Elusive Flame

by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

  The deep cowl of the knit garment had been lifted to provide him some further warmth and protection from the winds, but it seemed to her that every now and then an involuntary shiver would shake his frame. After tending him through a lengthy ordeal in which she had feared for his life, Cerynise grew concerned that he was chancing a relapse. When Billy hurried past her on some mission, she bade him to fetch the captain a coat. The boy was soon back, handing her the garment and speeding on his way before Cerynise had a chance to tell him that she had also wanted him to take it up to the quarterdeck.

  Folding the coat over her arm, Cerynise told herself that there was absolutely nothing to worry about, that Beau Birmingham, as much as he might have wanted to, wouldn’t gobble her up and spit her out in so many pieces. At least, she hoped he wouldn’t. But from the way the muscles in his jaw were twitching, she was not about to make any wagers.

  Cerynise couldn’t subdue the nervous shaking that had suddenly seized her as she climbed to the upper deck and approached the two men. Even after gaining the higher level, she couldn’t bring herself to intrude. Indeed, Beau seemed to go out of his way to ignore her presence. It was Mr. McDurmett who brought her husband’s attention to bear upon her. Under the circumstances, Beau had no choice but to face her with a querying brow raised sharply. Against her better judgment, Cerynise moved forward with her offering.

  “I brought your coat, Captain,” she murmured timidly, holding it out with outstretched arms. She detected a ruddiness in his cheeks that gave her cause to worry, and she could only hope that it was due to the wind and not a returning fever. “After you’ve been so sick, I’d feel greatly relieved if you’d wear it.” She shook the garment out as she offered, “Here, I’ll help you put it—”

  The green eyes flashed a warning as his fingers closed around the delicate bones of her wrist, forestalling her attempt to drape the coat around his shoulder. “I’m not some mewling babe, madam, as you may be wont to think I am,” he muttered savagely. “I can take care of myself now, and I don’t need you to follow me about like an overanxious mother afraid that her weanling may catch his death. Now take the coat out of my sight.”

  His words stung far more harshly than the steely grip he had fastened on her arm. Abruptly he released her and pivoted about, giving her no further notice as he returned to his conversation with the bosun, who seemed to blush in embarrassment as he flicked a worried glance toward her.

  Cerynise backed away hastily, averting her eyes to hide her swimming tears. Somehow she managed to descend the steps to the main deck without stumbling and quietly, gracefully made her way to the companionway with all the dignity she could summon. She moved past men who kept their gazes focused diligently on anything or anyone but her. The knowledge of her public rejection only intensified her distress. Indeed, her chest ached as if her heart had been ripped free.

  In her unhappiness and haste, Cerynise was unaware of the man who watched her with carefully hooded eyes from the quarterdeck. Beau had dropped any pretense of ignoring his wife, yet only the jagged pulse that had leapt to life in his throat attested to his own disquiet as he stared after her with mingled feelings of regret and concern. If not for his damnable pride, he might have broken his guise of stoic reticence and gone after her, letting the crew think what they would. His annoyance with himself was paramount, and try as he might, he could not stop those strange, tantalizing dreams from flaring through his mind where, with heightening recurrences, they conspired to form a memory.

  With a broken sob Cerynise swung the door of her cabin closed behind her and threw herself onto the bunk, where she poured out her anguish in the muffling softness of the pillow. It seemed suddenly too much for her to bear, all of her fear and her love for Beau culminating in that brief interlude of passion that was her secret and her torment. But now, his manner was as cold as the sea they were sailing, as if her efforts to withhold herself had wrecked every chance she had ever had of staying married to him.

  Cerynise’s tears ebbed only with the onslaught of a traumatized sleep, but it was a nightmarish elapse of time, a horrible illusion in which she became desperately afraid for her life. She was running through a dark house with Alistair Winthrop and Howard Rudd following hard upon her heels while flashes of light burst all around her, startling her and sending her reeling away in fright and trepidation. In spite of her frantic attempts to flee, the two men came ever closer and, with each new discovery of her hiding places, set her to flight again and again until there was no place left where she could seek shelter. They seemed to swoop down upon her like banshees from hell, and in their hands they carried large black sheets in which to bind her for her burial. Her back was to the wall as they pulled them across her face, and suddenly she couldn’t breathe.…

  With a muffled cry Cerynise came upright off her pillow, flinging away the hand that lay alongside her cheek. In rising panic she began to struggle against the one who reached out to take her by the arms. “No, you can’t!” she sobbed pitifully. “I’m not dead yet! You can’t bury me.…”

  “Cerynise, wake up,” a familiar voice soothed. “You’ve been dreaming.”

  She glanced around wildly, her fear undiminished. Had all of the events from the time of Lydia’s death onward been a dream? Had she even met with Alistair Winthrop and Howard Rudd to discuss the will? Perhaps she wasn’t even married.…

  Her eyes fell on Beau, who sat on his haunches beside the bunk, and the desire to fling herself into his arms and sob out her relief against his shoulder almost tore her from her narrow bed, but the memory of his harsh rejection on the quarterdeck came winging cruelly back, making her pull away with a moan. “Please don’t touch me.”

  Beau swallowed the lump in his throat with difficulty as he tried once more to soothe her. “Lie back upon the bunk, Cerynise, and rest a moment longer until your thoughts come clear. It frightened me to hear your screams from the deck.”

  Startled by the realization that she had cried out in her sleep, Cerynise stared up at him in confusion. In growing dismay, she turned her face aside as tears gathered. “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you.…”

  Beau sought to calm her fears, just as he had done when she was a child. “Shhh, my love. Don’t even think that. You merely frightened me, that’s all. Your screams sounded very much like those of that little girl who had been locked in the trunk years ago.”

  “I suppose your men heard them, too,” she muttered dejectedly, refusing to look at him. “Just like they heard everything else that went on down here last night?”

  “So what if they did?” Beau laughed softly, trying to make light of it all for her benefit. “They’re probably wagering which of us will win out, but I have a feeling they’re not placing too many bets on me coming out ahead.” He reached across and gently tugged at her chin. “Turn around, my love, and let me see your pretty face.”

  Strange how memories from the past seemed to recur from time to time, Cerynise mused distantly. He had quieted her sobs with almost the same magical words after letting her out of the trunk, but this time she denied his plea. “Don’t call me my love,” she whispered, stubbornly refusing to let him draw her face around. “I’m not your love, so don’t pretend that I am with all those pretty words you use on other women. We both know what you want, and that is to mount me like some lusty bull.”

  Beau winced at her unladylike statement, but it only brought home to him all the things he had said in her presence. Perhaps she had been around him too long for her good. “Philippe has made soup for lunch. Can I talk you into coming to my cabin and sharing it with me?”

  “I’d rather not,” she replied dully.

  “Dam—” Beau caught himself instantly. Flying into a temper every time she rejected his invitations did nothing to ease their dispositions. He tried again, this time more gently. “I’ve come to enjoy our meals together, Cerynise. I wish you’d change your mind. Besides, I have some things I’d like to talk with you about.”

  Her aloofnes
s was unswerving. “I’m really not hungry right now.”

  Footsteps approaching the open door brought Beau’s attention to bear upon the one who came to stand beyond the threshold. Stephen Oaks looked past him worriedly, settling his gaze on Cerynise, but the man could discern nothing of her present state when she refused to look around. Meeting his captain’s gaze, he asked hesitantly, “Is Mrs. Birmingham all right, sir?”

  “Aye.” Beau sighed and straightened himself to his full height. “She just had a bad dream, that’s all.”

  Even if it meant angering his superior, the mate felt pressed to let him know just how much his wife had endeared herself to many of the sailors on board. Perhaps such knowledge would help the man realize what a prize his wife really was, in more ways than just beauty and grace. “Billy is wary of coming down, Captain, for fear that something horrible might have happened to her. I’m afraid the rest of the men are up in arms, too, for the very same reason.”

  Beau looked at his second-in-command and realized the depth of loyalty the man had obviously come to feel for the lady during their passage from England. The mate’s words came close to laying the blame for the difficulty in their marriage at his feet, not Cerynise’s. And why not? His contrariness and tenaciously stubborn will could set the orneriest tar on his ear. “Then please assure Billy and everyone else that Mrs. Birmingham is resting now after waking from a nightmare. She’ll be as good as new in no time.”

  “Aye, Captain.” Stephen Oaks started to turn away but paused and solemnly met his captain’s lingering stare. “’Twould really be nice to see her smiling face on the morrow, sir.”

  Beau nodded, aware that the man was gently urging him to treat his wife with more care. “I’ll see what I can do, Mr. Oaks.”

  “I know you will, sir,” the mate replied, and with a brief smile, returned to the deck.

  Beau looked around at his wife and found that she hadn’t moved. He bent down to tuck the covers in around her and smooth the stray tendrils of hair back from her temple. “You should have something warmer than these blankets. I’ll bring in the feather tick from my bed.…”

  “Please don’t bother. I’m just fine as I am.”

  Beau turned with a frustrated sigh and crossed to the door. He had done it up royally this time. She wouldn’t even look at him or accept his efforts to help or comfort her.

  Cerynise heard the door close gently behind him and, in the silence that ensued, finally found the privacy to bury her face in the pillow and sob out her anguish anew.

  It was at least a good hour later when Cerynise poured water into the basin and, wetting a cloth, bathed her eyes and face until the red blotches that had been brought forth by her weeping began to fade. Patting her skin dry, she leaned forward to stare into the tiny mirror above the washstand.

  No more tears, she promised herself in a whisper, fervently hoping she had shed the last of that salty river for the likes of such emerald-eyed devils as her husband and others more akin to Alistair Winthrop. If Beau didn’t want to keep her as his wife, then she could ill afford to let her despondency over her lost love wreak havoc with her moods. Somewhere, someday, there would be a man who’d love her and could accept her as his bride without caring that she was no longer a virgin. Until then, she would have to make a new life for herself. There would be enough challenges to face in Charleston without letting her dashed dreams get the better of her. Until her paintings started selling, she’d have to be financially dependent on her uncle, but he had lived a bachelor’s life so long, she didn’t know if he could abide having a female under foot all the time or her paints and sketches cluttering some area of his house. But then, he had always had his nose in a book of one kind or another, so perhaps he wouldn’t notice her presence overly much.

  Strengthened somewhat by the new goal she had set for her life, Cerynise turned to her sketches and involved herself in her work, but she sat back abruptly in stunned amazement when a charcoal sketch of Beau gazed back at her from the parchment, and not just one Beau but dozens upon dozens, fluttering from her hands to drift across the cabin floor, so many mute reminders of her infatuation with the man. With a groan, she swept them up and was about to consign them to wadded parchments when her more sensible self asserted itself. She wouldn’t let him drive her to the destruction of her own work. Instead, she would keep the drawings as a salutary lesson in the penalties of allowing her heart to rule her head, and henceforth she hoped she’d be the wiser for it.

  The sketches had been stowed away well out of sight and she was standing before her easel, industriously detailing figures on a canvas for a new oil painting, when some instinct halted her in mid-stroke. She raised her head, listening intently. She heard nothing save the muted slap of canvas in the wind, the creak of planks, the distant voices of men, all the sounds that had become so familiar to her that she had to make a concerted effort to hear them at all. Yet she couldn’t deny the feeling that was now sweeping through her. She remained tensely alert, her heart beating with almost painful swiftness and her fingers gripping the brush so tightly they came nigh to snapping it in two. An instant before the rap of knuckles came upon the wood she knew who stood outside her door, the only man so at home on the Audacious that he could walk across a swaying deck or descend a companionway without making a sound.

  Cerynise moved on trembling limbs and, with a stern reminder to remain composed, opened the door. Beau stood in the passageway, looking greatly troubled.

  “I was harsh with you earlier on the quarterdeck,” he said without preamble. “You didn’t deserve that, and I’ve come to say I’m sorry and to make amends to the best of my ability.”

  She waited, mainly from the sheer surprise of his unexpected apology, while he, in turn, studied her with an intensity that convinced her that she hadn’t been as successful at hiding the evidence of her weeping as she had hoped.

  “Apology accepted,” she murmured quietly, and waited through a long, uncomfortable silence. It seemed an eternity. “If that’s all you wanted, Beau, I should get back to my work. I’ll need to sell some of my paintings as soon as I reach Charleston so I can repay you for what you gave Jasper.”

  “You needn’t worry about that, Cerynise. Just consider it a gift.”

  “I’d rather not be beholden to you any more than I am already,” she said in quiet dignity.

  Beau wondered if some peculiar affliction had stripped him of the ability to openly discuss the matter which had plagued him since arising from his sickbed. He felt equally inadequate in his search for a way to repair the hurt he had inflicted. More than his first mate, he wanted to see his wife smile again.

  Another lengthy hush ensued, and Cerynise, uncomfortable beneath his unrelenting stare, stepped forward to push the door closed. Her attempt seemed to awaken Beau, for he promptly moved inward, gently nudging the wooden barrier back with a shoulder. At her look of alarm, he sought ineptly to justify his lingering presence. “Mothering me in front of my men, madam, doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence. They must have no doubt about my ability to command.”

  “It must be a poor world that you men make for yourselves when any show of caring concern is taken as weakness,” Cerynise replied stiffly. “It makes me doubly glad that I was born a woman.”

  The corners of Beau’s mouth threatened to give way to amusement. “Don’t expect me to argue that point with you. Somehow I can’t imagine that you’d be very convincing as a man.” His brows gathered with concern as he continued to study her, and with husky gentleness he inquired, “Cerynise…is all well with you?”

  He knew! The thought froze her in place, like a doe caught in sudden wariness by the approach of man. Frantically she searched her mind, wondering what she had let slip. Yet she could think of nothing that she had either said or done that would have given away her secret. That left one other option…he was now recalling the event himself. But why wouldn’t he simply question her about it? He was a direct and plainspoken man, definitely not the bashful sor
t to approach any subject hesitantly. So why would he not ask her outright about the matter?

  Cerynise’s gaze delved deeply into those darkly crystalline eyes, searching for some hint of what he might know. They were as beautiful as always, but they revealed nothing. She was reading too much into his question. That was all there was to it, she concluded. She was simply grabbing at straws.

  “Perfectly well,” she finally murmured. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Beau, I must get back to work.”

  Unconvinced, he continued to study her, making no effort to leave. Slowly his gaze swept over her, heating where it touched, making her look away lest he see too clearly the helpless stirring he caused within her. “I’d like for you to join me for supper, Cerynise, and I hope this time you will accept my invitation. I’ve come to hate dining alone, and Mr. Oaks is no comfort. He seems intent upon chiding me about my uncivilized manners.”

  Sit near him at a table for an hour or more? Without Mr. Oaks’s cheerful, stabling presence? Cerynise knew exactly where she would end up, and the way Beau was pressing her, she was certain he had come to the determination that she had no will of her own. Despite an overwhelming desire to yield to his plea, she could not. For her own preservation she had to think of what she would risk and not be taken in by his cajoling.

  “I think under the circumstances, Beau, it would be better if we weren’t in each other’s company so much.” That statement had an all too familiar ring to it that made her wonder how often she had said those exact same words. Thus far, they had failed to serve her purposes, for she was even more involved now than she had been when she first issued that proposal. She tried again, hoping to convince him…as well as herself. “We both seem to have difficulty honoring our titular arrangement. I’ve certainly allowed you far more liberties than either of us initially discussed, so I must consider that it’s best for me not to be in your company at all. Forthwith, it should be as if we had never married.”