To Chase the Storm

by Kimberly Cates

  Anne St. Cyr. The artist had painted the girl's name in flowing letters, formed as daintily as the features he had portrayed on his canvas. The girl was Rafe's mother and Tessa recognized in Anne's face the same sensitivity that now marked her son's features.

  Most likely Rafe thought that trait was well hidden. But the moment she had met him, Tessa had seen in Rafe an innate empathy that was rare indeed. Did it embarrass him? she wondered. A tiny smile curved Tessa's lips. For some reason she was certain tenderness was one trait Rafe Santadar tried unsuccessfully to hide.

  He had also tried to conceal from her the pain he felt as he rode away from Warvaliant Castle, and the misery that had beset him when Warburton taunted him about the armada's defeat. He was no longer the proud captain of a vessel. He was not even a full-blood Spaniard. That, too, had been taken from him. She had seen the stricken look on his face when he learned he was half English. He had not wanted to believe it. How long had he stood there, staring at his mother's miniature, the eyes that had once burned with honor, courage, and fierce passion filled with the anguish of a man who no longer knew who he was?

  She remembered the tales she had heard of Anne St. Cyr’s death, remembered Rafe's torment as he described how he had been ripped from his mother. Tessa had wanted to take him in her arms and drive back the demons that gave him no peace.

  And what would he have done if he had never learned that St. Cyr blood flowed in his veins? Tessa wondered. Would he have abandoned himself to the queen's fury? Dashed off to Spain where there were no bold ships left for him to captain? Could he have faced the bitterness of his defeat?

  She laid her hand on the door between her own chamber and the one where Rafe now paced like a caged lion, chafing in bonds far more confining than those Warburton had locked about him. There was no escape from the shackles that had been clamped about Rafe when he confronted the truth of his heritage. They would always be there, grinding against his pride.

  Tessa looked down at the crack beneath the door. Rafe's shadow darkened the slit of light again and again, his pain seeming to reach out invisible fingers to clutch her heart.

  What, she wondered, had passed between Lord Valcour and his grandson in the hours after the earl had banished Tessa to the luxury of a hot, scented bath and a fresh gown? What plans had the earl devised for Rafe? What demands had he made of him?

  And how must Rafe feel now that he had learned he was heir to an earldom in a land he despised?

  Tessa wished there were something here for him, something that would soothe his pain, but there was nothing in this vast castle, no one. Except herself. The Spaniard's fierce pride and independence gnawed at Tessa. If she were to intrude upon his solitude, he would most likely order her to leave him in peace. He would not want her to see his pain. But she could not bear being separated from him any longer. She needed to go to the restless man who paced beyond that heavy door.

  She unlatched the door and eased it open, and the light from a dozen tapers suddenly warmed her face. Rafe stopped pacing, but no sound came from his lips.

  She looked at him across that magnificent chamber, but instead of going to him, as she had longed to do, she froze, as if seeing a stranger.

  The battered, rakehell seafarer who had swept her away on the craggy beach was gone. In his place was a somber man whose face was lined with turmoil. Tessa had the urge to flee back to her own chamber and slam the door between them.

  And yet he was beautiful, more beautiful than she had ever dreamed. Waves of dark hair fell in glorious disarray about his chiseled features. His broad shoulders were encased in a magnificent doublet of emerald velvet slashed through with silver satin. His long legs, well muscled from scaling the rigging, were encased in hose of apple green, only the slight bulge of a bandage betraying the fact that he had been wounded.

  But it was his eyes that struck her most deeply, eyes so haunted they wrenched Tessa's soul.

  "Wildwitch." There was a world of longing and despair in his rough-edged voice. She thought for a moment he would reach for her, knew that he wanted to, but he only turned back to the mullioned window, his eyes roving out across the horizon to the distant purple sea. "A storm is brewing out there on the waves. I can feel it, taste it."

  "But you need not dread it," Tessa said quietly, trying to judge what it was that he needed of her.

  "I do not dread it." His sensual lips curled back in a half-smile tinged with pain, his teeth flashing white in his sun-bronzed face. "I love it when the sea pits herself against me, sweeping my ship up in her skirts, and swirling around it in her temper. It is wondrous. Exhilarating in a way nothing else could be. No pretenses, no pretty lies. Just a man dancing with the sea, facing the possibility of death, but more alive than ever before."

  He raised his hand to the leaded window panes, his strong bronzed fingers trailing against the glass as though he wished to touch the cresting waves. And Tessa was stunned at the jealousy that stung her, and the nagging sense of loss.

  "You'll be chasing after the sea's skirts again before you know it," she said. "With a new ship and a crew."

  Rafe's bitter voice rumbled in his chest. "I think not. My grandfather has other plans for his sweet Anne's son. I shall be forced to face tempests on this infernal island before I'll be free again.”

  "Tempests? Here? What does his lordship want of you?"

  "Only that I rig myself out in full regalia and take myself off to the heretic queen's court like a monkey on a chain."

  Tessa blanched, fighting the fear she felt for Rafe. "Has the earl gone mad? What if you are arrested and tried? The queen could imprison you!"

  "They could lock me in your Tower of London and welcome. But I'll not be so fortunate. My grandfather will call in a score of favors, hurling the might of the St. Cyr name behind me. I'm to grovel before the cursed Tudor, disavow my Spanish heritage, and crawl—but I'll not do so. I told him I'd hang before I'd kiss Gloriana's feet."

  Tessa watched him, feeling his pain, understanding his resolve, but she could not keep herself from asking softly, "But the earl faces the headsman, too, Rafe, and the loss of his lands. England is brimful of ambitious courtiers who would like nothing more than to use you against Tarrant St. Cyr. They are eager to steal this castle and to assume the power of the St. Cyr name."

  "The old man scarce knows me! If I leave the castle tonight, no one will even know I was here."

  "The earl is your grandsire, whether you like it or not. And by now every servant who stalks these halls knows who you are, Rafael Santadar. The news that you have been found will no doubt spread like wildfire across half of England. Most dangerous of all is the fact that Morgause Warburton suspects you are Anne's son." Tessa paused, seeing a shudder run through Rafe at the mention of Lady Warburton. "And Neville Warburton would like nothing better than to break your grandfather."

  "Curse it, Tessa, I thought that you at least would understand."

  "God help me, I do understand how this hurts you, and it tears me apart! But I can't forget Lord Valcour, Rafe. He is an aged man who has spent a lifetime serving the queen and carving out a place for himself in the annals of bravery and honor. He has only this pile of stone and the windswept crags to call his own. And now you, the grandson for whom he grieved for eight and twenty years."

  Rafe wheeled away from the window, brows slashed low over his eyes, fists clenching and unclenching as if itching for something to hurl against the wall. "If he grieved for me, why did he not search for me, send some of his soldiers, at least, to inquire how it was that his grandson had vanished into the air? If my daughter and my grandson were set upon by murdering thieves, I would have ripped Spain apart in an effort to find him!"

  "And to what purpose, if the child was hidden in a hermitage in the wilds of an isolated mountain?" Tessa flung back. "If the earl had searched for an eternity, he'd never have found you. He thought you were dead, Rafe."

  "Do you know what it feels like to be a terrified child, Tessa? To have the people
you love torn away from you? Murdered before your eyes?" Rafe ground the heel of his hand against his brow, and she could feel the hurt and grief throbbing within him.

  "Nay, Rafe, I know nothing of such loss." Her voice was threaded through with her own pain—the death of her wondrous father somewhere upon the relentless sea, the nightmare vision of the mob's flames consuming the frail body of the mother she had cherished.

  She wrapped her arms around the thin silvery gown. The delicate fabric felt like a sea breeze against her skin, but nothing could drive the hollow ache from inside her. Rafe lifted his gaze to hers, and there was hopelessness in his indigo eyes, and something more.

  "Wildwitch." He choked out the name he had given her, his voice raw. "Forgive me. What befell me... it was all a long time ago." He drove his fingers back through the rich waves of his hair. "It is just that I don't even know who I am anymore. When the Lady went down, all that I was perished with her. For the first time since my mother laid me in Brother Ambrose's arms, I—I don't know where the devil to go or what to do."

  Tessa felt her own throat thicken with tears. She swept across the space that separated them and gently touched his pain-ravaged face. "You've lost nothing of the honorable, brave, and wondrously noble man you are." She let the tears rimming her lashes fall free. "I used to spin stories when I was a girl, tales of a bold sea ghost who would steal me away. It was my father who began telling the stories. They delighted me by the hour, filled my imagination. But none of those dreams could touch the sweet reality of you, Rafael Santadar."

  "Tessa—" Rafe's voice caught, his eyes over-bright. "It is madness, the feelings you loose in me. Scarce three days have I known you, and yet if I had known you my whole life through, I could not be more certain than I am at this moment that... I love you, Tessa of Ravenscroft."

  He saw her eyes widen with astonishment, disbelief, and wonder, saw her lips part.

  He reached for her then, his fingers tangling in the curling tresses at the nape of her neck. "Tessa, God help me, I—" Fire flared in Rafe's eyes as his face bent downward toward Tessa's.

  Her lips parted in a cry of joy as Rafe's mouth closed over hers with desperation and need and piercing sweetness. She dug her fingers into the hard muscles of his shoulders, pressing herself against him as though the warmth of her body could somehow drive back the chill despair he felt. Yet he gave to her far more than she had given him, pouring into his kiss such deep emotions that Tessa felt swept away by them.

  She felt as if she were drowning in the love he offered, and she was glad to sink deeper into the honeyed warmth Rafe was pouring through her.

  Instinctively her hands swept up, her palms bracketing that stubborn, beard-roughened jaw, her fingertips skimming the silky midnight richness of his hair. At that instant she realized he was trembling, this bold seafarer who had faced the might of Sir Francis Drake without quavering, who had hurled defiance at Neville Warburton, England's cruelest nobleman.

  Rafe's whole body was taut with need. And she wanted to give him all he asked, wanted to take the very essence of his soul inside herself and make it hers.

  Tessa skimmed her fingers beneath the velvet doublet, hungry for the sensation of his skin against her palm.

  "Querida," Rafe ground out. "I want you. I need you."

  A tiny gasp tore from Tessa as she parted his heavy slashed-velvet doublet and felt his hot flesh under the thin shirt beneath. She could feel the roughness of the mat of hair spanning his chest, could feel his nipple, pebble-hard, against her fingertips.

  "Rafe," she breathed, tugging at the fabric that separated them.

  A groan breached Rafe's lips, and she could sense that he was fighting his passions, trying to be chivalrous, gallant.

  "I love you,” she said, her lips hungry upon the corded flesh of his throat, her hands knotting into fists against his chest.

  "Damn!" He ground out the oath between clenched teeth and she could feel the leash he had been holding upon his passion snap. He dragged her closer still to his emerald doublet, crushing her breasts against the hard plane of his chest, his mouth covering hers, as though he were starving for the taste of her. Tessa reeled beneath the hot, heady flavor of his need, slipping her tongue into his mouth, tasting him with a hunger she had never felt before.

  A hard arm curved under her knees as Rafe swept her up against him and carried her to the huge bed. The fragrance of cedar and heather whirled about Tessa, mingling with the heady scent of male passion.

  And then he was beside her on the soft mattress, his hard palms skimming over her body, his mouth seeking hers.

  "Tessa..." He rasped out her name against the fragile skin of her throat, his lips hot and moist against her pulse point. "We should not do this." But his fingers were already tearing loose the fastenings of the silver gown, baring the milky curve of her shoulder, freeing her breasts to his burning gaze.

  Candlelight spilled over his features, limning them with wonder as he drew the fabric back from her skin. His fingers paused in their quest, his face suddenly wire-taut and still, so still. For a moment Tessa feared he would stop the magic he was working upon her, draw away. But then she looked into his eyes, and what she saw there made a sob knot in her own breast.

  Love. Aye, love, and an awe that drove the breath from her lungs.

  His hand, rope-toughened, sun-browned, swept across the coral tip of her nipple with infinite tenderness.

  His face blurred before her. Her eyes burned with tears. Love... How could it have happened so swiftly, so thoroughly? It had swept down like a sea storm and whirled away her very soul. Her father had told her a thousand stories so beautiful they had made her weep—tales of love, courage, honor. Yet none of the feelings they had evoked had been as wondrous as the one she was living in this moment.

  "Rafe." She whispered, reaching up to take his face in her hands and draw him down.

  His lips moistened the swollen crest of her nipple as they skimmed across it. "You're so beautiful..." His voice trailed off as he drew her nipple into his mouth, suckling her with agonizing sweetness. Tessa cried out, feeling desire shoot deep into her womb as a hollow ache began at the apex of her thighs.

  She wanted, needed, the fierce gentleness only her phantom could bring.

  "Please," she choked out, "let me touch you. I need to touch you."

  Rafe pulled away from her, freeing them both from the garments that lay between them, tossing his emerald velvet doublet on the floor, sending her gown to pool upon it like a beautiful silver lake on a verdant shore. And then he loomed over her, magnificent, naked, the hard lines of his body burnished by the sun and sea winds. Rafe's shoulders, honed by fighting the heavy canvas sails, tapered into a narrow waist. Whorls of dark hair misted the muscles carved into his broad chest. A pale scar slashed across his ribs, a reminder of some battle, that slight imperfection only serving to add to the virile power inherent in Rafe's body. Around his thigh, a snowy white bandage swathed the wound he had suffered in his battle with Drake—the wound that could well have cost him his life in the chill and merciless sea.

  He would have another scar when his leg wound healed, further testimony to the dangers faced by the Phantom of the Midnight Sea. Tessa suppressed the thought, not wanting to think how close he had come to losing his leg—and his life.

  She shuddered at the thought of him lost or drowned, then banished that shadow, embracing joy. For he was here. He was safe. And for this moment he was hers.

  She drank in the sight of him, wanting to brand it on her memory forever, to capture it, keep it. "It is you who are beautiful," she whispered, reaching out and tracing that pale scar. "So beautiful." A blush fired her cheeks, and for the first time she felt fear—fear that she would somehow disappoint this man who had captured her heart.

  She heard his breath, harsh in his chest, and resolve flooded through her. Aye, he was beautiful, and she would not play the simpering miss, not cheat him of knowing what the sight of him did to her.

 
Slowly, so slowly, her fingertips traced the line of one of his ribs to where a ribbon of black satin hair bisected his flat stomach. She caught her lower lip between her teeth as her hand glided downward, her eyes following the course her fingers were charting. The ribbon widened, coarsened, and her palm brushed the velvety-hard heat of that which made him a man.

  "Tessa!" Every muscle in Rafe's body snapped taut.

  "It is just as I imagined it to be," she whispered. "Hard, so hard. I want to feel it inside me."

  With an oath he flung himself down beside her, kissing her with a dizzying intensity. The hands that had driven her close to madness skimmed over the gentle curve of her hip, his lips leaving burning trails across her skin as he threaded his fingers through the downy softness between her legs.

  Tessa quivered, her head arching back against the pillows as Rafe parted the dewy petals cradled in the dark silk down, the rough-callused pads of his fingers finding the hardened nub that pulsed with desire.

  "Rafe," Tessa gasped. "I need you." She tugged on his shoulders, struggling to draw him atop her, but he only made a soothing sound deep in his throat.

  "Soon, Tessa, soon."

  A cry of protest welled within her, then shattered into a gasp of agonized pleasure as his fingers moved upon that delicate knoll. Her hands knotted in the softness of the bedclothes as he eased his finger into the tight opening, softening the seal of her virginity.

  "I don't want to hurt you. Tessa.” He shifted over her, his weight pressing her into the downy softness of the feather tick, his body hot, so hot and trembling. He braced his arms on either side of her and then slipped one muscled thigh between her legs, parting them gently.

  She felt him probe the liquid center of her, the beautifully carved planes of his face rigid with the effort it cost him to hold himself back.

  And then his eyes found hers, held hers for long moments that seemed to spin into eternity. "I love you, Tessa." His mouth closed over hers, a ragged groan reverberating through his chest as he plunged deep, burying himself inside her.