Fires of Delight Read online

  “But, learning of this, I gathered friends of mine from Côtes du Nord who felt as I did, and commandeered one of Chamorro’s sloops. He has a great fleet of ships; he is a merchant prince. Using this small ship, we surprised one of his merchantmen just as it was entering the channel, took the ship, then took and sold everything aboard. It was the foundation of my fortune.”

  Selena felt pleased at the way he had ended his story, but Jean Beaumain seemed gloomy. Perhaps the maiming of his father—she recalled the impunity with which Oakley had threatened to slit her face—was a wound that could never be erased. That burden would explain, she thought then, his haunted look in repose.

  “I can never return to France,” he said. “Not that I care. Chamorro is alive and powerful, and my father is dead. I will settle with Chamorro in due course…but for now I am sometimes a privateer, sometimes an outright pirate, and occasionally—as on this trip to America—I am a legitimate shipper of ivory and spices and furs.”

  He still seemed downcast. Selena arose from the table and walked about the cabin, wandering over to the map table.

  “What are all these red flags for?” she asked.

  He looked up. “Those are the locations at which Chamorro has been sighted.”

  Selena looked at the flags again. Morocco. Zanzibar. Cape Hatteras. Cape Horn. New Zealand. Nippon. And she began to realize that the big, usually good-humored Beaumain, the French peasant lad become a millionaire, was driven by some tremendous desire to track his nemesis to the edges of the world.

  She did not understand then, not completely, just why this should be true. Nor could she, with his origins and apparent unconcern for his homeland’s political fate, be sure he could conceive of her own desire to return to Coldstream Castle.

  “Now,” said Jean Beaumain, arising from the table and casting aside his lugubrious reverie, “the night still holds pleasures for us.”

  He came quickly across the floor and took her in his arms. “Give us a kiss.”

  He slipped his big arms around her, began to wrestle playfully, seeking her lips. She was still wearing the boy’s jacket that Penrod had given her, and was afraid that Beaumain would feel the bag of jewels and sovereigns in her pocket. Best to take it off. Yet the thin shirt she wore beneath the jacket afforded scant concealment, and Jean was unlikely to be gentled by the outline of her breasts and nipples beneath the fabric.

  Still, it would give her a moment to think. He said he didn’t want money; he wanted her.

  But would one of the jewels buy him off?

  Considering that, she said, “Let me hang up my coat at least?”

  His answer was a grin of delight. He let her go.

  “Of course. Hang everything up, if you like.”

  She slipped out of her jacket and, to her mild surprise, he reached up and extinguished the big glass-chimneyed lantern by which the cabin was illuminated. She heard him undressing as she found a peg for her coat. She stood there, unmoving.

  “Selena?”

  “Mr. Beaumain,” she replied formally, “I know I owe you a debt of gratitude—”

  “You surely do, madame.”

  “And I wonder if there isn’t some way…some other way…that I can repay—”

  “Hey! A deal’s a deal,” he chortled, tracking her by the sound of her voice and embracing her again. He was naked and ready. And strong.

  “What?” he asked, lifting her into the air and swinging her up and onto the hammock. “You’ve still got your clothes on. We can’t have that…”

  Seeking her lips with his own, he tore open the filmy shirt and started to tug at her breeches, laughing happily as he did so. Obviously, he was one of those men who thoroughly enjoy sex in the sporting sense. It wasn’t serious at all for him, or darkly passionate, or possessed of great meaning. For him it was fun, as a toy might be to a boy.

  Just as obviously, given his forthright nature, he felt that her protests were mere coyness, adding to the fun.

  “Please, Selena,” he said, “I can’t wait.”

  It was like dealing with a big, happy, overgrown child eager to arrive early at a county fair.

  He had one hand inside her breeches now and he’d found her mouth. She resisted, and kept on resisting, but to her amazement Selena found herself liking the kiss. Probably because it was almost impossible not to like him, even under these circumstances, she had trouble finding words to dissuade him. During the struggle she continued to offer, her hand closed around him. He gasped, relaxed, and loosened his grip on her.

  “Oh, Selena, that’s—”

  Good. She stroked and caressed him, lightly, quickly, up and down, now and then pausing at the end to bestow a special squeeze.

  “Oh, Selena, stop—”

  But she didn’t, and very soon his great excitement and need gathered force, sending vast pulsing showers into the air.

  “Give me a moment, Selena,” he said lazily, snuggling next to her, “and then we’ll—”

  “But this is all I can do.”

  “What?”

  “Just now,” she said. “At this time.”

  “Oh, I understand!” he said, after a pause. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  This was as good a time as any, Selena thought, to try another ploy. He was temporarily—all too temporarily, she feared—sated by her expert ministrations, and sympathetic as well.

  “I have to tell you that I’m…betrothed,” she said. “I’ve promised myself to another.”

  Jean didn’t like that, and there was even a bit of jealousy in his voice when he asked, “Who?”

  “Royce Campbell,” she told him.

  Long pause. “Royce Campbell, the gunrunner?”

  Royce is much more than that, she wanted to tell him. But she held her tongue. Jean was the kind of man who believed all women should put him first in line, as if it were simply the nature of things.

  “Royce and I were trying to slip out of the city when we were separated tonight. Now I must find a way to go and meet him in Newport.”

  Beaumain was silent, miffed at this turn of events.

  “You love him?” he asked finally.

  “Oh, yes, more than anything.”

  “I’ve heard a great deal about him. The man would do anything to turn a dollar.”

  “That’s not true. The aid he’s given the revolutionaries cannot be measured in money.”

  “I’ll bet,” Beaumain replied scornfully. “But, look, I will tell you one thing. Jean Beaumain does not need a woman who favors another. There are all too many who favor him!”

  “I know there are. You’re a very desirable man, and a gentle one too.”

  He leaned up on an elbow and looked at her in the waning darkness. It was close to dawn now, and outside the Liberté, first faint rays of day were lancing upward into the eastern sky. “Is that what you really think?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said Selena truthfully, but aware too that things were beginning to work to her advantage. “If I weren’t in love with Royce, it would be difficult not to be smitten by you.”

  Those words pleased him. “Is that right?” he asked. “Is that right? Well, how do you plan to get to Newport, then?”

  Selena decided that it wouldn’t hurt to try. “I was hoping I could persuade you to take me there.”

  He laughed. “You’re a woman filled with hope. But I must return to St. Crique.”

  “It won’t take long. Only a few days’ sail.”

  “If the wind is good.”

  “I’ll pay you well.”

  “Hah! What will you pay me with, pray tell?”

  Selena slipped out of the hammock, went to her jacket, found the pouch and withdrew one of the jewels. She held it in the dim light coming through the windows. A sapphire, blue and exotic at dawn.

  “This,” she declared, walking back to the hammock and handing it to him.

  He examined it carefully while Selena fastened the few shirt buttons he hadn’t torn off, and slipped back into her ja
cket. When she looked at Jean again, he was still in the hammock, studying the gem, and she saw, around his waist and along the back of his shoulders, shadowy markings on his skin. Possibly these were tattoos, but she could not see clearly, and when he noticed her looking at him, he immediately pulled a fur covering over him.

  She thought it odd, because otherwise there didn’t seem to be an ounce of inhibition in his more than two hundred pounds.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “Royce gave it to me.”

  Beaumain drew the wrong conclusion. “You mean to tell me you’d try to buy me with the gift of your betrothed. Do you think I would take such a thing?

  “Shame!” he added, for good measure. “I am not a man like that. I shall take you to Newport, Selena, for nothing, simply because I like you. Now what do you say to that?”

  Before she could reply—actually she had a strong impulse to kiss him—there was a peremptory pounding on the door.

  “Cap’n! Cap’n!”

  “Yes, what is it?”

  “There’s a boat rowing over toward us from the fortress. It’s filled with redcoats. I think they’re plannin’ on boarding us, maybe for a search.”

  “God damn!” cried Jean Beaumain, leaping from the hammock. Selena noticed that he kept his torso and shoulders covered as he slipped into his breeches, and put his jacket on in such a manner that she had no further glimpse of what she thought she’d seen on his skin.

  “Wake all the men and have them come on deck,” Beaumain ordered the messenger. “Selena,” he said, looking directly into her eyes, “this might be a routine episode of harassment. It happens with the British. But they might also be looking for you.”

  “Isn’t there someplace I can hide?”

  “I’m trying to think…This is not a large ship; we haven’t that much hold space…Wait, there is one chance. Are you afraid of heights?”

  “No…I don’t think—”

  Without a word, he hustled her up on deck, took her to the mainmast, and told her to climb. Before the British drew close, Selena was curled like a cat in the tiny basket at the top of the mast that was called a crow’s nest. Atop this perch, sentries scanned the horizon for storms or sails, friendly flags or quarry. The climb hadn’t bothered her; she was too intent on hiding from the British. But now, looking down, the deck of the Liberté appeared as small as a toy dropped from a cloud, and each gentle ripple of water that washed the ship’s hull seemed to sway the crow’s nest wildly from side to side.

  From her precarious aerie, Selena saw the British longboat draw closer and closer, soldiers sweating at the oars, Lieutenant Clay Oakley standing magisterially at the bow. Beaumain’s men were lined up at the Liberté’s rail. She saw that they carried arms, as did Oakley and the soldiers.

  “Stand aside. We are coming aboard!” declared Oakley, his deep, chilling voice booming out over the stillness of the dawn harbor. His tension showed, however; he was holding his scented handkerchief, occasionally breathing into it.

  “State your business,” Beaumain demanded coolly.

  “I have reason to believe that the escaped spy, Selena MacPherson, is aboard your ship.”

  The boat had drawn up next to the hull of the Liberté; the redcoats had brought along ropes and grappling hooks. They were in no mood to be dissuaded.

  “I’m sorry, but Selena is not here,” said Jean, mocking Oakley with his laugh. “Whyever did you think it?”

  “Don’t lie to me, Beaumain. I returned last night to the Nest of Feathers after you had departed, and had a long chat with the barmaid, one Liz Randall. She knows you well, I was informed. A strategic, and I regret to admit, painful application of thumbscrews elicited the information that you and the MacPherson woman left the tavern together.”

  “You loathsome bastard!” cried Jean. “Is Liz all right?”

  “She won’t be using her hands much for a time, but it could have been worse. Now, about Selena?”

  “She’s not here,” answered Jean. “She gave me the slip, I’m afraid.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Jean’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “If she could escape from your prison, it might just be possible for her to get out of other binds as well.”

  The lieutenant, who was again sporting his fake mustache, laughed heavily, mirthlessly. “Even so, we are coming aboard.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Selena cowered in the crow’s nest while Oakley and the British searched Jean’s sleek ship from bow to stern, once and twice and then again. Not once did any of Beaumain’s men so much as glance up toward her perch, and she thought with gratitude how fine was their mettle and how praiseworthy their loyalty to him. There was a sense of fraternity aboard this vessel that impressed her, and she wondered if the ship’s name had anything to do with the cross she wore around her neck.

  She would ask him about it.

  Finally, reluctantly, the lieutenant gave up in humiliation, a chagrin that deepened in the laughter with which the French sailors bid him farewell.

  “In due time,” called Oakley, as the boat drew away from the Liberté. ”In due time we shall meet again, Beaumain, my friend.”

  “I’m looking forward to the pleasure,” a cocky Jean shouted back.

  Then he gave the order to set out. The anchor was weighed, sails were unfurled, and the rudder swung into position. Everywhere beneath Selena, great white flapping wings of sail reached out and caught the morning breeze. The Liberté began to move slowly out upon the harbor, then down through the Narrows into the thunderous Atlantic and the wild sea lanes of the western world. She stood up in the crow’s nest, and waved to Jean Beaumain who was watching her from the deck. But she did not want to come down just yet, beset as she was by a mingling of sadness and exhilaration. She would soon be leaving America, perhaps forever, and a part of her soul would always be here. But there were journeys ahead, and as the wind stung her face, as ropes creaked and sails rippled, she felt almost drunk with the promise of the future.

  Then the Liberté slashed out upon the high sea, all sight of land gone now, flying effortlessly before the wind with the preternatural speed for which she was fashioned, taking Selena to Royce.

  4

  Obsession

  “Here, let me give you back your love-stone,” said Jean Beaumain, handing Selena the sapphire. It was late afternoon. They stood together on the Liberté’s plunging bow. The wind had been steady and strong all day; soon they would cut past the eastern tip of Long Island and turn northward toward Newport. It had occurred to Selena that she might well arrive there before Royce. Wouldn’t he be surprised to see her though!

  “The gem is yours if you want it,” she told him.

  But he shook his head and pressed it into her hand.

  “It is a gift from someone else to you,” he said soberly. “I cannot accept it.”

  So serious was he that she regretted misleading him.

  “Royce Campbell must have done exceedingly well as a revolutionary,” Jean observed, with a slight edge to his voice. “Much better than most, I’d estimate.”

  The comment troubled Selena a little. Jean was referring to one small stone. Royce had somehow acquired an entire cache.

  “How much money does Campbell have?”

  “I really do not know.”

  “I bet I have more.”

  “That may well be. Does it matter?”

  “It might. But that is really not my point. I’m very attracted to you, Selena, as you must know. And, let me be bold, I care about you. I may not have learned as much as I ought to have in my time, but I haven’t missed everything. And one of the things I’ve observed is that people really do not change greatly. Oh, they can acquire skill in presenting various facades, and seem to be what they are not—”

  “Do you mean anything specific?”

  Jean paused, looked out at the ocean for a moment, then turned back to her. “Selena, Royce Campbell once had a savage reputation throughout th
e world. On every ocean, he was known as a ruthless plunderer. I confess that I have never met the man, but the oft-repeated weight of testimony holds that he was once a reckless adventurer, even a charlatan—”

  “That he was,” she admitted, “once.”

  “So. And what I am saying is that he may still be! What I am saying is that perhaps you ought to examine things more carefully before you pledge yourself irredeemably—”

  “You are making me angry!” she snapped, a little surprised at the sudden fire that brought those words forth. She knew Royce was not as Jean claimed him, possibly, to be. So why ought she ruffle her feathers?

  Beaumain retreated. “Well, perhaps you will introduce me to the man when we reach Newport?”

  Selena was about to reply, crisply, that, yes, she would, she would indeed, and then he could judge for himself and see how ridiculous his insinuations were, but high above them the sentry in the crow’s nest let out a great shout. At first Selena did not understand, but he called it again.

  “Chaaaamooorrro!”

  In a flash, Beaumain was gone from her side, scrambling up the mainmast to have a look himself. She watched him climbing, saw in his taut body and tense, excited features the hint of a person she did not know. It was as if one man lived inside another, waiting to be awakened and called forth by one word: Chamorro. That the vicomte had treated Jean’s father with unspeakable cruelty could not be denied, but there was in the sailor’s desire for revenge an element of surpassing and unnatural dedication, quite like the quest for an unholy grail.

  Watching from the deck, it looked to Selena as if Jean were pushing the sentry out of the tiny perch. He grabbed the spyglass from the man, who slipped from the crow’s nest and clung to the mast, and scanned the eastern horizon.

  “It is he!” Beaumain cried in savage delight. “All hands to the sails!”

  Almost all of the men were already on deck, having been alerted by the sentry’s call, and Selena caught sight of Rafael, gazing upward at his leader with an expression that could not conceal a measure of anguish. She went over to the man. There seemed to be no actual rank aboard the Liberté, one man was as worthy as the next, but the lean, dark, taciturn Rafael appeared to serve as Beaumain’s alter ego and aide-de-camp.