Moon Dreams (24 page)

Alyson sighed. “Always the practical Scot. I offer you
warmth and love and pleasure, and you think about hunger and thirst. Men are
all alike. I’ll never understand you.”

The strange thing was, Rory understood exactly what she
meant. His daydreaming angel had no use for wealth or lineage or even the
common basics of shelter and food. She lived in a world entirely her own, made
up of sensations instead of thoughts. Had there not always been someone there
to see her clothed and fed, she would have perished long since. He wasn’t
entirely certain that she would even find dying unpleasant.

Chuckling at that thought, Rory roused himself. They had
only until the tide turned. The men would be irritable and restless if left to themselves
too long. Alyson might dream as she wished. It was his lot in life to be
practical.

“You need not understand my mind, lass. You understand the
rest of me well enough. Come, let us enjoy what time we have without worrying
about the morrow.”

Rory rose from the sand and pulled her with him. She circled
his waist with her arms and buried her head against his shoulder and tears
scorched his skin. Nothing was forever.

***

Leaning against the railing, waiting for some sign of the
island Rory had promised her, Alyson felt as if forever might be a long time in
arriving. These last lazy days while the ship sailed smooth waters to a port
where Rory could unload his goods had drifted by in long, lovely hours. The sun
had smiled upon them, as the golden color of her skin could attest.

She really ought to be ashamed of her behavior, but Alyson
could not summon the necessary moral rectitude. Garbed in Rory’s and William’s
discarded shirts and breeches, tanned by the sun, her hair plaited loosely in a
single braid down her back, she looked the part of graceless savage. And she
played the part, too, when Rory came to her at night and took her in his arms
and taught her things no lady should know.

Alyson looked back over her shoulder to find his broad-shouldered
figure on the quarterdeck, giving curt orders to Dougall. As if he felt the
path of her thoughts, Rory set his spyglass down. The look he gave her warmed
her all the way through, reminding her of what they had just done only a few
hours ago. He grinned and turned back to this task, but Alyson knew his
thoughts traveled with hers. She clasped the beribboned hat Rory had made for
her to keep the wind from sailing it away. The shirt she wore tightened over
her breasts, and she sighed. If anything, her need for him had multiplied.

Made restless by the memory of Rory’s arms around her,
Alyson pushed from the railing. As pleasant as these last days had been, she
was eager for land and people and, with any luck, books. Rory had the ship to
keep him busy. She had very little to occupy her time.

“Port is in sight,” he yelled. “Go put on your frills and
furbelows, and I will take you ashore as soon as I can.”

Blowing him a kiss, Alyson danced below and out of sight.

Having learned something of ship routine, Alyson knew she
had plenty of time in which to dress. Rory would not go anywhere until he had
his precious ship safely anchored and his cargo prepared for unloading. He had
said nothing to her of the loss he had taken by not completing his load in
Charleston, but she had heard Jack and Dougall talking. He had only the barrel
staves from New England, and none of the tobacco that was so much in demand
here.

There was some talk about not daring to enter the French
ports while she was on board, which she did not try to follow. France was at
war with England. She knew that much. Why Rory would want to enter their ports,
she couldn’t fathom. She only knew it was costing him money to have her around.
She would have to have Mr. Farnley pay him handsomely for this journey, but she
wasn’t certain Rory would accept it.

That was one of the major problems looming before them, and
Alyson was reluctant to face it just yet. Rory might say he lived outside the
law, but his gentlemanly upbringing still ruled his behavior in many ways. If
he were truly an outlaw, he would have kidnapped her, forced her into marriage,
and gone back to England to live happily ever after on her wealth. But he was
too much the gentleman to take what was not his, and too proud to marry for
money. Perhaps that was the reason she loved him, but it made it damnably
difficult to contemplate any kind of future.

Donning the lovely gown and petticoats Rory had bought for
her, Alyson tackled the problem of her hair. It needed washing in something
other than salt water, a good thorough brushing, and some of her grandmother’s
lotion. She would never control it otherwise. Besides, she had not enough pins.
Wrinkling her nose at the sunburned, wild-haired image in the small shaving
mirror, Alyson merely tidied her braid and returned to the deck.

They had already docked, and she amused herself by perching
unladylike on a barrel in the shadow of the bulkhead. She stayed out of the
way, but in a position where she could see the sights and sounds below.

She had grown accustomed to seeing Africans in this new
world, but on this island there seemed to be more black faces than white.
Bright colors abounded, not just in the garb of the island inhabitants, but in
the flowers hanging from houses and over walls, in the brilliant color of the
sky and waves, and in the variety of fruits and vegetables in the market
stalls. So engrossed did she become in this rainbow swirl that she began to
grow a little dizzy with it all.

She watched an open carriage roll boldly onto the dock,
evidence of its owner’s wealth. A crowd had gathered to bargain for the
Sea Witch’s
cargo. They gave the occupant of the carriage irritated looks and jostled aside
to make way for it.

A black slave held the carriage horse steady while the
carriage occupant leaned out. Alyson’s vision abruptly narrowed to this lone
figure emerging from the vehicle in a swirl of pink and white organdy, satin
bows and frilly parasol. Her pink-and-white complexion had aid of few
cosmetics, and her golden hair went unadorned by cap or bonnet. Her smile
brightened as she looked up to the
Witch.

The brilliant sights and sounds blurred into an ethereal
distance. Alyson didn’t fight the sensation, but surrendered to it, needing the
knowledge that always followed.

She fought back waves of dizziness as the vision faded into
night. Gone were the pink frills and expensive accoutrements. In their place
was a nearly transparent night rail. Blond hair cascaded wantonly over white
shoulders and voluptuous curves. The crowds disappeared, replaced by a candlelit
bedroom and a single man, a man who held the blond temptress in his bare,
sun-bronzed arms, arms that had held Alyson just the night before.

Barely able to choke back a scream, swallowing nausea,
Alyson jerked away from the horrifying vision. Reality was scarcely better as
the vision in pink glided up the plank to board the
Witch,
her gaze
focused on the handsome captain in shirtsleeves on the quarterdeck. Rory did
not order the intruder thrown overboard as Alyson wished he would do.

Why the knowledge that these two were lovers should come as
such a shock was beyond her comprehension. Rory was a man of the world and
would have many such
amours
. He had never led her to believe otherwise. Her
stomach turned upside down realizing that she was only one of many, and her
heart shattered into shards.

She had known better this time, but still she had allowed a
man to make a fool of her. An even worse fool than the first time.

Refusing even to look in Rory’s direction, not wishing to
witness the happy reunion, Alyson climbed down from her barrel. Head high,
cheeks pale, she lifted her skirts and swept down the gangplank the pink canary
had just ascended.

***

Unaware that Alyson had left the cabin, caught up in the
multitude of tasks of anchoring and unloading, and severely irritated by the
inopportune appearance of the one other woman who had ever lingered in his life
for more than one night, Rory did not immediately notice Alyson’s departure.
Not until he lifted his head from his charts to fend off Minerva’s embrace did
he catch a glimpse of gray-blue disappearing into the crowd. That thick curly
braid of ebony could belong to only one person.

To the dismay of the woman clutching his arm, Rory began
shouting furious orders. Shaking off Minerva, he dashed down to the main deck.

Men scrambled from the rigging and up from the hold.
Dougall, on the dock discussing terms with vendors, glanced up at Rory’s
bellows. He shoved the cargo manifest into his surprised companion’s hands and
sprinted into the crowd.

Rory, unfortunately, didn’t reach the crowd where Alyson had
disappeared. Two uniformed soldiers of His Royal Majesty’s Navy blocked his
way, and he was forced back to the ship to present his documents for the
customs officer.

The governor of this island had always looked the other way
when Rory had landed here before. The trade between the French islands and
their nearby neighbors in the Americas had been forbidden by the British
Navigation Acts, but the island’s needs were too demanding to take such
nonsense from halfway around the world seriously. Barbados benefited as much
from his trade as Rory did.

The French wines and silks that Rory carried to trade for
Barbadian molasses and sugar were much in demand by the island gentry. Rory had
operated under the unspoken agreement that to interfere in his trade would
jeopardize the governor’s position as much as his own.

So the insult of being boarded not only for the first time
but also on a legal trip, by navy officers as well as the customs man, infuriated
him. He couldn’t help but feel the interference had been deliberately planned
for reasons he had yet to discern.

He produced the ship’s manifest. The soldiers leisurely searched
the cargo for illegal goods. The search was such that Rory sarcastically asked
if they would like to check his private quarters in case he had packed it with
runaway slaves, and he was not surprised when they did, indeed, search the
officers’ cabins.

After ascertaining that the cargo had been legally purchased
in the colonies and glancing askance at Rory’s insistence that he was here only
to fill his hold with sugar to take back to England, the intruders reluctantly
withdrew, but only after posting guards.

Furious at the hours of delay, unmindful that Minerva had
fled in a huff, Rory glared bleakly out at the dock as his men drifted back to
the ship empty-handed. When Dougall appeared last of all, he knew Alyson had
done it again.

Dougall glanced at his captain’s stiff features and shuddered.
For a few short days Rory has been a carefree boy again. Dougall remembered him
from when he was a studious lad in Edinburgh who loved the few minutes he had
free from his studies. Rory had been that boy once more with Alyson.

Now he had returned to the ruthless seaman who had acquired
a fortune by circumventing the law and skillfully plying his trade. That much
of the fortune had gone to the aid of debt-stricken clansmen, only Dougall
knew. He had hoped this charitable side of the captain would keep him on an
even keel, but the look on Rory’s face now was that of a hunted man. There
would be no reasoning with him.

“I lost her near Swan’s Inn. A horse bolted and overturned a
couple of stands, a crowd gathered to grab what fell, and she escaped before I
could. I’m sorry.” Dougall gestured in resignation. He had searched every
building for an hour afterward, but the Maclean would know that without being
told.

Rory glanced at the sun setting in the western sky. Alyson
would be unaccustomed to the sudden darkness in the tropics. He hoped she had
found a safe harbor, but if the district Dougall had left her in was any
indication, she was about to find more trouble than she could handle.

Wishing he could steel himself against caring, but realizing
the impossibility of hardening his heart to Alyson, Rory nodded acknowledgment of
his friend’s report. He wished he knew what made her do these things, what set
her into flight, but her reticence complicated communication. On the surface,
she was cheerful and as open as any book. What simmered below that surface
could be a full-time occupation for any man to explore.

“I’ll start at the Swan, then. Divide the others up into
districts. I canna believe the whole damned world is blind to her.”

Dougall scuffled his foot and coughed. “Montrose is here,”
he murmured. “I knew you’d be heading for the Swan, so I told him to wait
there.”

Montrose never brought good news. Rory always left a meeting
with his father’s onetime bailiff in a temper.

He scowled at the heavens as if the sky above were at fault.
For Montrose to come this distance meant worse news than usual. Maybe the
simplest thing to do would be to burn the whole damn town down until there was
nothing left for Alyson to conceal herself behind. Then he could get on with
the business at hand.

Nodding curtly, he strode off in the direction of the inn.
He ought to forget the brat, he really ought to. They were no good for each
other. Nothing could come of this madness that had overtaken them. Or perhaps
it was just he who had gone temporarily insane. Perhaps Alyson only amused
herself and had left when she saw a more interesting sight. With Alyson, it
would not even have to be another man. A bright bird, a pretty horse, a book
vendor’s stall would suffice. She was quite capable of drifting away and
forgetting to return.

His thoughts were savage, though his heart protested their
untruth. He wanted to believe in her. He wanted to believe that just this once
he would be allowed to hold something lovely and valuable and not have it torn
from him.

Scowling at this conflict between heart and head, Rory recalled
the weeks he’d spent here this summer trying to track down information on the
death of Alyson’s father. He’d learned there had been a navy brigantine
patrolling these waters about the time he judged her father would have been
here. An early hurricane had swept through at the time, leaving the residents
unprepared, making the date fairly reliable.