I ignored him as I rifled through my bag, searching for my Brownie. I'd never go on another primitive expedition like this again, so I'd best photograph as much of this one as I had film for. Clutching the camera to my chest, I whirled and smacked straight into the man standing behind me.
Giorgio curled his hands around my upper arms to steady me, but he seemed reluctant to relinquish me, now I was in his grasp. I stared into his eyes and my insides liquefied.
No. He'd done this before and forced me to kiss him. But this time, I had no cricket bat behind me. Just a bed.
How had I been so stupid? To place myself at this rogue's mercy, alone with him in a place where he could...
Ruin me.
"I'm not going to kiss you again, Lucy. The first time was a mistake and I'm sorry."
I struggled to understand his words when his eyes said otherwise. His eyes said he wanted to ravish me and he knew I wanted it, too. I wanted...
"Not until you ask me to," he added.
"And if I ask?" My voice sounded unusually breathless. And silly.
He lowered his head so I could feel his breath on my lips. "Then I'll give you what you ask for."
And I'll give you what you deserve, my furious mind raged, though my body didn't seem to want to cooperate. "Then kiss me. Please." And when he did, I'd summon the strength to slap him.
"I will."
I closed my eyes, my own breathing sounding loud in my ears as my heart drummed a march to battle.
"But not yet," he continued.
I stared at him in annoyance. How dare he force such a wanton request out of me and then deny me?
He smiled faintly and stepped back. "Perhaps when you want to kiss me more than you want to hit me."
Blazes. Was I that obvious?
Seventeen
Some of the party had already set out for the beach when I reached the firepit, though Dominic shot me a worried glance as he straightened. Not wanting to speak to him, I strode after the vanguard. Perhaps seeing a shipwreck could lift my mood and make me forget the odious man who plagued me.
Three women paddled their bare feet in the shallow water while the men scouted out our path from the cliff. Well, I call it a cliff, though the limestone was barely my height above the water. A rocky outcrop, perhaps.
I reached for my camera and squinted down at the viewfinder, lining up a picture that included the rocky island as well as our wave-washed path along the reef to...where, exactly? I couldn't see a ship. Perhaps it was submerged. I held my breath and pressed the lever just as a noddy flew up from its hiding place among the rocks. When I got home and developed it, then I could see whether I'd taken a clear picture of the island or a bird in flight. A box of surprises, was my camera.
"Where is this shipwreck?" I asked, shading my eyes as I peered out.
"Do you see that raised, round rock over there, next to the flat one?"
I squinted and assented.
"That's the wreck of the Windsor. An old steamship, she was."
I stared hard at the wreck, then dragged my gaze back along the reef to our starting point, estimating the distance involved. My jaw dropped. "That must be two miles at least! We're walking along two miles of submerged rock to a ship that perished on the rocks? What if we perish, too?"
Mr Sargent checked his watch. "We have just over an hour until low tide. If we make good time and start out now, the tide will be almost completely out when we reach the wreck. We'll explore it and return the same way we came. The water level's dropping as we speak. The worst thing that'll happen is you get your pretty feet wet."
My feet didn't feel particularly pretty at that moment. In fact, they felt positively prurient – I itched to use them to inflict violence on the condescending man.
I closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing evenly. This wasn't proper behaviour. Giorgio had somehow gotten under my skin and made me irrational. I'd remember myself in a moment and...
"Lucy, are you all right?"
My brother's concern had caught up with me.
"I'm fine," I said. "Dominic, are we seriously walking two miles along that to visit an old hulk?"
"You don't have to," Dominic replied. "No one does. You can stay here on land and take photographs or paint or collect eggs or cook or...whatever you wish. Dad would thrash me if I let anything happen to you. Find a nice place to sit and photograph all the birds for me, so we can identify them when we get home. In fact, maybe all the women should stay here. It's much too dangerous."
If my brother could do it, so could I, I resolved. I might be afraid of walking that wet, narrow path, but women were hardly lesser beings. I bet if Maria had been here, she wouldn't have hesitated. So what if my feet became a little wet?
"So, ready to get wet, Lucy?" Giorgio asked, grinning.
"Of course," I returned. "A two mile walk's nothing to see my first shipwreck."
Dominic coughed. "I was just saying it would be much safer on the island for the ladies." The look in his eye reminded me of Dad.
Giorgio eyed us both. "Even if the other women stay here, I think Lucy's the sort of lady who can make up her own mind."
I felt a warm rush of gratitude that he was trying to make amends by defending me.
Dominic gave a curt nod and trotted down the embankment to the beach.
Giorgio offered me his arm and I stared at the archaic gesture. "What, after that you think I'm too weak to stand up on my own?"
"Slight, not weak," he said. "At least I think that's the word. Your brother is right about one thing. Walking on that reef is dangerous if a big wave breaks over the top of it. A lady as light as you might be washed clean off the reef into deeper water. Me, I'm too big and heavy for most waves to move me. If you like, think of me as an anchor more than a crutch. I'll make sure you don't go anywhere you don't want to."
I wasn't sure I wanted to go all that way to the shipwreck. It sounded like such a stupid thing to do.
Once again, he offered me his arm. "I'll keep you safe, Lucy. I give you my word."
What was the word of a rogue worth? I wondered. And what did it matter, anyway? I was a lady who knew her own mind. And my mind was a maelstrom of emotion that I couldn't begin to make sense of. For the moment, I took Giorgio's arm and let him guide me.
"Thank you," I said.
Eighteen
Mr Hertz and his wife led the way along the reef, splashing through the water in their sandals and socks. The footwear was just the beginning of their matching attire – they both wore near-identical shorts and shirts, which the other three wives described in hissing whispers as showing a scandalous amount of leg. No more than our bathing suits, but the fact that Mrs Hertz's shorts were not a bathing suit seemed to be the problem.
Then they noticed Giorgio's chivalrous arm hooked through mine and the whispers transferred to a different target.
Their venomous looks only served to harden my resolve. They didn't dare risk the reef, secure in their ankle-deep paddling, so the shipwreck became a sanctuary from vicious rumours. All I had to do was reach it.
What I'd thought was a flat path turned out to be as rocky and uneven as the cliffs above. I hopped from raised bit to rock, stretching over the rock pools that would soak my shoes and socks to the ankle, for I followed Maria's advice and kept both on my feet. A wise choice, I felt, as the sharp rocks grated against the bottom of my rubber soles.
More than once, I was forced to tighten my grip on Giorgio's warm, tanned arm to stop myself from falling face or bottom first into a pool. I expected such sun-browned skin to be coarse, but the downy hairs on his arms softened the contact. Every minute I touched him reminded me more forcefully that this wasn't one of my brothers. He was far more courteous and uncomplaining than any of them would be. Grudgingly, I admitted that Dominic had been right in saying this was too dangerous for me. But I didn't dare back down in front of Giorgio, so I plodded on.
The reef angled westward, so the strong southerly breeze no longer impeded o
ur progress but tried to blow us off the coral instead. The wind whipped up the waves so the spray carried all the way to us on the inner edge of the reef. Flying spray salted my lips, then dampened my dress until it was so soaked it clung to my legs at every step. Now I envied Mrs Hertz her practical shorts. Or the men, who wore theirs without societal scorn.
Despite the lowering tide, more water washed over the reef here, and I slipped far more frequently than before. A shout ahead of me drew my eyes to the Hertzes, but they'd disappeared in a cloud of spray on a particularly narrow stretch of reef. My heart leaped into my throat as I waited for the air to clear, permitting me to see that the couple were soaked but safe. I breathed a sigh of relief and inched further from the breaking waves as I followed their steps through the foaming, knee-deep water.
"Welcome to the Windsor!" a voice roared on the wind and I glanced up to see that the Hertzes had reached the wreck and we only had a little further to go.
I should have watched my feet instead. The foam hid a treacherous break in the reef and my foot plunged straight into it, pitching me forward into the deep blue water.
A shout behind me rang in my ears as Giorgio yanked me back. I was soaked to the waist, but he paid the water no heed as he crushed my body against his. This was far too familiar; I tried to wriggle free of his inappropriate grasp.
"Thank you, but I'm quite capable of swimming, even if I wasn't expecting to need to," I said coldly.
Reluctantly, he relinquished his grip on me. "Perhaps, but he's a better swimmer than both of us." Giorgio nodded at a shadow in the water that I'd taken for seaweed, but turned out to be an enormous shark with a head like a hammer. His eyes were easily three or four feet apart, set on either end of the hammer, and his tail flukes followed more than fifteen feet behind.
I couldn't seem to draw breath. A giant fish, big enough to eat me without chewing, had almost ended my life. And Giorgio had saved me.
Heavens, what would a rake ask in return?
He seemed to see the fear in my eyes, because his tone was gentle as he said, "I gave you my word. I admit it's easier to keep you safe if you don't swim with the likes of him, though, for he even frightens me."
A rogue who kept his word and was frightened of a fish. I heard a high, breathy giggle and was shocked to realise it was mine.
Giorgio simply grinned, took my arm again and guided me around the remaining rock pools to an enormous hunk of corroded metal.
"What is it?" I asked, staring up at the round thing. "Is it the funnel?" I stared down at my feet. "Does that mean I'm standing on the deck?"
Giorgio laughed and the Hertzes joined in. "This is the ship's boiler. All that's left of the ship, except for that bit of cladding over there." He waved at an even bigger hunk of metal further along the reef that looked like a rust-coloured turtle, if turtles could grow bigger than a house. "Here, Hertz, give me a leg up."
"Oh, but you might fall and hurt yourself," I blurted out, but Giorgio and Hertz ignored me as Giorgio climbed first onto a ledge that ran right around the boiler, then placed a foot on Mr Hertz's shoulder and used the extra height to leap and catch hold of the lip at the top.
He hauled himself up on top of the rusted monstrosity and shouted, "Take a picture with your camera, Lucy, so you'll always remember I was the first to claim sovereignty of this castle, for up here, I am king!" He struck a ridiculously regal pose.
Sighing, but smiling, I obliged. Given how he waved his arms around, describing his new kingdom, I suspected the picture would turn out terribly blurred, but this was a moment I wanted to remember.
"Bring me my queen!"
Giorgio's words had barely registered before I found myself flanked by the Hertzes, eager to help me up onto the boiler beside him. I managed a squeak of protest before the couple lifted me high enough for Giorgio to catch my raised arms. Bracing himself, he helped me swing up to stand beside him.
"Behold, your kingdom!" he shouted, waving his arms once more.
I no longer paid him any heed. I was only ten feet above the waves, but it seemed like more, because I could see for miles. The reef curved to the east and west of us, then arced north around islands so flat they barely rose above the sea. Pelsaert, our long island home, zigzagged north to the horizon and surrounding it all was the ocean, a brilliant, azure blue.
"Now take a picture, Lucy," Giorgio said softly.
I pressed down the shutter lever on my camera, but I knew the simple black and white photograph could never do the panorama justice. I needed one of those new-fangled colour films I'd read about in the newspaper, and even that couldn't capture the riotous colour. For that, I needed paint...watercolours, of course. On some of my best quality paper, for I wanted to remember this moment for a lifetime.
"Why are you crying?" he asked, his voice barely audible above the boom of the waves below.
I touched my hands to my cheeks, but it was hard to tell if the saltwater came from me or the sea. It didn't matter. "Because it's beautiful. Thank you." I kissed his cheek then turned my eyes back to the view.
A view which included my furious brother, sending up a small wave of his own as he pounded through the water to the foot of my eyrie.
Nineteen
Dominic's mood let me down from my lofty perch as surely as Giorgio had, though I'd asked for Giorgio's assistance in climbing down from the boiler.
"Do you know what that man is? The reputation he has?" Dominic hissed in a carrying whisper. He sounded like the whispering wives we'd left on land.
I shrugged. "Of course. Mr Paino, his brother, kindly informed me four years ago on the day I met him in the fish markets. He sold me Percy the penguin's sardines, as I recall." My flat tone seemed to calm Dominic's fury a touch, so I continued, "I gave the man a peck on the cheek. So far today, he's saved my life when I almost fell into the water with a would-be woman-eating shark, before helping me find the courage to climb that rusted edifice. Though I doubted him at first, the view from the top is well worth the climb." I regarded my brother coolly.
"You might not be taken in by his charm, but the gossips won't see it that way. He'll ruin you by reputation, without you doing anything wrong. Don't risk your future, Lucy," Dominic begged.
"I'm a grown woman and in control of my own destiny, dear brother. The day any man thinks he can wrest my future in the courts away from me, he's in for a nasty shock."
"But Paino..."
I glared at my brother. "I don't want to hear another word about him, Dominic. He's a rogue, a rake and thoroughly untrustworthy. Agreed. But he did save me from a shark, earning my gratitude. Let sleeping dogs lie."
Had we been anywhere other than a remote, dangerous reef in the middle of the ocean, I'd have stormed off in high dudgeon, but I found myself trapped by our very isolation. I badly wanted Giorgio's arm to lean on while I picked my precarious way back to land, but I didn't dare wait. So I set off, hopping from rock to rock, hoping my luck would hold.
"Lucy. Lucy, wait." Giorgio's voice grew closer as he repeated my name and his desire for me to stop and let him catch up. I didn't stop, but his longer strides transported him to my side all the same. "What did my brother tell you?"
"You must think very little of me, if you believe I'd stoop to spreading common gossip," I said, only just managing to jump across a particularly wide rock pool.
"I want to know what tales my brother is spreading about me, that's all," he responded, leaping across the next pool and offering me his hand. "I'm asking you because I trust your discretion and your honesty."
My fingers closed around his and I moved to firmer footing. "Very well, but I found it quite shocking. He said you were responsible for turning girls into..." I searched for an appropriate word for something one didn't speak about and found two. "Unmarried mothers. More than one girl. And yet you married none of them."
"Mama believed me, but my own brother..." Giorgio shook his head. "The children weren't mine, Lucy. I fathered no babies, no matter what my brother
's told you. I might like to in the future, though."
I nodded. Desiring fatherhood was no crime, when gone about the right way. "Then whose were they? Immaculate conceptions? Why didn't you simply tell people you'd never lain with those women?"
My companion was silent for a long time, but for the splash and thump of his feet on the wet rock. Finally, he said, "Because I'd be lying. Both their fathers caught me, as I have no doubt the girls intended."
"How d'you know you didn't get the women...with child, then?" I pressed.
He coughed. "Because I was friends with the man who did. And when each girl told him, he rejected them and they went looking for another man to accept responsibility. And they both found me."
I stared at him. "At the same time?"
Giorgio roared with laughter. "I wish they had!"
I couldn't seem to close my mouth. Why would one man want two women at the same time?
"No, not at the same time. You really are prepared to think the worst of me, aren't you? If they'd known they were both pinning their hopes on the same man, they might have chosen someone else. As it was...well, a man can hardly marry two of them, can he? So to stop one or both of their fathers, not to mention their brothers killing me, my mother packed me off to my brother in Australia. And on my last night at home, I went drinking with my friend. After a bottle of wine or three, he spilled the whole sordid tale – that he'd fathered both bastards, and more besides, and set the girls to seducing me. The man thought it was one big joke."
"A friend...surely a friend wouldn't do that." My voice died and I splashed through a rock pool without feeling the water soak into my socks.
"Matteo isn't my friend any more. I thrashed him half to death and would've finished the job, too, if someone hadn't heard us. As it was, I had to board my ship that night and depart before dawn to avoid the rest of Mori's men, out for revenge for what I'd done to one of them, though Matteo wasn't working that night. Mori's men were...ah, the local policemen, I think you would call them."
How To Catch Crabs Page 5
