Desire in the Sun

by Karen Robards

  The captain was already moving away. Guard or no, Lilah shifted Joss's head out of her lap and leaped to her feet.

  "Captain! Wait!" She would have run to him but the musket trained on her gave her pause. "Captain! I must speak with you."

  To her relief the captain turned sharply at the sound of her voice, Lilah supposed because it belonged to a female.

  "A lass." His eyes swept her, registered her sex. Then he shrugged. "No matter."

  "But I'm not a pirate!" Lilah cried desperately, ignoring the killing looks cast her way by her companions in misfortune. "I am Delilah Remy, and I was shipwrecked-"

  "Shut your mouth, you little slut!" One of the guards strode to stand between her and the captain, threatening to stave in her face with the butt end of his musket. Lilah looked past him, knowing she would not get another chance, her eyes and voice beseeching the captain to listen.

  "Please, we were forced aboard the Magdalene, we were never part of the crew. We were as much victims of these pirates as you…"

  The musket butt lifted, was drawn back in preparation for a blow. Lilah cringed, raising her arm to shield her face.

  "She tried to tell something of the same story when we fished her out, Pa. I was in no mood to listen."

  Lilah realized then that the freckle-faced young sailor from the longboat was the captain's son.

  From the corner of her eye, she saw a rope being thrown up to catch a yardarm. It snaked upwards, a thick brown arc against the sky, missed its mark and fell back. As she realized what this portended, Lilah shivered and redoubled her efforts.

  "You must listen to me. Please, I beg you…"

  The captain turned back, crossed his arms over his chest. He and his son in an identical posture beside him considered her. Lilah knew that by no stretch of the imagination did she resemble the young lady she had once been, but she hoped that they would see something that would given them pause. She tried a tentative, tremulous smile. When that didn't work she stood mute, staring at the pair of them, chewing unconsciously, nervously, on her lower lip, her hands twisting together.

  "Let her come here," die captain ordered at last. The hovering guard stepped back. With a great feeling of relief Lilah went forward.

  "Now tell your tale, and tell it quickly. And be warned, I mislike liars!"

  Beneath the yardarm, the rope was thrown up again. This time it arched gracefully over the spar, was caught and pulled into position.

  "My name is Delilah Remy…" Lilah began, only to be interrupted by a sailor who ran over to inform the captain that the rope was up and the hangings could begin.

  "Read a prayer over 'em, and get on with it."

  The sailor was dismissed with a wave of the captain's hand. Lilah tried not to hear the despairing cries of her erstwhile crew-mates as one of the sailors began a hasty chant of "Our father…"

  Her one concern had to be for herself-and Joss.

  Speaking as quickly as she could, she told him how she and Joss had come to be aboard the Magdalene. Her story was buoyed by the captain's son, who said: "The men I picked up did seem surprised to learn that she was a female, Pa."

  "Hmm." The captain stared at her for a moment, nodded. "All right. Barbados is not far out of our way. Need to make some repairs anyway, so I suppose we can make port there as well as anywhere. If you're telling the truth, you'll be glad to get home. If you're not, well, I suppose you can hang just as well in Bridgetown as here."

  He turned away, pleased with himself, and cast a sharp look at his son. "Give her a cabin, and some dry clothes, but make sure she's locked in."

  "Aye, Pa."

  "Captain!"

  He turned back to look at her, from his expression clearly surprised to be importuned more about a matter already settled to his satisfaction.

  "My companion-he is no more a pirate than I am."

  "Which one is he?"

  "The one lying amidships. Tall, with black hair. He's injured, unconscious."

  "He was at the stern cannon! I saw him set a charge myself!"

  The speaker was one of the sailors, a small coterie of whom had been listening with varying degrees of suspicion to Lilah's tale.

  "That so?" The captain fixed Lilah with eyes that were suddenly ten degrees colder.

  "He-he was forced. They would have killed us if he hadn't-"

  "He was a gunner! I saw him, too, sir, hard to miss, he is, being so tall!"

  The captain's eyes swung back to Lilah. At the look in them she nearly despaired.

  "You can't hang him! I tell you he was forced-"

  "Whatever the merits of your story, if he was laying cannon he's a bloody pirate. He hangs with the rest!"

  With that pronouncement the captain started to turn away again.

  "No! You can't!"

  Lilah ran after him, caught his sleeve. He looked down at her impatiently.

  "I warn you, lassie, I'm in no mood to listen to a young girl's heart-stirrings. I’ve lost nigh a third of my crew, one my own sister's lad. Plus I’ve got God knows how much damage to my ship. Do you know what it'll cost me to set her right again? I'll spare you, but not a man who fired a cannon on my ship. If he's your fancy- man, then I to sorry."

  "He's not!'' The words came out in a rush as she sought frantically for those that would save Joss. The captain was concerned about money… "He's not my-my anything! He-he's a slave, highly skilled, very valuable! He- he belongs to my father, and-he's worth more than five hundred American dollars! My-my father will want to be recompensed if he loses such a valuable property! If you hang him, you'll owe my father that money! But if you restore him to my father, and me too, I'll-I'll see that you are well paid for your trouble."

  The captain stared at her, then at Joss. "Now, lass, spare me your tales. That's a white man and-"

  "He's a slave, I tell you, and you've no right to hang him! He's what they call high-yeller, and my father owns him and he'll make you pay if you kill him! Five hundred dollars…"

  "Let's have a look at this slave!"

  To a man the group around the captain walked over to stare down at Joss. Lilah went with them, her heart in her mouth. The pirates were being dragged, screaming, crying, away to hang.

  Joss had regained consciousness, but barely. He blinked his eyes and lifted his head once before groaning and dropping back against the bloodied boards of the deck.

  "Fetch a bucket of water!"

  Someone did, and the bucket was emptied over Joss. As the cold deluge splashed him, slopped onto the deck, he lifted his head again, blinking. He moved an arm forward to serve as a pillow, resting his head on it. His eyes stayed open and Lilah thought that he was groggy but aware. Then his eyes found her, and sharpened slightly.

  "Can you hear me, boy?" the captain asked, bending at the waist to growl the question, his face scant inches from Joss's.

  Joss nodded, the movement barely perceptible.

  "You lay cannon against my ship?"

  Lilah held her breath.

  "Had no choice. Would have been killed, other-otherwise. Hope you'll-accept my apologies." He sounded as if he was struggling for breath.

  The captain pursed his lips, squatted. "You know this-person?" He gestured toward Lilah. Joss's eyes lifted to her face, and he moved his head in what seemed to be assent.

  "Aye."

  "What is the person's name, and relationship to you?"

  So he would test her identity, too, weigh her story against Joss's. Lilah noticed that the captain was careful to use no pronouns that would give away her sex, and realized that Joss could not know they were aware of the truth behind what was left of her disguise. He would try to protect her…

  "Remy." Joss's voice was hoarse, but he stirred, trying to sit up. He winced and fell back, and it was all Lilah could do not to run to his side. "He's my…"

  "They know I'm a lady, Joss," Lilah interjected. "You don't have to protect me anymore."

  Joss looked at her. So did the captain. His look carried a clear w
arning for her to be silent.

  "Miss Remy claims that you're a blackamoor. She says you're worth five hundred dollars, and that you're her slave. What do you have to say to that?"

  Joss looked at Lilah again, his eyes suddenly growing hard.

  "I never dispute a lady's word," he said finally, and his mouth twisted in what was almost a sneer.

  "So you're a slave, belonging to Miss Remy here? Or her father? I want a plain answer, yes or no."

  "Joss…" The near-whisper was involuntary, drawn out of her by the sudden harshness of his features.

  "You hush, missy!"

  Lilah was silenced. She could only look miserably at Joss, knowing what he must be thinking. But what else could she have done?

  "Yes or no? I don't have all day!"

  Joss stared at her for a seemingly endless moment, green eyes cold as ice. Then he said, "Whatever else she may be, the lady is not a liar. If she says it's so, then it's so."

  That was enough for the captain.

  "Hell, throw him in the brig, lock her in a cabin, and let's get back to business. The cargo won't keep forever, and I'm not of a mind to be owing five hundred dollars and be out a spoiled cargo as well. We'll sort the pair of them out when we get to Barbados. And I'm not forgetting the reward you promised, young woman."

  Minutes later Lilah found herself being marched away under guard, with Joss being hoisted by two sailors and half carried behind her. As she approached the hatchway, she heard a hoarse scream from the front of the ship. The hangings had begun.

  Her escort took her arm, his touch surprisingly polite, and turned her along a hallway while Joss's guards began to descend with him farther into the bowels of the ship. Lilah stopped.

  "I would see him secured, if you please."

  The three sailors looked at each other, shrugged, and permitted her to trail along as Joss was half carried down the narrow stairs.

  The Bettina's brig consisted of a single cell, dark and dank and comfortless. Lilah's heart sank as she saw where they meant to leave Joss. But with luck it would only be for a few days, and in any case it was better than hanging. She only hoped that Joss would see it that way.

  Lilah stood outside in the passageway as Joss was taken in and lowered to the bottom of the two tiers of bunks. The young sailor who was her escort was no longer holding her arm, apparently responding to her as a young lady now instead of pirate lass. With no one to prevent her, Lilah stepped inside the cell. The two guards had left Joss lying on his belly in deference to the wound in the back of his head. It was no longer bleeding, as far as she could tell in the sickly light of the single lantern that hung from a hook outside in the passageway. But his hair was matted with blood, and he still seemed weak and groggy.

  "Joss…" she began, leaning over him, her voice low as the men waited for her by the cell door.

  He lay with his head pillowed on his arm. In the darkness his eyes gleamed a hard, glittering green.

  "You treacherous little bitch," he said. Lilah caught her breath.

  "Joss…"

  "Miss, you'll have to come out of there now. Cap'n said you were to be locked in a cabin, and I have to get back on deck."

  Lilah nodded in response to the sailor's summons, and turned away, her opportunity to explain gone.

  As the door clanged shut behind her, was locked by one of the men who had carried Joss down, she spoke to her escort.

  "Could you see that he has medical care? He… as I said, he's very valuable."

  The sailor pursed his lips. "I'll ask Cap'n Rutiedge. It's his decision."

  And with that Lilah had to be content.

  XLII

  For three days Joss was left alone in the gloomy dampness of the Bettina's brig except for a single visit by the ship's doctor, who looked at the back of his head, dusted the wound with a malodorous powder, and took himself off, never to be seen again. The decidedly spartan accommodations did not particularly bother Joss, but the solitude did. Not that he wanted to hobnob with the crew. He was happy to see them for the few brief minutes three times a day when they shoved a tray of food through the opening in the half-timbered, half-barred door.

  The person he wanted to see, urgently, was Lilah.

  He had much he wanted to say to her.

  The more he dwelled on her actions-and with nothing to do but think, he dwelled on them at length-the more her betrayal infuriated him. After all they had shared, that she would tell the first sympathetic warm body she saw that he was a slave made him long to wring her slender neck. It made him want to shake her until her head was in danger of separating from her shoulders. It made him want to turn her over his knee and paddle her backside until his hand ached.

  The faithless little bitch had claimed to love him, and he had believed her. Then as soon as she was back in reach of civilization, she had allowed the blind prejudices she had been raised with to reduce him to the status of a nonperson, not good enough to kiss the hem of her skirt, let alone her mouth. Let alone live with her, love her, marry her, father her children.

  Bitch.

  He had known it, somewhere in the back of his mind though he had hoped and prayed he was wrong, had known that in the end that tiny bit of blood would come between them. He had known that she would never admit, in the cold, hard light of day and society, to loving a slave. A Negro slave. Because that was what he was, as hard as it was to admit even to himself. That minute infusion of blood from an ancestor far, far back along his family tree mattered more than his education, his upbringing, his character.

  That minute infusion of blood made him a black man, legally and socially.

  Miss lily-white Lilah had bedded a man of a different race. What did that make her? Or rather, what would that make her, if her fancy family and fine friends should discover it? At the very least, a social outcast. At the worst, a fallen woman, a strumpet, a whore.

  Angry, bitter, Joss toyed with the idea of trumpeting their liaison to all and sundry just as soon as there was any all and sundry for him to tell. How the hoity-toity little bitch would cringe when the world knew her for the round-heeled hypocrite she was!

  But he was a gentleman, damn it, and a gentleman did not boast of his conquests, no matter how badly the lady might have behaved toward him.

  The little bitch had been hot as hell. She'd wanted him for a stud, damn it; that was the plain truth of it. And now that she was about to be restored to the bosom of her family she would marry that rawboned farmer, Keith or Karl or whatever his name was-if justice hadn't been served and he hadn't drowned. Even if he had, she'd marry someone just like him.

  And she'd spend her nights lying in her husband's arms, suffering his touch while she pictured the steamy nights that the two of them had shared. He'd be her goddamn fantasy, and that thought made him madder than ever.

  She'd wear another man's ring, bear his name and children, and all the while yearn for him. But the sanctimonious little hypocrite would never admit to it, except perhaps in her deepest soul. She would never come to him. Never.

  He was a Negro slave. She was a white lady.

  That was the truth of the matter as she and the world saw it, and he'd better get it through his head before he came within reach of the little bitch again. Strangling her would gain him nothing but a short dance at the end of a long rope.

  He didn't want to kill her anyway. He wanted to spank her until she couldn't sit down, make love to her until she couldn't walk, and keep her properly under his thumb for the rest of his life.

  He loved her, goddamn it all. Loved her so much that the thought of her with another man made him homicidal. Loved her so much that her betrayal made him sick to his stomach.

  Well, first things first. He had had this slave business clear up to his eyebrows. No matter who his ancestors had or hadn't been, he was getting the hell back to England as soon as he could. And the little bitch could get on with her plans for a nice, tidy, boring life. He wished her joy of it!

  That night, when the same w
izened sailor who had brought his food for the last three days came again, Joss was on his feet, waiting by the door. In his best humble tone, Joss asked for a quill, ink and paper. Somewhat to his surprise, they were brought to him.

  And with a grim half-smile he set himself down to write a long-delayed letter to his second-in-command at his shipping company in England.

  XLIII

  The next morning the Bettina sailed into Bridgetown. Joss knew only that the ship had dropped anchor in a calm harbor. Their exact location was not revealed to him until two days later, when three sailors came to release him from the brig where he had spent nearly six days in isolation. To his silent fury, they clapped irons on his wrists before leading him topside. He was clearheaded now, able to walk without aid, but was a trifle weak from being confined without fresh air or exercise.

  As he emerged into the sunlight for the first time in almost a week, Joss stopped in the hatchway, blinking furiously against the blinding glare. His escort nudged him in the back with a musket, urging him impatiently on.

  As his eyesight gradually adjusted to the brilliance of the tropical afternoon, he became aware of four figures standing near the gangplank, watching his approach. Three were men, one of whom was, he thought, the Bettina's captain.

  The fourth, he realized as his escort brought him to a halt a few feet from the little group, was Lilah. She was fashionably dressed in a low-cut gown of palest pink muslin that bared her white shoulders and slender arms beneath tiny sleeves. A wide sash of deeper pink was tied beneath her breasts. A ribbon of the same shade was threaded through the tousled cap of palest gold curls that framed her small face. To his annoyance, the boyish style became her, emphasizing the fragile perfection of her features, the creaminess of her skin, the soft blue- gray of her huge eyes. The very loveliness of her infuriated him so much that it was all he could do to look at her without gnashing his teeth.

  He restricted himself to a single icy glare.