God how she hated him for seeing her so vulnerable, hated the understanding in his eyes, the tenderness carved in his features—features whose masculine beauty far surpassed even that which she had conjured for the visage of her phantom. Being an object of pity had always made her angry, chafing her with the knowledge that someone else knew how helpless she felt. To shield herself from that stinging pain, she sent him a fulminating glare.
"Oh, aye, I'm warm. It will give me the greatest of comfort when they hurl us both into Warburton's dungeons."
"Come, now, it is scarce a bonfire. And it is hidden in this crook of stone."
He strode toward her. The long-legged grace of a man wed to the sea was somehow made all the more dauntingly masculine by his slight limp. Tessa's gaze flashed down to his sinewy thigh, her eyes locking on the linen bandage stained dark with blood.
"Your leg... " Tessa started.
"It is nothing." He shrugged, one corner of his mouth tipping in a half-smile. "Scarce a scratch."
She gritted her teeth at his dismissive tone.
"It is you who concerns me." One large hand reached out to brush her cheek. "I wish I had some food to offer you, or at least a cloak."
She shrank away from his gentle touch, grief and bitterness welling up inside her. "Don't trouble yourself, milord Spaniard. No doubt there was little room for such amenities upon your ship, since it was stuffed with inquisitors and torture devices and vicious, murdering soldiers."
She wanted to goad him to anger, drive him away. But she was stunned to see anguish dart across his features, torment nearly as deep as her own.
He levered himself to his feet, half turning away from her, and in the moonshine she could see the muscles that spanned his broad back knot in pain.
"I think after this day you'll have small cause to worry about 'murdering' Spaniards, milady," he said bitterly, and despite her own misery Tessa felt a brief sting for having baited him.
"Of course"—the Spaniard turned toward her, his dark brows low over narrowed eyes—"you'll still be forced to shield yourself from chivalrous, honorable Englishmen such as those we encountered."
His words pierced Tessa's armor of anger like a masterfully aimed lance, and she faltered beneath the nightmarish images that rose inside her. She suddenly felt chilled. The tiny flames but an arm's length from where she sat seemed to jeer at her. She leapt to her feet as though to escape her memories but they only coiled tighter about her. Nay, she thought wildly, she must not let her anguish break free before this man. To do so would cleave the single fragile thread that tied her to sanity.
She heard a soft curse, then a weary sigh as he raked his fingers through his hair. "Tessa..."
She was stunned to hear her name upon the lips of the stranger, stunned further still as he went on.
"I didn't mean to..." He hesitated, those mesmerizing indigo eyes regarding her with solemn apology. "Remind you of those men, remind you of your mother. But it is not weakness to show grief. There is no shame in it."
"Don't tell me about grief, you pompous Spanish bastard! Nor shame! You've played the honorable knight, whatever purpose it served you. Now get away from me." Tessa spun away from him. "Just leave me alone."
The words were a whisper, a plea, and she loathed herself for having uttered them. But there was no strength left in her. Nothing but an empty void that ached for Hagar's winsome smile and the childlike innocence that had allowed the old woman to fling her thin arms about Tessa, long after girlhood had flown, and comfort her with kisses and loving embraces. "Tessa babe, Mama loves you." Every night before Hagar drifted to sleep she had whispered those words, her affection giving peace and security to Tessa's restless spirit.
Tessa raised shaking fingers to her face and covered her eyes with her hands as she sank down on the cold earth.
"I should have protected her," Tessa choked out. "She trusted me."
She heard muffled footsteps approaching from behind her, and she could sense the tall Spaniard scarce a hand's breadth away from her. Yet she had not even the will to muster shame at this show of weakness.
"You did all you could."
She felt the soft wool of his sleeve brush her shoulder as he lowered himself beside her.
"It was not enough! She was like a babe. Helpless. And I let them... let them burn her."
A jagged sob tore through her, and she lowered her hands from her cheeks to see the face of the Spaniard taut with compassion. He was just a stranger hurled up on an enemy shore, a man whose own life was in jeopardy. How, then, could he ache for a nameless old woman and for her, a girl who had slashed him with brutal words?
She winced as she felt his rope-toughened palms cup her face, thumbs gliding over her cheeks, brushing away her tears. "They didn't burn her." His voice touched her, breath-soft as his hands. "Her spirit had long since flown."
"Her hair was aflame... and her face—"
"I assure you, they could not touch her."
A strange ripple of warmth soothed her as he echoed Hagar's own words from her dream.
"There was a hermit I knew when I was a child." Pain and love touched the man's voice. "He always said that God scooped innocents up in the palm of his hand before the flames could touch them."
"Nay, not God. Papa. Papa came for her."
Tessa shut her eyes against the agony of loss, the horrible aching emptiness of being alone. She grieved for herself, abandoned by the only two people she had ever dared love. "Why... why didn't he come for me as well? Why didn't he take me, too?"
Arms flashed about her, strong arms tempered with tenderness. They crushed her against the broad wall of the Spaniard's chest, his heart thrumming against her ear as he cradled her against him.
"Cry, Tessa, cry," he urged her, his breath warm against her temple, his lips soft as they rested upon her tousled hair. "I promise you that even this grief will pass."
And she did cry. Sobs that rent her very soul. Tears soaked the man's torn shirt, burned her cheeks raw. She could scarce breathe, the pain ran so deep. She didn’t know how long she wept, knew only that the Spaniard held her, comforted her, crooning soft endearments in a language rich and sultry as the darkest wine.
"Sí, angél." His murmurs soothed her as exhaustion weighed her eyelids. "Pour it all out."
Tessa curled even tighter against him as she quieted, her face buried against his half-open shirt, his hair-roughened skin radiating warmth through her numbness. She whimpered as the smooth metal of a ring heated from his skin pressed against her cheek. But she nudged the small circlet away, burying herself against the man's welcoming strength.
She felt so drained. This Spaniard's tenderness was like a safe harbor in a storm. She sank deeper into the haven he offered.
"I don't even know your name," she breathed.
She could sense the warmth of his smile. "It is Santadar, milady," he said, the words a caress. "Captain Rafael Santadar. I am called Rafe."
"Santadar?" Tessa hiccoughed, nuzzling her tear-streaked face against his bronze, satin-smooth skin as tales of the sea unfurled like silk ribbons in her exhaustion-numbed mind. Stories of a sea phantom had seeped into her own dreams, a bold captain whose single flaw was that he was an enemy Spaniard.
"I heard a story of a man named Santadar," she breathed. "They called him the phantom."
"The Phantom of the Midnight Sea." There was pain in Rafael's voice. Tessa felt a sudden urge to comfort him as he had eased her anguish, but her weariness was too heavy, sucking her down into darkness.
"I'm sorry I hurt you,” she managed to whisper. “My temper is... "
"I've faced far worse, milady," his voice drifted to her. "It is forgotten."
"And your wound..."
"Just sleep now."
"Sleep." Tessa echoed. Her eyelids fluttered, the lashes coming to rest upon pale cheeks.
Rafe stared down at her for long moments, more moved by her sorrow, her trust, than he would have believed possible. He trailed his fingertips
across rose-kissed lips, then down over the chin that filled him with such rare delight.
Rafe raised his eyes to where the dawn-blushed horizon fell away into what he knew was the sea.
"She is like you, this woman," he said to the distant waves. "My wildwitch." He turned his gaze again upon Tessa's face, still in what he sensed was unaccustomed repose.
Shifting his position, he felt a dull thrust of pain in his leg. He knew full well he should check beneath the bandage, cleanse the wound and remove whatever was embedded within it. But Tessa was so soft and warm against him—and he was suddenly so tired.
He smiled inwardly. Once he had known an ancient sailor who had carried a musket ball in his leg for forty years without troubling to extract it. The aged sea wolf had sworn the chunk of lead enabled him to foretell hurricanes.
Rafe sighed, burying his face deeper in Tessa's heather-scented hair. The ability to foresee disaster would be a gift worth having when he returned to the sea. Amused tenderness stole through him as he drowsed. The sailor had boasted that he had predicted every storm that blustered his way. Would the musket ball have warned him of the tempest even now cradled within Rafe's arms? A sea storm of ebony curls, blazing dark eyes, and soft lips that tempted him.
He felt himself drifting deeper into sleep, and was glad... glad for now, at least, to abandon himself to the storm.
* * *
Pain exploded in Rafe's side, hurling him from dreams of midnight-hued hair and flashing eyes the color of ebony. He cursed, rolling away from whatever had struck him, fighting to remember where in God's name he was as he grabbed for his dagger. But webs of sleep dulled his senses and the blazing sun rising in the east blinded him as he struggled to focus on a maze of plunging horses and savage faces.
"Dog! Spanish bastard!" The words lashed out at him, snapping him to awareness and bringing back to him the events of the day before, a day filled with death and danger and Tessa's raw courage.
But these men were no wild mob armed with scythes. Rich armor and caparisoned destriers flashed before Rafe's eyes.
Warburton. The name was branded in Rafe's consciousness as he bolted to his feet, battle-ready. He caught a glimpse of Tessa's fear-whitened face as he lunged past her, hurling himself toward the man nearest him—too late. A flash of gleaming metal arched toward him. The flat side of a broadsword slammed with bone-shattering force against his wounded thigh. Agony exploded in his leg as whatever was embedded in his flesh clawed deeper into the muscle.
A guttural cry tore from his lips, and a red haze drowned him as the pain drove him to his knees. Tessa's hands fought to break his fall, and the smooth, sea-scented folds of her skirts pooled beneath him as he crumpled to the ground.
"Rafe... sweet God!" Her voice drifted to him, and there were tears in her agitated tones.
Then rough hands grasped Rafe's arms, nearly wrenching them from the sockets as two of the lord's minions yanked him from Tessa's embrace, jerking him upright.
"Did ye think ye could escape us, ye accursed papist scum?" Dull yellow eyes gleamed through the slit of one man's rusted visor, and fetid breath turned Rafe's stomach.
He fought to clear his blurred vision as an elegantly appointed figure urged his mount forward, the hooves of the plunging black stallion slicing the turf inches from where Rafe stood. Trappings scarlet as blood dripped from the majestic beast; the rider's chest was emblazoned with the raging boar crest of the Warburton lords.
"Look you, men!" A voice like stones grating across iron rang out. "Did I not tell you we would find the puling Spaniard crawling upon the belly of the cliff? Yet I had not imagined that he would already have found some traitorous whore's skirts to hide behind."
Rage lanced through Rafe, mingled with terror at the name Warburton had flung at Tessa—traitorous whore. In the space of a heartbeat the consequences for her part in his flight struck Rafe, and he wrenched at the arms of his captors, desperate to be free. "The woman is no traitor! I took her hostage—held her against her will!"
"I see no chains about those pretty wrists, and you, milord Spaniard, are as weak as a suckling rat. If she had chosen to flee, you would have been helpless to stop her."
"Damn you, she is innocent!"
"Silence! Her guilt and her punishment are for me to decide." Warburton's eyes blazed with hatred. "You I arrest in the name of the queen!"
Rafe struggled against his captors, desperation firing his next words as he strove to turn Warburton's wrath away from Tessa and bring it down upon himself. "Queen? You have no queen—only lecherous Henry's bastard, got off the witch Boleyn."
He heard Tessa's faint gasp, relished the deadly silence of Warburton's men-at-arms. Then something slashed toward him. The English lord's iron-toed boot crashed savagely into his jaw. Rafe's head snapped back, the salty sweetness of blood filling his mouth as he sagged against the men who held him, only their brutal grip keeping him on his feet.
"Spanish scum!"
Rafe heard Warburton's roar as though through some hell-deep tunnel, saw him slam back the visor that had obscured his face, a face now purple with rage. There was the menacing hiss of a steel sword being stripped from its scabbard before the nobleman's weapon flashed high. In that instant Rafe knew he had pushed the cruel lord too far. He would die. And by dying, he would abandon Tessa to the clutches of this monster.
"Nay!"
He started at Tessa's scream then was stunned as she leapt between him and Warburton's naked blade.
"Tessa—" He cried out her name, but his plea was lost in the nobleman's dark curse.
"What the hell—"
"You must not kill him, my lord." The girl's voice held not a tremor; her hair rippled back from that pristine enchantress's face. "Else you will face Her Majesty's wrath."
"The man is a bloody Spaniard. I'll gift good Queen Bess with his head upon a pike."
"And end up with your own adorning London Bridge for your efforts."
Rafe gaped at the girl, sensed all surrounding them staring as well.
"How dare you—" Warburton rumbled.
"It is for your own sake I dare speak, my lord. He is an enemy captain washed up on our shores, a man of considerable importance."
Rafe had seen battle-hardened sailors face cannon fire with less courage, and he marveled at Tessa's cool words.
"If you kill him before Her Majesty's councilors can question him..." Her face waxed pale, her jet-hued eyes catching at Rafe's for but an instant. "The queen's lack of patience with mistakes is nearly as legend as her father's."
Warburton shifted in his saddle, discomfort evident in every line of his body, despite its shield of armor. "Insolent wench! It would serve you right if I cleaved you in two."
"As you wish, my lord." The girl who had blazed with defiance earlier was now such a picture of humility that Rafe would have laughed aloud had the danger not been so thick around them. "I meant no disrespect. I was only trying to spare you—"
"You, a rag-clad guttersnipe, were trying to spare the lord of Warvaliant Castle from the queen's wrath?" His sword dropped slowly to his side. "Who the devil do you think you are?"
"No one but a weary peddler, my lord. Tessa of Ravenscroft." She took a step forward, the sunlight washing over her features. "You probably do not remember me, but I've often come to Warvaliant Castle."
"To drive me mad, I warrant! Tessa, you say?"
Rafe felt a stirring of betrayal as he heard the tentative recognition in Warburton's tones.
"Aye, my lord. I am the woman who works the ruffs."
One of Warburton's gauntleted hands rose to his gorget, as though he were fingering one of the intricate starched ruffs that usually bedecked his velvet doublets. "The wench with the puppets," Warburton mused. "I know you now. A most diverting visitor at the castle's gates, as I recall." The nobleman paused, his silence lying heavy on the air. Rafe sensed Tessa's shoulders stiffen beneath the coarse fabric of her gown. Something in Warburton's tone made Rafe's skin crawl.
"You left Warvaliant in much haste last time you visited, seller of ruffs. I... er, my mother, Lady Morgause, was most disappointed."
"No more, sir, than I. My own mother, she is ailing." Tessa's voice dropped low. "Was ailing."
"She had the good sense to die, then?" The cruelty of the question made Rafe want to strike the arrogant nobleman.
Rafe clenched his fists. "Your savages burned her mother," he grated.
"My savages, you say, Spaniard? Is it not true that your King Philip loaded the armada with inquisitors and with instruments of torture to use on the English people? It is even rumored the holds of your vessels are filled with wet nurses to suckle the babes orphaned after you slaughter every Protestant on this island."
"There were no women on any Spanish ship. And the inquisitors..." The words died on Rafe's tongue. He stiffened with loathing at the memory of the white-robed figure of Lucero Encina gliding like an evil specter across the waves, after he had turned the Lady of Hidden Sorrows into a hell.
Warburton's chuckle made Rafe clench his jaw. "Well, it does not matter what your monkey of a king sent to ravage English shores in any case, does it, Spaniard? It will all lie at the bottom of the sea before the week is out. Yet it will not be without a high toll in English lives. Aye, and a high price from the purse of our good queen. And there is nothing Elizabeth Tudor loathes more than an empty treasury—unless it is one of the men who helped to drain it."
"You and your queen can go to hell," Rafe snapped. A shadow fell across Neville Warburton's features, and Rafe felt the cold fingers of death trail down his spine.
"You'll wish you were there, papist scum. Aye, wish it when our 'heretic queen' flays your skin from your body with white-hot knives. But the wench is right: You must be alive to afford Queen Bess that amusement."
Rafe had faced death a score of times, faced it and laughed, but in this man, this Warburton, there lurked something spawned by Satan himself.
To Chase the Storm Page 6
