She did, but glanced over at him. “Barataria?”
He nodded but said nothing else.
Jamie didn't push it. He'd been incredibly attentive and playful in the shower. He'd spent more time staring at her over breakfast than eating.
Ree had been disgustingly giddy on the phone when Jamie told her why she needed to take the day off. She'd tried to apologize for the last-minute notice, but Ree wouldn't hear it. Of course, she'd want to hear everything later. Right now, even the prospect of one of Ree's interrogations didn't bother Jamie.
Her thoughts were focused on Sebastien and this mission they were on. He'd been quiet since they left the Quarter. His eyes had stayed on the road ahead, but his hand was on her thigh, or her shoulder, or mindlessly twiddling strands of the hair she'd left down this morning. His touch was a constant reassurance when her mind wanted to race off in all sorts of terrifying directions. Somehow this was all going to end up okay. Whatever he had in store, she wouldn't disappoint him. Or herself.
It was a revelation, this partnership they'd forged. Unlike any she'd ever entered into. Her smile faded as her thoughts turned helplessly to their future. What lay in store for them?
“Turn here,” he directed.
“This leads back to national park land.”
“I know.”
Jamie didn't know much about Barataria, other than it was threaded with swamps and bayous and home to a still-thriving fishing community. It was also originally famous—or infamous—as the place where the Laffite brothers had created their pirate den. She swallowed hard and her hands tightened on the steering wheel. No way was this a coincidence.
The entrance to the park loomed ahead. “Do I go in?”
“Oui.” He pointed. “Follow the signs that way.”
She wove the car around and through the park until they were in the farthest corner.
Sebastien directed her to the side of the road. “Park there.”
Jamie cut the engine before turning to look at him, but he was already getting out of the car. “Can you tell me now?”
“Non. We are not there yet. Follow me. Be careful.”
Jamie didn't argue. Panic was gaining an edge, and she focused on his path to keep her thoughts from pushing her over the edge. She quickly realized why he'd insisted that she wear her rubber boots. He entered the woods and brush, walking confidently along an unseen path. The ground was alternately boggy and muddy. He held out his hand occasionally to help her over the worst of it. They ended up at the end of a bayou in an area of the park that looked as if no one had ever visited it before.
He took her hand and led her to a particularly huge cypress tree. “This is what I wanted to show you.”
She stared at him. “A tree?”
He shook his head, then smiled. She wasn't as reassured as she'd like to be. There was still worry in his eyes, and a trace of fear.
He pulled her to him for a kiss. It deepened quickly and almost went beyond control before he finally managed to disengage. They were both breathing heavily. He leaned his forehead on hers, clutching her shoulders tightly. “I've never brought anyone here. Well, not since … not for many years,” he said.
“Since when?” Jamie hadn't missed his pause. “Who did you bring here last?” She felt a shiver race over her skin despite the thick humidity.
“I will explain, but first I want to show you this.” He turned to the tree, and moments later a large piece of the trunk was removed. Sebastien reached inside the dark, musty interior and drew out a cloth-covered box about the size of a large shoe box. Jamie couldn't help but gasp when he tossed the oiled flaps of the cloth back to reveal a jewel-encrusted box.
“My God,” she whispered. The metal was tarnished and black, but the jewels shone brightly even in the dappled sunlight that filtered through the trees. “Where did you get that?”
“My last run with Dominique. To what is now Haiti. We encountered a brigantine on our return. We were victorious and brought back its spoils.” He looked at her. “Guns, gems, foodstuffs. And men and women bound for slavery.”
“What?” She lifted her gaze from the box to him. “Slavery? What did you do with them?”
“This was my share,” he said, refusing to answer the question. “This box. I had hiding places for several of my rewards. The rest I kept with Jean and his men. But we all were well aware that the political climate changed with serendipitous rapidity. It was always wise to have something to fall back on were we to be raided.” He looked at her. “This and several other stores are still in their original hiding places. When I come back, this is how I fund my time here.” He opened the box to reveal a small pile of coins. “I sell one or two of these to a coin dealer. They weren't worth as much originally, but now it usually doesn't take more than one or two.”
Jamie tried to take it all in. “And no one questions how you came to own them?”
“They aren't as rare as that. Many a story can cover their history. I generally say they have been passed down through time in my family. Not so far from the truth.” Again he smiled, but there was sadness in it.
Jamie picked up several of the coins and examined them, then put them back and turned her attention to him. He seemed to be waiting for her reaction, so she gave him one. “If you brought me here to prove that you are what you claim to be, it was unnecessary. You know that.”
“I do. And that wasn't the reason, although I did want you to know about this. In case—”
Now she was alarmed. “Don't. I wouldn't do anything with this.” She gestured to the box. “It's yours, and it will remain safe here as it has for hundreds of years.”
“There is more I must explain.”
Jamie breathed out a sigh. “I'm not so sure we need to do this, Sebastien.” She raised her hand. “I know, I know, you want me to trust you. I do. But if you could just explain the big picture here, it would greatly alleviate a lot of panic I'm trying really hard to pretend I don't feel.”
He motioned to a fallen tree. “Sit. Please.”
“Only if you'll sit beside me.” She had an almost desperate need to keep him close. As if being able to reach out and touch him at any given moment provided security of some kind.
He covered the box and set it on the tree, then knelt in front of her, taking her hands in both of his. “I have spent most of the night trying to divine a way to ensure that we have a future. A future together.”
Now her heart went into triple time. “I want that too, more than anything, you know that, but—”
“Please let me talk, Jamie.”
She nodded, but it was a hard-won silence.
“This was the last place I was on this earth as a normal, mortal man.” M
The heart that had sped up so stopped completely for one beat, then another, before resuming a shaky cadence.
“We had made plans to return the people on the ship to their homes, the ones who wanted to go. There was one, a young woman, Yolande, who wished to stay here.” He looked into her eyes. “With me.”
Jamie felt her throat tighten. “Did you love her? Or think you did?”
“Non. But she fancied herself a future here with me. A future I repeatedly explained would not happen. I did not want her permanently in my life. My life was not one conducive to home and hearth—at least, I could not envision myself in such a lifestyle. I brought her here, away from the others, to explain.”
Jamie's eyes went wide as she put it together. “Oriane. The priestess you said cursed you. Yolande must have been her—”
“Daughter. Oui. And her maman was quite upset with her plans to stay with me. I was unaware then that Oriane was a tribal priestess back on their island, very powerful, and was grooming Yolande to take her place. She came looking for her daughter.”
“And found her here, with you.”
He nodded. “I was brash and quite bold, and Yolande was very determined. I thought her quite the experienced seductress and I wanted her badly, but I'd made it clear we had no fut
ure and she had finally agreed. She told me she would return with her mother, but she would go back on her own terms. And those terms included having me once before she left. I saw no harm in complying with her wishes.”
Understanding dawned on Jamie. “Her mother re-ally found you. Together.”
He nodded again. “Oriane was outraged that I had defiled her daughter. I had no idea Yolande was a virgin until it was too late.”
“You're lucky Oriane didn't kill you.”
“In a manner of speaking, she did just that.”
Jamie squeezed his hand then. “Oh, Sebastien,” she whispered, her throat burning.
Sebastien held on to her hand just as tightly. “She claimed that I took the body of a woman, with no thought to her soul. She told me I was incapable of understanding the true value of what is supposed to be between a man and woman. Therefore, my eternity would be spent creating situations whereby men and women would forge these bonds. It would be my responsibility to see to it that they be happily ever after in love.”
“So your punishment was also meant to be a learning experience.”
“I suppose, although I must say I didn't see it as such. Certainly not in the beginning.” He looked at her. “Perhaps not until now.”
Jamie didn't know what to say to that. “But you did eventually find happiness with your fate.”
“Mais oui, I did.” Sebastien smiled, and this time Jamie was heartened to see it reach his eyes. “But through all those years and all my escapades, my heart remained intact, mine to direct at will. I honestly thought it impossible that I'd ever lose control of it.” He cupped her face. “Until you played pirate queen and released me from my sword. I think a part of me knew that very night that I was facing my destiny.”
Jamie smiled in return. “And I thought you were a lunatic left over from Mardi Gras.” She wanted so badly to join in the pleasure of this moment, to tease and laugh and revel in the blossoming of their love for each other. For although he hadn't said it, she knew without doubt what his feelings were. But she couldn't relinquish the hold on the dark cloud that seemed to hover just above them. They weren't carefree lovers in the throes of new love.
She grew more serious, and he did as well. He pulled her to a stand. “There is something else I have to tell you. If I thought withholding it would change things, I would.”
She tried to pull her hands free, panic beginning to rise. “What are you talking about?”
He held her hands tightly, almost too tightly. “Jamie, listen to what I am about to tell you, and hold it close to your heart always, for I cannot predict what will happen the moment I am done.”
“You're scaring me. If you think what you're about to say will change things for the worse, then don't say it. I know everything I need to know. I lo—”
He stopped her with his lips. His kiss was hard and desperate and did nothing to assuage the terror building inside her. She broke free from the kiss and tried to pull her hands away, but still he would not let her.
“Let's go home,” she said, knowing the panic was as clear on her face as it was in her voice. “Everything will be fine. We'll be together and we'll figure out what you're going to do with yourself and—”
“Jamie, hush.”
She did, but her eyes burned with unshed tears. “Don't do this,” she whispered. “Please.”
“We can't simply return to New Orleans and pretend everything is normal. It isn't. I was brought here by your summons to match three souls. I have matched two of them.”
He looked intently into her eyes, and Jamie felt her heart grow heavy in her chest as the realization of what he was saying washed over her. She held on to him.
“No!”
He nodded. “Yes. You are my third match.”
“But … what will happen? You can't make a match with me and just disappear. I mean, how is that happily ever after?”
“I don't know.” He looked as bereft as she felt.
It was all she could do not to throw herself to his feet and beg him to somehow change the course of his destiny.
He pulled her to the tree, then reached inside and retrieved another wrapped parcel. This one was much bigger and longer than the jeweled box. She knew with a certain dread exactly what it was even before he unwrapped it. “No, I don't want it! You can't make me take the sword back.”
He pulled the cloth free. The glorious scabbard gleamed in the shards of sunlight. “I must present this to you, ma maîtresse.”
Tears burned their way past her eyes and streamed down her face. “How can you do this? You said you'd never hurt me. You are destroying me.”
His own eyes burned with a fierce need that all but undid her. “Do you think I don't bear the cost of this too? Do you think that if there were any way to leave my business on earth unfinished that I wouldn't?” Color rose in his cheeks, and a sudden breeze lifted his hair in a dark halo around his head. “I could do that only if you remained unmatched.” He looked directly into her eyes. “Can you tell me truthfully that your heart is not matched to mine?”
Tears tracked a steady path down her cheeks. She shook her head. “No. I love you, Sebastien. With all my heart and soul, as I have never loved anyone.”
She hadn't known his eyes could reflect more emotion than she'd seen in them a moment before, but they did. He took her mouth in a kiss that left her feeling branded to her soul. And perhaps she was. Had been, since that first kiss they'd shared the night she'd summoned him forth.
He trailed his fingers down her face in a lingering caress, then pushed the tip of the scabbard into the soft ground beside her feet.
Jamie wanted to yell, scream, and defy this moment to the end. She wanted to hurl the sword and its damned curse into the murky depths of the bayou, never to be seen again.
But she was riveted to the spot on which she stood, held there by the power of his gaze. “You said the people you match don't remember your role in their lives. You can't mean to tell me that I'm going to forget you.” A sob rose in her throat, threatening to choke her. Surely the fates would not be so cruel as to rob her of everything, including her memory of him?
He pulled her into his arms. “I do not know what is in store for either of us. But I do know this.” He pulled back enough to look at her. “These are words I have waited a lifetime to say. Several lifetimes.” He bent and brushed the softest of kisses to her lips, then gazed steadily into her eyes. “You are my one and only. A soul to match that of a man who didn't believe he had one. Only with you would I find eternal happiness. And if I were to die in this instant, I would know and cherish into all eternity the blessed gift of your love for me.” His voice grew hoarse, his eyes glassy. “I love you, Jamie Lynne Sullivan. With all my tarnished heart and soul.”
Jamie flung her arms around his neck, as if she could prevent whatever was to happen next by the sheer force of her physical strength.
His arms came around her as well, and she poured her heart and soul into believing the strength she felt there, firmly anchoring her to him, uniting them against the fates.
In the next instant, a bolt of light descended from the cloudless sky. It struck the hilt of the sword and bathed the entire length of it in a brilliant blue light.
Chapter 25
Jamie and Sebastien clung to each other as the impact rocked the ground beneath their feet. The light grew until they were both forced to look away.
When the glow faded, they turned to look once again.
A short, dark-skinned woman stood several feet away.
“Where did she come from?” Jamie whispered. But she was afraid she knew the answer. She wanted to look at Sebastien, but she couldn't take her eyes off the woman.
She was clothed in a sarong-type outfit of brightly woven orange and red fabric, shot through with gold threads that caught the sun and reflected it back like sparks. Her hair was wrapped in a turban of similar fabric. Her skin was very dark and smooth, so that her eyes were almost luminous as she stared at them. And
yet Jamie knew this was not a young woman but a very old one.
“Oriane.” Sebastien turned toward the woman, keeping his arm tightly around Jamie's waist.
The woman nodded. “It is me, returning to you once again.” The musical lilt of the Caribbean colored her voice.
“But how—”
She waved a graceful hand. “Ask not how, Sebastien Valentin. You of all men know there is more to this world than what you can see or touch.”
“Why do you return?”
She nodded toward Jamie, who found herself standing taller, not loosening her grip on Sebastien's waist. They had come this far together; she would fight to the end to ensure that they stayed together.
The woman smiled, her teeth a surprisingly white slash that matched her eyes in luminosity. “You are a strong one, mam'selle,” she said, nodding in approval. “I suppose I should not be surprised that Sebastien would settle for one such as you. He will need your strength just now.”
Jamie shivered, certain that the woman had read her thoughts. “He has it, and my love and devotion.”
Another approving nod. And yet Jamie didn't feel the threat lessen.
Oriane turned to Sebastien. “My Yolande didn't have the strength or fortitude of character such as this one. I knew that. She never understood.” She stepped closer, and Jamie gripped Sebastien's hand and held her ground, as did he.
Oriane pulled the sword from the ground and ran a loving hand down the scabbard. “I did not curse you to punish you, Sebastien. Or to punish my Yolande, foolish girl that she was.” She shook her head, and suddenly the look in her eyes made her look every year as old as she most likely was. “I had such hopes for her. But it was when I looked upon you, saw the magic in your old soul, that I knew it was you I was destined to teach, not her.”
“Teach me?” Sebastien said with a touch of disbelief. “You have odd methods of schooling, if I may say so, madame.”
“What I had to impart I knew you would not listen to in any other way. You had to learn yourself to openup your heart to the possibilities that exist between a man and woman.” She smiled then, and it was as surprisingly beautiful this time as before. It reached her eyes and made Jamie feel warm, as if the sun shone only on those Oriane looked upon. Ridiculous, but she could not shake the feeling.
Your Wish Is My Command Page 26
