heard at last his step. It was unmistakably his, that ring of boots on the stone floor, for his stride had a certain easy rhythm hard to duplicate. Carolina stopped pacing and stood tense as the boots stopped outside her door and she heard his knock.

  “Come in,” she whispered—for a bargain was a bargain.

  The door opened and Kells stood there. To her frightened gaze he seemed to fill the doorway with his presence. There was blood on the flowing white shirt that fell open to the waist and a wicked look to his dark face.

  “What, still dressed?” he said.

  “You’re wounded,” she said, staring fearfully at the bloodstains.

  “Oh, this?” He looked down casually at the dry red stain. “’Tis not my blood. I killed a man for you this day. A man with whom I had no quarrel.”

  He had killed—! She had clung to the belief that it would not go this far. She had overlooked how quickly violence flared in these men, how lightly they counted human life.

  Her throat felt dry and she spoke through stiff lips. “Not—not O’Rourke?” she asked shakily, for she had liked the lean Irishman with the wicked twinkle in his green eyes.

  “Skull. When I stated my case, he seemed to acquiesce—and then as I turned to go he tried to garrote me. I took exception.”

  “And O’Rourke?”

  “Stormed out calling me vile names and went somewhere—to get drunk, I presume.”

  “Then—then it’s over?” she whispered, hot with shame that, along with guilt, relief should flood her.

  “Yes,” he said roughly. “It’s over—as far as you are concerned. For me, there may yet be a reckoning.”

  He meant, no doubt, Skull’s friends. . . . The whine of a musket ball some day when his back was turned, the whisper of a knife in some dark alley. . . . She felt a shiver of fear go through her.

  “I never expected it to end like this,” she told him miserably. “Did Skull have a wife? Children?”

  He forbore to tell her that Skull had fathered numerous children by rape and had claimed none of them. She was looking so troubled that for a moment he almost weakened. Then his eyes glinted.

  “No. But you cannot inflame men like these and expect them not to fight for you,” he told her flatly. “And now,” he added, “having taken care of the situation, I expect to be rewarded.”

  He turned and called to Katje, and they had a murmured conversation in Dutch. Then his cold gaze returned to Carolina. “I’ve ordered us each a bath. To be taken here.”

  She gave a violent start. “I’ll not take a bath with you in the room!” she protested.

  “You will,” he said grimly, unbuckling his sword belt and flinging it aside. “Skull wasn’t much but I had no quarrel with him. And Shawn O’Rourke will not soon forgive what he called my ‘meddling.’ If you want me to cut down those you embroil, you must pay for it!” There was no mistaking his dangerous mood; it would brook no restraint.

  Carolina backed away from him, hoping the water would take a long time to heat. Then she remembered that this was a luxurious household, water was kept hot at all times. One-eyed Jesse, who helped Cook in the kitchen, brought a big container of hot water and emptied it into a metal hip tub that was hastily set down by the soft-eyed island girl who accompanied him. Kells was silent and watchful, keeping his tall form between Carolina and the door while another tub and another container of hot water were brought. He waited until the barefoot island girl had deposited washcloths and big linen towels and scented soap and sponges upon a small table and padded out—then he closed the door.

  “Now,” he commanded. “Strip.”

  Watching him with a wary eye, Carolina began to clamber out of her dress. The hooks eluded her nervous fingers and she could hardly get her bodice free. Kells stood leaning against the wall, arms folded, and watched her insolently.

  At last the light yellow fabric slid to the floor and she emerged in her chemise. It was daintily sheer and lacy. She felt naked in it, realizing that its almost gossamer thinness revealed the pulsing pink tips of her breasts and every outline of her figure—for the white moonlight beaming in through the open jalousies was as lig
ht as day. Kells stood watching her appreciatively. Then, “And now the chemise—unless you mean to bathe in it.”

  She made no move to take it off, but faced him defiantly.

  “Or perhaps,” he added evenly, “you would prefer me to rip it from your back?”

  “That is what you will have to do,” she flashed. “For I will not disrobe for your pleasure!”

  “A promise forgot so soon?” he murmured. And before she could more than turn away he had crossed the room and seized her by the wrist.

  “A promise dishonorably wrung need not be kept!” she panted.

  “Indeed?” He almost smiled but his teeth were clenched, and his grip on her tightened.

  She writhed in his grasp but he held her inexorably. The most she was able to manage was to turn about so that her back was to him—and even then her soft hip collided with his hard thigh in an intimate way. With his free hand he now scooped up the flimsy material that comprised the back of her chemise. There was a sharp ripping sound and with a single hard wrench the light garment parted company with her body. He flung the offending chemise away from him and it floated down into a little pile, like foam upon the sea.

  Only then did he release her. And now she reeled away from him, clad only in her stockings and shoes.

  “Kick off your shoes,” he commanded, advancing a step and letting his hand fall upon her bare shoulder.

  His hot gaze angered her—he was enjoying this! For answer she kicked at him, but it was not a very effective kick for she was half turned away from him in an attempt to shield her slender body from his bold gaze.

  His grip on her shoulder tightened and he spun her around to face him. A slow measuring smile spread over his taut features as his hard gaze stroked her up and down. She could feel that gaze like a firm but caressing hand exploring every curve of her tense young body. She felt herself tremble.

  “Remove your shoes,” he advised her. “Unless of course you wish to get them soaked. ”

  The indifference of his tone nearly drove her to frenzy. Run away from him she would, she promised herself—but not in sodden slippers. Sullenly she kicked off her shoes and the slight effort it took to do that made her soft breasts bounce. His hard gaze took that in too.

  “Will you have your stockings pulled off wet or dry?” he asked dispassionately.

  She gave him a murderous look but she bent down, ungartered and tore off her stockings. He kept his grip on her meanwhile and stepped lightly aside as she aimed another kick at his shin.

  “You’ll hurt yourself,” he warned her, “if you bang those dainty toes against these jackboots of mine. They were made to withstand a harder blow than you’re likely to give!”

  It was undoubtedly true but Carolina was past caring. She tried again to kick at him even as she attempted to win free from that viceiike grip on her shoulder.

  “If you force me to hold you any tighter, I’ll leave prints on your flesh,” he observed in a remarkably calm voice, considering that he was, at the moment of speaking, lifting her up by her buttocks with his free hand and depositing his squirming burden in one of the two metal tubs.

  Carolina arrived in the tub with a splash that drenched his clothes. He grinned as she sank down into the water, drawing up her knees in an attempt to cover her breasts and hugging those wet knees with her arms even as she glared up at him.

  Kells never took his eyes off her as he began to undress. Furious, she sat crouched in the tub with the white moonlight gleaming on her pale hair and silken shoulders, on her shining wet knees. Silver sparks seemed to flash from the dark-lashed eyes that returned his rapt gaze.

  He had already removed his flowing white shirt when he turned to shoot the bolt on the door. Her gaze left him then and fled for a moment to linger speculatively on the bolt.

  “I’d reach you before you could ever unbolt it,” he answered her thoughts laconically, and tossed her a sponge.

  She caught the sponge deftly with one hand. But it annoyed her that his gray eyes had brightened as her uplifted arm gave him a sudden glimpse of her bare round breasts. Quickly she tucked the sponge between her knees and her breasts and as a further barrier to his sight, wrapped her arms about her knees. Her gaze now flicked murderously at the big cutlass in its scabbard that he had tossed carelessly to a chair.

  “Abandon that thought too,” he advised, tossing her a bar of the scented soap. “It’s quite heavy, you’d find. And before you could draw this one from its scabbard I’d be taking it away from you. I might even spank your bare bottom with the flat of it if you were so foolish as to try it!”

  But not if he had soap in his eyes! she thought. That would give her a few precious moments to seize her clothes, unbolt the door, dash through the empty courtyard, break through that temporary barricade set up by the Spanish workmen who were repairing the guest wing—and she would be out into the night! The wall into which the green door was set would not deter her, for there was such a pile of stones and tiles that she could clamber over. It would be noisy but what would noise matter then? Once she had gained the lemon grove she could find a patch of moonlight and dress and be gone before the buccaneers could sort themselves out enough to follow her and search the grove. And in the town there were honest traders, captains who weren't buccaneers and whose ships were anchored in Cayona Bay. She had only to reach one of them, to explain her plight! So she reasoned. . . .

  So now she took the soap—which she’d been about to throw back at him—and lathered the wet sponge, began sulkily to wash her smooth white shoulders with it.

  Appreciatively Kells watched her bathe as he tugged off his boots and then—she averted her gaze in embarrassment—his trousers. He was quite immodest, she thought resentfully, as he strode over to open another window and let in the sea breeze that had picked up and now rippled the tendrils of her hair. Lord Thomas had never let her see him naked. Indeed he had been quite adroit about it, while Kells seemed simply not to care. That Lord Thomas’s adroitness might have come from long practice with easily frightened maidens had quite escaped her—even as had the cool masculine indifference to nudity of a dominant male about to take his woman in his arms. Lord Thomas had been amusing himself with a succession of women. The lean buccaneer—although Carolina did not know it—was this night taking a mate. A woman who would be his until the end of time.

  None of that reached her as she felt the warm water curling up around her bottom, swishing gently against her private parts, rippling the soft golden triangle of hair at the base of her hips.

  Out of the corner of her eye Carolina watched Kells take his bath in swift businesslike fashion—a quick soaping, a quick rinse, whistling all the while. And then he stood up, a magnificent figure, handsomely muscled, gleaming and wet. Careless that she was watching, he toweled himself dry, stepped out of the tub, bent to dry his calves and feet, tossed away the damp towel and strode toward her.

  “I’ll wash your back,” he offered and bent over in what was meant to be a friendly fashion.

  For answer she rose with a screech and dashed the heavily soaped sponge into his astonished face. She had hoped to get enough soap into his eyes temporarily to blind him. But the reflexes of this man accustomed to instant combat that could overtake him anywhere—in a dark alley, on a sunlit street—were too fast for her. His eyes had snapped shut before the soapy sponge splattered against his face, and he was dashing the soapy water from his eyelids even as Carolina sprang from the tub.

  He caught her long before she made the door and held her fast, looking down at her with a boyish excited light in his gray eyes.

  “What, finished bathing?” he mocked.

  Carolina gave him a murderous look but deigned no reply.

  “Then shall we towel us both dry? Or perhaps a rinse first?” He seized a pitcher of rinse water and poured it over his face to remove the soap. Then deliberately he held her at arm’s length and poured water over her breasts and back, careless that it ran down upon the floor.

 
She flinched as the cool rinse water poured down over her soft breasts, over their summits, down the valley between them, making the pale pink nipples come alive and harden.

  “You’re getting water over everything,” she protested as her foot slipped.

  “So I am,” he said absently, his eyes never leaving those inviting twin peaks that seemed to wink at him as she tried to shrug her body away from him. “But then ’tis my house and this floor is my floor and I can dash water upon it if I choose.” Still holding onto her, he set the pitcher down and took up a large towel. “Hold still,” he instructed.

  But she did not choose to hold still. She fought him as he tried to dry her wet back and hips and stomach. She clawed at him, enraged, as he essayed to dry her thighs—and that interesting space between them.

  “Stop!” she cried, striking at his hand, and he gave her a heated look that was an answer in itself. He seemed to enjoy her struggles, she thought bitterly.

  But she was tiring from her efforts at trying to fend him off. After all it had been a long day, fraught with anxiety. It was still very hot and she was not only tired but very distraught. And something else drove her— she thought it was animosity for this arrogant fellow so bent on bending her slim body to his will, but it was more than that. With every touch of his competent lingers she felt weakened. She felt as if she were being driven onward by some irresistible force, and that no matter how she struggled she would be pinned like a butterfly before his will.

  Abruptly she ceased to flutter.

  “What, dry enough?” he asked genially, and tossed the towel away.

  With its removal, once again naked before his sight, she quivered again.

  “Let me go, Rye,” she said tremulously.

  “Rye no longer,” he told her. “In this part of the world I’m Kells the Buccaneer, remember? I’m a man with taking ways and faith, I’ll act the part!”

  “No,” she panted, putting both her palms flat against his chest and pushing against him. “Don’t do this, Kells, you’ll regret it.”