Genny had been wrong. No one spoke of the wager. It was the hurricane that held everyone’s interest, and how they’d survived it. The crowd marveled at the broken mast on the clipper, some men shaking their heads, saying it proved the design was unsafe, others saying it was stupid to sail in this weather to Nassau. She even heard one of the men say that it was likely her fault that the mast had been broken. There were nods and murmurs of agreement. She stiffened like a poker, the smile on her face a mask.
She watched the gentlemen clap Alec on the back, saw him respond with automatic politeness. The women were equally as outgoing as the men. Genny saw Laura Salmon give Alec an intimate look and ground her teeth.
Alec responded with a different kind of politeness; she recognized it and knew it came quite naturally to him, this charming arrogance he adopted with women. When he finally reached his daughter, he simply stared down at her for a moment, then said, “Hallie.”
“Papa.” Her arms went up and Alec quickly lifted her and felt her arms go around his neck. She gave him a wet kiss on his cheek and hugged him as hard as she could. “I missed you, Papa. So much, but Genny was with you. When we heard about the hurricane, Mrs. Swindel said you’d be all right. She said you were like a damned cat and—”
“That’s quite enough, Miss Hallie,” said Eleanor Swindel, gaining two patches of color on her thin cheeks.
“I had Genny to take care of me,” Alec said.
Hallie cocked her head to one side in bewilderment.
“What’s the matter, Hallie?”
Genny, hearing this exchange, quickly stepped forward. “Hallie doesn’t mean anything, do you, pumpkin?”
“I suppose I don’t,” Hallie said slowly. She kissed her father again and settled in his arms.
“Does this mean that I’m to carry you all the way home?”
“Yes, Papa.”
Genny laughed. “I’ll have a carriage fetched for us. Just stay here and visit, Alec. All those gentlemen still wish to speak to you.”
His daughter, Alec thought, and he hadn’t felt the slightest glimmer of recognition. This beautiful child was of his loins, but she could have been anyone’s child for all he knew. He felt the small body warm against him. His daughter. He hugged her and Hallie giggled.
“You’re home,” she said.
But where the devil was home when you had no memory of anything at all?
He tried to keep the paralyzing fear at bay but he couldn’t, not indefinitely. His head began to ache again.
“Soon we’ll be home,” Genny said, and took his hand.
“Tell me all about the hurricane,” Hallie said that evening when they were seated at the dining table.
Alec paused, his soup spoon midway to his mouth. “Genny will tell you, Hallie.”
Hallie, all unsuspecting, turned to her stepmother. “Were you scared?”
“More than you can imagine. Let me see. We were winning—my clipper, that is—then the storm hit. It was like a hundred winds howling at once, like a band of crazy witches, and all coming at you from different directions. They were so wild and strong that if you weren’t careful, they’d just pick you up and toss you overboard. Your papa was very brave. During the hurricane he wanted to come to me, so he brought his barkentine as close as he could and then he jumped to the deck of the clipper.”
“Oh, Papa, surely that wasn’t very wise!” Hallie then giggled. “But it is very romantic.”
Alec just nodded. Genny wished she could cry for him, yell his frustration for him, but she couldn’t, of course.
“But you could have been hurt.”
Alec spooned down another mouthful of the sweet turtle soup.
“I wasn’t,” he said.
“Does your head hurt, Alec?” Genny asked.
“No.” His voice was curt but he couldn’t help it.
“Did you take over the Pegasus?”
Alec frowned and Genny quickly said, “Certainly not, Hallie. I was captain of the Pegasus. Your father just wanted to be with me. We didn’t know if we would survive the hurricane.”
“That’s odd.”
“What is?” Alec asked, bending his attention to his daughter. “Eat your soup,” he added.
“That you didn’t take over and become the captain. That’s not right, Papa.”
“Hallie, don’t you like the turtle soup?”
“Just a moment, Genny. What do you mean, Hallie?”
“Papa, you’re not acting right. You seem different, like you aren’t really you, but that’s silly—”
“Yes, it is, excessively silly. Eat your soup. Genny and I are both very tired.”
Hallie, hurt, retreated to her soup.
Genny said not another word until she asked Moses for the next course.
An hour later, in their bedchamber, Alec said in a very weary voice to Genny, “The child is very bright. I won’t be able to fool her for long.”
“Don’t worry about it now, Alec. You need rest, lots of it. Would you like to see the doctor tomorrow?”
“I don’t want to think about tomorrow,” he said, and tossed his discarded shirt to a chairback. “I want to think about tonight and making love to my wife.”
Nineteen
Genny turned slowly to face him. Her fingers, busily unfastening the buttons on her gown, stilled. “You put things baldly,” she said, not looking at him above his neck.
“Is that something new or have you known me to do that before?”
“Oh, you’re always saying the unexpected, the outrageous. You bait me very easily, for I’m the perfect foil for you.”
“You always rise to the bait?” He was unbuttoning his breeches now. It hurt her to look at him. In the candlelight, he was achingly beautiful, all shadows and planes and sinew. She sighed.
“Always.”
“Genny, don’t—didn’t you enjoy making love with me?”
“I don’t think ‘enjoy’ is really the right word. Actually, you touch me and I want you madly, wildly. It’s very worrisome, particularly since only a short time ago I was a virgin with no thought of not being one.”
He gave her a very male smile. “That’s nice.”
Some things, she thought, a male simply never forgot.
She raised her chin. Tit for tat, she thought. “You also melt when I touch you.”
His left brow arched at that. “I don’t know if I particularly care for that concept. I prefer being rigid, turgid, hard, all those sorts of things, not melting.”
She grinned at him. “Your body is all of those things, but your feelings are soft and warm and wonderful.”
He stepped out of his breeches, folded them over the back of a chair, stretched, then looked at her, his eyes smiling lazily at her. She was gazing intently at his groin and he felt his sex swell. His head didn’t ache now, but his body did. He walked over to her and placed his hands on her shoulders. She looked up at him, though not with wholehearted welcome. She appeared nervous, uncertain. She looked very vulnerable.
“I know this must be extremely difficult for you, Genny. I can’t say I blame you if you don’t want me to love you. After all, I don’t know you and it must seem very strange, very embarrassing, to give yourself to someone who has no real emotional memory of you.” She opened her mouth, but he placed his fingertips over her lips. “No, let me finish. This must be said, because it is the truth. I like you, Genny. You told me that I like you enough to marry you. We will simply have to build on that. My memory will come back and then we will see. All right?”
She wanted to cry, so she swallowed hard, burying her face against his bare shoulder. Her arms went around his back and she hugged herself against him. “I don’t want you to leave. I want to be your wife. Forget the wager.”
“I was thinking that it was perhaps a damned wager. No, I won’t leave. Besides, I wouldn’t know where to leave to. As much as I may dislike it, I’m rather dependent on you at the moment. Let me ask you a question. Do you like me, Genny?”
“Yes,” she said, snuggling closer, her voice muffled. “Of course, I’ve also wanted to hit you many times in the past.”
He grinned and kissed the top of her head. “And did you?”
“Yes. You always grunted nicely for me.”
“I’ll try to continue to be nice. Let me help you off with that gown.”
He set her away from him and deftly finished undoing the buttons that marched up the bodice of the gown. He pushed it down and unfastened the tiny satin-covered buttons on her chemise. When she was naked save for her stockings and slippers, he stepped back and looked at her. “I like that. Very much. Let me take off your slippers. But keep the stockings on.”
It was hard for her not to try to cover herself, for the simple fact that she was a stranger to him and he looked at her differently, spoke to her differently. Then he cupped her breasts in his hands and she sucked in her breath, closing her eyes.
“Your heart’s pounding.” He leaned down and took a nipple into his warm mouth.
She gasped and steadied herself, her hands on his shoulders. “Oh, goodness, that’s so very—”
He raised his head. “Some things a man doesn’t forget. So very what, Genny?”
“Wonderful,” she said simply. “You’re wonderful.”
He began kissing her again, caressing her and kneading her breasts with his hands. “I’m glad you think so, even though I’m not in all likelihood remotely wonderful,” he said between nipping kisses. “You’re lovely. I can see that I must have quite liked your body.”
“I’m glad you do, Alec, but maybe you’ve forgotten about all those other women in your life. So many beautiful women you attracted. And I’m so very—”
“So very what?” But before she could answer, his hand roved down over her stomach, combing through the soft hair. “Ah. There you are. Soft and wet and swelled. Feel yourself, Genny.” Before she could even think to protest, he’d taken her hand and placed her fingers over herself.
“Oh.” It was embarrassing and at the same time marvelously exciting.
Then she grasped him in her hand and it was his turn to suck in his breath. He felt incredibly smooth and alive. Her fingertips lightly touched the tip of his sex and she felt a drop of liquid. In the next instant he grabbed her hand, pulling her away.
“I’ll explode if you continue doing that.” His chest was heaving, his eyes dilated. “Come.”
He closed his arms around her hips and lifted her onto the bed. He came down over her and she felt his member against her belly.
He balanced himself up on his elbows. “Now that I’ve got you where I want you, answer me. You’re so very what?”
She gave him a wild look. “I’m so ordinary.”
“You, ordinary? Silly woman—you’re, well, let’s just see, shall we?”
He reared back, standing beside the bed, staring down at her. He pulled her legs wide apart. His fingers touched her. “Ordinary? You’re all soft and pink and very much a woman. That’s special, not at all ordinary.”
She arched her back, her hips lifting to his fingers.
“Yes,” he said, “that’s it,” and then he lowered his head and his tongue slid over her and he kissed her. She felt his finger ease into her and she cried out. He stopped immediately. She moaned his name.
“No, not just yet. When you climax, Genny, I want you to scream.”
Another thing he hadn’t forgotten, she thought vaguely, feeling demented now as he easily took control. He brought her again and again to the edge, then pulled her back. She pounded his shoulders with her fists, and her hips twisted against his steadying hands. He wasn’t about to be rushed.
“All right,” he said, and gave her his mouth again. He changed his rhythm and the deepness of his finger and she cried out. She felt his hand come over her mouth and she tasted herself on his fingers and the frenzied pleasure went on and on until she thought she’d die from it.
Then he came over her and into her in one long, smooth thrust. She cried out yet again and closed her thighs around his flanks.
It was incredible. When he reached between them and found her, she spiraled out of control once again and he joined her this time, pouring himself into her, taking her into himself.
“No, you’re anything but ordinary.”
“How can you possibly know that?”
He frowned and nibbled her ear. “Actually, I was just thinking that it was amazing that I could think at all, much less talk. You have a powerful effect on me, woman. No, you’re not at all ordinary. I haven’t the foggiest notion why I’m so sure about that, but it’s true, I’m certain of it. You scream very nicely. It pleased me.”
Alec was Alec; he just didn’t realize it. She knew him so well now. She hugged his back, hard.
“You’re a very enticing man, Alec.”
She felt him growing hard deep inside her. She smiled up at him. “You’re certain your head doesn’t hurt?”
“No, it’s just my—”
“Outrageous, now and forever, I expect.”
Genny hadn’t ever considered that a woman could climax more than once. Well, perhaps twice. But three times? She was smiling blissfully as she fell asleep.
As for Alec, he was as sated as his wife, but his head had begun to hurt again. He tucked Genny against him, settling her head against his chest. He kissed the top of her head. No, Genny wasn’t ordinary. He rather looked forward to learning all about her.
Had he really taken her to a brothel? To punish her for pretending to be a man around him? He grinned into the darkness. He wished he could remember that. He closed his eyes, willing the damned headache to quiet down. It was some time, however, before he fell asleep.
Genny said brightly, “You’ve never told me about your houses in England, Hallie.”
Hallie looked up from the model eighteen-gun frigate. It was French and had been one of Napoleon’s finest. “We mainly go to Carrick Grange when we’re home. Papa grew up there and it’s a big estate. There’s the house in London, of course. We went there once during what Papa and his friends called the Season. There’s an abbey in Somerset, near Rotherham Weald, I think. I don’t remember the name of it. Papa never told me what a Season was.”
Houses with names. Well, they had them here in America, too. Could this not be called Paxton House?
“A Season,” Genny said, “is a time of the year when young ladies come out of the schoolroom and find husbands. Where’s Carrick Grange?”
“In Northumberland. Our village is called Devenish. It’s very isolated. Papa likes it there, but he soon makes everything work smoothly and then he gets bored. He always likes to be doing things and going to new places. I don’t know if I’ll ever get him to settle down.” The little girl sighed and moved the frigate carefully behind a schooner.
“Do you remember when you last visited Carrick Grange?”
Hallie looked up and said matter-of-factly, “Last spring. Why don’t you ask Papa?”
“He isn’t feeling too well. He’s sleeping.”
“Has Dr. Pruitt seen him?”
“That might be a fine idea.”
“Genny, what’s wrong with Papa? He acted funny last night.”
How much to keep from her? The child looked worried and uncertain. “He had an accident during the hurricane.”
Hallie very carefully set the frigate aside and rose, coming to stand beside Genny’s chair. She said nothing, merely waited.
“He saw a man being pushed by the wind toward the foremast and he saw that the foremast was breaking. He rushed forward to save him and the mast broke. He was struck on his head. But he’ll be all right, Hallie.”
“Did the man live?”
“There were two men, actually. One didn’t survive.”
“Shall I read to Papa?”
“He might enjoy that. But let him rest for now, Hallie.”
It was late that afternoon when Daniel Raymond came to the house. A letter addressed to Baron Sherard had been delivered to
him because it was known that he was the baron’s American solicitor.
Genny saw to Mr. Raymond’s comfort, then looked at the letter. “It appears to be from a London lawyer,” she said.
“Yes,” he said, and bit into one of Lannie’s delicious scones.
Genny fretted, then excused herself for a moment. She didn’t want to bother Alec with this, but she realized she had no choice. She was his wife, but that didn’t give her the right to read his personal communications. She went to Alec’s bedchamber. He was awake, sitting up in a chair, Hallie on his lap. He was leaning back, his eyes closed, and his small daughter was reading to him in a voice filled with high-flown drama.
“Charge away, my hearties, and you’ll soon
Know that we’re here, impatient for the fight,
Four woman-squadrons, armed from top to toe.”
Genny laughed. “What is that, Hallie?”
“It’s Lystrea…Lostra—”
“Lysistrata,” Alec said, not opening his eyes.
“You read very well, Hallie. Women warriors? Did I hear aright? Who selected this reading?”
“I did,” Hallie said. “Papa said he didn’t care.”
“I do now,” Alec said with some feeling.
“Listen to this, Genny. ‘We must abstain—each—from the joys of love. How—’”
“Stop, Hallie, you’re making me cry.” Genny was hugging her sides with laughter, while Alec was looking completely and utterly appalled. “I gave you this play?”
“Yes, Papa, but it’s in a book with a lot of other stories, and I don’t think you really noticed.”
Alec groaned.
“I’m sorry,” Genny said, trying to control her giggles, “but I must interrupt your daughter’s dramatic rendering. Mr. Raymond is here, Alec. He’s your lawyer in Baltimore. He brought this letter from your solicitor in London.”
Genny handed him the letter, then turned immediately to Hallie and offered her a hand. “Would you like a scone, love? Why don’t we go downstairs and visit with Mr. Raymond?” Hallie hesitated, her eyes on her father, and Genny added, “Scones with lots of strawberry jam.”
Night Storm Page 27
