Bound By The Heart

by Canham, Marsha

  The air was cooling and Summer shivered as the salt water dried and tightened on her skin. Her blonde hair clung in a wet, sticky mass down her back. All that remained of her clothing was a brief muslin smock and torn linen pantaloons. She had lost both slippers and—her hand flew to her throat with a sob—the heavy gold locket and chain that had belonged to her mother.

  She lowered her head and closed her thick, honey-colored lashes over the tears that brimmed in her eyes. It was not fair that this should happen now. Michael was not ready to die. She was not ready to die, not when everything in her life was beginning to look so promising!

  She thought of Captain Bennett Winfield and the tears came hotter and faster. Her father had known what he was doing when he sent the stunningly handsome naval officer to London to deliver the message that she was needed at home. He had known the moment she laid eyes on the tall, dashing naval officer, her protests would melt away like snow in spring. He was a bronzed sun god beside the pale, vapid men of London. Crowds cleared a way for him like the parting of the Red Sea, with most of the women fanning their cheeks wildly to cool the flames as he walked past.

  "I do not believe you have listened to a word I have said."

  He was there. So real Summer could have reached out and touched him...touched the fine line of his jaw, the wide smooth brow, the mouth that was so stern and yet so sensuously intriguing. She did reach out...but her hand fell limply into the water at the edge of the raft.

  "Of course I have been listening," she murmured coyly, allowing the bold, immaculately uniformed officer to lead her deeper into the garden. He located an iron bench along the path and gallantly laid down a linen kerchief before she sat. She folded her hands demurely on her lap, knowing that as he sat beside her and made a great show of straightening his saber, he was also making an unhurried and far from casual appraisal of her bosoms.

  Her gown was the very latest fashion from Paris, cut low enough across the bodice that man's searching eye might swear to a faint blush of pink where the firmness of each breast strained against the silk. Summer's figure was displayed to perfection by the gossamer gown; her waist was petite, her hips gently rounded. Her legs were long and slender with tiny, delicate ankles peeking from below the hem. The actual existence of two layers of gauze-like underpinnings did little to hamper his imagination or his pleasure.

  Deciding he had enjoyed enough of the view, she opened her fan and gracefully stirred the air against her throat.

  "I have heard every word you have said, Captain Winfield," she repeated. "Father is demanding I return home. He is threatening to cut me off without a farthing to my name and disown me should I refuse. Have I neglected any of the salient points of his missive?"

  Captain Winfield smiled at the flash of mischief in the gray-green eyes. "Only that you would be breaking my own heart, Miss Cambridge, if you were to refuse or delay your return."

  He lifted one of her slender hands and brushed his lips across the back of her fingers, a gesture that sent tiny, thrilling shivers up her arm and down her spine.

  "Break your heart?" she managed to murmur. "Come now, Captain, you have been in London only a fortnight. Do you mean to say you lose your heart so easily?"

  "Not easily, I assure you. But quite completely."

  Summer watched as he kissed each individual fingertip, more than a little unsettled by the warm, persistent flush that stained her cheeks. She was, after all, no stranger to flirtations casual or otherwise. Her beauty, her wit, her charm had won over most of the eligible bachelors in her circle of acquaintances...and some who were not eligible but still eager for a taste of her charms. No one, least of all herself, could understand why she would even entertain the thought of agreeing to an arranged marriage when she could have a dozen offers at her feet with a mere snap of her fingers.

  Not until they met Captain Winfield, that is. Or talked to him. Or felt his magnetism across a crowded room drawing her as if they were the only two people present.

  He turned her hand over and his lips were on her palm, then on her wrist.

  "I...I suppose my father gave you instructions to kidnap me in the event all else failed?"

  "Would that he had, Miss Cambridge." He looked up and grinned easily. "I can think of nothing that would give me greater pleasure than being alone with you at sea for two months."

  "Really? I should think you would soon grow bored with my company. Why, only last evening you were seen to yawn in the parlor."

  "Last evening," Winfield's fingers brushed at a stray tendril of silky hair that had wisped in front of her ear, "we were in the midst of a roomful of old cows listening to a red-faced contralto trying to warble her way through an aria."

  Summer concealed her smile behind her fan. "Miss Pithney-Whyatt is very talented."

  "I have no doubt she is," he agreed quietly. "But I am more interested in hearing your decision."

  She lowered her lashes demurely. "I am very flattered, of course, but I have yet to see Father and speak to him. I mean...a letter is so cold and impersonal."

  "Whereas you, Miss Cambridge, are anything but." He leaned forward, pressing his lips to the vein fluttering at her temple, then traced a fingertip down the mist of fine curls to her ear. From there, the finger skimmed down the swan-like arch of her throat to the soft, smooth curve of her shoulder.

  Summer's fan had frozen mid-stroke. She closed her eyes and reasoned that the night air must be cooler than she had anticipated, for she was shivering to the very tips of her toes.

  "Captain Winfield, I—"

  "Bennett," he murmured, his finger drawing tiny circles on her shoulder.

  "Captain Winfield, you don't understand..."

  He leaned in again and while he did not take further liberties with another kiss, she could feel the heat of his breath on her skin, rippling through her body, touching off a sweet, heady weakness in the pit of her belly.

  "I understand that you and Sir Lionel may differ on some matters. He wants you to come home. You are enjoying all of the attention and excitement of—" he gestured carelessly at the glittering lights blazing from the party— "this."

  "Is there anything wrong with...this?"

  "Certainly not for the likes of Miss Pithney-Whyatt. For her this is the epitome of what she may expect her life to become."

  Summer took a deep breath and the motion of her fan resumed. "There is nothing but heat and flies in Bridgetown."

  Bennett leaned even closer so that his lips almost touched her ear. "There are also long tropical nights under the stars, cool breezes laden with the scent of frangipani and oleander. You have been away for six years. And as much as you have changed from that yellow-haired, green-eyed imp I remember peeking around doorways...much has changed on the island itself. There are balls and operas and cotillions galore. Who indeed would prefer that over constant dampness and drafty old houses, endless plagues and the smell of raw sewage clogging the streets?"

  "There was a plague in Bridgetown the year I was sent away," she pointed out.

  "There was an epidemic of measles in the slave population," he corrected her gently. "Not a single white colonist died."

  "I have been to court three times. I have been to see the queen while she was in residence at Hampton Court, and I regularly take tea with duchesses and countesses. What on earth would I find to do in Barbados—sample molasses with the overseer's wife?"

  Bennett laughed and shook his head. He lowered his mouth to hers without warning, and before she knew what he was about, she was gathered tightly in an embrace that made her very much aware of the power and strength in the solid wall of muscle that was his chest.

  It was not the kiss of a love-struck gallant. It was the kiss of a man, forceful and demanding, one who knew the games well enough but who was contemptuous of all but his own rules. The hot, useless feeling washed through Summer again, and she knew she could not fight it. She shuddered and leaned into him, abandoning all vestiges of propriety to run her hands up around his b
road shoulders and to cling to him as the thrills engulfed her young body. She gasped under the assault of his lips, then whimpered as he stroked the curve of her throat with an impatient hand. The sensation teased her flesh unbearably, and she felt the tremors racing through her arms and limbs as she strove to be held even closer, to feel more of this shocking pleasure.

  The kiss ended as abruptly as it began.

  The captain held her at arm's length, letting only his gaze devour her.

  "Wh-why did you stop?" she gasped uncertainly.

  "I stopped, Miss Cambridge, because I am still able to. And because I would sooner cut off my arms as be the cause of bringing a hint of scandal down around you." He paused, and Summer felt the tension in his arms, saw the blatant arousal in his body and in his eyes as he murmured, "And what a scandal there would be if we were to do half the things my body aches to do."

  She blushed to the roots of her hair. "You should not say such things to me."

  "No," he agreed, "I should not. You are well within your rights too in saying you have doubts. In your position, I would probably want to know a great deal more about the man I am about to be betrothed to than a mere two weeks could provide."

  "That is not why I hesitate," Summer whispered. "I feel I have come to know you better in two weeks than some men I have known for two years."

  "And have you also kissed them as passionately as you have just kissed me? Have you even wanted to kiss them that way?"

  "No," she whispered truthfully. "No, I had no idea a kiss could be so...so..."

  He smiled and brushed his lips over her hand again. "It was just a kiss. And a kiss is just the prelude to something far more rewarding. I want to be the one to share your discovery of those rewards, Summer Cambridge. I want the island breezes to cool our bodies from the heat and have sweetly scented sheets to wrap ourselves in afterward. I promise you will never regret it, Summer. Never."

  Never.

  Summer's head stirred from the crook of her elbow where it had fallen. Michael was curled up against her, lulled into a fitful sleep by the rocking of the planks on the water. For a moment her eyes refused to focus, they refused to relinquish the sight of Bennett Winfield's lips shaping the promise that sealed her fate. With a sob she realized he had been a mirage and if she opened her eyes all she would see would be gray water, gray sky, gray nothingness.

  She raised tear-spiked lashes and could not stop the cry that came to her lips. Michael felt her stiffen, and he sat up, rubbing his swollen eyes with his fists to scrub away the crust of dried sea salt.

  "Wh-what is it, Summer? Did you hear something? Are we rescued?"

  "No," she said quickly, her heart pounding in her chest. "No, darling, I heard nothing. It just surprised me, is all. The darkness..."

  It was black as pitch all around them. There was no moon and no stars; nothing to interrupt the void, no way to distinguish between water and raft and body and sky. They could be floating in a foot of water within arm's reach of shore, and she would not know it.

  Michael huddled closer and she wrapped her arms around him, sharing what little warmth there was between them.

  "Do you think this raft will keep holding us?"

  "Of course it will," she said, putting more confidence into her answer than she felt. "Why, I imagine if we had something to make a sail out of, it would carry us all the way to Bridgetown."

  "If there were stars," he said hesitantly, "we could even determine where we are now. I bothered Captain Burnby into letting me follow the course he had plotted. As of last night, we were off the island of Saint Barthelemy. If we could find out how much we have drifted and in what direction..."

  Summer closed her eyes and let him talk, only partially listening to what he was saying. She was relieved that for the moment something had taken his mind off the horror around them. Let him dream about being rescued, she thought. Let him fantasize about living an adventure like Robinson Crusoe. She herself would give anything to be washed up on a deserted island about now. Anything at all.

  "Summer?"

  "Yes, my darling?"

  "I am happy you are here. I am happy you decided to come home."

  "As am I," she whispered and squeezed his narrow shoulders. She smoothed the sticky hair from his forehead and pressed a kiss to his brow. "Why don't you try and get some sleep now. We are going to need all of our strength for tomorrow."

  Summer knew the fog was dense by the way it clung to her skin, by the droplets that formed together into one large bead, gathering more and more speed as they trickled down her throat and into the cleft between her breasts. Michael was dozing fitfully. She had no idea if she had slept or how many hours had passed or if any time had passed at all. A trite phrase kept spinning through her mind: A watched kettle never boils. Where had she heard it? What fool had come up with the brilliant observation, and did it apply to this smothering blankness? She kept watching for a sign of dawn streaking across the horizon, but it seemed like the darkness would never lift.

  She shifted on the makeshift raft to ease the cramps forming along her legs and spine, and in doing so evoked a whimper from Michael.

  But he was fast asleep and it took her a moment to realize the sound had not come from him.

  Her eyes opened wide and she searched the surrounding darkness.

  There it was again. A faint, barely perceptible gurgle, as if someone were exhaling stealthily through a mouthful of water. There was no direction to the sound. It came from everywhere and nowhere. She would almost have sworn that she imagined it except that she felt Michael stiffen and struggle upright. He had heard it too.

  "What do you suppose it is?" he asked in a whisper.

  "I don't know. Listen and see if you can tell where it's coming from."

  "A sea monster," he breathed, dragging out the word to ten horror-struck syllables.

  Summer swallowed hard. "Don't be silly. There are no such things as sea monsters."

  Michael clutched her harder as the gurgle came again, closer this time...much closer...followed by a low, plaintive moan.

  "Then what is it?" he cried.

  "I...I don't know."

  Summer risked swamping the tiny raft as she struggled to her knees. The sound was constant now, a curdling moan that seemed to be coming closer on each heartbeat. She felt the panic mushrooming in her chest. She turned to reassure Michael, a split second before the fog parted and she saw a looming black shape rear high above them. It had a single glowing eye that bore down on them in a yellow fury as jaws yawned toward the hapless little raft.

  Summer screamed and pushed her brother into the water. She managed to dive clear herself only moments before the flimsy planking was crushed to splinters.

  She screamed for Michael as she felt herself being dragged back by the thing's forward motion. She heard an answering scream and flailed desperately toward it, but she was too late: the water suddenly thrashed alive, and something cold and solid reached for her, coiling around her waist and throat. Michael screeched a third and fourth time before the sound was choked into silence and Summer knew that he, too, had been caught.

  For a moment the salt water streamed clear from her eyes and she saw the towering black beast again. The pressure around her throat increased, and she knew she was being hauled toward the glowing yellow eye. She struck out, kicking and writhing and twisting with all the desperation she could muster. The water swirled over her head as a weight pushed her down below the surface...and then she felt nothing.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Summer coughed and retched a small lungful of salt water over the corner of her mouth. She was draped over something hard and round and was being rolled to and fro slowly to coax the ocean out of her stomach and chest. Her hair dangled in long wet strands, clinging to her face and blinding her. She could hear Michael sobbing somewhere close by and tried to croak out his name.

  "M-Michael?"

  She moved her arms in a circular, swimming motion. The rolling of the barrel stopped at
once, and a pair of strong hands grasped her under the arms and pulled her upright. The world spun sickeningly for a long moment, but she did not have time to steady herself before a frantic burst of sobbing, hiccupping energy flung himself into her arms, burying his face in her shoulder. Someone else leaned over and draped a rough woolen blanket around her. A third anonymous shape thrust out a tin cup filled with rum.

  The Caledonia! The beastly shape in the darkness had been the Caledonia and Bennett had come back to search for them!

  Summer raised a trembling hand to her eyes, brushing aside the yellow web of her hair. Fully expecting to see the white canvas trousers and short blue pea coats of His Majesty's Royal Navy, she was somewhat unnerved by the sight of a score of burly, thick-chested men who needed only cutlasses at their sides and dirks between their teeth to fit the nightmare vision of a pirate crew. They were hardened, surly-faced men who stared at Summer and her brother as if deciding whether to keep them or toss them back overboard.

  Summer scanned the unfriendly faces until she settled on one who made the breath catch in her throat and her heart grind to a momentary standstill in her chest. He stood a full head taller than the rest, with long black hair curling damply to shoulders easily twice as broad, twice as massive as any on board. His chest was bare, and where the water clung to the swarm of black hair, it glistened like a breastplate, emphasizing boldly sculpted muscles that had been burned to a rich mahogany by the sun. His trousers were wet and hugged his thighs like a second skin. His feet were bare and spread wide apart, his arms were crossed over his chest and he was staring down at Summer Cambridge with two of the coldest, darkest eyes she would ever live to see.

  "Since neither one of you appear to be ghosts, sirens, or sea demons—" he cast an acerbic glance around the crew— "It behoves me to ask what the hell the two of you were doing floating around in the middle of the Caribbean Sea?"

  Summer opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came out past her swollen, cracked lips apart from a pitiful rasp of air. Michael lifted his face from her shoulder and scrubbed his eyes and nose with the back of his hand before he answered.