To Chase the Storm

by Kimberly Cates

  "A likeness of me?"

  Tessa winced inwardly, dread gnawing at her stomach. The queen's sensitivity regarding her once dazzling appearance was renowned throughout England. And Tessa's carving of her was far from the complimentary image a fading beauty would enjoy.

  She cleared her throat, fighting to find some excuse not to humor the monarch, but then her gaze locked upon the face of the queen, and she saw in that animated countenance how incredibly similar her carving was to the woman she had attempted to depict.

  She took out the wood-jointed queen, resplendent in mock finery. The figure's gown of crimson flowed about a miniature farthingale, and red hair formed a nimbus about the proud Tudor visage.

  A tinge of greed pursed the carved lips, and the shrewd dark-painted eyes glinted in the candlelight, but there was also a soft reminder of the princess Elizabeth had once been. A certain vulnerability was buried deep beneath the robes of power.

  Tessa held her breath as the royal hands reached out to take the figure from her, and Tessa's fingers shook as she dipped the monarch a deep curtsy and released the marionette.

  For what seemed an eternity the queen stared at the figure, her eyes unreadable. The entire chamber was swathed again in suffocating silence. Tessa knew that the courtiers dared not express any opinion of the carving until they had gauged the queen's reaction.

  Tessa's palms grew damp, and she hazarded a glance at Rafe, praying that he, too, had looked at the puppet and seen that she was as ruthlessly honest in her portrayal of her own countrymen as she had been in her images of the Spanish. But those tempest-filled indigo eyes only stared at the tapestry-draped wall, rebellion and arrogance evident in the planes of his face.

  "And so"—there was an ominous purr in the queen's voice—"you think us a bit greedy, eh, Tessa of Ravenscroft?"

  A shiver coursed down Tessa's spine, her breath catching in her chest.

  "You see us as a spider, spinning her webs about England?"

  As the queen's words penetrated Tessa's dread, a strange strength seeped through her, a strong confidence in the work for which she had been given such a special gift.

  "Aye, Your Majesty." She met the queen's gaze squarely, hearing about her the sharp intake of breath, the murmuring of disbelief and shock at her boldness. She went on just as boldly, "And without your shrewdness and your ability to leash the royal purse, England would have been swept away by France or Spain by now." Tessa couldn't stop the smallest hint of impudence from curving her lips. "It is a feat no mere king could have accomplished." Tessa felt Elizabeth's dark eyes boring into hers, but she stood unflinching.

  "You make jest of the monarchy, girl?"

  "Nay." Tessa's respect for the woman who had shielded England from countless perils shone in her eyes. "I praise the greatest ruler England has ever known."

  The royal eyes took on a warmth, a light of kinship that drained the tension from Tessa's limbs. "Play for us, Tessa of Ravenscroft," Elizabeth commanded. "Give us something to make us laugh. With Philip's vultures lurking upon the horizon these past months, we have had precious little to laugh about."

  "With Your Majesty's pardon," the young man who had spoken before piped up, "the wench does a most diverting farce in which grandees trip all over themselves in their arrogance and witless Spanish captains are outwitted by bold Sir Francis. I vow, when I saw it, I nearly fell from my horse with laughter."

  "That does not surprise us, Percy, for you are the worst horseman in our kingdom. However, we would like to see this farce ourselves."

  "Nay!" Tessa could not stifle the plea. Her gaze slashed to Rafe, and she saw in him an awful stillness. "If it please Your Majesty, I—"

  "It would please us for you to obey our command. At once." Sharp-edged steel was in Elizabeth's voice again, and the threat of Rafe's banishment to the Tower bent Tessa to the monarch's will. She sensed this was no idle threat. It was a warning to the proud Spaniard, to his grandfather, and to Tessa herself that Elizabeth was still undecided concerning the fate of the man who had been washed up on her shores.

  Tessa stole a surreptitious glance at Warburton and felt the nobleman's loathing and lust eating at her skin like poisoned nettles. Then her gaze swept the room's other occupants, bursting with intrigues, jealousies, ambition. And she knew that she had no choice but to give the performance of her life, in the hope that it might in some small way influence the queen's ultimate decision.

  She took out the marionettes and set up the tiny props she had fashioned. Soon bellows of delighted laughter filled the huge chamber as Tessa worked her magic with the wooden figures, bringing them to life with her hands. But with each movement of her fingers, with each shrill voice and bawdy jest that she put into the mouth of Sir Francis or the cowering King Philip, she felt as though she were slicing away what remained of Rafael Santadar's battered pride.

  Please, Rafe, understand! she silently pleaded with that impassive figure. I love you. I have to aid you the only way I can.

  As she plunged onward, the light of Elizabeth Tudor's favor shining upon her, Tessa could feel as well the fury, disgust, and incredible pain burning in the proud countenance of the man she loved.

  Her gaze swept to his for an instant, and her fingers nearly fumbled at what she saw. Fury? Pain? Nay, they were not uppermost after all. In those wondrous indigo depths only one emotion now blazed.

  Betrayal.

  Her marionettes and her words had dulled the fierce light in Rafael Santadar's eyes as nothing else had held the power to do—not defeat at the hands of Drake, not Warburton's cruelty, not even the certainty that the blood of Rafe's enemies flowed in his veins.

  She had betrayed him.

  And Tessa knew with a sickening certainty that the ransom for her sea phantom's safety would be the loss of a love that was more precious to her than her own life.

  Rafael would never forgive her.

  Chapter 12

  Rafe stalked from the noisy chamber, the guttering candles and threads of dawn peeking through the glistening windows doing nothing to dampen the merriment that still rippled from the room.

  It seemed an eternity that he had been imprisoned there by the queen's will, manacled by invisible chains to watch the destruction of the one glimmer of joy the fates had allowed him in the days since he had sailed his Lady from distant Spain.

  She had betrayed him. Tessa, his wildwitch. The thought twisted in Rafe's gut like a knife. She had scorned him, scorned the men who had died so bravely on his ship. She had jeered at timid Rique, at brash Manolo, at the ever-smiling Bastion who had sacrificed himself that the Lady's end should not have been in vain.

  Rafe's face contorted with the pain of it as the shadows pooling within the silent corridor shifted into scenes that had been played out in the past few hours.

  Images of adoring courtiers and of the queen herself swam before Rafe's gritty eyes. The throng had encircled Tessa, slavering praise over her as though she and her puppets had single-handedly saved England from Spain's mighty sword. Even the old earl—the grandsire who supposedly loved Rafe—had hovered near her, grinning like a sated crocodile. Only Neville Warburton, his face purple with anger and frustration, had seemed as offended as Rafe was. Seething over what was transpiring, the nobleman had stormed from the chamber even before Rafe's own exit.

  Sweet Savior, how could she have done this? Rafe raged silently. How could she have torn away what little pride I still clung to?

  To save your life, another voice answered.

  It was simple, so simple. He had seen the plea for understanding in those onyx-bright eyes, had seen the tremor in those lips that had healed the wounds in his soul. She had played the wily queen's game that he might be spared. Spared from London's Tower. Spared, perhaps, even from death. But did she know him so little? Did she not know that he would rather face Elizabeth Tudor's torture chambers than see his love, his lady, defile the honor that was so precious to him?

  Rafe clenched his fists, his eyes burning with
fury and desolation. Maybe it was true, what his grandfather had said—that he and Tessa did not know each other at all.

  The tapestried corridors, adorned with looming statuary, blurred before Rafe's gaze, and he wiped at his eyes with the back of one hand. Even the force of will that had seen him through countless battles—the mighty will that had enabled him to make the treacherous journey from the wreckage of his ship to the distant English shore—now failed him. He was unable to banish his pain.

  Love. He had waited a lifetime to drink of it. Had tasted it, reveled in it... and then watched it turn to poison.

  "Wildwitch, come away with me," he had said. "Be my wife." The words he had spoken spiraled back to haunt him, haunt him along with the memory of the small, callused fingertips that had worshiped every inch of his body, brought him the most excruciating pleasure. He was haunted, too, by the morning-soft voice that had whispered to him about the most fragile of dreams.

  Dreams broken now forever.

  He cursed himself, cursed her, cursed the fates that had been so cruel as to capriciously hurl them together when there could be no hope for the tomorrows he and Tessa had so desperately wanted.

  When he was a lad curled up near Brother Ambrose's companionable fire, listening as the holy man spun legends of love, Rafe had been touched by the stories of Orpheus and Eurydice, Troilus and Cressida, England's own Lancelot and Guinevere. He could still remember the thrill he felt as each tale unfolded, could remember, too, how hard he fought to hide the shameful tears that had stung his eyes at the lovers' unhappy end. It had seemed so wondrously painful, and yet the honor and chivalry had captured Rafe's imagination.

  But now he saw no beauty in love shattered, sensed no wonder at the magnificent tragedy of it, felt only pain such as he had never known.

  He drove his fingers back through the unruly waves of his hair, fighting to banish Tessa's voice, which still whispered to him from the clustering shadows.

  "No, wildwitch," Rafe said aloud. "No more bewitching."

  A sudden chill skated down Rafe's spine, the drafts within the corridor fingering the tapestries covering the thick stone walls. They rustled and rippled, as though moved by the breath of some unseen specter that lurked within the palace. Perhaps it was Anne Boleyn, searching for her severed head, or poor Catherine Howard, shrieking for Henry's mercy as she was dragged away to die. Centuries of spirits no doubt lurked within these royal halls. Rafe could hear them whispering.

  With an oath, he reined in his imagination. Yet as his gaze pierced the rippling shadows at the corridor's end, he saw a figure that made his breath catch in his throat. For an instant his eyes widened as they fixed upon the flowing white robe worn by a small, willow-thin form. Pinched features, gray as death, rose above the neckline of that wispy gown. Eyes glittered with a light of their own.

  Unbidden, Rafe's hand flashed to his waist, but there was no dagger affixed there.

  "Come, Captain Santadar, we are old friends, are we not?"

  The shrill feminine voice made Rafe tense. "You have no need of a weapon."

  The figure stepped from the shadows, but Rafe had identified that thin, strangely unsettling voice even before the meager light in the passageway fell across the pinched features of Morgause Warburton.

  More than ever, the lady of Warvaliant seemed to hold minions of the other world in her hand. Rafe's hand rose in the beginning of the sign of the cross, then he froze as he was assailed by the absurdity of the action. Lady Morgause might well be odd, but Rafe had little patience with superstition and unfounded fears.

  "My lady." The words were bland, and he met her gaze levelly, remembering the last time he had seen the lady of Warvaliant, her hands bound, her face suffused with a kind of confused terror as she babbled about the ring. Rafe raised his hand to touch the gleaming gold circlet that had been his mother's, as though it were some talisman to ward off a lurking evil.

  Morgause's pale gaze flicked to Rafe's fingers, and a sly smile split her lips, as though she could see through to his unease.

  One of those ice-white hands fluttered out and traced a line down the rich cloth of his doublet, and Rafe fought the revulsion that washed through him.

  "Maybe I was hasty, when I spoke a moment ago," the lady trilled. "After all, when last we met you were most... unchivalrous. Perhaps I should draw a weapon to defend myself against you. Yet I must confess, I would have little will to do so."

  Rafe tensed, as those cold fingers inched up to his throat, but he did not pull away, knowing instinctively that to do so would be a subtle triumph for the woman before him. Her fingers rested on the pulse in his neck, and Rafe was beset by an image of a black spider, hungry for a mate and hungrier still to cause death.

  "I seem to recall that my reception within Warvaliant's walls was somewhat lacking in civility," Rafe replied. "However, it is not my way to be ungentle with ladies, no matter what deviltry they have on their minds. Restraining you was a regrettable necessity, but a necessity, nonetheless."

  Morgause's tongue flicked out to moisten her lips, and Rafe disliked the heat that shone in those eyes. "I would very much like to ascertain your way with ladies for myself, Captain Santadar," she purred.

  Rafe's brow furrowed in confusion as he sensed that more lay beneath the woman's words than he was able to discern. Yet he understood the lascivious light in those eyes, had seen it before among the lush whores in their bright-painted houses in far-off Spain, had seen it as well in the innocently sensual eyes of the native wenches in the New World who had often rushed to meet his ship. Those he had managed to meet with good-natured rebuffs, gently but firmly indicating that he had no appetite for the wares they offered.

  But for this woman, two decades his senior—this woman with her specter-like hands and her cunning eyes—he felt only disgust and a sick stirring in the pit of his belly, as though her gaze had somehow soiled him.

  Rafe encircled her wrist with his hand, the bones covered by the thin layer of the lady's flesh seeming to grate against his skin. And as he put the woman's hand away from him, he found that he had wearied of her game.

  His gaze flicked up to the door of the bedchamber he was to share with several of Elizabeth's other men, then back to the face of Morgause. "It is evident you were awaiting someone here, so far from the ladies' quarters. If you will excuse me, I am wearied by the day's events. I will leave you to your business here."

  The woman's laugh sent chills scuttling up Rafe's spine. Morgause arched her long white neck, shaking back the silvery waves of her hair. Shadows cast dark hollows in her cheekbones and the sockets of her eyes, her smile suddenly looked like that of a death's-head.

  "I have been waiting for you, my gallant captain," she said, her eyes locking with his. "I would wager that you are already tired of that plotting snake, Lord Valcour, moving you about like a pawn upon his chessboard. And that peasant witch you befriended—it was unforgivable of her to humiliate you in front of Elizabeth's strutting peacocks after all you sacrificed for her."

  “How do you know what transpired?” Rafe's skin prickled with wariness. "You were not in the queen's chamber tonight."

  "I have ways of seeing things, Milord Spaniard. Not with my eyes but in other ways." There was a sinister delight in her voice. "And I had more important affairs to attend to than a girl with her playthings."

  Rafe berated himself for falling into the trap of superstition the woman was weaving about him. He suddenly recalled that Morgause's son had left the throne chamber some time ago. No doubt he had run to his mother and informed her about what had happened beyond that royal door.

  "And do these... affairs have something to do with me?" Rafe said.

  Morgause's gaze swept the corridor, and Rafe was certain that if the devil himself had been hiding behind some stone, she would have been able to detect him with those pale, unholy eyes.

  A smile of satisfaction crossed her face, her fingers twisting the huge emerald that glinted upon one small hand. "Aye, they have
much to do with you. I would grant you the greatest of boons, Captain Santadar—freedom. "

  "Freedom?" Rafe's heart thudded.

  "Safe passage to Spain. Escape from Tarrant St. Cyr’s clutches, aye, and from the faithlessness of that common wench upon whom you wasted your heart."

  Despite his own anger at Tessa, Rafe bristled at Morgause's words. "You will speak no ill of Tessa, my lady!"

  "Fine. I see that you still dance for the girl, like one of the figures upon her strings. You obviously have no wish to do anything but grovel at her feet and lap up the leavings your grandfather tosses to you. I will leave you to do so."

  Morgause turned and started to glide away from Rafe. For a heartbeat, he almost let her go, but his savaged pride and the words she had goaded him with made him stop her.

  "Wait." She swung to face him, and he regretted he had spoken.

  Those glittering eyes watched his face expectantly, those frosted-rose lips smug.

  Rafe spoke through clenched teeth. "I would hear more of what you have to say."

  "Would you, milord?"

  "Sí. I would hear more of Spain and of safe passage. I want to be quit of this madness." He turned away. He wanted desperately to hasten away from England, away from St. Cyr and the woman who had bewitched him. But he recognized the truth—that for the first time in his life he was running away. And he knew that Lady Morgause was aware of that shame as well.

  "Your passage to freedom is all arranged, Captain Santadar. A ship waits upon the Thames to carry you to France. You will find a pouch on board filled with enough coin to pay for the rest of your journey home."

  Rafe's stomach sank, and he felt a stirring of loss deep within him. But he steeled himself against it. Escape was what he desired, was it not? He wished to return to Spain, never to have to confront the triumph in the eyes of Englishmen when they realized he was one of the enemy captains Drake had so handily defeated. Never to have to feel the tugging of his mother's heritage inside him. Never to have to reveal to Tessa how vulnerable she had made him, how devastating it had been for him to watch her crush his pride in those hands that had brought him such wonder.