Captive Embraces

by Fern Michaels

  Caleb’s mouth was compressed into a thin, tight line. “I didn’t come here for money or for your help. I came looking for you as a son to his father. I ask for nothing; I want nothing from you.”

  Regan’s expression remained unchanged as he measured his son—filled with a hostility as consuming as his own. How was he to reach him? What could he say? Should he offer to take him into his small, fledgling business? Would Caleb reject his offer? In a tight, constrained voice Regan asked, “What ship did you sail from Holland?”

  “In a manner of speaking, you might say I worked my way to Spain and from there I sailed my own frigate to England.” Regan’s smoldering blue eyes questioned the statement but he said nothing. “Sirena came to the academy to see what I knew of your whereabouts. She was frantic that you had gone under with the Spanish Lady off the coast of Spain. When she learned that you were hale and hearty, her relief was heartbreaking, considering what further information I had to offer. You see, Sirena knew nothing of the divorce until I was forced to tell her.” Caleb’s eyes met Regan’s, the air between them charged with smoldering rage. “Because of the effect my news had on her, I was released two weeks early from my studies and sailed with her to Spain. In Cádiz she turned the Rana over to me as she had promised long ago. Having nothing else to give me, she gave me the Córdez jewels. Before I turned them into gold I wanted to hear from your own lips that you ...” Caleb hesitated, hoping Regan would give some sign that his feelings for Sirena had altered. That he didn’t want to honor the divorce, that he still cared for her and what happened to her.

  “Spit it out, say it, don’t talk around it,” Regan ordered, his voice level and impersonal.

  “You’ve taken everything else she had, why not the gems?” He hadn’t meant to say it that way. He hadn’t meant to be so cruel. But Regan’s manner incited him to cruelty. He wanted to see Regan as helpless and as crushed as Sirena was.

  “If Sirena gave them to you, then they are yours,” Regan growled through clenched teeth. Just her name, just hearing Caleb say she was as near as Spain sent shock waves through his body, almost choking the breath from him. Had she come for him after all this time? He controlled his face so that it became impassive, and waited for Caleb’s next words.

  Regan had finished his ale and was well into another and still his son had said nothing. Unable to keep himself under control, Regan started to rise from the table when Caleb motioned for him to sit down. “Very well, Father. I see that you’re not going to ask, so I’ll tell you about her anyway. I owe you that much and I’m certain Sirena wouldn’t mind. First, however, I want it understood that I’ll not be a go-between. As to facts, she seems to be handling matters. She is aware that you have seized her fortune. I would have stayed with her, worked my fingers to the bone if necessary, but she wouldn’t have it. The truth of the matter is, Father,” Caleb used the address cynically, “Sirena can’t stand the sight of me. I remind her too much of you. In time this will change; I must believe this; but for now, I can’t bear to watch her suffer. I love Sirena, and you have taken her away from me.”

  Regan swallowed another gulp of ale and sharply slammed the mug on the table. He turned away from Caleb, not wanting to look directly into the bitter face of his own son.

  “You’ve taken something that can never be replaced. You told her you loved her and then you divorced her, stripping away everything that was hers. I can never forgive you for leaving her the way you did.”

  “Dammit, boy,” Regan roared, uncaring of inquisitive glances. “What do you mean, ‘never.’ You well know Sirena will be fine. Why continue with this?”

  An intense rage erupted in Caleb, blinding him to the fact that Regan was his parent. His hand clamped over the arm Regan rested on the table. Caleb could feel the tension and anger between them. Through clenched teeth he hissed, “I saw Sirena suffer at the hands of pirates. I watched her when they mutilated and murdered her sister. I witnessed her grief when her uncle died. I was there when they strapped her to the mizzenmast and whipped her. It was I who brought her a tattered, filthy shirt to cover her nakedness. And even after these bodily abuses she was never as debased as by you!”

  Regan shrank back, his conscience stung by the hurled statements. There was no way he could explain what had happened between Sirena and himself. How could he tell Caleb of the endless hours he had watched his beautiful wife wish herself into the grave alongside Mikel? How could he hope to make Caleb understand that the last night he spent on Java he had held Sirena in his arms and had felt the wonderful revival of soaring passions? How could he describe his joy—and the final rejection? Even though she had gone in search of him, it was too late! Life had too much to offer and Regan was determined to live it to the fullest.

  “Whatever happens to Sirena, Father, whatever road she chooses to follow, she’ll do so alone. It will be interesting to see who makes the most of the situation.” Caleb swilled his ale and drained the mug.

  “And which side of the fence do you sit on, Caleb?” Regan asked harshly.

  “Neither. But, there is something you should know. I heard a bit of scuttlebutt as I was preparing the Rana to leave port. I learned that Sirena’s enterprising crew has managed to put a price on your head. There’s not a one of them who would blink an eye at seeing your heart cut out for what you’ve done to their Capitana. And from what I understand, contracts in the underworld are more binding than impressive legal documents. Even thieves and cutthroats have their code of honor, Father.

  “However, that is not what I meant to tell you. I was happily tossing down the brew in a taproom in Cádiz when I discovered that by some technicality of the law, Sirena is entitled to not only her mother’s, but her sister’s and Tio Juan’s holdings. The Valdez estate is a hundred times greater than that of the Córdez. So, you see, Sirena is far from destitute. I’ll give you one small bit of advice—as a son to his father,” Caleb said quietly. “Once before you underestimated Sirena. This time, it wouldn’t be wise.”

  “You tell me all this then claim that you don’t take sides. Do you take me for a fool?”

  Caleb threw back his head and roared with laughter. Regan was jarred and his eyes widened at the outburst. It was like looking at a ghost of himself. “I recall Sirena giving you the answer to that question several years ago. Do you want me to refresh your memory?”

  “Let’s talk cold, hard facts, Caleb. The monies I’ve taken from Sirena are an investment. On the first of each month I am to pay her twenty percent of the profits and a healthy sum of interest on the principal.”

  “That’s very generous of you, Father. As Sirena says, you’re pensioning her off with her money,” Caleb smirked.

  “Hear me well, you young bull. If I hadn’t taken over Sirena’s wealth, the Spanish Crown would have. That country is forever in the throes of upheaval. This way, she’ll be paid a comfortable sum on a steady basis. If the Spanish government had seized her property, she would have nothing. It is I who will be working twenty hours a day to make this business endeavor survive. It is I who will build the firm. My father made the Dutch East India Company what it was and then it was through my labors that the trade increased and grew to what it is today. Tell me, what better man than myself to take charge of her affairs? Transferring those holdings into my own name was for the sake of expediency.

  “What you say would be true,” Caleb countered. “If you were still married to her,” he added bitingly. Standing up, nearly knocking the plank bench over, Caleb said, “Father, that is the one thing I hold against you. In my eyes you stole from her.” With a last stony look into Regan’s icy blue eyes, Caleb threw down several coins and turned on his heel, leaving his father hunched over his tankard of ale.

  Regan sat, reviewing his meeting with Caleb over and over in his mind. Sirena in Spain. She had finally abandoned the little gravesite. All the angels in Heaven would never have convinced him she would ever leave Batavia. He had acted too hastily. Why hadn’t he waited as she asked? S
irena, with the flashing emerald eyes and satiny skin. Sirena, with hair the color of a raven’s wing. A tight band seemed to close around his chest as these thoughts whirled through his mind.

  His sun-darkened hand reached beneath his vest and withdrew a paper, crackling as it was unfolded. Regan studied it with narrowed eyes. It was legal and binding. Aside from the twenty percent dividend Arroya had forced out of him, the paper stipulated Sirena was to receive half of all the profits on a quarterly basis. Before any and all expenditures, her money was to be set aside in a separate account. It had been Regan’s own idea—one the Spaniard had no knowledge of. When his business flourished, as Regan knew it would, Sirena would share equally in everything. Why hadn’t he shown the document to Caleb? Because, he answered himself, Caleb wouldn’t have believed it. He would have thought it a trick.

  Regardless of what was said, Sirena would always come first with Caleb. She was, and would always be, all things to the boy. Regan knew instinctively that Caleb would die for her if he had to. A vision of himself and Sirena floundering in shark-infested waters with Caleb flinging out a lifeline was so clear Regan almost choked on his drink. There was no question as to who would be saved. Caleb’s emotions were as easily read as Sirena’s.

  Regan’s eyes raked the dim room and he was startled to see that Caleb had seated himself with several seamen. Caleb ordered rum and drank it down with a gulp. He ordered another, then a third. The sailors joined in with a fresh bottle, while a giggling wench plopped herself on Caleb’s lap and nuzzled his ear. Regan watched his son whisper something and the girl giggled again. Regan’s gut churned as he observed Caleb’s finely tapered hand slip inside her low-cut bodice.

  Caleb drained his tankard and reached beneath the wench’s skirts. She nuzzled closer and pointed to the far end of the room where a stairway led to the second floor. Caleb threw back his head and roared with laughter. Regan wanted to drag his son back by the scruff of his neck as he watched Caleb make his way up the stairs with the voluptuous redhead slung over his shoulder.

  Angrily, Regan settled his bill and stomped from the taproom, wondering if every father saw his own youth through his son. The thought struck him that he wasn’t certain if seeing Caleb with the lusty wench rankled him because he regretted the loss of his own carefree youth, or because he wanted to save Caleb from the same mistakes he had made. Whatever the cause, he had relinquished all rights for any voice in how Caleb behaved.

  When Sirena emerged from her cabin, with Frau Holtz in tow, the men of the Sea Spirit whistled their admiration. Following the style of the day, Sirena wore a long-waisted, closely cut gown of topaz silk trimmed with wide bands of delicate lace running down the front of the skirt and also accenting the cuffs of the full-blown sleeves and wide, revealing neckline. The matching silk hose felt smooth and luxurious against her skin and the frilly garters that held the filmy gauze taut over her thighs made Sirena feel decidedly womanly and almost decadent. After weeks at sea wearing kid boots, the lightly constructed high-heeled pumps—a deeper shade than the gown—made her feel like dancing and she loved the way they peeked shyly from beneath her rustling petticoats. These French-influenced garments were so refreshing after wearing the bulky, awkward styles that were the accepted attire in Dutch-governed Java.

  When Frau Holtz had seen the dresses that Sirena had ordered in Cádiz before sailing on to England, she had sniffed her disapproval and firmly stated that she intended to keep on wearing her stiff, concealing Dutch-style clothes. “These,” she had scowled, “are too like the raiments of a certain blonde German woman.” She was referring to Gretchen Lindenreich, whose vanity and lack of morals had been well known.

  “They are not quite what that slut wore, Frau Holtz. Although the way she turned Regan’s head, she may have been wiser than I gave her credit for being. I have it on the word of the dressmaker that this is what fashionable women in England are wearing and I mean to take advantage of every means at my disposal. And if a show of smooth skin and feminine form can be of benefit, so be it.”

  Sirena had chosen to ignore Frau Holtz’s negative thoughts when she skimmed back her ebony hair into a thick coil at the nape of her neck and allowed a wispy fringe of stray curls to fall flirtatiously over her forehead. Angling a wide-brimmed hat of satiny bronze atop her head and adjusting the frou-frou of feathers before stabbing it securely with a long hatpin, she picked up a pair of gloves and turned to measure her effect on the housekeeper. “Do I remind you so much of Gretchen?”

  “Nein. There’s none of the whore about you, Mevrouw. But...” she hesitated.

  “But what?” Sirena prompted, trying to hide her annoyance with the Frau.

  “But nothing, Mevrouw. Come, we must be on our way. Too long you’ve amused yourself before the mirror.” Quickly, the Frau had averted her eyes, not wishing Sirena to press her further. What she had been about to say was that, although the Mevrouw was obviously a lady, unlike Gretchen Lindenreich, there was something about the look in her eye which reminded Frau of Regan’s former lover—a hungry look.

  Frau Holtz grumbled and complained about the close confines of the coach. Truth be known, she would have much preferred remaining aboard ship arguing with Jacobus and complaining about his accomplishments in the galley.

  “How can that driver see where he’s taking us in all this murk,” the housekeeper complained. “We will meet our death at his hands, mark my words,” she groaned, clutching her iron-gray hair as the wheels rumbled over a rut in the road. “Is this what London is like? Where’s the sunshine? Everything is so cold and damp. Already my bones ache!”

  Sirena’s own temper was short and she replied in cool, biting tones. “As I remember it, the warmth and sunshine of Cádiz were not to your liking either. Perhaps I should send you back to Java. If you insist, I’ll have the driver stop and you can walk back to the ship!”

  Frau Holtz looked toward the grimy window and reviewed her situation. The streets were muddy and in sore need of repair, and unsavory-looking beggars lingered about. Even as she peered out, several ragamuffins came running beside the slowly moving coach, hurling clods of filth at the vehicle.

  “Shall I have the driver stop?” Sirena asked, a smile breaking on her lips, taking a small, perverse delight in the formidable housekeeper’s reluctance to leave the safety of the carriage.

  “Nein,” Frau Holtz grumbled. “The Mevrouw mustn’t go about this vile city unaccompanied.” She then sat back and clasped her thick arms before her, sniffing audibly and rocking herself back and forth to ward off the chill.

  It was midafternoon when their carriage turned onto Thames Street, which ran parallel to the river. London was a polyglot of the ages, old and battered and hinting of evil, but also brimming with color and a certain decadent beauty. The streets and by-ways were narrow, most of them unpaved, and down either side, or sometimes in the center, ran the sewage troughs. Houses leaned heavily upon each other, creating an obstacle to light and air. Thames Street was lined at intervals with scarred and beaten posts which served to separate the traffic from the narrow, pedestrian walkway.

  The streets were crowded with porters struggling to carry their staggering loads of merchandise and they issued vile epithets at any who impeded their hasty progress. Vendors and merchants pushed their carts through the alleys and housewives swarmed to purchase their wares. Merchants loitered in their doorways, cajoling, beckoning, even physically urging customers into their shops.

  The skyline was punctuated with church steeples stabbing the gray air, and their clanging, musical chimes added to the cacophony. The center of life was the innumerable taprooms and inns which were denoted by the swinging signs painted brightly with ogle-eyed owls, blue bulls, golden lions’ shields and swords, and burly seamen swigging tankards of ale.

  The air was thick with malodorous smoke from the chimneys and soap stewers. Impervious to the stench, beggars, cripples and minstrels vied for the carelessly tossed coins from silk-stockinged dandies and elaborately
coiffed ladies. Sedan chairs burdened smartly liveried footmen and, peeking from behind the closed draperies, an occasional member of the “quality” could be seen. Often it was quicker to traverse the streets of London on foot, even though it was dangerous. Traffic was frequently stalled several minutes at a time due to an overturned cart or a religious procession to one of the churches that seemed to be found at every turn in the walled city.

  As their coach made its progress down Thames Street, Sirena absorbed the tempo of the city by drinking in the sights through the grimy coach window. Suddenly, her attention was caught by a sign hung above the door of a corner establishment. Imports-Exports, R. van der Rhys. “Driver, Driver,” she called, excitement rising in her voice, “what street is that we just passed?”

  “That be Saint Dunstan Hill, milady.”

  Frau Holtz, quick to perceive a situation, glanced backward through the muddied glass and noticed the sign. “Sit down, Mevrouw,” she urged, “before we overturn on this murderous road.”

  Sirena stood up, leaning precariously out the hastily opened window for another glimpse of the sign. Regan! Regan! She felt herself being forced back into her seat by Frau Holtz and, when she lifted her eyes again, they were glistening with unshed tears. “Kind, Kind,” the Frau soothed, “child, child, the time will come soon enough.” She sought Sirena’s shaking hand and clasped it tightly, the heated words of moments ago forgotten in the compassion for her Mevrouw.

  Sirena committed the location of Regan’s establishment to memory and settled back in her seat, the sights and sounds of London no longer diversionary.

  When, at last, the rocking coach stopped at the corner of New Queen Street and Cloaks Lane, Sirena and Frau Holtz disembarked with the aid of their driver, issuing him instructions that he should wait for them. Here the neighborhood improved markedly.

  Head held proudly, Sirena approached the wide brick steps leading to the offices of Tyler Payne Sinclair, Esquire. Her hand poised to knock on the multi-paned glass door, a chill washed over her as she debated her next move. A sidelong glance at the grim countenance of the elderly woman beside her made her square her shoulders as she swung open the door.