Tempest(60)

All week she had found it difficult to concentrate, but the problem had worsened considerably since her evening at Crowe’s Nest with Adam. How many times had she relived each word they had spoken, each shared touch, each tender moment? Sometimes it was still difficult for her to realize it hadn’t been a dream.

“Cathy, I love you.”

Adam had spoken those words to her. Truly. It seemed that the imprint of his lips remained on her fingers where he had pressed his mouth to them. And perhaps most meaningful of all had been his manner. Never had she known him to speak to her with such unfettered sincerity. In the past, he had thrown up his guard whenever she attempted to know him more deeply, but at Crowe’s Nest, he had been a changed man.

Still, wasn’t it just a lot of words?

Lying back against her pillow, she set the folder aside and plucked the volume of Emily Dickinson’s poetry from her bedside table. There was Stephen’s writing on the frontispiece: To Cat, and she went on to read, Live! Don’t waste a moment, precious sister.

When she had read that inscription years ago, he had still been alive himself, and she had understood so little of the world outside Newport and Fifth Avenue that most of his meaning had been lost on her. No more. As she listened to the rhythm of the ocean, Cathy lost herself in the eloquent poems until one stopped her.





Wild nights! Wild nights!

Were I with thee,

Wild nights should be

Our luxury!





Futile the winds

To a heart in port,

Done with the compass,

Done with the chart.





Rowing in Eden!

Ah! The sea!

Might I but moor

To-night in thee...





Her heart swelled as she read the words again and again, immersing herself in memories of Adam. Yes, Stephen was right; it was time to live in a way she had never dared before...



“I look ridiculous,” Byron complained as he climbed onto the Golden Eagle’s quarterdeck where Raveneau was gazing out at the coastline. The molten orange sun had nearly disappeared into the Caribbean Sea to their west.

Adam glanced at his friend, who wore a striped head scarf, a white shirt, petticoat breeches, and buckled shoes. A gold hoop dangled from one ear. “Where is your spirit of adventure? You look exactly like a pirate!”

“No. I look ridiculous. You look like a pirate! Even more than you did at the Parrishes’ costume party. It’s uncanny.”

It was true, for tonight Raveneau embraced the part with relish. He was clad in the same black breeches and jackboots he’d worn at Beechcliff, but tonight he had left off the heavy coat and instead wore a loose shirt of fine white linen with lace cuffs that fell over the backs of his dark hands.

“Do you think so?” His fingers grazed the flintlock pistol, borrowed from Xavier Crowe’s bedsteps, that was thrust into the blood-red silk sash knotted around his waist. “This is a nice touch, I think,” he admitted. “I have my grandfather’s sword as well, but I’ll save that for later.”

“I have never known a man to go to greater lengths to win a woman. And you’ve got a whole crew of us backing you up! If it were any other woman but Cathy—”

Suddenly his wicked grin softened. “I know. She deserves all this and much more. I would do anything to make her happy.”

“Well, your chance is at hand,” Byron remarked. “I can see the Ocean Breeze Hotel now, in the distance...”



When Raveneau left his longboat on the beach and approached the hotel, he was grateful for the darkness. If anyone saw him, they’d think he was an apparition.

Lightly, he climbed the back steps to the verandah. The evening was well advanced now, and the guests had retreated to their rooms. Through the jalousie flaps, he saw a light flash in the kitchen: Theo’s signal that it was safe for him to proceed.

Using the verandah railing and a sturdy trellis blanketed in bougainvillea, Adam climbed to Cathy’s balcony. The shuttered doors were open slightly, and through them he saw her immediately, like an angel sleeping in her gauze-draped bed. There was a light burning softly on the table beside her, and a small book lay open on her breast.

Stepping into the room, Raveneau was suddenly conscious of the risk he ran with this bold scheme. He knew a moment of doubt, but it passed like the cloud gliding past the moon. Silently, he came up beside the bed. Cathy’s hair spilled over the pillows, her lips were slightly parted, and her delicate fingers clung to the book. Glancing at the page, he saw the poem she had been reading and smiled.

“Rowing in Eden indeed,” he said under his breath. His eyes shifted to the swell of her breasts, their rosy nipples visible through the sheer batiste of her nightgown. Instantly aroused, he momentarily imagined himself in bed with her, touching those breasts that had so long been hidden from him, taking a nipple into his mouth...

Not yet!

He took a sharp breath, willing his erection to subside, and reached out to turn down the gaslight to a tiny, wavering flame. Then, before he could decide how to wake Cathy, her eyes opened. She blinked, twice.

Her voice was a whisper of disbelief. “Are you real?”

“I am, my lady.” Raveneau’s smile flashed white in the shadows. He swept off the tricorne hat set with Stede Bonnet’s cockade, bowing low before her. “I’ve come to take you with me. We’re going to sea in search of pirate treasure.”

She shook her head, smiling now. “No, I am dreaming. I’m going to close my eyes again.”

Suddenly, he was kneeling at the edge of her bed, his face just inches from hers, and she could feel the warm pulse of his breath on her cheek.

“I am no dream. I have never been more real, and I mean to give you a night better than any dream you could imagine.” He took her hands and brought them to his rakishly chiseled face, kissing her tender palms. “Come with me, Cathy, or I’ll take you by force.”

Now she was fully awake, her heart pounding hard with excitement and arousal. “You are very bold!”

“Indeed. And this is just the beginning.” He leaned close, his mouth hovering near hers, and felt her tremble. “Say you’ll come.”

“Yes.” She nearly panted the word. “Yes, I’ll come!”





Chapter 33




It was a perfect night to be a pirate, Cathy thought with a giddy smile. The ocean was calm and silvery, the air was soft and warm, and clouds continued to drift past the moon as Adam brought the longboat alongside the Golden Eagle.

Although she was bursting with curiosity, she said little, watching as one of the dark shapes on the deck of the romantic-looking sailing ship threw a rope ladder down to them. Thank goodness she had donned trousers and a shirt before they climbed down from her balcony at the Ocean Breeze. It seemed that Adam had thought of everything; when she got out of bed, he’d retrieved a bundle of boy’s clothing from the corridor and told her to get dressed.

“There’ll be none of your corsets tonight,” he had promised with a grin. “I hereby liberate you.”

Now, climbing the precarious ladder ahead of Adam, then throwing her trousered legs over the rail, she thought for an instant that she had never done such things, not even as a little girl. Her mother’s rules had been oppressive.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” she said to him as he leaped lightly over the rail to stand beside her.

“But are you happy?”

“Will you be shocked if I say yes?”

He laughed, looking more like a pirate than ever. “Hardly, my sweet. Now, come with me.”

Cathy looked all around as they crossed the polished deck, fascinated by the colorfully-dressed crew who were busy now getting the brigantine underway. Above them, a sinister-looking flag fluttered from the top of the mainmast.

“Look! What’s that black flag? It has a skull on it!”

“Oh, that’s a pirate flag.” He guided her toward the hatch. “Stede Bonnet’s flag, actually.”

“Where on earth did you get that? He lived nearly two hundred years ago!”

“But we’ve gone back in time, or hadn’t you noticed?” As they went down the ladder into the darkness, Raveneau plucked a lantern from the bulkhead and held it aloft as they traversed the gangway. At length, he opened a paneled door and ushered her inside. “Welcome to my cabin.”

Cathy watched as he lit the lanterns hanging from beams until a handsomely-furnished captain’s cabin was revealed. There was a table built into the bulkhead, flanked by two chairs, and it held a covered tray that emitted delicious smells. Suddenly, it came to her that she was very hungry, for it had been hours since her light supper.

“I’m ravenous!”

“I thought you might be. Hunger is a consequence of high adventure.” His eyes were agleam with amusement as he joined her at the table and took the cover from the tray. There was a loaf of crusty bread with butter, a bowl of sliced mango and pineapple, and a dish of pepperpot, still warm and fragrant. “Retta made this just for you. She claims it is the pepperpot recipe handed down to her by Orchid, my grandparents’ housekeeper.”

Cathy served herself but waited to begin until he had poured glasses of cold white wine. “I miss Retta...”

“And she misses you. Everyone at Tempest Hall misses you.” Watching her over the rim of his raised glass, he added, “Here’s to you, Cath.”