by Andrea Jones
She listened to the chink of medallions as Cecco tossed his headdress on the locker. Its crimson ribbon pooled on the cushion there, like blood. He took his heavy necklace off next, then his bangles, and after that he stood still, staring at his wedding ring. He clenched the hand that bore it, then dropped his fist.
Where the grip of that fist had recently manacled her, her wrist ached. She rubbed it, to cherish the tenderness. Her next perception was one for her ears again. The captain was swearing, in Italian. She gloried in the sound.
He paced the length of his quarters, then turned to glare at her. “You, lie here.” He pointed to the settee against the wall, opposite his desk. It wasn’t near his bed but he kicked it, savagely, forcing it farther away. “I know you prefer not to talk. I prefer not to hear you.”
Obediently, she stepped to the settee. She draped the shawl on it, then let down her hair, shaking it free over her shoulders. Loosening her tunic, she noticed that her clothes retained a whiff of the woods. She caressed the material, remembering the secrets she’d seen. The vision of Flambard and Red Fawn coupling roused her to a higher pitch, and she turned halfway, to indulge her senses in the captain. Her smile vanished, and she gasped.
Before she could back from him, Cecco was upon her. He grabbed her tunic at the neckline, bunching the yellow linen in his fist. He whipped his knife from his belt, and thrust it, cold, against her throat.
“Never believe that you tempt me.”
He pointed the knife down, between her breasts. Its tip bit her skin.
“Only my knife will make love to you.” With a scream of renting fabric, he shredded the dress with his blade, from neckline to hem. He yanked it from her body, sending her reeling, and he cast the tatters to the floor.
He caught her, snatching her upper arm, and shoved his face close to hers. “Do not presume to dress like Jill.” He pushed her down on the settee. Then he turned away, leaving her blinking. Tramping toward his bed, he tossed his knife on the table. He stripped off his vest and sat down to slough off his boots.
Mrs. Hanover was in heaven. A surge of lust made her salivate. Her left breast pricked from the nick of his knifepoint. Never mind that her tunic lay ravaged. It had served its purpose. She’d bewitched him with it. The force of his reaction set her trembling, but not out of fear. Always, this sensation— the feel of goading a male to perceive her, of pushing a man to the edge— stimulated her. This, she believed, this effect on a man, was the quintessence of womanhood. She lived for this feeling, even if she died for it.
Instead of whittling at her hopes, Captain Cecco, with his knife, had cut them loose. She shed her trousers, never taking her eyes from him. She gazed upon his shape as he re-tied his hair, hair as dark as his eyes. He rinsed his hands and face at the washstand, while she touched her tongue to her lips at the sound— droplets dripping from his chin and tinkling in the basin. Here, at her fingertips, was more man than she’d fantasized. Her impression as she stared was a composite of olive skin, glints of gold, the bulge of muscle…and animosity. Beneath the swell of her baby, her lower parts throbbed. She pressed the score on her breast till it bruised.
Cecco dried his face. Retaining his breeches, he drank from a cup of wine, then lay back on his bed. With one arm he covered his eyes, and he unleashed a sigh of anger.
Perhaps he believed his fight was over; Mrs. Hanover was not so tame.
She judged it best to warn him of her approach, so as not to startle him. She wouldn’t object if he struck out again— she looked forward to it. But she desired him to strike out deliberately, as he had just done, and not at random. She asked, “May I sip some wine?”
As she predicted, he jolted at her intrusion, rising up on his elbow with a scowl. He jerked his head toward the bedside table, where his cup sat. He punched his pillow, then he turned on his side, to be rid of her. He only intrigued her the more as his scars came into her view.
She drank, just enough to wet her tongue with the wine’s heady taste. She set the cup down with an audible tap on the tabletop. She turned down the lantern so that the slim silver moonlight cast her features in obscurity. Then she slipped off her shift and slid into his bed.
Immediately he turned to her, hostility harshening his voice. “You disobey.”
“I obey Mr. Yulunga’s command.” She leaned in, and kissed his shoulder. His skin thrilled her lips, as hot and smooth as she’d imagined, as potent as his wine.
He didn’t bother to shrug her off. “I gave you warning.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“If you are careless for yourself, are you not mindful of your child?”
“No.”
She’d revived his attention. He stared her direction in the half-light, aghast.
Cecco had never really listened to this girl before. He listened now, disbelieving the cool note of her voice as she spoke of her baby.
“I study doctoring. I know the prospects.”
He remembered, then, her ignorance of the infant’s paternity. No doubt she assumed her womb carried the seed of incest. She did not know that Hook, who forbade Jill to conceive by him, might yet have sired a child there. Cecco’s heart stung for Jill, and it ached for himself. A vision of the little ones he’d lost spurred his ire again. “How wanton you are, to risk your blessing.” Incensed, he turned from the girl, shunting her away.
Mrs. Hanover didn’t shrink from the challenge. “I can soothe your hurt.”
“It is not you I want.”
“You want a woman.”
Cecco snorted. “I have my pick of women. Never the one.”
As a result of Yulunga’s goading, Mrs. Hanover’s speech was enhanced. Only now did she appreciate his bullying beyond its physical stimulus. With chameleon ease, she increased her likeness to Jill: she used words.
“You took me for her before. Look, the light is dim. I am your Jill, if you will it.”
“I do not will it. Were she here, I should kill her.”
“Kill me, then.”
The bulk of his body loomed in the dimness as he sat up, jeering. “I misjudged you, girl. You are not wicked. You are mad. Save your insanity for your master. I know him; he welcomes trouble.”
“I dare not go back to him, having failed in my duty.”
Melodic to her ears, his accent rumbled his frustration. “I have had a bellyful of duty.”
“That’s why I’m here. Forget everyone outside these quarters. Tonight, you may do as you will.”
Cecco shook his head, exasperated. Desolation must be distorting his thinking. The girl almost made sense.
She felt his resolve diminishing, and she played upon reason. “No love or loyalty restrains you. What will you do, here— right now— to your Jill?”
His thoughts dogged her lead. He half imagined the scene that she conjured.
“Will you punish me?…Love me?”
Against the governance of his intellect, Cecco’s heart weighed her suggestions. “Both,” came the answer, through his teeth.
The girl was correct, he found. The feeble light shrouded her face. Jill inhabited his mind, and, if he willed her presence in the flesh, it was Jill who now incited him.
But no, it was some wraith, not Jill sitting here, fondling the gold at his biceps. His wife had betrayed him. She had skewered his heart, and laughed. He had fled from her, to stay his hand from the deed he was just about to execute. He raised his arm.
Just as Jill would do, the woman held her ground, unflinching. But a curtain flicked in the breeze, manipulating the moonlight, and now she appeared as Mrs. Hanover— Yulunga’s property; the Doctor’s doxy; Liza the servant girl…Jill’s imitation. Cecco’s anger at his wife turned to fury against this female, who sullied his image of his loved one. She disgusted him. She defiled his very memory of his wife.
He struck her, a backhanded blow. Her body snapped back and her fingers flew to her face. “Ah!” she whispered. With her eyes closed, she traced her jaw to her throat, to her bosom. And th
en her gray eyes opened again, and she reached for his hand, the hand that abused her, and dragged it toward her flesh. Firmly, she held him to her bosom. Her nipple invaded his palm, engorged and rigid, and her heartbeat vibrated in his hand.
“If I am she,” she hissed, “I deserve to bear your anger.” She squeezed his fingers, making him press the swell of her breast. Her head rolled back. Her eyes closed as she worked his fingertips at her teat. Greedily, she drew his hand down, past her pregnancy, below her abdomen. Already a gloss of moisture had begun, warm and silken, and she gasped when she pushed his hand to stroke her flow. She swallowed, wallowing in ecstasy.
“I despoiled your contentment, Giovanni. Now you must despoil me.” She forced his fingers to penetrate her privacy. “Do me damage— dole out to me the hurt I dealt to you.”
At first, he believed her— as a storyteller, a seer. His gypsy mysticism paid homage to a wise one. Superstition held him captive, as if the speaking of his name must exorcize his will. Her craving fused with his fury, imperative, impossible to deny. He didn’t resist as she led his hands, urging him to brutality, turning rough, and rougher. Perversely, the punishment he inflicted seemed to pleasure her.
But, as she writhed beneath his wrath, he remembered. His woman was not perverse. His wife used no traps, nor deceit. She served her purpose with honesty. When confronting her husband’s anger, or any man’s, she flexed, but never bent. This being, who raped herself with his rage, was someone else…something other. Her guilt made her craven; it was she who was entranced, and destruction was the devil that enthralled her. No matter how she dressed, or how she undressed, this female was a creature, never Jill.
Disturbed at his own complicity, Cecco jerked away. She followed his body, pressing against him, begging for climax. She seized his breeches, to tug at the ties. On the defensive now, he thrust her to arm’s length, holding her shoulders. She slipped his grip and drove at him, lusting for more.
Yet he was mistaken. She did demand more, but her focus swerved to the knife upon the table. She snatched it, then yanked at a corner of the bed linen, to swaddle the sharp half. When its bite was sheathed in the sheet, she cradled the knife by the blade. Looking into Cecco’s eyes, she lowered her chin, opened her knees, and thrust the hilt in the center of her sex. She bared her teeth, and, like an imp upon its victim, she rode the handgrip. Her hips worked back and forth, as she ravished herself with his weapon.
“Malocchio!” Cecco whispered, appalled. His own utterance, intended simply to intimidate, reverberated in his head: Only my knife will make love to you. He was no soothsayer. He hadn’t voiced a prediction; he’d cast no curse. The affliction, he realized, resided in this woman, and it worked upon herself, and on anyone who touched her. He must stop it, and he must stop it now.
With one hand, he wrestled her shoulder. With the other he tore the knife from her grasp. He rolled it loose from the linen to bounce on the bed, and then he drove it into the tabletop, deep, so that she could not recapture it. As she lunged for it, he scrambled to restrain her. Reluctant to touch this bawd, he sought the least intimate hold. His stomach pitched while, with both hands, he grappled her throat.
She moaned, and seized his fingers again. As she’d done at the start, she squeezed so that his grasp tightened. Indulging in the agony, she held her body stiff. Her breathing rasped in his ears, gurgling, choking, then ceased altogether.
In horror, Cecco felt her blood mount between his hands, the tension building in her jugulars. He must let her die, or he must let her go. Should he grant her her will, or deny her? Which choice invited least evil? Wild-eyed, he witnessed the contortion of her torso as she suffered. Then she gave a sudden huff, nearly stifled, as she reached her sexual crest.
He let go, recoiling. She slumped to the bed. As her lungs heaved for air, she smiled. One of her hands dug in her vulva, one trolled the bed for his thigh. She found him, and another spasm of gratification rippled through her. Afterward she lay there, splayed before him, exhausted.
Shocked, Cecco remained where he knelt, staring. Slowly, he put her arm away from him. A sense of violation invaded him, as if some demon had possessed him. In his native tongue, he whispered words from his ancestors, ancient charms of expulsion. Then he turned his head and spat on the floor. He sketched his gypsy banishing gesture, down from his forehead and across his chest.
Rolling off the mattress, he stood by the bed. He gathered her body in his arms, holding it out from his skin, and, gently, he laid her down on the settee. He drew the comforter off his bedstead, and covered her.
Three times, he washed himself. And then he lit the lamp, and carried it to her side. For long, he stood gazing. He imprinted her image on his brain. Her youthful face, her eyes of gray, her brown hair, the fullness of her lips. Her lies.
He memorized this woman, who, in truth, was not his wife, and whom he could never, ever mistake for his Jill anymore.
Pity crept its way into his heart. She was a lost girl. As her captain, it was his duty to look after her.
He would find a way to aid her.
As he lay down to sleep at last, the realization dawned. What madness had captured him? His own folly confounded him, long before the girl did. He should have identified, instantly, the act that transpired on the beach.
Cecco’s Jill never lied to him. Given the right frame of mind, a trusting mind, any falsehood she attempted to tell, he’d see through. Tonight, Jill had told him a tale. It was simply that, and only that: a story. She made it up, because she loved him. It was a tender duty that she’d paid. A sacrifice a faithful wife would make.
She saved his life.
Giovanni Cecco vowed, that instant, that from this moment he would hear her, truly. He would listen to her heart. He’d be receptive to her sound. Her clear, calm voice, that siren song, would guide him.
Cecco understood, now, the deepest wish of Jill’s heart. Empowered with her love, he held the strength to grant it.
✽ ✽ ✽
Hook’s phantom hand burned, though he’d felt no discomfort for months. None at all since Jill joined him. Now his wrist flamed with pain, red-hot, as if freshly severed. He winced, teetering on the verge of his vilest memory.
Or was it the worst? This disjointing from Jill surely rivaled his maiming. He sloshed a shot of rum in his cup, and slammed down the bottle. The table trembled, and her necklace shivered where he’d thrown it. He yanked his gaze from her cast-off, ranging his regard over the tent instead.
Its comforts disgusted him. His thoughts were hard, his surroundings too yielding. The lone piece he appreciated was the brittle crystal of the vial, and the sharp shards of gold it contained. It still glowed from his summoning. Jewel would be on the wing by now, flashing through the forest.
Unlike his woman, his fairy held no options. However Jewel adored him, however willing to submit, she was bound to obedience. He had tamed the woodland creature. The woman he’d created, Red-Handed Jill, by definition would not be domesticated. No doubt at least one of her husbands agreed. Grimacing, he seized his arm as the old wound flared beneath the cover of his hook.
He halted his pacing by the looking-glass. In her untamed nature, Jill mirrored her maker. He snarled at his reflection, and dashed the scarf from his head. Impatient for the fairy’s arrival, he set off again, prowling his pavilion. The silk scarf tore beneath his boots. He kicked it aside, then scooped up the drink and drained it.
Fire in his throat; fire in his mind. Every grain of the glass is precious, she’d said. More precious than he had believed— few enough to last only an hour. How many grains would spill before he slaked this conflagration?
If he hadn’t seen Jill departing with his own two eyes, he’d never credit it. Not the fact that she’d deserted him, nor that she’d gone without forewarning. Be it impulse or no, this trickery wasn’t her tactic. For Jill, candor was the weapon. Perhaps, just this once, she dared not employ it. Not against Hook, who read the very etching on her heart.
&n
bsp; Throughout her parley with Cecco, the tone of her emotion rolled through him. Passion, compassion. He’d felt jealousy prick her heart, and even the pinch of sacrifice. And, following all, she radiated an ambiance Hook never before felt surround Jill: falsehood.
He had miscalculated. This evening, thanks to him, she’d learned a new tactic. He closed his mind to her tonight, one lone, only time. He’d freed her from his influence, allowing her full liberty of choice. She had always been a quick study. To all appearances, she’d mastered that practice, first try. At the end of the hour of parley, as the couple came to accord, Jill barred Hook from her thinking completely.
He could only hope this silence would continue. If he had to live without her, he’d rather live without the torture of her joy.
“Commodore, Sir,” Tom Tootles interrupted, throwing open the tent flap. “Jewel has come.”
“Enter, both of you.”
The fairy flew in, and a haze of peacock blue cooled the hues of the interior. She looped through his tent, and he held out his hand to her. Fluttering above it, she tossed kisses from her fingertips. Then she settled, and the agitation of her wings blew a breeze to sooth his flesh.
“My Jewel. How fleetly you attend.”
His words were pleasing, but she saw, with sorrow, that he did not smile at her, not even his half-smile. His eyes appeared steely, and, lit with Jewel’s aura, more intense than before. His long black curls tumbled from his crown, like a lion’s mane.
