Page 15 of A Pirate’s Pleasure (Cameron Family #2)

XII

S kye turned swiftly and fled.

Outside Lord Cameron’s door she knew that she had little choice left but to run. Where in God’s name was her father?

She fled up the stairs and back to his room, frantically digging through her belongings until she found a skirt and jacket more serviceable than the gown she wore. She changed nervously, ever watching the door lest he should appear. He did not. Leaving all of her belonging behind, she left the room. She sped down the stairway, then backed against the wall, certain that she heard Roc Cameron talking with Peter. She ducked into the dining room, her heart thundering. Footsteps passed by on the hardwood floors. Their echo dimmed. Skye thrust open the door and checked out the hallway, then tore through the hallway and out to the porch.

The outbuildings stretched before her.

She had no difficulty locating the stables, for the building was large and impressive and the painted doors were open to the afternoon sun. She hurried along the path until she came there. A young groom, raking up hay, paused and bobbed her way.

“I need a mount, please, Reggie, is it?”

He smiled his vast pleasure and quickly nodded. “We’ve Lady Love, she mild and sweet—”

“Oh, no!” Skye allowed her eyes to flash with laughter. “I ride very well, Reggie, and would have a fleet mount to show me much of the property while it is still daylight.”

“There’s Storm then, milady. But he’s Lord Cameron’s stallion, and a wild one at that.” His gaze was skeptical, and she felt sorry for the lad. He had long obeyed one master, but now he had a mistress, too, and he didn’t seem to know if he should bow to the wishes of the one or worry about the other.

“Storm!” Skye said sweetly. “Wonderful. Reggie, fetch him for me, please, he sounds perfect for what I have in mind!”

Her smile convinced him. Reggie quickly returned with the animal in question. He was gray, and huge, prancing with his every movement and watching her with deep, dark wide-set eyes. He was one of the most handsome horses she had ever seen.

Except for the white, she thought. The great white animal she had seen upon Bone Cay. The Hawk’s horse.

She bit her lip, unwilling to think further. She glanced nervously to the house, hoping that Lord Cameron’s correspondence was holding his attention. She smiled a dazzling smile to young Reggie. “Thank you. Reggie, you are swift and sweet, and I promise that my husband will know how kind and helpful you have been.”

Reggie, blushing furiously, brought the horse around to the mounting block and Skye quickly mounted upon him. She glanced around uneasily, getting her bearings. Northeastward along the river, and she would reach Williamsburg. Three hours, he had said.

Skye glanced anxiously toward the powder blue sky. She prayed briefly that the daylight would hold for her, then she gathered up the reins and nodded to young Reggie. “Thank you!” she cried swiftly, then she turned the huge horse about and swiftly nudged him. It was not difficult now, for a great sweeping drive beneath trails of oak led toward the main road.

She leaned against the stallion’s neck, whispering to him. “Storm! Go! Race as you like, it cannot be too fast for me!”

The animal could race, she discovered. Earth thundered and tore beneath her, the trees and the world spun by. On the main road she loosened her rein and gave him his lead, ducking low against him and becoming as much one with him as she could. He was wonderfully powerful, and his muscles tautened and relaxed, tautened and relaxed. The wind whipped her face, and she loved it, for it was cool and fresh and it seemed to cry to her of freedom. She was nearly home. To her home. Away from the pirate, and away from the lord.

She let the stallion run for a good twenty minutes, then she pulled him in, afraid that she would injure such a noble beast. She still passed small wooden and thatch-roofed houses, farmhouses, and acre after acre of rich and verdant fields. Cows and horses grazed upon fields on the one side, and the forest stretched out on the other, deep and green and dark. Once, these had been the lands of the great Powhatan Confederacy. Now, there were few Indians left. War and disease had ravaged them, and the white man had pushed them ever further west.

Skye shivered anyway. Like the darkness, the thought of Indians never failed to bring new terror to her soul. She longed for courage but it was not to be hers.

She looked upward. Shadows were beginning to fall. She closed her eyes for a moment, beginning to feel dizzy. The daylight was fading fast, far more quickly than she had expected. When night came, it would come completely. She would be here, in the forest, with the darkness all around her.…

But she would not be caged, she assured herself. She would not be contained with the darkness in close quarters. A moon would rise, and stars would rise, and it would not be so awful.

“And I will have you!” she told Storm. His ears pricked as she spoke. “You handsome thing, you, I will not be alone. I will be free, and I will be fine.…”

Her voice faded away as she heard a rustling from the foliage. She looked toward the river and assured herself that there were other manors there, that Tidewater Virginia was coming to be very well populated. Indeed, her father’s friend from Daniel Dridle’s tavern, Lord Lumley, lived out here somewhere. She was not alone.

Shadows came deeper. She reined in, watching as the sun sank quickly to the west. There were no glorious colors of night, not that evening. Twilight came, shadowland, and then darkness.

Something rustled behind her in the brush. Panic seized upon her, pure and simple, and Skye dug her heels into the stallion’s flanks. The animal took flight.

Skye’s hair whipped before her, the stallion’s mane flew back. Suddenly, a branch slapped against her, and she realized that they were no longer on the road, that the horse had raced into the thick and never-ending green darkness of the forest.

“No!” she shrilled, pulling back. And then she realized Reggie’s hesitation in giving her the huge stallion, for she quickly discovered that the horse was more powerful than she. Desperately she tried to rein him in. She was a good rider, more than competent, she had ridden her entire life. It was just that the horse was stronger than she, and at the moment, every bit as panicked as she by the darkness.

“Storm!” she cried in dismay. The foliage tugged and tore at her clothing and scratched at her hands and face. She ducked lower, wondering when the horse would plow straight into an oak and kill them both. “Whoa, boy, whoa…”

There was another rustling sound. The horse reared straight up. Skye tried to hold her seat, but it was impossible. She screamed, letting go, frightened that he would fall and roll upon her. She hit the ground hard herself, and though stunned, she rolled into the brush, anxious to avoid the huge thrashing hooves of the stallion.

He fell to earth, rose and flailed the air, and fell back to the earth again.

Then he took flight, leaving her breathless and defenseless and totally alone in the darkness of the forest.

For several long moments she just lay there, paralyzed with fear. She heard the crashing sounds as the stallion rode away, far, far away from her. She began to hear the little rustlings all around her.

“Damn you, horse, oh, damn you!” she cried out softly. Her hands lay over her heart and she stared up at the sky, willing the moon to become more apparent.

There were insects all about her, she told herself. There could be snakes. She lay in the brush. She needed to move.

Carefully she stretched out her limbs. None was broken, and she closed her eyes and breathed quickly, then opened them to the night once again. She could not give way to fear. She could not!

She stumbled up and dusted the fragments of leaves and trees and dirt from her bodice and skirt.

The road! She needed to reach the main road, and walk swiftly, and not think of the darkness or the forest. She whirled around and looked up. There was a moon out. It offered a gentle glow. It was not so horribly dark. And there were stars in the heavens, too. She would be all right, she would be all right.

That way. She twirled around very slowly and repeated the words out loud. “That way. The road to Williamsburg is that way.” She started to walk, tripping over fallen branches, feeling the slight sob in her each and every breath come just a little bit louder. The road was not that way at all. She was going deeper and deeper into the forest. An owl screeched over her shoulder suddenly and she screamed aloud, falling to her knees, breaking into sobs. She simply could not bear the awful darkness, not alone.

She fought for control and listened to the night. What, besides the horrible owl, lurked in the forest? The Indians were all gone—oh, God, please, it was true, they were gone, they were all gone!—but perhaps there were bears. Brown bears with long claws and a deadly hatred for men and women.…

What had ever caused the Camerons to come to such a godforsaken place! She hated it. She would never leave the city of Williamsburg again once she found it, she would never, never leave it again. But she had to find it first; she had to find it.

She stumbled to her feet. Her hand came to her throat as she heard movement behind her. She went dead still, the blood draining from her face, and listened. A bear. It had to be a bear, moving slowly but certainly, and with stealth. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound would come from her. She turned blindly and started to run again.

Something was after her. Something in the darkness. It was stalking her, quietly, slowly, seeking her out.…

Then there was nothing.

Silence…

There was silence, but no, the forest wasn’t silent at all, it was just that the rustling was drowned out by the rush of fear in her ears, by the awful pounding of her heart. The forest was not silent at all; it was alive with sound. She was being pursued. She was no longer quietly stalked, she was being pursued.

She lost her bearing and spun in a circle. She started to run again and realized then that the sounds were growing louder. She was racing toward the beast that was pursuing her in the night.

Suddenly she screamed, throwing up her arms to cover her face as she dashed from the trees and straight into the path of a running horse.

The horse reared as its rider jerked back with ferocity. The animal went up high on its hind legs and then crashed over backward into the brush. Someone swore furiously as the animal stumbled up. Skye screamed again as the horse went thrashing by her into the woods. She turned to run again herself.

It was not over; it had not ended. Blindly she turned to run, aware that the forest was still alive, that she was still being pursued. Recklessly, desperately she ran. The branches touched upon her hair like spidery fingers, pulling it. Tree roots seemed to come alive beneath her feet, reaching out to trip her.

And clouds fell over the moon. As if the very heavens laughed at her, dark clouds covered the moon and cast her into deeper, greener darkness.

Then a shrill cry to split the very earth burst from her as hands seized upon her. She was falling, falling hard upon the earth in the darkness, fighting wildly and desperately against the thing that stalked her in the night.

“Skye!”

She couldn’t register her own name, nor did the man above her mean anything to her at all. She beat out and kicked at him vigorously, unaware that he swore softly, irritated and alarmed. She knew only that she was losing the battle. He straddled her hips, pinning her to the earth, and then he captured her flailing hands, and they were pinned down to the earth, too.

She screamed in terror and frustration, thrashing even as she was held.

“Skye!”

The clouds drifted away from the moon just as he said her name again. Spiderwebs seemed to fall away from her vision, and reason came slowly back to her.

Roc Cameron, taut and solid, straddled her. She stared at him, and slowly, slowly exhaled. It was no beast, just the man who claimed to be her husband. She might have been better off with a tusked boar, she thought briefly, but that thought quickly faded. She might fear his temper upon occasion, but it was so different than her absolute terror of the darkness.

“Skye!” he repeated, and she went very still, swallowing tightly, staring at him.

“What in God’s name were you doing?” he demanded.

“Me!” she cried. “You stalked me, you scared me to death, you—”

“You, madame, nearly killed yourself running into my mare. After not only having deserted me, but having stolen my finest mount in the process.”

“I didn’t mean to steal him. I would have returned him.”

“And yourself?”

“I am not yours.”

“You are.”

“That’s debatable.”

“I say that it is not,” he told her softly.

She opened her mouth to argue with him anew, but at that very second another treacherous cloud chose to close over the moon. Darkness fell upon them and all that she could see was the startling silver flame of his eyes. She started to shiver.

He lifted away from her and she was stunned to find herself clinging to him. He freed himself from her grasp. “Hold, my love. I will build a fire.”

He was true to his word, and prepared with a striker and flint. She sat shivering by a tree while he gathered up tinder and logs and arranged them to his satisfaction. He struck hard with his flint upon the striker and drew sparks, and in seconds his tinder had caught, and soft flames began to rise, higher and higher. His face was caught in those flames, and then the glow fell over them both and lit up the darkness of the forest.

He had changed to come for her, she noted. He looked like a woodsman. Gone was the elegance of his customary attire, and even the more casual garb he sometimes wore upon his ship. Tonight he was clad in simple buckskin and cotton with a homespun cotton shirt beneath his jacket. His hair was still queued, but he had eschewed his wig. Despite his clean-shaven cheeks, she had never seen him look more like the Silver Hawk than he did that night, alone with her in the forest.

She started to shiver all over again, but then it had little or nothing to do with fear. She hugged her knees to her chin and watched him, her eyes wide with the night.

He came over to her and drew her gently close. She protested his touch, then gave in to it, leaning against him.

“Why did you come after me?” she asked him. “I would have been all right—”

“All right? Like hell, madame! I found you because Storm came tearing out of the woods. You’re not even heading in the right general direction!”

“That’s because I got lost. I would have found—”

“You were in sheer terror before you ever came thrashing into my horse. And now we’re both stuck out here because that stupid mare will run like the blazes home and Storm will break his tether to follow her back. Leave it to a fool stallion to go racing after a female.”

“Just as you run after me?”

He gazed at her sharply. She was too weary, and still trembling too fiercely, to seek a fight. He smiled slowly. “Just as I race after you, milady.” He paused, finding a tousled tendril of her hair to smooth back. “Why did you run?”

“I had to,” she murmured simply.

He left her standing, finding another log to set upon the fire. For the longest time he was still, tall before her. She had tried to escape him, but now he was her barrier against the night, and she was glad of him there. She spoke softly. “I—I needed to find my father.”

He cocked his head for a moment, listening to something. Then he came back beside her. “I am worried about your father myself. I would have taken you first thing tomorrow morning to Williamsburg by carriage.”

“Tomorrow morning,” she murmured uneasily.

He reached out, touching her cheek. “You were in such horror of me that you were willing to brave the darkness rather than my touch?”

A flush came to her features. She drew her face from his finger, lowered her eyes. “No…I…no.”

“Then?”

“I—I—”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not. I don’t know what to say to make you understand. I—I don’t hate you.”

“Well, we’ve nothing here,” he murmured, drawing to his feet once again. “I brought food in my saddlebags, but that is gone now. We can snare something if you like. And there is water nearby. I can hear the brook.”

“You can?” She tilted her head, listening. She could hear nothing.

He nodded. “Trust me, madame. I was not bred to the city. I can hear the water plainly.”

“How close?”

“Very close.”

He reached down to her. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

She rose as he helped her. Despite herself, she looked longingly to the fire. “Don’t worry,” he told her. “We will not let the flames get too far behind us. You will see the light.”

She cocked her head with disbelief, a rueful smile tugging at her lips. “Couldn’t we…walk toward Williamsburg?” she asked him.

He shook his head. “It would take us hours and hours afoot, and with these clouds, it is a dark night indeed.”

“You intend that we should stay here—in the forest?”

“We will be safe. The fire will burn throughout the night.”

They had left the fire behind then, but he was right, she could still see its glow. He wouldn’t leave it too far, she thought; he would not risk the forest in flames. He knew his way here, just as he did upon the sea.

“Hold up,” he told her softly, stopping before her. He had her hand. She came around beside him and saw that the flames and the moonglow just touched upon the water. It made a slight bubbling sound as it ran toward the river.

“Oh!” she murmured, thinking that it looked delicious. She knelt down by the water’s edge and cupped handfuls of the clean clear liquid to drink. He came to his knees beside her, throwing it over his face, drinking as deeply as she. When Skye was done, she fell away from it, lying upon the mossy slope. It was all right. The moon was freed from the clouds. Stars shone. She could feel the coolness of the brook, and the warmth of the fire.

And he was with her. She was not alone.

Not alone at all. He lay at her side upon an elbow and idly chewed upon a blade of grass. He watched her intently, she knew. He dropped the blade of grass and touched her cheek. She did not draw away.

“Why the darkness?” he asked her softly.

She flushed. “No one knew of it at all,” she murmured. “Except for Father and Mattie, and Gretel, my housemaid at school.”

“Why?” he persisted.

She shook her head, lowering her lashes and flushing. “It’s so silly really. Not silly, but frustrating that I cannot get over it. It isn’t a reasonable fear. It closes in upon me and I begin to panic, and then I have no control at all.”

“Why are you so afraid?”

She hesitated a moment longer and then sighed. After all that she had brought upon him, she probably owed him something so simple as an explanation. “Father owns a lot of land,” she said. “He had property up in the northern country.”

“Iroquois country?” he asked her.

She nodded. “I was very young then. No more than five. My mother was supposed to have been very beautiful. She was no great lady, but a colonial tavern wench, and my father defied his own parents and tradition to marry her, she swore that she would love him all her life, and follow him to the ends of the earth.” She hesitated a moment. “She was warmth and beauty and energy. I will never forget her.”

“You loved her very much.”

“Yes. Yes…well, she followed Father when he came to see this northern land in Iroquois country. Father was out with his surveyor; Mother and I were in a little cabin alone. We had only one servant with us, and Mother was singing and humming, as happy as a sparrow not to have to remember her manners and that she was a lady. Then suddenly she quit humming, and she shoved me into a little trapdoor where they stored wine and ale in the summer to chill it. It was very small, and it was black, and it was made of earth, and the smell of dirt was stifling.”

She hesitated, gasping for breath, finding it difficult to breathe all over again. She hated the weakness, hated to betray it to anyone, but he knew about it. Her father had married her to him without her consent. He had surely warned him about the darkness, and had Theo not told him, she knew that this man would have discovered it on his own.

“What happened?” he persisted.

She shook her head. “She warned me not to make a sound. Then I heard noises as if the whole place had caved in, and then I heard her screaming. I peeked out. I saw the Indians coming for her. Perhaps they wouldn’t have hurt her; perhaps she fought too desperately. I fell back against the earth, terrified at the sight of them. They were painted; a war party. I didn’t see anymore. I just kept hearing the screams. Then they found the trapdoor. One of them was looking in at me, laughing. He was bald and painted with a thatch of hair, and his hands were covered with blood when he reached for me. Father came back and shot him. He fell on top of me, and the door closed and we were locked in the darkness together with his blood streaming over the both of us. I suppose that it wasn’t that long before Father dragged us out, but it seemed like forever.”

“And they killed your mother?”

She shook her head. “She took her own life rather than let them capture her,” she whispered. “She—she loved Father. That’s why I cannot understand why—” She broke off, not wanting to say anything bitter when he was being so decent to her, and when she was pouring out her heart to him.

“You can’t understand why he forced you to marry me?”

“I can’t understand why he would force me to marry anyone.” She stared up at him hopefully. She had never really spoken to him before, not with any sincerity. Not as a possible friend. “Roc, please tell me, this thing cannot be legal!”

He shook his head. He seemed almost sad, as if she had his sympathy. “It is legal,” he said. She fell back against the earth. “Why is it so horrid. I am not a monster.”

“I did not say that you were. I just—” She hesitated. “I cannot make you understand.”

He was quiet for long moments. She heard the brook as it gently danced alongside them. She felt the fire, warm against the flesh on her face. She was absurdly comfortable, and not at all afraid of the night anymore. He was there, beside her.

“Tell me, did you fall in love with my rogue cousin?”

“Of course not!” she argued, jumping up. “He—he was a pirate. I—I told you—”

“Ah, yes. He was cruel and horrible and forceful. You must despise him terribly.” The same cloud that came to cover the moon dropped enigmatic shadows upon his eyes. He looked up at her curiously. Words caught in her throat. “Of…course.”

He smiled suddenly, reaching out to her. “Come back here. Lie down. It’s comfortable upon the earth, and I will just hold you until morning.”

“I—I—” she stuttered, but she had no choice, for he wound a foot about her ankle and jerked upon it and she came sprawling down to the earth. She sputtered in protest, but he halfway rolled atop her, laughing, and then he pulled her against him upon the soft mosses. “It’s all right,” he said softly. Her head rested upon his shoulder. His hands held her close to his body. His long hard frame curved around her back, like a living wall of security.

She smiled, curiously thrilled by the words. She didn’t need to face him, and so she closed her eyes.

“Umm,” she murmured. “You were ready to hand me right over to a pirate for being trouble.”

“You are trouble,” he agreed.

She did not dispute him. She closed her eyes, and slept in the wilderness, content to do so with him near.

As daylight came, she dreamed, and yet it was real. There were sun rays breaking through the leaves and trees, and she could hear the tinkle and melody of water.

The lagoon…

She lay by the water, with the Silver Hawk. She could feel the warmth of the sun and breathe the fragrance of the earth.

She could feel her lover’s hands upon her, stirring and provocative as they had always been. She could feel the heat of his breath at her nape and the tender stroke of his fingers over her breasts. She could feel the length of his body, hard and as hot as molten steel.

She lay there in her web of melody and sound and sensation, a dreamer in her distant paradise. His hand shifted, slipping beneath her shirt. His fingers stroked a fantastic dance upon the bare flesh of her thigh, and formed over the soft tender curve of her derriere. She murmured, and she would have turned to him to cast her arms around him, but he held her still. His touch was no longer gentle but demanding as his hands latched firmly upon her hips. Then she gasped, startled by the searing steel rod of his sex thrusting deeply into her. “Shh!” his whisper came to her, and he held her tight. The world erupted into life and vibrance and sweet fury. He moved against her with the force of the wind and waves, with the driving, undaunted tempest of a storm at sea. It swept her by surprise, but it enwrapped her completely in its splendor. It raged within and around her, and it left her crying out softly, reaching for the sunlight, reaching ever higher for a grasp of rapture. It exploded upon her, as sweet as silken drops of sugarcane, filling her limbs, her body, her very center with warm liquid ecstasy. She trembled and felt him, groaning and shuddering, and holding her fast one last moment as his body surged into hers, seeming to touch the length and breadth of her in one sweep of magic.

Then he fell still. His hand rested upon her naked thigh, exposed beneath her skirts.

She opened her eyes and heard the delicate sound of the brook. She looked up and saw the trees, and she felt his limbs entangled with hers still, the life and pulse of him within her still.…

He withdrew from her, and she felt him adjust his breeches; she felt the buckskin next to her naked rump.

It was no dream.

She turned with fury to face her husband. His eyes were open, lazy silver daggers that touched upon her with satisfaction and pleasure and masculine triumph.

“Oh!” she screamed, wrenching free her skirts from beneath him, struggling and scrambling to her feet to right her clothing. He rested upon an elbow, completely and respectably clad. “How could you!” she sputtered.

The cloud fell over his eyes. “How could I, madame? Indeed, how have I waited this long?”

“But you knew—” She broke off.

“I knew what?”

“You knew that I wanted no part of you!”

“Oh?” His casual air left him as he sprang to his feet, lithe and agile as a cat. His hands upon his hips, he faced her. “I beg your pardon, wife. I did not hear you scream in protest, nor feel your hands upon me in any fight. Would you like to know what I did hear, what I did feel? Just this, milady. Soft sweet moans coming from your lips. The jut and rhythmic sway of your hips against my own. A lush sweet cry of pleasure escaping from your lips.”

“You did—not!” Skye protested furiously.

He arched a brow in stunned surprise. “This was deadly force?”

“Yes!” she cried too quickly. His eyes instantly narrowed and his voice took on the gravel of demand.

“Is this something like the force that the awful and despicable pirate used against you?”

She gasped aloud and stepped forward, slapping with all the strength that she could muster. He allowed her hand to fall across his face, but then he swept her hard against him, threading his fingers into her hair with a cruel grip and setting his lips upon hers with fire and determination. She struggled and squirmed and fought him and he held her still to his pleasure, coercing in his touch as well as demanding, filling her with his fire until it burned between the two of them and she went limp in his arms, lacking the power to fight him any longer.

He broke away from her and his tongue just teased her lips, then his mouth fell against her eyelids in a gentle touch. He lifted her chin and whispered, “The next time, milady, I will make sure that there is no mistaken identity on your part beforehand. The kiss will come first. And you will face me with your eyes open, and you will whisper my name.”

“There will not be a next time!” she cried.

“I say that there will be.”

She shook her head, no longer fighting his hold, but suddenly and fiercely close to tears. “I cannot make you understand!”

“No, you cannot, I fear, my love.”

“Don’t you see!” she demanded desperately, and the tears did spill over her lashes. He frowned, as serious as she, taut and straight with tension. “What?” he demanded.

She wrenched away from him, turning aside, and spoke in a broken whisper. “I will not be able to bear it, and neither should you, if I—if I carried a child now. I would not know if it belonged to the pirate or the lord, and still, sir, I should love it! And you would despise me…don’t you see?” she repeated.

He was silent for a long, long time. She turned at last, and was stunned by the anguish that seemed to touch his features.

The look was quickly gone. He reached out to her, and then his hand fell away. He sighed, then bowed to her.

“Milady, I will not disturb you again,” he said quietly, and then he turned away from her. “Come on. Williamsburg should not be more than a few hours’ walk by daylight.”