Calhoun Chronicles Bundle (23 page)

“For the spiritual joy you offer?” She shrugged. “Why not?”

“There’s a more practical consideration. In an actual lovemaking situation, you would lose your virginity.”

“Well, thank God. It has been an unwelcome encumbrance for far too long.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“You’re not concerned that, should you marry, a husband might expect an explanation?”

“I would have to tell him I was hopelessly seduced in the middle of the jungle by a pirate who mistook me for a goddess.”

“That was no mistake.”

Boldly she touched him.
There.
And smiled wickedly when he caught his breath. “Neither is this.”

“Then you want it. The rest of the demonstration, that is.”

“Yes.” She could not get over the remarkable hardness of him. “Is this painful?” she asked.

“Not…in the way you’d think. It’s quite…normal, I assure you.”

“Then you should definitely continue. What would happen next?”

“Well, since we are about to take a step I never take lightly, I would kiss you some more.” He did so, and now his kisses were more yielding and soft and moist than ever before, flavored with the forbidden essence of passion.

“And then,” he whispered, his lips moving to her ear, “and then I would probably tell you that I love you.”

Time stopped. Movement, heartbeat, wind, water. Everything stopped. Finally Isadora found her voice. “And would you mean it?”

“Probably not in the sense most ladies prefer. It would be a sort of ‘If I don’t have you now I’ll explode’ declaration. As opposed to the ‘I will commit to you for life’ declaration.” He rippled his hand over her breasts. “And of course at this point such distinctions wouldn’t matter much.”

“I don’t suppose they would,” she conceded. But she could not deny that his words had carved out a small, ridiculous, hopeful spot in her heart. “Then what? What would happen next?”

“Hold on to me, and I’ll show you.”

She clung to his shoulders. She wondered if he realized he’d said the exact same words before teaching her to swim. He sank down, probing, pushing and in an age-old motion she’d never been taught but had always known, she raised her hips and wrapped her legs around him. There was a brief pressure, a flash of pain and between clenched teeth he said, “Ah, Christ, I’m sorry, I—”

“I’m not,” she whispered, lost and loving it; lost in his embrace and loving the sensation of being covered by him, filled and possessed by him, their bodies sliding and straining together in a rhythm that was as natural to her as breathing, yet as new to her as the rainbow thrown up by the scintillating light through the waterfall. She could see it beyond his taut shoulders, could open her eyes and see a burst of sun-shot color, and it was a wonder to her, for it was the perfect wordless expression of the fantastic pleasure rising higher and higher within her, filling her chest, her throat, her flushed delighted face and finally coming out in the form of a sound she’d never heard before, a burst of awe and ecstasy, a single note that said, in one rush of joyful clamor, everything that she was feeling, everything that was inside her.

A moment later Ryan went motionless, arms braced and straining, face curiously intent as, for precisely one heartbeat he stared down at her. And in that brief pulse of time she became swiftly terrified, terrified that it was over, that this moment would end and the magic would disappear, taking the joy with it.

Yet it didn’t happen that way. He spoke her name, no more, and she felt the startling rush of his release. A thrust, a ripple, a spasm. His eyelids lowered to half-mast and his expression mellowed to one of unfettered bliss. Finally he sank down slowly, very slowly, while the long dream stretched out like sunlight across the water, and the illusion was more real to her than life itself. She waited, feeling the pressure of his weight atop her, smelling his scent of spring water, then something dark, musky, evocative. Haunting.

And finally, he spoke. “Oh, Christ. What have I done?”

Even as he swore, he pulled away from her, pulled back, and for the first time since they’d dived into the lagoon, she felt her nakedness, felt ashamed.

“I wanted you to,” she said in a small voice, snatching up her chemise and holding it like a shield in front of her. “A moment ago you looked at me and you saw a goddess. Now what do you see?”

“The biggest mistake of my life.” He hid his gaze as he tugged on his smallclothes and trousers, negligently buttoning them. “I took shameless advantage of you. Made you inebriated and then seduced you.”

“Ryan.” Her voice rang crisply across the water, startling a flock of hyacinth macaws. “What precisely is your point?”

Without even looking at her, he handed her the corset. “I have no idea why women insist on wearing these contraptions.”

She put it on, tugging absently at the front laces, feeling her hypersensitive breasts press against the top edge and wondering how he could so quickly dismiss her. She had experienced the greatest pleasure of her life, and he said it was all a mistake.

She thought suddenly of the whore he’d been with back in Boston. And the one in Rio that first day ashore. Of course. He took all such encounters quite casually.

“I think I understand,” she said, stepping into her petticoats. The damp fabric held the faint scent of their love; she forced herself to ignore it. The blurred elation imparted by the smoking began to dissipate, mist driven back by a cold wind. “When you are inebriated, I’m a goddess. Then when you sober up, I’m a mistake.”

He paused in dressing himself. Reaching out, he brushed his finger over her mortified cheek, once, so tenderly that she wanted to weep. “Ah, Isadora.
I’m
the one who made the mistake.”

The winter grew cold—so bitterly cold that the duckling had to swim to and fro in the water to keep it from freezing over. But every night the hole in which he swam kept getting smaller and smaller. Then it froze so hard that the duckling had to paddle continuously to keep the crackling ice from closing in upon him. At last, too tired to move, he was frozen fast in the ice.

—Hans Christian Andersen,
The Ugly Duckling
(1843)

R
yan sat contemplating the largest fortune he’d ever seen in his life. In the glaring sunlight slanting through the stern windows of the captain’s cabin, the stacks of pounds sterling glittered with eye-smarting brilliance.

At one time, this moment would have been one of triumph. He had earned far more than Easterbrook’s margin had called for. Thanks to a fast trip on the brow of fair winds, he had accrued bonuses and premiums most sea captains only dreamed of.

He could not enjoy his success, though. Could not even look forward to setting sail. He could not do anything but think of Isadora.

He cringed, recalling the seductive interlude in the rain forest. He had truly hit bottom. On the pretext of protecting her, he’d followed her to the lagoon. On the pretext of introducing her to a new pleasure, he’d taught her to smoke hemp leaves. And on no particular pretext at all, he’d taken shameless advantage of her trust, her naivete and—God help them both—her state of helpless inebriation.

No matter that she’d wanted it, she was a proper lady of Boston who deserved a little restraint.

No matter that she’d asked for it, she was an innocent who didn’t know the consequences of the act.

No matter that she’d enjoyed it, it would take an icon made of stone to be impervious to the pleasure they had found, the pleasure enhanced by the gentle lassitude of the drug combined with a setting that rivaled paradise.

Worst of all, far worse than taking advantage of a naive woman, was the fact that Ryan himself had done the unthinkable.

He had fallen in love.

He took a sullen sip of lemonade—everything else since his orgiastic consumption of spirits last night made his head pound—and scowled at the tally page in front of him.

How could he be so stupid? How could he lose his heart here, now, to a woman like Isadora? His future was a hazy dangerous cloud on the horizon. He couldn’t drag her along this path with him. He was about to face his greatest ordeal yet—and he might have to violate every principle of maritime commerce in order to do it.

He had to free Journey’s wife and children. He might well have to commit an act that could get him hanged. Everything depended on what happened in Virginia.

“My, my,” Journey said from the doorway. “You do look a mite glum for a man sitting in front of all that money.”

Ryan felt a painful stab of affection as he regarded his lifelong friend. “I do, do I?” He picked up his pen and used the lever to fill the cartridge. “The notary left. I’m supposed to lock the specie in the till. Once I do that, only Abel Easterbrook can open it.”

He signed his name to one of the papers and started putting the money into a coffer the size of a bread box.

“Sure is a lot of money,” Journey remarked.

“Sure is,” Ryan said. Money meant only one thing to Journey: reuniting with his family.

“But Delilah and my babies—”

“Will sail into Boston harbor with us.” Ryan savored the expression on Journey’s face. He might have lost his heart and with it, his chance to be anything but a memory to Isadora Peabody, but he would bring Journey and his family together no matter what the cost.

Even if it killed him.

“Cap…captain sent me to ask you to translate these.” Timothy Datty set down a sheaf of papers sandwiched between marbled card stock.

Beneath a canvas awning, Isadora was seated in a deck chair. The
Swan
lay sixteen days out of Rio, and she had tried to avoid Ryan the entire time. He seemed to accept the arrangement with a certain sheepish relief.

He had been afraid she’d follow him around like a love-struck mooncalf. She could see that now, though it hurt. He should know better. Her practical nature had taken over. The extraordinary experience in the rain forest had been just that—an extraordinary, overwhelming, marvelous experience. An occurrence so perfect it could not, should not, ever be repeated. It was like finding a four-leafed clover or seeing a comet in the night sky: a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon. She should count herself lucky for having lived that moment even once, for surely most people never knew such bliss. To wish for more was simply greedy. And futile.

She set aside the letter she was writing and smiled at Timothy. No point in condemning the lad simply because the skipper was a horse’s backside.

“Thank you for bringing these,” she said.

“You’re…welcome.” When he employed the breathing strategies she had taught him, Timothy rarely stuttered. He stood leaning against the pinrail, smiling and regarding her in a very curious way.

“Is there anything else you need?” she asked.

“Um…no. Just…did you like Rio?”

“Very much, thank you.”

“I thought so.”

“What makes you think so?”

“You seem…different, is all.”

She smiled, knowing her smile was touched with sadness and knowing she was inches from tears. “Oh, I suppose I am different,” she said, staring off into the empty distance. “I am indeed.”

He withdrew and she looked at her hands. When had she stopped biting her nails? She had undergone a dramatic transformation on this voyage, and the changes manifested themselves in curious ways. She felt a certain sense of wonderment looking down at her hands with the nails neat and smooth, the skin tinged gold by the sun, the palms callused from working. Yet mingling with that wonderment was confusion and sometimes a wish to crawl back into her shell, hiding from the world as she did on Beacon Hill.

She set aside the letter in her lap. She had no idea what she had been writing or for whom she’d intended the missive. Ye powers, her brain had softened to cornmeal mush these days. She could not seem to concentrate on anything for very long.

Except for Ryan. Despite her resolve to be practical, she could think of him for uncounted hours without straying even once to other topics. It was quite awful, really, this sad obsession of hers. On some purely intellectual level she understood the reason for his constant presence. He was the first man to awaken her carnal desires, to show her physical pleasures she’d never imagined. Like an addict, she craved more of the ecstasy he’d shown her.

Fortunately for Isadora, she possessed a powerful reserve of common sense. Her will alone would protect her from making a fool of herself over an inconstant sea captain who probably couldn’t wait to get her out of his life. Her will had given her the strength to flout convention and sign on aboard a merchant ship. Her will had given her the power to face the perils of life under sail. Surely she could fight a base and inappropriate attraction to Ryan Calhoun.

Though when, a few minutes later, he came strolling over to her as if summoned by her thoughts, she felt that powerful will falter. It was absurd, the way nature had favored him with such physical beauty and magnetic appeal. And the yearning ran deeper now, because she knew firsthand that the beauty and appeal extended over every square inch of his body.

Feeling hot and untidy, she shaded her eyes and tilted her head to look up at him. He could not have planned for the strong westerly wind to plaster his shirt to his damp chest so artfully, or for the sun to raise ruby-toned glints of light in his long, wavy hair, but one would think he had orchestrated the effect to taunt her.

Isadora smiled politely. “Good day, Captain Calhoun.”

“Good day.” He bowed from the waist, mocking her formality with a wink. He indicated the folio she held. “Thank you for taking on those translations. I thought we’d have done with paperwork once we left Rio, but it never seems to end.”

“I don’t mind doing my duty.” She straightened the papers with a consciously officious air.

He didn’t seem to be in a hurry to go. Instead, with an unreadable expression on his face, he sat cross-legged beside her on the deck. “Are you enjoying the voyage home, Isadora?”

“Thus far I am,” she said.

“I’ll need the
Swan
’s enrollment certificate copied again,” he said, handing her a rolled document. “We’ll be making port briefly in Virginia.”

She took the official paper from him. “Virginia? We’re going to call at Virginia?”

“Briefly.” His jaw drew taut with tension.

“Do the men know of this?”

He glared at her. “If you persist in being insubordinate, I’ll assign your duties to someone else.”

The old Isadora would have flinched at his tone. But she knew now how to face a man’s anger; she knew it wouldn’t kill her. “Virginia was not in the original sailing plan,” she remarked.

“Damn it, woman,” he burst out. “Just shut up and do your job.”

“Aye-aye,
sir.
” Unwilling to be intimidated, she put the enrollment certificate in her lap desk.

They sat in disgruntled silence for a time. Then he indicated the letter in her lap. “Writing to Chad again?”

She bristled at his astringent tone. “I—”

“Of course you are,” he cut in, his voice quiet but sharp as a blade. “You promised to tell him of all your adventures abroad.”

“I seem to recall I pledged to correspond—”

“What about the adventure at the waterfall, Isadora?”

Hearing the words spoken aloud created a havoc of emotions in her. It had been the most beautiful day of her life. But Ryan Calhoun seemed determined to make a mockery of it.

“Well?” he persisted. “Did you tell him about that?”

“How dare you.”

“How dare I what? Finally make you speak of that day?”

“Don’t make it my fault.
You’ve
been avoiding
me.
There is no need to speak of it,” she said curtly. “It is over.”

“I thought so, too,” he said, and suddenly his voice lowered to a whisper. She could barely hear him above the creak of timber strained by wind-filled canvas. “But the more time goes by, the more I think about it.”

She toyed with the black ribbon that bound the folio together. “I see no point in dwelling on that day. You said it was a mistake, and you were correct.”

“What about you? Was it a mistake for you, too?”

The direct question pushed her toward the brink. Could she unveil her feelings to him? Could she take that risk?

No. And the saddest part was, she had no idea what her feelings meant. Her emotions careened crazily, touching on yearning, lust, tenderness, melancholy. She never knew, when she opened her mouth to speak, whether she would laugh or cry. Regardless, he would not welcome them anymore than Chad Easterbrook ever had. So why tell him? Why open herself to that hurt?

Rather than hardening her to pain, all the countless wounds of the past only made her more vulnerable. So Isadora did the only thing she could. She gave him the practical explanation.

“We took a drug that made us do something very foolish.”

“So you feel nothing now?”

“The only thing I feel is foolish.” She was lying. She knew it even as she spoke. Even stone cold sober, she felt dizzy with passion each time she thought of him. But life had taught its hard lessons well. A handsome, charming man would bring nothing but heartache. She had to prove herself stronger than her desires.

“I’m certain it’s the same for you,” she added.

Without warning, he touched her cheek with the back of his hand. Lightly. His knuckles grazed her skin, leaving a trail of fire. The caress evoked other caresses, other moments. “You have no idea how it is with me, Isadora.”

Something in his expression frightened her. The darkness. The intensity. Just when she thought she knew this man, he showed her another facet of himself. She pulled away, flinching from his disconcerting touch even when a part of her longed to settle her cheek into the cradle of his palm. “Then perhaps you should explain what you mean.”

He dragged his fingers through his hair. “I can’t give you anything, Isadora.”

“I never asked for anything,” she said.

He smiled, the expression shaded with a heartbreaking regret. “Oh, love, you have,” he said.

“I don’t understand.”

“You expect everything. The moon. The stars. The planets and
their
moons. But you’ve chosen the wrong man. You’ve made the error of thinking I have something to offer.”

She laughed, amazed that such a bitter sound could come from her. “How clever of you, Captain Know-All. Over the years, gentlemen have offered me every excuse on record to explain their reluctance to court me. I have been responsible for more dead great aunts, horses with the colic, broken buggy axles and even cases of the measles than any other woman in Boston. But this is a first.” She heard herself babbling, but she feared that if she stopped, she would waver. She would weep. She might even blurt out the truth. “I can honestly say that you’re the first to declare yourself ineligible on the basis of your own personal qualities—or lack thereof. I congratulate you. That was very original.”

He stood. “Christ, Isadora. I’m not like the others. You know damned well I’m not.”

She forced herself to wave her hand in a dismissive gesture. “It really doesn’t matter. I’m told gentlemen have amorous encounters all the time. You’re no different. Surely your lack of moral character is not worth dwelling on when there is so much work to do.” Doggedly she opened the folio and glanced at the papers. She could not see a word—they all melted together in a blur of unshed tears.