Day Dreamer

by Jill Marie Landis

  She walked up behind him, the rush of the water and the crack of billowing sails masking the sound of her steps.

  “Do you feel like dancing beneath the moon?” The moment she asked, she realized she had made reference to a secret memory of his mother.

  He started, then looked down at her. “I came out to watch for the first sign of light from the island.”

  “In the water?”

  “Come look.”

  She stepped up beside him and leaned against the rail. The water foamed in a spectacular phosphorescent display against the hull. It was like nothing she had ever seen. “It looks like lightning beneath the water.”

  “Sort of.”

  “You must be very excited about tomorrow.” She sensed his anticipation.

  “No.”

  She knew he was lying, that he simply would not let himself admit he could not wait to reach the island he called home, just as she couldn’t wait to see if the island was half as splendid as his memory of it.

  “I am excited,” she said.

  “Don’t be,” he warned. “You leave yourself open to disappointment.”

  “But you made it all sound so wonderful.”

  “I was trying to humor you, to take your mind off the storm. Nothing more.”

  “You succeeded.”

  He ignored her for a time, even though she stood so close their shoulders touched. A comfortable silence stretched between them. Finally he said, “You seem to have found your sea legs.”

  “That’s what Foster said earlier.” When Cord continued to stare across the sparkling water, she asked, “Do you mind me standing here?”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Celine wished she could touch the glowing water. “You drank so much wine at dinner that I thought you might have fallen overboard.”

  “How much or how little I drink is no concern of yours.” He stared down at her with his unreadable blue eyes. “Are you nagging again?”

  “No.” She looked away to hide a smile.

  He leaned back against the rail, studying her so closely that she finally glanced up. She found his look unsettling.

  He was staring at her mouth.

  Somewhere inside her, something melted. It was the same heady sensation she had experienced once before in her life—the night Cordero had held her in his arms. At the time she thought she must have been dreaming, but now it was happening again. She felt hot and cold at once, struck by a sudden inexplicable yearning she could not define. Without thought, she took an involuntary step toward him and felt her face flush with color when she realized what she had done. Thankfully, the moonlight masked her discomfort.

  Cord wished he could make her nervous enough to hike up her skirts and run back to her cabin. He had avoided her as much as possible over the past few days, attempting to take little notice of her at meals, trying to drown his growing need in the captain’s expensive liquor. But his efforts had seemed to have the opposite effect on him. Instead of thinking of her less, he had become obsessed with her.

  The moonlight shimmered off her dark hair, turned her skin to a creamy ivory. Her lips were full, dark and tempting. He could not forget the way she had felt in his arms, the way his blood had raced and his loins tightened as he’d held her close during the storm. They had fit together perfectly. It was easy to imagine how well they would suit in bed.

  For a split second he almost broached the subject to her again, but then decided that if she did not outright object, she would only concede because she had no other option. He suddenly realized that it was important for Celine to come to him because she wanted what he could give her, not because she felt obliged to do so.

  He let himself caress her with his eyes as he gazed down at her tempting mouth, her soft cheeks, her dark lashes. He drew his sight along her throat, to the vulnerable pulse point there, then to the gentle slope of her shoulders. In the semidarkness he could not be certain of the color of her gown, but it was something pale and soft, like her skin in moonlight. The neckline scooped low, revealing enough of a tantalizing peek of her bosom to make his blood pound. The gown fell gracefully from where it gathered just below her breasts, the style emphasizing them even more. The wind played its part in seducing him by molding the pliant material of her skirt against her thighs.

  Cord swallowed and turned around again, bracing his hands against the rail. He gulped deep drafts of tangy salt air. The phosphorescent water did indeed look as if it were streaked with lightning. The foam sparkled as it rose and then melted into the surrounding water. A school of flying fish raced beside them, sailing up, skimming over the water, then disappearing like silver darts in the iridescence.

  “Oh, no!”

  He spun around at her cry. Celine was kneeling on the deck, trying to scoop up one of the slippery flying fish until it lay there on its side, its wing-shaped fins forever stilled, one sightless black eye reflecting the moon.

  “Dead,” he pronounced without emotion.

  “Oh, it can’t be.” Celine carried the fish over to the rail. She leaned over and let it slip out of her hands into the water. The silver scales were reflected in the moonlight for an instant before the lifeless fish floated off in the ship’s wake.

  “How sad,” she said softly.

  “It’s ā fish, Celine. With a brain the size of a pea.”

  “Is it hard for you to act so callous all the time?”

  “Are you upset because I won’t mourn a flying fish?”

  “Just because I allow myself to have feelings is no excuse for you to make sport of me.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  She stared up at him, as if weighing her words carefully. “Why do you run from your feelings, Cordero? Why do you hide your pain in liquor?”

  She was so accurate in her description that he was momentarily silenced.

  “I’m beginning to think you really are a witch.” He shoved off the rail and took a step toward her.

  With her long, unbound hair blowing in the wind, her perfect features highlighted by the moonlight, he almost believed she possessed powers beyond those of a mortal woman. He definitely felt as if she had cast a spell over him.

  He expected her to step out of his reach. Instead she didn’t move, merely watched him close the gap between them. Reason bid him stop. Lust urged him on.

  When he took her in his arms and covered her mouth with his, it was not the gentle first kiss of a suitor trying to woo a virgin, but the bold, demanding exchange of a man hungering for all a woman had to give. His lips slashed across her tender, pouting mouth as he tangled his fingers in her hair and cupped her head in his hands. His tongue slipped between her teeth, delved the warm, sweet recesses of her mouth in imitation of what he wanted to do to her body. She moaned and pressed against him. As if swimming through deep, uncharted waters, Cord reacted more powerfully to her than he ever had to any woman. It scared the hell out of him. So much so that he instantly let her go.

  Celine fell limply against the rail and tried to recover her senses. She stared up at Cord. The kiss left her mind filled with no more substance than that of the clouds that drifted across the moonbeams. A few moments ago she had suspected he was going to kiss her, but nothing on earth could have prepared her for what he had just done.

  Her senses had never felt so alive. The sound of the ship, the hum of the water beneath the hull, the scent of the sea and the fragrant hint of distant island flowers overlaid and threaded through the sensation of Cord’s hands entangled in her hair, the biting taste of rum on his soft lips and searing tongue. He smelled of sunshine and salt and bay rum. Nothing had prepared her for the demand he had communicated with his kiss. Not only the sensations it evoked, but also the powerful need that drove him, shocked her to her toes.

  “That was nice,” she said without thinking. It had been more than nice. It had been something she could not even put into words.

  He looked none too pleased with the compliment. “It’s late,” he said abruptly.


  He glanced over his shoulder, and Celine followed the direction of his gaze. The helmsman was still at the wheel near the stern, but he didn’t seem to be paying them any mind.

  “Yes, it’s late.” It was an inane response, but all she could manage with her heart in her throat.

  “You can stand out here all night, but I’m going in.”

  With that, he walked away without a word or touch, his shoulders rigid. He reminded her of Henre Moreau.

  She watched him climb down the ladder to the main deck, wondering what had set him off, until she realized that perhaps he had just experienced the same startling, blood-stirring reaction.

  It must have come as a great shock for a man who worked so hard to feel nothing.

  * * *

  St. Stephen was alive with sights and sounds and colors Celine had never seen before. As she stood beside the pile of trunks and crates—hers, Cord’s, Foster’s and Edward’s—she tried to take it all in at once. They had sailed into the bay on waters as clear and turquoise as the sky above them. Like the wharf at New Orleans on a much smaller scale, Baytowne was the island’s major port and as such, the hub of activity. Schooners scheduled to be careened and to have their hulls scraped and painted were docked there. Warehouses lined one side of the wharf. In the shops and stalls, natives and merchants who hocked their wares vied for space with potters bent over their wheels as they fashioned various pieces out of yellow clay.

  Through the shifting crowd she saw a large town square where a small rock church proudly stood. Its bell tower and spire reached toward the heavens. Behind a stone fence beside the church, moss-covered stone crosses marked the graves of St. Stephen’s most prominent citizens. Ancient banyans with roots large enough to house a child and massive tangles of vines shaded each corner of the square.

  The humid air was heavy with floral musk. The hillsides surrounding the bay were covered in a profusion of foliage dotted with the bright colors of hundreds of species of flowering trees and plants. Brilliant white sand blanketed the beach where the waters of the bay met the land.

  As she tried to take in everything at once, a heady sense of excitement swept through her. She shifted from foot to foot, beginning to wilt in the heat. Using one of the trunks for a seat, she sat down to wait for the men. She could feel her cheeks and nose beginning to burn. Cord had disappeared without a word about where he was going. Edward and Foster, who had gone off to procure a carriage and a wagon to carry them all to Dunstain Place, had promised to return shortly. Obviously, their idea of the word shortly was not the same as her own.

  A well-dressed gentleman almost passed her by, but when she glanced up at him and smiled, he abruptly stopped. He looked to be in his early fifties, still handsome, with a full head of silver-gray hair. He assessed her and the assembled baggage as if she were a commodity rather than a person.

  She had watched her mother ply her trade on the London streets. There had been an unforgettable, undeniable look of lust in men’s eyes when they’d propositioned her. The gentleman staring down at her now had that very same look. When he addressed her, it was with a decidedly cultured English accent.

  “A lovely lady such as yourself shouldn’t be out here alone. I would be happy to accompany you to one of the local establishments to see that you are comfortable.”

  “That won’t be necessary, sir. I’m awaiting my husband and his servants, who have just gone to hire a carriage to take us to his home.”

  She raised her chin a notch higher and watched his expression of lust cool to one of intense curiosity.

  “Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Collin Ray, assistant to His Royal Highness’s appointed governor of St. Stephen, my brother, the Honorable Sir Simon Ray.”

  In her mind, Collin Ray had already insulted her, so her estimation of his person did not rise after the introduction. Her first inclination was to send him packing, but thinking of Cord’s need to establish a place among the island community, she held her temper.

  “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance. My name is Celine Moreau. My husband, Cordero Moreau, is—”

  “Moreau?” His eyes widened and he drew back in surprise. “Not Auguste Moreau’s son?”

  “I suppose, if he is the former owner of Dunstain Place. Cordero has come home to take over.”

  “Oh, he has, has he? That should prove interesting.” Collin Ray’s brow arched. He leaned back and folded his arms.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

  He looked down upon her pityingly. She couldn’t decide which she hated more, his earlier, lascivious perusal or his mock sympathy.

  “Your husband has his work cut out for him. Dunstain Place is in a shambles, as you’ll find out soon enough. Auguste committed suicide after his wife’s death and his manager left shortly thereafter. I suppose there are a few slaves left up there, but from what I hear the plantation has fallen into ruin.”

  Celine’s heart broke for Cord. He had lost not only his mother, but his father shortly thereafter. Now even his dream of returning to run the plantation was tarnished. If he had not yet heard the news, she knew she would have to find the courage to tell him.

  “Have you been to Dunstain Place?” she asked.

  “No. Neither has anyone I know. It’s remotely located, high in the hills almost across the island.”

  He infuriated her by causing her to feel he was speaking to her breasts, not her. “Perhaps it is not as bad as you say, Mr. Ray.”

  “It’s probably worse.” He brushed a speck of lint from the cuff of his expensive coat before he looked her over again, this time without emotion, much the way a buyer would inspect a prime piece of horseflesh.

  “I doubt your servants will find a conveyance to hire today, what with the festival going on.”

  “Festival?”

  “The unveiling and dedication of the bronze of Wellington that will grace the square. Governors and dignitaries from the other islands as well as colonists of note have come to St. Stephen for the occasion. Which reminds me, I must keep a pressing appointment.”

  He tipped his beaver hat to her and bowed. “It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Moreau.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  He started off, then paused and turned back. “By the way, after you have seen the miserable place your husband has brought you to, if you should happen to find yourself unable to suffer the situation, please remember that I would consider it an honor to offer you my protection.”

  With a sly smile and a nod, Collin Ray turned and walked away.

  Speechless, Celine jumped to her feet, her hands fisted in the folds of her skirt. She glanced back toward the ship, wondering if she should go back and wait on board. When she turned around again, she was relieved to see Foster hurrying toward her. Two black men wearing nothing but ragged pants cut off above the knee were following close behind. Foster’s usually unreadable expression was clouded.

  “I’m sorry to have taken so long, miss, but we’ve had the devil’s own time finding lodging. It’ll be impossible to leave for Dunstain Place before tomorrow. There’s a celebration going on here in Baytowne.”

  “So I’ve already heard.” Still troubled by Collin Ray’s insulting demeanor, she didn’t go on to explain how she knew, but waited for Foster to direct the porters to carry the trunks to an inn on the far side of the dock. As he followed close behind the two men, Celine hurried to keep up with him.

  “Have you seen Cord?” She wished she could be with him when he heard about the conditions at Dunstain Place.

  Foster glanced over at her, unable to hide his embarrassment. “Not since I saw him go into a grog shop down the way.”

  She had grown closer to both servants over the voyage, but it wasn’t until this moment that she realized how highly Foster regarded her. He did not try to make excuses for Cord out of loyalty, but treated her with a respect equal to that he paid his master. They trailed after the two porters, who toted the heavy trunks with little effort.

 
The inn was run-down. The paint was peeling; the sign above the door sported a barely recognizable, faded painting of a frothing mug of ale and a smoking pipe; the stairs to the rooms on the second floor were worn by the many feet that had trod them over the years. When Foster profusely apologized for the accommodations, she wanted to tell him she had once lived in far, far worse.

  They found Edward in the room appointed to her and Cord. He had already stripped and changed the bed and had the pillows airing in the sunlight on the balcony. When they walked in he was in the process of dusting a scarred bedside table. As Celine cleared the threshold, he stopped and hurried over to her.

  “Oh, miss. I don’t know what to say ’cept we’re sorry. There ain’t a decent room nor carriage to be had, not a wagon, not a cart, not a mule because of—”

  “The dedication of the statue,” she finished for him. “I know.” She glanced around the drab little room, with its lumpy bed and its dingy mosquito netting, which sported holes big enough to admit a horde of ravenous insects. “This place doesn’t disturb me as much as what I just learned on the dock.”

  She immediately had their full attention. Celine waited until Foster paid the silent porters and the two blacks left the room. Then she looked at Foster and Edward in turn.

  “I need your advice,” she said.

  “Whatever we can do, miss.” Edward’s whole face drooped. He couldn’t disguise his worry.

  “We’re here to ’elp.” Foster took a step closer to Edward.

  She was warmed by their response. “While I was waiting on the dock, a man introduced himself as Collin Ray and offered me his … assistance.”

  “He didn’t make advances toward you, did ’e, miss? If ’e did, I say we tell Cordero right off and—”

  Celine dismissed Foster’s suggestion with a wave of her hand. “I’d rather we not get into that. What disturbed me was what he said about Dunstain Place. He claims the plantation has fallen into ruin and that the manager left years ago.”

  Edward plopped down on the edge of the bed. Obviously not thinking clearly, he pressed the dirty dust rag to his temple. Foster frowned and shook his head. “That can’t be. I know for a fact that Cordero has continued to get his monthly stipend from the estate, because our pay comes out of it.”