by Susan Wiggs
“Isadora is not here.”
He captured her hand, took it away from his mouth. “She’s not?”
“No. And you must not use her name.”
“Why not?”
“Because…” How could she explain it? “Because that would make the night real.”
“And you don’t want it to be real?”
She thought of the things in her life that were real—her family, the people she associated with in Boston, people who barely acknowledged her existence. “No,” she said earnestly.
“Not tonight. At the end of this voyage, I shall soon enough face what is real.”
“You mean Isadora will face it,” he corrected her.
“Yes.”
“And what is real to Isadora?”
She paused, thinking. “The idea that she will serve her parents in their old age. And the rather pleasant prospect of helping to raise her nieces and nephews because her sisters are such good breeders. She will read great books and she’ll be a faithful letter writer, though she will write many more letters than she will ever receive. But that’s all right, for the reading and writing will fill her days. She has accepted the idea that she will never know passion, for no one feels passionate about Isadora—”
“What?”
“Passion. She’ll never know it.” She smiled, pleased that he had caught on. She had expected cynical teasing from him, but he kept surprising her. “So that is why you must keep reality at bay. You must let the night be magical.”
He chuckled and squeezed his hand. “Sugar, don’t you know?”
“Know what?”
“Every night is magical.”
She laughed softly, loving the easy feel of it, loving the breeze through her hair and the way his loose shirt blew against his chest, outlining its shape. The sweetness of the moment washed through her, loosening her, warming her.
“You are never serious,” she said.
“It’s not permitted for a cavalier to be serious.”
“What about Captain Calhoun?” she ventured. “Is he ever serious?”
“Only when it comes to serious matters.”
“What sort of serious matters?”
“Matters of the heart,” he said, lifting her hand and pressing it to his chest. “Matters of passion.” With an earnestness she’d never seen in him before, he said, “Suppose I told you I want a certain young lady of Boston.”
She took her hand away from his heart. He meant her? No, impossible. She forced her mind to consider the more reasonable possibilities. Lydia Haven, the beauty of Beacon Hill. Her sister Arabella, who was still desired even though she was engaged. A society belle, perhaps, or one of the women from the docks.
“Then why have you not courted her?” she inquired, trying to keep her humor up.
“She seemed too chilly and self-contained and far too intelligent to take a fellow like me seriously. And of course, she yearns for someone else altogether.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Perhaps your Boston lady’s coldness is a shield against getting hurt.”
“Then I wish like hell she’d lower her defenses, for I would never hurt her.”
“You wouldn’t?” Her question came out as a whisper because suddenly she knew. It was insane, but his Boston lady was…
“Never.”
“Then I wonder…what she is afraid of.”
He moved closer to her on the stone rampart. “Take off the mask,” he said.
“I’d rather not.”
“I’d rather you did.” He removed it and set it aside.
The scented night breeze touched her face where the mask had been. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because I want to know exactly who you are when I kiss you.”
Stunned, she could do nothing but sit and watch him remove his own half mask of black silk. And then he began.
It was not the sort of kiss he had given her before, the sweetly spontaneous one in the garden. Nor was it the kind of kiss she had always envisioned, aflame with heated passion. Instead he was careful, deliberate, almost clinical. He lifted a tendril of her hair that had drifted across her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. Then he took her face between both hands, skimming the pad of his thumb along her lower lip as if to prepare it for the touch of his mouth. One of his hands dropped, fingers playing over her throat and collarbone, so indecently exposed by the daring blouse. With an assurance Isadora could not possibly imagine ever feeling, he lowered the hand and let it curve around behind her so that he was embracing her, holding her close, their bodies touching, their lips getting closer and closer.
She made a feeble attempt to stop him, to stop the intimacy and the terrible overwhelming emotions welling up from a place inside her she had never explored until this moment. But she didn’t want to stop him, not really. He was the most beautiful man in the world; she was plain Isadora Peabody, and she might never again get the chance to kiss someone like him.
Aching with the bleakness of that thought, which mingled painfully with her yearning, she closed her eyes.
And he kissed them. Her eyelids.
She was amazed.
And then he kissed her cheek and her temple and the side of her nose. And behind her left ear and—heavens be—her neck where a pulse leaped so frantically she feared she might swoon.
“You look…” he whispered, still kissing her there, up and down, oh so gently.
“Yes?” she prompted in a hoarse, alien voice. Dear God, maybe a miracle had occurred. Maybe he was going to say she looked pretty.
“You look…as if you’re about to face a firing squad.”
“Oh…” she said weakly, opening her eyes a little. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t apologize. Just—if you possibly can—try to seem as if you’re enjoying this.”
“But I am,” she said with great urgency. “Truly. I simply…this is a new activity for me and I don’t quite know how to behave.”
“What I’d like,” he said wickedly, “is for you to misbehave.”
“I’m certain I’ve been doing that ever since I set foot on your ship,” she said, not even half joking.
“Then it’s a start,” he whispered, leaning close again.
“It’s a start.”
And he began kissing her again, his leisurely exploration so maddening and frustrating she nearly screamed, for he seemed to be touching and kissing all of her except the parts that needed him the most. She bit her tongue to keep from telling him that. It would be too forward, too humiliating.
Too pathetic.
But then, his gently questing mouth strayed upward along her throat, and—almost by accident—she dropped her chin a little, and their lips met.
And the night changed color before her ecstatically closed eyes.
Ye powers, but his kiss felt good. He tasted of rum and sweet juice and some other ineffable flavor. His mouth—the beautiful mouth she had been caught staring at so many times—brushed hers and then increased its pressure and she was astonished at the soft texture of it, the lyrical shape and the way it fit perfectly against hers. She was so startled by the sensations flooding her that she let her jaw go slack, and then something even more astonishing occurred. His tongue slipped into her mouth.
She was certain it had to be an accident; surely it was an unnatural sin to do this…but…she liked it.
She would suffer eternal damnation for this; of that she had no doubt. But she liked it. She loved it. The sinuous slide of his tongue, in and then out, then back in when she surged involuntarily against him, needing and wanting more than she had ever dared to need or want before. Certain places on her body flared to life as if a torch had been touched to them—the tips of her breasts, unbound for the first time in her life. Between her legs in a spot whose existence she had trained herself to deny utterly. The pit of her stomach in which was born a fire that raged beyond quenching.
And then, far too quickly, it was over. He moved his hands to cup her should
ers, and drew back to look at her. “There,” he said. “No worse than a firing squad, was it?”
She felt dazed, disoriented, as if she had awakened in a strange place. She blinked. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never faced a firing squad before.”
“Then you’ll have to trust me,” he said with gentle laughter in his voice. “Poor you.”
“Yes,” she whispered, filled with the torpor and wistfulness of an awakening dreamer. “Poor me.”
Seventeen
Oh this is the place to live—a thought of winter would never enter one’s head.
—Diary of Susan Hathorn,
a sea captain’s wife.
(1855)
Isadora awoke with a smile on her face and the knowledge that she had slept indecently late. Judging by the intense dazzle of sunlight on the plaster wall, it was pressing high noon.
The smile lingered. She knew she should feel guilty, for no one on Beacon Hill, or probably in Boston, or the entire United States for that matter, ever slept this late unless they were ill. Yet Isadora had no more viable excuse than the fact that she had been dancing with a man on a rampart at midnight, and soon after that she had kissed him.
A delicious shiver passed through her body, tingling unbearably until she grew restive and flushed with her thoughts. She got up and went to the washstand to bathe in the cool spring water, but the thoughts wouldn’t leave her alone.
Heavens be. She—Isadora Dudley Peabody—had kissed a man last night.
It was not just any man. It was not just any kiss.
Ryan Calhoun. The most interesting, compelling person she had ever met. The only person who had ever tried to be her friend. But was he trying to be more than that?
She denied it instantly, her practical nature restoring itself. He had pursued her last night, had taken her to a private place and danced with her because they had been at a masquerade. A party where nothing was as it seemed.
In a way, the moments with Ryan were even less real than a dream. Last night stood apart from the rest of her life, glistening with the elusive light of promise and teasing her with the possibility of what might have been.
Trying to remember the kiss was like trying to repossess a wonderful dream after blazing wakefulness had intruded. She could recall what happened, but she could not recapture the magic. Each time she came close to reliving the sensation of his soft lips opening over hers, his nimble fingers skimming down her back, she became lost in a fog of embarrassment and desire that left her flushed and confused.
“I mustn’t think of it,” she told herself stoutly, scraping her hair into a pathetic topknot. The short locks wouldn’t stay put, so she stabbed in more pins. She dressed herself in her familiar corset and berry-brown day dress, frowning at the way the usually crisp fabric hung in limp, pathetic folds.
No matter, she told herself. She had never been vain. She’d never had anything to be vain about. Particularly not now, with her inexpertly shorn hair and her face bleary and wan from staying up too late and dreaming too much the night before.
By the time she stepped out of her chamber into the colonnaded walkway, she felt as gauche and uncertain as she ever had at a Boston dancing party.
Ye powers. What on earth would she say to him?
She was spared from the immediate decision by Ryan himself. She had no sooner taken her place at the breakfast table than he came staggering into the sala, his hair badly combed and the contours of his face blurred by a growth of beard.
“Oh,” he mumbled, his voice gravelly. “You’re up.”
She said nothing. He probably thought she was stunned speechless by the brilliance of his observation.
“Charming,” his mother said, coming into the room with Rose at her side. Two servants arrived to pour the coffee and lay out platters of sweet bread and sliced fruit.
Ryan grunted rudely.
Isadora could scarcely believe this was the same man as the dashing gaucho who had romanced her last night. He added several spoonfuls of sugar to his café com leite. She preferred hers bitter. He dug into the chunks of fresh fruit and brioches; she picked at hers. The heat and humidity of the tropics had reduced her appetite dramatically. The one happy effect of the climate was that she hadn’t been bothered by her persistent grippe and sneezing in many weeks.
As they ate, Lily kept glancing anxiously at the door. Each time a servant walked in, she froze, then relaxed.
“She’s not coming back, Mother,” Ryan said with quiet assurance.
“Did Fayette go somewhere?” Isadora asked.
Lily pressed her lips together as if keeping in a sob. Rose nodded gravely. “Last night she ran off with Edison Carneros.”
Lily’s chin quivered, but she looked directly at Isadora as she said, “I thought it was a prank, but I fear Fayette claimed her freedom last night.”
“They probably went to settle at one of the quilombos, where fugitives go,” Rose explained. “They’re rough settlements, but that’s generally where runaways hide.”
“It’s not the end of the world as you know it, Mama.” Ryan sipped his coffee, then with more compassion, added, “He’ll be good to her.”
“She’s my maid. She’s always been my maid. Whatever shall I do?”
“You’ll manage, Mama. You always do.”
“I’m worried about Fayette. She has no idea what life is like.”
“She was a slave, Mama. And you were a slave owner. That was what life was like for her. By running off with Edison, she freed you both. Don’t you understand that?”
Lily’s face paled to chalk white. “How dare you?”
“Somebody in this family had better dare. You’ve managed to wander through life without even saying the word slave. Without even thinking it. Servants, you call them. Maids. Field hands. Laundresses. But they were slaves. Property. Chattel. You owned them, body and soul.”
“Ryan, what’s happened to you? When did you become so harsh?”
“What’s harsh, Mother, is the lash of a slave owner’s whip.”
Tears filled her eyes. “My maid has never felt the touch of a whip. I love Fayette.”
“Then let her go, Mama. That’s the only way to love her.”
The tears overflowed then, coursing down her cheeks as her shoulders shook. “I’m so frightened. Everything’s changing so fast.”
“Some changes are long past due.” Ryan found a handkerchief and Lily dried her cheeks with meticulous care.
Isadora blinked, astonished and elated. “I know you shall miss her, Lily. We all will. But it’s for the best.”
Lily took a nervous sip of her coffee. “A noble thought, but naive. Fayette was better off with me. She claimed to love Edison, but love can’t fill an empty belly, nor keep the world at bay. The quilombos are horrid places. One of the housemaids told me that a runaway is in danger from the police, as well as from other fugitives.”
“Can the slave patrols arrest her?” Isadora asked anxiously. The Fugitive Slave Law, that legislative abomination, had been in force in Boston for several months now. The law had created terror among the city’s African people, free or not. Tension tore apart families, made neighbors distrust neighbors. She wondered if Brazil had a similar law.
“There is no extradition to the United States,” Ryan said, leaning back laconically in his chair.
“But she could be forced into service here.” Lily’s voice rang hollow with baffled hurt. “She is in more peril as a free woman than she ever was as my servant.” She pushed back from the table, clearly too agitated to sit still. “There’s an epidemic of yellow fever in the city. What if she falls ill? Or starves? Or is harmed by criminals? What if—”
“You can help by setting her free. Legally. I’ll see that the papers are drawn up for you,” Ryan said. “That way, she won’t be considered a fugitive. Fayette is not a child. And she’s not yours. She was never yours. Her will is hers and hers alone. So if she chooses to go off with Carneros, your only choice is to allow it.” He r
ose from the table and gently kissed her on the cheek. “She knew the risks, and she chose freedom.”
He went to the door. “I have to go to the city to see about her manumission papers.” He bowed, the gallant gesture at odds with his unkempt appearance. “Ladies.”
Isadora stared after him. He was the strangest man, rude as a longshoreman even as he helped free a slave woman. Capricious, that’s what he was. He had probably already forgotten last night’s embrace. How many times did the lesson have to be hammered into her? It was only a kiss, she told herself. She was far too old to romanticize a mere kiss, and far too proud to admit that it might mean more to her than it had to Ryan Calhoun.
She knew her heart shone in her eyes, knew Lily was watching her curiously, but she couldn’t help herself. Last night had meant nothing to Ryan. He probably didn’t remember it at all. Didn’t remember dancing with her, holding her, kissing her until she saw stars.
She couldn’t blame him, not really. What man alive would admit to kissing the spinster of Beacon Hill?
Ryan hoped his display of nonchalance had been convincing. He’d awakened the morning after the masquerade with a throbbing headache and a profound feeling of thwarted desire.
Thoughts of Isadora Peabody plagued him during the trek to the harbor and nagged at him when he was supposed to be concentrating on bribing an official for a carta de alforria for Fayette. He delivered the letter of liberty to Edison Carneros, who thanked him with tears in his eyes.
But once he returned to business, Ryan’s thoughts wandered to Isadora again, when he should have been formulating the correct tonnage for ballast. He snapped at the men, made errors in his figuring and broke a half dozen pen nibs.
Journey shooed him off to his quarters, where he took the ship’s cat in his lap, scowled out the stern windows at the jangadas plying to and fro and thought about Isadora some more.
He had no doubt he could rouse her ardor; she’d certainly responded eagerly enough. But it was a false emotion, one based on physical need. Ryan had no right to steal her heart.