Return to Paradise (Torres Family Saga) (23 page)

      
“I have never been beautiful but tall and thin, plain...soon I will be fat...and I talk too much for a female or so I have been told.” Miriam could feel the rumble of a chuckle and something inside her melted.

      
“You do indeed talk too much, but as to the rest...” he let his words trail away as he felt himself growing hard once more inside her. She let out a small, surprised gasp of pleasure and bucked beneath him as he began once more to stoke the flames of their passion.

* * * *

      
Miriam awoke to the rolling motion of the ship, feeling the absence of Rigo's body heat. She turned over and touched the narrow space beside her. It was still warm. He must just have left the cabin. A pale yellow shaft of light was pouring from beneath the door. She threw off the covers and swung her legs onto the floor, then realized she was naked. Memories of the past night's wildly abandoned lovemaking returned as she lit a candle and then hurried to dress. “What will I say to him? How shall I face him?”

      
The anger and passion that always flared between them had once again carried her over the edge, but his slow insulting perusal of her body had been deliberately planned. His sense of duty had forced him to wed her but he was going to exact a terrible price—all her pride.
God help me, I cannot control my response.
He had but to look, to touch and she became a wild thing. After all it had cost her—her father, her family, Benjamin's love and respect—how could she still forget everything the moment Rigo de Las Cases came near her? No, not Las Casas, Torres. He had signed the marriage contracts as Rodrigo Angel Torres, and now they were bound for Santo Domingo to meet his estranged family, to make a life in the wilderness of Espanola.

      
When Benjamin had asked her, Miriam had refused to leave Marseilles and live in the frightening Spanish Indies, surrounded by dark-skinned primitives. Now she was forced to do so—wed to one of the very savages she feared, utterly cut off from her past life. “Why did I not wed DuBay?” she asked herself as she gazed into the small mirror. Her hands trembled on her brush as she pulled it through her tangled hair. “I chose Rigo in spite of my father's desperate plea.” A sudden rush of tears made her realize how uncharacteristically emotional she had grown of late. “Tis the babe that makes me so,” she temporized. Rigo's child. The link that forged this most unwilling marriage.
Yet you chose the Spaniard in place of DuBay
.

      
She finished plaiting her hair, splashed her tear-stained cheeks with cool water and inspected her appearance. “I must face him sooner or later.” Opening the cabin door, Miriam stepped into the early morning light and a brisk sea breeze. Several sailors, rough men in baggy trousers, sat barefooted on the deck, repairing frayed hemp ropes. One leered at her, and she heard him whisper in an uneducated Italian dialect to his companion, “Twas her bridal night just passed.”

      
She quickly fled across the crowded deck out of earshot of the other fellow's reply, but their snickering laughter followed her on the salty wind. Dear God, did everyone aboard know? She gritted her teeth vowing she would break her fast, not cower starving in the cramped cabin because of such crude oafs. Then she spied the cook's fire box in the center of the maindeck. Although only lit once a day for a hot meal, it was where the crew and passengers were fed biscuits, dried fruits and other cold foods at daybreak and dusk. She walked calmly toward the cluster of men surrounding it, determined to assuage her growling, roiling stomach.

      
Then she saw her husband standing on the quarterdeck. Miriam steadied herself with one hand on the railing as she studied him. His long raven hair whipped rakishly across his forehead in the brisk wind, making him appear even more barbarous than the heavy sword and dirk buckled about his hips. One dark hand rested casually on his sword hilt as he talked with the ship's master. His long legs were braced wide apart to accommodate the roll of the ship as if he were born to the sea. “That must be his Taino heritage,” she murmured grimly to herself, remembering Benjamin's tales of how desperately seasick Aaron Torres was each time he had to set foot aboard a ship.

      
Benjamin. Both she and Rigo had hurt and betrayed him. Would he always stand between them? She knew suddenly that it did not have to be so. She and Benjamin were never destined to be lovers, only dear friends. At every opportunity when Benjamin had pressed her, she had turned aside his passion with teasing cajolery, feeling nothing more than mild affection in return for his lusty advances. Never could she feel so calm or be so in control with his brother.

      
Just looking at Rigo Torres from afar made her heart pound and her throat go dry. Perhaps when he came to terms with his father and they settled in the interior, things would be different. If she could put the past behind her and let go of her guilt over Benjamin, so could her husband. She knew in her heart Benjamin would find his own way.

      
Rigo felt someone staring at him and turned to the maindeck below him where Miriam stood by the railing. She had plaited that glorious hair and wore a warm fur cloak that covered her supple curves. His eyes met hers and held them until he could see the pink staining her cheeks.

      
“Your bride is lovely, Don Rodrigo, a grand lady,” the ship's master said as he followed Rigo's gaze. “My men will be sorry to see her change ships when we reach Genoa. Normally we carry no passengers, least of all beautiful women.”

      
Rigo continued to stare at Miriam as he replied, “Yes, a beautiful lady she is.”
From a rich and noble family, far beyond my reach but for a whim of fate
. “If you will pardon me, I must see to her.”

      
Miriam watched the effortless grace with which he descended the steep wooden stairs from the quarterdeck.

      
“Are you unwell, my lady?” he asked. “You look quite pale.”

      
“Just a bit faint. I hoped the fresh air and some food would help, although upon seeing the fare I begin to lose my hunger.” She watched as a toothless sailor gummed a stone-hard biscuit until he softened it with saliva, then swallowed the sticky, grayish mass and washed it down with brackish wine.

      
“Best enjoy some fresh fruit and nuts while they are available here in the Mediterranean. Once we set sail on a Spanish vessel across the Atlantic those biscuits and some moldy cheese will be all there is.”

      
“How long will the crossing take?” she asked as he steadied her, taking her arm.

      
“This is not a good time of year for the voyage. Tis best made between June and August. With the cold January winds, it may well take two months to carry us to Santo Domingo.”

      
Miriam paled. “Two months!”

      
“You could have remained safely in Marseilles,” he replied expressionlessly.

      
“But I chose otherwise.” She turned and looked out to sea at the endless horizon in the west.

* * * *

      
Long after darkness fell Miriam sat alone in their cabin, wondering for the hundredth time if she should venture out in search of Rigo. He had instructed her to rest after their evening meal, saying it was better for the child if she did not overtax herself.
Always his first concern is the babe. Does he never think of me?
Yet she had found over the past days that he did desire her—at least in the darkness when they joined their bodies in passion. By the rising of the sun he became a cold stranger, solicitous and polite to her in front of others, but deliberately aloof. “Let him pace the deck with his demons all night,” she muttered. “I will not go begging after him for that which he does not wish to give.”

      
She had just removed her gown and was pulling a warm sleeping shift of heavy cotton from her trunk when she heard the cries of men's voices. “Man overboard!” Seizing a cloak she raced from the cabin. When she reached the gathering crowd of sailors she frantically scanned the deck for Rigo.

      
He walked through the parting ranks of men, his sword sheathed but his dirk in his hand. In the dim moonlight she could see his tunic was torn. One bare shoulder looked to be bleeding. Stifling a cry she shoved her way past the men to reach him. Upon close inspection she could discern the bloody slash was shallow. “What has happened?” Her eyes flashed from his shoulder to the long, gleaming dirk that he was casually replacing in his belt.

      
“A sailor fell upon me from behind in the dark,” he replied calmly.

      
“He tried to kill you?”

      
He looked at the slash across his shoulder and shrugged. “Had I not shoved his blade aside with my arm he would have sliced my throat cleanly and it would be me, not him, that is fish bait now.”

      
“Who was he?” the boatswain asked.

      
”A gromet. I had no quarrel with the fellow that I know of, unless it was a long time past. If I could have disarmed him alive I would have enjoyed asking why he wanted me dead.”

      
“Let me see to that cut before you bleed to death and make fish bait yet,” Miriam said, suppressing her fear, eager to get him into the safety of their cabin.

      
Once she had closed the door and latched it securely she fetched her medical supplies from a small trunk in the corner and rummaged through her satchel for some yarrow and clean linens. “Why did that man try to kill you?”

      
“I truly have no idea. He was a common seaman and I am certain he did not know me. Perhaps he mistook me for someone else.”

      
He hissed in surprise when she applied the stinging clotting poultice. “We both know that is absurd. You scarce look like any member of the crew, dressed as you are in gentleman's finery.”

      
“Twas dark.”

      
“Rigo, you are a head taller than all but the pilot and he is three times your girth. There was no mistake. That man tried to murder you!” Suddenly she was trembling.

      
He arched one eyebrow wickedly. “And if he had, would you weep for me?”

      
She daubed at the closing cut with a piece of linen. “You probably deserved his ire for bedding his wife or sister.”

      
He reached for her hand and brought it to his lips. As was custom on shipboard, he did not shave and his beard was already thick and black. Bristling whiskers tickled her sensitive palm as he pressed a moist kiss upon it. “You have not answered my question, wife.” He felt her pulse race in the slim wrist he had imprisoned.

      
“What would have me say, Rigo? That I would mourn for you? Then you could scorn me and call me liar.”

      
“I do not know what to call you, Miriam,” he whispered pensively as he pulled her down to kneel between his knees as he sat upon the low stool.

      
When his mouth descended to take hers, she reached up and wrapped her arms about his neck.

* * * *

      
Changing ships in Genoa and then again in the Canaries went smoothly. At last they were aboard a square-rigged Spanish caravel used exclusively for the Atlantic crossing to the Spanish empire of the Indies. Only ships of Spanish registry were allowed to sail into Santo Domingo.

      
Their cabin was large, with a window and a softer, wider bed. Yet in spite of the increased luxury, Miriam could not enjoy the voyage. Unlike the relatively uneventful Mediterranean weather, the Atlantic was storm tossed.

      
She was wretchedly seasick. During the first three months her pregnancy had given her not a tinge of the usual complaints she had heard from so many of her patients. She had suffered no morning nausea, no excessive fatigue, not even swelling in her ankles. But the roiling ocean brought forth all the miserable symptoms in a sudden rush the second day out of Tenerife.

      
Miriam lay abed watching Rigo dress, gracefully adjusting his every movement to the roll of the ship. When he turned to her she feigned sleep, but he was not fooled.

      
“I will bring you some food to break your fast,” he said as he turned to leave the cabin.

      
“Please, no. I am not at all hungry, merely tired.”

      
“You must keep up your strength. Now there are fresh fruits, even bread, and the wine is sweet. All too soon we will have naught but salted meat and weevily biscuit. Enjoy it while you may.”

      
She swallowed her bile and turned her back on him, pulling the covers over her shoulders and praying for sleep to envelope her. Rigo returned all too quickly with a crisp apple, a wedge of cheese and a slice of fresh bread.

      
“Sit up and eat,” he commanded, depositing his napkin filled with bounty on the table. “Then we will take a turn about the deck to clear your head.” He helped her up and handed her pieces of the apple as he sliced it with his dirk.

      
Not wanting to show weakness, Miriam forced down two pieces and then took a sip from the wine cup he had poured. When he handed her a chunk of the pungent cheese, it proved her undoing. Manfully she chewed and tried to swallow. But it would not go down.

      
Rigo watched her warily. Although he had heard some of his fellow officers speak of their women's sicknesses when with child, he paid them little heed. Miriam had seemed in the bloom of health until yesterday. When she suddenly turned white as new parchment and clutched her throat, he helped her lean over the side of the bed and held her as she wretched up all she had just consumed.