Fires of Delight Page 11

  And around his waist was an angry scarlet strip, four inches high, where his skin had been torn away. The wound was like a livid, perpetual scab, more evil-looking than the branded letters. This was the reason Jean had, while dressing yesterday, shielded himself from her. He bore the marks of a shame that he felt must be concealed.

  He was too delirious now, however, to notice or care that she saw him. Selena managed to get him to the hammock, and when he lay down in it, she yanked off his boots and peeled away the sopping breeches, aware even as she labored of his powerful body and splendid manhood.

  Rafael came in with towels and blankets. Together they rubbed him down thoroughly and covered him with blankets and furs. Only after Selena had placed a cold compress on Jean’s burning forehead did she ask, “However did he come by those terrible wounds?”

  “We do not speak of it,” the man replied. “He will tell you if he chooses.”

  If he gets well, Selena hoped. To the disorienting influence of his quest for revenge, Jean Beaumain had now added an acute, debilitating affliction of the body.

  “I’ll stay and watch over him,” Selena decided, taking off her raincape and hanging it on a peg. “I’m sure you and the men will have enough work contending with the storm.”

  Gratefully, Rafael agreed.

  The storm continued to build in ferocity throughout that day, and Jean’s fever raged on as well. Rafael had turned the ship into the wind, every sail furled now, and the Liberté was nothing more than a chip of kindling on the mighty deep. It was all but impossible to remain standing in the tossing cabin, so Selena crawled into the swaying hammock with Jean, occasionally rising to replace his sweat-soaked bedding or to fetch a cool, fresh compress. He passed alternately through spells of troubled sleep or vocal delirium, most of it meaningless to her.

  “The flowers are lovely, Marguerite,” he said once, “they add so much.” And later, “Landa, Landa, give it to me now, that way, as before, that’s right, that way, don’t stop and never stop…”

  Selena, no stranger to the way men carried on during high flights of passion, began to suspect the existence of a woman named Marguerite, whom Jean apparently also referred to as “Landa.”

  Once again, as had happened when she’d seen all those dresses in Jean’s wardrobe, Selena felt a twinge of jealousy. She could not help but feel attracted to this bold man, and touched by his passionate quest. But after all, here she was, caring for him during a time of danger and need, and he was raving on about someone else!

  Don’t be silly, she chided herself. You’ve only just met him. You know almost nothing about him at all And Royce will always be the only one for you.

  Somehow, though, the thought of another woman still rankled. She recalled her early infatuation with Royce Campbell. After they’d met at the Edinburgh Christmas ball, she hadn’t seen him again for a whole year, and for a whole year she dreamed of their kiss on the windy balcony above the North Sea. He’d sailed off to sea somewhere, and she’d gone back to Coldstream and school and all the rounds and rituals of daily life. But she was certain that he held her as vividly in his mind as she held him, and to say that she was looking forward to the next Christmas ball would have been only one-tenth of one percent of the truth.

  When the holiday season came, she and her family journeyed to Edinburgh by coach and took up quarters in the palace. She learned that Royce had also arrived; she bribed a chambermaid to discover the location of his suite and proceeded thereto.

  Her hand was on the door handle and she heard the click of the mechanism as she depressed it; she felt the door move as she pushed it inward. Her eyes adjusted to an odd dimness in the room. Sir Royce, it’s Selena. I was so happy to learn of your arrival and I wanted to renew our acquaintance… But the room was dim because the heavy draperies had been drawn in mid-morning, but why? Sir Royce, I wanted to renew—

  “Yes? Who is it?” he snapped.

  Selena started, her eyes still adjusting to the gloom. There, in a canopied bed next to the fireplace, was Royce Campbell. He was sitting upright and looking at her. The bedclothes had slipped away, and above the powerful chest and shoulders was his dark, chiseled face, in which his eyes were blazing like slow coals. Then the eyes softened, almost with amusement, as he recognized her.

  And there, in that bedroom, on that long-ago holiday morning, he had laughed.

  And Selena had stood there, incapable of movement, not looking at Royce now but at the woman in bed with him. She lay on her side next to Royce, black hair fanned out on the satin pillow cover, her soft white shoulder and upper arm exposed. But beneath the bedclothes she was obviously caressing Royce.

  “Really, Selena,” Royce had said, still laughing, “I’m quite glad to see you again, but don’t you think we might meet a bit later?”

  The black-haired woman had been Royce’s mistress at the time, Veronica Blakemore, and her laughter as Selena fled in humiliation had been much like the glee Selena had sensed in Jean’s wardrobe last evening.

  Oh, yes, Royce had learned in good time that Veronica was manipulative and evil—Selena, of course, had helped make him see that—but ever afterwards she had kept her eyes open for rivals.

  It was ridiculous in this situation, though, wasn’t it? She had no claim on Jean, nor he on her. This shadowy “Marguerite” or “Landa” or whoever meant absolutely nothing.

  Having put things in perspective again, Selena replaced Jean’s compress and settled down beside him, thinking of Royce. Surely he would find her. Or, when she arrived in Beaumain’s home on St. Crique, she would send a message back to Newport. Or she would take the next ship from Haiti, seeking him.

  Yes, that was the way it would be!

  Just before nightfall, Jean fell into a deep, peaceful sleep, and his skin was measurably cooler to the touch.

  “I think the worst is over,” she told Rafael, who came to the cabin bearing brandy, a pot of steaming broth, and bread. “The fever has broken.”

  “Shall we try to get some of this broth down him?” Rafael asked.

  “Not just now. Leave it, though. What about the storm?”

  “Good news on that front too. It should be clear weather by morning. The ship has not been damaged. I was worried about the masts for a while, however. I’ve seen them snap like twigs in winds like these.”

  “It shows never to give up hope.”

  “That it does.” When Selena had been a little girl, her father had used an expression that had remained with her ever since: “Selena, the sky begins here.” By that he’d meant every day was new and filled with promise. Life belonged not to those who dwelt upon the past, which could not be recaptured let alone relived, but on the golden morrow when dawn would rise again.

  Tomorrow, she thought, where the sky begins.

  Rafael withdrew. Selena had herself some brandy, bread, and broth. The ship began to quiet a little, then more, and even the ceaseless howling of the wind diminished. She was studying the great map, having located St. Crique off the north coast of Haiti, when Jean Beaumain stirred, murmured something indistinguishable, and tried to sit up.

  “Easy, now,” she said, going over to him. “You just rest. Feel hungry?”

  “God, yes! What hour is it? What happened? Where is Cha—?”

  “Shh. None of that now. We can talk about it if you like, after I’ve gotten some nourishment in you.”

  He obeyed, settling back down in the hammock, and when she saw his boyish grin and the way he’d decided to comply with her nursely wishes, Selena knew he was his usual self again.

  First she gave him some broth, which he gulped avariciously. Brandy lifted his spirits, but bread did not suffice to sate his appetite, so she called to the galley, from which ripe, fall New York apples were delivered. Presently, Jean had had enough, and lay back again with a contented sigh.

  “How mad was I?” he asked, a little sheepishly.

  “Quite mad, I would say.”

  They both laughed, then Selena turned
serious.

  “Who did those things to you?”

  “Of course, you’ve seen. Well, it was Chamorro.”

  His eyes darkened, hardened, and for a moment she was afraid that he would drift away again into the perfervid world of his mania.

  “Sometimes it helps to talk about things,” she suggested quietly. “It can’t undo what has been done, but sometimes it does truly help.”

  “You’re right.” He sighed. “And after what I’ve put you through, you do deserve an explanation. How strong is your stomach?”

  “As strong as it has to be.”

  “Good. Well, I have already told you how I revenged myself upon Chamorro for what he did to my father, and how, with his ship, I founded my fortune. But he is not a man to let things lie. I knew he was pursuing me, but I paid little attention. I grew arrogant, careless. One night in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, I went ashore to celebrate. My men and I had seized a Portuguese freighter that day, bound from Brazil and fairly brimming with gold. I drank too much, wandered out into the streets, and Chamorro’s men seized me.

  “They took me to his ship, which unbeknownst to me had been lying off the coast, and chained me in the hold. The next morning Chamorro himself came below. He is a man of consummate cruelty and evil, and he promised that I would die slowly. I spit in his face. There seemed no reason not to, and I am still glad that I did. I knew I could expect no mercy from him, and I was right.

  “He set sail for I knew not where, and once every day he would come below to brand me with a letter of his name. Most often, I would become unconscious at the touch of the hot steel, but when I awoke there would be the pain. I cannot describe to you how awful it was—I cannot describe it to anyone—and every day, with every brand, it would grow worse.

  “After he had completed the letters of his name, I was still alive. Chamorro required new amusement, so he decided, to flay me alive, slowly. He had me hung from the yardarm so all his men could see and laugh, and he began daily to peel away from my abdomen a thin strip of skin. He meant, as day passed into day, slowly to strip my bones. That went on for God knows how long. I usually became unconscious as he was ripping away the skin with a pincers, and next morning I would find myself once again chained in the hold.

  “Selena, I would have killed myself many times over, had I the resources. But no such felicitous opportunity presented itself. All I could do was suffer. The fiend made certain that I had enough bread and water to keep me alive, you see. He wanted his sport.

  “But as time went on, and the torture became more routine, as I weakened, he grew careless. Or rather, his men grew careless. There came a night in which I awoke unchained in the hold. I could barely crawl, but I managed to make my way up onto the deck. We were off the coast of one island or another—later I learned it was the Azores—and I dived off and drifted from the ship to the shore. But not before I had set fire to his ship with a deck lantern. The salt water in my wounds hurt horrendously, but served as a disinfectant. Indeed, the ocean is probably the reason that I am alive today.”

  “And Chamorro?” asked Selena tremulously, overcome by the horror of what Jean had borne.

  Beaumain shrugged, accepting fate. “He had gone ashore that night. Twenty of his sailors perished and his ship was lost to fire, but he himself was safe. Some peasants hid me until I healed—they held no love for Chamorro, who had raided their coastal villages before—and eventually I was able to send a message to my men.

  “Since that time I have been in pursuit of the vulture. Someday I will find him, and I will bring back as trophies his head, his ears, his nose, and his private parts. I will bring them back as trophies in a box.”

  “But what if he finds you first?”

  “That will not happen. He is afraid of me now, truly afraid. With the Liberté, he knows I can outrun any ship that sails upon the seven seas. He knows, and is afraid.”

  Selena, seeing the look in Jean’s eyes, could tell that Chamorro had good reason to fear. His eyes, at that moment, made her afraid.

  Thinking to quiet and gentle him, she slipped an arm beneath his shoulders and pressed her cheek next to his.

  That was how it began, innocently and unplanned.

  In response to her gesture, Jean turned toward Selena, saw that her eyes were wet with the tale of his agony, and sought to comfort her with a gentle kiss. Their lips met, held, and the kiss became something that neither of them had intended, but that kept them in its thrall nonetheless. It was a combination of sympathy and affection on Selena’s part, of gratitude and smoldering physical desire on his. They went down and down into the kiss, until somehow his hands were beneath her dress—it was the burgundy one—setting her breasts and thighs afire.

  Selena thought to stop it, but only for a moment. Then it was too late to do anything but ride along on vaulting waves of passion.

  Royce, she thought guiltily, somewhere far back in her mind. But that region was in an area of consciousness soon blotted out by incessant assaults of sensation, which, when set alive, like a hunger, required more and more ecstasy. Or doom.

  She closed her eyes so as not to see, so as to shut herself entirely in this wonderful vortex. The destiny of flesh did the rest. His lips upon her nipples caused her to cry out, and she was stroking him with the instinctive skill of a woman who knew love and knew how to give it. The force of his desire as he moved upon her, into her, sent ripples of burgeoning passion from the dewy, need-filled petals of her flesh to the very center of her being, and Selena gave as he gave, her body pushing upward toward his strokes, falling away and thrusting again and again to savor the immense shape of him, the very measure of a good man. And when she felt the rushing flood of his enchantment, knowing that she had pleased him utterly, Selena cried out as much for his pleasure as for her own.

  But afterwards, lying beside him, there came an attack of doubt and troubled spirits. He was murmuring words of gratitude, words of endearment, but she heard them indistinctly, as from a great distance.

  “Selena, what’s the matter?” he asked finally.

  She looked at him with sad eyes and shook her head.

  “You’re thinking of that Royce Campbell, aren’t you?”

  Her silence was an affirmation.

  “We both lost control,” he went on. “I didn’t mean for this to happen any more than you. But I’m glad it did, and I shall always be.”

  He kissed her lovingly, high on her cheekbone, and tasted the salt of a fleeting tear.

  “Selena, love,” he said then, looking deeply into her eyes, “why would I think less of you just for being human like me?”

  Nevertheless, she could tell that he was falling more deeply in love with her, even though their intimacy was not repeated, as the Liberté changed course and made its way toward Haiti and St. Crique. The knowledge both troubled and pleased her. Jean Beaumain was a man whose attentions would flatter any woman, yet only Royce could ever stir her to her soul. Jean was more like a friend, whose needs she understood, whose spirits roused her as much as his anguish touched her. She did not want to lose his friendship, but when she saw his eyes upon her, saw the scarcely hidden hope in his gaze, she knew that mere comradeship was not what he wanted from her at all.

  He wanted the kind of raw, sudden love they had shared in the hammock, wanted it again and again.

  So Selena spent much time in her cabin—she had sewn herself three dresses by the time they neared St. Crique—or went on deck and looked out at the ocean through the spyglass, always imagining that she would see, far out on the horizon, the great white sails, the implacable black hull of the ship that bore her name, streaking toward her out of the north.

  But she did not, and one afternoon in late October, the sentry in the crow’s nest hollered “Land ho! It’s St. Crique, dead ahead!”

  Everyone came up on deck. Jean Beaumain slipped his arm around Selena as they stood together at the bow, and nuzzled her hair.

  “I hope you like it,” he said. “Next t
o love, home is the best word in the world.”

  5

  Voodoo

  St. Crique Isle, a lush, low-lying atoll, a startling green jewel of a cay twenty miles off the north coast of Haiti, immediately entranced Selena with its untamed, indolent beauty. The eerily blue waters of the Caribbean rolled gently upon its white sand beaches, beaches that rose slowly toward a rain forest of exotic, dazzling flowers, ferns, palms, primordial vines thick as tree branches, and trees laden with exotic, multihued berries and fruit. Above the whole island, under the sun, shimmered a still, hot haze.

  “It’s gorgeous,” said Selena, “but where is your home?”

  She could not see a hint of settlement or domicile.

  “I call it ‘Hidden Harbor,’” Jean replied, even as the Liberté rounded a narrow peninsula and sailed straight for shore. There, to Selena’s amazement, was an opening in the thick foliage, through which the ship slipped—Jean’s men were bringing down the sails now—into a lagoon of clear, placid water, sparkling and diamond pure. At the far end of the lagoon, ivory-white on a rising sweep of jade-green grass, stood a splendid, sprawling house shaded by palm and rubber trees.

  “There it is,” exclaimed Jean Beaumain quietly, proudly, as the Liberté drifted to a halt just offshore. “Home.”

  And even as Selena marveled at this luxurious architectural masterpiece in the midst of nowhere, she thought how different it was from Coldstream, or from any place that Royce would have chosen. Hidden Harbor reflected Jean’s deepest nature. It was neither monument nor statement nor challenge to the world, but rather a place of respite and peace. Flowering gardens, symmetrical in their arrangement and tended to perfection, ran down from the veranda at the front of the house to the water itself. A pier thrust out into the deep water, to which the ship drifted. And upon the pier, waiting, stood two women.

  Jean waved at them and they waved back.

  Selena saw a handsome, brown-haired woman of middle age, shapely, tall and serene. Her companion was of the same height, about Selena’s age, perhaps in her early twenties. Her skin was the color of old honey or gold, set off by gleaming jet-black hair. Selena’s competitive instincts were immediately aroused. She had seen great beauties in her time—she herself had often been deemed one—but this creature, even from the distance of high deck to low pier, was surpassingly gorgeous.