Fires of Delight (23 page)

Much had happened since the awful morning on which Yolanda Fee had met her doom, and most of those things had been good. Jean had thought it strange that Selena should ask to have—“as a trophy,” she’d claimed—Yolanda’s terra-cotta pillar. But he knew the lure of trophies and he had acquiesced. And just as Selena had expected, she found her jewels and gold sovereigns embedded in the roughly crafted phallus itself, where Yolanda had concealed them. Selena had guessed the nature of the hiding place that night aboard the
Liberté
, gazing up at the star-flecked sky, seeing in it the glittering gems of God ablaze in blackness. It was almost as if Royce had sent her a hint from heaven; the communion between them, in many ways, would never end.

The jewels—the meaning of which Selena still did not understand—were now sewn inside the lining of a greatcoat made for her by the Hidden Harbor seamstress. Weather in France could be quite intemperate, she was informed, and a greatcoat was just the thing.

After Yolanda’s demise, those in the Hidden Harbor household could not have been more gracious or grateful toward Selena. Yolanda had long held most of them in thrall with the mere threat of the powers she possessed. But only Selena had finally come to the conclusion that the Haitian girl’s use of symbols, such as Martha Marguerite’s ring and Erasmus Ward’s cross, was not a ploy to guard herself against the perceived powers of others, but rather, by assuming their symbols, to rob them of the power and identity they might have had. That was why Yolanda had been so startled to see the cross concealed in cloth. She had been divested, she believed, of her hold over Selena.

How many of these things were real, were true, Selena herself did not know. But Yolanda Fee had
believed
in black magic, and her belief alone had armed her in
hubris
, with the gall to wreak terrible acts.

During the months that followed the discovery of Royce’s sandy grave, Selena grieved, and sometimes took the sloop over to La Tortue, there to stand on the windy beach and look down at the cross that seemed so out of place, dreaming of things that might have been.

Things that now would never be.

But while it had at first seemed inconceivable that a man such as Royce, so vibrant, so full of life, should ever die, gradually the mysterious healing forces that salve and balm the human heart began to do their work. Selena went less and less frequently to La Tortue.

Then Jean Beaumain, who had wisely and lovingly left her alone in grief, came forward. He was neither tentative nor cautious—these traits were not prominent in his nature—but he was gentle and considerate. He did not wish to press her too hard too soon, lest by mischance or excessive ardor he drive her back into herself.

He was thoughtful: making sure that her room was filled with fresh flowers, seeing to it that her favorite dishes—lobster stew, poached marlin, pickled pigeon eggs—were served often. And when he returned to Hidden Harbor from one of his trading forays to Mexico or the Bahamas, he always brought her something—a necklace, a vase, a rare artifact—to wear or to enhance the rose room.

Finally, one night after returning from a trip to Florida, he came almost shyly, as if he might be rebuffed, to her room. Without speaking, he held before her eyes a broad gold ring in which a cluster of rubies gleamed scarlet in the light.

“This is for you,” he said.

Selena took it, held it, turned and admired it.

“Put it on,” he said.

She did, on the third finger of her right hand.

“Right finger, wrong hand,” he said.

That was how it began, or how it began again.

He had chosen precisely the right time, when Selena’s heart was well on its way to healing, and when she had begun again to
turn outward toward life, driven by the instinctively spirited forces of her nature. They made love slowly and reverently that night, but afterwards, as they grew more comfortable, more natural with one another, the hindrance of customary inhibitions fell away completely. Sensuality, now fierce, often wild but never wicked, opened for them its casket of myriad treasures, and each thrill, each variation of love, was keener than the last, leaving them soaring and shaken in the splendor of its grace.

Selena used upon him delights she had learned in India, intricate caresses and movements and touches that enhanced and prolonged his ecstasy, so that when she finally brought him lingeringly to the heights, he would pass for long moments into dreamy unconsciousness from the effects of pleasure alone.

And she taught him how to do the same for her, with the added benefit that, given the female nature, she would go on and on and on before dropping free from the top of the world. All the variations of the
Kama Sutra
became familiar to them, and she rejoiced at his shape inside her.

But most of all she grew to love most the comfort of his presence beside her in the night.

Then one night at the dinner table, Martha Marguerite, who approved of Selena as strongly as she had once deplored Yolanda, held an open letter before them and began to read.

Dear Mme. LaRouche (for that was her surname):

It is my fond wish that this missive finds you in good health. It is my fonder wish, indeed my fervent hope, that you will immediately board ship for Paris as events suddenly threaten to engulf and submerge the fate and welfare of properties that it has taken your esteemed family generations to attain. I must regretfully report to you that peasants in the province of Côte d’Or have, in a shockingly bold uprising of heinous consequences, seized your lands and burned your château to the foundations. Given the situation here in Paris, I think that I am perhaps erring on the side of sanguinity when I tell you that a similar fate might well befall your family home on the right bank of the Seine, along with all of the great houses in that
arrondisement
. As the people, more and more, gather and conspire to denounce
privilege, it becomes difficult for me to protect the estate of an owner who is absent therefrom. Do favor me, madame, with a letter at first opportunity and with your presence here as soon as possible.

Your servant,
Vergil Longchamps
Counselor-at-law

Martha Marguerite folded the letter. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to.

“Well,” decided Jean Beaumain, lifting a glass of rosé to the light, “if we sail now, we ought to be able to reach France by early July. Mind you, I shall not set foot upon her soil. I have not yet had done with Chamorro, though I curse him wherever he may be. But I can take you as far as Le Havre, at the mouth of the Seine.

“Or perhaps we might sail in late summer,” he went on, thinking over the possibilities. “Could you wait that long?”

“I don’t think so,” Martha replied. “Monsieur Longchamps is nothing if not urgent. Our poor château! Oh, the happy summers I spent there as a girl! What kinds of devils have those peasants become?”

“We
had best sail as soon as possible, darling,” Selena spoke up, meeting his eyes, her voice soft.

“Oh?” he said. “You have a reason?”

“I think so,” she replied, smiling now. “For a woman in my condition, it is inadvisable to travel too late in the term.”

“Well, yes, I guess that’s right,” Jean allowed casually, thinking perhaps of the preparations that would have to be made. “You’ve got a point there…”

Then he realized what she’d said, her words coming back to him now, and he leaped up so suddenly that his chair overturned.

“Selena!”
he cried.
“Selena?”

Selena just smiled.

Selena knew from the start that Jean Beaumain would make a wonderful father, and for that reason, as well as for her own joy at having conceived, she exulted in her pregnancy. According to her calculations, she would be about five months gone by the time
they reached France—showing a bit by then—so other matters involving parenthood needed to be discussed. Marriage, for one.

That was no problem. In one way or another, Jean had been asking to marry her almost since they’d met. Now aboard the
Liberté
, bound for the Canary Islands and thence to France, he asked again, and she accepted.

They kissed to seal the bargain. Then he said, “I mark that look in your eyes, Selena. Your mind sees a little cloud somewhere in the sky. What is it?”

“Jean,” she said, holding him, looking up at him, “exactly when will we be married? And where?”

He grinned. “You don’t think I’m planning to weasel out, do you? After I spent so much time winning you in the first place?”

“Yes, how you suffered in our bed all those nights!” she shot back in jest. “It must have been terribly hard.” Then she turned serious again. “Darling, you’ve already agreed that our son should be born in Europe”—they both
knew
the child would be a boy—“where the midwives and doctors are well-trained. So why can’t we be married in Paris as well? France is your homeland, and without a homeland there is something missing. You know how much I long to return to Coldstream one day. Surely now, with our son coming and a new life already upon us, you can set aside your quest for revenge against Chamorro. Rise above it. Forget it—”

“Would you forget your dream of Coldstream?” he replied.

“That’s different.”

“Oh, is it?”

“I simply want what is rightfully mine.”

“Well, perhaps evening things with Chamorro is rightfully
mine.”

“It will come to no good.”

“Who is to say?”

“But think about it. And let us wed as soon as we reach Paris.”

Jean did not say yes, but neither did he say no. He promised to think about it. That, Selena felt, was a good sign.

When the Canary Islands came in sight, the port city on the north coast of Tenerife, Selena was up on deck. The
Liberté
would stop there for several days to take aboard water and provisions for the final leg of the journey to France. Sometimes she thought she felt the child moving within her, but it might also have been the
motion of the ship. The trip thus far had been swift and peaceful, but a glimpse of the islands upon the horizon stirred old memories.

It had been just north of there, years ago, that Royce Campbell, feverish with buboes and expecting death, had put her off his plague-ridden
Highlander
. Alone, she’d floated into shore aboard a dinghy, to be befriended by a woman on Tenerife called Senora Celeste.

Selena remembered her thoughts that day as she’d drifted toward shore, watching Royce’s ship, manned but by terror and disease, sail out of sight. She’d accepted the fact of his approaching death and hoped that, in some eternal port, he would find the ghost of the wolf that lived in his dream-haunted past, a meeting of mates in a mythical Highlands beyond misery and time. And recalling these things now, Selena knew why the cross on La Tortue had seemed so incongruous. Royce would never have chosen to be buried beneath a cross. It was not
him
at all, nor was it the way of his riotous Campbell kin.

She sighed. His well-meaning crew had erred.

But the cross gave comfort too, and so it had to be all right.

Just not…just not
fitting
.

Anyway, too late now.

Tenerife had not changed much since Selena had been there before. The streets were still narrow and dirty, the buildings along the waterfront and in the town crowded together and somewhat dilapidated. Except for Senora Celeste’s hotel in the center of the village, which itself was unprepossessing, there was nothing of distinction.

Jean, however, suggested that they spend the night on
terra firma
, and in a regular bed. Selena was not opposed to the general idea, but she balked. Jean wondered why.

“When I was here before,” she explained, “the woman who runs the hotel pretended to be my friend. But she drugged me with wine. I awoke aboard a ship called the
Massachusetts
. I had been abducted by Captain Jack Randolph who was in league with Senora Celeste.
He
took me to India and sold me in concubinage to a maharajah.”

“Well, that is certainly not going to happen this time, darling. Come, let’s go to the hotel and get a room for the night.”

“I don’t…I don’t know if I could see her again without…without doing something drastic.”

“Selena, I recall your lecture a very short time ago about forgetting the evils of the past. You mean to tell me—”

“All right, let’s go,” she said. After all, how could she counsel him against vengeance in one breath and admit to a craving for it in the next? This was her opportunity to give Jean Beaumain an object lesson in letting bygones be bygones. Senora Celeste might be dead by now.

But she wasn’t.

The woman who had deceived Selena years ago lounged in a wicker rocking chair in the lobby of her establishment. She was much heavier than she’d been, and looked a lot older. One of her eyes was afflicted with cataracts and the other was rheumy and unfocused, although this was quite possibly due to the effects of an empty rum bottle on the wicker table beside her.

“Yes?” she inquired in Spanish, as Selena entered the hotel with Jean and Martha Marguerite. “What do you want?”

Martha had a bit of Spanish, Selena less, so Jean asked for rooms. “One night, perhaps two,” he said.

“It shall be done,” declared Celeste, drawing a cane from beneath the folds of her skirt and banging it on the floor.

“I have a little trouble with my old bones these days,” she explained gruffly, as a young man in a soiled white jacket appeared in answer to her crude summons. “It’s not as easy to get around as it used to be. Pablo,” she commanded the clerk, “take care of these people. Nothing but the finest now, understand?”

This was clearly a fatuous remark, idly made and meaningless, given the state of the hotel, but the pretension in Senora Celeste’s tone irritated Selena. She dropped to the floor in front of the old woman’s rocking chair and stared into her good eye.

“Do you still serve that fine wine here?” she asked pointedly. “The kind that makes sleep come so readily?”

Senora Celeste looked back with a baffled expression. “If you wish…” she said vaguely.