Nightsong

by Valerie Sherwood

  Don Diego did not linger downstairs long. Presently she heard his light step ascending the stair and for a moment her stomach muscles tensed. Then she reminded herself sternly that this was her husband who was about to enter the room, and why should she fear him? Certainly he had offered her no hurt!

  The door was flung open and Don Diego, entering fast, came to a full stop and stood there staring at her.

  Carolina moved slightly, luxuriously, every motion an invitation.

  ‘I am tired of sleeping alone,’ she pouted.

  The dark brows rose, but the grey eyes considering her narrowed. ‘I have told you, Mistress Lightfoot, that I will not substitute in your arms for another man. Now - ’

  ‘But I want only you,’ she said beseechingly. ‘I have been thinking about it all through dinner. Surely you find me attractive - your eyes have told me that!’

  ‘I find you damnably attractive,’ he said reluctantly.

  ‘Well, then?’ She shrugged, and that slight motion rippled her breasts deliciously. The sheer chemise seemed a gossamer cloud about her enticing nakedness. Her hips swayed a little in anticipation, her breath came quickly, her eyes had darkened with desire. He could not miss the sincerity of her passion. Her voice had gone husky. ‘I promise to think of no one but you,’ she said, and there was a richness in the way she said it that brought a slight flush to his cheeks. God, the wench was inviting, lying there!

  In silence, devouring her with his eyes, he took off his clothes. In silence, joined her. In silence, wrapped his arms about her and kissed her lips, her breasts, her silken stomach, the triangle of golden hair at the base of her hips. He kissed her knees, her elbows, her shoulders, her throat.

  And then he moved luxuriously and single-mindedly above her, took her soft rounded buttocks in his hands and pressed her body tightly against his - and with his first thrust brought a soft moan of joy from her lips.

  He smiled down at her - so young, so willing, so wonderfully responsive to his every move. It was as if they had made love before, sweetly and often, for she fit into his arms as if formed for them alone.

  She did not speak. In silence she shared his joy, his wonder as their bodies moved and swayed softly against each other, and the linen sheet rasped lightly against the smooth skin of her back - for her chemise had somehow come down and her breasts were bare to his gaze. Indeed it had ridden up as well so that it lay across her slender waist like a sheer lacy scarf, forgotten by them both.

  Her hands caressed him as she moved to his rhythm, her lips moved against his chest, her back arched to bring her closer to him and she seemed to hear singing, impossibly sweet, as all the familiar glory of her love for this man returned to remind her of how it had been between them.

  What matter that he did not know who he was or that they had made love before on countless starlit nights? He was here and he was hers again - and he was falling in love with her; that much she had already guessed.

  And then passion swept her up on stormy wings and she soared with him to shimmering heights to an explosive world licked by the flames of desire - and fulfilment. And at last she descended reluctantly to the real world of sheets and bedstead and found him smiling down at her.

  ‘You are a wonder,’ he murmured. ‘How well you fit into my arms!’

  It was on the tip of her tongue to say, I always did! But she refrained.

  ‘Do you think it would shock the servants if I stayed here for the night?’ she asked with mock innocence.

  He laughed. ‘I think they expect it!’

  She studied him through seductive lashes. ‘And what will the governor think when he hears?’

  ‘I think he will be delighted,’ her lover said cryptically.

  Although his daughter will be less so! Carolina was thinking with satisfaction. She did not voice the thought. ‘So we are pleasing everybody,’ she said. ‘Most of all ourselves.’

  There was a smile on his face as he turned over and went to sleep.

  24

  The next week was a sort of bittersweet honeymoon for Carolina. No longer did he own her as his wife - but she had become his mistress.

  And for her, lying in the scented darkness while he strained above her, it was enough.

  She heard him explaining to the governor’s daughter that he could not ride with her because his head wound bothered him - and smiled. She heard him give orders to Luz to tell Doña Jimena, if she called, that he was out - and her smile broadened.

  Perhaps she had not won him yet, but she was winning him! For he could not seem to get enough of her perfumed body. They made love and then they would lie there companionably in the afterglow, talking about all manner of things. He spoke to her with pride of this handsome New World town of Havana, of the strength of its defences. It was the pride of Spain speaking, and she never by word nor look let him know that he was not Spanish, that the pride he took was in enemy fortifications, that he would find himself hanging high if others learned about him what she already knew.

  And then on Saturday she could stand it no longer. She waited until the house was dark and quiet and all the servants had gone to bed - for no one must hear what she was about to tell him. She let him make love to her and then she sat up and looked at him thoughtfully in the candlelight.

  I have something to tell you,’ she said. ‘And you would do well to listen for it is your life I hold in my hands.’

  He grinned at her. ‘You may have all of me, querida.' And reached out again for her.

  But this time she eluded him.,

  ‘First,’ she said, ‘tell me how Captain Juarez recognized you, for I am told that he found you dangling unconscious, tangled into the rigging of the Sea Wolf in Port Royal. He had never seen you before. How did he know it was you?’

  ‘By my boots,’ he told her with an engaging grin, ‘since you’re so interested. They were made for me especially by the King’s bootmaker, and one of them had a message sewn into the side.’

  ‘They don’t fit you very well,’ she scoffed, casting a glance at the scarlet-topped jackboots which he had so recently removed.

  ‘Ah, that’s because they were made up from an old pair that must not have fit me very well either,’ he countered. ‘It seems that I had left them at my bootmakers and their fit was duplicated.’

  ‘I’m surprised you didn’t have them adjusted,’ she observed.

  ‘And let the King of Spain know I didn’t like his gift?’ He laughed. ‘I’m rumoured to be an ambitious man!’

  ‘In Port Royal,’ she said slowly, ‘you had just had a new pair of boots made. We quarrelled, and you stalked out in your old ones. I think I know what must have happened. When you took the Santo Domingo, the salt air must finally have done in your boots - and you put on the boots of a dead man. Don Diego Vivar.’

  Her words hung between them like an accusation.

  ‘So we are back to that, are we?’ he said grimly.

  ‘Kells, listen to me.’ Her voice was low and urgent. ‘I have been married to you, I know you well. There is not a mark on your body that I do not know. I can tell you how you got that scar on your wrist - and that one along your side. They were both in defence of me.’

  ‘You have not explained how I speak Spanish so well, nor why the ways of a Spanish caballero are second nature to me,’ he said harshly.

  ‘You lived in Spain for a time. In Salamanca. You told me all about it. It was there you learned to hate the Spaniards. It was really because of what happened to you in Salamanca that you became a buccaneer! Oh, Kells, you must escape from here - you are in deadly danger! At any time one of the Spanish prisoners who had been held on Tortuga - and so many of them must have come back to Havana - could recognize you and you would be lost!’

  ‘And any day a galleon could arrive from Spain with someone who knows me from my days at the Spanish Court,’ he countered. ‘And recognize me as my true self - Don Vivar!’

  ‘No,’ she said in panic. ‘That will not happen. It will be a dis
aster if anyone comes here from Spain who has known you!’ In truth she had forgotten about that - he was menaced from both sides: Not only those who had known him in Tortuga as Kells could denounce him - those who had known the real Don Diego in Spain could denounce him as well!

  He was staring at her, a cold light in his grey eyes. ‘What would you have me do?’ he asked at last.

  ‘I would have you leave here by the fastest way possible.’ she urged. ‘Steal a boat, anything - but get away. Anytime you show your face you could be recognized!’

  The ghost of a smile passed over his lean features.

  ‘And how do you account for the fact that I have not already been recognized as this Kells?’ he demanded.

  ‘It is because your clothes are so very different,’ she said frankly. ‘Because you sit beside the governor, you ride with his daughter. But if ever you take off your coat and stand with your shirt open in the sunshine, if ever you wear leathern trousers or sport a cutlass - !’ She shuddered.

  ‘So you would have me leave my heritage and seek - what?’

  ‘A new life somewhere else. You have gold in England - let me go and claim it!’

  ‘England,’ he murmured. ‘You would take me to England . . .’

  ‘No, for there you are a wanted man. Let me go there for you. Let me - ’

  She had reached out and grasped his arm as she spoke, and now he brushed her fingers off and stood up. His face was cold but no colder than his voice.

  ‘So all this week you have been planning this, you lying wench! You would snatch me from my heritage and turn me over to the buccaneers! What devil is in you that would make you lie in a man’s arms and then try to destroy him?’

  ‘I would never destroy you!’ she cried.

  ‘Would you not?’ He seemed to tower over her, glowering. ‘Yet you would deliver me to my enemies on a platter!’

  ‘The buccaneers are not your enemies! They are your friends. Hawks - ’

  ‘Bah!’ he said. ‘It is all of a piece with your devious ways. You sought to charm me, to cajole me, to bend me to your desires.’ He was angry because she had so nearly done it. Listening to her, he could almost trust what the lying wench said!

  ‘Kells, believe me, I would not lie to you! I am trying to save your life!'

  ‘I was wrong about you,’ he said. ‘I would have given up other women for you - but you are a buccaneer’s wench after all!’

  Of a sudden he picked her up, and before she guessed his intention he marched down the corridor with her, kicked open the door to her bedroom and tossed her upon the bed.

  'Stay out of my way,’ he said thickly.

  He turned and slammed the door behind him.

  In fury and exasperation, Carolina began to cry. Through her angry sobs she could hear his own door slam in the distance.

  Their short honeymoon had come to an end.

  The next day he did not appear for breakfast and later in the morning she saw him driving out with the governor’s daughter. But the worst was reserved for later: After he had returned from that jaunt, she saw Doña Jimena’s carriage stop before the house. Doña Jimena was not in it, but Carolina had seen the Menendez carriage and its matched team of dancing black horses often enough to recognize it. Kells must have been waiting for it because he promptly went out and got into it and was driven away.

  Watching him from the window of his bedroom where she had gone to mope, Carolina felt her eyes sting.

  That he was squiring the governor’s plump assertive daughter meant little to her, for she knew that Marina meant nothing to him. But that he had gone back to the arms of beautiful lecherous Doña Jimena, ah, that was something else!

  Carolina walked about, growing more and more upset. She would confront him at dinner! She would have it out with him!

  But he did not come home for dinner. Indeed he did not come home that night at all.

  The next day he passed her in the hall with an impassive nod - no greeting. When she would have spoken to him he brushed by her and closed the door.

  She couldn’t know what it cost him to do that, for the lure of her white arms was almost overpowering. He had lain with Doña Jimena and she had been her usual intriguing self. But she was not Carolina, and his soul and his body both ached for his lustrous wench. He had spent the night in a tavern drinking - but even that had not helped. Madre de Dios, the wench was in his blood. She had bewitched him!

  But he would not let her know it. Indeed he would fight this mad infatuation that seemed to have dulled his wits and weakened his resolve! He would spend more time with Doña Jimena, whose interest in sex was as keen as his and who had perfected her own style of lovemaking - a style calculated never to get her pregnant. And if Doña Jimena’s eager lips lacked for him the warmth of Carolina’s sweet body - for Carolina seemed entirely careless of the chances she took of bearing a child out of wedlock - well, then he would find other hot wenches, the world was full of them!

  So he reasoned - and so he suffered.

  But Carolina did not know that. She was living in her own private hell, a world of fear for him - and fury with him.

  ‘Men!’ she told Penny bitterly.

  ‘Yes. Devils, aren’t they?’ laughed Penny. ‘Do you know, I think I almost have the governor lured to my bed? I can’t imagine why he’s so shy!’

  ‘He’s probably afraid of you,’ sighed Carolina. ‘You look as if you might eat men alive!’

  ‘Oh, come now! What’s so upsetting? I thought you two lovebirds were getting along famously!’

  ‘Not anymore,’ muttered Carolina.

  ‘Oh, so he’s back to his old tricks? Well, men are like that,’ Penny said philosophically. ‘There’s an answer to that and it’s always the same - get a new man!’

  Carolina stared at her sister. Perhaps that was the answer! Don Ramon del Mundo had called every day and she had always told Luz to say she was out. There was no mistaking the hot light in the lean Spaniard’s eyes - she could have a new man any day she wanted. Don Ramon was hers for the taking!

  ‘It isn’t the end of the world, you know,’ chided Penny, whether Don Diego is faithful to you or not.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ Carolina asked in a hollow voice.

  'Well, I must say this thing has certainly sprung up fast. It seems only yesterday that you were mourning for Kells, and now you fly into bits because Don Diego sees Doña Jimena!’

  'Perhaps I should stop mourning,’ muttered Carolina. Perhaps I should find my own way in the world!’

  ‘My sentiments exactly,’ was Penny’s cool rejoinder.

  But Carolina could not quite bring herself to do it. Deep in her heart she was still faithful to her buccaneer.

  ‘I do not know how you can hate me - I have but told you the truth about yourself!’ She confronted him squarely the next day, as he was coming through the door, fresh from a rendezvous with Doña Jimena.

  He paused and scanned her - and the way he did it brought a flush to her cheeks. ‘I do not hate you,’ he said flatly, and it was the truth. Not only did he not hate her, he desired her with a heat that was hard to control. Her femininity burned like a brand in the back of his consciousness and he carried in his mind a picture of her wherever he went. He would have died rather than let her know it.

  ‘Then why do you avoid me?’

  He took a deep breath. He avoided her because he felt that like a storm, she could sweep him from his moorings, dash him to disaster. She was beguiling, this lovely wench, and there was a terrible sincerity in her silver-grey eyes that he found daunting. Looking into those eyes, it was hard not to believe her - and that would be terrible, for all that he knew of himself, this self he had become acquainted with so recently, was that he had spent his life fighting for God and Spain. To betray either - with this beautiful heretic - would make him a traitor, without honour, cursed in his own country.

  ‘I avoid you,’ he said coldly, ‘because your lies would drag me down. I am a Spanish patriot - ’

>   ‘A patriot, yes - but an English patriot,’ she corrected him angrily. ‘You were always that!’

  ‘But Kells is known to be an Irish buccaneer,’ he told her, and there was a note of triumph in his voice.

  ‘Kells pretended to be Irish in order not to shame his family in England,’ she retorted hotly. ‘Kells is in truth Rye Evistock, eldest surviving son of a viscount - Lord Gayle.’

  He accepted this information without comment. ‘I have no doubt you know your man,’ he said, shrugging. ‘But I am not Kells. You must give up this bizarre fantasy that I am a buccaneer, somehow spirited to Havana!’

  ‘I will not!’ she cried, and her voice was now low and desperate. ‘I will not give it up because you are in great danger. Every moment that you remain in this city your life is in jeopardy!’

  His contemptuous laughter echoed through the hallway. ‘I cannot believe that your mind is unhinged, so it must be that you seek to hoodwink me. I will have you know, mistress, that it cannot be done - at least not in this manner. Before God, I have served no master but the King of Spain - nor ever will!’ His voice rang with a sincerity that infuriated Carolina.

  She leaned forward with her slender hands on her hips and it was no unfortunate captive who was speaking now but the arrogant Silver Wench whom all Tortuga had held in high esteem.

  ‘You have sunk their galleons and raided their towns,’ she said between her teeth. ‘You married me aboard the Sea Wolf in a buccaneer wedding while all Tortuga cheered! You have fought for me in many lands and against all odds. Would you deny me now?’

  He could not but admire her spirit. After all, he told himself, she had found herself cast away among enemies - who could blame her for trying to better her position?

  ‘If you were a man and told me I was Kells,’ he said slowly, ‘I would ask you to defend yourself and carve the lie upon your body. But you are a woman and defenceless here. My fingers itch to tame you with the lash but I will not because I recognize in you a fighting heart. Cease these lying accusations and we can become friends again.’