Trade Winds

by Angel Payne

  The lieutenant raised a finger toward the inside of the mansion. The man’s hand trembled in front of Mast’s face. When another screech burst through the air, the soldier retracted it and gulped. He turned to Mast with a look begging for dismissal.

  “Partant,” Mast muttered. The lieutenant bolted away before he’d blinked. In a mutter that was filled with just as much command, he added, “Stay put, Dink.” The oak clump vibrated with his first mate’s groan. He sighed heavily and made his way inside.

  There was a small study just inside the veranda. Mast covered the length of it in three strides. But just as he was about to pull open the doors to the hall on the other side, the doors flung open themselves. The wild screams sliced through him, but were a muffled din once more as the doors slammed shut. Nearer to the commotion now, Mast also discerned the French expletives his “men” were grunting…and the clank of the chains their prisoner struggled against.

  “Chains.” Bitter juice invaded his mouth with the word. He hauled back the doors, ready to tear them from their hinges. “You imbeciles put her in—”

  He was vaguely aware of his voice clutching then dying in his throat. Then there was only the sound of the wind, and the deep husks of her breathing. A scared animal’s breathing from a wild, tormented face.

  Mast had never seen a woman like her before. More apt, he’d never felt a force like her before. Golden. No wonder they’d named her that. Eyes like a Martinique sunrise, with the intensity behind them to match. They were centered in a bedlam of shining, gilt-colored hair that looked spun from the gold mines of Guinea itself. She snarled at him from behind a huge lock of it, baring a hint of the coral heat that undeniably existed beneath her sleek, full lips.

  But her skin mesmerized him the most. He reached and fingered away the clump of hair to see the glowing texture better. It shined like fire beneath white silk, as if her defiance were shining right through it.

  She was bewildering.

  She was magnificent.

  She was going to be a lot of goddamn trouble.

  “Saint Christophe.” His tongue felt pasted to his teeth as he struggled with the inane dribble of French tense and conjugation. “Une erreur. Une error tres grosse. She—ah, elle n’est—she ees not—”

  “The dreaded Saint Kitts’ sea fury?” She stepped forward as she finished for him in musically-accented English. “Maybe, m’sieur,” she snarled, “you were expecting a voodoo doll with no brains and no backbone? A marionette you could bend to your will with strings of worthless baubles?”

  Mast fought to keep his face set as she came nearer, lifting hers a few breaths from his. “Fancy this, French pig. That doxy doesn’t exist. Behold your silly sea witch.” Her brows lifted along with the corners of her mouth. “Still fancy a waltz, love?”

  Mast’s brain took in her words, but generating a reaction? Driving a nail into his thigh would be more possible. A cacophony of sensations battled for control of his blood as she pressed just inches away, enticing his senses with her aroma of island lilies and exotic bath salts. He tightened every muscle in his body to avoid reaching for her. Touching her. Sampling all that silken skin with his knuckles, then his palms, then finally his tongue… Oh aye, he’d caress her until she glowed with more than anger. He’d make that coral mouth smile and those hating eyes sparkle as he bent her head back, ordered her to open her mouth then tamed the rest of her fury away with his own lips. He’d kiss her so long and hard that—

  Are you out of your godforsaken mind? Kiss her?

  His lips twisted as his brain struggled with the terror of it. She was just a woman. A girl. Wayland’s words haunted him. My daughter.

  “Pig!” She spat it after noticing the movement of his mouth. “Laugh all you want, sir swine. Don’t think it will change a thing. You can take our island back to your precious king on a golden platter, but I will never dance on your puppet strings. I’ll fight you until you kill me!”

  Unbelievable. She dressed him down, even in her rags, as if she were Queen Charlotte herself, the shackles at her wrists a pair of diamond bracelets. But along with all that female haughtiness, her jaw grinded like a seasoned sailor’s and her nostrils flared like a practiced barrister’s. There was a crowd of people in that beautiful, tawny body.

  Mast locked his hands behind his back, battling the message of desire his body pounded at him in no uncertain terms. So this was why Gaverly had told him so little beyond the essentials. Ask the natives for help, Mast. They call her the porpoise girl, or the sea goddess. At the time, the words had barely registered as strange. He’d been too ecstatic about the money to wonder or ask questions.

  The money. Damn it, the money.

  He was in this mess too deep to toss aside the prize now.

  Using every strain of his will, he held himself in character. He sauntered before her, curling his lips into a suggestive but steady grin. There were approving sniggers from his “men” until he silenced them with a look. He paced closer to her. Closer.

  He regretted it at once.

  Angles as spellbinding as her face greeted him from beneath the worn cotton skirtings she wore. The slant of her hips was distinct and graceful, the lines of her legs slender and high. Sweet saints. He hadn’t even let his gaze linger above her waist yet.

  The next moment, starting at her face again, he did. He let his study travel slow, over her chin, down her long ivory throat, and… Damn. She was shaking, ever so lightly, beneath his stare. The rise of her breasts peeked at him between the laces of her vest corset, making up for their smaller size with a texture so creamy, he craved a bowl of strawberries to dip them in.

  Maybe she really was a witch. Sensations like this couldn’t be natural.

  Against his better judgment, he looked back to her face. She still held her gaze firm but her eyes were wide and her upper lip trembled. She rounded her shoulders, trying to push her kerchief into her chest to cover it. Cursing himself for the instinctual tug of chivalry, Mast reached and gently arranged the covering for her.

  In the space of a heartbeat, he found he couldn’t pull his hand back.

  So much for the good name of chivalry.

  Golden’s lashes fluttered as she looked down at his fingers, her breathing rising against them rapidly, desperately. He pressed the balls of his fingers to her pulse. Her skin was like ivory sun. Smooth, searing, mesmerizing…

  She winced as he moved his touch lower. He stopped but didn’t pull away. In this disguise, he officially held all power over her…could touch anything, anywhere he wanted. He knew it. From the tremor that claimed her lips, he saw she did, too.

  He paused his finger in the crook of her throat. Their gazes were still locked, sight and touch their new language. He questioned with a slight pressure of his fingers. Another quiver overtook her, vibrating through her torso, radiating warmth into the whole of his hand.

  What the hell was happening? When had the tigress transformed into a shaking kitten? And why, why was it shaking his ability to keep effective cover, when this dangerous charade was for her benefit?

  “M’sieur,” she rasped. Her following gulp swelled her throat.

  “Mademoiselle?” His own tone was a rough grate. It seemed to calm her. Hell, maybe the “romantique” approach would work better, after all. Maybe this Saint Kitts sea witch wasn’t the madwoman the natives warned him of. Maybe this was going to be easy.

  “M’sieur.” It was nothing but a sweet whisper now. Her gaze dropped then raised again. Her topaz eyes sparkled with a renewed luster, spearing him straight through. Thank God Dink was still knocking balls to the tree outside. If his friend saw him getting daggered by nothing more than this woman’s stare, he’d never stop paying the piper of humiliation for it.

  “Oui, mademoiselle.” Humiliation, indeed. His voice sounded more and more like another’s. He decided then and there to lock her in the cabin farthest from his on the ship. Again his mind filled with the fantasy of plunging his mouth over the fullest part of her da
rk coral pout…fitting his hands over her full, sweet backside, and fitting her soft body around the hardest part of his…

  “M’sieur.” Her new tone was bested in cruelty only by the chain she suddenly slammed against his abdomen. “You will step back from me at once, or this chain will go routing for a little nutmeg.”

  His “men” turned traitor on him, howling at the jab. The hellion basked defiantly in their laughter, straightening her shoulders with a smug yank.

  Mast’s control returned with a rush of clarity. And fury.

  He grabbed the wench by her nape, anchoring his grip there. In another, he drew his primed pistol and fired. The shot whizzed inches over the heads of the soldiers, setting them to blanched attention.

  “Report to General De Bouille at Sandy Point immediately.” He let as much of his anger seethe into the thickly-accented words as possible. The morons didn’t have to know he directed the ire equally at himself as them. “Now.”

  The idiots actually glanced at the girl, as if for support. He tightened his hold with a punishing twist. She winced. Good. Wayland’s daughter or no, Lady Golden Gaverly would learn her place. Quickly.

  “Go!”

  The soldiers tripped and grunted their way down the wide stone stairwell to the ground floor. The oak front door crashed shut behind them. Cool evening air whooshed up in the echo of it, rustling the potted plants along the mahogany-floored hall and tinkling the drops of the chandelier over the entryway.

  Tense silence took over the air again.

  “They’re going to be imprisoned.”

  Her voice was low and accusing as she wrested to face him. The sunset was disappearing fast beyond the beveled windows but her eyes still glowed brilliantly. Her stare had to be a sin in a holy book somewhere, along with that unearthly power she wielded with them—like Christ “just taking a stroll” on the lake or Arthur “just out looking” for a new sword.

  The crafty chit wasn’t going to win. Mast forced himself to return the amber assault, no matter what temperature his nerves broiled to. Torture, he thought. Even if she slept in the depths of the hold, this voyage was going to be torture.

  Fuck you very much, Wayland.

  “They are buffoons.” He relished how his rancor could be spat on the richly-inflected tones. “I doubt they will even find their way to De Bouille.”

  “So you’re turning them out to the wilds of the island, instead?”

  He cocked a brow. “You press me, witch. Do not press me.”

  “You’re a beast.”

  “And you are a prisoner. A very intriguing one. So you will come with me to the study, s’il vous plait.”

  He steered her in front of him, pushing her through the doors with a forcefulness he would not have questioned. He closed both doors shut with swift kicks. When he finally released the hellion, he watched her bolt toward the veranda. Her face fell and her shoulders sank as she remembered the shackles on her wrists.

  When his own chest wrenched in reply, he cursed silently again. But looking at a woman in chains…this wasn’t right. To get his hands on the mongrels that did this to her….

  Just a little while, longer, hellion. I’ll have you out of those things and on your way to your darling Wayland faster than the wind can change.

  Another succession of cannon booms pummeled the valley. The faint sounds of human screams followed. Golden’s shoulders sagged again. She choked as if fighting back a sob. Before he could process what to do with her grief, she spun around on him with teeth bared.

  “You French monsters will never get away with this!”

  He avoided her blazing gaze. She was getting restless again. If he could only win her trust.

  Her trust, or her fear.

  Given the circumstances, it would have to be the latter.

  He stepped past her with that same heel-to-toe pace that had made her tremble before then stopped at the outside threshold of the room. With hands locked at his back, he planted his legs in a stance that spoke domination.

  “The English have lost Brimstone Fortress.” It killed him, but he spoke with deliberate coldness. “We have advanced hundreds of yards today alone.”

  “No!”

  Mast felt something slicing into his bottom lip. It was his own teeth. Did she have to sound like he’d sliced her soul open? Did she have to look like it, as well?

  He didn’t dare step to her. He did, anyway.

  “Do not cry, chere. For God’s sake, do not cry.”

  She wept like she fought, with every inch of herself. Her body shook as she sobbed, drawing her breath in loud gulps.

  “Damn it, don’t cry.” It was his own voice and he knew it. Blast the accent. She needed to hear him. For that matter, blast this whole vicious, rotten bedlam. “Sweeting—”

  “Shut,” she spat, “up!”

  “Come, now.” His assurance sounded like watered mud. Him…and tenderness? A cow at a tea party would be less ridiculous. Indeed, her shoulders felt like fine porcelain beneath his hands as he tried to meld his strength into her. “Golden, you’ve got to stop crying.”

  If he could only tell her who he was, why he was really here. Why had he given his word to Wayland?

  “You don’t understand.” Her cry was an awful sound, a dirge of heartbreak and grief. He knew it all too well.

  He squeezed her tighter. “I do understand, damn it.”

  “He’s dead,” she went on, not hearing him. “I know it. Heroic fool. French bastards. Papa’s dead and I’m alone.”

  “You’re not alone.” He resorted to shaking her. “You’ve got to trust me. Look at me. And God in Heaven, stop crying!”

  “Alone, alone,” she chanted on. “I’m all alone.”

  Mast let a low growl escape. He wanted to toss her out the window. He wanted to hurl her against the wall. He wanted to—

  His arms slipped down her back, finishing the thought for him. “Christ, sweeting, don’t make me do this.”

  Her singsong became a grieving, incoherent babble. She barely noticed as he slid a finger beneath her chin and lifted it.

  Trouble. You’re asking for trouble, Stafford.

  Fire surged through him at the feel of that soft curve. Her skin was so smooth, so warm.

  She’s the most precious thing in the world to me, Mast.

  There were other ways to do this. Colder ways. Less dangerous ways.

  But he raised his other hand now, exploring the pain-twisted contours of her cheeks. So beautiful…and so wrong. Her face wasn’t made for sadness. It was a face made to be lost in a haze of hot, torrid pleasure. Her gilt-colored eyes would be mesmerizing, gazing at him as he stirred every drop of her arousal. Her lush lips would part, pleading him for more. That smooth swan’s neck would arch back as he filled her body with his own, stretching her, claiming her…

  Sweet Christ. He was falling into madness as quickly as her. Because of her.

  This had to end. Now.

  “This is for your own good, hellion.”

  He bent and took her lips.

  He was determined to be swift about it. Perhaps even brutal, if only to jolt her from hysteria.

  Effective plan. For all of two seconds.

  He was lost the second he tasted her. She was the tang of strawberries and the sweetness of passion fruit, hotter than Scotch and smoother than rum, an ambrosia that instantly ran into his blood and made him a man starved for more. The kiss took her so unawares that it made her lips all the more pliant and yielding for his. She gave into him with an innocent, instinctual response, letting him mold her mouth completely beneath his.

  She shook him off his axis. Sent his senses crashing. Swung a scythe of terror through him as his head started losing the battle with his body. He deepened his claim, pushing her lips wide with his, sweeping his tongue inside the hot, delicious grotto of her mouth. She was beautiful. Wonderful. Sleek and sensual…and totally untamed.

  She pulled back from the kiss as roughly as he’d started it. Her eyes snapped
open. For a moment, all she did was stare at him and breathe. Her panicked animal rhythm was back. Mast’s heartbeat drummed in his ears and he realized he was matching her breath for breath. He eased his hold at the same instant she bolted from it.

  “What. The. Hell?”

  It was exactly the reaction he’d expected from her. It was his own body’s throbbing, burning, rather erect turmoil that sank any remaining lucidity he had about this hopelessly doomed endeavor. Remind me to pay you back for this, Wayland. With something like a keelhauling from here to Africa.

  But before he could have that satisfaction there was one fuming hellion to deal with.

  Damn and hell.

  Chapter Two

  A moment passed that felt like an eternity. Golden couldn’t get any more words past her lips; the ringing in her ears and the shivers to her toes took care of that. Great Goddess Erzulie, who was this supposed enemy who did this with one touch of his mouth? With just one sweep of motion, he made her feel as precious and vibrant as a jewel in the sun. He’d taken her tears and turned them to liquid fire.

  And dear Agwe, what he’d done to the secret caves of her body. They were full of liquid warmth, as beguiling and bewildering as lava…

  And probably just as dangerous.

  Blast the princock to the hell he came from. She’d taken particular pride in those hysterics. This performance was the best she’d achieved yet. Yet it was as if this brute had seen straight through her.

  Who was he?

  The possible answers terrified her. But she bravely stood her ground as the French swine gaped at her. He looked up, down then back up again like he bloody owned her. She fought the urge to return the scrutiny only because she couldn’t take her eyes from his dark, mesmerizing face.

  Tension worked in his jaw like rigging shifting beneath a taut, tanned canvas, with his mouth a tight slice through the middle. Above a nose seemingly held straight and prominent just for the expression, his eyes were of such an intense blue, they reminded her of a place on the ocean she had rowed to with Guypa, who told her the unusual shading of the water meant a fathomless pit lay below.