Lovesong

by Valerie Sherwood

  Her plans to escape had occupied her mind outside these whitewashed walls, but once enclosed by them again, once she was walking through the inner courtyard where she had breakfasted with Kells, where he had taunted her—yes, taunted her! about last night, for had he not called her behavior “irresistibly charming”? —her indignation mounted.

  She flounced through the empty courtyard and into that bedroom furnished for her alone—or so Kells claimed.

  Across the Caribbean the shadows were lengthening. Night would soon be coming to the emerald green islands of the Indies—among them the buccaneer stronghold of Tortuga.

  And with the night Tortuga’s most celebrated buccaneer captain would be coming home . . . home to claim as his right what he had last night taken by guile.

  Chapter 32

  An early moon rode the sky when Kells came home. She knew he had been busy with the careening of the Valeroso at Cutlass Point and guessed that he had stopped by some tavern on the way home to have a drink with friends. She dined alone, fidgeting beneath Katje’s speculative glances. But she was not hungry, she only toyed with her green turtle soup and grouper and citrus.

  Her mind was on the night—and what it would bring.

  At first she determined that she would ignore him. She would go to bed. She would push a chair against her door first of course—and then she would go to bed.

  Still she hesitated. At last she took off her fiery red dress—glad to be rid of it, actually, for she had only kept it on to provoke him in case he should hear of the comment she had caused down at the quay today.

  Outside the trade winds rustled the palms seductively. Fitful shadows raced across the moon. The night air from the Caribbean was filled with magic.

  It was then that Kells strode in.

  She had heard his step in the hall and tensed, expecting his knock. But she was unprepared for the sudden way her door burst open. She was caught standing there clad only in her thin chemise—more than sufficient for the heat—before her dressing table. She had been about to comb out her long fair hair but as the door opened she whirled and dropped the fan with which she had been fanning her damp skin.

  “Get out!” she cried, outraged. “Can’t you see I’m not dressed?”

  “Indeed I can see that.” His raking gaze passed over her, but he made no move to go. “I have just come from the town,” he said. “You are the talk of it. Faith, since you came here, men speak of little else! It is true that a woman can cause more havoc than a battle!”

  “If you are speaking of my red dress,” she said haughtily, “I will remind you that it was you who gave it to me!”

  “I am not speaking of your red dress, even though I understand that it is being vividly described, along with every detail of your figure and your flaunting walk, in every tavern on Tortuga. What devil is in you, Christabel?”

  He advanced upon her and she retreated behind a carved high-backed chair.

  “Kells,” she warned him, “go back.” And then her resentment overcame her and she burst out, “How dare you speak to me of devils, you—you despoiler of women!”

  “Despoiler of—!” For a moment amazement blanked his countenance of expression. As he paused, the moonlight that poured through her bedroom window in a pale golden shower struck full upon his face, etching the hard lines and the steady narrow gray eyes. He cut a handsome figure, tall and dark, his white shirt with its flowing sleeves open to the waist, his cutlass hanging carelessly from his belt and slapping against his lean thighs in their dark trousers. But his saturnine countenance, deeply tanned from the tropic sun, did nothing to reassure her. “Despoiler of women, am I?” His sardonic grin flashed. “And why should I be left out?” he demanded insolently. “Why should I not share you too? Since you promise yourself so recklessly to others?”

  Clinging to the chairback, she gave him a bewildered look. “What are you talking about? I have promised nothing.”

  “What of your dealings with O’Rourke and Skull? They have tossed coins for you!”

  Her color heightened at his knowing manner and she answered with heat. “They tossed coins only as to which one would take me where I wished to go. Since you will not!” she added bitterly.

  He had taken another step toward her across the stone floor and she caught her breath. His face was again in darkness but she could see the gleam of his strong white teeth, flashing in a smile that held no mirth.

  “Kells, you cannot blame me!” she cried in sudden panic at the looming anger she saw in his face. “They promised to take me wherever I wished to go.”

  “Promised to take you. . . .” he murmured. “And you believed them?”

  Her heart was hammering harder in her chest. Not only his commanding presence but something dangerous in his tone frightened her.

  “Should I not?” she asked stiffly.

  “You agreed to accept matelotage from them!” he exploded. “Don’t you know what that means?”

  In truth she did not, but she would not have admitted it for worlds. “Of course I know.” She tossed her fair head and the moonlight struck it into a cascade of spun white gold that poured down upon the rounded gleam of her shoulders. “It is—oh, some Spanish word that means ‘to share metal’ or some such. I had promised them gold—”

  “Whose gold?” he cut in.

  “Why—why, Doña Hernanda’s, of course!”

  His expression grew incredulous.

  “She may not have it but she can get it!” cried the girl whose lovely face looked back at him indignantly from over the top of the tall carved chairback. “And since they had both offered, they felt entitled to share the gold—to share the metal, I suppose,” she added lamely. She was wishing with all her heart that when O’Rourke had mentioned the word “matelot” she had asked him what it meant instead of so blithely assuming its meaning.

  “Share metal,” he murmured and for a moment she thought his expression was bemused. “So you thought they wanted coins?”

  “Yes!”

  His face broke into a sardonic grin. “Let me enlighten you, Christabel. Buccaneers know the words for ‘money’ in any language. They do not speak mysteriously of coin of the realm.”

  “Then . . . what?” A frightened feeling was creeping over her. Even in this heat she felt a shiver.

  “Matelotage is a French word, Christabel, not a Spanish one,” he informed her grimly. “Matelotage is an old custom among the buccaneers, who have long suffered from a shortage of desirable women. It means to take a wife ‘sailor fashion.’ Two buccaneers toss a coin as to which one will marry the wench, and the loser goes through with the ceremony.”

  It rang now in her head, Skull’s snorting laugh, “Ye've lost!” and O’Rourke’s triumphant, “No, damme, I've won!” as he pocketed the coin he’d tossed—and all the while his hot green gaze had roved over her lissome body in the low-cut red silk dress she’d worn down to the quay.

  She was looking at Kells now, dazed. Dear God, did these buccaneers think she had actually promised to marry one of them?

  “Tell me, did O’Rourke lose the toss?”

  “Skull said he did,” she admitted in confusion. “But O’Rourke insisted he’d won.”

  “I don’t doubt O’Rourke felt he’d won,” said Kells heavily. “For that meant he would get you first. O’Rourke would go through with the ceremony with you—and as part of the bargain take you to any convenient location you chose. By the way, what place did you choose?”

  “Havana,” she said sulkily.

  “Havana?” He looked at her in wonder.

  “I chose Havana because Lord Thomas is imprisoned there—he must be! And . . . they laughed.”

  “A Spanish stronghold? I don’t doubt they laughed!”

  “But they told me there was a small buccaneer settlement nearby on the island of Hispaniola from which Havana could easily be reached—”

  “Oh, Havana can easily be reached from there—but did they tell you that this small ‘settlement’ appea
rs and disappears? It is subject to raids by Spanish ships.”

  She gave him a bewildered look. “Then they weren’t really going to take me to some safe place near Havana?”

  “Not as near as you would like!” He returned her gaze coolly. “I see you still do not fully understand, Christabel. When two buccaneers desire the same woman and that woman is willing to accept matelotage —as you have declared yourself willing—one will wed her and stay with her for a time whilst the other is at sea. The other buccaneer then returns and takes the husband’s place and lives with the bride as if they are man and wife—until the husband returns, when they trade places again. The one to whom she is not wed is called the matelot. It is a custom time-honored among the buccaneers. In this settlement on Hispaniola which you have selected, O’Rourke now believes you will live with him as his wife—a natural assumption since he intends to marry you. And when he feels the call of the sea again, Skull will take his place, move in and live with you until O’Rourke returns. Skull was telling you that he would be your matelot—your ‘other husband.’ And to this you have agreed!”

  As the full import of what she had gotten herself into, down on the quay, sank in on her, she thought her knees would buckle. Those two buccaneers thought she had promised to—! She clung to the chairback, staring at him in horror. “Oh, no, I never intended—Rye, I did not understand. I—”

  “Call me Kells,” he interrupted ruthlessly. “Or we will terminate this conversation.”

  “Kells, I did not understand what they meant.” She was shrinking back as if trying to disappear behind the chair.

  A contemptuous expression played over his face. You did not wait to understand, you did not ask what matelot was! You are hot to depart with O’Rourke or Skull-—and they intend to share you!”

  “But they cannot!” she cried. And it was Carolina Lightfoot, the reigning Colonial belle, who was speaking, not this other self she had become—Christabel, the Silver Wench of the buccaneers.

  “Who is to stop them?” he asked softly.

  “Why, you must, of course! You must explain to them that I did not understand!”

  “I must explain?” He gave her a mocking look. O’Rourke is a friend of mine, he’s a hot-blooded Irishman—as he believes me to be—and a dangerous man with a blade in his hand. Skull is a master of the garotte and some other things too harsh for your tender ears. And you wish me to take on this disappointed pair who will believe you duped them? Faith, you’ve little regard for my life!”

  “But you must have regard for my honor,” she wailed. “For you are a gentleman! You cannot forget that fact.”

  “I can in these waters,” he said grimly. “Here I live the life of a buccaneer, abandoned by God and man.”

  Her breath came shallowly. Her fingers gripped the chairback and it was hard to keep her voice steady. You mean—you would not stop them?” she whispered. “Oh, Kells, you would not let them take me?”

  A muscle in his hard jawline worked for a moment as his steely gray eyes considered her. She felt she saw doom in their hard glitter, but she could not know the torment within him. Let them take her? They would have to cut him down first! Indeed, for her sake he would chop them both down like trees—but she was not to know that, for it would give this arrogant silver wench a power over him that he did not wish her to realize she possessed.

  He fought for control and when he spoke at last his answer was cool. It was flung in her face and it struck her like a slap.

  “You are saying that you are mine?” His hard gaze swept over her.

  “No—no, of course I am not saying that!” Regardless of what had happened last night, she was suddenly terribly conscious of her state of undress, that she was standing here facing him in the tropic night, clad only in her chemise. “I am saying—” She swallowed nervously. “I am saying that you could pretend that it is so.”

  “I will not pretend.” The words rang like metal cast upon stones. “If I do this thing, it will be true in fact that you prefer my bed to theirs. Make your choice, Christabel. It is to be them—or me. I am telling you that I will deal with this pair on your behalf—but only if you come willingly to my bed.”

  Her whole world spun round. She was not debauched, not willingly at least—not yet. But soon to be. Kells’s face, she thought, looked almost demonic in its intensity as he brutally named his price for saving her.

  “After all,” he told her in an offhand manner “Better myself than O’Rourke and Skull. Skull has never known a lady and O’Rourke gets drunk as a skunk every night and has been known to manhandle his.”

  She was not listening. A tormenting vision rose up in her mind of Lord Thomas with his hands tied, dangling unconscious on the sun-baked deck of a Spanish galleon, and other visions even more frightening—of Lord Thomas locked away from the sun, deep down in a Spanish dungeon in Havana’s Morro Castle. Chained, eaten by rats. . . . There was only one way she could save Lord Thomas, she told herself with a surge of rather splendid feeling, and that was to appease this dark buccaneer who stood scowling down at her, determined not only to ravage her young body but to make her come willingly to his arms! If she would save Lord Thomas, she had no choice but to agree to his disgraceful bargain!

  She drew a deep shaky breath.

  “I will do as you ask,” she said faintly.

  Around them the stillness was suddenly deafening. It was broken only by the sound of the sea breaking over the beach. The moon, being old and wise in the ways of lovers, with sudden delicacy retired behind a cloud and left them together in scented darkness in that wildest place of all—Tortuga, stronghold of the buccaneers.

  Had Carolina not been looking down at the floor at that moment she would have seen an expression of shock pass over Rye Evistock’s face. Not for a moment had he believed she would do it. He had only been baiting her, tormenting her for all the sleepless nights she had caused him. He had been paying her back, he realized that now.

  And now she had agreed to share his bed. Mixed emotions flooded him, mixed emotions so powerful he was afraid she might see them writ plain upon his face.

  Very well,” he heard himself say gravely. “I will accept your word on it. Come out from behind that chair, Christabel, that I may see you.”

  She seemed to drift away from the chair, forlornly, like a child. She did not look up, but gazed instead miserably down at the floor, overcome by a sense of shame.

  He might have let her out of her bargain then for he felt a rush of sympathy for her plight, alone and friendless in this barbaric part of the world.

  But of a sudden her silver blonde head was lifted and a pair of level eyes shooting silver sparks transfixed him. “I take it,” she said bitterly, “that you will not demand your payment now and then go back on your word?”

  He flinched as if she had struck him.

  “No, I will not go back on my word,” he told her almost lightly. “Nor will I demand payment in advance.”

  You have already had that, she thought resentfully. Last night! But I was unconscious then—and now you mean to bend me to your will with my eyes wide open! She averted her head, hating to look at him.

  She expected him to turn away, to head for the door.

  Instead he suddenly stepped forward and pulled her to him, pressed a hungry lingering kiss upon her flinching mouth. His hand strayed down her back as she struggled, tracing the length of her backbone in the thin chemise all the way to her softly rounded buttocks. She struggled against him, gasping, sure he could feel the tumultuous pounding of her heart against his broad chest.

  As suddenly as he had pulled her to him, Kells let her go.

  “A little something on account,” he said dryly.

  “Damn you!” Her voice trembled. “You would bargain with my honor!”

  “There are those who would bargain without it,” he said with a shrug, turning away. “And you would like them even less.” At the door he paused and turned to her with a crooked grin. “Take heart,” he sai
d softly. “One of these buckos may kill me—and then you will have to pay me no price at all!”

  Real terror flared in her eyes at his words. He saw that terror and laughed as he went out, closing the door.

  Carolina’s fingers did not unclench until she heard the sound of his boots receding down the hall. Then she looked around her at this handsome high-ceilinged room built by Spanish labor, this luxurious corner of the buccaneer’s stronghold that had become her prison.

  What did her reckless promise make of her? she asked herself—and did not care to answer.

  Chapter 33

  The night passed—alone. Kells did not return. Carolina slept fitfully. And woke at last with a restless start to see the sun beaming through her jalousies. But it was only Katje’s knock that had waked her, informing her that breakfast was ready.

  She breakfasted alone in the spacious stone-floored courtyard. And told herself she was glad to rid herself of his infuriating company. But she found she was lonely and ate little, hardly touching the tasty little pancakes or the blushing mangoes, the papayas and oranges that were piled into a huge earthenware bowl to serve as an edible centerpiece.

  The rest of the morning she spent prowling restlessly about the house. She would have wandered out into the cool rustle of the lemon and avocado grove if she could, but she found the front door guarded by a scarred buccaneer who looked at her gravely and silently. Indeed he kept a watchful eye upon her as if he felt she might suddenly dart past him and try to bolt through the door. Kells must have told him she would try it, she thought wryly. She strolled out to the hot kitchen but the burly cook, at sight of her, frowned and made a point of going over and bolting the kitchen door which stood open to let out the heat from the cavernous stone fireplace where a great stew was simmering in an iron pot. Carolina took the hint and returned to the courtyard.