Carolina lifted her eyes to his and saw that miraculously he had divested himself of coat and shoes and stockings whilst she was easing her gown from her body. He looked so strong and sure standing there in trousers and shirt, his sun-darkened skin dramatic against the white cambric and froth of lace. More the buccaneer she remembered from Tortuga, less the English gentleman he had become in the Colonies and in London. He was marvellous - and he was hers. Her heart went out to him and for a moment all that she felt for him was reflected in her luminous silver eyes.
Briefly her fingers hesitated at the riband drawstring that held up her delicate white chemise.
Rye,’ she asked softly. ‘Have you something to tell me?’ For all this evening she had sensed a difference in him and she hoped against hope that he would tell her that he had somehow straightened out his difficulties, that he would never leave her.
Did his lean body tense? Or did she only imagine it?
‘Nothing that won’t keep till morning,’ he said cryptically. His keen grey eyes were moving leisurely up and down her slim form, almost naked to his gaze in the near transparency of her sheer chemise.
So he wanted to make love first and then awaken her with his good news, she thought contentedly - and with the thought she pulled the white riband drawstring.
The delicate fabric seemed to collapse about her, slithering down her body to lie in a fluffy white heap around her slender bare ankles until she stood quivering in the light of that single candle, naked to his burning gaze.
‘God, you’re lovely,’ he said huskily. ‘And never lovelier than tonight. No, don’t move. I want to view you just as you are.’
He was divesting himself of his remaining clothing as he spoke, but his hot gaze never left her. She could feel its pressure, as if he would devour her with his eyes. Up and down his gaze swept her, moving from throat to breast, from breast to hip, from hip to thigh - and back again. It was like an intimate caress. Carolina felt her own woman’s body grow taut and expectant under the intensity of his eyes.
Her heart was pounding as his trousers were flung away. And then in a single long step he was beside her. With one hand at the small of her back he bent her resilient form backwards, so that her neck arched upward, swanlike, for a long delightful kiss. His warm lips brushed teasingly over hers and then settled down to enjoy. The tip of his tongue roved over her mouth and then probed artfully inside, exploring what - although surely by now familiar ground - was an ever new and absorbing adventure.
And then inexorably his dark head was moving downwards, his lips brushing lightly across her pulsing white throat, moving across the satin smoothness of her boson to the delicate swell of her breasts. His lips danced tantalizingly over their soft smooth rounded surface and he nipped and nibbled at her nipples while she started and writhed in his arms, making soft blurred protest never meant to deter him.
His wandering lips passed on, seeking new delights moving down to her waist, across the sleek, yielding flesh of her stomach. He set his strong teeth lightly into one hip, laughed softly as she quivered in whispering protest—and moved on, exploring forbidden places, bringing forth shivers and sighs.
He cradled her soft buttocks in his two hands and lifted her - with her arms twined round his neck and eyes like stars on a misty night - to the big bed. They sank into it together, rapt in each other, alone in the world.
All his masculine arts he used tonight, bringing to the woman’s body a glow of passion, a stirring yearning. Accomplished lover that he was, he took no heed of his own wants or needs but drove her ever onwards, spurring her desire until she almost wept and clung to him moaning softly.
Then and only then did he deftly enter her - and she was more than ready to receive him. She welcomed him with every fibre of her being, clung to him, ran her slim white fingers over his naked back. His long muscular legs pressed tight against her yielding thighs. His grip upon her grew of a sudden tighter, his lips more urgent, and they were drifting together in a rhythmic mating dance somewhere beyond earth, beyond time, where the world had no meaning and nothing mattered beyond this night and this moment.
But even this was not to end it. On and on he led her skilfully spiralling to the highest vault of heaven, leading her up a golden stair where they shimmered, disembodied, creatures of feeling, creatures of light.
Their pleasure became a tumbling torrent of madness, a whirlwind of ecstasy until - lost in each other - the world seemed to shatter about them into shards of sweetness, and the glow they felt was so beautiful it was not, could not be real.
Shimmering down from the heights, still held loosely in his arms, Carolina wondered if ever before in time there had been such a lover.
Rye leant over then and with his fingers snuffed out the bedside candle. ‘We have no need of light tonight, Carolina - you make your own light for me,’ he murmured.
And with that he began to make love to her again - even more slowly, more magically this time. And their desire became a raging torrent, and the torrent a mighty ocean until in a last vast tidal wave of emotion they were swept away again and washed up on some distant shore together—fulfilled.
Moments passed, moments of golden afterglow.
Then Rye lifted himself on one arm and smiled down upon his lady. Her dark fluttering lashes opened and she smiled up at him lazily. And opened her arms to him in a mocking gesture of surrender.
‘My Colonial minx . . .’ he murmured and bent to plant a last kiss upon the pulsing pink-crested tip of each of her delicate breasts.
Carolina stretched luxuriously, deliberately tempting him.
‘Go to sleep,’ he said with a low laugh, and rumpled her hair. And more softly, ‘And dream of me.’
Carolina did. All the cobwebs with which the week had been plagued had somehow been swept away tonight, and she went to sleep knowing that her fears had been unfounded. Rye had not meant to neglect her - he had merely been occupied with other things. And he loved her. So much. He had proved that tonight, with the delicacy and ardour of his lovemaking.
She nestled down into the bed, a woman secure.
Her dreams were lovely ones, adrift in the arms of love - and she awakened to the scraping of boots and the light clank of a scabbard that hit the door as it was opened.
She sat up, startled. It was still dark, no candle had been lit, but the door was open a bit and a man’s tall figure was discernible against the dimness of the hall.
‘Is that you, Rye?’ she said, confused.
‘Yes,’ came Rye’s voice. ‘I am sorry I woke you.’
‘But - why rise so early?’ She was leaning on her elbow now, peering at him through the darkness.
‘I sail with the tide at dawn,’ he said simply. ‘I had thought it best to let Andrew tell you, but since you are awake I will tell you myself.’ He closed the door and crossed the room to her, bent down and took her in his arms. The cloth of his coat brushed her naked breasts and his shoulder-length dark hair spilled over her cheeks to mingle with her own blonde tresses as he embraced her. ‘I will eat a quick bite of breakfast downstairs,’ he said, ‘and be gone. ’Tis best you go back to sleep.’
‘Oh, no!’ she cried, distressed, trying to struggle up. ‘I’ll dress and have breakfast with you.’
‘No.’ He shook his head with decision. ‘My breakfast already awaits me downstairs for I left strict instructions.’
‘But you can’t go! You have not yet rounded up all the men you need,’ she protested. ‘They are still straggling in and you are still short-handed - you told me so!’
‘I will pick up the men I need in Plymouth,’ he said.
‘Wait then - I will have this breakfast with you.’
No, Carolina.’ He pressed her gently back upon the bed. ‘Once dressed and breakfasting downstairs, you will be wanting next to accompany me to the docks - and I have no desire to have you bid me a weeping farewell dockside. Better far to remember you like this.’ His hands slid down her bare body, for she had felt no
need of a night garment on this warm night.
‘Oh, Rye,’ she whispered, straining against him. ‘I don’t want you to go!’
‘Nor have I any wish to leave you,’ he sighed. ‘But I go because I must, Carolina. Let me remember you like this.’
‘Then take me with you!’ she wailed.
He sighed. ‘This is why I had hoped to be gone before you waked. There will be danger where I am going, Carolina, and I will not drag you into it.’
‘But - ’
‘Andrew will take you and your sister home to Essex and there you will await my return. Should aught happen to me, Andrew will have a way of finding out and my London agent will see that you are well provided for. Meantime, I have given Andrew a sum of money and I have left a purse of gold on the table here which should be enough for your needs.’
He would have risen then but she clung to his sleeve and brushed aside the pale shawl of her hair that kept her from seeing him in the darkness.
‘But you cannot leave me here!’ she cried desperately. ‘I belong beside you, whatever happens!’
‘Nonsense.’ His voice roughened. ‘You belong where you are safe.’
He was deaf to her pleadings, to her threats. She could almost see his face in the darkness turn stony as he repeated, ‘Andrew will look after you.’ He opened the door and closed it behind him. With finality.
He was gone.
Carolina, left behind in the big bed, knew it was useless to rail at him, to run after him. But perhaps there was a way!
She scrambled up and dressed with nervous haste, donning the first thing that came to hand - the dramatic gown she had worn last night. Her fingers stumbled over the hooks but at last she got enough of them fastened for decency, although they weren’t all hooked. She ignored the panniers and let the dress flow free from the waist. With fingers made awkward by hurry she got her hair into some kind of semblance of neatness. Her legs were at last encased in stockings, her feet shod in last night’s dancing slippers when she reached the door
Ah - there was one last thing she must do!
She sat down at the little portable writing desk and opened its slanted top, took out inkwell and quill and parchment. To Virginia she penned a brief note.
Rye has changed his mind, and he is taking me with him. No time to pack. Please take my things to Essex - and wear anything of mine that you choose. Wish me well.
She signed it with a flourish - Carolina. And she slipped the folded note under Virginia’s door. Rye had left her a purse of gold and now she snatched it up for she would need money for her fare to the dock - and that was where she was going, there to melt into his arms and let her warm body persuade him where her arguments had not, to take her with him on this doubtful venture to find that other ‘Captain Kells’ who prowled the Caribbean pirating ships in another man’s name.
But she must be careful. Rye might hesitate to leave her standing alone and unprotected in a ball gown at dawn on the docks, for fear something might happen to her. That alone might be sufficient to persuade him to take her along. But downstairs over his breakfast he would merely drag her back upstairs and lock her in.
She slipped the small bag of gold coins into her velvet purse. Then she stole from the room and took up a position at the head of the stairs from whence she had a clear view of the inn’s front door.
Rye had eaten quickly. In only a few moments she saw his tall form go striding out into the street. She fled down the stairs after him, and as she reached the door she heard him hailing a hackney coach outside.
Breathless, she waited until the clatter of the horses’ hooves across the cobbles told her he was gone. Then she ventured outside and hurried to another of the hackney coaches that waited patiently for passengers outside such a popular inn.
‘Stay behind that coach just ahead,’ she told the driver. ‘We are going to the docks.’
Rye had not seen her come out of the inn, she was sure of that. Indeed he had not looked back at all. He had clapped his tricorne hat more firmly on his head in the brisk morning breeze that swept in over the Thames and sprung into the hackney coach with determination - all that she had seen through the crack of the door. And now his coach was jogging over the cobbles just ahead with her own following sedately behind it.
On through a sleepy London they clattered, a London just rising, with hawkers just starting out on their rounds, and apprentices running so as not to be late, and yawning chambermaids carelessly throwing slops out of second-floor windows into the gutters of the narrow streets.
They had reached the docks now with dawn just pinkening the eastern sky, and she saw Rye alight and pay the driver. Before her lay a forest of ships, at anchor in the Thames. Her eyes picked out among them the lean lines of the Sea Waif - and she wondered for a moment if Rye would have the name changed back to Sea Wolf once he was at sea. But chiefly her mind was on what to say to him, what torrent of words could be so persuasive as to make him change his mind. She would throw herself into his arms first, of course - and cling to him sobbing. She had got as far as that.
She decided it was best not to follow too near in the coach, for he well might fling her back into it with a brusque order to the driver to ‘Return the lady to her inn!’ Rye had dismissed his own hackney coach and Carolina shrank back when he glanced briefly in the direction of her conveyance. Then she leant out and hissed at her driver to pull up and wait.
She was about to leap out of the coach impulsively and run to his side when another coach pulled up - this one a private coach, black with a coat of arms glittering on its side.
Rye’s attention was now centred on that coach - indeed Carolina had the sudden feeling that he might have been watching it arrive when his gaze had swiftly raked her own less splendid conveyance. To her surprise, he stepped forward and opened the door and a lithe lady swathed in black allowed herself to be helped down. She arched her neck to look up at him and the black lace mantilla that covered her head blew back from her face to reveal a beautiful imperious countenance that Carolina had seen once before.
It was the face of that woman whose mask she had knocked off at the theatre, that woman at sight of whom Rye had turned ashen and muttered to her curious question that he thought he had seen a ghost. It was the wife of the Spanish ambassador he was helping alight upon the London docks at dawn!
Rye’s back was to Carolina and she could not see his expression but the woman - before she adjusted her mantilla to cover her features again - had smiled up at him with a look of languorous appeal.
Stiff with shock, Carolina watched him take her arm and guide her to a waiting longboat, saw him lift her carefully in, saw her settle those wide black taffeta skirts around her, saw the two of them - along with the lady’s boxes - rowed out to the waiting Sea Waif, saw them go aboard.
It was only then, when they had disappeared from view on board the vessel, that the full import of what she had just seen crashed in on her.
Rye was running away - and with the wife of the Spanish ambassador!
The Fleet Street bride had gambled - and lost.
DRURY LANE, LONDON
Summer 1689
19
When, outside the theatre just before the performance of The Roaring Girl, Carolina had inadvertently knocked off a passing lady’s mask and revealed the face of Rosalia to him, Rye Evistock had felt such a shock go through his tall frame as even a Spanish rapier run through his body when he had near lost his footing on the deck of a dying galleon had not been able to give him. Almost he had gasped her name.
But then - with the same lightning swiftness that had characterized him that day on the galleon - he had got hold of himself. On the galleon’s deck he had let himself fall backward away from the blade and even as he did so, another buccaneer had slashed with a cutlass at his Spanish attacker’s throat. The fellow had fallen backward, choking and spurting blood, and had lost his grip on the rapier. The battle had surged past them and Rye had seized the blade and carefully withdrawn
it from his body.
The feeling of quivering pain that had shuddered through him then had been much the same as he had felt when the beautiful arrogant face before him - so patently Rosalia’s in every detail - had denied him recognition. That olive-toned high-cheekboned face had neither flushed nor assumed an added pallor. That aquiline nose had seemed to lift to a slightly haughtier manner. Those large dark eyes in which he had once thought to drown had shown no visible recognition. Those thin expressive lips he had on privileged occasions kissed had not by so much as a quiver told him she remembered.
And like that long-ago wound taken on the deck of a Spanish galleon, he had wanted at the moment nothing so much as to crawl away and find a convenient hole to die in.
For at sight of her all his memories had come rushing back to overwhelm him, memories as vivid as if they had happened but yesterday and he was once again that counterfeit Spaniard, Diego Viajar, protégé of kindly Don Ignacio Saavedra, and madly in love with Don Ignacio’s young daughter, Rosalia.
Those memories had held him rigid for several heartbeats while his arm automatically rescued Carolina from falling, but he had stared white-faced at this suddenly resurrected Rosalia - and seen in her no sign at all that she knew him.
Then the lady had snatched up her mask, replaced it and swept on beside the swarthy dark man who looked at Rye Evistock darkly but also without recognition. The man was Sancho, whom the Spanish ambassador’s lady had long ago charmed to her will.
It was not Rosalia, of course, Rye told himself. How could it be? Had he not seen Rosalia die, crumple in her wedding gown to a mass of bloody white lace beneath Don Carlos’s sword in that twilit courtyard in Salamanca?
There was a glaze of sweat on his brow now.
Windsong Page 28
