Beguiled

by Laura Parker

  “Oh, very well,” she said without heat, and slipped down from her perch. “But I warn you, I’m not very clever at this sort of thing. I think one thing while my feet do another.”

  “Then don’t think, senhorita, only feel.” He began a ballad, its slow tempo seductively sweet. “Feel the music in your feet and in your heart and in your soul.”

  He moved closer and Philadelphia knew he would not allow her to escape the challenge in his eyes nor the laughter in his smile, nor did she want to. There was something irresistible about the thought of dancing with this man to the music he made.

  Yet, shyness kept her from moving as he showed her. It was his eyes watching her, those enormous eyes that saw everything and more. How could she move gracefully when he looked at her with such expectancy?

  Eduardo guessed the source of her hesitation and turned to stride slowly away from her into the darkest corner of the terrace. “Close your eyes, menina. Close them and listen. Listen until your feet begin to feel the need to move.”

  Philadelphia obediently closed her eyes, embarrassed yet excited by the idea of only feeling the music.

  As he continued to play, she listened acutely for the feeling he described but it didn’t come. Instead, thoughts continued to rule her. She thought of the fact that she was standing in her nightclothes on a dark terrace with a man. She thought that she should be in bed, safely tucked beneath the covers. She thought, if only his playing had not been so persuasive she wouldn’t be standing here feeling foolish and awkward. Yet, it compelled her even now when she felt shackled by embarrassment and hesitation.

  As his fingers lightly teased the strings they seemed, also, to tug at her skirts like the breeze lifting off the lake. The eddying currents on which the music drifted made her long to move, to sway before it like a delicate flower on a slender stem. Suddenly in the darkness behind her lids she felt safe, and with that safety came confidence. Shyly, she made a few tentative steps in time to the rhythm of the piece he strummed.

  Eduardo watched her first steps with the sweet sense of victory. Yes! he thought. That’s right. Move as you will, menina. Your feet understand the music. You need not watch them to know that they are right. “Now feel the music in your arms,” he said softly from the darkness as the pace of the tune picked up. “Don’t be afraid to lift them. Feel the music with your body, menina.”

  Philadelphia smiled, her eyes sealed with the pleasure of this new experience. She began to sway in time, her arms and legs flowing independently of one another yet joined by the tempo of the music, his music, filling the air about her. It swept her up, lifted her beyond herself into the realm where there was only feeling and freedom. Yet she was not free. She followed the beckoning, alluring notes of his guitar.

  Eduardo moved toward her as he strummed the final chords of the song, hoping that he wouldn’t frighten her but compelled to do this one thing. She spun to a halt before him as the music died, eyes still closed but with a soft secret smile on her face. Quickly and deftly he reached out and pulled the tortoise shell pins from her hair and shook loose the ugly knot.

  Startled, Philadelphia opened her eyes and met yet again his soft and brilliant black-licorice gaze. For a moment she thought he would kiss her, hoped that he would, but his lips offered merely a devastating smile that brought his dimple to prominence. Then he said in Portuguese, “You are woman. You do know how to dance.”

  Though she didn’t understand his words, she heard in them his pleasure at her dancing and the quiet praise emboldened her.

  Determined not to force the pace with her, Eduardo backed away and casually plucked a new melody. “Shall we dance, senhorita?” he asked with a slight bow.

  He stepped out a simple pattern and nodded for her to repeat them, which she did, faltering only once. When he smiled his approval she felt as though he’d given her a gift more precious than pearls. As he continued to dance, she matched her moves to his, turning as he turned, swirling and dipping when he did, marking the cadence with her silent slippers as the heels of his boots tapped loudly.

  When he turned away from her she slanted a curious glance at his body. She’d never seen a man move as he did, with such supple grace. From hip to shoulder with seamless ease, every sensual line of his lower body flexed repeatedly in taut display. Tailored trousers rode the tightly drawn curve of his buttocks as the firm supple muscles of his thighs shifted sinuously.

  Unable to shift her gaze a single degree, she watched, fascinated, as he rocked his pelvis lightly against the guitar which he held like a woman in his arms. As he brushed it again and again, riding his rhythm into the wood, an incandescent spark burst to life deep in her loins, seared her in a heat as fierce as it was unexpected. Unconsciously, she began to move her own hips in time to his, as if her body understood that his intimate rhythm was not merely part of the dance but meant explicitly for her and demanded her response.

  He turned then, catching her look of astonished admiration, and it dissolved instantly into embarrassment. Her face flushed with the heat of it, making her suddenly too warm and dry-mouthed.

  But he laughed the moment aside saying, “How quickly you grow accustomed to the rhythms of my homeland, menina. Perhaps I’ll take you there one day. But, for now, we will content ourselves with the music and the dance. Do not falter now, menina. Regret is a bitter potion.”

  As he played on, Philadelphia again shut her eyes, allowing herself to feel in the rhythm what she did not now dare witness. Behind her closed lids she felt the brush of his pelvis, not upon wood but upon the sensitive skin of her hips, and the accompanying diffusion of warmth through the nerve endings of her body was a revelation.

  Shocked with this new knowledge of herself, she opened her eyes. He was smiling at her, the sensual line of his lips more potent than any words he might have uttered. At any other time, in any other place, she would have been ashamed of this feeling of wild abandon he evoked. But it was nighttime and they were alone and the purple ether held them in its protective embrace with none to see or blame or even envy. Once more she began to dance to his tune.

  On and on he played, one melody flowed into the next and then yet another, and with each he offered her an enticement not to be denied. Swaying and dipping and swirling, she danced until perspiration gathered on her brow, in the valley between her breasts, and flowed along the cleft between her thighs, and still he would not release her. Increasing the tempo to the fast-paced sapateado, he tapped out the rhythm with his fingers against the wood of the guitar. The heels of his boots answered in staccato fashion as they rang against the bricks.

  Without thinking she shrugged out of her dressing gown and let it trail onto the bricks. She sighed with pleasure as the night breeze rushed forth to soothe the feverish skin of her arms and shoulders and bosom exposed by the scoop neck of her nightgown. Then she caught handfuls of her nightgown and held the skirts high so that they wouldn’t be trampled or bind about her ankles as she spun around and around.

  “Muito bonito,” he murmured in approval of the flashes of trim ankle and curvaceous calf.

  When he slowed the tempo to a tango, she no longer watched his fingers play over the strings. Instead, she seemed to feel them on her body. They strummed lightly over her breasts and stomach and hips, and where they touched her skin grew taut and vibrant. She moved as he willed, his tempo dangerous and seductive and impelling her onward. When he sang she felt possessed of a high fever that fed on its own heat, offering no relief except in the desire to become one with him and the sensual power he wielded with such devastating ease.

  Eduardo watched, the fever of desire riding him as he saw that she was lost in the music of his making. Her eyes were overbright, her lips parted by quickened breath. Her skin was flushed beneath its sheen of moisture. Hair trailed over her back and shoulders in wild tangled slats of moonlight and midnight shadow. She was no longer Miss Philadelphia Hunt, the young socialite who wore lovely gowns and garlands of violets in h
er hair. She was only a young woman dancing beneath the stars in her slippers and nightgown, and she had never been more beautiful in his eyes.

  He knew then that he loved her, had loved her from the very instant of first seeing her, and that he could no longer deny it. The knowledge frightened him. For, he thought, what man ever looks at one he loves desperately and does not feel the frail breath of mortality whisper past his ear? In admitting his need he admitted the possibility of never having that need met.

  Seize the moment, every instinct told him. Tomorrow was not promised.

  The final vibrations of the strings faded and he lay the guitar aside. As she swirled to a stop, he caught her against him. “You are beautiful and your man knows it,” he whispered huskily in his native tongue. “He loves to watch you dance.”

  “What are you saying?” she asked breathlessly, her heart still throbbing in time to the music’s last chords.

  He laughed softly, a little embarrassed to have retreated to Portuguese when he might have told her straight away his feelings. “That I love to watch you dance. Does it please you to know this?”

  She saw the truth of what he said in his eyes and the recklessness of it, and she could be no less brave. “Yes.”

  “Then dance with me, menina, and we will make our own music.”

  In a sinuous motion, his hip caught lightly against hers as it had his guitar. But now it was she who was in his arms. Those clever hands that had strummed the taut strings and brought forth achingly beautiful music were now curved over the indentations of her waist, her skin separated from his fingers only by the thin damp weave of her nightgown. She tried to follow his steps but he held her so close that every movement brought her legs against his, the hard jut of his hip impressed upon the slim curve of her stomach. She hesitated once too often and stepped on his toe.

  He paused, his gaze resting on hers like a caress. “Are you still afraid of me, menina?”

  There was a rapt moment of silence as they stood staring at one another and she knew what question he really asked. “Yes. No. A little.”

  “It is good for innocence to be cautious. But you know that I will not hurt you?”

  Even though he held her in his arms, the strength and power of his body commanding the compliance of her softer self, she knew he would not hurt her. She thought of Mrs. Ormstead’s judgment that she was in love with him. Was it possible? Was it possible to love a stranger, to feel impelled by forces greater than herself, and be joyous in that surrender?

  “Yes.”

  He began again, reaching up briefly to pull her head into the cradle formed by the juncture of his neck and shoulder and then his hands were on her waist again, holding her close and moving her to his own slow rhythm of desire.

  She closed her eyes once more, not to block, but to better capture the dozen different sensations pressing in on her. His skin was warm and damp beneath her cheek, his scent a combination of fine exotic oils and his own essence. She heard the hard rhythm of his heart under her ear and it frightened her a little. She’d never since childhood been this close to anyone and heard the mortal drum of another’s existence. His breath came clean and light upon her face. Wherever they touched she felt the tightening of her body, in her breasts, her stomach, her hips, her thighs. His body became the center of her world.

  She reached to embrace his shoulders, feeling a drifting away of everything else finite. Let it go, she thought, if only he remains with me.

  He moved backward suddenly, pulling her close, and pressed his knee strongly between hers. She caught her breath as her legs were parted and then the surge of his hip pressed close to the center of her own desire. He turned her quickly and efficiently, bringing her back up against the balustrade and then he lifted her face and brought his mouth down on hers.

  She tasted the music on his lips, embraced the whole of the rhythm in her arms about him. The sultry dance he’d taught her was there, too, along with fleeting images of a place where the jungle grows so thickly a man cannot pass and rivers wash in floods as strong as his passion. He fed her old Brazilian legends, let her taste of trade winds and spice, dazzled her with jeweled kisses more brilliant than diamonds.

  Beneath her hands his neck muscles became rigid. This time when his knee parted hers, his hands ran in a heavy molding caress down her back over the flare of her hips to gather her buttocks in his hands so as to lift her onto his thigh. He held her there while she rode the long slow strokes that surged into her, teasing, demanding, begging a response. And, in the secret darkness, she yielded to his rhythm and it sent sweet waves of sensation, urgently flowing, thick as honey, through her body.

  She didn’t realize that he had lifted her gown until she felt the hot strength of his hands settle on her naked waist. She shivered, knowing and yet not knowing what he intended to do. The fall from grace. She was catapulting headfirst. And yet, the tiniest hesitation whispered over her passion-warmed skin like a chill breeze.

  Aware of her every shuddered breath, Eduardo knew the instant she reached that invisible but very real barrier that every woman raises before the moment of her first surrender.

  He lifted his mouth from hers. It was her right to accept or refuse, and he would respect that right. But he ached with a need of her so strong that his hands flexed on her waist to hold her high on his thigh where her slightest move eased and teased his arousal.

  When he broke their kiss, Philadelphia used her hands against his cheeks to steady her enraptured world as she looked up at him. His hair was in wild disarray, falling across his brow and over his ears. She saw in wonder that his handsome mouth, usually firm and shapely defined, was blurred and moist from her kisses. But it was his expression that made her suddenly cold. “What’s wrong?”

  He stared at her without humor or joy or pleasure. “Do you trust me?”

  Instinct warned her against the eager reply that came to her lips, for he asked so much more. “Should I?”

  He smiled, feeling old as sin and twice as randy. If she but knew it, she had more reason than most to distrust him. It was a cowardly thing to ask her to betray herself. “What woman trusts a man at a moment like this, menina? You must ask if you trust yourself.”

  She understood but she didn’t want to. He wanted her to take responsibility for what would happen between them. Yet, how could she? Confusion eddied into the whirlpool of her desire, the cooling currents steering it off course. Why didn’t he, the stronger of the two, either pull her back to safety or lure her to disaster? The power to beguile was his. She had no words courageous enough to ask him to make love to her.

  He saw her struggle, longed to lead her across the barrier of uncertainty but he did nothing, only looked at her with the gentlest of expressions. He’d felt her urgent need of his lovemaking in her deep shudders. He’d caught in his mouth the soft explosions of breath that he had forced from her as he’d made love to her through the barrier of their clothing. Yet, he’d not deliberately set out to seduce her. It was the music and the night and the ready passion lying in wait between them that had nearly seduced them both.

  A breeze whispered past her ear and she stiffened, hearing in it the ghostly echo of his guitar. Then she realized that the wind had risen, and it stroked the strings of the guitar that lay a little distance away. She looked back at him, saw the passion so strongly etched there, and the coward in her recoiled.

  Eduardo released her slowly. The power to free her seemed to take a force of will never before exerted.

  She slipped off his thigh, defeated desire whipping the blood through her most tender parts. With stiff fingers she tugged her gown down, too shamed by his desertion to even look at him. Confused and stunned by the sudden backlash of unfulfilled yearnings overwhelming her, she turned away and weakly hid her face in her hands.

  When she felt his hand lightly touch her shoulder, she whimpered, wanting more than anything to turn and hide herself in his arms. To prevent the shameful gesture, she sna
tched up her dressing gown and ran into the house.

  Eduardo cursed himself thoroughly when she was gone. He was caught neatly in a trap of his own devising. He knew what she needed to hear from him, but how could he speak when he had ruined her father and felt justified in doing so? He knew things about the man that she might be better off never learning. Yet, if he did not tell her the truth, was there any hope of a future for them?

  Oh, but she’d felt perfect in his arms, all warmth and soft yielding and filled with sweet womanly desire. She would not come regretfully to lovemaking. She burned for it, as he did. She burned for him, and he wanted it to always be so. He had nearly won her with his music, then lost her in a moment of doubtful honor.

  He swore and picked up his guitar. Swiftly, he swung it up and then brought it smashing down upon the top of the balustrade where it splintered into dozens of irreparable pieces. It would be a long time before he played again, a very long time.

  Eduardo turned onto his back in his bed, an arm flung above his head. Perhaps it was better that he remained awake, for he knew what waited in his sleep. Some nights, like this one, he couldn’t deter the dream. He knew why it crowded in on him this particular night. He had wanted Philadelphia and yet allowed her to escape, and he knew that he might regret it the rest of his life. Yet, gradually, the weariness of his body won out over the regrets and he drifted out and away and back of present cares.

  “Not my child!” his father cried. “You mustn’t harm my son!”

  Pain radiated down his arms to his shoulders as Eduardo hung suspended by his wrists from the stout limb of a tree. The rope had bitten into the skin of his wrists until his forearms were damp with his own blood. But worse, much worse, was the hard merciless crack of the bandeirante’s whip that tore the flesh of his back. In shame he heard his cries keening out under the canopy of the dense jungle foliage as he failed to find the courage to be silent.

  His father had said he must be brave, must die if necessary to prevent the desecration of the Blue Madonna’s shrine. At twelve years of age he had thought that he was brave enough to withstand any torture, but no imagining had prepared him for this searing, blackening pain that made all resistance, all bravery impossible. Through it all he heard his father’s pleading voice followed by the bite of the lash and the bandit’s demand.