Laura Kinsale (36 page)

In its shambles, Gryf stood with a struggling, bawling bundle in his arms, a lovely and equally distraught female in front of him, and a green parrot nibbling determinedly at his ear.

He closed his eyes. Something in him strained to its ultimate limit. He began, in dumb silence, to cry.

The tears seemed to come out of nowhere, no emotional source or sensation, simply welling up from in
side him out of some nameless spring of despair. His breath came quick and harsh; he stared desperately at the ceiling as the moisture crept down his cheeks. It seemed the final betrayal of body over mind. He had made his choice; he had asked for nothing. Only to be left alone. But the tears kept coming, a wordless revelation that he had somehow got it wrong—again—and things were not what he had reckoned.

“Oh, dear,” Tess said, over the squalling cries of the baby. She looked up at Gryf with a dawning horror. “Oh, dear—what is it? Let me take him; just a moment—just a moment—oh, don’t, please, don’t—” She reached for the child and then threw a wild look over her shoulder as she whisked him toward the other room. “Sit down; don’t leave; I won’t be an instant—”

Gryf did not sit down. He looked at the fireplace, the window, the overstuffed sofa. He listened to the fading cries of the child. His son. His own son. How was that possible, that out of the utter emptiness of his life he had a son…and a wife…and an importunate green parrot that nuzzled insistently at his ear? That there was laughter still in the world, and beauty; that he was alive to see and hear it…

He drew in a shuddering breath. He knew why. He knew how. It was Tess, with her crazy schemes and her blue-emerald eyes; with her animals and her courage and her unconscious grace. He loved her; his happiness flowed from her like lifeblood, the center and the meaning of his whole existence. When she slipped back into the room, he did not even dare look at her. The parrot took wing again, and sailed out the window in a flurry of green. Gryf stood rigid, staring at the floor one last hopeless effort to reconstruct his defenses, to crush all feeling. One last stand against total surrender.

Tess paused at the door. She knew her plan to be a
proper lady had, like all her other plans, ended in abysmal failure. She had apologies on her lips, excuses, and a ready plea that she would learn, if only he would give her time. But the sight of him—

She thought suddenly: this is how he looked on the scaffold. When he knew he was going to die.

It touched a place so near her heart that she responded without thought. She went to him, and took his hand, and pressed it to her cheek. “What is it?” she whispered. “What’s wrong?”

His fingers curled around hers. “Oh, God,” he said miserably, in a voice so low she could hardly hear it. “I’m afraid.”

She kissed his trembling fingers, and stroked them, as she might have soothed a child. “Afraid of what?”

His hand clenched and unclenched over hers, and then he spread it across her cheek. “I thought you were gone.” His voice was hollow. “I thought Stephen had killed you.”

Tess raised wide eyes.

“I wanted to die—” he said painfully. “I wanted to. I couldn’t believe I didn’t die.” He stroked her skin with his thumb. “In prison—they won’t even let you starve yourself in peace. They come and pray over you, until you eat.”

“Oh, no,” she murmured. “Don’t think of it.”

“Tess—” His gaze followed the trace of his fingers: her temple, her cheek, her lips. “I can’t bear that again.”

She shook her head. “No one can take you back to that horrible place. Ever. I won’t let them.”

He made a little sound, a kind of rasping laugh. “My champion.” He stroked a lock of her loosened hair. “It wasn’t the place. It was knowing I’d lost you. Believing it.”

“But I thought—” She had to struggle to speak. “I thought you didn’t want me.”

“Oh, Tess—all my life, I’ve wanted—” His voice seemed to fail him. He turned from her suddenly. “I thought I’d killed you,” he said harshly. “By sending you back. It was my fault, my blame; it would never have happened if I hadn’t made you go. I should have figured it out, about Stark—Good God, he tried to kill you on our wedding night, and I’d left you there alone. Because I was afraid.” His voice was ragged with self-disgust. “Because I didn’t want to love you; because you might have hurt me again; you might have sent me away like before, and so I—Oh, Tess, it was impossible; it was hopeless…I’ve always loved you; I can’t help myself. It gives me nightmares. If I lose you—” He looked at her with that terrible vulnerability in his eyes. “Oh, God—Oh, God—what if I lose you again?”

For a long moment, Tess said nothing. When she spoke, it was barely a whisper. “You aren’t going to lose me.”

He took a shuddering breath and shook his head helplessly.

She went forward, caught his hands, brought them up to press against her cheeks. “Never. Do you think I’ve gone to all this trouble of trying to look like a perfect lady only to be lost?”

He gazed down at her. She waited, her face lifted to his, watching the play of emotion: of doubt and need and fear in his smoky-gray eyes. Her whole world, her whole future, seemed to turn on that suspended look.

He lowered his eyes, to scan the fragile lace collar and delicate appliqued flowers at her throat. “A lady—” he repeated hoarsely. “I think I’d rather you looked indestructible.”

“Oh.” She peeped up at him modestly. “Well. If that’s all. You should have seen me the time I’d just escaped from man-eating piranhas on the Río Negro.” She
smoothed the lapel of his coat with her fingers. “Or the time I stopped a charging boar in its track with a single shot. Or after I was attacked—”

He kissed her.

“—by a rabid llama. Vicious beasts, those…” He kissed her again, his mouth hard and warm and insistent on hers. “…llamas…” she mumbled gamely. The rest was lost as his arms slid downward to drag her against him and squeeze the breath out of her with his embrace. Tess gave up on her recital and wrapped her arms around his neck, rising on tiptoe to return the pressure. A rush of wings heralded Isidora, who landed on Tess’s shoulder and whistled loudly. Gryf reached up and knocked the protesting parrot off, without even lifting his head.

T
he drifting clouds were touched with late afternoon pink, brushing misty fingers against the ragged peaks that circled the little bay. The ship lay anchored at the center, her teak decks glowing gold in the slanting light. While Mr. Sydney held the outrigger in place, Tess tucked her skirts around her and scrambled up the boarding ladder, met at the top by Mahzu, who gave her a hand across the rail.

A delighted squeal rang across the deck, and Tess turned to smile at her son, who was attempting without success to tumble off his perch of coiled hemp onto the quarterdeck. Her smile broadened as she saw the toddler twist around and hold out his arms with a shrill demand. At the sound, Gryf looked down from his sighting along one of the backstays. His intent expression changed to a grin. He barked a quick order to someone else to supervise the routine work on the standing rigging, and reached out to swing his son up by the arms and mount him on one shoulder.

The baby let out little yelps of pleasure, trying to grab at every rope or fitting that came within reach as Gryf strode across the deck and down the stairs. Tess lifted
her arms to take the child, but Mr. Sydney’s offering of a brightly colored feather carried the day. Gryf surrendered his crowing son to the little botanist and turned to Tess.

She accepted the substitution with pleasure. He kissed her hair as she leaned gratefully against his bare chest.

“Tired?” he murmured, stroking her cheek.

“Just a bit. We finished the windward side, at last. I’ll have to straighten up our notes and start recopying them tonight.”

“Not tonight,” he said softly. “You’re busy tonight.”

Tess raised her head. “Am I?”

“Mmm.” He nuzzled her ear. “I have plans for you, my lady. Anniversary celebration.”

“Our anniversary isn’t until next week.”

He looked down at her, and traced a finger along her temple with a rueful smile. “How quickly they forget.”

Tess frowned. After a moment, her eyes opened wide. “Oh.” Her cheeks flooded with color as she realized the event to which he referred. The memory of that night on a deserted atoll made her duck her head to hide a giggle.

He tilted her chin up and kissed her. “You have exactly one minute to greet your son.” He let her go and stood back. “After which, my love, prepare yourself to be kidnapped.”

Obediently, Tess let the baby tweak her nose, which was all the greeting the toddler could spare between patty-cakes with Mr. Sydney. A short time later, she found herself in the dinghy with Gryf, watching appreciatively as he rowed them ashore with easy strokes. The dinghy came to rest on a beach out of sight of the ship, where crystalline waves lapped up on the silvery sand. Gryf splashed overboard, but when Tess stood and began to loosen her sturdy boots to follow, he
caught her up and carried her through the last of the water and across the beach to the trees.

In a lean-to made of palm fronds, he knelt and laid her on the soft blankets that lined the shelter, pushing her down with a demanding kiss. She lifted her arms and answered with her own demand, but he pulled away. “The dinghy,” he muttered. “I’ll have to beach it.” He brushed her forehead with his lips. “Don’t move.”

In his absence, Tess looked at her surroundings. The little hut was new, fragrant with fresh-cut palm and the scent of flowers that had been strewn generously among the blankets. Just outside, a faint plume of smoke issued from a mound of disturbed sand, and nearby on a bed of banana leaves were a pile of fruit and a bottle of red wine. She tilted her head back and laughed.

“What’s for dinner,” she teased, as Gryf came back up the beach. “Baked eel?”

He dropped to his knees beside her with a grimace. “Lord, no. I hate fish.”

“How could I forget? The sea captain who hates fish.”

He cupped a hand behind her neck and drew her to him roughly. “Watch your tongue, mate,” he growled in her ear, “or I’ll have you for dinner.”

“Hmmm.” Tess smiled up into his laughing eyes. “A tempting offer.”

He traced her earlobe with his lips, and Tess tilted her head back languorously. Her fingers moved to his waistband to loosen the buttons there.

“Uh uh.” He brushed her hand away with reluctance. “You need to eat.”

Tess sighed, knowing that once he took one of his “health and well-being” notions about her or his son, there was no swaying him. She nestled back to watch in
contentment as he unearthed the bundles of meat and banana leaves that had been steaming over coals beneath the sand. The prison pallor had long since left his face, but more importantly to Tess, the haunted expression was gone from his eyes. He laughed now, and often, and if sometimes at night she was awakened by the unconscious tightness of his embrace, she had no complaints. No complaints at all.

After a substantial meal of spicy pork and fruit, she lay back with her head propped against a convenient pillow of extra blankets. Gryf sat down at her feet and began to unbutton her ankle-high boots, pulling off both shoes and socks. Tess groaned in pleasure as he rubbed her tired soles with his thumbs. He smiled, sliding his palms up the smooth length of her calves, pushing her skirt along. When he reached her knees, he bent to kiss the nearest one. “Do you know your legs drive me crazy?”

She wriggled her toes complacently. “I suspected as much.”

His eyes lowered on a silver gleam. In the tropical heat, she’d shunned all undergarments along with her petticoats, and she saw his expression go warm and intent as his palm grazed the tender skin of her inner thigh.

“You’re perfect,” he said thickly. “So soft.” His hands moved upward and molded to her hips. Tess straightened her legs as he leaned across her. “So fragile.”

“Fragile!” She made a face. “Hardly.”

“Look.” He caught one of her arms and drew it up, wrapping his hard, tanned fingers around her wrist. Her skin looked translucently pale against his, an ivory twig that might snap in his hand. He kissed her open palm. “Like a flower.”

Tess tried to hide the spontaneous smile that sprang to her lips. “You sound like the besotted Mr. Bottomshaw.”

He sighed with dolorous eloquence and began to work at the fastening of her blouse. “It’s midsummer moon with me. Hopelessly ensnared by a pretty face.” His hands slipped beneath the fabric to her breast. He lowered his mouth and nibbled the curve of her throat. “Among other things.”

A sudden shyness washed over her. She put her arms around his neck and said into his shoulder, “Are you really happy with me?”

The delightful play of his fingers stopped. He pushed her down gently and looked into her eyes. “Could you really think I’m not?”

“Well—” She bit her lip. “You weren’t given much of a choice. You might have had a proper wife, who would stay home and manage your house and know how to be fashionable and make clever conversation and give balls and things. Someone you could be proud of.”

He gazed at her a moment, all the humor gone from his smoky eyes. “I never wanted someone like that,” he said slowly.

Tess frowned, rolling a little ball of thread from the blanket in her fingers. “You think so. But you didn’t have a chance to find out, did you? You only lived on your own estate for a few months, and I know you didn’t care for it much then, but I’m sure in time you would have grown accustomed. You could have taken your seat in Parliament, and become a member of your grandfather’s clubs—”

“—and ride to the hounds and go shooting in the country?” he interrupted.

Tess nodded up at him through her eyelashes.

“And drink milk punch,” he continued blandly, “and discuss shares, and pay morning calls, and change clothes five times a day, and attend charity routs, and dance with every debutante once—but not twice—and
talk to their mothers for a quarter-hour each.” His fingers curved again around her breast, and his gaze slid downward. “Instead of which, I have the bad luck to find myself secluded in paradise with the most beautiful woman alive, whom I adore with my whole body and soul…and an entire night of lovemaking ahead of me.”

She felt herself flushing. “You know what I mean. Your position—Ashland—you don’t miss that?”

“No.”

The negative was unhesitating. Absolute.

Tess considered it, and then smiled up at him wickedly. “Then can you think of any other ways I might try to fish for compliments?”

He didn’t bother to answer that with words, but used his hands and his mouth to deliver the most delicious compliments she could have imagined. Tess leaned back and let him fill her, mind and senses, until there was nothing in her world but his golden warmth. He pressed her eyes closed with kisses, but her fingers found the buttons that had been denied her before, and then the waiting hardness beneath.

He took her slowly, with the patience of knowing they had time. This night and longer. Forever. The sand beneath the blanket gave as she did, molding to the imprint of his body on hers. Her small sounds of pleasure whispered in his ears. He arched to her soft and compelling rhythm; his palms slid down her naked sides and up again as her hips and breasts moved like smooth fire in his hands. “Tess—” he groaned, his muscles knotting. “My love, my love. Oh God, Tess…” He strained into her, felt her burst beneath him with a shudder and a sharp cry. Her tremors brought him his own fulfillment, a crimson-hot explosion. It left him limp and gasping.

Afterward he held her close, thinking of possibilities. Another child, perhaps. He smiled into her hair, taking
a deep draught of her fragrance. Another child, another life to love and fear for. He was strong enough now. He welcomed the vulnerability for the sake of the joy. That much he had learned: that love was a risk, and to live without risk was to live in a cage darker than any prison cell.

He frowned faintly as he remembered her earlier questioning. He leaned over as they lay together, and kissed the tip of her nose. “What’s all this about a proper wife? Do
you
want to go back to England?”

Her blue-green eyes looked into his, wide and luminous. The sunset danced rosy-gold on her skin. “Do you?”

“I don’t care.” He played with a lock of dark hair. “I want to be with you. It doesn’t matter where.”

Tess watched him in the fading light, the curve of his cheek, the gleam of lithe muscle beneath his skin. He looked like a pagan stretched beside her, a wild son of nature in copper and bronze. The thought of covering that heathen beauty in civilized starch was more than she could bear.

“Then come with me,” she whispered fiercely, as she pulled him down to her mouth. “Come with me, Captain. We’ve got a whole world to explore.”