The Elusive Flame (27 page)

“Cerynise, don’t leave me…” he muttered against her throat.

Her arms slipped around him, and she smiled, tears of joy filling her eyes. “I won’t, Beau.”

She held him close to her, aware of the thudding of his heart and his harsh, labored breath tickling her face. She didn’t know how long she lay there. Her eyelids were sagging closed when she felt him move away. Turning on his side away from her, he huddled beneath the bedcovers and immediately began shivering.

“Cold,” he mumbled. “So cold.”

Fear spiraled through Cerynise, but when she rose up behind him and laid a hand to his brow, it seemed definitely cooler. She sighed in relief and then glanced down at herself in some surprise. The ties of her nightgown had been pulled free, and the garment now hung off her shoulder, falling open to an elbow and leaving her ripe breasts fully exposed. Minute pinpoints of red speckled the pale orbs where they had been scraped by her husband’s beard. The nipples were equally flushed and tender where he had suckled her.

For some strange reason Cerynise found this new experience strangely satisfying, as if these tiny wounds were evidence of her new wifely status. The day of their marriage, Beau had been incredibly gentle with the sensitive peaks, leaving no hint afterwards that he had ever taken them into his mouth. But in his fevered state he had been mindless of everything but the fulfillment he had sought and, perhaps unwittingly, gave her in return.

Cerynise crawled over him, taking care not to disturb him, but he reached out a hand to halt her from leaving.
As she climbed free, it fell back upon the mattress. For a moment she stood beside the bunk, gazing down at her handsome husband, feeling closer to him than she ever had before. Much in awe of this stirring tenderness, she knelt beside him and lightly kissed his ear, his cheek and his mouth. As she did, she realized that not once during his lovemaking had he kissed her. It was almost as if he had avoided doing so, which seemed very odd, since he had previously sought her kisses with fervent zeal.

From beneath heavily weighted eyelids Beau stared at her in a daze, and with a smile Cerynise sat back upon her heels, making no effort to cover her breasts as his gaze ranged over them slowly. He lifted a hand toward her, but with a sigh, he closed his eyes and sank again into a heavy slumber.

After a moment Cerynise rose and was surprised to feel a sticky wetness between her thighs. On closer examination she realized that part of it was her own blood. Her eyes flew back to the far side of the bunk, where she saw reddened blotches marring the whiteness of the sheet. She searched further still and found that Beau had not been excluded from the ritual of virginal sacrifice. It seemed a late hour for such a task, but baths were definitely in order, and the sheets needed to be changed.

Freshly garbed in a nightgown, Cerynise set about to cleanse Beau and strip away the sheets. Her fingers brushed his forehead in a loving caress, and a sob of pure relief broke from her as she found his skin much cooler than it had been in days. The flush of fever was gone. Already he seemed to be resting easier and deeper. He stirred slightly, his lips moving. She bent closer, hardly daring to breathe. It seemed but a spiraling thread of sound that issued forth. “Cerynise, don’t hold yourself from me forever.…”

Gloom settled in, thrusting a sharp pain through her heart. He didn’t even remember what he had done. Nor did it appear likely that he would when he came fully to his senses. Would he even believe her if she tried to explain
? Perhaps, if she made such an attempt, he’d even be inclined to think that she had taken advantage of him in his delirium. Or more rightly, perhaps, insist that she continue letting him have his way with her until their marriage was annulled.

Painful as it was for her to consider that he might want to proceed with the nullification of their marriage upon their arrival in Charleston, Cerynise reaffirmed her intent not to stop him from obtaining his freedom. Better to let him think the consummation never happened at all than to see him vexed by a union he had offered only on a temporary basis. As painful as it would be for her to bear, she thought she could let him go more easily if he remained unaware of what had happened in his bunk. If he felt honor bound to do the right thing by her but eventually came to resent her being his wife.…

Cerynise choked on a sudden welling of tears and couldn’t continue with the thought, for her heart grew cold even as the idea formed.

No! It was better to pretend that nothing had ever happened. Though her decision filled her with trembling disquiet, she grew more dedicated to it with each passing moment. With no other thought in her mind but to allow Beau the liberty to make the final decision whether to continue with their marriage or to dissolve it, she lovingly bathed the now quiescent male form, kissing his arms, face and chest amid a profusion of tears. Then she labored to turn him over as she stripped away the stained sheet and spread a fresh one over the mattress.

She had just finished remaking the bed when she recognized Billy’s footsteps in the passageway. Frantically Cerynise glanced around for a place to conceal the dirty clothes and espied the second locker beyond the bunk, the one that normally held his rain gear, which was now dry and stored away again. Surely, she reasoned, they’d be favored by a calmer voyage from now on and the locker would remain unused. Rolling up the sheet and nightgown together, she stuffed them near the back of the compartment
and barely clicked the door shut before Billy knocked softly and asked if she needed him for anything or if he should go to bed.

“The captain’s fever has broken, Billy,” she called through the door. “He’s going to be just fine, so go and enjoy your sleep.”

His ecstatic response left no doubt in her mind that the news of his captain’s recovery pleased him.

B
EAU RESUMED COMMAND
of the
Audacious
with a zeal that allowed no uncertainty to remain in anyone’s mind that he had fully recovered from his illness. Neither could Cerynise entertain even the smallest hope that he remembered their intimacy. Upon waking to restored health and finding her beside him in his bunk, he had promptly started making overtures commensurate to a groom coaxing his virgin bride to yield herself to the delights to be found in a marriage bed. Plying her with persuasive kisses, he had promised to be gentle with her and assured her that, in spite of the initial pain, she would come to enjoy their union. During this heady beguilement, Beau slipped the ties at the top of her nightgown free, making it abundantly clear to Cerynise that he was feeling much like his randy old self again and was just as eager to make love to her as he had been before. His husky blandishments quickened her own hunger for what she had once tasted. Yet the fact that he still thought her a virgin frustrated her so much that she swung a pillow into his face in a fine display of flaring temper.

Moments earlier, Beau had drifted upward through a cloud of haunting impressions and entered the realm of full awareness with a strange sense of well-being, perhaps unlike any he had hitherto known. Almost at once, he had realized he had been ill, evidently very ill, and that made the odd contentment all the more perplexing. He couldn’t quite lay a finger to the cause. The past days, for the most part, were lost to him. Yet something had happened which he could neither define nor deny, and for some obscure reason it all seemed connected to Cerynise. His befogged recollections seemed distantly detached from reality, yet he was inundated with glimpses of his wife tending him and an awareness of her nestling against his back, her soft breasts pressed tightly to him and her slender thighs snuggled beneath his. At least that much he guessed was true. Yet fragments of more sensual impressions flitted through his mind, seeming so real that he could almost have sworn they were true. Still, they were so equally farfetched that he could only accept them for what they were.
Illusions!
How could he even consider that he had actually seen his young wife sitting on her heels beside his bunk with her gown falling down around her arms and her soft, lustrous breasts gleaming with an unusual rosy hue beneath the hanging lantern? Or that he had felt her nails clawing at his back as he poured his love into her? Or heard her rapturous panting as she soared to the lofty pinnacle of ecstasy? He certainly discerned no change in her. If anything, she seemed even more adamant that he not touch her, for the very moment his fingers tugged loose the delicate ribbon of her nightgown and pulled the garment open to allow his gaze to feast upon her bosom was the precise instant he got a face full of feathers. It didn’t help in the least that the pillow she hit him with burst open, sending fluffy down flying everywhere, mostly, it seemed, into their noses and mouths, and all she could say was “Oops!”

His good humor sharply declined from there, dropping to a roiling point when she scrambled to her feet in the bunk, albeit hunched over, and lifted her gown in a quest
to jump over him. Challenged by a desire to keep her prisoner, if only to solve the mystery befuddling his senses, he raised a leg to block her path to freedom. He soon found out just how tenacious his wife really was to leave his bed. Planting a dainty foot upon his chest, she fairly sailed across his bulk, permitting him an enticing view that nearly staggered his wits. Almost at once she began throwing her clothes and possessions into a satchel, obviously scurrying in her haste to get out of his reach. Had he warmed her backside with hot oil, Beau was certain she could not have moved any faster. It was understandable, then, that whatever ebullience he had briefly relished upon finding her snuggled close against his side swiftly darkened into a sour irascibility.

Growling, Beau batted away feathers as he stalked naked across the room, not giving a damn how nervous he made his wife as he crossed to the washstand. “Well, you’ve certainly made a fine mess of my cabin,” he snarled disagreeably. “Billy will no doubt be highly entertained trying to stuff this mess back into the pillow.”

Cerynise kept her face carefully averted, but that didn’t keep Beau from seeing her primly elevated profile as she responded with strained dignity, “I didn’t mean for the feathers to come out.”

“No, but you meant to hit me, didn’t you?” He grunted sharply in derision. “Was it too much for you to take pity on a man who has been laid low by illness? Did you have to abuse me?”

“You were being rude,” she accused stiltedly.

Beau slapped again at the feathers floating in front of his face. “I was being husbandly, madam,” he corrected tersely, “but I guess that was too much for your fine virginal purity to bear. Like I’ve told you before, I happen to enjoy looking at your breasts. I’ve seen none finer.”

Cerynise wondered if he would have been at all curious had she let him see her bosom, for she still bore a rash from his bearding. It was to be assumed that he had locked those moments of passion deep within the coffer of his
mind and had forgotten their union like a besotted man who, upon sobering, could recall nothing of the moments he had spent in lewd debauchery. To her, the fusion of their bodies had meant far more than physical appeasement, perhaps the most significant being the realization that she was now truly, lawfully his wife. Swallowing her emotions was difficult, and though she could chide herself endlessly for having carelessly ensconced herself in his bed, it didn’t change the way she felt now that the deed had been done. What grieved her was the fact that she couldn’t release all those warm, tender emotions and respond to him as a loving wife should.

Making a valiant attempt to appear glib, Cerynise queried, “Have you seen many breasts, Captain?”

Beau looked at her closely, but again he saw only her imperiously held profile. Had he imagined a thickness in her tone? “I’ve seen enough to know you have many women outdone by a fair margin. Not only are your breasts full enough to fill my hands, but they’re about as perfect as any man could possibly envision.”

“You must have viewed a sizable number, Captain,” she surmised coolly, refusing to look around. “Should I express my gratitude for your ability to make such a comparison?”

“No, dammit!” Beau barked, with long strides reaching her side. He opened his mouth to speak but instantly began spitting as he tried to dislodge the feathers that he had sucked in.

A giggle was wrenched from Cerynise as she realized what had happened. Dancing away to a safe distance, she turned and, pointing at him, dissolved into laughter. “All you need now is to be tarred, Captain,” she declared through her amusement as her gaze lightly skimmed downward. “You certainly have more than enough feathers needed to complete such a task.”

Bracing his knuckles casually on a narrow hip, Beau glanced down at himself and made a point of picking a
feather off a very manly part. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find a little dust there, too.”

Cerynise couldn’t resist a quick retort and did so loftily. “I would.”

Beau’s brow cocked at an inquisitive angle as he looked at her narrowly. It was right on the tip of his tongue to ask her outright if he had indeed made love to her. Still, if he had only dreamed it, then he’d be giving her cause to wonder if he fantasized about her morning, noon, and all through the night. He probed indirectly. “Not unless you know more than I do, madam.”

Cerynise bit her lip in an effort to keep from blurting the truth and, by dint of will, managed to respond with a blasé shrug. “I assume you had your full share of harlots in London. I saw you with several the night before we were married.”

If she had hoped to startle him with her revelation, then Beau was most assuredly willing to disappoint her. “You saw me leaving them, too, a moment after they met my carriage.”

The complacent smile her husband wore convinced Cerynise that he hadn’t been at all surprised by her remark. She lifted her nose in a guise of priggish prudery as she faced the gallery windows. “You certainly seemed to enjoy that hussy fondling you. She
was
rather pretty, as I remember.”

“Strange,” Beau replied in a museful mien as he rasped a hand across his bearded chin, “whenever you’ve touched me there, you’ve always gotten immediate results. But as I recall, madam, nothing of that nature occurred that night…a fact to which you can attest after having witnessed her invitation.”

Cerynise shot him a curious glance. “How do you know what I saw?”

Beau chuckled briefly and shook his head. “Nay, madam, ’tis my secret, and I will never tell.”

Feeling an urge to sneeze, Cerynise waved a hand through the air to fan the feathers away from her nose.
She really wished she hadn’t hit him so hard after he had been sick. The pillow might not have even come open had she endeavored to make it a more playful swat.

She sighed, wondering how long it would take Billy and her to put everything aright again in the cabin. “You’d better get dressed so we can start cleaning up in here,” she urged dejectedly. “This may take all day.”

Beau crossed to the locker and, taking out his robe, shrugged into it. “I’m going to take a bath in the mate’s quarters. Then I’m going to shave and get decently attired once again. I’d really like for you to join me, madam, but if I dare ask, I may get another pillow thrown into my face.”

With that bit of sarcasm, he stalked out, closing the door loudly behind him. That was the morning of Beau’s first day back on his feet.

The second was no better, for by that time Cerynise had taken up residence in the smallest cabin, having had Billy help her carry her trunks and possessions into the tiny space. She hadn’t wanted to put Stephen Oaks out of his quarters any longer and had given the mate the very same options that he had once given her, flatly telling him that she wouldn’t use his cabin under any circumstances and that it was entirely up to him whether or not he used it. The mate conceded, for he had no other place to go now that she had become ensconced in the tiny cabin.

In an effort to make her new accommodations less menacing, Cerynise questioned Beau about the possibility of hanging up some of her sketches and paintings on the walls. Grudging the fact that she was serious about living apart from him even to the extent that she would endure a windowless cabin that heightened her apprehensions, he scowled and snorted like an angry bull. Even so, he relented enough to give his consent.

Billy offered to help, and Cerynise hovered near, making sure he drove the tiny nails into the seams where the planks of wood had been buttressed together against the wall, for she didn’t want her husband to regret the fact that
he had acceded to her request. She arranged the artwork to lend the cabin a feeling of depth as well as the open atmosphere and freedom of the upper deck. Having painted the porpoises in full color and flying motion on a larger canvas, she hung that piece where she could espy it upon waking. Once the individual groupings on the four walls were arranged in a manner that suited her, Cerynise found herself pleasantly surprised by the warm, comfortable ambience now pervading the tiny room. The paintings gave her considerably more to look at than dull blank walls, but most of all she no longer felt like she was in a dark dungeon.

After the upheaval and turmoil of the storm, her anxiety over Beau during his illness, and her startling introduction to the more erotic rudiments of being a full-fledged wife, Cerynise felt physically and mentally drained. Recognizing her own sense of depression, she promptly determined that she needed to take care of herself for a change and forewarned Billy that she would be resting for a while and didn’t wish to be disturbed. She slept for several hours and awoke feeling refreshed and wonderfully rejuvenated. Then, just as a woman is wont to do while in fine spirits, she directed her attention to her appearance, which she had been too worried to care about during Beau’s feverish bout. Since Billy had gathered several barrels of rainwater for such purposes during the storm-driven deluge, she bade him heat enough water for a tub bath and selected scented bath salts appropriate to her mood, a sweet jasmine fragrance that reminded her of home.

Cerynise settled back into the steaming water with a deep sigh of appreciation. She hated basin baths, preferring to soak on a daily basis, but a sea voyage wasn’t always conducive to such luxuries. The bath was probably the only benefit from the tempest. At the moment she thought it divine.

Memories of those moments spent in carnal union with Beau swam provocatively through Cerynise’s mind as she dallied in the bath. The impressions were so overpowering
and vivid that they rekindled fires, which she had naively thought had been smothered by the blunt realization of her husband’s incognizance. If she closed her eyes, she could almost feel his large body moving upon hers, his hardened chest teasing her breasts, and his harsh gasps filling her mind. A long, trembling sigh slipped from her lips as she luxuriated in the sensations that flooded through her. Her yearning to have Beau’s arms around her right then and there was acute, making her realize just how deeply she had been affected by their union and the bliss she had found within it.

Heaving a fretful sigh, Cerynise shook her head at the folly of entertaining such stimulating recollections. It didn’t strengthen her resolve in the least to be lusting after her husband when she knew that, for her own sake, she would have to hold him at arm’s length until he committed himself completely to their marriage, which she really couldn’t expect to happen.

She was still in the midst of soaking herself when she heard the floorboards in the passageway creaking slightly as someone walked past her door. The distant closing of the captain’s door identified that one to be her husband. A moment hardly passed before the squeaking came back to her portal and, after a long pause, a light rap of knuckles came against the wood.

“Cerynise,” Beau called in a gentler tone than she had heard from him since he had left his bunk. “I’d like for you to have dinner with me tonight.”