He was still reading, ignoring her. She wondered if he remembered she was in his bed.
Her gaze wandered to the far wall, which displayed one of his many collections of erotic art. Every woman she knew and most men as well would blush at what Dante considered art. He had a fine, rosewood corner cupboard with glass doors that held Greek and Roman objets d’art, all of which were, as far as she was concerned, lewd and immoral. But that was exactly what excited her.
The cup bearing the image of a bearded Greek male entering the smiling, compliant female from behind, the da Vinci cross-section of a couple making love, in which one could see the huge, erect penis as it entered the female body, the stone relief of ancient Indian temple art depicting a fornicating foursome in which the man was somehow, miraculously, able to make the three women who surrounded him happy—two with his hands and one with his enormous, oversized penis. All of them were, of course, male fantasy pieces, but the mistress became aroused just the same.
And those were just the pieces in the glass case. He had many, many more. Closing her eyes, she leaned against the pillows and ran her fingertips over her breasts. She was his lover, for now. But on those nights when she wasn’t with him, she would toss and turn and dream of being taken over and over again by a tall, powerfully built man who was as untamable as the dragon etched on his skin.
Dante Templeton was hers, for the moment. She never wanted it to end, but how long she would share his bed was his decision alone.
She opened her eyes and, with a finger, traced the dragon that slid over the muscles of his chest, appearing to move each time he took a breath. “Put down the paper, Dante.”
He reached beneath the disheveled bed linens and briefly stroked her sensitive inner thigh, nudging her with his little finger as if that would begin to satisfy her.
To her shame, it merely made her want him more. She had an immediate reaction to his touch. It was as if he had not made love to her in weeks when in truth it had been less than an hour. The sensual lethargy that came over her was almost more than she could bear.
His gaze was held captive by an article in the newspaper and she knew that at least for the moment, she had lost him.
Undaunted, she shifted so her breasts straddled his powerful upper arm, raised herself up, and blew in his ear.
He cocked his head away and continued to read the newspaper. Suddenly he scowled. “I’ll be damned.”
“Why?”
“Why what?” he asked, not looking at her.
“Why will you be damned?”
He folded the newspaper back and said nothing. He merely smiled a cold smile and kept reading.
She loved his face. His cheekbones were sharp as glass, and deep grooves bracketed his sensual mouth—a mouth that could usually bring her to the heights of ecstasy. But even when it did not, she feigned pleasure, for she didn’t want to vex him.
Heat stirred within her again, and she gave him a petulant swat on the chest. “You’re ignoring me.”
“Patience, Marguerite. I’m trying to read the paper.”
She nipped his earlobe with her teeth. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you preferred the newspaper to me.”
“You said it, I didn’t.”
She sighed. “The paper will always be here, Dante.”
The look he gave her said that if he wanted it, she would always be there, too. She didn’t argue.
“Millard is coming home,” she said, hoping for a response. But she knew that Dante didn’t care that her husband would return today.
She needed to make him acknowledge her. She reached beneath the covers and fondled him. Even at rest he filled her hands. To touch him made her ache deep inside. When she wasn’t with Dante, she was afraid she would call out his name when she was with her husband. And it was never her intention to hurt Millard; he’d been good to her. But Dante was her obsession.
He turned and surprised her with a deep, wet kiss. “My only love. Let me finish this article.”
She almost laughed out loud. As much as she might want it, she would never be his only love. No woman would. His only love was, and always would be, the sea.
“What’s so interesting that you can’t put the newspaper down?” Her waspishness began to show.
“The obituary of a man I wish I’d killed myself. Ah, but it’s fitting that he died in a whaleboat trying to slay a whale.”
The venom in his voice startled her. She looked at the page. “Amos Rayburn?”
“Yes.” His voice was clipped.
“I met him once. And his wife. Eleanor, I think he called her.” She laughed.
Dante turned toward her, one eyebrow raised, his brilliant blue eyes glittering dangerously. “What is so amusing about Amos Rayburn’s wife?”
Marguerite kicked off the bed linens so her whole body was available to him. She ran her fingers down over her stomach, threading them through her fluffy pubic hair. Her stirrings deepened and it was all she could do not to touch herself more intimately.
“We met them at a party.” She pressed her thighs together to stem her desire, then turned and propped her chin on her hands, her body pressed against his. “She spent the entire evening either sitting in a corner by herself or cleaning up after the guests.”
Marguerite reached out and touched his chest, tracing the dragon’s scales. “She acted like the hired help. Truthfully, she was so plain I don’t think I’d recognize her if I bumped into her again. I just remember brown eyes, brown hair, and a shapeless brown dress.”
Marguerite had lost him again, for his expression became hooded, his jaw tensed, and he tapped the paper against his hand.
Dante had a dark side. He rarely displayed it in public but she knew it was there, simmering just beneath the surface. She often wondered what troubled him. But she would never ask. She wasn’t certain she wanted to know.
She watched him and realized that at this point, she could plant her bottom on his face and he wouldn’t respond.
She slid from the bed and stood before him, naked, wondering just how unreachable he was. “I’m leaving, Dante. Right now. Like this.”
He said nothing.
“You can send my clothes over later.” She moved closer, taunting him. If he simply turned his head slightly, his face would almost touch her where she longed for his touch the most.
“You are a beautiful and seductive woman, Marguerite, and I can smell your musky scent from here.” He paused. “I assume that was your purpose.”
She put one knee on the bed and bent to kiss him, flicking her tongue against his lips. “And that doesn’t give you ideas?” she whispered against his mouth.
He continued to study the obituary page. “Here.” He reached for his robe, which hung on the bedpost and tossed it to her. “Wear this. I don’t want you catching cold on your way out.”
An angry heat spread through her. “You are such a bastard,” she spat, throwing the robe in his face.
Narrowing her gaze, she gave him a derisive smile and left the bedroom wearing nothing at all, slamming the door hard behind her.
At the bottom of the stairs, she met Horace, Dante’s manservant, whose usual reserve bobbled like crystal in the wind as she stood before him. “My cloak, please?”
His face turned a rare shade of purple as he lifted her wrap off the coat tree and draped it across her shoulders. The elegant feather boa she had worn with her new gown the night before hung over another hook. On an impulse, she let the cloak fall to the floor, lifted the boa off the hook, and flung it around her neck.
“Thank you so much,” she said sweetly, then walked out Dante’s front door—wearing nothing else at all.
Eleanor bolted upright in bed, drawing in great gulps of air, her heart thudding madly. Even now, four months after the accident, she couldn’t escape Amos’s agonizing screams. As if it were happening all over again, she had witnessed the death of her husband as the whale butted the boat. All the men, including Amos, were flung into the air, thei
r backs and necks arched beyond endurance. The whaleboat splintered into kindling, and in her dreams the roiling water was always smeared red with blood, though in reality there had been no blood at all upon the water.
She wondered if the nightmares would ever end. The memories were so real. The fear she’d seen in his face; it was a fear she could never describe. But she could feel it. Even now. And she knew with certainty that no man deserved to die so violently.
Her nightgown beneath her robe was drenched with perspiration. She massaged her neck and glanced at the window where the colorless, flimsy curtains were drawn against the dawn. She hadn’t had a decent nights’ sleep since the accident. She hoped that one day she would sleep through the night again without awakening from the nightmare of Amos dying.
Wishful thinking. Something she’d found herself doing a lot of lately, even before Amos had died. Aboard the whaler, she thought about flowers and birds and fresh, sweet drinking water, knowing in her heart that she would have none of them for months on end. Sometimes she prayed for a stronger constitution, but most of the time she simply had to be content with who and what she was: a woman who tried to be good and pure of heart, obedient and God-fearing, but who had a mind of her own and too often expressed it aloud.
She threw off the thin, worn blanket. Her hand caught in one of the holes and it ripped. She stared at it for a moment, remembering the stash of quilts she had at her brother’s home. She longed to wrap herself in one, but was grateful that they were safely away from the boarding house. Eleanor had already learned that she couldn’t leave anything worthwhile lying about.
She had lost her one good purse, a black one covered with jet beads and a ribbon handle, by leaving it on the battered old worktable in the corner that passed for a dresser.
The only other person in her room was her landlady, but when Eleanor mentioned that the purse had disappeared, Mrs. Lauder denied ever having seen it. And Eleanor, usually confrontational by nature, knew that to press the issue meant she would find her belongings on the doorstep.
Living in a rooming house had not been in her plan. After the accident and her miscarriage, she had fully expected to return to the little cottage in New Bedford that she had lived in after her marriage to Amos. Imagine her distress when she discovered that it had burned to the ground one night during a raging storm.
With all of her dreams tumbling down around her, she fled to Boston, hoping to start a new life, somehow. Hopefully it would involve the whaler; that was her mission today.
She swung to the side of the bed and stepped onto the wood floor. It was a cold morning, and she could feel it through the old red wool stockings on her feet. She had slept in stockings for years because she was always so cold. And now, she had no choice because Mrs. Lauder claimed she couldn’t afford the fuel to keep the fireplaces burning at night. Not that the woman would heat the place even if she owned half of Boston.
Eleanor crossed to the window and pulled the thin curtains aside. Another gray morning. Air, tainted with sea salt, leaked in through cheap panels that barely held the windowpanes in place. Beyond the row of clapboard buildings and the rise of the warehouses past them, she heard the rush and swell of the ocean, and the screeching caws of the gulls.
Today was the day she would face the merchant who owned the major share of the whaler that Amos had captained. She had to find a crew of her own, for she desperately needed an income. In her coin purse, she had just enough money to pay Mrs. Lauder for the week that had passed, but not another twenty-five dollars for the week to come.
She went to the washstand and washed her face in the cold water. After pressing a threadbare towel against her eyes, she looked in the mirror and frowned. She looked old. Tired. Worn out. Even her hair, which she considered her best feature, seemed to lack luster.
A wave of self-pity threatened to make her cry. She rested her fists on the dry sink and closed her eyes, waiting for the moment to pass, for she hated the feeling in herself, and found it an unattractive trait in others as well.
She had always believed she was in charge of her life, and to let Amos’s death and the death of her child turn her into a needy, pathetic woman sickened her. She lifted her head again and gazed into the mirror. She would get on with her life, and she would do it alone.
She swung from the mirror and hurried to gather her clothes for the day, determined to make the day a success, despite her misfortunes.
“You have a right to mourn the death of your husband,” Calvin had told her. “Give yourself time.”
Mourn Amos? Was that what she was doing? She wouldn’t admit it out loud, but she didn’t think so. She had prayed so long and hard after Amos died, she was surprised there weren’t calluses on her knees. At first she had prayed for the ability to mourn him. Then, when she realized she couldn’t, she prayed for forgiveness because she hadn’t mourned him.
Yes, she felt terrible that he had died so violently. And yes, she was not happy about her widowed status. But Amos had been a stranger to her.
Eleanor’s mourning had been for the death of a child that would never be. The baby, only a few months old inside her womb, had already become her hope and her world. Something Amos had never been.
After donning her worn corset and shabby corset cover, she stepped quickly into her black cotton petticoat with the crocheted hem, then slipped on her dark brown calico dress with the lace inserts and leg-of-mutton sleeves—a gown she abhorred, but one she knew fit her status as a widow.
It was mildly ironic that every stitch of clothing she currently had in the wardrobe was fit for a grief-stricken widow. Perhaps one day she could retrieve her trunk full of nice clothes from her brother’s attic. For now, she layered her dull, drab clothing for warmth, much as she had done aboard ship.
She wouldn’t miss the sea. If she never boarded another ship it would be too soon. It hadn’t always been that way. She remembered vividly when she had begun loving the ocean, the rise and swell of the waves, the pungent salty smell of the air. Even the whale sightings had been exciting. But with the deaths of both her child and her husband at sea, it no longer held any appeal. At least not yet.
She tied the ribbons of her black felt bonnet under her chin, then took her black full tail cape off the hook by the door and left her room. As she descended the stairs, she found her landlady lying in wait just outside the kitchen door. The woman spat a stream of ugly brown tobacco into a cup and wiped her mouth with a soiled handkerchief.
“‘Mornin’, Miz Rayburn.”
The woman’s voice had all the elegance of a rusty tugboat. “Good morning, Mrs. Lauder,” she answered as brightly as she could. “Still no sun, I see.”
The blowsy woman studied her from the doorway, her unnaturally red hair frizzed about her face and her cheeks flushed. “Sunshine or no, I got bills to pay. You owe me for two weeks.” She expelled a deep, wet cough.
“I know,” Eleanor answered, reaching into her purse. “Here.” She handed her landlady the rent for the past week.
Mrs. Lauder took the money, counted it, and looked at Eleanor. “This is for last week. What about this week? I told you my policy has changed. You must prepay.”
“I’ll pay you another twenty-five dollars the moment I return.”
“Think you’ll get your man’s ship, do you? Ha.” She laughed, an unhealthy, hacking sound.
“I don’t know why not,” Eleanor answered with more bravado than she felt. “Now that my husband is dead, his share of the St. Louis is by all rights mine. The first mate and I got the crew back to Boston safely.”
“I’ll be waitin’ for you to return.” Mrs. Lauder eyed her suspiciously. “I ain’t runnin’ this place for my health.”
No, Eleanor thought, she was running it into the ground. She pulled on her gloves and hurried to the front door.
Two hours later, Eleanor stumbled from the merchant’s office, her purse clutched against her drumming heart. Amos had lost his shares in the ship. He’d lost them! For the
past two years, those shares had no longer belonged to him.
She made her way to Market Square and sat down heavily on a bench overlooking Merchant’s Row. Across from her sat a couple, lovers perhaps, sharing a plate of oysters. The girl, no more than sixteen, Eleanor thought, sprinkled vinegar and pepper on their fare, then passed silverware and a plate of hard biscuits to her young man.
They kissed. Eleanor blushed and turned away, unwilling to invade their private space.
Although her view of the ocean was blocked, she could smell it. She drew in great gulps of briny, pungent air. Seagulls circled overhead, mocking her.
Amos had used his share of the whaler as collateral against a debt he had incurred. A loan to cover what, she didn’t know. Probably something as simple as having to cover losses during a lean season, but why had he kept it from her?
She drew in another deep breath. Her initial shock turned to anger. How was she supposed to make a living? It wasn’t that she couldn’t; she had never been pampered or spoiled, she could always find work of some kind. But she wanted to continue doing what Amos had begun. This was what she had planned to do.
No, she thought resolutely, this would not be an obstacle. She needed the ship, and she would somehow find a way to get it back.
It wouldn’t be easy. She already had two strikes against her. She was a woman and a widow. She’d heard of other widows in her predicament, and knew they were easy prey from men who wanted the ships their husbands had captained.
She remembered one woman who had been pressured into selling her share in a whaler for half of what it had been worth. She had done so because she couldn’t fight. She’d given up. At least the woman had that option. Eleanor did not—at the moment, anyway.
She unfolded the paper the merchant had given her. Whispering Winds. That was the company that held the note on her share of the whaler.
She didn’t know who owned this Whispering Winds or what sort of business it was, but she was determined to find out. She couldn’t appear vulnerable. That would be her downfall.
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