A protest rose inside her, but was silenced by the rich rise of sensation as he closed his hand over the soft mound under her bodice and brushed its peak with his thumb. The rapture of it spiraled through her, sending a shiver of intense pleasure deep into the lower part of her body.
It was a pleasure the privateer tended with myriad caresses. He trailed a line of fiery kisses from the corner of her mouth to the turn of her jaw and down the curve of her neck to the hollow of her throat. He paused there, dipping into the small depression with the wet warmth of his tongue, tasting her skin with such consummate refinement that she was too charmed to notice the unfastening of her gown until she felt the waft of cool air on her bare skin.
Then his warm breath, his lips and tongue were upon the trembling globes of her breasts. Lost in rapture, she felt the rush of the blood in her veins, and with it the burgeoning of ardor and a wanton disregard for causes or consequences that she had not known she could feel. With swirling tongue and moist adhesion, he fed that ardor and its companion wantonness until the muscles of her abdomen convulsed in a thrill of purest delight.
To pretend disinterest would be futile. She opened her arms with languid and forthright grace, allowing him access to her body, aiding him as he slid the whispering silk of her gown and undergarments over her hips. She reached to tug his shirt from the waist of his breeches, smoothing her palm over the board hardness of his belly as he rid himself of his clothes and boots and turned to her once more.
The night was long and dark around them; there was no reason for haste. With eager mouths and questing fingertips, searing wants and fierce restraint, they sought each other on the quilts. They traced the curves and hollows, the springing hardness and liquid softness of each other’s bodies, learning the texture and tone of skin and hair, the shaping of the bones beneath, the sites of utmost response, the quivering limits of endurance. In these rites they never spoke aloud, only whispering a word, loosing a sigh or startled gasp. There was in it something of instinct augmented by carefully gathering signals, of generosity and the ultimate grace of concern. With these things they stretched the very fabric of mutual desire until it throbbed with unbearable tautness between them, refined and thinned so that there shone through it the illumination of some emotion so near to love it would do, this once, for a substitute.
Shuddering, gasping, they moved together then. He placed his knee between her smooth thighs, parting them, fitting his hardness to her softness in fevered, inevitable joining.
Elene felt an instant of burning pain, but it was gone almost before it could register in the glowing recesses of her mind, banished by vital, encompassing ecstasy. Striving, she soared, locked in the elemental dance of life, taking the shocks of Ryan’s thrusts, feeling her interior being splintered and reforming into a creature abandoned in her need. She wanted him deep, deep inside, and with the wish, rose against him in heated and trembling demand. He met it with unstinting effort, taking her higher, farther from herself, mounting to a plane unthought of, one from which there might be no return.
And there in that rarefied place they found, in defiance of the carnage of death that hovered beyond their refuge, the reverberating glory that in its abundance is the best, and perhaps the only real, affirmation of life.
They collapsed upon each other with heaving chests and racking breaths. The surface of their skin was heated and dewed with perspiration, their muscles quivered. Their hearts jarred against their ribs. They lay with eyes tightly closed and minds stunned to blankness. The closeness of the air in their hole was like a pall in which hung the vivid fragrance of roses and gardenias and something more that defied a name.
Ryan, his forehead resting between the firm twin hills of Elene’s breasts, drew a breath that penetrated to the depths of his lungs. Exhaling on a soft, replete laugh, he said, “God, but you smell delicious.”
What had she done?
Elene’s eyes flew open and she stared fixedly into the darkness. Not once had she thought of the perfume. In fact, she had thought of remarkably little except the effect of Ryan’s kisses and caresses. She had failed entirely to consider the effect she might be having on him.
Oh, but there was nothing to Devota’s elaborate promises and warnings. Devota had only been trying to reassure her, to reconcile her to marriage with a man she did not love and of whom she was wary. Devota had meant merely to calm her bridal nerves. That was all. Surely that was all?
Elene had never attracted such a response from a man before. There had never been the opportunity, of course; she had never been with a man before in the same way. Still, Durant had never seemed in danger of being overcome with such desire for her, and hadn’t there been something in the way Ryan Bayard had looked at her from the first, some extra intensity of interest? He had saved her life, which might account for it. And yet…
She didn’t want to believe it, wouldn’t believe it. Such things as Voudou spells and charms were mere superstition. They worked only because ignorant and gullible people expected them to work, and so let their minds be swayed by those who would manipulate them. She was neither ignorant nor gullible. What had taken place between Ryan and herself was the natural result of throwing a man and a woman together in a tight space under strained circumstances.
“What’s it called?” Ryan’s voice was deep, lazy.
“What?”
“Your perfume. Does it have a name?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Don’t you know? I thought most women kept up with such things.”
Reluctantly she said, “This one is … special.”
“I thought I had never smelled it before. Did you have a perfumer make it up for you while you were in France?”
“Does it matter?”
He shifted his weight from her, turning to his back and pillowing his head upon her rib cage. “I was just curious. Perfumes make up a fair amount of the cargoes I come across from time to time.”
“Particularly on French vessels?”
“As you say. Is it your private scent?”
His curiosity was excessive. Or perhaps it was simply that there was little else to think or talk about. Certainly she could bring to mind no other subject to distract him. “As a matter of fact, Devota made it for me.”
“Did she?” He went on with a touch of wryness. “I don’t suppose there’s much chance of running across it again, then, is there?”
“It … isn’t likely.”
Her voice as she spoke was stiff, the words curt. Ryan turned his head, listening to the echoes. A frown pulled his brows together. “Is something wrong?” He rolled to his side, reaching out to touch her face. “Did I hurt you? I realize you were—”
“No, of course not.” She had no wish to discuss her innocence with him.
“I would apologize in form, if it would help, only it seems a little late.”
“Yes, please don’t.”
“In truth, I never really meant to go so far. I just — you were so sweet and felt so good, and your perfume seemed to go to my head.”
“It was altogether my own fault, in fact. I understand.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No, I did.” The bleakness of her tone came from the creeping realization that she should be lamenting her lost virginity. It had been wrong of her to give it so easily, wrong to enjoy the giving, or so she had been taught. Doubtless she would regret it in the morning. For now, it seemed right, beyond belief, but right.
“Well it isn’t so,” he said, his voice hardening. He sat up. “I wanted to comfort you, and I had to quiet you down.”
“Thank you very much,” she said in exaggerated courtesy. “You did an excellent job of both.”
Ryan was silent a moment. When he spoke again the words were even, exact, and without heat. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounds, any of it. I have no excuse. I wanted you from the first. When I found a reason to touch you, I wanted you more. That’s all there is to it.”
Such ho
nesty, and chivalry, deserved a return. “Well, you needn’t be such a martyr about it. I wanted you, too.”
“Did you?” The slow grin curving his mouth crept, rich and humor-laden, into his tone. “And what about now?”
“You mean—”
“I mean,” he answered, moving to recline once more beside her, pressing firmly against her thigh, “do you feel the same? Because you can certainly have any of me you want, and as much.”
“Again?” She could not hide her surprise.
“And again, and again.”
“Because I smell delicious?” The words were tentative.
“And taste delicious,” he said, lowering his mouth to the peak of her breast, sliding his hand down her abdomen toward the apex of her legs, “and feel delicious. And the little sounds you make are delicious.”
“So long,” she said with a sudden catch in her voice, “as they are not too loud. The sounds?”
“I don’t care how much noise you make,” he whispered.
It was not the gray light of morning that woke them, though they saw it, coming apparently from some vent or crack in the foundation of the house, when they opened their eyes. What had roused them was a bumping, scraping noise from above them. Ryan raised his head. Elene, lying in his arms with her head nestled in the hollow of his shoulder, did the same. The noise came again.
“Devota,” Elene said. If it was Dessalines and his army, the scraping and bumping would be a good deal more violent. Suddenly she sat upright. She was naked. So was Ryan. Shock brushed her, then she remembered. Heat surged to her face.
There came the sound of another chair being pulled back from the table above. The trapdoor would open at any moment. That Devota might see her unclothed mattered little, but there was nothing to say that she would be alone. Favier might be dithering around behind her, peering down at them, ready to attempt to persuade them to leave again.
Elene looked around wildly for her gown and petticoats — there was no time for undergarments. She flung the torn silk gown over her head, thrusting her arms into the sleeves and settling it over her breasts before whipping down the skirt. She could always pretend, if any comment was made, that she had removed her undergarments for coolness.
Beside her, Ryan was pushing his long legs into his breeches and doing up the buttons on each side of the front flap. He threw her a quick grin as he ran a hand through his hair, then reached for his shirt. He had it half on when he suddenly stopped, yanked it off, turned it right side out, then put it on again.
The trapdoor creaked as it was hauled upward. In spite of the faint lightening of the gloom around them with the coming of daylight, they blinked, squinting like moles at the brilliance of the morning sunlight that poured through the dining room windows. So bright was it that for long moments Devota was no more than a silhouette against it.
“Take this, please,” she said. “Be careful, it’s hot.”
She was handing down a tinware pot of coffee. Ryan reached to catch the cloth-wrapped bail of the pot and set the full container on the floor. Devota then handed him a pair of coffee cups and a bowl of fruit, and after that a large can of hot water, a cake of soap, and a cloth. From her apron pocket she took out a small comb which she tossed to Elene.
Elene’s thanks were fervent, and Ryan added his own. The woman waved them aside. “If there is anything else you need, tell me quickly.”
Elene looked rather self-consciously at Ryan who shook his head. Devota, a shrewd expression in her eyes, gazed down for an instant at the two of them, taking inventory of their half-dressed state. A faint smile touched her mouth and was gone. She looked at Elene.
“I must go then. I will attend you this evening, chère, after everyone is abed. Take care.”
“You also.”
“Always.”
The trapdoor closed. The chairs were replaced above them, then Devota’s footsteps receded.
Elene hardly knew which she wanted more, the hot coffee to revive her spirits or the use of the hot water to freshen her body. Since tepid coffee was more objectionable than tepid water, however, she sat down first with Ryan to partake of a breakfast of the coffee and rolls along with a banana and a wing from the roast chicken brought the night before.
The combination of foods was ambrosial. Elene could not remember when anything had tasted so good or she had been so famished. Realizing it, she knew the rise of guilt. She should not be enjoying anything so much when her father and the others were dead. And yet, what good would it do for her to pine and starve herself. It would change nothing; certainly it would not bring them back.
She was subdued, however, as she dipped the cloth into the hot water and squeezed it out, then began to bathe her face. From the corner of her eye, she saw Ryan watching her. There was an absorbed expression on his features as he lounged back on the quilts with a cup of coffee still in his hand.
“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Haven’t you ever seen a woman at her morning toilette before?”
“Sometimes. Never one quite like you.”
“My hair, you mean?” She raised the tangled gold curtain, passing her cloth across the back of her neck.
“The color is unusual, I will admit, but no. It’s just that every move you make is graceful.”
“What a tale,” she said in disbelief. “You must want something.”
“It depends,” he said, a wicked look in his eyes, “on what you have to offer.”
She allowed her mouth to fall open in pretended shock and outrage. “You’re insatiable!”
“How can you say so? You know you satisfy me wonderfully.”
A flush mounted to her face though she did her best to ignore it. “I hadn’t noticed it, your satisfaction, that is.”
“Can I help it if you also attract me wonderfully?”
Her movements slowed. She lowered her hands, holding the cloth between them as she wiped at her fingers. She and this man had made love three times more after the first, the last occasion just before dawn. Morning had brought the prickings of conscience, as well as tenderness between her thighs, but since neither problem could be helped, she was trying deliberately to ignore both, concentrating instead on her sense of well-being. Still, she had the distinct feeling that the activity she and Ryan had shared was excessive. She could not see her own face, but there appeared to be shadows under Ryan’s eyes that had not been put there by sleeplessness alone.
Insatiable. That was the word Devota had used. “He will be in thrall to you — his need for you will be insatiable.”
“Do I really attract you so much?” she asked, allowing her gaze to drop. “Or is it simply that you haven’t had a woman in some time?”
He laughed as he drank off the last of his coffee and set his cup aside. He rose to one knee, leaning toward her. “Both, maybe. We could test it this morning, to be sure.”
She warded him off with one hand. “It’s daylight!”
“Does it matter?”
It occurred to her suddenly that the use of soap and hot water might have a considerable effect upon his ardor, if there was any chance that Devota had been telling the truth. “And besides, you haven’t bathed.”
“I don’t know what difference that can make,” he said, still grinning, “I only smell like you.”
“The way my perfume might smell on a boar hog,” she snapped, incensed by his lack of cooperation.
He grimaced. “Ah, well, in that case.”
But undoubtedly it took more to remove the perfume than a quick swipe with a cloth for, when tested later, his lust for her was undiminished. If anything, it appeared to be even greater.
As a pastime, making love could hardly be bettered; still it was possible to beguile only so many hours in that fashion due to physical limitations. The day passed with dragging slowness. A dozen times, Ryan and Elene wished they had thought to ask Devota for a deck of cards, a chessboard, any kind of game with which to pass the time. The possibility of a book or two for the following day
was discussed, but it was agreed there was just not enough light to see a printed page. They napped off and on, coming awake at every slightest noise. When they were not sleeping, they listened intently, speculating between themselves on what was taking place above them from the sounds they heard.
Most of all, they talked, developing a low pitch to their voices that was clear to each other, but would not penetrate beyond their hiding place. They told stories of their childhoods and of their schooling: Elene at her boarding school, Ryan with a pockmarked, vile-tempered, but brilliant tutor. They talked of books and plays and of pieces of music they enjoyed. They spoke of France and the man who had come to personify it these days, Napoleon Bonaparte; of his policies and his strength as First Consul for Life; his effect upon trade and in the social sphere, and also the scandals attached to his wife Josephine’s name. Mentally they walked the streets of Paris, pointing out to each other favorite views, favorite houses, favorite haunts. Ryan had not spent a great deal of time there, and neither had Elene, having only visited for a few days with her aunt, but it was enough.
“You will love New Orleans,” Ryan said as the hours waned into the darkness of evening once more and they were waiting to see what Devota would bring them for a late supper.
Elene hesitated, unaccountably reluctant to say anything that might cause discord. There was no way to avoid it, however. “But I’m not going.”
“Aren’t you?” The question was mild enough, but even as it was spoken, Ryan felt the hardening of a resolve inside himself to see her on his ship if he had to carry her bodily. There was something about Elene Larpent that drew him irresistibly, something that fascinated him. She was sweet and warm and touchingly untutored in the ways of love, but there was more to it than that. It was as if she held some secret, as if there was some part of herself she would not give, except perhaps as a gift of inestimable value to one who proved worthy of it.
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