Chapter 10
Alexandra grabbed hold of the smooth bark of a mahogany tree and spun around it. “Jump to it, Nicholas. You are half asleep today. If we are ever to get to the beach, you’ll have to quit your lagging.”
Nicholas rubbed fingertips in his tangled hair, tugging the sleep from his mind. He had lain awake most of the night, with her lush body inches away. At least, when he had slept outside he had a physical distance to separate them. But the storm last night had changed that remoteness. Her smell and soft sighs while she slumbered had his body on fire.
She dashed ahead of him, her shift clinging to her rounded hips. He groaned.
“Did you say something?”
I want to throw you down in the sand and make love to you. He said nothing.
“Are you suffering from ennui, Lord Nicolas?”
Far from it. He had a lively inner world. What would she feel like, taste like? He had to change the view before the primitive force inside him demand that he reach for her and… Damn it! He pushed ahead of her.
Never had he been in such a constant state of arousal. “What else can you tell me about life in your village?”
“I cared for the Vicar’s children in exchange for my education. The vicar taught me and had a library that gave me access to many books.”
“So that is how you are so well-educated, knowing Paine and other theorists. I must admit, your self-learning is admirable.” He glanced over his shoulder to see how she’d take his compliment.
She beamed and he took a certain pride in that fact.
“Vicar Thompson had three adorable children. I taught and cared for them. How I miss their antics and youthful zeal.
“The twins, Sylvia and Julianna were very bright and a handful, led by their nine-year old, older brother, Jay who is smart with a dash of mischievousness. He liked to hide up in a tree, in company of his sisters and toss apples on unsuspecting villagers. One of their escapades followed the sermon their father had given about Moses leaving Israel. They captured dozens of frogs and released them on the Cornett sisters’ doorstep, and the sisters shrieking they’d been cursed by a Biblical plague.”
Nicholas threw back his head and laughed, startling a flock mourning doves. “Of course, you made the miscreants apologize.”
“Heavens no. If I’d known, I might have added a frog or two.” She burst out laughing. “Overall, the vicar’s children were sweet and affectionate and I never tired being with them.”
So, she liked children. Suddenly, Nicholas dreamed of coming home to a comfy house, the sound of children playing and a loving wife. That loving wife merged into Alexandra’s image. He wiped his damp palms on his breeches.
“What do you wish for, Alexandra?” He was tempted to take her hand in his.
“I’d love to have fried goat cheese with gooseberry sauce. It is my favorite. And to see an opera.”
“No. What do you wish for?”
She sighed. “Children, lots of them. Running all around. Christmases, Easters and summers, late nights looking at the stars and swimming in the ocean.”
“I cannot imagine having children one day, can you?” He’d have to produce an heir someday but with Lady Susannah? That notion turned him sour.
She drifted away for a moment. “I’d love to have children but it won’t happen to me.”
“Why not?”
When she didn’t answer, he retraced his steps. She had stopped to examine a butterfly on blooming sea lavender. Her silence troubled him. Nicholas hated uncertainty, in fact, he detested it. He thrived on pure calculation and order. He weighed all pros and cons, exercising his instinct in crafting an image of the thoughts and motives of the men he dealt with in his business relations. He did not completely know Alexandra Sutherland.
“Why not?” he insisted.
“Did you ever notice how a butterfly has an endless cycle? The egg morphs into a cocoon until it finally emerges into a butterfly.”
What should that have to do with her having children? What she left out said volumes. He waited.
“Well, potential beaus who came to ask me to dance—”
“Village boys asked you to dance?” Never should Alexandra been allowed to cavort with village boys. She was a lady. He picked up a coconut and threw it. It banged against a palm thirty yards away, unhitching other coconuts, and crashing them to the ground. “You never mentioned you had a beau.”
“I didn’t?”
“No, you didn’t. I would have remembered that conversation.” A snake of jealousy twisted around him again.
Her turquoise eyes widened and she skipped in front of him. “I don’t know why you are so angry.”
“I’m not,” he shouted.
She let a palmetto fan snap back in his face. “All of them were scared off by Samuel.”
Nicholas whipped the palmetto out of the way. He liked Samuel already. “What was Samuel’s response?”
Alexandra exhaled. “He wasn’t nice at all. In fact, he was rude.”
Nicholas would bet his prize stallion, Samuel took deliberate action to make sure she didn’t have any affections with commoners, believing that someday she’d take her rightful place as Lady Sutherland. Samuel may have not known how that event would have occurred, regardless, he protected Alexandra and Nicholas was thankful for his safeguarding her.
“There was the Miller’s boy who was tenacious and…well, there are two things that are infinite, the universe and the Miller’s boy dim-wittedness. He was the size of an oak tree and wasn’t as intimidated of Samuel as the other young men in the village. The Miller boy took hold of me on our doorstep and tried to kiss me. Samuel swung wide the door, held a sword to the Miller’s boy’s throat and threatened to draw and quarter him.”
If Nicholas had been there he would have helped Samuel hang the Miller’s boy from the nearest tree. That was after he pounded him into a bloody pulp. “How’d the Miller’s son take that threat?”
“I never saw anyone walk in reverse so quickly. He fell over a stump and scuttled like a crab on his back.” She laughed, and then sobered. “I think Samuel had a past that I never knew about. Perhaps his reputation during his years in the Royal Navy.
“The bad part was the two Cornett sisters happened by our house at the exact time the Miller’s boy had tried to kiss me. They passed terrible rumors about me, saying I was wild, disreputable, and had terrible character. For the most part, my reputation in the village was in ruins. None of the boys wanted to ask me to dance at the following socials. I was miserable.”
He knew how narrow-minded and unforgiving the villagers on his ducal estate could be. Once black-balled, one was shunned.
“The Miller’s son never came again. What was embarrassing, when I was in the village, he ran to the other side of the street and made the sign of the cross.”
He liked the fact she was not attached. She didn’t belong with the villagers. She belonged with gentry.
He drew up beside her. Alexandra’s inviting lips beckoned him. “So, you’ve never been kissed?”
Her mouth quirked. “Plenty of times.”
Nicholas raised a brow and it teased a smile from her face.
“Samuel and Molly kissed me every night before I went to bed. A ritual, you know.”
Alexandra stumbled and floundering, she grabbed his hips to break her fall. His temperature shot up, spiked several degrees.
“I missed that palm frond.”
He righted her, took her hands from his heated skin and their gazes locked in the morning light. He opened his mouth to say something, but he couldn’t speak—her scent entwined him, his nostrils flared from primal instinct, the proximity of her body, and the sultry look in her eyes drugged his mind. That latent attraction erupted with a force that made him lean down. He yearned to seize her mouth with hard, demanding hunger, to devour her sweetness. Her lips parted, and his body went rigid with desire. A pulse beat at the base of her throat. His tongue could explore that area down to the soft tips of her breasts and beyond.
The cries of gulls jerked him to reality. With Herculean effort, Nicholas pulled back. Keep your hands off her. She saved your life. She deserves better.
He was beginning to abhor her spontaneity and unaffectedness, like a sea nymph free and comfortable in her skin.
The beach swung in a long, lazy crescent, heavily fringed by massive palms, bent away from the water for it was the windward side of the island. The sand was soft and glistening beneath her feet. Small waves raced upon the shore with a foaming curl and a hissing sound. She cooled her toes in the lapping surf.
He had almost kissed her. She couldn’t let that happen. It wouldn’t be fair to Nicholas.
She had slipped, almost revealing that most painful part of her past. Oh, to have children—to sing, to laugh, to love. That dream was beyond her grasp.
Images of that fateful day taunted her, a childhood accident… The doctor confirming she’d never be able to bear children. She swiped at a tear.
Nicholas passed her, tearing off his shirt and diving in the ocean. He swam in swift relaxed strokes, and then stood waist deep, his forehead swept clear by the wind that caressed him. Curious about his body, she stared at lean rippled stomach muscles. She could never get enough, admiring his male beauty, his body lean from years as a boxer.
Staving off the quick unaccustomed tingling in the pit of her stomach grew impossible. He called to her. She bent over and picked up an empty conch shell, pretending not to hear.
“Alexandra?”
How quickly he had come up on her. She gasped when he took hold of her braid, running its silky length through his fingers. “Your braid is bound so tightly. You should leave it down. It draws the eye like a river of gold.”
His face was harsh, his eyes a penetrating blue. He caught her hand before she could take flight, his flesh warm against hers…and a vague, sensuous light passed between them.
Her wariness stood no chance against his allure. With some carnal fascination, he drew and captured her awareness, until the sea, the sky, the world itself, faded around them. His hand glided up and down her arm, her body felt heavy and warm, and her heartbeat raced at the mere impact of his gentle touch.
“What is bothering you, Alexandra?”
His nearness made her senses spin. His gaze roved over her in lazy regard, appraising her, and leaving her exposed. What if they were stranded here forever? What harm could there be to find solace in each other’s arms. Reason warred with caution—such an attraction was impossible. She drew an uneven breath. She had to stay positive. They would be rescued.
“Do you question my word?”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand. Her pulses leapt with excitement. She could feel the heat from his body—so close. It wasn’t him. She was ashamed of her barrenness. “I can’t explain.” She tugged. Tears grew in her eyes.
“Alexandra—”
“No.” She jerked her arm away and bolted in a flat out run, hearing him pound the sand behind her. “Go away, Nicholas. Leave me alone.” He wanted an answer, but he raised so many fears and uncertainties—a warmth…a wanting.
Leaping through a stand of bristly Casuarinas, she landed in the next cove, her heels making divots in the beach. She stopped. From the storm the night before, numerous casks and flotsam had been cast ashore. Nicholas jumped down beside her.
“What do you think is in the barrels?” she said.
Nicholas ran ahead. He knelt in the sand, digging with his hands and plying the barrels free. For an hour, they freed the casks and rolled them above the tideline.
“We’ll find out later. Be thankful for our bounty,” he said tersely.
He wanted an answer as to why she ran from him, why she avoided him. She balled her hands into fists. She was under no obligation to tell him she could not have children, yet Nicholas was the type of man who didn’t let things go.
He pulled a sword out of the sand, held it up. The blade glinted in the sun, throwing sharp sunlight everywhere. He tied the sword about his waist, and strode down the beach, hands behind his back, the sword flapping against his thigh.
Pleased for the moment, he allowed a temporary withdrawal from their discussion. Alexandra scanned the horizon. “Do you think we will find more? Do you think there are any survivors?
A long ridge of sandbars, like uneven humps, ran a space. Beyond that, the waterspout of a whale rose violently as if to give a greeting. At any other time, she would have been excited over such a sight.
She picked up a stone and examined it. “You’ve told me little about your Uncle Cornelius who was so important in your life.”
“He had a hard life. His mother produced an heir and as far as she was concerned, she had done her job. She didn’t want any part of Cornelius. His father spent his time on extramarital affairs, and was hard and demanding of Cornelius, spending no time with him at all.”
Alexandra raised her eyebrows with that knowledge. Cornelius’s relationship with his father mirrored Nicholas’s.
“Cornelius was my father’s closest friend through their school years. And then entered Lucretia Hansford. She was kind, gentle, fun, loving…everything Cornelius’s mother was not. He fell in love with her.”
“What was the problem?”
“The problem being, Lucretia was in love with Richard Rutland, my father.”
Three sea hawks flying overhead shadowed Alexandra. “So, Lucretia is your mother.”
“Yes, and she and my father became engaged. Cornelius felt betrayed by my father. Cornelius possessed a mad obsession for my mother, kidnapped her, and took her to Gretna Green where he could get a special license and force her to marry him.”
Alexandra widened her eyes. “What happened?”
“My father heard about the debacle and found them in an inn just before Cornelius was to compromise her. I don’t know all the details but there was a sword fight between the two men with Cornelius blinded in one eye.”
“The Duke of Westbrook, Cornelius’s father was so enraged, he banished his son from England and refused him his inheritance. Years passed, the old duke on his deathbed, having second thoughts of his legacy, bid his son to return and all was pardoned. The duke died shortly thereafter and Cornelius assumed his role as the Duke of Westbrook. Cornelius came to my father and begged forgiveness for his rash deed in the past. Ever since, he’s been wonderful to our family treating the Rutland children, as his own.”
“An extraordinary story.” She stumbled over a plank sticking out of the sand and sank to her knees, clearing away seaweed. “We can put the milled piece to good use.”
She clutched her chest. “Santanas. This is the stern of the Santanas.” She rose and moved farther down the beach. “I do not want anything to remind me of that voyage.”
His stride longer, Nicholas overtook her. He stopped at a craggy outcropping of limestone, grabbed a hold of a Sapodilla limb, and heaved himself atop. He peered over the edge. “Don’t come any closer, Alexandra.”
Too late. She already hauled-up beside him. “Oh, dear God.”
Bloated half-eaten corpses, littered the shore. Crabs covered the bodies, competing with vultures, devouring what sharks had left of the Santanas crew.