Chapter 10

 

Past the courtyard walls, Royce held back, forcing Simone to stop. He presumed she’d said what she had for Gavra’s benefit. Given that she wasn’t a concern any longer, he’d hoped Simone would lead him to another room near the birthing chamber. Ill-advised, considering the celebrants’ proximity. However, the forest wasn’t an adequate substitute for a soft bed and clean room.

If her intent had been their coupling.

Moonlight reflected in her eyes, her dark hair lustrous in the diaphanous rays. “Come.” She tugged his hand.

He weighed too much for her to budge. “You actually want to learn how to dance?”

“Do you want me to?”

“Not tonight. I thought we’d have other fun.”

“We will.”

“Here? The ground is wet.” Leaves and debris carpeted the area, mud oozing in between. “This won’t be comfortable for you.”

“The beach was wet. Did you enjoy that so little?”

The moment had changed his life, and he wagered hers too. However, he’d had no choice except to lead her there, since he’d needed to dig up his pouch. Another lie he’d told that he prayed she’d never discover or could somehow forgive.

“Oh no. How sad you are.” She cupped his face and grinned.

“Are you making light of me?”

“I am. Follow me back to the stone house.”

They circled the wall and sidled between an opening that faced a door he’d never seen. “Where are we? What’s inside there?”

“A secret hall to Tristan and Diana’s chamber.”

“Wait.” He held her arm. “You want us to use their room?”

She laughed softly. “No. Tristan would shoot you. Me, he would scold. Come.”

The door opened to a narrow passage so dark he might have been blind. With one hand clasped tightly around hers, he slid his other on the polished stone to maintain his bearing. Their feet tapped the floor, the noise outrageously loud in the confined space.

She slowed and stopped.

A slight creak sounded. The black in front turned gray, revealing a chamber.

What had seemed a wall was the back of a large armoire set on small wheels to move it easily for entry into the room. “Did Tristan make this?”

“My people did. The cruel capitaine told them what he wanted.”

An escape route both clever and necessary given the blackguard’s occupation.

Royce checked the floor to see if their feet left any tracks. Shadows made it impossible to tell.

Laughter, music, and song sounded from the courtyard. However, the noise came from everywhere, the passage disorienting him from knowing which direction the gathering might be. Despite his and Simone’s whispers, the closed shutters, and little available light, he felt horribly exposed, worried Tristan or Diana would push through the door at any time. “We best leave here.”

In the hall, Simone trotted to the right, pulling him with her.

“Are we going to your chamber?”

“No. Here.” Panting, she opened a door and pushed him inside the room.

He stumbled and flailed his arms to right himself.

She opened the shutters.

“Wait. You shouldn’t do that.”

“Why? The moon is big and fat.”

Ashy light streamed across the space, showing a room not unlike his, and nearly as regal as Tristan’s. A crucifix hung above the bed. “Is this where the priest stays when he’s here?”

“Oui. No one would dare come inside or be near the windows. This is a divine space.”

He sensed she meant sacred. “If this is off-limits to the less than righteous, aren’t you worried about us using it for…”

“Our love? No. What god would be angry that a man and a woman did what they must to show how they adore each other?”

He couldn’t think of any, but he wasn’t a pious man. The long-ago missionaries who’d come here to change Simone’s people, including their culture, language, and beliefs hadn’t fully accomplished their goal with her.

He grinned.

“I see you like what I did.” She untied her cloth. The silk floated to her feet. “Why are your breeches and shirt on you and not the floor? Why are you waiting to undress?”

He tore at his clothes and stood nude before her. She before him.

Rays illuminated her curves, the moon designed to shine on no one except her.

She crossed to him and touched his healed wound, the scab mostly gone, then took his hand and placed it on her scar. Delight registered on her face, rather than sorrow. “Both of us are marked.”

They were and on the same leg. What were the odds of that happening randomly?

She stroked his thigh. “We match.”

In more ways than he could voice. They were from different worlds, cultures, and beliefs, yet they fit perfectly. Or had.

She’d stepped away, her breasts bobbing gently, hips swaying. Eve tempting Adam all over again.

He followed. “Where do you think you’re going?”

She regarded his fully erect cock and plump balls. “To bed.” She crawled onto the wide mattress and stopped in the center, arms at her sides, legs parted, hiding nothing.

No man deserved her seduction, certainly not him.

Her sultry smile encouraged Royce to be playful. He rested his knee on the cool white silk. “Come here.”

“Catch me.”

“What?”

“If you can. I think you may not be able to.”

He pounced faster than any rutting buck. Simone rolled away, escaping him easily. His chin hit the mattress. The bedframe creaked.

Her giggles filled the room, giving him a reason to live. He propped his head in his hand. “Are you going to make me work at this? Do you honestly want me to wear myself out running after you when we could be enjoying ourselves instead?”

“You hate my game?”

Anything she did was all right with him, even pretending insult or hurt to prolong the pretext. “I didn’t say that. But I toiled hard and long today, hauling countless tables to the courtyard. Twice—no, three times, I pulled a muscle in my back. My toes hurt so badly I can scarcely stand. My arms are too tired to lift more than an inch.” He raised his hand and let it plop to the mattress. “See? Yet, we will play your game if that’s what you want. Anything to please you.”

She sat on the mattress and eased his hair off his shoulder. “Anything?”

His laughter drowned out hers. He pulled her down to him and rolled them over.

She fought to go the other way. They ended up in the middle, facing each other, breaths colliding.

He rubbed his nose against hers. “What fun I have with you.”

“Me too. But it can be better.”

“How? Tell me. I have no idea.”

She looked skeptical. “Do you make light of what I say now?”

“Me? Never.”

“I should shoot you.” She pushed him to his back, straddled his hips, and took his rigid length fully within her.

Their curls touched. Her snug channel imprisoned and sheltered.

Heat whipped through him with cyclone strength. “I like this better.”

She leaned down, her hair veiling them, her mouth touching his. “Than what?”

“You shooting me.”

“Never would I point a pistol at you.” She ran her tongue over the seam between his lips, stopping before he could coax her more deeply inside for a much-needed kiss. “I would have Tristan do it for me. Perhaps Gavra.”

He laughed quietly. “In that case, I had better behave.”

“Love me. I ask no more than that.”

Such an easy task and possibly an unreachable dream with time and circumstances against them. Tonight, though, fantasy ruled, the moonlit room bewitching, her warmth and weight persuading him to believe they’d have a future, home, and children on this isle. An ideal life he’d already constructed when he knew better than to yield to preposterous wishes. He was an adult, not a child.

His own sorrow didn’t frighten Royce. Hurting her would kill him.

Their tongues dueled to see whose mouth they’d fill. He let her win, wanting to give her everything she desired. Steadily, Simone tightened her cunt around his rod. Each squeeze firm, though too slow to deliver release, yet too fast for him to ignore.

Carnal need enticed, drawing him into its web, refusing to let go.

He plucked her nipples, loving the sounds she made, a woman burning with passion. Caressing her supple globes proved insufficient. He wanted raw lust, not tenderness, her soft flesh coaxing him to forget restraint, to take her more as an animal than a man.

She pressed into his touch, wordlessly saying she wanted whatever he offered, then pushed to her knees and released his shaft except for his crown. Her moisture coated his rigid column, a thrilling sight. She slid down, her channel consuming him.

Blood pounded in his ears.

She touched her chin to her chest, her hair gliding over his belly.

“More.” He’d pleaded as he never had with another woman, needing Simone to give him everything she could. “Squeeze harder. Pump faster.”

Her descents and ascents jiggled the mattress, the intensity she created shockingly good.

She lifted her face to the ceiling and gulped air.

Royce stroked her nub, keeping time with her steadily contracting channel. He and she matched here too, synchronized in their lovers’ dance. “Again.” He snatched air. “Faster. Don’t stop.”

She rode him as he would have done with her, giving no quarter when it came to pleasure, liberating delight, encouraging awe. They reached joy together, her voice raised in a timeless cry a woman gives a man she loves, her channel quivering around his shaft, his seed filling her.

Weakened and panting, he eased Simone to him, their skin slick, chests heaving. “Merci.”

She kissed his shoulder. “I’m a good student at last, doing what you wished?”

“Trust me. You couldn’t have been better.” Her lovemaking had nearly killed him.

“I can try to be even more.”

Royce prayed not now. Exhaustion pressed in, chasing away the glow she’d produced.

She twisted his hair around her finger. “Are you asleep?”

He was too weary to answer.

“Will you wake soon and do this again?”

He hoped so. There wasn’t a point in being alive if a man denied himself what he’d found here.

* * * *

Once Simone shook Royce awake, they made love twice. After the acts, he dropped to the mattress, arms and legs flung out, too tired to play. She traced the veins in his shaft, but couldn’t stir him. She licked his sac. He smacked his lips and stilled.

She drank him in. His complexion was more golden now than bronze from too many days spent indoors, his hair longer than when he’d first washed up on the beach.

He needed a shave.

She required every moment that he could give her, even if it meant bringing him to this room. The one place that would remain unoccupied and free from anyone’s presence.

Except the priest’s God.

She’d lied earlier when she’d made light about coming inside. Deliberately angering any creator wasn’t wise, especially the priest’s, who was far sterner than the one her people believed in. Mère de l’homme, the greatest goddess of all, loved her children and wanted them to be happy on this isle before she cradled them in her arms and brought them home. Surely, such a kind being would look down on this room tonight and protect a man as worthy as Royce, along with a lowly subject like Simone, from the white god’s wrath.

If only matters for her and Royce were how Diana and Tristan lived. Or James and Gavra, Zola and Adamo. Each man slept next to his woman every night. They never had to explain themselves to anyone or hide what their hearts demanded.

No wonder Peter argued when Diana tried to keep him from Laure, preferring that he spend time studying his books. Not even an educated Englishwoman could believe words on paper were as wonderful as a lover in bed.

Simone curled next to Royce, her hand on his tired shaft, his heat unable to brighten her mood. They couldn’t spend the night here or share the morning and rising sun. They had to hide their growing bond and steal away to be alone.

When he left the isle, the others would pity her. Some would accuse, saying she gave herself to the wrong man. That would be her easiest burden because they’d be wrong.

If Royce had no choice except to stay, he’d never forgive himself for not helping his mother and sisters. His guilt and grief would change him, keeping her from his heart.

She squeezed her eyes. Their love had seemed simple when their lips first met. Now though…

Simone prayed to every god she knew for a solution that would serve all, begging forgiveness for her sins from the white god, pleading with her people’s deity to grant her hope.

Wind rushed inside, ruffling the silk sheet. A good omen. Someone had heard her.

Content, she lost herself in Royce’s warmth, his quiet breathing lulling her to sleep.

* * * *

“Simone.”

Her eyes flew open. Royce loomed above her, his face shadowed like the room. She clutched his arm. “Is someone in the hall? Do they want to come in?”

“No. But we best go to our own rooms before anyone does show up here or peeks into the windows.”

“My people would never do that. They would knock down the door first.”

He laughed.

She couldn’t, missing him already. “How can we leave now? We barely enjoyed each other. You sleep too much.”

His smile disappeared, a slight frown forming. “That’s hardly the proper way to make a man feel worthy.”

“You are. If you were less than that, I would never want you to wake. Since you’re far more, I feel sad when you close your eyes.”

“Forgive me for doing so, but I can’t keep them open or find enough strength to speak when you wear me out. Not that I’m complaining about your zeal, but we must leave this room at once. I don’t want anyone cross with you.”

“What is zeal?”

“What you do in bed with me.”

She hugged him. “I will do it again. I like this zeal.”

“As I do, but we have the islanders to think of.”

“Why? They have their own beds.”

He pulled her hands away. “This is the priest’s chamber. You and I don’t care about being here, but others will if they knew.” Royce left the bed. “We need to go.”

“And hide what we do.”

He tossed her cloth. “This is your home. You have to live with these people. It’s not wise to push them into a confrontation or fuel what anger they already have.”

“After we leave here, when will we be together as we are now? When the sun rises? When it sets? Do you ever want to see me?”

“You know I do.” He pointed. “Never ask that or pretend you don’t know my feelings.”

“I love you too.” She knotted the silk. “When will you help me with the potion books again and teach me to read?”

“Not right away, even though I want to. When Adamo and I worked together, he asked me to help rebuild his house. I promised I would. While the weather holds, the men need to do whatever they can to repair what the storm damaged.”

She lowered her face, hiding her sadness.

He lifted her chin and kissed her lightly. “It won’t be long before we’ll be spending our days together as we have. For now though, I’ll read to you after sundown, and show you the alphabet. Those are the letters that form words, which create sentences, then paragraphs and chapters, then books, or letters, the kind people send to each other.”

He knew too much. “I want to understand what you say, but your words confuse me.”

“My fault, not yours. What I said is I’ll teach you everything. I promise your reading lessons will be a great improvement over the dancing ones. Does that make you feel better?”

“I want to do the dancing again.”

“We shall.” He lifted her into his arms and turned in quick circles.

Simone pressed her face against his hair to quiet her laughter, her joy renewed.

Once she settled, Royce kissed her as a man would when he wanted more dancing and love, but also put her down. “Go.” He turned her to the door and pushed gently. “I’ll leave after you.”

She padded backward down the hall, bumping into walls and doors, hoping to see him leave the chamber. Disappointed, she rounded a corner and ran into Gavra.

Simone jumped back.

Gavra grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the room where she and James slept.

“Let me go.”

She tightened her grip. “We must talk.”

“When the sun rises. Not now. I want to sleep.”

Gavra reached the chamber and pushed Simone inside. She pivoted and tried to get past. Gavra shut the door, blocking it. “I will never forgive myself for taking the pirate to your hiding place after your family died.”

They’d never talked about that day. Simone hadn’t pressed, not wanting to bring up terrible memories. “He forced you. He raped you.”

Tears spilled over Gavra’s lids. “I was your friend. I should have protected you.”

Simone pulled her close. “You are my friend. You did everything you could. I should have been there for you and killed him and the others who…” Her throat tightened, not letting her speak.

Gavra held Simone’s face. “Listen to me, please. From that day on, I promised to look after you so no harm would come. The Englishman—”

“No.” Simone pulled away. “Never say anything unkind about him. Royce is a good man.”

“He’s English.”

“So are James and Tristan.”

“Both are here for life. They can never leave. Royce can and will.”

Simone turned away, arms wrapped around herself, the chill in her soul making her tremble. “I know. But he’s here today and tomorrow. The storms will return. He has to stay until they leave for good.”

“And when he does? Will you go with him?”

She’d never fit in his world. One look at Diana would tell any islander what England and London were like. Women covered themselves. They had pale skin and spoke a language Simone couldn’t hope to understand. “This is my home. I stay here.”

“Alone. Unless he puts a child in your belly.”

She shrugged.

“Simone.” Gavra embraced her. “You’re more sister to me than the ones I have, especially Laure. She never listens to me about Peter. She keeps promising to make him a man.”

“Oh, poor Laure. Poor Peter.”

They giggled and hugged. Simone wept as Gavra did, happy to make their friendship strong again. Gavra smelled of cinnamon and the bread she made, comforting scents that reminded Simone of when there hadn’t been any walls between them. “I never planned to fall in love with Royce. It happened before I had a choice. Like you and James.”

“He’s always been good to me and the islanders.”

“Royce has done nothing wrong. Well, maybe tonight. You have to forgive him for trying to teach us his foolish dance.”

Gavra laughed so hard her face turned scarlet. “You kept tripping over your feet.”

“Me? You jumped up and down like you were trying to get away from a snake.”

“I was doing the curtsy.” She bounced on her heels.

“No. You bend one knee and then the other.” Simone showed her.

They fell against each other, struggling for breath from their newest laughter.

Simone quieted first and smoothed Gavra’s hair. “We must never argue again. Promise me. I missed you.”

“I wept every day. James told me to talk to you. I was too proud.”

“We both were.” She kissed Gavra’s hand. “I promise not to be too sad when Royce goes away. Until then, please be happy for me.”

“I want to. But…”

“He’ll never hurt me or anyone else on this island. I promise.”

* * * *

Given the simple construction, Royce had no trouble helping to rebuild Adamo’s house. The task took him and another man two days. With only occasional sprinkles or gentle showers, they repaired three others over the following week. Tristan, James, and Peter tended the animals. The men who worked the fields harvested what they could and looked to the future rather than worrying about ruined crops.

After their lovemaking, Royce kept falling asleep on Simone, their passion keeping him from teaching her anything except how to please them carnally. Tristan’s words proved true. Royce was an abominable teacher, forgetting everything except pleasure.

The returning storms would change that. A dark and menacing cloudbank rolled past the horizon, on its way toward the isle. In the opposite direction, blue sky stretched endlessly, sun blazing above the turquoise water. If he’d had the power, Royce would have captured the scene in a bottle for him and Simone to gaze at during the coming days.

At least the priest’s chamber remained free, no one chasing them from there. Even Gavra had stopped frowning at him, though her rigid civility wasn’t much better. When he’d asked Simone if they’d spoken, she’d laughed. “About your dance.”

Pity he hadn’t introduced Gavra to the steps earlier. She might actually smile by now.

Finished with thatching Phillipe’s roof, Royce bid the man farewell and ran to the mansion. Wind picked up, scooping dead leaves into the air, rustling branches. Butterflies scattered. Lemurs settled more deeply into the trees, seeking shelter.

The clouds rolled in faster than he could run, half the sky already darkened and bruised. A fine shower sprayed his face. Sun beat against his back.

In the courtyard, mothers grabbed their children and hurried them into the building. Clutching his side, Royce slumped against the storeroom doorway. Rays shone on his face. Plump raindrops fell. Something dropped at his feet.

He flinched and backed up.

A bird traipsed right and left in front of him, its head bobbing, a metal container on its leg.

Stunned, he held the creature to his chest and rushed into the room. The blasted thing couldn’t have returned after all this time without delivering his message. Bishop would be enraged at no contact. Days or weeks might pass before Royce had a chance to send another bird.

He checked the tube. Its top was askew. A paper inside. Not the quality he’d used but thinner.

He’d heard of birds homing between two points, as long as they were fed at each, but hadn’t believed it until now. His hands shook, making it difficult for him to remove the cylinder.

Once he put the creature in its cage, he unrolled the paper.

 

R. H.

 

Secure the chart. Send location immediately. Your mother and sisters are depending upon this.

Fail me and I will see to their fates.

 

B. B.