Tainted Love

by Nancy Morse

  And how could she explain about Aunt Vivienne? She had often wondered these past decades if the witch Lienore still inhabited poor Aunt Vivienne’s body, or if her aunt had become a mass of moldering flesh and bones in some forgotten corner of the world.

  “What about you?” she asked, hoping to shift his attention away from her past.

  “I was born in the French-heavy bayou country to the south. My father gave up planting and worked his way through the Caribbean on tramp steamers and merchant vessels, learning the sea trade first hand. Later on, he set out to make a name for himself here in Nawlins, first as a clerk among the merchants who jammed the docks with sugar and cotton, and then with the importation of, well, other goods.”

  “You mean slaves,” she said disapprovingly.

  He shrugged his broad shoulders. “You do what you have to do to get by.”

  Oh yes, she knew all about doing what had to be done to get by. “Your mother didn’t object?”

  “She died when one of the trading ships brought the yellow fever over from Africa. I was ten at the time. After she was gone, he took me sailing with him. That’s how I came by my love of the sea.”

  “So now you sail aboard a pirate ship.”

  “Now I’m captain of my own ship,” he corrected.

  She dismissed the distinction with a wave of the hand. “What’s the difference? It’s all plunder and pillage, isn’t it?”

  “Of course,” he said proudly. “But that doesn’t mean it’s a free-for-all. We pirates have a code of conduct, you know.”

  Pru rolled her eyes.

  “What? You don’t believe me?”

  “What code can there be among lawless men?”

  The challenge in her tone irked him. He’d never before had to explain himself to a woman. “Well, to begin with, every man has equal voting rights and gets his fair share of the loot. Me and the quartermaster each receive two shares of a prize, the master gunner and boatswain get one and one-half shares, and all others one-quarter. Aboard my ship there’s no gambling, boys or women allowed. I do not permit my men to fight one another, and if they do, their quarrel ends on shore by sword or pistol. All lights and candles are put out by eight o’clock,” he said, adding mischievously, “Even pirates need their sleep. Any man who wants to drink after eight can do it up on deck.”

  “My, my,” she said, sarcasm dripping in her tone. “And if a man does not follow the code?”

  He answered simply, “I run him through with my sword.”

  “And just when I thought you were actually a decent sort, you prove yourself to be no better than a common killer.”

  He could have sent her sprawling with a disparaging remark like that, but her tenacity intrigued him, and he could not help but wonder what made her so sure of herself and unafraid. “You’re wrong,” he said.

  “How so?”

  “I’m not common.”

  “But you are a killer.”

  “When I have to be.”

  “Do you like killing?” she asked.

  He let out a short breath. “No. I don’t. There’s nothing honorable in killing a man, no matter how necessary it may be.”

  There was something about him that drew Pru’s interest in spite of herself. Perhaps because, like her, he killed out of need, and by his own admission he didn’t enjoy it. They were alike in ways he could never imagine.

  They fell into an easy silence, his footsteps echoing through the narrow streets. Passing by an old house on Rue Bourbon, he reached across the wrought-iron fence and snagged an orange hanging from a nearby limb. He peeled it with the knife he drew from his sash and sliced it into quarters. “Here.” He held one of the slices out to her on the tip of his knife. “Come on, it’s good.”

  Pru gingerly lifted it off the knife and bit into it, sending sweet juice squiring into the air and dribbling down her chin.

  Stede laughed. “Look at you, trying so hard to be proper with orange juice rolling down your face.” He popped a slice into his mouth, and reaching forward, dabbed the juice from her chin with the pad of his thumb.

  “I used to be quite proper,” she said, succumbing to a self-deprecating laugh.

  “What happened?”

  Nicolae happened. But of course she couldn’t tell him about that. “It’s a long story.”

  He offered her another slice of orange, but she shook her head, so he ate it himself. “When a woman looks like that, it’s usually because of a man.”

  “There was someone, once.”

  “Were you in love with him?”

  She bit back a caustic little laugh, and said adamantly, “No.” But even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t true. She had loved Nicolae, or at least the romanticized version she had created of him, until it all came crashing down.

  “Why did that man throw you out of the tavern?” she asked.

  “Well now, that’s about the quickest change of subject I ever heard. All right, so you don’t want to talk about it. That’s fair enough. There are things in every person’s life that are best kept to themselves.”

  More than you know, Pru thought with a grimace.

  He tossed the orange peel into the darkness, and said, “I don’t know how much attention you’ve been paying to what’s going on, but President Jefferson sent his territorial governor to Nawlins and people here aren’t too happy about it.”

  “Governor Claiborne, yes.”

  “The people don’t like his control over the city. They don’t want him telling them they can’t dance and drink and gamble on Sunday. And they sure as hell don’t like it that Congress has outlawed the trafficking of slaves. That hasn’t stopped the French and Spanish landowners from smuggling them in, though. The people here see owning slaves as a natural thing. That’s bound to make men hot under the collar. It just came down to a difference of opinion in the tavern.”

  “I take it you stand on the side that’s against it?” she ventured.

  “I never did see the right in one man owning another, and I’m not afraid to say so.”

  “Is there anything you are afraid of?”

  “Not much. Except a hangman’s noose. The Americans don’t look too kindly on pirates either.”

  “But you’re American.”

  “Well, sort of. My father was American. My mother was the daughter of a Creole plantation owner. She had French, Spanish, African and Indian blood in her. So I guess that makes me a little bit of everything and a whole lot of nothing. The French and Spanish don’t like the Americans, and the Americans think all Louisianans are heathens in the wilderness. I come ashore now and then, but the only place I feel at home is at sea.”

  “When will you sail again?”

  “My sloop, the Evangeline, is anchored in a secluded cove on the south side of Grand Terre. I was thinking to set sail in a day or two. But now…” His eyes swept over. “Now, I’m not so sure.”

  Pru looked at him forthrightly. The silvery aura of the moon fell across his face, lightening his gray eyes. “Why did you tell me all this? Aren’t you worried I might turn you over to the American authorities?”

  There was no telltale sign of worry amongst his features, just the perfection of his looks and his mouth curved upwards at the corners. He moved a bit closer and she could smell the orange he’d eaten on his breath. “Are you going to do that?”

  She shifted nervously from foot to foot, and answered honestly, “No.”

  “I didn’t think so. Just as I’m not going to tell anyone that you were in the alley tonight.”

  Impatiently, she replied, “I told you, I was visiting—”

  “A sick friend. Yes, I remember. And was it your sick friend who left the blood on your dress?”

  Pru cast a horrified look downward. The wind flicked open the folds of her pelisse to reveal droplets of blood staining the bodice of her white muslin dress. “I—I—”

  “You don’t have to explain,” Stede told her, looking at her steadily. “Maybe some day, when we know each other
better, you’ll tell me what you were really doing in the alley tonight.”

  Unlike Nicolae, who had succumbed to a desperate need to tell her who and what he was, it wasn’t likely she would ever know Stede Bonham well enough to trust him with the truth of what she’d been doing in the alley, no matter how deeply she longed for a confidant, someone in whom she could confide who loved her strongly enough not to be repelled.

  “You’re wondering if you can trust me.”

  Pru managed a smile, although her darting glance reflected her scattered thoughts. “Not at all,” she said. “I’m sure you are a most trustworthy pirate.”

  It was more than her biting sarcasm that intrigued him. He liked beautiful women as much as the next man, but there was something about this woman that was different. Her beauty had an ethereal quality, as though not of this world, an obscure notion he would have found ridiculous were it not for those eyes that were uncommonly clear and that complexion, so translucent and smooth, with not a line on her face and only the tiniest smattering of pale blue veins hiding just beneath the surface of her skin.

  The white muslin dress, so fashionable for the day, blended almost perfectly with the hue of her skin, and were it not for the mud he had splashed on its hem and the droplets of blood staining its skirt, she looked almost completely naked beneath her pelisse, kindling familiar sensation in his loins.

  “Pirating is what I do,” he said. “Not what I am.”

  She looked up at him with beautiful, unblinking eyes. “What are you?”

  “A man,” he answered. “Just a man.”

  And beneath her façade she was just a woman, with a woman’s hungers and needs. She came to a sudden stop by an iron gate before one of the houses on Rue Bourbon. “This is where I live.”

  Stede looked past her to the house built in the Spanish style, with long galleries opening onto a lush and tranquil courtyard. In the center of the courtyard stood an immense Spanish lime tree. The fruit warmed to ripeness by the sunlight hung like small globes against the dark, verdant leaves rustling in the breeze wafting up from the river. Beyond the spreading limbs of the Spanish lime tree the yellow glow of candlelight split the darkness from one of the upstairs windows.

  Pru’s gaze followed his. “My papa,” she explained. “He often has trouble sleeping and is up late.” It wasn’t a lie, not really. Her papa didn’t sleep at night, only during the daylight hours, on a layer of London soil carefully spread atop his moss mattress.

  She turned back to Stede. “You haven’t answered my question. Why did you tell me those things about yourself?”

  He shrugged beneath the coat carelessly draped over one shoulder, the full sleeves of his shirt billowing in the breeze. He studied her by the light of the stars. Her complexion was so pale, and combined with the hint of fear behind her eyes, he might have been inclined to think she was in need of protection, were it not for the strength of her character. “I don’t know why I told you,” he answered truthfully. “You’re a puzzle. An odd little thing.” He watched her reaction. “Are you shocked by that?”

  “I’m not as shocked as I pretend to be. Although odd is not how I would choose to describe myself. Different is more to the point.” As she spoke, she was all too aware of his strong, warm presence drawing nearer, making her stiffen with awareness.

  “I don’t even know your name,” he said.

  She moistened her lips. “My name is Prudence Hightower.”

  “Such a formal-sounding name. I think I’ll call you Pru.” He put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her toward him. “And I think I’m going to kiss you.”

  His mouth came against hers in a kiss that tasted of ale and seduction. She’d known from the first moment she saw his face in the alley that she wanted to be kissed by him. Her hands came up to flatten against his chest, fingers kneading the brocade of his waistcoat like a cat flexing its paws with pleasure. A little sound came from her throat as an aching need welled up within her. It had been so long since she had been kissed like this.

  His hands locked behind her, one at the back of her head, holding her mouth prisoner against his, the other with fingers splayed across her back, forcing her closer with gentle pressure until her ample breasts flattened against him. The warm rush of his breath, the thrust of his tongue, the hardness biting into her through his breeches brought back memories of carnal pleasure. No one since Nicolae had kissed her like this and made her feel the raw, pulsing hunger for more.

  He bowed his face to the soft curve of her neck and pressed kisses to her flesh while a score of emotions flooded her—joy, passion, hope. She could so easily fall in love with this man whose masculine beauty took her breath away, this pirate who lived by plunder and pillage and yet whose happy-go-lucky nature overrode the dark treachery of his wayward life. With looks like his exerting a natural pull on feminine hearts, she’d be a fool to think there hadn’t been other women for him, but that was all right, for there had been other men for her who benefited from Nicolae’s artful teachings in the ways of pleasure. But she hadn’t felt anything with any of them remotely akin to what she was feeling now with this man. Maybe it was because they shared so much in common—lawless lives, living on the fringes of society, the danger of secrets too deep to reveal.

  “Pru.” He whispered her name against her flesh, sending an array of goose bumps over her. “Will you let me protect you?”

  She stiffened. Gripping his billowing sleeve, she pushed herself away forcibly and retreated several steps away from him. With her back pressed against the wrought-iron fence, she exclaimed, “Why do you think I need protecting?”

  A long silence fell between them during which he studied her. She acted brave, and he did believe she was. But behind the bravado he sensed her sadness. Something troubled her, something so deep her blue eyes could not hide it. He lifted his shoulders in a careless shrug. “Who knows? Maybe I’m wrong about you. I just thought—”

  “You thought what?” Pru cut in. “That just because I was out tonight alone I am in need of rescuing?” Oh yes, she needed rescuing, but not the kind he was suggesting. It was not her person that needed rescuing, but her soul, and until she found that witch Lienore, there was nothing any man could do to help her. She straightened her back and jut out her chin. “I’ll have you know I can take care of myself.”

  “Excuse me for thinking otherwise.” He removed his hat and swept low in a bow. “Good night, Pru.”

  Her hand fumbled with the gate latch as she watched him walk off into the mist that crawled in from the river. The gate creaked open. She walked up the slate path to the door, her heart fluttering wildly in her breast, caused not by the influx of fresh blood but by the devilish smile and the heated kiss of a common pirate.

  Chapter 3

  James Hightower burst out of the music room in a flurry of confusion. “Pruddy, have you seen my sheet music?”

  Drawing the hallway curtains over the window to block out the afternoon light, Pru answered over her shoulder, “Did you look in your case?”

  “My case. Yes, of course. Now I remember. I left it there last night.”

  “”Why aren’t you sleeping? You know how tired you get when you don’t rest.”

  “I’m working on a new piece and haven’t been able to sleep.”

  “Or feed, judging from your paler than usual complexion. You go get your music and I’ll bring the decanter.”

  He smiled tenderly at her. “You’re such a good girl, Pruddy.”

  Pru sighed. Her papa wouldn’t think she was such a good girl if he knew she’d been careless and had almost been caught feeding a few nights ago, or that she had let herself be kissed by a man with an unsavory reputation.

  The effects of the kiss lingered for days. Every night when she went out to hunt, she hoped to catch sight of Stede Bonham. She felt like a silly schoolgirl swooning over a handsome man, and not even an honorable one, but a very disreputable pirate who made his living by robbing others. Not that she was in any posit
ion to judge him. And she did, after all, have a proclivity for dangerous men.

  The image of Nicolae flared suddenly in her mind. He was as dangerous as they came, a natural-born killer even if it wasn’t by his own choosing. She’d be lying to herself if she denied that she missed those mesmerizing green eyes, the pale, handsome features, the beautifully slender fingers that had teased her to madness and created the most profoundly splendid music she’d ever heard.

  But she didn’t miss his penchant for cruelty, or that mocking voice, or the look on his face when she’d left him for dead. That looked that screamed “How could you do this to me?” haunted her dreams even to this day, decades after she had plunged a poker into his heart and fled his house in Hanover Square. It was because of him that she was a creature of the night subsisting on the blood of others. Because of him she would never find happiness with any man, not even Stede Bonham whose kiss had filled her with the promise of what might have been, if only she were human and worthy of a mortal’s love.

  A feeling of dejection washed over her as she picked up a decanter holding what appeared to be dark claret and carried it to the music room where her papa sat behind his beloved violoncello, his latest composition on the music stand beside him.

  “Here you are Papa,” she said, placing the decanter down on a rosewood table. “I’m going to the dressmaker’s for a final fitting of the two dresses I ordered.”

  He glanced toward the window at the sliver of light that pierced an opening in the drapes.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, guessing his thoughts. “It’s an overcast day. I’ll be all right. I’ll stop at the market on the way home. Is there anything you’d like?”

  “Beignets,” he said. “And perhaps some pralines?”

  “If I’m not back by the time Babette arrives, tell her we would like shrimp gumbo for dinner. And ask her to change the oil in the lamps. It’s beginning to smell.”

  They could not have hoped for a better servant than Babette, a free woman of color who came each day to cook and clean. She served them delicious meals of hot boiled crawfish, and étouffée, a gumbo made with a dark roux with tomatoes and okra over rice. On Mondays she made Papa’s favorite, red beans and rice. Monday was wash day and the long unattended pot allowed Babette to use Sunday’s ham bone and let the pot simmer without having to watch over it.