Flames of Desire

by Vanessa Royall

  “I have told her that.”

  “I expect you have. It is something that would be hard to ignore, but it is something from which Selena has never been dissuaded.”

  Then he turned to face her.

  “You have already made your decision, haven’t you? Your presence here is proof of that.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “It was Dick Weddington, wasn’t it?”

  “Sean…yes. Yes. I can’t go back to Coldstream this way, not after…”

  Sean’s face was a mask of pain. “I did not know they would…” His voice trailed off. “You have to believe me.”

  She nodded.

  “Selena,” he said, “I shall always treasure what we had. But it is not there anymore. Perhaps we both destroyed it. Things happen. We changed…”

  Again, he fell silent. Royce waited, not wishing to interrupt, but also aware that every moment spent in this public place increased the danger of capture. If Veronica…

  Sean seemed about to speak again, then changed his mind. Instead, he leaned forward. He did not kiss her, but pressed his cheek to hers, and then withdrew. It happened so quickly that she had no chance to respond, and his skin on hers was as evanescent as the touch of a butterfly’s wing.

  “Good-bye, Selena,” he said softly, repeating, too, the words of their parting in Kinlochbervie, long ago. “Ride fast, ride far, farewell.”

  And, turning, he was gone.

  She opened her mouth to call him back, to tell him she was sorry, to say that they would meet again one day, perhaps at Coldstream, to tell him of her pride in his accomplishment, to affirm once more the love they had possessed. But he was gone. She turned to Royce and lost herself in his arms.

  After a moment, they walked out into the street. Sean was making his way back to the ferry ship, ignoring Veronica, who hurried after him, trying to keep up. She felt their eyes on her and turned around.

  “You are fools, both of you,” she called. “The rebels are going to lose, and so are you.”

  “It’s not possible,” Royce called back. “You’re on their side.”

  “Royce,” Will Teviot worried. “Let’s be a-movin’, aye? Them Britishers is climbin’ off that ferry now.”

  “So they are,” Royce said. “Let’s get the horses. We’ve a hard ride ahead.”

  There were three horses; Royce had been prepared for her decision. They galloped southward out of Brooklyn, through the rolling, wooded country of Long Island, toward Jamaica Bay and the great ship that bore Selena’s name. It was soon apparent to them that they were being followed by soldiers on horseback. Royce, worried that the pursuers would deduce their direction and hence the location of the ship, decided on a ruse, and turned eastward, heading out onto the island rather than continuing their course toward the South Shore.

  “We won’t make the ship tonight,” he said. “But I can’t take any chances. We’ll have to hope that tomorrow will be soon enough.”

  They were still riding when darkness fell. Royce called a halt in a blazing red-gold thicket of oak and willow. No hoofbeats sounded behind them any longer.

  “They’ve given up on us for tonight,” he said. “We’ll rest here, and double back in the morning.”

  After a rude supper of bread, wine, and some hazelnuts Selena found on nearby bushes, Will Teviot left them and found his shelter for the night beneath other trees. Royce took the saddle blankets from the horses, and spread one of them on the ground, draping the other across several branches to fashion a small tent. Together at last, in each other’s arms, their union seemed as natural as the night and yet almost impossible to comprehend in the fullness of its wonder. The balance of their lives had hung upon the precipice of Selena’s decision; the future lay invisible, like the heart of an orchid, beating within the petals of time.

  “Oh, my love, my darling,” Royce murmured, when he took her, “now we are forever.”

  “Yes,” Selena told him. And, before she lost herself in the delight of their melding, she knew that her decision had been right. She had given up her dream of Coldstream, perhaps even her hope of returning to Scotland, to have this man whom she now held and pleasured with her body and her love. She had pledged even her hope of future peace to their love, and she and Royce were one now, irrevocably. To part now would be almost to die, she was thinking, but then the pleasure shook her, took him, too, and it was as it had been on the Highlander, when he had rescued her at sea. Except now she loved him better and understood him more. They climbed together, once again, the high ladder to heaven. The journey was as mystical as a prayer on the wing, and as immediate as the breathless joy he sorcered in her body. They took each other, then, and for the flashing instant of their mutual oblivion neither past nor future threatened. Even the present was but a pale shade left below on the spinning earth. They were together, came together, clung together. Protection enough, that free and fiery night in old October.

  They slept later than intended, and the sun was climbing the sky as they rode over the rise of land near the ocean, hard by Jamaica Bay. The world glittered, pure and clean and safe. The Atlantic rolled blue and shining toward infinity. The Selena rested at anchor in the deep waters not far from the beach. Selena leaned forward in her saddle, surveying the clear horizon with a bursting heart, certain that the future beckoned where the sea met the sky.

  But the very next moment fate was upon them, like an explosion. A band of uniformed horsemen came charging out of the hills to the north, shouting for them to halt, firing muskets and flintlock pistols.

  “’Tis the beggars who were a-followin’ us yesterday,” Will cried. “They put their brains together an’ figured out our plan.”

  They had barely absorbed this threat when another appeared. A watchman called from the Selena’s crow’s nest, “Royce, ’tis a ship sailin’ at us fra’ New York, an’ she looks a terrible danger to us now.”

  They looked, and saw the dreaded H.M.S. Lucifer approaching, sailing fast, surrounded by an escort of gunboats.

  The three of them took off at a gallop, down across the dunes. Selena saw Royce’s mount crash into the surf just ahead of her own. And, at the same time, she saw the bursts of smoke from the cannons of the far-off Lucifer. Sean and Davina were on that ship, she thought, bound for Scotland and Coldstream and honor. She had no time to think about it anymore. Sails were unfurling all over the Selena, catching the wind, as crewmen worked feverishly to get the mighty vessel to safety on the high seas. It had already begun to move. Not a moment could be spared. The Lucifer slashed ahead at full sail, closing the gap. And the cannoneers were finding the range. Half a dozen cannonballs crashed into the water just off the Selena’s starboard, sending towers of spray forty, fifty feet into the sky, creating a series of powerful waves, through which Royce plunged his horse. He was near the ship, reaching for the boarding ladder, Selena was not far behind. But behind her, Will Teviot cried out in pain.

  He had been hit by grapeshot, in the chest and shoulder. The pursuers were almost upon them now, riding down the dunes. The Selena was moving. Another shower of cannonballs exploded in the water, closing on target.

  “Selena, my God! Hurry!”

  Royce grabbed his pistol and fired at the horsemen onshore.

  “Selena!” Will Teviot gasped, and fell from his horse into the sea.

  The Selena was moving now. Great white sails stretched to embrace the free and riding wind.

  “Selena!” Royce cried, his voice pure agony over the explosion of the Lucifer’s guns and the pounding of the sea.

  Will Teviot’s blood ran red in the surf; he lifted an arm, bidding her farewell.

  Time stopped.

  Teviot groaned in agony, struggling toward the shallows. Shouting horsemen reined their dancing beasts at the water’s edge. And Selena reined her mount as well, and turned to help Will Teviot who had saved her in the Highlands long ago.

  “Selena!” Royce cried, one last time. The Lucifer fired, but missed once more, as
the great black ship wrapped the wind of heaven unto itself and lanced upon the open sea. Royce was still clinging to the boarding ladder, one arm stretched out to her, in promise more than in farewell, his face a mask of horror and disbelief.

  The soldiers looked at Selena, puzzled. She might have made it to the ship and safety, but instead, at the last moment, she had turned back. She stared at them for just a second. A challenge. She dismounted and knelt in the cold surf, putting her hands beneath Will’s neck, keeping his head out of the water. Blood poured from his upper torso, and she saw that the grapeshot had almost severed his arm.

  Will gritted his teeth against the pain, but already there was in his eyes the glaze of death Selena had come to know so well.

  “Ah, Selena, but ye didna ’ave t’ do this thing,” he gasped.

  “Lady, let me help you get him onshore,” said the officer who’d been in charge of the pursuing soldiers. He motioned to a couple of his men and began to dismount himself.

  Will groaned. A word. Indistinct.

  Selena bent her ear against his mouth. She was trying futilely to press her hands against his wounds, to stanch the flow of blood.

  “Don’t talk,” she said.

  But he made the sound again, more distinctly this time.

  “Do na…Selena, do na let ’em touch me…please.”

  The soldiers were splashing through the surf, and one of them reached Selena and Will. “Here, lady,” he said, bending down. He was a young man, little more than a boy. And he looked scared when he saw all the blood. He reached for Will. “Here, lady, let me help…”

  “Don’t you touch him!” Selena cried, her eyes burning with tears.

  The young soldier drew back in surprise.

  “Aye!” Will Teviot gasped, trying to smile. His cracked teeth were red with blood now, too. “Aye, Selena, there’s the old fire I remember…”

  He shuddered once. And he died. The soldier shivered in alarm, and looked to his mates for guidance.

  Numb, angry, the world distorted and fantastic through her tears, Selena stood up. Will Teviot lay at her feet, washed in the sea. The same sea that now bore the Lucifer home to Scotland, on the high roads of the Atlantic. Several gunboats had broken away from the convoy and were now in pursuit of the Selena, which had all but disappeared to the south. The gunboats were light and fast, and very well armed. It would be a tight race, and there would probably be a battle…

  The Lucifer sailed by, far from shore. Too far away for Selena to see any of her passengers, or even to make out the figures on deck. Nor would anyone aboard be able to identify Selena, standing there in the gentle surf, surrounded by redcoats. But she raised her arm in a farewell salute. Love Coldstream, she prayed to Davina, and, as Davi, the dark one would have done, she spoke with her mind to Sean: I will never forget you; think of me kindly should you picnic one day on the banks of the Teviot River.

  She waved her hand one final time. She let her hand fall The Lucifer rode proudly to the wind, bearing two whom Selena loved, homing on both the future and the past.

  The soldiers were nervous and quiet. They realized that something of great significance had taken place here, but, aside from Teviot’s death, they were not sure what it was. Then their commander spoke:

  “We will have to get him out of the water, Lady Bloodwell. Do you understand? You can understand that, can’t you, Lady Bloodwell?”

  She turned to look at him, and he seemed to start at the power of her gaze.

  “I am Selena MacPherson,” she said.

  Then she looked again toward the southern horizon over which Royce had disappeared. Her father’s words came back to her as clearly as on that golden day of childhood. Now she understood those words completely. She stood here on the shore and Royce was out there on the sea, where the horizon rose to meet the sky.

  Selena, the sky begins here.

  More from Vanessa Royall

  Come Faith, Come Fire

  A love that burns more fierce than any holy flame threatens to engulf Spain in this scintillating historical romance.

  Proud as her aristocratic upbringing, bold as the ancient gypsy blood that ran in her veins, the beautiful, golden-haired Maria saw her family burned at the Inquisitor’s stake, watched her young lover, the adventurous Rafael de Alagon, forced into the priesthood.

  Desperate, and bound by a forbidden love, she defied the Grand Inquisitor himself, fled across Spain with the gypsy king, was enslaved by the Blue Sultan, and escaped to entreat Queen Isabella’s favor at the dazzling Spanish court.

  But through all of her travels, Maria is bound to Rafael by a love more unshakeable than faith, that burns hotter than the fires of the Inquisition.

  Firebrand’s Woman

  From a master of historical romance comes a sweeping tale of the American frontier, and a love that could not be, but also could not be stopped…

  After losing her parents to ruthless soldiers, Gyva is cruelly banished from her tribe, forced to live as an exile in the foreign world of white men. But she will return to lead her people, for pride and for love.

  Firebrand, the legendary Chickasaw chief, has waged war against the white settlers who flood his people’s land and force them westward on what has become called The Trail of Tears. He has sworn to defend his people and their land to the death, sworn with the power of his love for Gyva that he will push back the invaders, and forge a brave new dream with his one true love.

  Fires of Delight

  From the Scottish moors to the shores of a new world, they fought for freedom and love...

  Selena MacPherson is a beautiful rebel who was exiled from her native land. She swore to avenge her father’s death at the hands of the British.

  Royce Campbell is a bold privateer, scion of a fabled Highland clan. He would stop at nothing to bring the hated monarchy to its knees.

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  Obsessed by a proud dream of independence, swept-up in the fever of land rush, she has yet to learn that claiming land was only half the battle. There is farming, ranching, and bone-deep toil. And there is Garn, the man who may just help her grasp her golden future.

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  As America rises to become a great nation, one woman unravels the mystery that is her past, and rediscovers a love that could change her life forever.

  Elizabeth Rolfson had been kidnapped and carried across the seas, yet for as long as she could remember, she knew that her destiny lay in America. She arrived in Chicago in 1885, the stunning heiress to a vast empire.

  As men of daring pressed westward towards America, Elizabeth was swept into the savage struggle. Driven to learn the secret of her past, to find the one man who could still the restless yearnings of her heart, she would stand alone against the mighty to claim her proud birthright and grasp a dream of undying love.

  Wild Wind Westward

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  Kristin Arnesdatter had hair was like the summer sun. Her eyes reflected the clear blue Norwegian skies. Her beauty was a blessing and a curse. She would be Gustav Rolfson’s reluctant bride, despite her heart being forever bound to Eric Starbane.

  Eric had fled his homeland with a price on his head and vengeance in his heart. He would make his way in an alien land torn by civil war, would win honor and prepare for greater battles, if it only meant reclaiming his beloved’s
heart.

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