Bold Breathless Love

by Valerie Sherwood

  The girl’s red mouth dropped open in astonishment. “ ‘Stephen—’?”

  “Linnington. A relative of yours, I believe—through marriage.”

  Kate’s head went back and she gave a great peal of laughter. And when she had finished rocking with mirth, she leaned forward and told the captain behind her hand a story he would never forget. It was a whispered conversation filled with giggles that caused Barnaby, who could not hear, to shuffle his feet and frown. At the end of it. Captain van Ryker dropped a gold coin down the neck of her bodice and rose. Very pleasantly he excused himself and took himself off with the ship’s doctor, leaving the disappointed Kate to a surprised and happy Barnaby.

  It was as well that Imogene did not know who Captain van Ryker was with that night, for it would only have deepened her bitterness.

  Barbados,

  The West Indies, 1658

  CHAPTER 23

  At Idlewild, Bess Duveen was happily pondering her trousseau. She had already decided that they would take a wedding trip to Jamaica, where she would have Stephen fitted with the most spectacular pair of boots to be found anywhere. She had ordered from London a ruby ring that would be her wedding token to him and had bought at a shop in Bridgetown a handsome dress sword of Toledo steel, doubtless once loot from some Spanish galleon—it would look lovely swinging against his lean thigh, she thought. What a figure he would cut at their wedding in the new suit of turquoise satin she had chosen to match his eyes!

  In the weeks that he had been at Idlewild, Stephen’s leg had mended and now it was well. But even lying in bed he had not been idle. Along with handsome red and green leather-bound books from her uncle’s library, Bess Duveen had brought him the plantation’s account books and together they had pored over them, discussing the items until Stephen felt thoroughly acquainted with the plantation’s various projects. Once he could walk, Bess had given him the best horse from her stables and they had set out together, combing every inch of the estate, introducing Stephen to everyone who worked there.

  The new factor had “taken hold” nicely, Bess thought. Like herself, Stephen learned fast. And in the long scented evenings, when he was not squiring her to one island social function or another (where heads always turned to admire the handsome pair), they discussed at length what should be done to improve the property and its revenues.

  They spent so much time together, revelling in each other’s company, that the inevitable happened. On a night when the soft wind sang gently through the bougainvillaea and the world seemed a magic place, the account books had been tossed aside, the wine glasses released from careless fingers. Flesh had met tingling flesh in a wild embrace—for it had been a long time since Stephen had held a woman in his arms and Stephen was Bess’s first and only love.

  In the shock of that first contact, that first burgeoning moment, Stephen might have drawn away—he might even have apologized to his gentle employer for the liberties he had taken. But Bess lost her shyness of a sudden. With luminous eyes she surged into his arms, letting him take her with wild abandon. Her trembling fingers helped his own hurried ones loosen the hooks of her flowered bodice. Over and over she murmured his name: Stephen, Stephen . ..

  Forgetful of the consequences his rash lovemaking might have for Bess, amazed by her sudden unexpected lack of restraint, Stephen drew Bess down with him onto the soft velvet divan. The candles flickered as a soft breeze drifted through the louvered shutters—he did not even pause to blow them out.

  They might have been alone in the world, so rapt was their concentration.

  “Bess—are ye sure?” he murmured, as his hand slipped down beneath her loosened bodice, sliding along her spine, and he felt her tremble violently.

  “I’m sure.” It was only a breath of a sound, a wisp on the evening air, but it sent his pulse pounding and his arms tightened about her.

  She was giving herself to him, this lovely woman he had admired—worshipped almost! It was unreal as the night, a part of this island magic that held them both in thrall.

  And because he knew this must be Bess’s first experience with a man, he was gentle, playful, tender, thrusting carefully, trying not to hurt her, until at last on a burst of feeling he threw caution aside and made her wholly his, sweeping her along with him, rocketing skyward to velvet heights of emotion that overwhelmed them both.

  And when it was over, after they had drifted back from that wonder world that only lovers knew, Stephen had taken her by the shoulders and gazed gravely into her clear gray eyes and asked himself in amazement how he had overlooked her.

  “You were made for me, Bess,” he murmured huskily, still astonished that virginal Bess could have matched him kiss for kiss, sigh for sigh.

  “I always knew it.” Bess pressed her hot face against his throbbing chest, hiding her blushes as his hands, loving in the afterglow, caressed her tingling body. “And now—you know it, too.”

  “Yes.” Stephen looked down at her, smiling. “Now I know it, too.”

  Bess lifted her head and this time she did not flinch from his gaze. This was the lover who had come to her from the sea, tossed up by a wave. This was the lover she had nursed back to health at Castle Ennor.

  Imogene was only a passing fancy, her fearless gaze told him. But you will find a home in my heart.

  Stephen, pensive, smiling down at her in the afterglow of passion, had lost the lighthearted banter his other loves had known. In Bess Duveen he had been confronted by simple goodness—and it was that direct, openhearted goodness that had confounded him. He was humbled by it, made to look inward, to see himself as he was—and as he might have been. As he still could be, her steady gray eyes told him. And now abruptly he wanted to be that man. He wanted to “take hold” of the plantation, to make it thrive and prosper, he wanted to read approval in Bess’s gray gaze.

  Bess, whether she knew it or not, was making a man of Stephen.

  Stephen had not actually asked her to marry him that night, but to Bess the agreement to wed was tacit between them. All this past week, ever since that first lovely night, she had been making plans for their life together. Giggling girls were already stitching up Bess’s trousseau and the kitchen staff was bracing for an enormous wedding, for Bess meant to share her newfound happiness with everyone on the island.

  As she lifted up a long length of ivory satin from a bowed leather trunk, Bess caught a glimpse of her glowing face and sparkling eyes in the mirror and hugged herself to make sure it was all real.

  His! She was his at last. A smile curved her lips at the thought and her face took on a wondrous light. Every kiss, every touch, every sigh ... she would remember it all to the day she died. All last night, while a pale moon hung like a scimitar over Barbados, she had lain in Stephen’s arms, thrilling to his touch, overwhelmed by the miracle that he should love her, want her, need her.

  And morning had not dispelled the dream. She had waked luxuriantly to feel his naked hip brushing hers, his wandering fingers questing down her spine, exploring a tingling nipple, waked to find a gently teasing lover in her bed, waked to a life of new beauty and new meaning.

  “Look, Stephen,” she laughed, gesturing with a naked arm at the candles that had guttered out. “We forgot to blow out the candles again last night!”

  Stephen was stroking her dark hair lovingly. “Let’s not be in a hurry to wed, Bess,” he murmured. “Life is so fine as it is.”

  “But ’twill be even better then,” she promised him gaily, pulling away and jumping up. “Come, we’re lying late abed! What will the servants think?”

  “They’ll think no wrong of ye, Bess—no man could.” But he turned his troubled face away from her. He was cursing himself inwardly for his folly. To honest Bess there was no other course: having fallen in love, having lain in each other’s arms, of course they must wed. What else?

  Miserably Stephen found himself approving her trousseau gowns—each more dashing than the last. Indeed he had thrilled Bess by telling her that she needed n
o trousseau to please him, he would take her as God made her and they could live like Adam and Eve in the Garden, naked to love on these warm nights.

  “No, we must both have new clothes,” she told him energetically. “It is expected of us.”

  At that point he managed to protest. “I bring you nothing Bess. I am a landless man. My father has cut me off without a farthing. In England my family will not receive me. I can bring you nothing—”

  “But yourself,” supplied Bess. “It is enough, Stephen.”

  “Are you sure, Bess?” His turqouise eyes searched her face with a desperation she could not understand. “Are you sure you will not regret—?”

  Quickly she reached up and pulled his copper head down to hers, silenced his protesting voice with a kiss. “I am very sure. And I will never regret my love for you, whatever happens. Of that you may be certain.”

  Whatever happens... She’d forgiven him his early preference for Imogene—but what if she knew he had two wives already and was divorced from neither?

  The doubt she saw in his face she swept aside. “Oh, Stephen.” On a sudden gust of affection, she leaned against him, fitting herself close into his arms. “We are going to be so happy!”

  “Ye’re too good for me, Bess,” he muttered, and it was well she could not see the torment in his eyes. “I ne’er thought to find heaven on earth here in Barbados.”

  How she thrilled to hear him say that! Ah, it was all too perfect! With a song in her heart, Bess pushed him gently away. “We’ve work to do!” she laughed.

  “Aye. And I want to see how the men are doing with the new shed they’re building. Don’t look for me till suppertime, Bess.” He turned and left her.

  Bess was not troubled by his abrupt departure. All her duties were a joy these days and the hours passed like minutes until she dressed in the pink sprigged calico dress that was Stephen’s favorite and swept with a swish of taffeta petticoats into the long dining room of Idlewild.

  Stephen was waiting for her. He was staring out the window with his hands behind his back. He turned as she entered and considered her gravely.

  “You look tired,” she said, concerned.

  He did not answer, but walked over and closed the doors. His haggard expression alarmed Bess. “But you’re shutting out the servants,” she protested. “They’ll be wanting to serve us our supper.”

  “ Bess, I have something to say to you and after I’ve said it, you may not wish to sit at the table with me. Indeed, you may wish to turn me off the plantation.”

  Bess, whose color had heightened at sight of him, had the sudden feeling that she was going to have to ward off some great blow of fate. “I would never do that, Stephen.”

  Stephen came forward and stood looking down at her. She was almost swept away by the virile maleness of him, the anxious regard for her she could read in his eyes, the caring in that handsome, abandoned face. Confidently, she smiled up at her tall lover.

  “Bess.” Stephen moistened his lips and found his throat was dry. This was the hardest thing he had ever said in his life. “Bess, I can’t marry you.”

  At this abrupt pronouncement, a ripple of protest went through Bess’s frail body. She frowned and studied him. “Why not?” she asked uneasily. “Are you saying that you aren’t in love with me, that Imogene still—”

  “No, no.” He ran distracted fingers through his copper hair and it glinted in the candlelight. “All that seems long ago, forgotten now.” It was not forgotten, but the memories no longer hurt and the warmth of Bess Duveen’s smile would soon have dispelled them all. “I must be honest with you, Bess.”

  “Please do.” Bess sat down stiffly as if to receive some harsh pronouncement, some judgment.

  Stephen seized her hand. It seemed cold. He caressed it. “I love you, Bess. I want you to remember that.”

  “I will try to remember that, Stephen.” She removed her hand. The look on her face made him swallow.

  ‘‘Bess, I would marry you—if I could.”

  ‘‘If you ‘could’?” she repeated woodenly. “I take it someone is holding you, that you cannot? Or perhaps you do not desire to marry me, perhaps you think I am some light woman who sleeps with any man she admires?”

  This harsh, contemptuous note in her voice was new to him and he shook his head as if to clear it, telling himself he deserved worse.

  “Bess,” he said desperately. “Listen to me. I will marry you, if that is your desire. But first hear me out, for I’ve spent this whole day wishing I had been killed in Cornwall as you once thought.”

  Truly bewildered now, Bess sat and stared at that loved face, so miserable now as it considered her. In silence she waited.

  “Bess, I can’t marry you for the same reason I couldn’t marry Imogene. I’m already married.”

  Her face whitened to a deathly pallor. “ ‘M—married’?”

  “Yes. To two women, and divorced from neither. I’m a bigamist, Bess, pursued as such in England.”

  “ ‘To two women’?” she faltered, looking at if she might fall off her chair.

  He sank to his knees beside her. “ ’Twas long ago, Bess. And under assumed names. They’re in England, we’re here, and none on Barbados would be the wiser if Stephen Linnington and Bess Duveen chose to wed.”

  Her dark head sank and she stared unseeing down at her hands. After a long time she lifted her head and looked at him. "I would be the wiser, Stephen.”

  He winced. He had been afraid she would take it like this. But he had had to tell her. The old Stephen would not have, but he had changed. With Bess Duveen he could not live a lie. His past had to be out in the open—to her at least.

  “I will do whatever you want,” he said humbly.

  “I will have to think about it.” Bess rose unsteadily and he leaped up to help her. She waved him away, flinching from his touch. “I will have to think about this alone, Stephen. Perhaps—perhaps tomorrow we can talk about it.”

  Feeling like a murderer, hating himself for having put out the light that had burned in those clear gray eyes, Stephen watched her go. Perhaps he should not have told her—oh, yes, he should! He should have told her much sooner, before that night when she had melted into his arms like butter, and the distant singing of the slaves in their quarters had drifted up to them on the sultry night air. A white scimitar of a moon had knifed the velvet sky and Stephen had eased his lady back onto the soft divan and there plundered her of all her secrets.

  That Bess had been willing, that she had fallen asleep beside him, waked dreamily and pulled him back into her arms, made no difference now. She had believed—for he knew searingly that she would never have believed until now anything dishonorable of him—that this was a betrothal and that marriage would shortly follow.

  In the long dining room at ldlewild Stephen’s copper head dropped between his hands and there were unaccustomed tears on his lashes. He loved Bess so fiercely and—he had brought her this.

  He roused himself as a house servant came into the room, bearing the first course. What would Bess want him to do? Stephen asked himself. Why, she would want him to keep up appearances, to act as if nothing had happened. Having announced that the lady of the house might not be down, he sat down and grimly forced himself to eat.

  Bess, alone with her heart and her new knowledge of Stephen’s past, was fighting it out alone. Dry-eyed she sat in her bedroom with the candles unlit. She stared out into the scented tropical night and wondered about those other women. Had they loved him? Where were they now? Did Stephen know? Or care? She must ask him, she told herself, and lit a candle with trembling fingers. She glanced up at her reflection in the mirror and was startled at her vengeful expression. Bess winced. Was this what love was making of her?

  She passed a shaking hand over her face. She must think, she must consider what was best for them. That Stephen had made an appalling mess of his life, she could readily see, but how to extricate him now? She was half tempted to take the way he suggested, to f
orget those other women somewhere in England and marry Stephen Linnington here on Barbados.

  But if they had children . .. and if one of those other women turned up? It was hard to be a bastard in a society where illegitimacy carried a social stigma. Bess shivered. There were not only herself and Stephen to think about, there were also the unborn who must not be hurt.

  Stiffly, like an old woman, Bess prepared herself for bed and all that night wrestled with her conscience. Supperless, undecided, she tossed sleepless with her thoughts veering this way and that. Morning found her still unresolved, too distracted to eat.

  Stephen was wise enough to stay away and let Bess breakfast alone. He knew in his heart what agonies of conscience honest Bess must be enduring and he was afraid to interrupt her silent struggle lest he precipitate a decision against him. For now Stephen had learned what Bess had known all along, that she of all the world was the right woman for him, a woman to love and cherish and look up to and spend his life with.

  But in midmorning a caller arrived who was to change the course of both their destinies.

  Captain Middler of the ship Annabelle arrived at Idlewild plantation carrying a letter that had been entrusted to him by a Dutch captain named Hooergaave, who had had the letter from a woman in an enveloping cloak and hood who had thrust it into his hand hurriedly along with a ring, just before Hooergaave’s sloop pulled away from the dock at Wey Gat.

  “The ring is for your lady, whoever she may be,” a soft vibrant voice had told Hooergaave, “if you will only deliver this letter to my friend in Barbados.”

  “But I do not go to Barbados, mevrouw,” protested the sloop’s English-speaking captain. “I go downriver to New Amsterdam!”

  “No matter,” she interrupted hastily. “My husband is coming. Entrust the letter to any captain of your acquaintance who is sailing to Barbados.”

  Abruptly she turned and walked away from him and Hooergaave climbed aboard his sloop and cast off. From the water he watched her progress down the pier. He saw a richly clad man who had been running down the slope hurry up to her, seize her wrist—why, it was the patroon of Wey Gat with whom he had dined alone in the vast dining room last night! The woman was struggling with him and now her French hood fell back to reveal a wealth of golden hair. Could this be his hostess whom the patroon had said was “too ill to come down to dinner”? Certainly she looked fit enough as she struggled—and lovely to boot. Hooergaave had been disappointed not to meet the fabled beauty of Wey Gat, for he had heard praise of her face and form all the way upriver—and snickers that she had on several occasions tried to run away from her husband, Wey Gat’s unpopular patroon. Hooergaave started as he saw the patroon’s hand lash across the woman’s face, saw her stagger back only to be seized again and dragged back up the hill toward the house. For a moment Hooergaave’s chivalrous heart almost made him turn the sloop around and go back to try to intercede for the lady but he reminded himself quickly enough that a man who interfered between husband and wife usually turned out to be the loser himself. With a shrug he continued on downriver. But once arrived in New Amsterdam, the remembered urgency of that low vibrant voice made him promptly Find a ship sailing for Barbados and entrust to its captain the letter.