Imogene, always a strong swimmer, gave a sigh of relief as she cut the water with long clean strokes. She was sure that even if the wreckers set out now, the fishing boat would reach her first.
From the cliffs of St. Agnes, the brown-robed members of the “brotherhood” were running about distractedly. Bowes rushed inside the stone cottage and seized Clara by the throat.
“That woman ye’ve set upon us,” he roared through his clenched teeth. “She’s getting away! D’ye know where she be going?”
Clara, thus rudely handled, looked dazedly up at Bowes. “Woman?” She tried to clear her muddled head. “Oh—you mean...” Snatches of what had been happening came back to her. “She won’t hurt us,” she mumbled. “I made her promise she wouldn’t bring the law down on us.”
Bowes’s expression was ludicrous to observe. A wench’s promise! And their lives were to depend on that? He was past speech.
That expression frightened Clara. Her jumbled mind remembered something else. “If she’s gone,” she declared vaguely, “ ’tis only to her friends at Ennor Castle over on St. Mary’s.”
The change on Bowes’s face was immediate and—to frightened Clara—amazing.
“To Ennor Castle,” he repeated in a blank voice, relaxing his grasp on Clara. “She’s gone to Ennor Castle, you say?”
“Aye,” repeated Clara, slumping away from his grasp. “She’s got friends there,” she mumbled.
“At Ennor Castle?” With a wild guffaw, Bowes flung away from her and went out the door laughing, stood there with his legs wide apart looking triumphant. “Lads, we’ve naught to worry about,” he called to the others. “The wench is on her way to Ennor Castle!”
CHAPTER 23
The bearded fisherman who hauled Imogene into his boat was a man she had never seen before in the Scillies. His pale watery eyes gleamed as he threw her a line and his gnarled hands hauled her over the side.
What a catch! he was thinking. A near-naked mermaid clad in a scrap of cloth that would soon come off!
“You’ve all my thanks,” gasped Imogene, with a look back at the cliffs where brown-robed figures now watched impassively. “I might have drowned but for you.”
The fisherman’s naked sun-browned chest expanded. “That ye might,” he agreed affably. “Name’s Tate.” And then, his curiosity overcoming him, “What caused ye to leap from your boat?”
“I wanted you to take me aboard for I’d never have made it all the way to St. Mary’s—my strength would have given out. I lost the oars and the barrel stave was too awkward for me to handle.”
“Ye were doing well enough for a while there,” he grinned. “When I first seen ye, ye were making good time!”
“And already wearing out,” she sighed, smoothing down her wet chemise around her hips, for she saw that his eyes were roving up and down, studying her through material that—now that it was wet—was practically transparent.
“Be ye from around here?” he wondered.
“I was once, but I’ve been away a long time.”
Away a long time... He digested that, stroking his beard. “And have ye relatives here, then?”
“No, not anymore. Could I—could I have something to put on? Anything will do.”
He sighed. “I’ll look for something.” But he made no move to do it.
Imogene tried to crouch low in the boat. Her legs were pressed tightly together and her crossed arms hid her breasts. “Anything—even an old piece of sail,” she said desperately.
Tate frowned. He was fooling with his nets, marking time while St. Agnes Isle grew smaller in the distance. “No people at all?” he muttered and straightened up. “Then what be ye doing here?”
“My father and I sailed here from Helston,” Imogene improvised—for to tell the true story was to get Clara hanged. “Our sailboat overturned at the beginning of the storm and I made my way to shore—like this.” She indicated the remnants of her semitransparent chemise. “For days I waited in the rocks in hopes my father had made it ashore and would find me but I fear he is lost.”
“What be your father’s name?”
“John Sims,” she said quickly, hoping she would be believed. “I am his daughter Janet.”
“There be some religious sect living on St. Agnes now. Why did they not give ye clothes or a blanket to put over your nakedness?”
“I—I didn’t want to ask them.” Imogene cast her eyes down modestly. “All those men ... Oh, can’t you find something for me to wear?”
“But they’d have returned ye to Helston.”
“I suppose so—but I found a rowboat and when I saw your sails I thought an honest fisherman was just the one to drop me off at St. Mary’s, which is not so far.”
Tate stood staring down at her. Now he smiled. St. Agnes Isle had drifted far off their bow. Around them was empty water. Above them a couple of gulls screamed and circled.
“ ’Tis all a lie,” he said softly. “Ye’re running from the law, lass. Most like ye stole something from those brown-cloaked fellows and they tore off your clothes to give ye a taste o’ the cat and ye escaped them—to me.”
“No, it wasn’t like that at all! My father and I—”
“Ain’t no John Sims in Helston, leastways none with a daughter Janet.” Tate’s smile broadened. “I'm from Helston.”
lmogene’s heart sank. Of all the bad luck, she had selected the very town this man lived in!
“I’ll thank you to deliver me to St. Mary’s,” she said coldly. “I have friends there.”
Tate’s derisive laugh chilled her. “Ye’ve no friends there!”
“I have! And they’ll pay you well to take me there safe.”
“Oh, I’ll take you there. And they need not pay me a penny. All I ask is a wee bit o’ fun on the way there.”
Imogene shrank back. This burly sailor who smelled of fish, with a beard that stank of his morning meal, repelled her. The thought of his flesh was revolting.
“I’m not prepared to pay you in that coin,” she said quietly.
Tate was chortling now. “Are ye not? That’s funny, that is. For there’s no way for ye to reach St. Mary’s except to swim it, save I take you. Is there, now?”
“Surely you’ll listen to reason.” Imogene was tense as a spring now, her wet body ready to leap up and evade him should he dive for her.
Tate saw her tense up. She’d be slippery as a mackerel if he tried to take her now. Let the wind dry her a bit more and she’d be easy to catch. His hard homy hands would close down on that soft body. Oh, she’d squirm frenziedly, like a fish trying to escape her fate—and in the scuffle her chemise would come off. He licked his thick lips. And then—then he’d have her down in the bottom of the boat, crushing down those soft hips as he worked his way, squeezing those breasts that seemed to wink at him whenever she turned, trying to keep his gaze away from her.
“Oh, I’ll listen to reason,” he drawled, admiring his catch.
“No, no, you must hear my story first.” Imogene had to keep that rapt gaze fixed on her. For over his shoulder she had seen what he had not: a sail, coming up fast on the horizon. In a little while that sail would be close enough. “I wasn’t always bad,” she whispered.
Bad? Her captor took a deep happy breath, sucking the air like wine into his lungs. Street wench, no doubt, in spite of her fine way of talking and her delicate aristocratic loveliness.
Oh, she’d know all kinds of cute whore’s tricks! He was going to have a fine time,
“You must remember that I—I was only thirteen when I tried out for the theater,” Imogene rushed on, babbling out any lies she could think of to keep Tate’s gaze on her and away from that oncoming sail. “I was selling oranges and I never thought when this fine gentleman took me to an inn because he said I looked thin and needed a good meal to put flesh on my bones, I never dreamed—”
“That he’d bed ye?” chuckled Tate.
“That he’d tear my clothes off before I’d even sampled the duck,” cr
ied Imogene indignantly. “Of course,” she added caressingly, as if she toyed with happy memories, “he was far gone in drink—else he’d never have invited his friends in.”
“Oho, so he gave a party with you as the main course?” Tate was delighted, for fishing was a lonely life and a good story was almost as good as a good lay, he reasoned. He’d be telling this one about the taverns of Helston for a long time! “And what did they do to ye, lass?”
“Oh—you wouldn’t want to know!” gasped Imogene. “They stripped me naked and threatened me with hellfire.”
“With hellfire!” Tate was riveted.
“Yes,” sighed Imogene, thankful to have his full attention. “One of them claimed to be a preacher and he said the others had lost their sweethearts and unless I gave them comfort I’d be condemned to hell forever!”
Fascinated, Tate shook his head at the strange antics of the gentry. “And did ye fall for that?” he wondered. If she said she had, he meant to try that line on the next innocent lass who wandered his way. Could be he’d learn something here.
“Oh, I—I thought about it, ’’ admitted Imogene. “But they were taking off their clothes as they talked and I was so shocked—’’
“Never seen a man before!” Tate slapped his thigh. “What then?”
“Well, then they said we must all drink wine—and anyone who didn’t drain his glass must lie down on the floor and pretend to be asleep. And of course I didn’t want to lie down on the floor."
“So they got ye drunk?”
“I—I’m afraid so.” She gave a hunted look about her that amused Tate mightily. “At least I don’t remember anything till the next morning when I woke up on a cart, without a stitch! And I must have been there a long time because the sun was beating down and my body was sunburned. We were heading out into the country. It was some branches that woke me up—the leaves tickled me. Oh, you don’t think they paraded me through all of London like that, do you?” she entreated.
“Most likely they started out afore dawn. Where was you headed?”
“They had sold me to this carter and he was hauling me out into the countryside like the baubles he peddled!”
“Quite a bauble he’d picked up!” Tate’s brows shot up.
“Yes, and then—” She leaned forward conspiratorially and Tate bent forward too. “While we were going through the woods I leaped off the cart into the grass and he never noticed.” The sails were coming very near now. “I was floundering through the woods stark naked and I got stuck in quicksand—”
“ ‘Quicksand’?” He came alert.
She nodded, apparently as rapt in her story as he. “And I began to scream, ‘Help, help!’ ” She threw back her head and screamed the words with all her might.
“Here now!” Tate cried, darting a look about him—and saw the approaching sails.
But it was too late. His prey was already on her feet, running about the boat screaming “Help! Save me! Oh, help me!” And as he plunged after her he could plainly see the man on the other boat run to the side and peer over.
That stranger was in time to view a wild scene as Imogene dived overboard while Tate cursed and leaned over the side, trying to throw a net over her.
“Stand off there!” came a sharp command from the other boat. And there was the sudden crack of a heavy pistol.
With a howl Tate dropped the net and betook him to sailing his boat fast away from this armed enemy.
Imogene trod water until another line was dropped and she was hauled—more gently this time—aboard another boat manned by a single sailor.
The face into which she looked when her bare feet landed on the deck was a laughing face. The eyes that smiled into her own were blue and merry. The hair that blew around that boyish face glowed red against the setting sun but as he turned she saw that it was actually as dark as van Ryker’s. He was as tall as van Ryker too and the naked chest against which she slid to the deck—for his arms had clasped her, hauling her up into the boat—was pleasantly masculine and the wet fabric of her chemise hewed to it, hauling up her already too short skirt.
Quickly she snatched down her skirt, smoothing it nervously around her hips—for she was afraid it might have ridden up above her hips and she had no desire to inflame yet another man this day!
“Welcome aboard,” said her newfound friend. “That fellow who’s scudding away from us as if the devil was after him didn’t look to be the type for a wench like you!”
“He wasn’t,” she agreed, stepping back. For all that his accent was genteel, she eyed him warily.
“What were you doing with him, then?” Arms akimbo, bare feet planted wide on the swaying deck, clad only in dark trousers in the belt of which was stuck a large smoking pistol, he considered her.
“I thought he had rescued me,” she said pensively. “But it seemed I had gone from the frying pan to the fire.”
“Oh?” His brows shot up. “Tell me about it.”
There was something commanding in the way he spoke. She had the uneasy feeling he might toss her back if he liked not her answer.
“I became lost from my party,” she improvised. “Six of us from Helston had decided to go picnicking to St. Agnes. We meant to climb Kittern Hill and see the Old Man of Gugh, and near the cairn, St. Warna’s Well below where her hermitage once stood.”
“You came to view antiquities,” he mused.
“Yes,” she said eagerly. “And most especially the two tall standing stones they call Adam and Eve—above St. Warna’s Bay. Do you by chance have a coat? Or even a bit of sailcloth? I’m freezing.”
“ ’Tis a warm night,” he smiled, eyeing her appreciatively as she stood before him in the bit of blowing chemise.
“But I'm wet and the wind is cold,” she complained. Obligingly he proffered his own shirt, of fine cambric, draped it around her. “You were saying—?”
“We landed on the beach and ate our lunch.” She was struggling to get her wet arms into the shirt sleeves as she spoke and he reached out to help her. His touch was light, caressing. She backed off warily. “Afterward I thought we were going to climb to the stones but we had seen this wreck—”
“Wreck?” he interrupted alertly.
“Yes, a broken-up hull of a ship. I was not interested in it—” She watched his face because much as she yearned to tell him that the wreck was the Goodspeed and that she had been aboard and only just barely escaped the savagery of the wreckers, she knew that Clara’s life depended on her keeping silent.
“But the others—”
“Wanted to explore this wrecked hull that was clinging to the rocks. I elected to stay and go swimming instead.”
“You could not have swum all this way,” he said softly.
Something in his tone alarmed her. “Of course I did not! But I went swimming in—in this.” She indicated the bit of semitransparent chemise now hidden by his fine cambric shirt that fell halfway to her knees. “And when I came back my clothes were gone.”
Something in the tall man before her seemed to relax. “So your friends stole your clothes? What then?”
“I thought it was a very mean trick,” said Imogene hotly. “And I thought that men who would do that would—do other things!”
“And well they might,” he murmured.
“So I found a beached rowboat and when I saw a sail, I rowed out in it and called out to the fisherman to take me aboard. He was ready enough to do so.”
“But once you were aboard he had other ideas?”
She nodded. “I suppose I could have expected as much.”
“Was there no one on St. Agnes to help you?” he asked carelessly, “l am told a widow lives there in a stone hut, and that some religious order has taken up residence on the island.”
“I saw no woman,” lied Imogene. “And the others must have been at their prayers, for I would certainly have enlisted their aid rather than chance a stray sail!”
“Won’t your party worry about you?”
“I d
oubt it. They were far gone in drink before they decided to explore the wreck. They’ll to Helston before they’ll miss me! Could you but take me to St. Mary’s, I’ve friends at Ennor Castle.”
“It’s a fine night—I could sail ye all the way to Helston.”
“No, I—I can’t arrive like this. In a scrap of chemise and a borrowed shirt! My father would disown me! But at Ennor they’ll give me a fresh dress to replace the one I’ve lost and I can go back to Helston saying I stayed over to visit my friends on St. Mary’s.”
“And thus suffer no loss of reputation,” he agreed sunnily.
“Exactly. And since I’m betrothed to a magistrate in Truro”—Did she imagine it, or did he stiffen a bit when she said “magistrate”?—“and he’s not one to let his betrothed be spending her time with a wild crowd. I’d take it as a kindness if you’d not mention in what condition you found me?”
The last rosy glow of the setting sun bathed her in its soft light as she spoke. The ruffled white cambric shirt that blew against her delightful figure was turned to strawberry, her golden hair to flame, her fair skin to coral pink, and her delft blue eyes to deep sparkling pools of rosy violet. She was a sight to dream upon, and the man’s face softened.
“I’ll sail ye to Ennor,” he agreed. “Who is it ye seek there?”
“Any of the Duveens,” she said carelessly. “Hal, if he’s about. Or Ambrose.”
That seemed to satisfy him and he brought the boat about and set sail across a claret red sea.
“I haven’t asked your name,” she said. “Or yet thanked you for saving me from—I know not what.”
“It’s Harry,” he said carelessly. “And I think we can both guess what I saved you from.” He grinned.
In spite of herself, Imogene had begun to relax. At least they were sailing in the right direction! And Harry was right, it was a warm night. Her long wet hair was beginning to dry in the breeze, her long bare legs were already dry. If only she could toss off all her clothes for a few minutes, she could arrive dry at Ennor. She yearned to ask Harry to turn his back, but surely that would be asking too much of human nature! A stranger, even with such an angelic smile as his could hardly be expected to keep his back turned on a naked woman all the way to Ennor Castle!
Wild Willful Love Page 31
