Velvet Lightning

by Kay Hooper

  Blocked, the horse slid on his haunches, almost flipping backward in its efforts to stop and crying out in fear. But it stopped—with both forehooves resting solidly on the first plank of the dock.

  Tyrone saw it all as he slowed, and stopped his own horse, then leapt from his buggy as Lyle was turning Catherine’s horse slowly away from the dock. Tyrone hesitated, looking at Catherine’s still, stiff body; she hadn't moved or made a sound.

  “Lyle,” he called quietly.

  The other man patted the trembling horse and, satisfied it wouldn’t bolt again, walked back to where Tyrone stood by his buggy. “Captain,” he said, his thin face anxious, “I spoke to the lady, and she wouldn’t say a word. And there’s mud on her! Who’d throw mud on a lady like her?”

  Grim, Tyrone said, “Several nameless whelps who’d better thank God I didn’t get a good look at them.” He hesitated, glanced toward Catherine, and then at the anchored ship. “Lyle, is there anyone on board?”

  “No, sir. Everybody went to church this morning.”

  “All right. I’m going to take Miss Waltrip out to the ship for a while. When I get her into the longboat, I want you to take her buggy over there into the grove and tie up the horse, give him a chance to calm down. Leave my horse tied here. You and the men stay in town until I come and get you.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  “And, Lyle—”

  “Sir?”

  “Miss Waltrip is a lady. I wouldn’t want to hear any gossip about this later.”

  “Of course not, Captain,” the first mate said severely.

  Tyrone smiled faintly, then went over to Catherine’s buggy. She turned her head away as he approached, and he swallowed a curse as he got a good look at the mud clinging to her velvet dress. There was more on her neck, and he could see a smear along one white cheekbone. She wouldn’t look at him.

  “Catherine . . .”

  “Go away.” Her voice was low, shaking. “Go away and leave me alone.”

  “I'll take you out to the ship, Catherine,” he said very softly. “You don’t want anyone to see you like this.”

  “I don’t want you to see,” she whispered.

  She was still holding the reins in rigid gloved hands, and he reached out to gently pry them away. “I’ve already seen,” he said with more calm than he felt. “But no one else will. Your father won’t be home for hours, and I’ve made sure my men won’t return to the ship until I send for them. Lyle won’t say a word. Come with me, Catherine, and let me take care of you.”

  “No, not the ship—” Her voice was a thin thread of sound.

  “There's no other place.” He took her hands firmly, relieved when she allowed him to assist her in stepping down from the buggy. But she kept her face turned away, and it wasn’t until he helped her into the longboat that he saw why.

  The boys had been accurate with their pitches. The mud on the left side of her face, caked and ugly against her pallor, covered her skin from just below her eye all the way down her neck.

  Gently he said, “It’s all right, my sweet. I won’t let them hurt you anymore.”

  She didn’t say a word, didn’t look at him. She sat perfectly still in the seat, hands folded tightly together in her lap, and stared down at them blindly. Tyrone could feel her strain, knew she was closer than she had ever been to breaking. He rowed the longboat out to the ship quickly, glancing past her only once to see that Lyle had taken her buggy into the grove, where it would be hidden from anyone passing by.

  Reaching The Raven, Tyrone tied the longboat to the side and then helped Catherine onto the ship. She looked around with the same blank, still gaze, and made no protest when he took her hand and led her to his cabin.

  He pushed her gently down into one of the chairs in front of his desk. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.” He was worried by her meekness, recognizing by that unusual trait alone just how near the edge she was. He went quickly to fetch water and a cloth, returning within minutes with a large basin, which he placed on the desk beside her. He stripped off his coat and tossed it over the other chair, then knelt beside her chair.

  “Don’t,” she said, almost involuntarily.

  “Shhh.” He pulled her gloves off smoothly, then removed her hat and placed it on the desk beside the basin.

  “I can do this,” she whispered.

  “Be quiet, Catherine.” His voice was very gentle. He turned away for a moment to wring water from the folded cloth, then began to tenderly wipe the mud from her face. Her wide blue eyes flickered to his face for a moment, and then slowly closed. Her lips trembled.

  “They were just boys,” she said softly.

  “Cruel boys.” He kept his voice low and even with an effort, feeling a return of rage.

  “Just thoughtless children.”

  Tyrone, very gently wiping the dry mud from her pale face, couldn’t find it in himself to excuse them. “You recognized them,” he said flatly. “And you won’t do a damned thing about it, will you?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Her voice sounded weary. “Why . . . why did you bring me here? To the ship?”

  He accepted the change of subject, answering her question in a wry tone. “Neutral territory.”

  “Oh.” Her bottom lip quivered. “I wouldn’t have gone back to the cottage.”

  “I know. Not after what I said to you there.”

  Her eyes opened, and she stared at him. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Stop saying that,” he ordered roughly. “Everything that hurts you matters, dammit.”

  For the first time, a hint of a smile curved her lips, a glint of life shone in her eyes. “You must have a soft spot for lost causes,” she murmured.

  “You aren’t that,” he told her firmly.

  There was a moment of silence while he finished wiping the last of the mud from her neck, and then she spoke in a newly fierce tone.

  “I pushed you away. You wouldn’t go.”

  “No,” he agreed calmly, returning the damp, stained cloth to the basin. “I wouldn’t go.” He rose to his feet and pulled her up. In a matter-of-fact tone, he said, “The mud on your dress will have to dry so it can be brushed out. You won’t be comfortable in it. Turn around, Catherine.”

  She looked up at him for a moment, hesitating, then slowly turned around. He unfastened the long row of tiny hooks and eyes while she unbuttoned the tight cuffs. The dress slipped off, and she stepped out of it. Tyrone gathered up the dress and spread the stained blue velvet over one of the chairs.

  He looked at her as she stood before him with downcast eyes. She was wearing only her shift, a thin petticoat, stockings, and small kid boots. He frowned suddenly, reached out to gently brush away a smudge of dried mud at the base of her throat. He could see a pulse beating rapidly beneath her pale flesh, heard her catch her breath.

  Unsteadily she said, “I—I’d like to go out on deck for a while. Until the dress is dry.”

  He drew a deep breath, aware suddenly of how alone they were here, how isolated. After a moment he turned away from her, going into the bedroom briefly and returning with a long black cloak. “Put this on,” he said a little roughly.

  When she was decently covered again, he followed her out onto the deck. Nothing had changed, he reminded himself bitterly. She would allow the towns-people to hurt her, him to hurt her, and would say it didn’t matter. He leaned against the side and watched her broodingly as she wandered around the ship. At least the blank look had left her eyes, but she was still far too pale and guarded . . . too aware that she had said they were finished.

  She came back toward him finally, but halted more than an arm’s reach away as she gazed out toward the open sea. “Does it call to you?” she asked suddenly. “The sea, I mean.”

  It was the first time she had ever asked anything like that, and Tyrone gave her an honest answer. “Sometimes.”

  Catherine sent him a tentative smile, obviously trying to ease the tension between them. “A siren song?”

&n
bsp; He shook his head. “No. The sea whispers.”

  She tilted her head a bit, and her eyes widened as she heard the hint of a breeze through the rigging of the ship. All soft motions and sounds, she realized, listening to the faint, hollow slap of the ocean against The Raven's wooden sides and the gentle creaking of seams and joints, feeling the slight, steady rise and fall of the ship. A living thing, the ship.

  It was curiously lulling, unexpectedly peaceful. The only time Catherine had been aboard a ship was when she and her father had sailed to this island. She didn’t remember feeling lulled or peaceful during the voyage of the packet, and she wondered if a large part of her new awareness was because of the quiet man beside her.

  “I hear it,” she said. “It’s very calming.”

  “I’ve always thought so.” He stirred slightly and joined her in looking out to sea. “Rain on the way,” he said absently. “The edge of a storm.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Thirty-five years on and near the ocean.” He glanced at her, then said flatly, “I was born in a waterfront shack.”

  Catherine felt her throat close up. He's willing to risk himself again, she realized, willing to open himself up to her, let her see him for what he was. He had done it once before, had told her things about his past. And she had rebuffed him, had turned coldly away. She couldn't this time.

  “Your parents?”

  An indefinable tension seemed to drain from him, and he shrugged. “They did the best they could, but they were hardly more than children. Orphans, both of them. My mother was barely eighteen when I was born. She bore me alone, with no one to help her. And she kept the rats off me at night.”

  She half turned toward him, watching his face. He was expressionless, his gaze still fixed on the sea. She wondered, suddenly, how much pain was locked inside this man. “Where was your father?” she asked softly.

  “At sea. It was the only thing he knew, the sea and ships. He hadn’t much education, but he could read a little, and write his name. My mother couldn’t do either. She respected it, though, books and learning. She worked herself to death to see to it that I got schooling.”

  “You mean she . . .”

  “Killed herself to give me a better chance than she’d had?” Tyrone’s lips twisted suddenly. “Yes, she did. She was barely thirty when she died—and she looked fifty. My father hadn’t been much help, but it was hardly his fault. He drowned somewhere in the Atlantic when I was five. They never found his body. Sailors are often afraid of the sea even while they love it. Not many learned to swim in those days. Some still don’t.” He hesitated, then added, “I make certain all my men can swim.”

  “What happened after your mother died?”

  “I worked. At the docks mostly. When I was fifteen I signed on a ship. It took me almost ten years to work my way up to captain. It would have taken longer, but Morgan believed in me for some reason.”

  She remembered. “You said that he made sure you had books to read, that he insisted on it.”

  “Yes. He said the sea wasn’t everything, that one day I’d want more for my life. I'll always be grateful to him for that. And for the loan that helped me buy my first ship.” His hand settled gently on the wooden side of The Raven. “This ship.”

  Catherine watched his face for a long moment. “During the war you ran the blockade with this ship. But you aren’t a Southerner.” And she realized instantly that she had touched a raw spot, because his face tightened and his eyes went bleak.

  “No,” he said in a voice that held a note of harshness, “I’m not a Southerner. I built my fortune on the broken back of the South.”

  Catherine heard pain, and spoke gently. “You brought them badly needed goods and supplies.” “And took their gold.” He turned toward her suddenly, eyes glittering. “I didn’t give a tinker's damn for their precious cause, Catherine. The South’s cause was dead before it started, and I knew it. But I didn’t let that stop me. Yes, I brought them goods and supplies. I also brought them guns, and with those guns I helped prolong their agony.”

  “If you hadn’t run the blockade—”

  “Someone else would have?” He smiled a terrible, twisted smile. “But I did it. And if that wasn’t enough, I saw the war from both sides. I knew Lincoln. I called him a friend. I believed in him, Catherine, believed in what he stood for. But that didn’t stop me either. I ran the Union blockade carrying guns for the South, took their gold and sailed away—and left the mess for someone else to clean up.”

  A throb near her heart echoed his pain, and Catherine tried to help him. “It’s over,” she said intensely. “You can't go back and change anything. And you can’t let it haunt you. You have to put it behind you and go on.”

  “No. It isn’t over, not for me.” He looked back out at the sea, his eyes quartering the horizon with the habitual gaze of a ship’s captain. His voice was heavy, tired. “There’s a man out there somewhere, Catherine. A determined man. I’ve known for years he wouldn’t let the past just die. He has the questions, and I have the answers. And now he’ll come here.”

  Catherine felt a chill, and stepped toward him almost unconsciously. “How do you know that?”

  “I know. I know him.”

  “What will he do?”

  Tyrone smiled thinly. “Ask his questions.”

  “And will you answer?”

  “Yes.” Just that, flat and calm.

  It didn’t ease Catherine’s sudden fear. “Will your answers hurt you?”

  He frowned slightly, still staring out to sea. “I don’t know. Perhaps. It depends on him, I think.” He turned back to her suddenly. “We all have secrets, Catherine. Dark rooms in our lives. We’d rather not open the doors, but fate has a way of doing that for us.”

  “We can . . . can lock the doors,” she said huskily.

  Tyrone shook his head. “No, that would be too easy. If we could lock the doors, the secrets wouldn’t trouble us, because they'd be safe. But secrets are never safe. And we never forget the doors that don’t have locks.”

  Catherine thought of her own secrets, and realized that he was right. All this time she’d been desperately guarding the dark rooms because there were no locks on the doors. And she knew that one day, one day soon, the doors would open and all the darkness would come spilling out.

  “Sail away,” she said suddenly. “Take your ship and sail away before that man comes here, before he opens the door.” She heard fear in her voice, fear for him. He could escape, she thought wildly, could keep the door shut tight.

  “I can’t do that, Catherine.” He lifted a hand and touched her cheek, cupped it gently. “This time I have to face the darkness. I’ve stopped running.”

  She had known that, had felt certain of it. She stepped away from him and turned to the side, staring off across the ocean. She could smell the rain on the breeze now, and watched the clouds rolling slowly toward the island. She could still feel his hand on her cheek. Her body ached for him incessantly, and he wouldn’t be pushed away, wouldn’t leave the island. There was a flood of tears inside her, the pressure building, and she was so tired she didn’t think she could bear it any longer.

  “I love you, Catherine,” he said quietly.

  Catherine heard a gasp escape her, as if she’d been struck or stabbed, as if all the breath had been driven from her lungs. Joy and agony washed through her, and she caught at the railing on the side of the ship to steady herself when her legs went suddenly weak “Don’t,” she whispered.

  “I love you,” he repeated.

  She could feel the flood of tears, hot and stinging, pressing harder inside her. “Don’t love me,” she said starkly. “You can’t love me.”

  “I do. I can’t stop it, can’t change it . . . can’t run away from it. And you realized I was falling in love with you, Catherine, and that’s why you tried to end it between us.”

  On some dim level of her mind she wondered if it was true, wondered if her own instincts had alerted her t
hat the unthinkable was happening. She didn’t know ...

  She was afraid to look at him, afraid her own violent emotions would leap at him out of her eyes. “Why did you have to change things?” she murmured helplessly. “I was so happy. Never again will I be that happy—”

  His hands caught her shoulders, turning her to face him, and when she would have pulled away, his fingers bit into her. In a hoarse voice he said, “Tell me you hate me, Catherine. Tell me you can’t bear my hands on you. Because that’s the only way you’re going to get me out of your life!”

  She looked up at him, and at first she thought the rain had come, because she was blinded by it. But then he pulled her into his arms with a groan, and she realized that she was weeping. Sobs tore out of her like things alive and on the wing, clawing her throat in ragged pain. She couldn’t stop them. Once the flood was released, it poured out of her violently.

  She thought she was moving, thought he might have been carrying her, but it didn’t seem to matter. Nothing mattered except for her wild grief, the awful, unbearable pain of loving and being loved. She heard his voice, rough yet tender, felt his hands trying to soothe her shaking body. She couldn’t say anything, could barely breathe through the racking sobs.

  She didn’t know how long it went on, but she was drained and limp when it was finally over. She was lying on her back on a bed and staring up at what looked like a canopy of scarlet satin. Yards and yards of the stuff, she thought. She felt a cool damp cloth move over her face, knew that Tyrone was doing that for her just the way he had earlier knelt beside her to wash away the mud.

  “I must look like hell,” she said suddenly.

  A shaken laugh escaped Tyrone, and he said tautly, “Dammit, Catherine, don’t do that to me again!”

  She turned her head to find him lying beside her, raised on an elbow as he stared down at her. There was a silver glitter in his eyes, and his face was pale. She felt an echo of pain, and reached up to touch his cheek. “I'm sorry.”

  He tossed the damp cloth aside and held her hand against his face, kissing the inside of her wrist. “You should be,” he said somewhat thickly. “I’ve lost ten years of my life during the past half hour.”