Microsoft Word - Sherwood, Valerie - Nightsong (33 page)

"I have not seen her," admitted Carolina. "But it is her chemise I am wearing, and it is both too broad and too short!"

He laughed aloud. "I am told that she also breaks dishes and whatnot when she is angry."

"You are correct," he said ruefully. "She makes a shambles of her bedroom. All the servants complain of it."

"Does the governor not chide her?"

"Rarely. He is an indulgent parent."

"Then he will allow her to marry whoever turns her head!"

"Not necessarily. A man may indulge his child in everything else, but he may balk at being presented with a son-in-law he considers unworthy of her."

"But you are worthy of her!" she blurted, and then looked down, red-faced, at the table. "How kind of you to say so," he said lightly. "However, we are not speaking of me, of course." "No, of course not!" She spoke too hurriedly to be believed.

There was a little silence and then Carolina spoke up. "I am told that the governor's daughter is very jealous of Dona Jimena Menendez."

"Indeed?"He twirled his glassidly. "And why would that be?" "I think you know," she accused. "You must know." It occurred to her suddenly that she sounded like a jealous woman herself! She fell silent as the dessert was brought in. It was flan, a smooth creamy custard, very rich, and floating in a sauce that tasted of wine.

"I think I must beg your pardon," she said, lifting her spoon without interest. "Looking at your face, I keep forgetting that I do not know you well enough to say things like that."

"You are forgiven," he chuckled. "Indeed it is quite refreshing to hear what is said about one behind one's back."

"Kitchen gossip," she sniffed. "And like as not to be untrue."

"And like as not to be true," he countered.

Around them in the courtyard night had fallen. The fountain splashed in moonlight, as silvery as her pale shining hair. The candlelight picked up dancing gold and orange lights from the sheer red voile of her gown. The trade winds rustled the palms.

"The tropics are delightful, but I think I would prefer a cooler climate," he said, loosening the lace at his throat a little against the heat.

"The climate of Essex?" she suggested. He shook his head. "Of Castile," he corrected, and his white teeth flashed.

They could almost have been back in their courtyard on Tortuga, she thought dreamily. It was so easy to imagine that this look-alike was really Kells, that he had returned to her in the evening, perhaps from careening one of his ships, and that golden-haired Kate would be coming in shortly to smile a good night to them before she went to bed.

"Mistress Lightfoot." He rose. "Will you stroll with me about the courtyard?"

And that was like Kells, too. She could almost hear him saying it. She rose as if she were in a trance and paced beside him about the stone-floored courtyard.

Suddenly in the shadow of a rustling palm he came to a halt. He was in shadow, but Carolina stood bathed in brilliant moonlight that made mysterious lights glow like witches' lanterns in her silver eyes. The scent of bougainvillaea and roses and other flowers, pouring riotously over the railing and up the round stone pillars, was almost overpoweringly sweet. A night bird called sleepily.

Carolina waited, breathless.

And then it came-his lips on hers. Lightly brushing. And then more urgent, demanding. His arms went around her. She seemed to flutter in them, and then like the night bird, settled down into those arms as into a nest.

The kiss she gave him was a kiss of yearning.

I will pretend he is Kells, she told herself. I will pretend. ...

His moving lips had pressed her own slightly parted lips wider apart now. His tongue was probing impudently, excitingly, leaving a trail of sweet fire where it touched. He brought her body toward him urgently until she was pressed so tightly to the black and silver of his coat-that coat he had worn, she suspected, to show respect for her, rather than choosing the comfort of just his white cambric shirt-that coat was pressed so tightly against her that its silver buttons bit into her soft flesh.

One of his hands moved downward along her back, tracing delicately her spinal column, and she moved softly against him, surrender and desire in every slightest movement of her lithe young body.

His lips left hers and began a fiery tracery down the white column of her neck, over the pushed-up tops of her breasts, rounded so invitingly by the tight neckline of her voile gown. His tongue had found the cleavage between her breasts and she quivered as its warm wet tip touched her.

A soft desperate moan escaped her.

"Oh, Kells," she whispered. "Kells ..."

That hard body that held her captive stiffened. Abruptly he drew away from her-and when she would have surged forward, half-fainting with desire, he took her shoulders in his warm hands and held her away from him.

He looked down deep into her eyes but there was a hard note in his voice.

"Mistress Lightfoot," he said. "I want no warmed over passion. I will not make love to you while you close your eyes and imagine that I am some other man!"

She Bung away from him with a sob. "Is it my fault you look so like him?"

"No, nor is it mine," he said grimly. "Well, we may yet know one another better. But in the meantime, Mistress Lightfoot, let us go to bed-you to your bed, I to mine."

He bowed most courteously and led her up the stairs.

Sleep, for the passionate Virginia lass who could almost believe the counterfeit was real, was something she searched for desperately that night-and did not find.

The songs that they sing about us

May ever be less than true,

But however legend may flout us

My heart belongs to you!

THE HOUSE ON THE PLAZA

DE ARMAS HAVANA, CUBA

Summer 1692

Don Diego was gone when Carolina arose-she was almost glad because her feelings toward him were so mixed. She dressed and wandered downstairs where old Juana-all too aware that Carolina had dined with the master last night-gave her a subservient look.

"Why didn't you call me for breakfast?" asked Carolina. "I would have," Juana responded honestly. "But Don Diego said you were not to be disturbed." She hesitated. "He also said that I was to accept your commands as his commands," she added reluctantly. So she was to be mistress of the household! Carolina's spirits rose abruptly. She had been, it seemed, slave only for a day! She could only hope that Penny, next door at the governor's house, was faring as well.

"I see you have been furnished with a helper," she told Juana, noting the wide skirts and turban of a young island girl outside, bent over a washtub.

"With two helpers!" Juana declared proudly. Her broad face broke into a smile. "That one's Nita and the other one's Luz. I just sent Luz on an errand," she added.

Carolina would have preferred not to have Luz, for whom she had formed a slight dislike yesterday, as a servant in her household, but then, she reminded herself, she must count her blessings-yesterday she had been alone and friendless in an enemy city, today she had a house and three servants!

"I think I will stroll about the town after breakfast, Juana," she told the old servant.

"And you can be my duena and accompany me," she added gaily. "Unless you'd prefer to send Nita?"

"Oh, no, I'll go," Juana said hastily. Not for the world would she have missed this gorgeous wench's first stroll through Havana!

"Wear your Sunday best, Juana," Carolina told the smiling old woman when breakfast was over and the dishes were being carried out by soft-footed Nita, who gave her resplendent new mistress a shy look and bent her head above the crockery plates.

Accordingly, Juana appeared in somber black with her hair pulled back severely. She gasped at sight of Carolina.

Carolina, that day, was not on her best behavior. Her world had been overturned yesterday-more than once. She was in a wicked mood.

"Are you going out-like that?" Juana asked weakly.

Carolina whirled about in her red voile over yellow linen. Those brilliant colors alone, she knew, would mark her as something less than a lady in Havana, where patrician wives and daughters wore black-or white. It was a town of elegant mantillas and rustling dark silks and flashing fans and dark eyes and blue-black hair. Very well, lady she would not be! Instead of piling her hair up-as she would have done in Port Royal-she had decided to comb it out and wear it down in a glistening white-gold shower over her shoulders and back. It was a spectacular effect she had created with her delicate pink and white skin, her enormous mass of blonde hair floating in the breeze, and the tight red voile bodice and rippling flame like effect of her red and yellow skirts.

"There is just one thing," she murmured, looking down with a frown at her bare white bosom in her low-cut bodice. "I am sure to be sunburned if I wander about like this.

Do you think you could send Nita next door to find me a parasol?"

Juana looked a little dazed, but she promptly called to Nita, who responded with alacrity.

And so it was that a startling sight swept out of the small house on the Plaza de Armas a few minutes later: Carolina like a vision of white and gold and red flame-above her head a black ruffled silk parasol that had once belonged to the governor's wife-and carrying that umbrella, somberly gowned with her eyes bright but her face impassive-old Juana, moving stolidly half a step behind her young mistress.

"Where will we go?" asked Juana, who would have been glad to parade through the whole town and observe the shocked expression in people's eyes as they passed.

Carolina looked ruefully down at her shoes. They had endured an earthquake, a flood, the salt air of the Ordeafs deck, and being marched through Havana's dusty streets-the combination had nearly disintegrated them. "I think we will visit the market, Juana. Perhaps I can find a pair of sandals there."

"What will you use for money?" wondered Juana, doubting this lustrous wench had any. "I will simply tell them Don Diego will pay," said Carolina with a careless toss of her head. Juana nodded thoughtfully to herself. Doubtless that would serve!'

Their progress down the handsome expanse of the Plaza de Armas was-to Juana, who hoped for drama -somewhat disappointing. One or two gentlemen in wide-

brimmed hats, clattering by on horseback, spurs a jingle, turned to stare. A barefoot Franciscan friar in his simple habit of coarse gray sackcloth, with a white cord knotted around the waist, hurried by-averting his eyes, Juana noticed with glee. But as they approached the market the streets grew more crowded. A handsome carriage approached and Juana shook the black parasol slightly over Carolina's head, letting the black silk rufftes shimmer in the sun. She was rewarded by the sight of two elegant ladies, severely gowned in black, who registered shock at the sight of Carolina. Old Juana hid a grin-e-she had not been so entertained since the governor's cook had pursued Miguel down the street with a knife, screaming that he had taken a mistress!

A group of soldiers from the fort, seeing them, stopped to stare-and were frowned at by a Dominican friar in black mantle, white tunic and white apronlike scapulary, whose way they had blocked.

Carolina swept through them, head high. "Move along here, you're blocking the path," said a familiar voice in Spanish.

The soldiers moved on with alacrity and Carolina came to an abrupt halt, for in this strange city she had at last stumbled upon someone she knew:

That erstwhile Frenchman she had invited to sup in Port Royal stood before her-indeed it was his commanding voice that had scattered the knot of staring soldiers.

But what a difference in his appearance!

Gone was the foppish look that had made him at first sight seem French. Here was a Spaniard born and bred. He was dressed in somber black and he seemed arrow thin.

His tawny eyes had a dangerous look, and the wintry gaze he had turned on the soldiery held no slightest vestige of the ready smile she remembered.

This was Don Ramon del Mundo-s-and he lost a step at sight of her. But he recovered promptly and swaggered forward with a jaunty grin to sweep Carolina the lowest of bows.

"Good morning, beautiful lady," he said in English. "Have you come to take the city?"

"Only the market," laughed Carolina. "So you are Spanish! I was sure of it back in Port Royal."

"Your discernment matches your charm," he said easily. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Don Ramon del Mundo."

"Not Monsieur Raymond du Monde-whose name means, I believe, man of the world?" she teased, reminding him of the last time they met.

"Not French and not du Monde-although the name means much the same thing in Spanish." He fell into step beside her. "Let me escort you to our market, which is most unusual."

"I know," she said dryly. "I narrowly escaped being sold there myself just yesterday!"

He gave her a puzzled look. "Perhaps my English is not so good after all. I do not understand you."

"I was on my way to England when our vessel was waylaid by a Spanish warship.

We were escorted willy-nilly to New Providence where a French-Spanish attack swept the beaches clean of pirates. With the men all dead, the 'ladies' of the place were bundled aboard our ship and we were all brought here to Havana to be sold as slaves. And it was done-in the marketplace. Yesterday."

"What?" he cried, aghast.

"You don't keep up with what's happening in Havana?" she asked, slanting a narrow look up at him. "Surely no one could miss yesterday's fiesta?"

"I was up in the hills," he said moodily. "Hunting. All I caught was a touch of fever. It dogs me in this climate." He frowned at her. "You say you narrowly escaped being sold?"

"My sister and I were withdrawn from the sale. She now resides at the governor's palace. I was sent next door to be-housekeeper"-she stumbled over the word-"to Don Diego Vivar."

"Vivar!" Anger flitted briefly over Don Ramon del Mundo's dark countenance and was gone. "I might have known! First he is put in command of my plan to take Jamaica-now he is given my woman!"