“If we stay too long, the whole crew may defect,” Raile said moodily—but he was looking across the room at Captain Bridey, who sat chewing on his lip and glaring at their party.
“Why?” demanded Lorraine. “Is there such a demand for seamen here?”
“Always. A few years back the Bermudians took over the Turks Islands and now they engage in a triangular trade.”
“I’ve heard men at the Light Horse speak of the triangular trade, but I never knew what they meant.”
“Each spring Bermudian ships sail to the Indies,” explained Raile. “They carry cargoes of cabbages, onions, building stone—this porous coral limestone can be cut with a saw—and whale oil. On the way they leave men at the Turks to rake the salt pans, and after that—”
“But I heard Mistress Pym say the ships bound for the Turks Islands had already left,” objected Lorraine.
“Not all,” cut in Heist. He was studying two of their French crewmen who had just come in escorted by a Bermudian captain.
“After that,” said Raile, “they trade in the Indies for sugar and rum, then trade that in the American colonies for Indian corn. In October they pick up their men on the Turks along with the salt, in another triangular voyage. But they’re always in need of seamen, and we well might lose our entire French crew—as for example ...” He nodded toward the two French crewmen the Bermudian captain had in tow. “We’ve lost three men already, I’m told. They sailed on the Swallow this morning bound for Bristol—but I’ve managed to replace them with Bermudians disgruntled with their shares on the last triangular voyage. How long I could keep on doing that, I don’t know.”
L’Estraille had been listening politely, watching the pair of them with narrowed eyes. He seemed puzzled by this conversation. Heist, whose gaze was on him, could imagine what the Frenchman would say later about it. “In France,” he would tell the Dutchman, “our dashing captain would be telling his lady about perfumed flowers and sparkling beaches and shady glades among the high cedars—but this fellow tells her about salt and onions and she listens to him as if every word he utters is of the utmost importance!”
“They are in love,” Heist would explain. And L’Estraille would give him a baffled look. . . .
Now, over his cedarberry wine in the common room of the Gull and Tortoise, Heist sighed. He liked the Frenchman, but if it came to a mutiny, he would side with the captain. And it well might come to that, he mused, with such a fiery wench aboard. They would be lucky to reach the Indies without blood being shed over her.
Heist tossed off his wine and they finished their dinner amicably. Heist and L’Estraille seemed about to embark upon some serious drinking and Lorraine wondered restively if it was not time to go, when suddenly Raile leaned toward her.
“Steady,” he murmured. “Be quiet and let me handle this.”
She turned to see that Captain Bridey and his group had left their table. But they were not moving toward the door—instead, they were headed in a body in their direction.
Bridey came up to Raile and stopped, legs spread wide apart, rolling slightly on his heels, his thumbs thrust into his belt. Beneath his shock of gray hair his eyes were bloodshot and there was a sneer on his lips that not even his grizzled mustache could hide. His first words drained the color from Lorraine’s face.
“The wench lied,” he said heavily. “I’ve been told by my men that the Frenchie said earlier that he’d never set foot on the American coast. So ’tis plain to see that he never witnessed the sale of any articles in Rhode Island!”
“ ’Tis plain to see that you’re meddling in what’s none of your affair,” ground out Raile.
Bridey’s grizzled jaw was outthrust. “Oddsbud’s not only a friend of mine, but he bought a part of the venture of this voyage, and so if I find stolen property of his along the way, ’tis my intention to bring it back to him.”
“Are ye saying that I’ve not bought her articles?” asked Raile silkily. There was a dangerous look in his gray eyes.
“I’m saying that tomorrow the law here will call on you and ask you to display them,” growled Captain Bridey.
“Be damned to you!” Raile was on his feet, his hand on his sword. “I’ll see you in hell first!”
The men around Bridey tensed. Heist and L’Estraille were edging to their feet. In another moment a fight would break out and the men of the Lass were outnumbered three to one.
At that moment a wild figure burst through the open door of the Gull and Tortoise. The whites of his eyes were the most conspicuous feature of his weathered face and his sandy hair—hacked off seaman fashion—seemed almost to be standing on end.
“Somebody get the constable!” he shouted hoarsely. “There’s a woman lying dead in the alley out here! I think it’s Dr. Hale’s wife! She’s been murdered!”
His words brought Lorraine and everybody else to their feet. As one, the patrons of the Gull and Tortoise surged toward the door, sweeping Captain Bridey and his men along with them in the general exodus to the alley.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Cameron,” Bridey turned his head to call to Raile as he was shoved along.
“Depend upon it!” rasped Raile. “And depend upon seeing this as well!” He drew his sword and brandished the naked blade. In the crowd Captain Bridey ducked his head and made haste to be among those pouring out the door. The Rhode Island captain, who was no swordsman, had no stomach for a fight with that firebrand. Let the law handle him!
The room was nearly clear now. Raile turned to the Dutchman. “Take Mistress Lorraine aboard the Lass, Heist—as speedily as you can.”
“I’ll be glad to take her,” volunteered L’Estraille eagerly.
“No, you speak the best French. Move up and down the street collecting the men. We’ve little time if we’re to make the tide.”
“But what of you?” cried Lorraine, pulling back from Heist’s urging arm. “Where will you be?”
“I’ll be strutting about, being seen by all—as a symbol that nothing’s amiss,” was her captain’s laconic reply.
“But suppose—”
“Suppose nothing,” he said quietly, and there was a reassuring light in the gray eyes that looked down at her. “We’ll clear Bermudian waters before the dawn breaks. Who’ll search for us on a trumped-up charge made by a captain who—I’ll make sure everyone understands—has a grudge against me?”
IV:
THE GIFT OF THE SEA
CHAPTER 17
The Storm-Lashed Seas
THE FLIGHT FROM St. George had an eerie quality for Lorraine. It was like a nightmare—dreamed twice. In silence she and Heist glided across the water toward the waiting Lass. In silence she was hoisted aboard. Shortly after that the men came, in a longboat. And after what seemed an interminable time to Lorraine, Raile arrived, rowing out to the ship with hardly a splash of the oars to mark his passage.
Without lights they drifted out of the harbor, skimming the dark waters to negotiate the dangerous reefs.
Lorraine had retired to their cabin. It was still dark when Raile joined her.
“I promised you that dawn would find you beyond Bridey’s reach—and so it will,” he said.
Lorraine looked up, a little dazzled at the sight of him standing there inside the cabin, tall and dark and resolute in the glow of the ship’s lantern. He looked rather splendid, she thought wistfully. And ruthless too—a man born to prevail.
“I never doubted it,” she said simply. Nor had she. Indeed as she had waited at the ship’s rail, twisting her hands together and willing him to return safe, she had had time to think about how he had defended her with reckless disregard for his own life. She blushed to think that she had chided him about using her dress for bandages. “You have saved me again,” she said softly.
A slow smile lit up his hard features. “Did you think I would let such as Bridey take you from me, lass?”
She made a little fluttering gesture, and looked down at her dress. “If only poor Trinity and her
lover could have been as lucky. . . .” Her voice was wistful.
He spoke deliberately, divesting himself of sword and coat as he did. “I did not tear up your blue dress for bandages after all.”
She drew in her breath and involuntarily cast a look around her. “You didn’t? Then where is it?”
He gave her a droll look. “I gave it away—to a lady. And before you strike me, Lorraine, let me say that the lady, wearing your blue dress and with her red hair concealed by your blue scarf, rode through the rain alongside me yestermorn in the company of a man swathed in bandages. All the town will tell you that you and I and my wounded crew member struck out in the Lass's longboat—but none, I daresay, will have noticed that, oddly enough, we did not approach the Lass but instead made for the Swallow, which was just then putting to sea—destination Bristol.”
Lorraine’s eyes widened. “Trinity!” she breathed.
“You’re very quick,” he said, pulling off his boots. “And Jeb was swathed in bandages so as to be rendered unrecognizable. So”—he was shrugging out of his shirt—“they’re safely on their way.”
Lorraine threw her arms around his neck with a whoop. “Oh, Raile, that’s wonderful!” She drew away in quick embarrassment, for the sudden assault of her young female body against his naked chest had brought a hot light to her captain’s eyes.
“And so,” he drawled, throwing his shirt aside, “if Jeb Smith hasn’t lied about his prospects, he and Trinity should have a good life ahead of them in England.”
“Oh, he hasn’t, I’m sure of it!” cried Lorraine. “If Charles Hubbard thought him suitable for Trinity, I’d trust him!”
You’d trust L’Estraille as well, thought Raile dryly, but he did not voice the comment.
“But . . . their passage money!” She looked worried.
“Already paid. The Swallow was where they were headed when they were caught that day.”
“Paid by whom?”
“By Charles Hubbard. All his savings went into the voyage. He indentured himself to John Pomeroy for three years to raise the rest—telling Pomeroy a trumped-up story about his mother back in England needing money.”
Lorraine stared at Raile, round-eyed. Charles, that scrawny scarecrow with the kind heart, had sold himself into bondage to send his only love away from him—forever. And he had walked away looking jaunty! Her eyes filled at the memory.
“Oh, Raile,” she said softly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because that expressive face of yours mirrors your thoughts. And Hubbard and I wanted you to have just the right amount of indignation to be plausible while we supplied the gloom. It was Hubbard’s plan. He had hidden the pair in a ruined cistern. He came into town to find me, hoping I could get them aboard the Swallow before she sailed.”
“And you did!”
“Yes, I did.”
Lorraine hadn’t known she could love a man as much as she loved Raile at that moment.
“What will become of Charles Hubbard now?” she asked anxiously
“Why, he’ll keep Pomeroy’s books for him as Jeb Smith did, and he’ll tutor Hattie and her newborn in the ways of the gentry, as befits the new mistress of Cedarwood!” His gray eyes danced and Lorraine choked off a sputter of laughter.
“Hubbard begs you to keep forever silent about this, Lorraine. If it becomes known, it would mean the whipping post for him and pursuit and capture for the lovers.”
“None will hear it from me,” she promised. “Oh, Raile ... it was wonderful of you.” Her voice was tremulous, her face upturned, blue-gray eyes luminous, soft lips parted.
Captain Cameron was quick to note these things—and quick to take advantage of them.
“Lorraine . . .” he murmured, and took her in his arms. She went into his arms as if it were the natural, indeed the only thing to do. The sudden impact of her soft body against his hard one sent a tingling shock through her and she trembled against him.
Gently his strong hands caressed her. He stroked her long shining hair as his lips roved over her face and throat—and every inch of skin he touched felt alive and warmed by the pressure of his masculinity.
He began unhooking her bodice and she did not care. A kind of wild madness swept over Lorraine, enveloping her in its warmth, its sweetness. She had been wrong about Philip—he had never been the man for her. Raile was her man, her dreamed-of mate, and now she knew it with a blazing certainty.
Her very flesh tingled with desire for him. She met his ardor kiss for kiss, touch for flaming touch. Somewhere in this scorching madness their clothes had left them, and in dawn’s pale light they swayed to the bunk and sank upon it blissfully.
Her body was cushioned beneath his straining one. He entered her purposefully, sure of his reception. She moaned beneath him, matching his strong rhythm with her own. Their bodies, their very souls seemed to flow together, to become one, inseparable.
There in the purity of the pale dawn they took each other as the first man and the first woman might have taken each other—in wonder and delight and with a kind of reverence never to be forgotten. Raile was the perfect lover, thoughtful, ardent, fierce, yet leisurely, driving her on to a zenith of passion before seeking his own satisfaction.
Dawn’s pink light had turned to gold before the magic burst for them in a shower of stars and together they zoomed to heights undreamed-of, and floated down in a sea of sighs to the quivering lovely afterglow of passion spent.
They gazed upon each other silently, needing no words.
Raile smiled down upon her naked form and bent to press a kiss upon each shell-pink nipple. Then he burrowed with his lips in the rising and falling area between her breasts and his dark hair spilled over upon the pearly pallor of her skin.
She reached up to touch his hair. It was like gleaming heavy silk. All of her being felt aglow with tenderness for him. And when at last he took her again, took her with yearning, as if he could never get enough of her, it was a woman as pliant as a willow who moved against him, glad to be in his arms, content to find fulfillment in his warm embrace.
When, later, Raile slept soundly beside her, Lorraine’s eyes were wet with unshed tears. Tears of happiness, that in her muddled life she had found someone at last. Someone good, kind, wonderful, caring. . . .
The age-old murmur of the sea blended with Raile’s steady breathing. The lean ship creaked companionably. And it seemed to Lorraine, as a veil of sleep fell softly over her, that the love she had found was a gift of the sea.
She woke luxuriously to find the sun streaming through the bank of stern windows. Feeling as if she had been enjoying lovely dreams, she let her eyelids drift closed again—and then she remembered. She had spent last night in Raile’s arms.
She reached out a lazy arm to caress him—and found he was not there. Her eyes snapped open then and she saw him, clad only in his trousers, leaning upon the sill of one of the stern windows, looking out.
She stretched and sighed. “Good morning,” she volunteered.
“Good morning.” He did not turn.
She gave his broad muscular back a questioning look.
“Are you coming back to bed?” she asked hopefully.
“No, I am not coming back to bed.” He spoke still gazing out of the window. His voice was stern, self-accusing. “I am a blackguard indeed,” he muttered. “No better than the rest—and deserving less.”
Lorraine blinked. And waited. The answer was soon forthcoming.
“I have lured you to my bed,” he said heavily.
Lorraine laughed.
Her laughter seemed to goad him. He swung about and it was a haggard face that greeted her.
“You are young, you know nothing of life. I used your joy over learning that Jeb and Trinity were safe. That is what brought you to my bed. And I knew it!”
But I wanted to come to your bed! her heart protested.
“I promised to transport you safe to the Indies.”
“And that you will do,” she said, puzzle
d.
“To the Indies—but not unsullied. I stand before you shamed.”
“Why?” she demanded, and his next words splashed the cold truth upon her.
“Because, as I told you from the first, I am not a marrying man.”
Lorraine’s heart flinched—and then she thought about that. After all, she asked herself sturdily, what could marriage offer that would outshine such joyous wonders as she had known last night? Her pride flared up.
“So you are not a marrying man? I believe that I am not a marrying woman.”
He stared at her, thunderstruck. “All women are marrying women.” He stated it flatly. “There is no other kind.”
“Ah, but there is. I myself am such a one.” With a saucy gesture she threw back the coverlet and in doing so revealed the full beauty of her naked breasts. He caught his breath at sight of them. “What is it that makes you think I would marry you?’ she challenged. “Have I seemed so eager to wed?”
He groaned. “No, of course not. But—”
“Well, then?” She stood naked on her slender feet and stretched luxuriously. Her long blonde hair rippled down over her white gleaming shoulders and cascaded down her smooth back to brush the soft roundness of her pale buttocks. She turned toward Raile with a mocking look, for somehow seeing him so upset—and for such a reason!—made her feel perversely confident, buoyant, in control. “Indeed I think I would prefer being a mistress to being a wife.”
He looked shocked. “Nonsense,” he said roughly. Her smile was mocking but her blue-gray gaze was very level. “I will be your mistress until we reach land,” she told him softly. “But after that I will make you no promises.”
Her wicked smile followed him as he left, looking decidedly ruffled.
While she was dressing, he came back to stand studying her. She greeted him with total unconcern, but made sure that she took a long time pulling on her stockings so that her shapely legs remained temptingly in his vision. After all, he deserved to be tormented for practically telling her to her face that she was a hot wench, but one he had no wish to marry! It would have been more satisfying, she told herself, to have had him offer for her—and be able to turn him down!
To Love a Rogue Page 20
