As she moved away, she thought Morgan looked after her, but he did not speak.
Once in the hut, she gathered up her scant belongings, piling them together, rolling them up any which way, avoiding the sight of the rumpled pallet against the wall. With the bundle in her arms, she stood for a moment in the center of the floor, looking up at the rough thatched walls and conical roof, then out through the doorway to the heaving blue breast of the sea. She took a deep breath then, and, lifting her head, left the hut. Her footsteps were firm as she walked over the sand to the detail drawn up waiting for her.
The pull to the frigate was not a long one. She went up the rope ladder thrown over the side with practiced ease. It was as she reached the deck that she noticed another longboat sweeping from the shore, making for the brigantine, La Paloma. Even as she watched, it gained the smaller ship. Isabella negotiated the ladder, followed closely by a man. With a sudden shock of gladness, Félicité recognized Captain Jacques Bonhomme, saw too that the ship’s anchor was being drawn up and the female sailors of the floating brothel had leaped to the rigging, preparing the ship to sail. Isabella and the French captain moved to the bow, standing close together.
On impulse, Félicité raised her hand in a wave, a gesture that was returned with vigor, and then the great white sails of the brigantine filled, and she was away with the white dove of the figurehead lifting its wings as if in flight, taking Isabella and her pirate lover swiftly away from too impartial justice, far over the seas.
There was not a ship in the harbor that could catch the fast brigantine. Smiling a little at this small “adjustment” of circumstance, this — moment of quiet joy, Félicité watched the longboat that Isabella, in her own inimitable way; had purloined, race back to the island.
She turned to her own escort, finally. The men around her had been as interested in what was happening as she, but now they returned to duty. A Spanish lieutenant stepped forward, and with imposing courtesy led her below.
The cabin of the frigate was larger than any she had yet seen. Due primarily to the high poop, it had a wide expanse of windows giving ample light and air to a space provided with a single commodious bunk of carved mahogany spread with a down mattress, fine linen, and a velvet coverlet. A washstand of teak stood in one corner, and a desk of the same wood was set about with armchairs fitted with velvet cushions. There were gimbaled lanterns of brass hanging on the paneled walls, and an expanse of Turkey carpet on the floor. It was all in all a most luxurious prison.
Standing in the center of the room with his hands clasped behind his back, the lieutenant averted his gaze from her masculine attire and asked if there was anything she needed. When she signified that there was nothing, he paused, his gaze on; the rumpled roll of clothing she held. Then, saying he would send the captain’s personal manservant to her, he bowed himself out.
It was no more than a quarter hour later that a knock fell on the door. Moving to open it, Félicité found it was not locked. Her movements slow, she swung the panel wide.
Outside was a small, dapper man clad in the height of the Parisian mode. Inclining his head, the manservant said in perfect French, “I was told you might have need of my services, mademoiselle, in making yourself presentable.”
For a brief flicker of time, anger gripped Félicité. Then, as she realized how true was that none too delicate hint concerning her appearance, a laugh was forced from her.
“Yes,” she agreed, ushering the small man in. Why should she not make herself as attractive as possible for her jailer, if and when he decided to appear?
Félicité had time and more to attend to half-forgotten beauty rituals, to bathe and wash her hair with fine-milled soap scented with attar of roses, to smooth pure white goose grease into her roughened skin, to use a pumice stone to remove calluses, and also to shape her nails before she buffed them to a gloss. There was even time for a nap in the afternoon while her freshly laundered underclothing, her chemise and stays and petticoats, dried in the sun.
Clean from head to toe, with the scent of roses surrounding her, she donned the trappings of a woman once more. Her gown, pressed by the manservant, André, was of chocolate brown with ivory lace, the nearest she could come to the long-deferred mourning for her father. Thus attired, she let André into her cabin, where with casual skill he put up her hair in a mass of curls, allowing a soft, fat ringlet to fall over one shoulder. The pins for the task he produced from the same store, known only to him, whence had come the sweet-smelling soap and other accouterments of the feminine toilette.
She had thought that in her state of anxiety, with little more to do than wait for Morgan, she must know when he boarded the frigate. It did not turn out that way. Evening was drawing in and the ship was preparing to sail when he came to her. He had availed himself of the opportunity to freshen his appearance and change into his dress uniform. As he stood just inside the door with his fingers still on the handle, a tall, broad-shouldered figure with sun-bronzed features filling the cabin, Félicité’s gaze rested on the familiar scarlet trimmed with gold braid he wore. She remembered seeing it aboard the Black Stallion, and later in a sea chest on the island that had been unloaded from the brigantine while she was careened. She should have known then that a true renegade would not have kept such a reminder of past loyalties.
He moved then, coming toward her with easy strides. “You look lovely, Félicité, though I’m not sure I didn’t prefer you as a grubby urchin.”
“And I you as the sailing master.” The look in her eyes, as well as her tone, was cool.
He stopped, the smile fading from his expression. After a moment, he said, “Are you hungry? I have ordered supper for the two of us to be served here.”
“Perfect,” she said with irony. “I had no wish to intrude upon the officers’ mess. And what other arrangements for my pleasure have you made to beguile the journey back to New Orleans? Surely you have thought of something to prevent me from brooding overmuch on what it feels like to be hanged? Or perhaps I should not worry. There is always the more honorable alternative, if no hangman can be found, of being shot!”
His eyes turned to green ice. “What are you saying?”
“Don’t look so amazed. That is usually the fate of the pirates unlucky enough to fall into the hands of Spanish officialdom.”
“You think I am actually returning you to New Orleans to stand trial as a pirate?”
“Oh, with every attention to my comfort and the greatest show of respect! But yes, what else?”
He stepped closer, his hands on his hips. “This passes all bounds of what I will endure! Have you no idea what you mean to me?”
“Why should I have? How can I begin to guess what a man like you will do, a man who would make use of me for the sake of duty, who would hold my father’s fate over my head? A man who could tell so plausible a collection of lies concerning his venture on the high seas while hiding a most secret and vital purpose?”
He dropped his hands, turning from her, moving to the window with its abnormally thick and wavy green glass. Taking a deep breath, he let it out slowly. “If you must hark back to the beginning for examples of my perfidy, then by all means let us rake through them and have done. For my treatment of you, there is no excuse, and I make none. Concerning your father, the bargain I made I kept. If it could have been bettered, I would have done so. It could not, and I don’t believe I gave you reason to hope or expect otherwise. As for his, tragic death, I had nothing to do with it. I was as shocked as you were.”
“I know that,” she answered his last words in strangled tones. “I also know, though I didn’t understand at the time, why you tried to keep his reasons for taking his life from me. Valcour told me.”
He rubbed his hand over his face, raking his fingers back through his hair. “Your brother had much to answer for, but we were speaking of my faults.”
There was in his reaction to her misjudgment, her suggestion that he meant to see her hanged, enough anger to make her doubt
that had been his purpose. With the easing of her tight-held fear came a disinclination to force him to this examination. It might well be that in his self-flagellating honesty, he would tell her something she would prefer not to know.
“Morgan, don’t—”
“No, it’s time and more that you understood. At that straggling, nameless port on Grand Cayman, when I saw you in the boat with Valcour, saw what he was doing to you, I lost my head, and so lost my ship also. That knowledge, with the ruin it could mean to so many plans, was unacceptable. The brigantine I commanded, you see, was supposed to be an instrument of chastisement, preying on pirate ships. How mortifying it was to have it taken from me by, a moment’s inattention over a woman! Once, following Valcour’s lead, I let myself believe that a portion of the blame might be yours. It wasn’t long before I remembered your attempt to warn me, and knew I had been a fool. As for the lies—”
“You don’t need to tell me. I have had a great deal of experience with your notions of duty.”
“There is that, of course. But if you think I was ordered to take command of the Black Stallion, then you are mistaken. O’Reilly considered I would be of more use to him in New Orleans. It was I who pointed out to him the value of my previous experience in the Caribbean among the corsairs. The rest happened just as I told you before; he let me take the mission because otherwise I would have gone in defiance of his orders.”
“To bring back Valcour, since-you knew of his connection with the Raven and its atrocities?” she suggested, her lashes shielding the perversity of her expression.
“No, my simpleton. What interest did I have in a mincing rogue like him, be he ever so vile and deserving of the rope? It was you I wanted, you who haunted my dreams so that I came awake night after night in a cold sweat of terror that I would not find you, ever again, so that I hired seamen and drove them to have the Black Stallion made ready so I could set out after you in the shortest length of time. I had sympathies of sorts with the pirates and smugglers, men trying to make their fortunes despite Spain’s edicts, and I also understood O’Reilly’s determination to follow the orders he was given. Despite the first, I was bound to try to carry out the latter. But my main purpose in beating the seas was for a golden-haired woman, and everything else could go to hell until I had her safe again.”
His voice rang as he turned to face her. “Can you think, Félicité, that having risked so much, I would meekly give you over now to the hangman’s noose?”
“Perhaps not,” she said, meeting the blaze of his emerald eyes, unconsciously according him her belief, “but if Spanish law decrees my guilt, can you do otherwise?”
“There will be no trial,” he declared. “There are enough witnesses, and more, who heard Valcour say you were tricked aboard the Raven and were an unwilling accomplice to the capture of my ship to clear your name. And if that is not enough, why then I will fling O’Reilly’s land grant in his face and take you with me back to sea. We will become pirates indeed, as I so nearly decided to do this morning rather than risk even the slightest chance of danger to you.”
“Land grant?” she repeated. “I thought you said the governor-general had rescinded his promise of free land.”
“I had to say something to account for my break with him.”
“Another lie,” she said softly.
He swung on her then, coming slowly back to her. “And what of you, Félicité, with your keeping score of words spoken of necessity and under the most stringent duress? Haven’t you lived a lie these many weeks, pretending to despise me? Or was it told this morning? Did you perjure yourself with words of love, an offering of the paradise I was losing, one last tender blow between the eyes, before, as you thought, I was led away to a pirate’s fate?”
“Morgan, no,” she whispered. “How could — you think so?”
“How could I not, when you have never by word or deed hinted at such a thing before, when you have lived in discontent with me, barely tolerating my touch, when time and time again I have found you with Bast? You may think you would be better suited with that spawn of a Spanish grandee, but I can tell you that you would not!”
“I know that. He asked me to marry him, to go with him to Spain when we got off the island, but I refused.”
He stopped. “Is there no proposal to your liking? Why would you not agree to be the wife of the heir to one of the greatest fortunes in Spain?”
“Because,” she said distinctly, “I did not love him.”
Even as she spoke, she realized that Bast’s proposal had been based on the fact that he had known of Morgan’s mission and the imminent arrival, once La Paloma left the island, of the Spanish guarda de costas. Thinking back, she saw that he had come very near to giving away the secret then, if she had only known how to listen.
Morgan reached to pick up the love lock that lay across her shoulder, holding its shining softness carefully in his hand. “You did not answer my question in its entirety. Perhaps I can put it another way. If I were to ask you now, for the second time, to be my wife, would you say yes?”
Tension that bordered on trembling ran along her nerves. She stared at the gold buttons on his waistcoat. Her voice a whisper of sound, she said, “No.”
He caught her forearms, his fingers biting into her flesh as he dragged her against him. “Before God, Félicité, you will drive me mad! Why?”
“It is true that I love you,” she began, then pressed her hands to his chest, as he would have pulled her closer. Her velvet-brown eyes were soft with glistening tears of anguish as she went on. “But you were right; I would not have told you if I had not thought that everything was over for us. For one to love while the other feels no more than desire, be it ever so consuming, is not enough. I could not bear to be your wedded wife on such terms, to have no more than your passion and your sufferance for the sake of a past wrong. I could not!”
His brows drew slowly together, and emerald fire danced in his eyes. “Because — dearest heaven, Félicité, how can you think I do not love you? Have I not told you so in a thousand ways? You are the breath of my body and the beat of my heart. The thought of you is a constant flow in my mind, and has been since the first moment I saw you with the contents of that damnable chamber pot perfuming the air! If I had not been obsessed with you to the point of sickness, the thought of your plotting my death with Valcour would not have been so enraging, and you might be a virgin still. If the look and feel and taste of you were not the only solace of my soul, why else would I have bartered for the command of my own private hunting expedition? I love you beyond the conception of sober and lucid men or the shrouded visions of yearning women, and if you will not agree to come with me and be the wife I would cherish in sanctified pleasure, then torment me how you may, I will forswear the part of a civilized man and become a pirate again, shackling you to me by force!”
The tears shivered on the ends of her lashes as her lips curved into a slow smile. “And if I will?”
“Then no man, no court, no set of laws, will ever take you from me as long as we both have breath.”
She went into his arms then, clasping her hands behind his bent head. Their lips met with passion and power, sweetly savored, tenderly possessed.
Morgan held her close then, his chin against the silk of her hair, his senses reeling with the fragrance of roses. “We can say our wedding lines before the captain this night, if you like.”
“Yes, eventually.” By slow degrees, she freed herself, drawing him with her toward the beckoning comfort of the velvet-covered bunk.
Much later, she stirred, cushioning her cheek more comfortably against Morgan’s arm as she spread her fingers over the sculpted planes of his bare chest. “You knew,” she said softly, “that Captain Bonhomme went away with Isabella, did you not?”
“Yes, I saw,” he answered, his voice deep with lazy satiation, the sound vibrating against her palm.
“I wonder if they can possibly be as happy as we are?”
“No.” The an
swer was simple, positive, and required, of course, a reward. After a moment, he said, “I expect Bonhomme will make a fine marques when he has grown used to the new identity Isabella will provide for him.”
“Perhaps he will use his own rightful name, left behind when he became a corsair?”
“Perhaps.” He turned, brushing the silken strands of her hair from her shoulder, leaning to press his lips to the curve he had uncovered.
“André, the captain’s manservant, will be furious about my hair, and about having to press my gown again.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Morgan murmured.
Félicité’s voice grew drowsy as he seared a path from her shoulder to the peak of her breast. “Doesn’t it?”
“His services will not be required again.”
“Not even for the wedding,” she mused, running her fingers through the hair over his ear and along the nape of his neck. He turned his head to smile at her, a promise in his green eyes.
“Well,” he conceded, his tone a fine blend of reluctance and anticipation, “perhaps once more.”
About the Author
Since publishing her first book at age twenty-seven, New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Jennifer Blake has gone on to write over sixty-five historical and contemporary novels in multiple genres. She brings the story-telling power and seductive passion of the South to her stories, reflecting her eighth-generation Louisiana heritage. Jennifer lives with her husband in northern Louisiana.
~ ~ ~
To find out more about Jennifer’s books, see the Steel Magnolia Press website at www.steelmagnoliapress.com.
Purchase Steel Magnolia Press ebooks direct from Amazon.com at: http://smarturl.it/smp.
Louisiana History Collection - Part 1 Page 117
