Unclaimed Heart (24 page)

“We lure him off,” she said with a click of her fingers. “With something he wants very badly.” She turned her eyes to Alexandre. “Meet me here again tomorrow, in the morning. I will bring you some breakfast, and I will bring pen and ink and paper. We have love letters to write.”

Why didn't anybody speak French? De Locke was tired of it. Tired of getting by in English or Dutch, tired of the puttering local language. If only Alexandre were with him . . . but, of course, if the traitorous wretch had been with him, there would be no need for this journey. He simply wanted to be understood. A passage to Nagakodi, with payment due on his return—when, presumably, Alexandre will have been dispatched and the stolen pearl returned to de Locke's possession—was all he required. But in amongst his lack of ready cash and a bewildering array of local customs and holy days, the best he had managed was a passage to Puttalam, with a vague promise that a friend of somebody's brother's friend had a fish-trading business that would take him up and down the north coast once or twice a week.

And so he found himself on a microscopically slow vessel, surrounded by empty baskets that reeked of fish. It was skippered by a prosperous Sinhalese man whose name was unpronounceable, and it wasn't equipped for passengers, so de Locke seated himself on an upturned basket, gritted his teeth, and prepared to wait out the torturous journey.

A number of hours out of the harbor—de Locke had lost count in glaze-eyed boredom—the skipper of the vessel brought him a wooden plate with a hunk of steamed fish on it. “Dinner,” he said in heavily accented English.

“Thank you,” de Locke muttered, his stomach turning over in revulsion at the spongy flesh, swimming in its own juices. “How long do you think before we are in Nagakodi?”

The skipper shook his head. “No Nagakodi.”

De Locke felt a hot shock of alarm. “No Nagakodi? What do you mean, no Nagakodi?”

The skipper looked puzzled. “I tell you back in Puttalam. I go north. I anchor twenty miles from Nagakodi.”

De Locke reeled. He remembered the conversation now, but he had misunderstood. He had thought they were
already
twenty miles from Nagakodi. Not that he was going to be put ashore that far from his goal.

“I . . . but . . .” he sputtered, wanting to demand the vessel turn back but realizing the skipper would never agree. “How do I get from there to Nagakodi?”

“Elephant tracks. A day's walk.”

A day's walk
. He said it as though it were a stroll in a well-maintained garden, rather than fighting his way through jungle.

“And how long before we anchor?”

“Tonight some time.” He smiled broadly, revealing gleaming white teeth. “Then you pay me.”

“Yes, yes,” de Locke muttered. So be it: a twenty-mile hike along an elephant track through the jungle. It would all be worth it to take his revenge. “What is the name of the town where we anchor?”

“Not town. Just village. Very little, but good fishing.” The skipper swiped a mosquito on his neck and examined the bloody smear on his palm. “It called Ranumaran.”

Alexandre waited in the morning cool, in the shade of trees, eyes fixed on the beach, watching for Constance. Every particle of him was poised, waiting. Nothing beyond her arrival mattered. Not the fact that he had lost his passage home, nor that he would likely earn more recriminations in running off with Constance on the schooner, nor that she and he could never actually be together once this adventure was over. The moment was all that counted.

She rounded the headland in the distance, a graceful white figure. He had endured so much in his short life, but nothing had ever affected him like being in love. A revolution of his senses. It was as though prior to her arrival he had only been an ignorant boy. Now he was a man, flesh and blood. He stood and lifted his hand. She did the same in return, then began to hurry, as drawn to him as he was to her. A small part of himself, standing outside the tumult of feelings, coolly reminded him that they had both succumbed to extreme folly. She would soon return to England. What then?

Then she was in his arms, laughing, her sweet-smelling hair touching his cheek, and the question evaporated.

“I have such a store of things in this bag,” she said, patting a gunnysack slung over her shoulder. “Would you like to see?”

“Come back to my camp,” he said. “Away from the sun.” He took her hand and led her into the cool shade of the trees. All he had were his drawing books, a bag with a few clothes in it, and a blanket that Captain Blackchurch had urged him to take. It was spread over the tangled grass. He sat and invited Constance to do the same. As the trees moved in the breeze, the occasional shot of sunlight would pierce through to the ground. The sea roared on, thunderously loud compared with the gentler waves of the harbor. She gave him food: bread and dripping, salt beef, sweet biscuits left over from yesterday's afternoon tea. He tried as hard as he could to eat slowly, civilly, but suspected that he wolfed it down like the starving man he was. She tried to offer him his pearl, but he refused it.

“I have no way of keeping it safe at the moment,” he said. “Give it to me after we've been to Ranumaran, when I'm ready to barter it for a passage home.”

She tucked it away in the sack again, wrapped in fine paper and enclosed in a little wooden box. Then she withdrew from the sack a sheaf of writing paper, a quill pen and a bottle of ink. Ever practical, she arranged the items on the blanket between them.

“I will write a note to First Officer Maitland,” she said. “I will sign it from Orlanda, professing her undying love and so on. And you shall write a letter to Orlanda from you, with similar sentiments. Each letter will give instructions to meet at dawn in the dancing room. While Maitland is thus engaged, we will slip aboard the schooner and weigh anchor. Even if he sees us leave and tells Father immediately, he'll never get
Good Bess
ready to sail in time to take advantage of the favorable tide.” She nodded. “A neat plan, isn't it?”

He felt his cheeks burning with shame. “Only I can't write well, Constance,” he said quickly. “I never learned. I can read. I can draw. I have taught myself letters but never have a chance to practice.”

Constance smiled kindly. “Then I will write them both. But you must help me.” She uncorked the ink bottle and pulled the first sheet of paper into her lap. “Oh, dear,” she said, as the nib left an inky stain. “I need a better surface to write on.”

“Use my back,” he said, turning it to her and pulling his knees up against his chest.

He heard her arranging herself, then felt her leaning on him. “That's better,” she said. “Now, how does this sound?
My dear Mr. Maitland
. Lord, I don't even know Maitland's first name, do you?”

“I do not know.”

“It doesn't matter.
Ever since our all-too-brief encounter at the dance, I have thought of nothing but your
. . . What color are his eyes?”

“Blue?”

“
I have thought of nothing but your smiling eyes
. There. That sounds like Orlanda.” She dipped her pen. “
Would you meet me at dawn tomorrow, in the dancing room, so that I may look upon your dear countenance once again? Yours, Orlanda
.”

She picked up the paper and blew on the words, then put it aside. “Now, your turn. You tell me what to write. Only I'll have to disguise my hand so she thinks it's yours.”

“Orlanda knows I have neither ink nor paper,” he said. “Take a page from my drawing book and use the charcoal. It will be messy, but at least she will believe it's mine.”

“Good thinking,” Constance said, leaning on his back again with a piece of drawing paper. “Go on.”

He closed his eyes. The proximity of her body to his was maddening. He forced himself to translate impulses into words and cleared his throat. “
My dearest beloved
,” he ventured, and felt the charcoal stick moving. “
Since we met, I have not experienced a thought that didn't turn to you, a dream that wasn't about you. The sight of you makes my body come to life, makes my skin burn and my veins thunder, and I feel madly alive, madly . . .
” He realized she was no longer writing and glanced over his shoulder. “Constance?”

“You're going too fast,” she said huskily.

He locked his fingers together and took a deep breath. “I'm sorry. I will keep it simple.
Dear Orlanda, your absence has made me realize my true feelings. Meet me at dawn in the dancing room so I can show them to you
. That will do, and it's almost true.”

Constance laughed, scribbling the note, then putting it aside and packing up her things. She turned her dark eyes to him and tilted her head to one side. “Those things you said . . . ?” she started.

“Yes,” he answered. “Yes, that is how I feel about you.”

She lifted her gaze to the dark canopy above them, and he saw her eyes glistening with unshed tears. “Why must I have been born into such a stupid world, where love must wait upon propriety? It seems that love should bow to no custom but its own.”

He grasped her fingers.

“Alexandre, we could run away,” she said, all in one breath, as though even saying it terrified her. “We'll have the pearler; I have some jewelery—bits and pieces we could sell.”

The fantasy was compelling. Love and endless youth and the sunlit sea. He could almost taste the salty freedom on his lips. He would have to give up very little to achieve such a dream. But she would have to give up everything. Family, security, honor. He loved her enough to refuse her. “You know it's not possible,” he said gently.

“Anything is possible, surely.” But already she had backed away from the fantasy, her voice uncertain.

“We have only a day left, Constance. From dawn tomorrow until dusk.” He smiled. “Twilight to twilight. If that is all that fate can grant us, we should hold on to it tightly and wring every last drop of joy from it.”

She sank into his arms, her voice muffled against his chest. “Curse you for being right, Monsieur Sans-Nom.”

“Curse you for making me love you, Miss Blackchurch.”

Constance's arms ached as she rowed towards the pearler. Already she had delivered Alexandre's letter, folded but not sealed, to Orlanda.

“I found this on the front step,” she lied, handing it to her.

Orlanda had frowned and opened it. Then flushed and pressed it against her chest. No longer friends with Constance, she had flounced off wordlessly. Which Constance imagined had been quite an effort.

Now, there was only the letter to Maitland to deliver. As she rowed, she thought about this morning, writing the letters with Alexandre. The firm muscles of his back. Had she really suggested that they run away together? It was the least sensible thing she had ever done. What if he had said yes? The answer to that question frightened her. In this moment, her love for Alexandre was brighter than any star in the galaxy. If he had said yes, why, she would have run away with him. It was that simple.

But not simple. Father would have come after her, just as he had come looking for her mother.

Constance caught her breath.
Her mother
. Was it possible? For the first time in her life, Constance realized that perhaps her mother hadn't been snatched away from her home. Perhaps she had left willingly.

No, that couldn't be. She'd had a beautiful home, a loving husband, a tiny baby. Constance's heart hurt at the thought of that baby—herself—being left motherless so young. No mother would do that, least of all the serenely beautiful Faith Blackchurch.

Constance realized she had stopped rowing. She picked up the oars again. In a few minutes, she was floating next to
La Reine des Perles
, calling out for Maitland.