Lord of Devil Isle (18 page)

“English ladies wear too many clothes for the island. If you want, you help yourself to these, Eve,” Maia offered. “Hugh says the white folk on Bermuda pretend they are still in England, but you’ll find no such foolishness here. No one will shame you for not wearing sticks under your skirt.”

Eve laughed. Sticks under her skirt was a fair assessment
of her panniers and hoops. “Thank you, Maia. I’ll think about it.”

“Oh, child, the world be too fine and too full of marvels to waste time thinking so hard about something so unimportant as what you put on your body. Sometimes, you just got to
be
.” She patted Eve’s cheek and then winked at Nick. “Got a pot of conch shell soup boilin’ whenever you’re ready. I’m thinkin’ it’s your favorite.”

“Whatever you make is my favorite, Maia. You know that.”

“That honey-tongue of yours gonna get you in trouble one of these days.” Maia left them with a roll of her magnificent hips.

“My goodness,” Eve said. “Mr. Constable certainly has a wonderful housekeeper.”

“Maia isn’t Hugh’s housekeeper. She’s his wife,” Nick said. “Or she would be if they could find a preacher who’d speak the words over them. They’ve been together since Hugh came out here to manage his family’s holding twenty years ago. You wouldn’t know it to look at him now, but he was once the second son of a lord.”

Eve fingered the twisted driftwood footboard of the bed. “What did his family say about Maia?”

“They cut him off, of course.”

“Poor Hugh,” Eve said softly. “He can never go home.”

“Poor Hugh?” Nick shook his head. “The lucky bugger doesn’t know or care what day it is. He doesn’t have to conform to anyone’s wishes but his own. And he has the love of a beautiful woman who thinks the sun rises and sets on his bald head. Believe me, Hugh Constable
is
home.”

Nick left Eve to her privacy in the guest chamber and rejoined his friends in the main room of their unusual home. The interior limestone walls were crusted with bits of shells and Maia had decorated the space in her unusual island way, complete with a hammock strung from the ceiling beams. Nick tumbled into it and let Hugh put a horn of date palm wine into his hand.

They talked about the progress of the current salt crop and the rate of trade for Nick’s cargo of cedar, then moved on to the doings of the island’s “Belongers,” those who’d been there since birth or in Hugh’s case, those who had no other place to call home. No matter how long it had been since he’d last visited, Nick always felt as though he and his comfortable friends had stepped right back into the same conversation they’d left.

“Your lady, she be lovely, Nick,” Maia said as she settled onto a pile of pillows on the cool floor. “Be her heart as sweet as her face?”

“Sweet? Eve?” Nick asked incredulously. “She’s acid-tongued, prone to violence, passionate, mule-headed and single-minded, but never sweet.”

“Sounds like a man in love,” Hugh said as he lowered his bulk to join Maia. “Your Eve Upshall must be quite a woman.”

“She’s not mine,” he said sourly. “She won’t have me.”

“Smart, too,” Maia said with a laugh.

“She’s here with you, ain’t she?” Hugh said. “That says something, lad.”

“It says I forcibly carried her aboard the
Susan Bell
and locked her in my cabin,” Nick admitted with a wince.

“Nicholas, don’t take it so to heart.” Maia made a tsking sound. “Just because a woman say no the first time you ask her will she marry you, it don’t mean she won’t come ’round to it by and by.”

“I didn’t ask her to marry me.”

“Then what—” Maia’s dark eyes went round. “Oh, Nicky, you bad bwoy. You try to make a fancy gal out of a lady and it no work every time it be tried.”

“Aye, I offered to make her my mistress.” He swung his legs over the side of the hammock. “What’s wrong with that? I’d treat her well. She’d not want for anything. It’s surely no insult. And besides, it’s not really so different from what you two—”

Nick stopped himself, realizing his friends might take offense.

Hugh’s face went an unhealthy shade of purple.

“Forget I said that,” Nick said quickly. It was as close to an apology as he ever uttered. Not because he feared Hugh’s rage. Those were little squalls quickly spent, but because he genuinely liked Hugh and Maia and hated that he’d offended them without meaning to. “It was stupid of me.”

“It also be wrong,” Maia said. “Hugh and me, we be married, even if no one else say so. Our hearts know. You make to give this girl money and fine things so she take you to her bed. Why you surprised you fail? Anybody with eyes can see she want your heart.”

Was there even anything left of it after Hannah? Nick didn’t know. And if there was, he wasn’t sure he wanted to risk it again.

And yet he couldn’t deny his feelings for Eve, even if he resisted naming them.

Nick rose and put his empty drinking horn down on the table. “I’m going swimming.”

“Take a spear with you,” Hugh called after him as Nick stomped out.

Maia dug her elbow into his ribs.

“What?” Hugh demanded. “The boy’s clearly frustrated. It’ll do him good to kill something, and I wouldn’t mind a fresh sole for supper.”

“It do him more good to get un-frustrated,” Maia said as she ran a hand over the front of her husband’s breeches. “Don’t you think?”

“Ah, as always, you are as wise as you are beautiful, my love.” Hugh cradled the back of her head and pulled her down for a long, satisfying kiss. “Have I told you lately how happy you make me?”

“Not since breakfast.”

She slipped her sarong down and bared a brown breast for him. Hugh bent to take her mauve nipple in his mouth while she teased him through the twill of his breeches.

“My, my, you be a very happy man,” Maia said as her husband’s body roused to her.

Hugh laughed. “And you know how to keep me that way. I know you’ll ease
my
frustration, love, but how can we help the lad?”

Maia looked out her window and caught a glimpse of Eve coming out of the guest chamber wearing a red and gold sarong. Maia frowned. The girl’s shoulders were hunched and she looked uncomfortable in her own skin. Even though the dress was much different from her English getup, her head should be high. She should carry herself like a princess. Like a woman who is loved.

And if Nick didn’t love this Eve Upshall, Maia would
give him no peace till he started using the sense God gave him.

“We can’t help him, but I know someone who can.” Maia rose from their couch of pillows. “I be right back, old man. Keep thinking happy thoughts.”

The sun caressed Eve’s arms and the breeze slipped indecently through the slit along the side of the one-shouldered loose garment. She felt as if she were standing naked in the little courtyard. The thin silk brushed her nipples and her breasts hung free beneath the soft fabric. Usually her panniers kept the yards of muslin in her broad skirts from coming anywhere near her legs. This sinful garment brushed against her thighs and teased the small hairs at the apex of her legs when the wind was right.

Her slippers had looked ridiculous with the sarong, so for the first time since she was a child, Eve was going barefoot outside. She’d almost forgotten the pleasure of cool grass under her feet, the long green blades slipping between her toes.

Now she understood why English womanhood insisted on whalebone and wires, on yards of itchy wool and stiff lace. If a woman let her body actually
feel
her clothes on her bare skin, why, she might do anything.

“How lovely you be, my friend.”

Eve turned toward the sound of Maia’s voice. The woman was heading toward her, her bare feet crunching the smooth pebbles of the footpath.

“Come sit in my garden.”

Eve joined Maia on the bench under the shade of a mimosa. It was shedding its little petals. They fell like pink snow around the women. Maia had planted a number of flowers Eve didn’t recognize and a small
patch of spices and herbs she did—rosemary, thyme, lavender and lamb’s ears.

“You have a beautiful home,” Eve said. It was unlike anything she’d ever seen or imagined, but it fit the island perfectly.

“It keep the rain from our heads,” Maia said as she turned on the bench to face Eve. “On the island, we know we see each other again soon, so we speak truth to each other. It be easier that way. So even though we two be new to each other, I speak truth to you, Eve Upshall.”

Eve concealed her surprise. In England, Maia’s directness would be considered terribly forward and gauche, but here, it made perfect sense.

“Very well. What truth do you have to tell me?”

“Somebody hurt you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your scars,” Maia said. “I saw a little welt when you turned to look at my herbs. Those fancy English clothes hide ’em, but in an island dress, you be what you be. Someone cut you, didn’t they?”

Eve lowered her eyes and nodded. “I was flogged.”

Maia cupped her chin and made Eve meet her dark gaze. “So was I.” She swiveled to show Eve the long stripes on her brown shoulder. “But don’t you look down, girl. The shame be not on us. It be on the man with the whip.”

Eve saw no hint of cringing in those black eyes. Neither did she find any bitterness.

“How did you get over it?”

“Love,” Maia said simply. “Hugh take me away from the man with the whip and love me so good, there be no room for anything else. Nicholas could do the same for you, I’m thinking.”

Eve folded her hands on her lap and unconsciously
stroked a thumb across her own knuckles.
If he were capable of love.

“You love our Nick?”

Eve’s breath hissed over her teeth. “Is it that obvious?” If Maia knew, surely Nick did, too.

Maia nodded. “Like a daisy to the sun, your eyes follow every place him go. How not?” Maia went on as if Eve had agreed with her aloud. “He be handsome and young and rich and hardworking. And I ’spect he has a fine willy on him—”

“Maia!”

“Rest yourself, child. I don’t know for a fact. I just saying it makes sense him be sporting a good one when you think on the parts of him folk can see any day of the week,” Maia said, fanning herself languidly. “Stand to reason him willy be something special, too.”

Oh, aye, he has an exceeding fine willy,
Eve might have told Maia if she were a forthright islander. But her mother had tried to raise her to be a lady in Kent. And a lady was never supposed to entertain thoughts of willies, much less discuss their merits with a virtual stranger. Eve felt her cheeks heat. If she closed her eyes, she could see Nick striding along in the glorious altogether, his exceeding fine willy leading the way.

“Bet that bwoy knows how to use it, too.”

It was time to change the subject.

“I know one has to be careful about sea bathing, but I wonder if there’s someplace close where I might swim safely,” Eve said, wondering why the breeze seemed to have died. Her whole body was achy and covered with a thin layer of perspiration.

“Oah, yes,” Maia said and pointed to a pebbled path leading between two of the limestone structures that made up her house. “Just walk that path down to the little
beach. The water be cool and clear. There be a good reef so you can’t be pulled out in a riptide and the big fellows with teeth can’t be getting in.”

“It sounds like heaven. Thank you, Maia.” Eve stood and hurried down the path.

Maia sat in the shade until Hugh came out to join her.

“Well?”

“She be going swimming.”

“Where Nick is swimming?”

“Mm-hmm.” Maia nodded and grinned wickedly at him. “And best of all, the girl has a willy on her mind.”

“I hope she’s not the only one,” Hugh said, waving his tricorne to stir the breeze.

“Don’t worry, old man.” Maia leaned over and kissed his sweat-salty cheek. Then she stood and walked toward the stone structure that held their bedchamber. She turned around and waggled her finger at her husband. “She not be the only one ’round here with a willy on her mind.”

Nick didn’t move a muscle. He held the spear aloft in the waist-deep water. Small waves tickled his ribs as they passed on their way to the shore. There was a goodly sized grouper working its way toward him. Its side fins trilling the water, the fish nosed along the outcropping of coral to Nick’s left. It took no more notice of him than the sea horses clinging to the red fan coral or the little school of clown fish darting in and out of the anemones.

The grouper was looking for a hidey-hole to snug its tail into. Then it would wait to make a lunge and grab when something it wanted to eat swam by.

Nick grinned. He was doing the same thing. Except by standing still, he’d hidden in plain sight.

He angled the tip of the spear into the water and the sunlight made the shaft appear as if it were broken into two. He bit the tip of his tongue in concentration. That was the tricky thing about spearing from above. The angles changed. But if he was swimming beneath the surface, he’d have already disturbed the grouper enough to send it whipping back to the blue depths beyond the barrier reef.

Maybe he was looking at his problem with Eve from the wrong perspective, too. Instead of trying to dive into bed with her at every opportunity, he’d given her plenty of her own company for the past few days. But she hadn’t moved in his direction until he dangled the prospect of dry land before her.

Maia thought he should offer Eve marriage, but what man in his right mind takes a second bite of poisoned fruit?

She wouldn’t accept his carte blanche, so short of a proposal, what was left? A declaration of love?

Suppose he did actually love Eve? Wouldn’t telling her so leave him even more at her mercy? He’d never said the words to Hannah, though she ought to have known how he felt from all the things he did for her.

If he admitted to love, he’d expose a weakness to one who could cut him deepest.

She’d certainly shown little regard for his physical well-being. Why should he think she’d be any more concerned about the welfare of his heart?

He jabbed his spear point toward the grouper. And missed. The fish disappeared with a quick flip of its tail, leaving nothing but a puff of sand rising from the ocean bed behind it.

Nick loosed a low curse.

“Was something else supposed to happen just then?” Eve’s voice called to him.

He turned to find her seated on the beach just beyond the wet packed sand, next to the pile of his clothes, which she was neatly folding. He’d left them in a perfectly good heap. Why did a woman always feel the need to come behind a man and rearrange him to her liking?

“I was trying to catch your dinner,” he said moodily.

“Maia already has that delicious-smelling conch soup.” Eve leaned back on her elbows and tipped her face to the sun. “I doubt she needs your contribution.”

“But what if I want to—” he caught himself before she could pull him into another circular argument. The woman had a gift for them. “I can’t talk any more. It scares away the fish.”

She was an eyeful in that red sarong, but he forced himself to look back down at the wavering reef.

Several minutes passed and she said nothing. Had she gone back to the house in a huff? He sneaked a glance back at the beach.

She was still sitting there, forearms propped on her raised knees, watching him.

He was ignoring her and she still seemed genuinely interested. Maybe feigned indifference was the key to a woman’s heart.

No, he didn’t want her heart, he told himself. He wanted her wit in his parlor and her body in his bed. He wanted to shower her with expensive baubles and swive her silly whenever he had a mind to. He wanted an uncomplicated agreement that benefited them both.

Eve Upshall was a clever woman. Why could she not grasp that perfectly sensible concept?

He couldn’t seem to focus on fishing another moment longer.

Perhaps if they could just have a civil conversation about the matter, he’d be able to bring her around to his way of thinking. Aye, that was the ticket. The last time he’d broached the subject badly, when they were both still reeling from the most pleasurable lovemaking he’d ever known. He’d assumed too much then. He wouldn’t make the same mistake now.

He balanced the spear on his shoulder and began walking toward the shallows.

He’s magnificent,
Eve thought when he turned back toward her. Sun-kissed skin glistening, his dark hair whipped by the wind, he was like a sea god rising from the waves. Eve ached to kiss her way from his brown nipples to the thin trail of dark hairs that started at his
navel and spread downward. She watched until his cock came into view and then she carefully averted her gaze.

Exceeding fine willy indeed.

She stared at the scrub bushes at the far end of the beach, but she could still hear the swish of his footfalls on the hard-packed sand. When a shadow fell across her, she knew he was near.

“Something interesting over there in the bushes?” he asked.

She heard him shake the sand from his clothing and wondered which piece he was putting on first.

“If you must know,” she said, “I’m just trying to give you a bit of modesty since it’s obvious you have none of your own.”

“Guilty as charged.” He laughed. “In a strange way, we balance each other. For a woman who was convicted of public lewdness, you have a good deal more modesty than one would expect.”

She whipped her head around, not caring if she caught him naked now. “Who told you that?”

He cursed his careless tongue as he finished hitching up his breeches and fastened the buttons on the flap front. “Damn, I didn’t mean to say that.”

“Who?”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I know you weren’t guilty, but is the tale true? Is that why you were flogged?”

She stared at the curl of surf running along the sand. “Aye, it’s true.”

He settled beside her, stretching out his long legs and propping himself on one elbow. “Tell me.”

She shook her head. “It’s a long story.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I’ve been wondering how a girl whose father had a ‘Sir’ before his name learned to
swear as well as you, so be sure to throw that part in, too.”

She rolled her eyes at him and sighed. “Very well. My parents died in the summer of my eighth year, just a couple months apart. Unfortunately, my father left a good deal of debt. The estate was sold to satisfy it, and I had no other family but my mother’s brother.”

“And he didn’t help you?”

“He couldn’t be found in time,” she said. “He’s in Virginia, as far as I know.”

Nicholas nodded. “And the distance made waiting for a response impossible. Go on.”

“So I was taken to an orphanage in London.” She didn’t want to wallow in memories of that squalid place. Within a fortnight, Eve had gone from being her father’s princess to just another faceless brat. It was a bitter time. “But I was healthy and presentable and in short order, I was taken in by the Tuttles.”

“Fostered out?”

“Aye, they needed another pair of hands to help run their tavern, and I was sturdy and quick enough to be of use to them.” She’d toiled from sunrise to well after midnight seven days a week, hauling water and coal, scrubbing floors and serving mugs of dark ale. “I picked up my…unique vocabulary from tavern patrons.”

“And the ability to look out for yourself,” he added with a gleam of respect in his dark eyes.

“Aye, I had to,” she said. “At first, Mrs. Tuttle was kind when she had half a moment. The poor woman worked from sunup to sundown because her husband was a bit of an idler and someone had to see there was bread on the table. But as I grew, her tongue grew sharper as well. Mr. Tuttle had no use for me as a child. But once I was older, he was rather too keen on me.”

“I see.”

“One day he caught me in the back room and tried to kiss me. Before I could wiggle away from him, Mrs. Tuttle came in.” Eve swallowed hard, fighting back revulsion for the pair of them. Memories of her real mother had faded with time, but her memory of the woman who’d raised her was as fresh and ugly as a day-old bruise. “She’s the one who accused me.”

He took one of her hands, but didn’t say anything.

“She told the magistrate I’d been baring my breasts to her husband and some of the tavern patrons. She must have offered free drink to them, because a couple of the louts appeared in court to support her story.”

“And no one stood by you,” he said softly as he traced a thumb over her knuckles. “I wish I’d been there.”

She wished he had, too. “You know what happened after that.”

“Aye,” he said, still playing the back of her hand with lazy strokes that soothed and pleasured her warm skin. “And now what are we going to do about the rest?”

“The rest?”

“The rest of your life? I can’t believe you really want to marry a planter in the Carolinas sight unseen,” he said.

“No, I never did.” She sighed. Then she lifted her other hand and shielded her eyes from the glare as she gazed out on the gentle aqua sea. If only the answer to her future was out there to see as plainly. “I intended to separate myself from Lieutenant Rathbun once we made port and then try to find my uncle.” Her gaze darted toward him to gauge his reaction. “You must think me terrible to repay his kindness like that.”

Nick shook his head. “I don’t think your Lieutenant Rathbun is especially kind. And I seriously doubt he was taking you and your friends to moneyed planters either. Trying to find your uncle sounds like a smart plan.”

Her heart sank to her belly. It sounded as if Nick was surrendering to her stated intentions. Just when she’d almost decided she didn’t want him to.

“But it’s always wise to consider other options,” he said casually.

“Such as?”

“Stay with me, Eve.”

She met his dark-eyed gaze. “As what?”

He frowned. “You’re making this far more complicated than it needs to be. We’d be together. That’s the important thing. I want you. Can you deny you want me, too?”

“That is beside the point,” she said, pulling her hand away. “I will not be your mistress.”

“You’re muddying the issue with that word.” He searched her face as though seeking out a point of vulnerability. “If you were with me, I could protect you. As long as I draw breath, I swear no one will ever hurt you again.”

Except you.
Still, she was tired of feeling so alone, unable to depend on another soul. The temptation to lean on his strength was fierce, but her carefully crafted reputation was all she could call her own. Besides, the protection of his body was not the same as the protection of his name. “I wouldn’t be able to show my face in public.”

“Nonsense,” he said. “St. Georges is not London. No one would dare look cross-eyed at you or they’d answer to me.”

“They probably wouldn’t show disrespect to my face, but I’d hear the sniggers behind my back.”

Nick’s jaw tightened. “Why is what others say so important to you?”

“You’ve never been falsely accused and convicted on the basis of what someone says about you. If you had, you wouldn’t ask that.”

She fought the burn of anger in her belly. Life was different for a man. His public life wouldn’t change one jot if she became his mistress. He had no idea the kind of direct cuts she’d face every time she entered a shop or tried to attend church. If he had the slightest inkling how difficult it would be for her, he surely wouldn’t ask her to become his tart.

He put a hand to her cheek. “Eve, I…care about you.”

It was no declaration of love, but it was something. Her eyes teared up. “Then show me you care by not asking me to become less than I am.”

He snorted. “How does letting me care for you and provide for you make you less? I’ll treat you like a queen. I’m very generous. Ask anyone.”

“Shall I ask Magdalen Frith?”

“This is not the same thing.”

She nodded sadly. “Oh, yes it is.”
The man’s generous with everything but his heart and love is the only currency I’ll accept.
“Why is it you cannot speak of marriage?”

“Because it doesn’t mean a damn thing.” His eyes hardened before he looked away. “If a man and woman care for each other, marriage will not increase their affection. If they don’t, a few words said by a vicar won’t make a speck of difference.”

A horrible possibility rose in her mind. “Are you…already married, Nicholas?”

His silence made her belly flutter.

Nick dragged a hand over his face. “No, but I was. Once.”

He stared out at the curling surf and spoke in monotones of a failed marriage, an unfaithful wife and her untimely death.

Eve’s heart constricted for his pain over the dead Hannah. So this was the cause of the deep sadness she’d
sensed in him. She bore her scars on her back, but Nick carried his in his soul. If he’d been given a choice, he’d probably have chosen a flogging. She put a tentative hand on his arm. He covered it with his other hand immediately and gave her fingers a squeeze.

“I’m sad for you,” she whispered.

“Don’t make me out a martyr, Eve. There is no innocent party in this sorry tale.” He cast a darting glance at her, as if trying to gauge her reaction. “I’ve no talent for being a husband.”

“But you’re confident of your talent as a lover.” She blurted out the words before she thought. Memories of their lovemaking washed over her like a seventh wave.

He arched a brow. “You know firsthand, Eve. You tell me. Didn’t I give you pleasure?”

More than she could hold. She broke their gaze, but thoughts of his blessed hands, his skillful tongue, his body joining with hers made her feel feverish.

“We seem to have reached an impasse,” he said finally. “And baring one’s soul is weary work. It’s deucedly hot today. As long as we’re here, do you want to swim?”

Eve fisted her hair and lifted it from the back of her neck. “Not as long as you’re here to watch me strip and walk to the water.”

“It’s not as if I haven’t already seen you without a stitch,” he pointed out.

She shot him a pointed glare. “Reminding me of my past lapses in judgment is not the best way to endear yourself to me.”

“What if I don’t look? I could avert my eyes as you did when I came out of the water.”