“Cort is quite domestic,” he said insinuatingly. “Has your love caused this change, my dear? I’ve never seen him so contented-looking … or satisfied.”
Wynter wasn’t so naive as not to catch the double entendre of his words. She shot him a devastating smile, hoping to appear unruffled by this man’s leers and the way his thigh touched hers.
“I hope to make my husband very happy.”
“But what about you?”
“I don’t understand.”
Morgan sniffed. “Look around you, my dear. There’s nothing on Santa Margarita to entice a lady like yourself. There are no enjoyments, no shops. Nothing but a dead volcano and banana trees. Now, Port Royal is different. I happen to know an expert milliner and seamstress who will make you look the princess you are.” His fingers reached up to her hair and lazily entwined themselves within her long curls.
Wynter ached to draw back, but she didn’t think that slight resistance would impede Morgan. “I’m happy here, sir.”
“Happy for now, but what of the weeks, months to come? Cort will take out the Sea Bride and leave you here with the servants for long periods of time. Perhaps I shall encounter him in battle, but for now I’m glad to sit next to his wife and drink in her astonishing beauty.” His lips were inches away, and Wynter did draw back this time.
“I shan’t be lonely here. The niceties of Port Royal don’t interest me. Does your wife find much to do there?”
Wynter’s mention of his wife caused him to consider her for a long moment, then he grinned and disentangled his fingers from her hair. “Elizabeth isn’t interested in the shops but in her horses. However, if you do visit Port Royal, my dear, I shall be most honored to have you as my guest. I have quarters in the town while Elizabeth resides on the plantation. If you ever have need of me—”
Wynter didn’t allow him to finish. She knew what need he was referring to, and that was one need she didn’t intend to ask Morgan to fill. When Cort returned to the room, Morgan had retaken his seat and she sat by herself.
A short time later, with a low bow and another long kiss on her hand, Henry Morgan departed for his ship. Wynter was glad to see the last of him. The man unnerved her, and she found herself comparing him to Somerset. And this disturbed her because she hadn’t thought about him in some time.
When she was abed and in Cort’s arms, she said, “I wonder how Adam and Lucy are.”
“Do you really care?”
She let out a long sigh. “I don’t know. They’re the only family I have now, except for Aunt Debra, whom I can’t think of without feeling immense sadness. I had thought she was my mother.” Wynter shivered. “All of them hate me so.”
“I think they’re fools,” he said with such tenderness that tears misted her eyes, “Can’t you forget them and be happy with me?”
A little laugh escaped her. “It appears I have forgotten some things.”
“Wynter.”
“Yes?”
“If you remembered everything, would things change between us?”
She thought that was a strange question for Cort to ask. How could anything change between them because she might one day remember? Certainly she was upset over his life as a pirate, but he had explained that he pirated to help his country and was really a privateer, so there was some merit to what he did. But she would always love him and trust him. She was his wife.
“Nothing will ever alter the way I feel for you, Cort. I love you.”
He gathered her in his arms and loved her with exquisite tenderness, and before she fell asleep, Wynter was convinced that nothing ever would change for them.
CHAPTER
14
“There must be something for me to do, Cort. I’m so terribly bored!”
“Bored, is it? How can you possibly say such a thing with me around?” Cort winked and swung her from her horse when they stopped in their afternoon ride. The sun was lowering by imperceptible degrees, and the warm breeze gently blew across the open plain where they stood above the indigo sea. Both of them gazed at the orange-gold orb, lost in thoughts of love for each other. Cort would have been content to stay with his arms wrapped around her, but Wynter fidgeted after a few minutes.
“I mean it, Cort. I’m bored here. Captain Morgan told me Santa Margarita lacked the amenities of Port Royal, but I didn’t believe him.”
She felt Cort stiffen. “Are you suggesting we visit Port Royal and Henry Morgan? I didn’t know the man fascinated you so much.”
Wynter tilted her head back, surprise in her eyes. “Cort Van Linden, I think you’re jealous!”
Always one to hide his feelings, especially from women, Cort couldn’t contain the jealous thoughts that ate away at him to think that Wynter might have fallen under Morgan’s spell. It was a well-known fact that Morgan was a notorious womanizer, as Cort had been. But that had changed for Cort since he spirited Wynter from the Mary Jack. With each day that passed, he found himself unable to leave for the sea. He needed to be with her, always telling himself that he postponed the inevitable leave-taking because the weather wasn’t right and he feared to chance a storm which might damage the Sea Bride. But now the realization dawned on him that he might have fallen in love with her.
Gazing down at her, he said, “Yes, I’m jealous.”
A small, pleased smile curved her lips. “You shouldn’t be. Captain Morgan doesn’t appeal to me at all. But I really do need something to occupy my time. Saba cares for the house, and Mary cares for me. I have nothing to do.”
“I need caring for, Wynter.”
“Are you saying I’m remiss in my wifely duties?” she asked softly, her lips parting.
“What do you think?” he asked and gathered her against him.
Before their lips touched, she said, “I think I take very good care of you.”
Later that night after she and Cort were in bed, Wynter felt that lovemaking, no matter how wonderful, wasn’t enough to keep her occupied. Cort had taught her to swim in the ocean, and their days in the sun always led to more lovemaking. She had hoped the physical hold she had on him would be enough, but she knew that soon Cort would return to the sea.
She remembered Morgan’s words that she’d be left alone for long periods of time when that happened. She needed something to do, and she rather hoped she’d discover she was pregnant. A baby would fill the long, lonely hours—and perhaps keep Cort from leaving. However, she doubted that. Cort loved the sea almost as much as he loved her. Or did he love her?
She looked at the sleeping face of her husband, illuminated by the shaft of moonlight that spilled across the bed. How many times had they made love, and not once had he told her he loved her? She felt he loved her, but something prevented him from saying the words. He’d told her about his life in New Netherland, but she sensed he kept a part of his younger years hidden from her. Had he been so hurt by someone there that he couldn’t love any longer?
She gently pushed his blond locks from his forehead and lightly kissed his nose. She loved him so much! And when the time came for him to leave, as she knew it would, she must be strong and not cry. Somehow she’d fill the hours until his return to her. But how?
The answer came two days later when she accompanied Saba down the steep steps to the flat stretch of beach where her people lived. Straw-roofed huts were scattered upon the rocky shoreline, and Wynter watched the dark-complexioned children running and yelping in delight as the surf swished around their legs.
Saba entered a hut and introduced Wynter to the young woman there as her cousin’s daughter, Mora.
“I thought you didn’t have any family, Saba,” Wynter said after leaving the hut.
“Mora and her son are all that is left to me. But Mora has taken a new husband. The father of her son died in a storm. So I no have to worry over her or the boy now. Danu is good man. Like Captain Cort.” Saba flashed a pearly white smile at Wynter.
Saba called to a tall, gangly boy of about eleven. The boy ran to her and hugged
her waist. “This Cabi, Mora’s son.”
Cabi’s large, black eyes gazed in suspicion at Wynter, but when she held out her hand, he took it and smiled broadly.
“Do you know English?” Wynter asked him.
Cabi looked at her uncomprehendingly. Saba said something in her language to him, and Cabi shook his head.
“No need to learn English,” Saba told her. “Saba know English and Dutch. Captain Cort taught me. I tell my people what others say.”
“But with Cort’s crew milling about—” Wynter saw how many of Cort’s men intermingled with the islanders, and she wondered how many of the children who now played in the surf had been fathered by these men. Didn’t they want to learn the language of their fathers? Or English?
“Then the children can’t read?”
“Read? What is read?” asked Saba.
“Never mind,” Wynter said. “Before very long, all of you who want to learn will know how to read.”
With her purpose clearly outlined in her mind, Wynter returned to the house to inform Cort that she would open a school for the islanders.
An empty hut which had been the home of an old man who had recently died became the school. Wynter liked the hut because it was on the fringe of the others, far enough away that her students wouldn’t be disturbed. The view from its open doorway was the sea. Straw mats served in place of benches, and since there were no books on the island, except for the heavy tomes in Cort’s cabin on the Sea Bride, Wynter began by singsonging the alphabet to the children. Occasionally an adult would show up, and by the end of the day everyone on the beach was singing the alphabet.
She began learning of bit of the islanders’ language so she would be able to translate words for them. She asked Cort if he could find writing materials so her students could actually write the alphabet.
One afternoon, just as she began her class, Henrik appeared with the paper Cort had promised her. It turned out to be rolls of maps that Cort no longer needed. “Captain Van Linden says to use the back for your scribbling,” Henrik told her.
Wynter took them from him, but when he didn’t immediately leave, she asked him if he’d like to stay.
“Ja, ja,” he said.
Wynter was surprised by Henrik’s ability to learn English so quickly. On the ship he had barely spoken to her because of the language difficulty, but in the past month, he’d picked up quite a bit, especially from listening to Wynter and Mary and while working with Hilda and Davey in the galley. From that afternoon and in the week that followed, Henrik was there each day and an avid student.
“How is the school?” Cort would say each evening.
“Wonderful,” was her response as she came and sat on his lap after supper, but “wonderful” wasn’t quite the word to describe the intensity of their lovemaking each night when they reached new heights of ecstasy in each other’s arms. And so it went until one afternoon when she readied the writing materials for the first day of printing the alphabet.
Henrik, her most apt pupil, waited cross-legged on his mat by the open doorway while Wynter unrolled the maps and tore them into smaller fragments for easier handling by the children. Cabi joined them, more interested in playing with the dice Henrik had given him than in preparing to learn to write.
“Where did you get these maps?” Wynter asked Henrik.
“Captain’s desk.”
“I do hope you took the old ones, otherwise Cort will be angry.”
“I took only the ones in the desk drawer like Captain say,” he assured her.
“Well, it’s too late now to worry over them since I’ve already torn them.” Wynter reached for two small rolls of parchment which were tied together by a blue ribbon. She unrolled one of them expecting to see a configuration of lines and drawings, but what she saw totally mystified her. The wording was simple. Fletcher Larkin agreed to work for a period of five years as an indentured servant. The document was signed by the captain of the Mary Jack and there was a crudely formed X to indicate Fletcher’s signature.
Wynter felt hot and cold all over. “What can this be?” she asked. “How did Cort get such a thing?”
She looked to Henrik. “You’re certain these papers came out of Captain Van Linden’s desk drawer?”
“Ja.”
She held up the paper of indenture. “This one, too?”
“Ja. And that one.” He pointed to the other roll of parchment which had been tied to the one she held in her hand.
Trembling, she unrolled the mate, and a huge sob wracked her. The document’s wording was the same, but below the signature of the Mary Jack’s captain was that of Wynter Larkin.
“He knew this all the time,” she said to Henrik and Cabi without seeing them, for her eyes had filled with tears.
“Vrouw Van Linden, what is wrong?” Henrik asked in concern.
“Vrouw Van Linden,” she repeated as if in a stupor. “I’m not Vrouw Van Linden, but Wynter Larkin. Dear God!” she screamed after a few moments and frightened the two boys. “How could he have deceived me like this?”
She ran from the hut as the rest of the children began piling in. She didn’t notice any of them, didn’t stop when she saw Saba. In fact, she didn’t really know where she was going until she reached the top of the cliff and was lost among the ripe green banana trees.
The cool darkness of the forest washed over her as did the sweet smell of the fruit. In some part of her mind that was still thinking she knew she should return to the house and confront Cort, but her heart ached so much and the tears flowed so quickly that she didn’t believe she could endure any more of his lies. He had taken her identity from her and given her a new one. And because of the shock she’d just had, the rush of memories after seeing Cort at the Fleece that fateful day months ago stung her like a nest of wasps.
All she could think was that Cort had wanted to make her his mistress and had succeeded by only a chance of fate, of destiny. Was that why he never told her he loved her? Wasn’t it a known fact that Cort Van Linden never loved any woman and had used them for his own pleasure? And she, Wynter McChesney who had spurned him, had come willingly to his bed without resistance because she believed herself to be his wife.
Wynter buried her face in her hands and sobbed bitter tears. “I’m no better than a common whore,” she cried aloud.
From out of nowhere Cort materialized on his horse. He jumped down and instantly came beside her and took her in his arms. “Wynter, what is it? Saba told me you ran from the beach as if a black gust of wind were behind you. Tell me what happened.”
Her dove-gray eyes were wet with tears, and though there was a sadness there, Cort saw such dismay that he gave an involuntary shiver.
“Wynter, are you ill?” he asked when she didn’t immediately say anything but kept looking at him in dark pain.
“Take your hands off me.”
Her voice was steady, almost deadly, and Cort released her.
“Never touch me again! I don’t want to even see you again.”
“Tell me—”
“Here!” She shoved both papers at him. “Read for yourself, ‘dear husband.’ Explain to me how I can be your wife when I was married to Fletcher.”
He was losing her! He had to keep her as his; he couldn’t bear it if she no longer loved him. “You’re my wife, Wynter.” In his heart that’s how he thought of her.
“I’m not!” she shot back and pushed at him. “My memory has returned, Cort, and I don’t recall ever marrying you. In fact, I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man in the entire world.”
“I don’t think you’d be happy to live as a nun, Wynter.”
The force of her slap stunned him. “I’d rather remain untouched the rest of my life than to be with a devil like yourself. I want you to take me to Port Royal.”
Calmly Cort tore the two papers into bits. “So the princess has returned, I see, and very eager to issue orders. Well, my love, you’re a free woman, not a bondswoman any longer. I’m not your
father, Wynter, who’ll indulge his pampered pet. And I’m certainly not your precious Somerset, or your husband. If you wish to go to Port Royal, you’ll have to find another ship to take you there.”
How she hated him at that moment! He knew she wouldn’t be able to leave Santa Margarita, because no other ships had anchored there since Morgan’s. And she was well aware that no other captain would take her because she was Cort Van Linden’s mistress. The Van Linden diamond caught her eye, and she attempted to pull it off her finger but gave up. Suddenly her fingers were swollen.
“I’ll find a way to free myself of you,” she heard herself saying in a level voice which surprised her.
Cort shrugged and dropped the pieces of paper onto the forest floor. “You may try, my love, but will you ever be free of the feelings I arouse in you? I could take you here and now, and you wouldn’t resist me.”
She trembled a bit because that was true. But what had happened to the man she had loved so rapturously only that morning? Or had the Cort she had come to know been only a mirage? The man standing before her was the same arrogant man who’d swept into her life, not once but twice, and kindled a fire in her she never thought she’d feel for any man. What upset her more than anything was his complete composure, as if he had expected this to happen one day and never intended to fight for her love. She decided there and then that Cort had only used her for his own pleasure. That explained why he never told her he loved her. He didn’t.
“I admit I enjoyed loving you, and, yes, you could take me here and now, and I’d probably be unable to resist you. I congratulate you on achieving your aim. You wanted me as your mistress, and that is what I am. But though you may have gained my body with this deception, Cort, you’ve lost my heart.”
When she turned her back on him and walked proudly out of the forest, he knew he had.
CHAPTER
15
For the next three days Wynter slept in the large bed alone, while Cort spent his nights on the See Bride. She hadn’t asked him to leave the house, in fact the thought hadn’t entered her mind. After she’d left the cliff top that evening and Cort hadn’t returned to the house, she decided his absence was the best thing for them.
Pirate's Golden Promise Page 14
