Wild Willful Love

by Valerie Sherwood

  Her attention went back to the young buccaneer, his muscular body swinging from the roof tiles in the perfumed night. In the courtyard the palm trees rustled, blending in with Virginie’s hiss as she leaned out the window clutching at her suitor’s belt to pull him in. As Georgette watched, Thaddeus, now swinging by one hard-sinewed arm, caught hold of Virginie’s casement, got both boots planted on the sill, and with a muscular ripple that tugged his flowing shirt near out of his trousers, disappeared inside.

  Georgette sighed. She had been rather hoping for something more dramatic. A screech from Virginie perhaps as Thaddeus lost his hold, caught the windowsill as he fell—and hung there unable to climb up and afraid to drop to the potentially lethal stones below. Georgette could imagine the household awaking, lights appearing hastily, her father’s nightcapped head thrust out, her mother crying, “What is it, Gauthier? Have the Spanish attacked?” And then her mother’s near hysteria as she had realized the true situation.

  That was the way it had been a week or so previously. Heartless young Georgette had thoroughly enjoyed everyone’s discomfiture and especially Virginie’s chagrin.

  Now her thoughts drifted to what they were doing up there, Virginie and the blond young Scotsman she had attracted on the quay. For a good ten minutes Virginie had flirted with him from her window. He had stood in the courtyard with his long legs spread wide apart and grinned upward and beckoned her to come down.

  Virginie had shaken her dark curls and smiled winningly. Thus encouraged, Thaddeus had leaped to the marble bench and held out his arms, indicating that he would catch her if she jumped.

  Georgette had waited breathlessly for reckless Virginie to accept his challenge and throw herself from the window into his arms.

  It had not happened.

  Virginie, her face and figure dramatically lit by two candles set at strategic places near the window (Georgette helped her steal them from the kitchen; cook wondered what happened to them), pouted.

  Realizing more bait was called for, Thaddeus reached inside his loose, coarse-textured maroon shirt and pulled out something that glittered. Georgette peered forward. It was a golden chain, delicately wrought, something he had picked up in his venturing.

  Again he held wide his arms, lazily dangling the chain.

  Georgette held her breath, firmly expecting Virginie to jump.

  Instead, a low reckless laugh drifted down from the window above. With a languorous gesture of a slim young hand, Virginie beckoned to the man in the courtyard below. She whirled about once so that her black curls made a swirling cloud about her head in the candlelight. Mockingly, she blew out a candle and cocked her head at him and began taking off one of her big detachable sleeves (this had always sent the sons of merchant captains shinnying up the big pepper tree). She hesitated, toyed with the sleeve, seemed to change her mind and stood undecided, then slowly removed both sleeves with her wicked gaze fixed on the man dangling a golden chain in the courtyard below.

  Then she blew him a kiss—and extinguished the last candle.

  Thaddeus McCall was left in no doubt. The governor’s daughter had flung him a challenge.

  And he would meet it.

  And now, surefooted as a cat burglar, he had made it through Virginie’s window.

  Georgette imagined the scene: Thaddeus, in his maroon shirt with its flowing sleeves, would be standing in the room facing a bridling Virginie. Virginie would have hastened to relight the candle and now the candlelight from behind would be haloing her dark hair (Georgette was sure of this, for Virginie had bragged to her about the “dramatic effect” of candlelight that “brought out the beast” in men. Georgette was not quite sure what the “beast” was, but she was eager to find out. So far, Virginie had not enlightened her). Virginie’s pink and white striped bodice would be straining with the deep breaths she would be taking (Georgette had observed this from seeing Virginie in passionate conversation with gentlemen in the garden during parties Esthonie gave).

  Thaddeus—what would Thaddeus be doing? Georgette reached for a mango in a bowl nearby. Thaddeus would—he would be on his knees to Virginie. No, that would come later after Virginie had led him on for a while and before she cried out that she heard Papa coming. Thaddeus would be bending over her, Georgette decided—like Captain Vartel had the night of the party when Mamma had come upon them in the dark courtyard; Virginie had been giggling and Mamma had said Virginie had drunk too much wine and had led her away.

  Idly, Georgette rubbed the mango’s smooth skin between her hands and her eyes grew bright. The night wind brought myriad scents through her barred window—lush tropical flowers, the salt sea, and something indefinable carried along on the trade winds ... something wild. .. perhaps it was the scent of freedom.

  Georgette’s mind, however, was not on freedom but locked in that upper room with Virginie and her sturdy new suitor—that Thaddeus might not choose to marry Virginie if he could had never crossed the mind of either sister. Who would not leap at the chance to marry a daughter of the governor of Tortuga?

  Georgette listened, hearing nothing. Her imagination raced.

  Thaddeus’s hot breath would be on Virginie’s cheek now, on her pulsing throat, as his urgent lips drew closer, closer (Georgette saw it all in slow motion, as in a dream). Virginie would smell the scent of rum and tobacco. His arms would go round her and she would feel against her bodice the rough material of his maroon shirt. Georgette’s short, rather stubby fingers were caressing the smooth peach-colored skin of the mango and her dark eyes had gone dreamy—he would be kissing her now.

  And now his strong bronzed hands would be straying down her back, sliding down Virginie’s pink and white striped bodice (Georgette had seen Captain Vartel do that) and he would be attempting to unfasten the invisible hooks that held that bodice together (as Virginie had later confided).

  And what would he do next? Georgette’s puzzled gaze sought the inscrutable darkness of the tropical courtyard where the palms scraped sensuously and the shrubs were hulking unrecognizable shapes. He would—well, he would give up on the hooks, Georgette decided. Virginie was always calling on her sister to help unfasten them and it was a near impossible job. Balked by the hooks, he would try a new tack. Georgette’s eyes sparkled. He would crush a pulsating Virginie to him and his hot lips would drag away from Virginie’s eager mouth and trail impudently—she shivered—down the white column of Virginie’s throat and bosom toward her taut round breasts straining against the cambric. Virginie of course would be covered with blushes and pushing him playfully away—for all that she was the heroine of several such encounters.

  Entranced, Georgette bit into the luscious mango, unmindful that the juice had spurted on her night rail. Tomorrow Mamma would scold her, but tonight it did not matter, her very soul was seething in that upstairs room with Virginie and her buccaneer.

  And now .. . now Thaddeus would have reached a questing hand down inside Virginie’s bodice, just at the cleavage, she supposed. And Virginie would slap his hand away—but not too discouragingly hard a slap. She would mince about, tossing her head in mock fright—in Georgette’s opinion, Virginie always minced—and mutter how he must not make advances—oh, la! her parents would hear! And then there would be the devil to pay!

  Georgette tried hard to imagine Thaddeus blanching at the threat of Papa charging up the stairs and gave up. No, she decided regretfully, he would not blanch. Nobody blanched at Papa here on Tortuga for all that he was the governor—and most especially not the buccaneers, who were a fierce lot and considered van Ryker their leader if indeed they had one. Virginie had already enjoyed several lightsome affairs almost under the parental noses. Georgette shrewdly decided that Mamma had decided Virginie’s uncertain virtue was already lost and that was the reason for her sudden urgency in corresponding with her French cousins about a mate for Virginie. Otherwise she would probably have let her go her way until she chanced upon some really good catch like—like Captain van Ryker if he were free.

>   Georgette sat dreaming. Imagine... all that gold and the glamorous captain too! How lucky lmogene was! She wished she were grown-up and could try to win him away like their houseguest Veronique Fondage was doing. Georgette was certain she herself would win. For although it was true that lmogene had a heavenly beauty—she. Georgette, would have an overwhelming appeal that would bowl men over like tenpins! She had long ago decided that. When she was as old as Virginie she would be a femme fatale—just like ruined Cousin Nanette in France! Of course, she had yet to prove her universal allure, but there would come a day—and she hoped dismally that there would be some Spanish treasure left, so that she could reap herself the golden rewards of buccaneering—not as Virginie upstairs was doing with the gift of a simple golden chain, but as lmogene had done, with the glamorous Captain van Ryker pouring out the wealth of the Spanish plate fleet at her feet.

  Georgette missed entirely the love lmogene bore the tall buccaneer or the way he worshipped her. In her youth and inexperience, she was sure sex was everything and that by her very youth and vivacity she could at this moment transport van Ryker—if she but had the chance!

  She was not likely to get the chance either, she knew. Not only lmogene, but now Veronique, stood squarely between them. And although she had made eyes at him, it was obvious that he considered her too young. Georgette heaved a deep sigh. She wondered if Virginie would really go to bed with Thaddeus—she had always claimed the next morning that she had not.

  “He nearly had my clothes off!” she had whispered to an ecstatic Georgette on more than one occasion. “But I was too quick for him. I told him I heard Papa coming and he slithered back down the tree in fright!” Her low wicked laugh had thrilled Georgette.

  But now there was no tree branch, and the admirer in question was not one of the sons of merchant captains, for the most part fairly genteelly brought up, who might take fright at the thought of being pursued by the furious governor of a buccaneer island—entirely misunderstanding the governor’s position here as a puppet for the buccaneers. Virginie’s new admirer—like the last one, who had fallen and broken his leg before he could bed Virginie—was a wild buccaneer and unlikely to run away at a mere whispered threat.

  Had Georgette but known it, Virginie, who had tempted fate so many times and won, was at the moment hard pressed and on the run. Thaddeus, spurred on by Virginie’s exhibition from the window, had arrived in a mood to begin at once. If Virginie had expected some conversation from him, she was not to have it. He scooped her up impetuously in his arms and was about to bear her to the big square bed when he was stopped in his tracks by a hiss from the squirming creature in his arms, followed by a stinging slap.

  Surprised at such hostility, Thaddeus stopped in his tracks and peered down.

  “I want to light a candle,” muttered Virginie. “Put me down, Thaddeus!”

  Thaddeus gave an uncertain chuckle. He wanted to please the wench, God knew. And if she wanted to make love in light instead of darkness, he felt he should accommodate her. He’d known a wench back in Scotland who’d make love only in the heather right after a rain—there was no accounting for tastes!

  He put Virginie down and leaned against her, reaching round to fondle her breasts as she tried with trembling fingers to light the candle. His breathing was heavy and indeed his breath came so hot and vigorous on her ears that it blew her curls about.

  “Here,” she said petulantly, trying to strike his body away with a shrugging shoulder. “You do it. I’m all thumbs.”

  Excited, was she? Well, his friend Jim Notley had told him she was a hot wench! Thaddeus took the flint and promptly lit the candle. It flared up to reveal Virginie’s slightly scared face. She was even more alarmed to see Thaddeus’s triumphant, almost gloating expression.

  Virginie was of no mind to have her virginity plucked as carelessly as one might pluck an orange from a tree. She stepped cautiously away from Thaddeus, wishing she still had the meager protection of her big detachable sleeves—they had the virtue at least of always getting in the way.

  “Sit down,” she said, regally indicating a high-backed chair with a leather seat.

  Again Thaddeus looked surprised. But he remembered Jim Notley telling him that for all her passion, Virginie was a “real lady.” And with “real ladies” (he had never known one), he had always heard it was slow work.

  He set the candle down carefully on a table—aboard ship one learned to be very careful with fire. “And where will you be?” he wondered.

  “I will sit on the bed,” Virginie said, somewhat regaining her composure. At least, she told herself, looking at the brawny young buccaneer before her, she had been able to stop him! For a moment there, she had had her doubts.

  Thaddeus nodded thoughtfully. That was a very good place for the lass to compose herself, on the bed. If this was how she wanted to do it, he had no objection. He was about to settle onto the chair when he realized it was already occupied—with feminine apparel.

  “Oh, those sleeves—” for Virginie had flung her detachable sleeves on the chair. “Just toss them to me.” She caught them as Thaddeus tossed them and laid them carefully on the coverlet. She was watching Thaddeus out of the corner of her eye as she might some dangerous animal about to spring.

  Thaddeus picked up the chair, meaning to bring it closer to the bed.

  Virginie jumped. “Oh, don’t move it,” she entreated in an anguished whisper. “The floor squeaks over here by the bed—my parents are sure to hear!”

  Well, he certainly didn’t want that. Carefully, Thaddeus put the chair down. He sat upon it. It occurred to him that this was not a winning situation for him. Certainly it was not the way he had imagined it would be from Jim Notley’s bawdy (and entirely imaginary) recounting. Jim had told him Virginie had melted like butter in his arms and given him a night of dazzling thrills. By now Thaddeus had fully expected to be tickling a half-undressed Virginie, dangling the gold chain above her naked nipples and making her reach up to snatch for it. Now for some reason he was afraid to bring up the subject of the gold chain, much less display it.

  “D’ye have something to drink?” he muttered restlessly.

  “No, I thought we would sit and talk for a while.” Virginie plucked aimlessly at her skirt. In their concentration neither of them noticed Malcolm, who had been sleeping under the bed’s heavy fringe and who now got up and stretched.

  “Talk?” Thaddeus gaped at her. Did the wench think he had climbed her roof at peril of his limbs to talk? Then, to Virginie’s terror, he threw back his blond head in a roar of silent laughter. The wench was putting him on, and he’d been too dumb to know it! When his head came down, he got up and swaggered confidently toward her. “Lass, Jim Notley told me all about ye. A hot wench, he swears ye to be, and I’ve a gold chain to be had by a lass with looks like yours—and more too where that comes from.”

  Virginie gasped. She had not bargained for this.

  “James Notley knows nothing about me,” she protested. “He fell before he reached my room!”

  He was towering above her shrinking figure on the bed. “But there were times before that,” he pointed out tolerantly. “Jim told me so!”

  “There were no times before that,” whispered Virginie in fright. She leaped up, intending to elude him.

  Thaddeus was more aware of her flashing cambric skirts than of her protests. Reckless of the sound his heavy boots might make upon a squeaking wooden floor, he plunged toward her, intending to take control of the situation.

  His timing could not have been worse.

  Malcolm had just poked an orange and white head through the bed fringe as Virginie leaped up. Finding too many legs and feet about for his liking, he elected to dart between them—this just as Thaddeus made his move.

  Thaddeus’s toe caught Malcolm’s tail—and Malcolm retaliated in the time-honored fashion of cats.

  To an electrified Georgette, the sounds from above came as a sudden thump, as Thaddeus instantly found a new plac
e for his boot, simultaneous with a cat’s loud angry screech and a sudden masculine howl as Malcolm took vengeance by slashing the flesh above Thaddeus’s wide, turned-down boot. And all accompanied by a clearly heard thin wail from Virginie pleading, “Do be quiet! They’ll hear!”

  There were noises of awakening all over the house. Georgette, her teeth clamped for a last luscious bite, tore the mango free and dropped it on the windowsill as she unwound her long body for a rush to the door. She flung it open and catapulted toward her father’s room, from which the stairs led up to Virginie’s second-floor bedchamber.

  Her mother, who occupied the bedroom next door, was already there when she arrived. Esthonie slept heavily, but when she woke, she woke like a buccaneer, ready to fight or fly. Tonight, realizing the racket came from overhead, she had flown unerringly toward her husband’s door—and collided with Georgette in her night rail in the entrance.

  “Get out of my way!” She gave her younger daughter a push. “Gauthier, Gauthier, put on your trousers—no, don’t wait for that, come along in your nightshirt. And bring your pistol.”

  That last remark electrified the plump governor, who tumbled out of bed in his long nightshirt, pushed back the tasseled nightcap that had fallen over his eyes, and, barefoot, rushed to open a chest by his bed and pull out a long dueling pistol.

  “What is the matter?” came Veronique’s voice.

  “Nothing!” snapped Esthonie. “Go back to bed. Oh, Gauthier, hurry!” Esthonie was already halfway up the stairs. “Someone is attacking Virginie!”

  How this could be when the only access to that upstairs bedroom with its locked door was past him, Gauthier never questioned. He surged to the defense of his women, a plump charging figure brandishing a big pistol, only to meet Esthonie’s anguished wail at the closed door. “I forgot the keys—Georgette, go get them from my night table. At once, Georgette! Mon Dieu, what was that?” at a sudden scuffing sound from inside the room. “Virginie, are you all right?”