Beyond paradise (26 page)

She smiled bashfully. "You had such a hard day, I thought... well, I thought I would at least try to offer you some civilization."

Elizabeth Doyle

He lowered his eyes because he was touched, and took the seat assigned to him. Finding that his cutlass was scratching the chair, he removed it. Sylvie didn't have the heart to tell him that no proper gentleman would remove his sword at the dining table. He lifted his spoon to begin eating, but she shook her head at him and said, "No, no. Use the fork." He dropped the spoon and looked around to find a fork. As subtly as he could, he took a glimpse at how Sylvie was holding hers, and tried to imitate it.

During the first few moments of eating, Sylvie was deep in thought, straining to compose just the right opening to their conversation, wondering how intimately she should speak. She thought about the lantern he had turned low. Did he want to be romantic with her tonight? She was still so confused. She didn't want to marry him, didn't want to encourage the notion that they were wed. And yet... she wanted him. She couldn't even watch him eat without thinking impure thoughts. She liked the way his strong hand clasped his fork incorrectly, forming a fist. She liked the way his sun-bleached hair tumbled across his forehead, and the intent way in which he ate, as though nothing mattered but his food. It was a sign of someone who had once been very hungry. "Jacques," she said, "I. . . when I saw you today, and you were nearly killed, I ... I was scared." She smiled nervously for no reason except to have an expression. "I was really scared."

He nodded. He'd observed that. Her fear for his life had been plain beneath her fierce determination. "I believe you," he said, "I know you were." Then he returned his attention to his food.

That had not opened up the volumes of conversation for which she had hoped, but that was all right, she supposed, for she had something else she wanted to tell him. "Jacques,

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I'd meant to tell you something sooner, but I completely forgot."

His eyes were on her lips but not her eyes as he continued to eat greedily.

"When I was on Jervais's ship," she went on with a deep sigh, "I overheard the men talking, and they said that there was a price on your head." He stopped eating and looked at her plainly. "They said they were commissioned to capture you specifically. That it was separate from the king's bounty they receive for capturing just any pirate. They said they'd been offered an extra reward by that man you mentioned before." His heart missed a beat. "Blanchet."

Now, his eyes dropped completely, and Sylvie had to touch his hand to regain his attention. "What does that mean, Jacques? Why would he go to such trouble to see you hanged?"

Every muscle in Jacques's body was tight and painful from the mere mention of the merchant captain. He had lost his appetite, and he bounced his leg anxiously under the table until he noticed it and made himself stop. He could feel Sylvie's stare on his bent head, and wished she would go away. "Jacques," she said, but he would not look at her lips, "Jacques, you suspected he was behind your capture. Who is he? Why does he care so much?"

At last, he looked up. "Are you finished eating?" he asked in as friendly a manner as he could muster.

"Jacques, I know that you know I was talking to you. You intentionally didn't look at me. Please tell me. Why is this man after you?"

To her surprise, his answer was swift and calm. "Because I was his favorite pet. Are you finished? That is, with your, uh . . . your supper?" He reached over and stacked her plate on top of his, preparing to make his exit.

Elizabeth Doyle

Sylvie crossed her arms. "His favorite pet? Jacques, that's perfectly awful. Did he really treat you that way?"

He had planned to veer from the subject in fear of having an outburst of anger and frustration. But when he saw the compassion in her eyes, he had a new reason for wanting to leave. He was afraid a tear might fall from his eyes. "It's really not so tragic as all of that," he said, trying his best to sound mild. "It's really ... not." He swallowed hard because he could feel himself shaking.

"He beat you, didn't he?"

He tried to look nonchalant as he nodded. "Sure," he said casually, "sure. I told you already I was beaten on that merchant vessel." He put the plates in an empty trunk and asked, "Do you want the rest of this wine?" holding the flask temptingly over her goblet.

"How old were you when he took you from the asylum?"

"Twelve. I was with him for four years. No wine, then?" He put the flask away.

"And when the pirates overtook his ship, everyone either joined them or was killed. He forgave every man on that ship for surrendering, never to return, except you. Why?"

He rubbed the back of his neck and cast her a look of pleading. "Sylvie, how can I tell you I don't want to talk about this without offending you?"

"You can't. Tell me what happened, Jacques. Why does he still search for you?"

"I told you why." There was a bite of anger in his voice now.

"Because you were a pet to him? Because he loved you and you betrayed him?"

Jacques laughed loudly and cynically at that. "Loved me? No, not quite. Sylvie, he despised me." He put both fists on the table and leaned into her. "He was an inadequate man

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who needed something even less adequate to spit upon. Do you understand me now?"

She shook her head, but she did not back down. Her eyes returned his piercing glare, and though he was standing and she sitting, she gave no sign of feeling intimidated. "I don't understand. Explain it"

He combed back his hair, frustrated and strangely anxious to tell her exactly what he meant. He wanted her to wish she hadn't asked. "He had complete control over me, Sylvie. The asylum granted him full custody. The other men, they all hated their work, they all hated him. And they, too, were beaten when they were lazy. But it wasn't the same. He thought of them as men, as mercenaries who owed him work for their wages. And I was nothing but an animal."

"Why?" she asked, appalled. "Because you couldn't hear? But you could read lips by then."

He narrowed his eyes and shook his head, frustrated that she didn't understand any better than that. "It wasn't because I'm deaf, exactly. It was because I was from an asylum, that I'd already been labeled worthless. It was the world that told him he was my superior. There was nothing I could have done to change his mind. He didn't want his mind changed." He crossed his arms to shield his heart before he told her something he had never told anyone before. "Sylvie," he said with vulnerable eyes, "he threatened me. Not just normal threats, but things that are really frightening. He would threaten to cut out my tongue, chop off a finger, things that terrified me because he could really do them." Sylvie flung a hand over her mouth and gasped. "There was no one to protect me. He tied me to my bed every single night, and to this day, I have to stretch out my arms when I sleep, just to remind myself that I can. He treated me like a wild animal."

Sylvie was just trying to understand how anyone could

Elizabeth Doyle

live with such fear and keep going. She couldn't think of anything to say.

As though he understood her silence, he went on, his eyes round with honesty. "It was years before I understood what I meant to him. He treated me as though I were nothing, but in truth, I was everything to him. He was a miserable man whose wife had long ago taken their children and run. He had no education, no respect, and no loved ones. The only thing he had was me as a point of comparison. When I joined the pirates and fled, it was as though even I had bested him. It was as though the one thing which he'd always been able to hold as inferior, had outwitted him. And I suppose it was more than he could bear."

"And for that, he has offered a fortune to the pirate hunter who has you hanged?"

"Apparently."

Sylvie was enraged, her loyalty to Jacques growing tenfold within her breast. "Well, we can't let him win!" she cried. "At all costs, we must make sure he never has his way!"

"Well," he smiled awkwardly, "that was my plan. I didn't, uh ... I didn't intend to be hanged if I could avoid it."

"But this is an outrage!" she cried, rising to her feet. "He's a horrible man! Horrible! Someone like that should never have been given power over someone as dear as you!" She bowed her head and flushed, the moment she realized what she had said. She hadn't meant to sound smitten, but it really had come out that way She only hoped that in reading her lips, Jacques had missed the sound of love in the word "dear."

No such luck. He saw the emotion all over her face and was touched by its tenderness. "Thanks for caring," he said, lifting her chin with a firm knuckle. How could someone who had once been so vulnerable now be so strong? He told her tales of powerlessness, yet every time he came near, she sensed only strength radiating from his able body.

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"Jacques, you're not the one who was an animal."

He nodded firmly. "I know that, Sylvie. I do."

She gazed wondrously into his soft, brown eyes, for there was so much she wanted to tell him. His face was growing very near—she could almost feel his breath. "You're inferior to no one," she told him. "I hope you believe that. I hope you really feel it."

He held her face casually in his hand, stroking her satiny cheek with a thumb. She turned her head in his palm and kissed it, an act of submission and reverence. "Sylvie," he whispered, "I fear you're pitying me and confusing it with affection."

"No, I'm not," she said, reaching upward and outward with her small hand. She touched his roughly stubbled jaw and tickled it with her dainty fingers. She was pleased that he did not flinch, but looked at her calmly as though women touched him like that all of the time. "I think I'm falling in love with you " she said, "and I may be confusing that with desire."

Though his face remained confident and calm, his jaw flexed anxiously. It looked almost like a flinch from pain, a flinch from hope. "I want to believe you."

"Then do it," she whispered against his face. In reply to his querying gaze, she told him, "Believe me. Just believe me." She pressed her lips against his and leaned into him until he was forced to wrap his arms around her and she could feel his excitement pushing against her hips.

Twenty-six

He fumbled with her clothes as a man who would not take no tor an answer. But his eyes were those of a man who was looking for a "no," who would stop at the first sign of her regret. He kept stopping and checking her expression for doubts. But she gave him no indication of that. She blew her breath against his face, snuggled her nose to his ear, and smiled against his cheek. With impatient hands, she opened his shirt, loving his chest with the breasts she had bared just for him. She loved the way his muscle and hair felt beneath the sensitive tips of her bosom. She couldn't stop smiling; she was drinking in the moment, savoring his precious, manly scent and marveling at the sensation that her whole life had been in preparation for this moment.

"I think you are the strongest man alive," she said from somewhere deep within the heart that was growing so round and clear. "I have never met someone so brave, someone I'm so proud of, someone I'm so proud to . . ." she flushed a little. ". . . to have . . . take me."

It was more than Jacques could bear. He lifted her with

Elizabeth Doyle

ease and laid her down upon his bed. With gentle hands he removed what was left of her pirate garb while she watched him, wide-eyed, delighted, and just a little jittery. He began a long trail of kisses, brushing his lips against every inch of skin that was revealed to him. He thought he had never seen anything so beautiful as this woman's body, elegant as an ancient statue—graceful and alive. He showed his appreciation with a warm kiss upon each tender part of her. He paid reverence to her shoulders and wrists, then went out of his way to savor the more forbidden aspects. He did not shy away from the blushing crests of her breasts but kept his eyes on her response as he wet them and then blew upon their arousal. Her surprised joy and the movement of her mouth brought a smile to his lips. He traveled downward.

"Jacques, I'm not your first, am I?" she asked, seemingly out of nowhere.

Though caught off guard, he answered smoothly and quickly. "Yes, you're the first woman I've ever adored," he said, then silenced her with a kiss upon her belly button. He didn't care to tell her about the notoriously amicable relationship between pirates and harlots. She would misunderstand and think he had loved them, or that they had loved him, or that what he and she were doing now somehow compared to mercenary frolic. And it didn't.

"Mmm." She ran her fingers through her own hair, letting it down from its braid at the pleasant feel of his tongue on her belly. "You're my first, too," she said.

He tried not to, but he laughed, blowing air onto her stomach. "I know that," he said, for he had seen the blood.

"Oh, that's right," she giggled. "I'm sorry, I forgot you have a way of knowing. I feel silly."

"Don't," he said, reaching up to brush her hair. "I'm glad I was your first. I really am."

Sylvie opened her mouth but said nothing for a long time.

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She was looking at him in the low light, at the precious way in which his hair hung near his eyes, and the virile way in which his arms marked each side of her. encasing her. "Take me" she whispered.

But when she opened her legs, he gave her a friendly pat right between them, gently enough that it didn't hurt, but firmly enough to tell her "no." "I don't want to do it like that," he said inching up beside her, "I want to do it like this." He rolled her into his arms and squeezed her in a strong embrace. Side by side they lay, warming each other's lips, his tongue making gentle overtures at hers. He lifted her knee to his hip, making her womanhood open and ready. "We'll do it like this," he said.

"Side by side?"

"It's fun," he promised.