The minutes passed at infuriating snail’s pace. Time and again Sirena was tempted to rise and throw on her clothes and run into the street to her carriage. Then she would quiet her pounding heart and convince herself she was doing the right thing. I saw the hunger in his eyes for me, she reminded herself. He wants me just as I want him. If the mountain won’t go to Mohammed, then Mohammed must go to the mountain. If he can feel my arms about him, know how much I love him, see to what lengths I’d go to have him love me again. He can’t refuse me!
She sensed rather than heard Regan’s arrival. He slammed the door shut behind him and climbed the stairs. Silently Sirena thanked Jacobus’ expertise in picking locks. Obviously, Regan did not suspect anything was amiss. Suddenly, she was seized by panic. Suppose he had not returned home alone. Suppose he had brought Camilla with him. She didn’t think for one moment that Regan would patiently await the blessing of his marriage vows before bedding the pretty girl. Regan’s need for a woman in his bed was too great to wait for a legal decree.
Tensing beneath the blankets, Sirena squeezed her eyes shut, praying that Regan had not brought her. Almost without warning, Regan was in the room. Gratefully, she realized he was alone. Steeling herself for the moment of discovery, Sirena held her breath.
Not bothering to light the lamp, Regan shed his clothing. Sirena could hear the rustle of his garments as they fell to the floor or chair or whatever was handy. When his boots dropped, Sirena’s heart raced. What would he do when he slid into bed and felt her next to him? God in Heaven, what had made her do this? Whatever it was, it was too late to change her mind. Regan was sitting on the edge of the high bed and she could feel the warmth of him and smell the faint aroma of his last cheroot.
As Regan’s leg touched bare flesh, he let out a shout and jumped to his knees, imprisoning the interloper between his legs, his hands holding her shoulders firm against the bedding. “Who the blast are you?” he asked, shaking her shoulders in an iron grip.
“I always said you were a bull,” Sirena said quietly, her voice as smooth as silk, belying the quaking she was experiencing.
“What are you doing here?” he blustered, recognizing her voice; his eyes penetrating the darkness for the sight of her.
“Foolish man,” Sirena breathed, wrangling her arms free from his loosening grip to wrap them about his neck and surround him with her warmth.
Regan perceived her form against the white bedclothes. All of his pent-up yearnings, all of his desires rose to the surface as he slid beside her and encircled her in his embrace. Just the feel of her satiny skin, the nearness of her, caused him to close his eyes with remembered ecstasy. She belonged to him, and only to him. How could he have thought otherwise? A sound escaped him, a sound of pain as he drew her closer. As his lips sought hers, he heard her murmur, “I love you so. Never let me go. Love me, Regan, love me.”
His lips crushed hers and her head whirled as her body came to life beneath his caresses. He was gentle and unhurried, his mouth moving against hers. Her senses reeled as she strained against him, trying to make them one.
With infinite tenderness, Regan loved her, putting a guarded check on the growing feverishness he was experiencing. Sirena once again became his pagan goddess. His mind formed a picture of her as he perceived through his fingertips. The ivory luster of her full breasts; her slim waist; her firm velvet haunches. He placed a long, sensual kiss on the silky triangle her nudity offered, and Sirena gave herself in panting surrender.
A hundred times his lips touched her body, satisfying himself in his passion for her beauty. Many details, details hardly noticed before, intoxicated him with their perfection; the flatness of her stomach, the distinct curve of her thighs, the dimples in her haunches, the elegant length of her legs. But he lingered in the warm shadows of her breasts while their coral tips beckoned him in a silent and provocative appeal.
Sirena’s body voiced a will of its own. She writhed as though maddened with the desire to offer herself wholly to the searchings of his fingers and lips. And Regan, sensing this in her, resumed his advances, thirsting still more for her boundless beauty and to plant his kisses on the voluptuous moistness of her silky fleece which held such attraction for him.
Regan rejoiced that his passion was met equally and totally.
He felt Sirena brush his hair back from his forehead as she kissed him lightly on the lips. Straining toward him, her body rose and fell rhythmically in obedience to her desire to culminate their love.
Her hands firm against his shoulders, Sirena pressed Regan back against the bed. His breath came in short, rapid gasps; and, when she leaned over him, pressing the fullness of her breasts against his chest, she heard him emit a barely audible groan. Beneath her touch his skin glistened with a gleaming wetness, the fine furring on his chest teased the tips of her breasts and the long, hard length of him brought comfort to her yearning need for him. She tasted every detail of his physique, touched the rippling, muscular smoothness of him. She placed her lips at the hollow of his throat and licked the sweet saltiness she found there.
His hands were on her back, drawing her closer; her legs tangled with his as she held herself above him, her body touching the full length of him, rubbing against him lightly, bringing him to the apex of his erotic desires. She crushed his face against the ripe plentitude of her breasts and reveled in the teasing touches of his mouth. He came alive beneath her fingers and she felt his expectancy throb between them. The contact of her flesh on his was as smooth as silk and her whole being concentrated on giving to him, enjoying the emotions she evoked in him, bringing him pleasure and pleasuring herself.
His well-delineated chest became an altar on which she offered herself; his firm legs were the pillars on which her house of passion was built; his arms were the cushions which protected her from falling into a dark abyss where life had no meaning and loneliness was torture to her heart.
She felt his eyes upon her, delving the darkness, sensing her love. And Sirena loved. Joyously, without reservation. And when she mounted him, they cried in unison for the time they had been lost to one another. And when she felt the river of life warm her from within, she whispered hoarsely, “You love me, Regan, I knew I could make you love me!”
Sirena lay back against Regan, her head cradled on his shoulder, peace and contentment readable on her features. Regan was silent, his breathing steady and even.
When Sirena reached out a hand to touch his chest, she felt him stiffen beneath her fingers and was aware of his retreat from her. “Regan, darling, what’s wrong? Aren’t you happy we’ve found each other before it was too late?”
“It is too late, Sirena!” Regan growled, heaving himself from the bed and going in search of his robe.
Hurt and perplexed, Sirena sat up in bed, imploring him with her eyes to look at her, to tell her what she had done wrong. When no answer was forthcoming, she pressed. “Talk to me, Regan! Tell me what I’ve done to displease you!”
Regan was silent, the only sound she heard was the striking of the flint box and his struggles with the lamp. Abruptly, the room was flooded with the warm, yellow light and her gaze lifted to look into the cold, agate depths of Regan’s eyes. His mouth was a thin, grim line and his jaw held stubborn determination.
“Tell me what I’ve done, Regan!” Sirena demanded, hurt beyond words, her pride forbidding her to share her pain.
“It’s nothing you’ve done, Sirena,” Regan said at last, his words clipped and controlled. “You’re still the best piece to ever warm my bed.”
“Then what is it?” she demanded, tired of parading her emotions before him.
“You’re too damned confident of yourself, Sirena. Tell me why I found you here in my bed tonight? Tell me! Wasn’t it a damned plot to prove I can still be made a fool over you? Didn’t you come here and throw yourself at me so you could reduce me to the idiot you already think I am?”
“No, Regan, no! I came because I love you. Because I knew you still loved me!”<
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“The words you used, Sirena, at the height of our passion were, ‘I knew I could make you love me!’ I’m a challenge to you, you can’t face the fact that I could divorce you as I did! So you came here tonight to tempt me with your kisses and drive me wild with your beauty.”
“No, Regan, no!”
In two strides he was beside the bed, his fingers biting into the flesh of her arms. “I won’t be used, Sirena, and that’s what you’ve got planned for me in that pretty head of yours, isn’t it? You thought you’d come here and remind me of what we had together. Had and lost, Sirena! I never did care for a woman who was overconfident of her charms. And if you think I’d allow you to get close enough to me to gain your revenge for what you think I’ve done to you, think again!” he bellowed.
“Please believe me, Regan!” she implored, crawling out from under the covers, kneeling, her arms outstretched in a gesture of supplication.
“Believe you! I, who know what lengths you’re capable of going to? Remember, it was I who married you thinking you were your own sister! It was my house you lived in while you were wreaking havoc on the business my father and I had spent a lifetime building! You bore my name and slept with another man! You are the epitome of deceit, Sirena, and God help me, but I loved you! I can still love you, damn my soul, but I won’t let myself. I’m wiser now and I won’t fall into your traps again!” In a gesture as old as time itself, Regan reached for several coins and placed them on a table within her sight. “Little enough payment for a good roll in the sack. Take it, like the good little whore you are, and get out of here!”
Before Sirena could find the words or strength to answer him, he turned on his heel and left the room, slamming the door behind him.
Too stricken to cry, too pained to move, Sirena heard him stamp down the stairs and, from below, there was the sound of shattering glass. Slowly, in choked, laggard movements, she dressed herself. Glancing once about the room where she had found meaning to her life only a short while ago, she closed the door behind her. Soundlessly, she descended the stairs and stepped out into the night, the foggy dark a cover for her shattered, humiliated heart.
Throughout the next weeks Sirena found herself much in demand to attend social functions given in her honor. Though she wore a mask of gaiety for the world to see, only Frau Holtz and Jacobus knew her true feelings.
But there was nobody more aware of what she was suffering than Sirena herself. She knew she was beyond controlling the circumstances of her life. She felt powerless to salvage what was left. The only reason she stayed in London was to be near Regan. Somewhere within her was the small hope that the damage between them could be repaired.
In the dark, lonely hours before dawn, while she lay in her solitary bed, scenes from their last time together flashed before her, warming her in a half-dream where she could feel Regan’s arms about her and his lips adoring her. And from this she could draw strength. Regan loved her. Hadn’t his arms told her, and his lips? And when he had turned her in his arms, hadn’t he reveled in her offerings? Regan loves me, I know he does! And God help me, I love him so much! He doesn’t want to admit it because of his pride, but he cares!
Then, just as the early sun was lighting the horizon, her spirits would fall into that desolate abyss. And before she at last closed her eyes in sleep, she would cry with the firm belief that she was only fooling herself. That if Regan loved her, he wouldn’t have been so quick to misunderstand what she had meant when she had cried out. Yet loving Regan was the only thing she had left and no matter what pain it brought her, she could not give it up.
One afternoon, Sirena lounged after lunch deliberating on what costume she would wear that coming evening. Frau Holtz knocked perfunctorily and entered, bearing a small, silver tray on which was stacked invitations. Sirena smiled and picked up the first and then another. Near the bottom of the stack she picked up a formal, cream-colored square and laughed delightedly. “This,” she said, waving the invitation in the air, “is from Sir Stephan Langdon.” She had already explained that Stephan was Camilla’s father. “He requests the honor of my company at dinner tomorrow. He would be delighted to be my escort at the Fallows’ dinner party.”
Frau Holtz watched as Sirena quickly penned off her reply and handed it to the housekeeper for a footman to deliver. The aged woman trembled slightly at the sight of her mistress dancing about the room. What was the Mevrouw up to? Whatever it was, it had to do with the Mynheer.
“Listen to me, Frau Holtz. There’s another message to be delivered. I think Jacobus is the man for it. Tyler Sinclair has asked me to accompany him to Waterford so I can examine a factory he wishes to buy. As there aren’t any ships sailing on a regular basis there save Regan’s and, of course, the small schooners that are not allowed to take passengers, ask Jacobus to go to the wharf and have Jan or Willem go to Tyler’s office and say their ship is taking a few passengers. Whoever goes is to act as captain and his reason for going to Tyler should be to inquire as to the levies on Irish laces. When we sail to Ireland, you will accompany me as well as Jacobus.”
Frau Holtz frowned at the prospect of a sea voyage, no matter how short; then she found her spirits lifting a little. She had never been so bored and lacking something to do since she had come to this house in England. When the Mevrouw and Mynheer lived together, there was always something going on, sparks were always flying and one never knew if it were safe to leave one’s bed from day to day. As always, when the Frau was upset, her thoughts went to Batavia and her life on the islands. How she missed it.
“Jacobus,” she called out into the greenhouse from the kitchen window. “The Mevrouw has an errand for you.” Quickly she explained and did not fail to see the man’s eyes light at the prospect of going to sea again. While Jacobus might say he yearned for dry land, he longed to be once again on a rolling, pitching deck. But, he would never leave Sirena. He had promised to look after the Capitana and Frau Holtz and he would never go back on his word, no matter how miserable he was.
Several days later, baggage in tow, Sirena and Frau Holtz stepped aboard the Sea Spirit. Sirena winked roguishly at Jan, who welcomed his passengers aboard.
To all intents and purposes, Sirena and her crew behaved as though they were complete strangers to each other. Willem showed her to her cabin while the others were made comfortable in quarters which had been arranged for them. Sirena whispered to Willem that Sir Sinclair had a tendency toward billiousness in open water. Pray for calm seas.
Willem promised to do his best and, while she carried her baggage into the cabin, he asked how she found London.
“I hate it!” Sirena responded vehemently, her eyes stormy. “For some reason I find myself bound there.” She looked into Willem’s face, scrutinizing what she read there. She smiled sadly, “I have this feeling, Willem, that something is going to happen to me. I keep telling myself it’s my own sense of insecurity, but somehow I feel it’s something more. Perhaps it’s because I have no home, no roots. Oh, I have a house and I’m told I’m wealthy, but ... everything is gone,” she said softly. “Can you understand that?”
“Aye, Capitana. More than you realize.”
“I’m sorry, Willem. Of course you as a sailor understand what it is to be homeless. Forget what I said and sail this ship to Ireland, and I’ll let the sea convince me these feelings are just attacks of a woman’s fancy.”
The Sea Spirit was three days out to sea, headed for Waterford, Ireland. Sirena was strolling the deck, Tyler on one side of her, Frau Holtz meandering on the other, her eye to an approaching storm. Sirena, too, watched the encroaching gale warily. Another two hours and they would find themselves in the thick of it. Her flesh tingled and her hands itched to take the wheel, but she forced down her feelings.
Later, leaning over the rail, Sirena watched as the Spirit lifted and dipped and sliced through the diamond-shaped waves with all the grace and certainty of a water sprite. She showed she was made of more than just the wood and nails that man had
hammered into her. Satisfaction was the Spirit’s reward and the roar in her rigging was her ovation. On she raced through billows and groaning squalls. She met the wind and licked up the sea, dipping more than heeling, as if she knew she was the most magnificent ship beneath the sky.
“Sail ho!” came the cry from the rigging.
“Where away?” Willem called as Sirena narrowed her eyes to peer into the gloom.
“Due north and there’s another sail on her bow!”
Sirena climbed onto a tackle box and watched as the brig held to her course. Wet down, her canvas straining, the ship held her speed for nearly an hour. With the wind coming aft, Sirena watched as her booms swung out under the reaches of her sails. The water boiled and churned aft until her wake was long and white. Even from this distance, Sirena could see the other ship gaining on the floundering brig.
Her own Sea Spirit secure, Sirena watched as the British flag whipped in the wind. She knew in a second what the pursuing ship’s objective was, a brig carrying English cargo. Her eyes questioned Jan and he nodded. It was a pirate ship and bent on destroying the unsuspecting vessel. Sirena shook her head slightly. They would not interfere.
Tyler was watching with a keen eye as the brigantine tried to outrun the pirates.
Sirena fought to keep her agitation from showing as she watched the lightning play in brilliant sheets, frolicking over the line of earth and sky. The lady of the sea was unhappy. She was betrothed to the wind, a prodigal and unpredictable suitor.
“Look!” Tyler called excitedly, “it’s really a pirate ship!” He could barely contain his excitement as a roar split the air and thick, black smoke eddied upward above the smoking brigantine.
Captive Embraces Page 19