This Loving Torment

by Valerie Sherwood

  She felt indignant. “His selflessness! His consideration! His generosity! His—his—I am tired of dancing, Captain Court.”

  “Then perhaps it is time for me to give you your gift.” He opened the second small box. “Turn around,” he instructed.

  She did so, bewildered, and felt the cold stones of a necklace go around her neck. “Topaz and diamonds, like your eyes,” he said. As he adjusted the necklace his fingers brushed her bare bosom and—just as they had at Daarkenwyck—left a trail of fire in their wake. With slow deliberation his hands left the necklace and moved about her bare throat, down to her velvet bodice’s low-cut top. Charity’s senses whirled.

  “Is this necklace your gift to me?” she cried.

  “Not the only one. I have others.” He laughed low in his throat and his fingers quested farther into the cleft between her breasts, probing the soft flesh there. Suddenly his head bent and he spun her around so that his lips met hers, closed over them with a soft sudden pressure as his hands explored farther. She was held to him tightly, feeling the hard pressure of his thighs through her velvet dress, his hard chest pressed against her own. Her every sense quickened and came alive. As he lifted his head and stared down at her, she, with a swift cry of shame wrenched away from him.

  “You cannot buy me with a necklace,” she said in a shaking voice.

  “Ah, was I buying you?” he said softly. “Perhaps I was.” His face turned moody. “The necklace is yours, Mistress Charity. I bid you good evening.”

  Before she had time to frame a reply, he had reached the door and passed through it. She heard him talking to the musicians in the hall, heard the jingle of coins, heard the front door open. She waited but he did not return.

  After a while, she went upstairs to her room. Gazing into the mirror, she studied the topaz and diamond necklace, then took it off and flung it down. Outside the rain continued to beat down. Later, she tossed and turned in bed, scolding herself. Had she but waited a little longer and held her tongue, he would have told her to ready herself for passage on the Swallow like Polly—and perhaps given her an envelope to a banking gentleman as well.

  With an angry gesture, she pulled the covers over her head and managed at last to go to sleep—to dream of dark-faced buccaneers and the clash of cutlasses and dead men underfoot. In the morning it occurred to her that since her arrival in Tortuga she had not dreamed once her old dream of walking naked into her lover’s arms.

  CHAPTER 36

  Of course Court would send her back! Did he not always return the English women he bought to England? Charity was still telling herself that the next morning when Polly asked her anxiously if she had begun to pack. Charity bit her lip and turned away, ashamed to admit that Court had not yet told her when she could leave.

  “What did he give you?” asked Polly innocently.

  “A necklace,” said Charity in a strangled voice. “Topaz and diamonds.”

  Polly’s jaw dropped. Before she could pounce on that and ask her a barrage of questions, Charity fled. Downstairs, she was told that Court had already left.

  They spent Christmas Eve together, Polly and Charity. And were joined by Kirby, who’d been drinking rum and roguishly kissed them both under a sprig of what he insisted was mistletoe but looked more like some exotic tropical plant to her.

  Christmas Day dawned and Court still had not returned. Charity suspected that he had sailed away to deliver goods to some dark mynheer, for he did not return until the day before the Swallow was to sail.

  By now Charity had determined to sail on the Swallow, with or without his permission. The necklace would pay for her passage! But when she saw the Sea Witch race into the bay—and she saw it at once for she had kept watch—some perverse spirit made her change from her silken finery to the green dress Alan Bellingham had bought for her aboard the Marybella. The dress seemed worn and tired looking although it still fit prettily. She stared at herself in the mirror. Do I want him to pity me? she asked herself.

  Swiftly, before the Sea Witch could dock, she changed into the pumpkin dress she had made at Magnolia Barony. The mirror told her that was better but ... it needed something. Her eyes strayed toward the topaz and diamond necklace. As she heard the front door open, she hurriedly put it on.

  When Court came into the courtyard, she was on her way down the stairs.

  At sight of him, she came to a full stop and regarded him closely. His was an arresting figure such as might make the heart of a ... a lesser woman leap, she told herself. A woman without scruples. She was not interested in him, of course, but she admitted that others might be.

  He stood, boots planted well apart, dressed once again in rakish Spanish fashion, and watched her descend the stairs. With a low ironic bow he greeted her. Something about his manner irritated her. She returned his greeting and observed, “I see for all you profess to hate the Spanish, you prefer their fashions.”

  “On the contrary. Spain took her toll of me—now I take my toll of her. In my war with Spain, I take my recompense any way I can. It amuses me to don my enemies’ clothes—as I see it amuses you to wear their jewels.”

  “Supper is not yet ready,” she said menacingly. “I would change my gown before I dine.”

  His eyebrow had a sardonic quirk. “As you wish,” he said and strode past her, upstairs toward the room she thought of as his treasure room.

  With fingers that trembled—she did not know why his every word and gesture should upset her so—she removed the necklace and the pumpkin dress and changed once again to the worn green dress that Alan had given her. Her fingers brushed the material lovingly. Its very touch reminded her of Alan. Her eyes flashed. She would make this buccaneer return her to Charles Towne, that she would!

  When she was ready to dine, she went looking for Polly and found her in her room, half-dressed and very upset. “My stockings,” Polly wailed. “I can’t find those good ones you gave me!”

  “Cook had water boiling a while ago. Perhaps Ella thought it was a good chance to wash them and took them down.”

  “Oh, but if she washes my stockings now,” gasped Polly, “they’ll be wet and I won’t be able to take them with me—I can’t go on board carrying wet stockings! Can’t you stop her?”

  “I’ll try,” promised Charity and dashed from the room. In the hallway she collided with Court, He caught her and for a moment their bodies, flung together, were locked in a warm embrace. She felt little thrills fan out like ripples in the water wherever he touched her. For a moment her blood sang and the world seemed aslant as he stared down at her.

  Then another expression, something indefinable, came over his face and with firmness he set her away from him and moved on. He moved with determination as if his will had for a moment weakened and he would now make up for it.

  Shaken, she stared after him, damning her treacherous body because it was so sensitive to this man’s touch. Her eyes were dark as she watched him go. And not till he had disappeared did she start downstairs to prevent Ella from washing Polly’s stockings. She returned with the stockings and gave them to Polly absently. Then she squared her shoulders and again started downstairs. Polly followed in her wake, looking alarmed.

  In the dining room Court greeted them with a bow.

  “Ah, I see we are now drenched in modesty,” he commented, eyeing Charity’s worn green dress.

  “It was given to me by the finest man in all the world,” Charity said loftily. “I wear it in remembrance of him.”

  He studied it. “A fitting memorial—prim of cut, somewhat worn, a little faded.”

  She glared at him. All through dinner she fumed. Across the table Polly looked scared and made haste to excuse herself and scurry away as soon as the near-silent meal had ended.

  Still Charity sat at table, brooding on Jeremy Court’s remarks about the gown she was wearing. Across from her, the buccaneer sat at his ease, richly attired in garments he had taken at gunpoint, while he cast snide remarks at the kindly gifts of a man of char
acter like Alan Bellingham! Her temper rose fiercely. How dared he criticize her? He, a sea-going robber, a bloody pirate! And he was playing with her cruelly, leaving her dangling, for he had not told her when she was to depart. In the intensity of her emotion she leaned forward. “I was brought to my present situation by men like you,” she said. “Betrayers of trust!”

  “Oh, am I that?” His voice was bored, his gaze flicked over her contemptuously.

  “Yes,” she cried, her fists clenching. “And those who deal with you!” In her wild excitement, she had entirely lost sight of the fact that her problems had been brought on by her mother’s avarice, her aunt’s avarice, and a fierce religious group who had eagerly condemned her to death—all that had come after was merely consequence.

  “Well,” he said lightly, “those who deal with such as I are less than perfect, I’ll admit. Sure, you must have seen a deal of injustice in your day.”

  “That I have!” she flashed. “And been the butt of much of it!”

  “Having lived so long,” he added with an ironic tone.

  Charity flushed. “I have lived a lifetime since I arrived in these Colonies.”

  When he stared at her, her flush deepened. Obviously he thought she meant something else, that she had been held in the arms of many men. There had been after all not so many!

  “I am not what you think!” she snapped.

  “Oh?” For the first time that day amusement gleamed in his wintry eyes. “And pray what do I think you to be?”

  “A whore,” she said flatly.

  “Ah, now that I don’t. Were you that, you’d be easily dealt with. No, I think you’re one of life’s unfortunates, like myself, washed up on these shores to paddle about as best we can. Will you have a glass of wine with me, or is your blood up so much you can’t swallow it?”

  He was making fun of her! She seethed inwardly. “I would enjoy a glass of wine,” she answered in a voice that shook.

  He smiled. She was not sure it was a nice smile. His was a face the rages of hell had blown across. There was death in his eyes too; many men had seen it there. For a moment the image reached her, but it was gone as his competent hands poured out the wine.

  “If you must entice me with your low-cut dresses and your long fluttering lashes, you must take the consequences,” he said lazily, proffering her a glass. “I’m a man used to taking.”

  Rebellious color stained her face as she remembered the deep décolletage of the velvet gown she had worn before he left. “I but wore the dress you gave me!”

  “No, you wore your own choice of those dresses I gave you. Not all of them are so revealing.”

  “You said to come down dressed for dancing!”

  “That I did. And that you did. But it seems you were dancing with someone else. I liked not your choice of dancing partners.”

  “When am I to be released?” she demanded.

  He studied her, his light eyes mocking her. “Oh? Are you to be released?”

  “But—but . . .” stammered Charity. “They told me you always release the English women that you buy.”

  “Not all,” he said, turning away to pick up a pipe. “For example, I have no intention of releasing you.”

  Charity stared at him. His back was to her as he lit his pipe and he cut a haughty figure in his lean Spanish silks.

  “But you can’t keep me here!” she burst out.

  “Can I not? Faith, it cost me a packet to buy you. Why should I not keep you for the full three years, mistress?”

  “Because I will not let you!” she said through clenched teeth and ran from the room.

  His mocking laughter followed her up the stairs.

  The Swallow sailed on schedule. From the quay, Charity waved farewell to Polly and grew wistful as the tall-masted ship fled the harbor, white sails billowing against the brilliant blue sea. Polly, she thought, lucky Polly, was going home....

  Around her all was confusion. A popular pirate captain had just put into port with a considerable haul. Dangling cutlasses and swords clinked against each other in the jostling crowd and bright-eyed women moved among them, pairing up with the disembarking buccaneers and taking them off to rum shops and brothels.

  One of the women, wearing a wild striped dress, caught Ravenal’s eye. When he turned to gaze at her admiringly, Charity saw her opportunity and she seized it. Quickly, slipping behind a big black island woman selling oranges, she edged through the crowd of vendors and harlots and buccaneers and traders and began to run. She ran toward the governor’s mansion.

  She knew where it was because Kirby had told her. She could even see it from the dockside. A big stone house with a walled courtyard which, like Court’s, commanded a view of the harbor. “We’ve a governor of sorts,” Kirby had said in answer to her inquiry. “He’s French—name of d’Ogeron.” She had tucked away the name and the information for future reference, and now she would make use of it.

  Skirts flying, she ran. Behind her, she heard Ravenal’s deep-voiced shout, heard him knocking his way through the crowd, scattering buccaneers and vendors alike as he pounded after her. But Charity was fleet and she had a head start. Like an arrow, she flew straight for that big stone house, whose courtyard gate lay open before her. Through that gate she plunged, slamming and bolting it in Ravenal’s face as he thundered up.

  “Tis no use doing this, mistress,” he pleaded. “The governor—”

  But Charity had already pushed past an astonished servant who was carrying out the slops and had flung herself into the cool elegant hall of the governor’s mansion.

  Two startled women saw her arrive and fled in opposite directions, disappearing behind closed doors, to be immediately replaced by a man with a naked cutlass who stared at her for a moment, then sheathed his blade. He was big and fierce-looking and he limped on a leg that ended in a wooden peg. In dockside French he asked Charity what she required.

  She stated that she required an immediate audience with the governor, that she was beset by rogues who had imprisoned her.

  Peg-leg considered this, chewing it over as he might a tough cut of meat. Then he sighed and beckoned her to follow him. Still panting from her wild flight, Charity walked across the stone floor and was brought up before a handsome door on which Peg-leg knocked discreetly.

  Bade to enter, he swung open the door and Charity had her first look at the governor of Tortuga. Monsieur d’Ogeron was middle-aged, slightly built and dapper and dressed in the latest styles of France. His lace-cuffed hand was at that moment handing a paper to a square-cut fellow in leathern breeches, who sported a wide gold earring in one ear.

  “Thankee kindly for the letters of marque,” said Gold Earring, and brushed past Charity on his way out.

  With a deprecatory smile the governor thrust some gold coins that were lying on his desk into a drawer and rose.

  “Mademoiselle,” he said in French with a courtly bow, “please to sit down. In what way may I assist you?”

  “You are the governor here?”

  “I have that honor.” He inclined his head gravely.

  “Then I wish to seek asylum here in your house.” Charity sank into a chair.

  His eyebrows elevated. “Asylum, mademoiselle?”

  “I was seized from the Gull and brought to Tortuga against my will.”

  He sat down behind his desk. “And who did this thing?” he inquired.

  “Captain St. Clair. He had me sold at the slave auction with the Spanish prisoners. Captain Court bought me and detains me in his house. I wish to leave your island, Monsieur d’Ogeron, by the next ship. Although I am expected in Barbadoes, I would be glad to return to Charles Towne—or failing that, to England.”

  The governor’s fingers drummed on the polished desk. “You say Captain Court detains you in his house?”

  She nodded. “He has refused to release me.”

  “I see. Captain Court detains you and you have come to me.” He was thoughtful. “Will you have a glass of wine with me, mademo
iselle?”

  Charity blinked. “I—I would be delighted, monsieur.”

  Over the wine, which was an excellent Bordeaux, the governor murmured, “I am surprised that Captain Court keeps an unwilling woman in his house. Somehow I would not have thought it of him.”

  “I can assure you that it is true.”

  “And you have come through the streets of Tortuga to me . . . these are dangerous streets, mademoiselle. Buccaneers are turbulent men.”

  “I well believe it,” said Charity. She set down her glass, turned her big topaz eyes full upon him. “Can you help me, Governor d’Ogeron?” she asked appealingly.

  The face of the middle-aged governor appeared somewhat dazzled. “For one of such beauty to ask and be refused would be to dishonor the fair name of France,” he said gallantly. “I will help you to the safest place in Tortuga, mademoiselle. Far safer than my own poor establishment.”

  She would have asked where that was, but d’Ogeron turned and snapped his fingers. When a servant appeared, the governor muttered something she could not catch. The servant excused himself and, after a moment, Peg-leg reappeared with two others.

  “My men will escort you,” d’Ogeron told Charity and waved them all away. As Charity moved toward the door, the governor sat down and mopped the perspiration from his forehead with a lace kerchief.

  Flanked on either side by these two stalwarts, Charity walked back down the hall, through the pleasant tropical courtyard with its spicy smells and once again ventured into the street. Ravenal, she saw, had gone—scared away, no doubt, by the governor’s out-reaching authority. He would doubtless be telling Court about her escape at this very moment. She smiled at the idea.

  Charity expected her escorts to take her to the quay and row her out to a ship—a French ship perhaps, one undoubtedly inviolate to those who would live under a French governor. But they did not. As they walked her briskly along, suddenly, fear overcame her. They were going back the way she had come. They were leading her back to—