Captive Embraces

by Fern Michaels

  “Darling Stephan, where have you been hiding all evening? I’ve been waiting for you to ask me to dance. Come now,” she said rubbing her hand up and down his arms in a caress.

  Stephan’s eyes widened and then took advantage of the situation. “Sweetheart, I thought you were too busy with your guests to bother about me. I’ve waited this whole night for this moment,” he said, whirling her onto the dance floor.

  Breathless from the quadrille, Sirena laughed up into Stephan’s face. He really is quite handsome, she thought. Older men have a certain style, a gaily charming, debonair quality. Seeing her opportunity, she gazed into the gray depths of his eyes. Then, dropping her lids demurely, she said in a wan voice, “How fortunate these ladies are. They’re going home with their husbands to spend the night together ...” She risked a sidelong glance to see the effect of her words.

  Stephan swallowed hard and said nervously, “Marriage has a lot to be said for it, Sirena.” Stephan couldn’t believe his good fortune. The answer to all his prayers. He would have to tread lightly so he wouldn’t scare her off. A Jew’s toenails! How much was Sirena worth? From the most modest estimations, millions! He almost groaned aloud as he forced his mind back to the matters at hand. “Darling, Sirena, if I thought you would say the word, I’d ask you to share my life with me. However, I realize I could never hope for a young, vital woman like yourself to wed an older man like myself.”

  “Stephan, do my ears deceive me or have you asked me to marry you?” She let her eyes widen into incredulous wonder.

  “If I were to be bold enough to ask you, Sirena, would you ... could you—?”

  “Ask me!” Sirena demanded, annoyed he was taking so long to get to the point.

  “Sirena, sweetheart, darling, will you ... do you ... I want you to ...” The words were choking off his air. Damn it, Stephan cursed silently. How often he had planned this, and now at the moment he couldn’t for the life of him get the words out.

  Her patience at an end, Sirena said, “Yes, yes. I’ll marry you! When?”

  “Camilla will be married in a week or so. Anytime after—”

  “Darling, that will never do! Now that I’ve found you, I won’t let you get away. We will be married immediately before Camilla. We’ll share her wedding reception. Until then, it will be a secret. We’ll elope! How romantic! I’ll count the hours!”

  Sirena couldn’t believe she had just done what she did! “Darling!” She was actually making herself sick! How would she ever go through with this farce when her heart cried out for Regan? She thought about her impending wedding to Stephan, then recalled the same event with Regan. But she still loved Regan and could never feel the same way about Stephan Langdon!

  Regan was talking with several people not far from where Sirena stood with Stephan. Something about that relationship annoyed him. Somehow, whenever he saw Sirena in Stephan’s company, he felt the urge to rush over and snatch her away from the silver-haired gentleman who was soon to be his father-in-law. It wasn’t jealousy, exactly. He didn’t feel this way when Sirena was with Tyler Sinclair, only when she was escorted by Langdon. It was more a protectiveness, he decided. Suddenly, he burst into laughter, drawing curious looks from those around him. Sirena needed about as much protection as a barracuda in open water!

  As he watched, one of the musicians brought Sirena her guitar. Excusing herself from Stephan, Sirena. made her way to the dais and was seating herself on a chair which had been placed there for her. In spite of himself, Regan found he was moving toward the dais, his eyes locked on Sirena. The overhead lantern cast shimmering light on the sleek and sensuous gown she wore and threw blue-black highlights into her hair. Hungrily his eyes devoured her and he realized his heart was pounding in his chest. Damn her! Would he never get this green-eyed siren out of his blood?

  The stage was set and Sirena strummed lightly on her instrument, catching the attention of the guests. The milling throng advanced toward the dais, pushing their way in front of Regan, who contented himself with standing in the shadows.

  Sirena’s manner was completely composed. She lowered her head, her long, graceful hands plucking the strings. Her back was straight, only the curve of her arms and the bend of her leg breaking the study of perfect linearity. Sirena played, capturing her audience with the lilting music. The light from the overhead lantern swung gracefully on its wire, sending arcs of brilliancy onto her face and illuminating her features with radiance.

  Throughout the melody, Regan became increasingly drawn under the spell she wove. Her voice called to him, coming to him like a whisperous feather on the wind, thawing the glacial restraints he had erected between them. He was oblivious to all as her song wove a silken web about him. Forward he moved, skirting the edges of the crowd. He was unaware of time or space, knowing only that he had to be near her, breathe in the special fragrance of her, knowing it would be as fresh as the salt tang and spindrift. His arms ached to hold her, caress her, feel her supple beauty crushed against him. He was hungry for her, hungrier than he ever remembered being, dying for a taste of her lips and to feel the throb of the wild pulse in her throat beat against his mouth.

  Sirena felt his smoldering eyes upon her and, when she looked up, he was there, an arm’s length away. As she continued with the ballad, she sang for Regan. She saw in his eyes the reflection of her own desire, her own needs. Unaware of the speculative glances about them, Sirena sang of her love, caressing each syllable before she offered it to him, her senses reeling, her heart catapulting across the distance between them and coming to find its home with him. She basked in his attention, preened in his fascination and luxuriated in his adoration as she sang her serenade to him, for him.

  The lantern lights reflected on his hair, casting a nimbus of spun gold about his head. She drank in the sight of him, the fires of her passions unquenchable.

  She glanced down at her guitar as her fingers sought a change of chord. When she looked up at him again, his attention was directed somewhere above her head, a look of consternation bordering on horror was on his chiseled features.

  Regan was distracted by the peculiar swinging of the oil lantern. The light was beginning to make wide, awkward motions, unaccountable in the soft breezes. A rustling in the shadows of the trees caught his ear; and, when he again looked back to Sirena, it was too late! The lantern was falling, the wire which had held it fastened in the tree boughs hanging free.

  “Sirena!” Regan shouted, his urgency causing her to leap to her feet. Abruptly, the world about her was ablaze. The lantern crashed to the dais, breaking and splashing the flammable liquid against her skirt and legs, causing them to be ignited by dancing flames.

  In an instant Regan had vaulted onto the low platform to push Sirena away from further harm, but not before the planks beneath her feet were a miniature inferno. The party guests shrieked in terror, backing away from the fire. Helplessly, Regan looked about for something to smother the flames. He called to Stephan, who was also retreating, shock and terror written on his face. “Your cloak, man!” Regan shouted. “Your cloak!” Stephan was beyond comprehension.

  In a blur of action, Regan leaped for Stephan and tore the satanic cloak from his back and threw it around Sirena’s legs, carrying her off the platform.

  Several others seemed to come to their senses and break into action. A footman came rushing forth with two planters full of flowers and dumped the moist soil on the burning wood.

  Frau Holtz came on a run, fright creasing her features. She had seen the lantern slip and had been pushing her way through the huddled guests. Seeing she could rely on Regan to have things in hand, her concern for Sirena quieted. “Mynheer! Take her into the house! We must see what damage has been done!” Although her voice was strong and confident, Regan saw the white ring of horror about her pursed mouth.

  Sirena’s hands covered her face and she was very still as Regan lifted her, the Frau taking off her snowy white apron and covering the Mevrouw’s legs. She tried not to think abou
t the black charring she saw when she had removed the scarlet cloak.

  As she followed Regan inside, the old woman prayed silently, Please, God, don’t let her be burned! Don’t let her be crippled! Not that, God, never that! she beseeched as she thought of Sirena’s vitality and agile grace.

  Regan carried Sirena up to her room, the Frau bustled in after him, turning back the bed covers before he tenderly laid Sirena down. Helplessly, he stood by as the housekeeper carefully lifted the apron to bare Sirena’s legs. The movement must have caused some pain because Sirena stirred fitfully before falling against the pillows with her eyes shut.

  The front of her shimmering, green gown was singed and her silk stockings were burned into an uneven pattern of dark circled holes. “Ja,” Frau Holtz said confidently after surveying the damage. “She is burned, but not badly,” she assured Regan as he bent solicitously over Sirena’s still form.

  “When I think of what might have happened to her,” he muttered, his voice thick with emotion. “The first time I saw her this evening, I cursed her for her revealing costume. Now I can only thank God she didn’t wear those billowing petticoats. They would have gone up in flame like dry kindling.” He sank to his knees and picked up Sirena’s hand. “Frau Holtz, why is she so still?” he demanded. “You said she wasn’t seriously injured!”

  “The shock, Mynheer. You seem as though you’re in a state yourself; now be useful or get out of my way!” The old authority was in her voice and Regan snapped to attention, waiting for her orders. “While I go down for ointments, you take her gown and stockings off. Cut them off if you have to, but be careful! I won’t have you peeling away half her skin with your clumsy hands!”

  Regan bent to his task, gently turning Sirena over so he could reach the long row of tiny buttons at the back of her gown. It wasn’t long before he realized she was completely naked underneath, and he quickly covered her nudity with a light blanket before the Frau could accuse him of being a ravisher of unconscious women. He undid the diamond garters and began rolling the stockings off her legs. Those magnificent, smooth-muscled legs! They had been what he had dreamed of after he saw her for the first time as the Sea Siren with the Tita sinking in the background.

  A wistful half-smile played about his mouth as he recalled the first time he had ever made love to her. He had known her as the Sea Siren then and they were alone in her cabin aboard her frigate. He had nursed her then too, a cut received in the heat of battle. The lamp in the cabin was running dry of oil and he remembered cursing the flickering light. She had tended his wound and he had returned the favor. As he wiped the greasy salve from his fingers, he had gazed down upon the most remarkable woman he had ever known. She was lying on her stomach across the narrow bunk. Her wealth of dark hair obscured all but the tip of her chin and a glimpse of her brow. Her body had relaxed from his ministrations and her arms were extended over her head.

  Beneath her upstretched arms the soft spill of her full, round breasts was visible. The long, low slope of the small of her back rising again to the firm spherical hillocks of her bottom, ending in her slightly parted, firm-fleshed thighs aroused him, beckoned to him as sweetly as the song of the legendary sirens for which he had named her. Gently, he had leaned over and pressed his lips to the hollow of her spine. In the dark of the cabin, with the sequestering fog creeping in, her lissome, supple beauty was perceived through his fingers. The delicious fragrance of her, the silken texture of her skin, had heightened his desire as he had fondled and explored her secret charms. Her lips tasted of the sea and her pleasure in him had been unaffected, her responses genuine and unpracticed.

  And almost innocently she had sought and found the most sensual caress, exalting in the pleasure and inspiration she had given him. And when she had murmured against his lips, “Have me! Have me now!” he had known that this woman would always be a part of his life. She was life!

  Frau Holtz bustled in again with an ewer of water and a crock of ointment. “Here, help me!” she commanded, tossing Regan a cloth dipped in water. “We have to get the threads of silk stocking away from the burns.”

  “She’s so still,” he whispered.

  “Better for us,” Frau Holtz said curtly. “There’s no pain while we clean.”

  “How badly is she hurt?” Regan pressed, as he rinsed out another cloth for the housekeeper.

  “Ach! It is almost nothing, thank heavens. No worse than a laundress gets from the flatiron.”

  Regan seemed reassured, and Frau Holtz watched him lean over Sirena and press his lips to her cheek. The tender moment brought tears to the Frau’s eyes, and she knew that if Sirena ever dreamed that a frightening incident could bring Regan back to her, she would have doused her head with lamp oil and set fire to her hair!

  “Frau Holtz, has anyone been lurking about the house?” Regan asked cryptically.

  “Someone lurking? Nein, Mynheer,” the Frau answered, puzzled at such a question. Suddenly, she was frightened. “Why? Do you suspect—”

  “No, no, calm yourself. Still, if I hadn’t seen that lantern swinging and hadn’t called out to Sirena, I shudder to think what might have been the consequences.”

  Frau Holtz gasped. “And you think this is the doing of some mischief-maker? Nein! It was an accident!” Strangely, a vision of Sirena and Jacobus nearly being run down by a runaway hackney flashed through her mind. She was about to say something to Regan when Sirena began to stir. From a drawer in the nightstand, the Frau withdrew a small bottle of laudanum. “This will help. Let her sleep through the worst of it,” the old woman muttered, forcing a spoon of the clear liquid against Sirena’s lips.

  Silent as they worked, Frau Holtz and Regan wrapped Sirena’s legs lightly in strips of soft sheeting. The pins were removed from her thick dark hair and, while Regan sent a servant for fresh water, the Frau removed all traces of makeup from Sirena’s face. Once more, looking like herself rather than a Chinese courtesan, Sirena lay peacefully against the pillows.

  “Will she be all right?” Regan asked, concern deepening his voice.

  “Ja. Knowing the Mevrouw, she’ll be walking about tomorrow,” she replied, watching his actions out of the comer of her eye.

  Regan went to kneel beside the bed, gazing down at Sirena’s face, praying the Frau’s prognosis was correct. He realized he would rather give his life than see her maimed, see her less than she was. A shudder coursed through him, prickling the hairs at the back of his neck and tightening his jaw muscle. Sirena’s face was pale, her lips bloodless. That lantern could have crashed down on her head. Killing her. The disfiguring flames eating greedily at her hair, her face. The flaming oil spilling down her back, her breasts . . . Too horrible to think about, Regan’s mind reverted to the sound coming from among the trees. Without rhyme or reason, somehow Regan knew this act against Sirena had been deliberately contrived to destroy her!

  The slim body on the high bed became restless. Sirena’s eyelids fluttered and she sighed deeply. Gradually, her eyes opened, their green lights dimmed by the drug. Barely audible, she whispered, “Stephan.”

  Regan’s head snapped around to where Sirena’s gaze was directed. There, framed in the doorway, was Langdon, a nervous expression lining his features, worry and concern darkening his eyes. Before his jealous rage could take hold and he smashed everything in sight, Regan sprinted to his feet and rushed out of the room, roughly pushing Stephan aside.

  Frau Holtz’s mouth opened to stop him. She, too, had heard Sirena’s word and immediately understood that in her drugged state she hadn’t realized Regan was beside her and had merely said the name of the first person she recognized. Unreasonably, the elderly woman knew the urge to hit Stephan Langdon, hit him until his teeth rattled. Instead, she moved quickly to the door and slammed it shut in his face.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “I won’t wear these, I won’t!” Sirena rebelled at the thin woven stocking Frau Holtz had brought to her.

  “Suit yourself, Mevrouw, but when the silk
stockings make your legs feel as though they are smothering and they keep your body heat, you’ll be sorry!” the housekeeper snapped. “Who can see these beneath your gown? Who will know?”

  Sirena made a face as she looked at the unattractive hose. Reluctantly, she snatched them out of Frau Holtz’s hands and fell heavily on the side of the bed to put them on. She had still not gotten over the incident at her party two nights earlier. From all aspects it was a horrifying experience. Not only that, but she was piqued with herself for passing out in a faint. The last thing she remembered was Regan rushing to her aid and sweeping her up in his arms. After that, all was a total blank until the next morning. And to make her mood blacker, each time she questioned Frau Holtz about what happened afterward, all the woman would say was that she had given her mistress laudanum for the pain and dressed her wounds.

  Frau Holtz sighed as she watched Sirena fasten the thin woven stockings to her garters. She knew the reason for Sirena’s temper. It was because she refused to tell her anything about Regan. How could she tell Sirena how gentle Regan had been with her? How he had helped tend her burns and had worried over her, hovering near her bedside. And then, due to the worst possible luck, that Sirena had looked up to see Stephan standing in the doorway and had murmured his name. No, she determined she would never tell her. It would break her heart and wouldn’t come to any good. The Frau knew that Regan would never understand. Hadn’t she herself seen the rage in his face?

  “I believe I’ll wear my bronze day dress, Frau Holtz. Would you get it from the clothes press?”

  “Mevrouw, I wish you wouldn’t go out today. You only left your bed yesterday afternoon, it’s too soon yet! You stay home, ja?”