Microsoft Word - Sherwood, Valerie - Nightsong

by kps

  "The Silver Wench's always got the necklace on, Jarvis," Gilly was telling him in disgust, even as she wriggled against him, trying to get her legs arranged more comfortably. "I think she sleeps with it."

  "You'll find a way to get it," Jarvis panted-for at the moment he was absorbed in more pressing matters, with the girl's hot young body crushed against his own.

  Jarvis had no idea that Gilly was planning to double-cross him, just as Gilly, who woke with the dawn with her mind still sparkling with rubies and diamonds, had no idea that the necklace she lusted after was but a fake....

  Carolina, too, woke with her mind on the necklace. If only she had not sent it away!

  But it was gone and she must make her plans without it.

  Kells had left by the time she awoke-off to see to the outfitting of the Sea Wolf, she guessed. The only consolation in that was that it would take him some time-and that would give her maneuvering room.

  But how to maneuver? She puzzled about it all morning, giving short answers to everyone, biting her lip and frowning.

  "Do you think the mistress is ill?" Betts asked anxiously of Hawks.

  Hawks snorted. "Ill?" he scoffed. "She's upset that the cap'n plans to go to sea again-and she'll find a way to stop him, I'll waged"

  But morning turned to afternoon and the hot Caribbean sun beat down mercilessly on the seething city, baking anew its sun-bleached bricks and gilding the great market bell and the sweating greased backs of the blacks who were being auctioned nearby.

  Ships came and went from the harbor, cargoes were unloaded and hauled over the hot sand-and still Carolina paced about her bedroom.

  "Go away, Gilly," she told the girl absently, when Gilly knocked on the door with some trifling message

  from Cook. "Tell Cook to deal with the matter-I'm thinking."

  And thinking with the trunk lid shut and doubtlessly locked! thought Gilly, hard put to conceal her own annoyance.

  The shadows had grown long, sending a violet light over the steaming town, when Carolina came at last to her decision. It was a simple one, an unavoidable one-she had known it all along.

  And perhaps, she told herself, it was for the best. But it would take some doing for Kells was sure to resist.

  So that night she dressed with seductive care. The light lawn gown she wore, palest pink over a deeper pink chemise, was just short of a chemise itself. Its delicate lace foamed airily over her elbows; it was cut so low that her white shoulders gleamed and her breasts were in danger of popping out of the deep square neckline. Her petticoat too was barely there, of thinnest silk of an even deeper pink, so that her whole body appeared to be blushing. This was no night for barbaric ruby necklaces.

  She wore around her neck a delicate chain of glittering gold with a teardrop diamond glistening between her breasts. Her ear bobs, too, were tiny diamonds, flashing like raindrops, and her moonlight hair was caught up with pale pink ribands.

  She could have been a wood nymph or a water sprite with her gray eyes silver in the violet light of the swift tropical dusk-and she was so lovely that Kells, coming in hot, tired and hungry, was arrested by the sight of her standing there on the stairs to greet him as he entered.

  "You look more ready for bed than dining," he murmured humorously, not wishing her to know how just the sight of her could heat up his blood and weaken his firmest resolve.

  Carolina gave an airy shrug that rippled her delightful breasts, already so near to coming out of the pretty gown.

  "'Tis a hot night," she murmured archly. "And likely to grow hotter, I see!" he laughed, taking the stairs toward her two at a time.

  Carolina fled before him like a songbird blown by the wind and reached their bedroom door just ahead of him.

  It was fortunate for Gilly on the second floor that she had heard Kells enter and had had time to flee, because she had seized the opportunity to slip into Carolina's bedroom the moment Carolina had left it, and had run to the curved-top trunk. "The first time I've found it unlocked!" she would later wail to Jarvis. "And wouldn't you know they both came running into the bedroom and almost caught me-and then Cook scolded me for being gone and I had to stay downstairs and help her till they went to bed!" she added, aggrieved.

  "There'll be other times," Jarvis assured her, draining his tankard and running his hand up her skirts.

  But although Carolina, intent on her plans for the evening, failed to witness Gilly's sudden departure, Kells's keen eyes caught a flash of indigo skirts disappearing down the hall. It brought to him sharply how precious was the woman he was leaving in dangerous Port Royal-and how vulnerable.

  "I'll have a strong lock put on that door tomorrow," he told her. "You're to keep it locked and wear the key while I'm gone."

  "Oh, Kells!" she protested impatiently. "The house is secure enough with Hawks standing guard!"

  "There will be more than Hawks standing guard," he assured her. "I intend to station three other men here to help him.Your door needs no lock while I am here to protect you, but once word is spread about that I am gone-"

  "You think I will be kidnapped and held for ransom?" Her upturned laughing face challenged him.

  He frowned down at her. Did she but know it, his enemies could make him deliver himself to Spain by just such a tactic-but to say so would only frighten her, just as his real reason for the lock was to forestall someone slipping into the house past that new serving wench Gilly, for example, and be waiting to overpower Carolina in her bedchamber. "Promise me you will keep this door locked," he insisted. "Both when you are in the room and when you are gone from it."

  "But someone could come in by the window," she mocked him. "After all, it is only the second floor!"

  "Tomorrow, twin balconies will be constructed at thesewindows-and there willbea solidiron grillwork that no man can penetrate without making enough noise to awaken the dead."

  "And suppose there is a fire? What then? Am I to burn to death because I am so well locked in?"

  "I have thought of that," he said. "The floors of these small balconies which will jut out over the street will be of wood. I will leave an axe beneath your bed and in case you wake to find the house blazing, you may chop your way to freedom in seconds and drop into Hawks's arms below-if he has not already raised a ladder and started chopping at the balcony himself."

  She stared at him in open-mouthed amazement. "But it is no matter," she declared. "I mean, it is all unnecessary."

  "Necessary to my peace of mind," he said grimly, divesting himself of his sweaty shirt as he spoke. "And thus no small matter to me."

  She shrugged and called for his bath, then watched him take it. She soaped his back for him-running her fingers lightly down his back and up into his shoulder-length dark hair-then stepped back with a light laugh when he shook his head, sending droplets of water flying about, some of them landing on her. And when he was done and rose dripping from the tub, sun-bronzed and gleaming, she bubbled with laughter as she helped towel him dry.

  "What are you so happy about?" he wondered, for this sudden lightness of spirit made him uneasy.

  She tossed the towel away and surveyed his naked form, smiling. "I am happy because I have come to a great decision-the only decision."

  He watched her warily. "And what decision is that?" She came toward him like a blown leaf and embraced him as he stood there.

  "I have written to my mother-the letter is on my desk." She nodded in the direction of her small slanted boxlike writing desk, which sat upon a table nearby. "Fielding will have paid off his debts with the necklace, his creditors will all feel secure-now he can borrow again and send us the money, which you can pay back at your leisure.

  Meantime you will have enough to buy yourself a plantation on the Cobre!"

  Kens stared down at her thoughtfully. Carolina was beaming up at him, very pleased with herself to have worked out such a pleasant solution to their problems. Borrow from Fielding? It was a possibility, he supposed. But he remembered how willing Fielding ha
d been to believe ill of him, how eager to turn him over to the authorities on slight evidence without verifying whether that evidence was true or false. He remembered that Carolina was not really Fielding's daughter and that Fielding had always resented her. Even if Fielding did-reluctantly-accede to Carolina's request and ship the money over the sea from the Tidewater, there was no guarantee it would ever reach Port Royal. Pirates, the weather, the Spanish-all presented an ever-present menace.

  And there were other problems as well. Indeed he would need to divert some of the money meant for the "venture" into fortifying this house for her protection-but it was best for Carolina not to know that. He could not afford to wait. Especially on something so uncertain as Fielding Lightfoot's whim.

  "No, Carolina, it will not work. It would take time and we are too near the edge. Is this the letter?" He strode toward the little writing desk, picked up the piece of parchment that lay atop it, and glanced down, scanning it.

  Carolina watched as he tore it in half.

  "You will not let me help you," she said sulkily.

  "You will help me best by listening to reason. What is done is done. You have made a grand gesture, one that pleased you. Be content with it."

  "But you-"

  "I will arrange my own salvation," he said crisply. "As I always have." Carolina turned on her heel and ran down the stairs. She was silent and pensive all through dinner, although Kells did his best to cheer her. And when they went upstairs to their bedchamber she clung to him with all the fervor of the lost.

  "Christabel, Christabel," he murmured, using the name the world called her. And then with a sigh, "What am I to do with you?"

  You could stay with me! she thought, but this was no time for quarreling. Not with his arms about her, not with her body burrowing against his own,not with their legs intertwined, their breath hot on each other's cheek ... no, these moments were for forgetfulness, when she could dream that he would stay by her side, that they would never be separated.

  A dream that seemed real enough while their love-making lasted, but a dream that disappeared, vanished with the heat of the moment. Reality came back as they drifted hazily down into the afterglow.

  "Kells," she said, troubled. "You don't really want to leave me, do you?"

  Her voice was wistful and the strong arm of her buccaneer, just now lying outfl.ung beneath her as she lay on her back studying the stars through their window, tightened about her as if to shield her from the world.

  "I never want to leave you," he said in his deep rich voice. "Don't you know that, Christabel?"

  He did not want to leave her. But he would;

  "But ... you are going?" she murmured at last.

  "I must," he sighed, and wished again that there had been no Marquess of Saltenham with his masquerades, no Reba with her wily mother, no deep intrigues to ensnare him. What cruel fate had decreed that he and Carolina must never enjoy their heritage, must live forever exiled in wild foreign places?

  "I know you feel you must go," Carolina said wistfully. "But-oh, Kells."

  Her voice held a wild entreaty and her slender fingers traced a fiery persua...

  sive path down his belly and groin, burrowed enticingly below. "Don't sail away, don't go---stay with me!"

  It was a siren's song-and Kells was not slow to respond to it.

  Wakened to passion again, he turned over and drew her slim yielding body against his own, caressed her tenderly. But he chose not to answer her impulsive plea.

  Instead he took her again, driving her to frenzy with his ardor, and let her go at last with yearning.

  But she had not prevailed. All her efforts had moved him not one whit. Carolina lay wide-eyed in the dark, listening to the even sound of his breathing. Her plan had failed. She would have to devise another.

  Chapter 7

  The hammering was maddening. From dawn to dusk it went on unceasingly, day after day, until the whole house was fitted with iron grillwork. "A fort," Hawks called it, chuckling.

  Carolina could see nothing to crow about. "A great waste of money you say we do not have!" she told Kells crossly. "But will have soon," he promised her with a flash of white teeth. "Spain still sails the seas!"

  "Kells." She tried to remonstrate with him. "You have a pardon for buccaneering. If you go back to it now, you will have to get yourself a pardon all over again." The gray eyes across from her grew murky. "You seem to forget," he said silkily, "that the Marquess of Saltenham's masquerade made me a pirate in the eyes of the king-I have no pardon nor am likely to get one!" and that was her fault, too! If her friend Reba had not been so in love with the marquess, if Carolina had not schemed to get them married, then Robin's confession that he had impersonated Kells in piratical ventures against English ships would have gone unchallenged. But Carolina had begged Kells not to take the marquess's life, and Kells had granted her request-so that Robin could marry Reba. And Reba's mother had set up false witnesses to claim Robin's confession was made under duress.

  "I suppose you are right," she said wistfully. "And it is something you must lay at my door."

  "I lay nothing at your door," he said quickly, and his big hand closed warmly over her own. "It is not your fault you have a kind heart."

  She looked at him guiltily, for Robin Tyrell, the Marquess of Saltenham, had been-ever so briefly-her lover. She had thought herself deserted by Kells at the time, of course. Still ...

  "Will those workmen never

  be through hammering?" she cried, eager to change the subject. "Everything will be finished before the end of the week," her buccaneer promised her.

  In fact, the work was finished on Wednesday and all Port Royal was agog at the

  "strengthening" of Captain Kells's house-a true fortress, they muttered, what with its little captain's walk on the top where one could view incoming ships.

  And at breakfast on Thursday he told her he would be sailing with the tide on Saturday morning. "But you can't!" she cried, startled. "You haven't had time to careen and provision the ship."

  "Lars has already careened her," he said. "I'd promised him he could take her out.

  But now he'll captain the Sea Wench and I'll take out the Sea Wolf-we'll sail together."

  At least that was some comfort-he would not be alone out there; he'd have another ship to back him up.

  "I wish you'd take your whole fleet!" she muttered.

  "And scare all the galleons back to port?" he teased. "No, 'tis better this way. Two fleet ships, a quick thrust or two and-back to Port Royal. You'll like that, won't you?"

  Her answering smile was wan, for well she knew that voyages-however short they were intended to he could end up lasting for months. And all the time she would not know whether he was alive or dead....

  She was thoughtful through breakfast, realizing bitterly that she had been drifting along day by day, clinging to the hope that some miracle would save them: the governor would decide to lend Kells the money after all; or some departing landowner on the Cobre would urge Kells to take over his plantation on a promise to pay later; or in England Robin Tyrell would have a change of heart and confess all to the authorities, and Kells would be free to return to Essex.

  None of those things had happened, of course. And now Kells had announced that he was leaving-the day after tomorrow!

  As she watched him quit the house and swing out into the sunshine, taking long strides down the sandy street, Carolina's delicate jaw hardened. Her buccaneer had left her but one alternative-and she would take it.

  When Kells returned for dinner he was greeted by a laughing, excited Carolina wearing a white apron, her long hair bound up in a linen square.

  "Housekeeping?" he asked, bemused-for keeping house was not one of Carolina's favorite pursuits. She preferred leaving that to the servants.

  "Oh, wait till you see!" She seized him by the hand and ran ahead of him up the stairway, then flung open her bedroom door dramatically.

  Kells stopped short. Before him, filled with
clutter, Carolina's big curved-top trunk stood open. It formed the center of a huge array of half-packed boxes and small chests. Women's clothing was scattered about the bed. Shoes and boots lay in piles upon the floor. Gloves, parasols, fans, scarves--a wild confusion.

  "I know it looks impossible, but I will be ready by Saturday morning!" she promised him gaily.

  "Ready for what?" he asked warily.

  "Why, to sail with you, of course." Her radiant smile ignored his gathering frown.

  "Can't you see, this is a golden opportunity for me to visit my family in Virginia? Oh, Kells, you would not deny me passage when you could so easily drop me off in the York and be gone before any pursuit could find you?"

  Outside the doorway Gilly hovered. Kells shut the door behind him.

  "Carolina," he said slowly, "I would sail you to hell if you desired it-and you know it.

  But it is not to the Tidewater that you wish to sail. Once aboard the Sea Wolf you will find some compelling reason why you cannot be left in Virginia, why you must continue the voyage with me."

  Carolina's telltale flush spoke volumes.

  "Oh, Kells," she entreated, taking an impulsive step toward him that brought her up flush against the hard muscles of his chest. She looked up wistfully into the sun-bronzed face above her. "Of course that is what I will do! And you should not deny me this. All I want is to go with you." Her luminous silver-gray eyes pleaded with him to understand. "Kells--fate has been unkind to us. It has robbed us of our birthright, of the life we might have shared. But we can have a life together in spite of all the devils of hell-we'll have it aboard the Sea Wolf."

  "No, Carolina, we will not." Her loveliness, her femininity, her pleading stance were all hard to with-stand, but he managed it with an effort. Gently he put her away from him and looked down deep into her eyes. "You cannot accompany me on this voyage. You must wait for me here."