Caribbee Part 50

"If you'd care to tether your frolicking horse, Captain, we can walk around to the other side."

"Why don't we swim it?" He pulled his mount alongside hers and dropped onto the sand, his eyes suddenly sparkling. While the horse nuzzled curiously at the salty wetness on its legs, he collected the reins and kneeled down to begin hobbling it. "Can you make it that far?"

"Have you gone mad from the heat!" They were alone, miles from anything. He was all hers now, no gunnery mates, no seamen. To swim!

What a sensible . . . no, romantic idea.

He laughed and began to tie a leather thong to her mare's forelegs.

"Katy, you should know better than to try being coy with me. I'll wager you can swim like a fish. You probably learned for no other reason than it's not ladylike." He finished with the mare and rose up, facing her.

His face was like fine leather against the blue of the sky. "Besides, I think I'd like seeing you out of that bodice."

"Remember, you're not on your quarterdeck today, so I needn't harken to your every wish." She slipped her hands beneath his jerkin and ran them slowly across the muscles on his sides. The feel of him reminded her of their first night together. As she ran her fingers upward, toward his shoulders, his lips came down to hers.

"You might get used to it if you tried it once." His voice was almost a whisper. As he kissed her he wrapped her in his arms and deftly pulled the knot at the base of her bodice. "So get yourself out of this thing and let's try the water." He wiggled the laces open and slipped it over her head. She wore nothing beneath, and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s emerged milky-white in the sunshine. He paused to examine her, then continued, "Why stand about in this heat when there's a cool lagoon waiting?"

He stepped away, slipped off his jerkin, and tossed it across his saddle. He was reaching down to unbuckle his boots when she stopped him. She dropped to her knees, slipped her hands around his waist, and nuzzled her face against his thighs. Then she released him and bent down. "Let me unbuckle your boots."

"What?"

"I enjoy doing things for you sometimes."

He seemed startled; she'd suspected he wouldn't like it. But he didn't pull away. "Come on then." He quickly stepped out of the boots. As she laid them against the trunk of the palm, she noticed they were still smeared with powder residue from that day at the Jamestown breastwork.

"We're going to see how far around this island we can swim. Pretend that's an official order from the quarterdeck." He pulled his pistols from his waist and secured them on his saddle. Then he unbuckled his belt and glanced at her. "I don't know about you, but 1 don't plan to try it in my breeches." He solemnly began slipping off his canvas riding trousers.

She watched for a moment, then reached for the waist of her skirt.

She found herself half wishing he couldn't see her like this, plain and in the sunlight. She liked her body, but would he? Would he notice that her legs were a trifle too slim? Or that her stomach wasn't as round as it should be?

Now he was leading the way down the incline toward the lagoon. The white sand was a warm, textured cushion against their bare feet as they waded into the placid waters. Around the island, on the windward side, the waves crashed against the sh.o.r.e, but here the lagoon remained serene. As she noticed the brisk wind against her skin, she suddenly didn't care what he thought. She felt like the most beautiful woman alive.

When she was younger, she could ride and shoot as well as any lad on the island; then one day she awoke to find herself cloaked in a prison of curves and bulges, with a litany in her ears about all the things she wasn't supposed to be seen doing anymore. It infuriated her. Why did men have things so much easier?

Like Winston. He moved the same way he handled his flintlock pistols, with a thoughtless poise. As he walked now, his shoulders were slightly forward and his broad back seemed to balance his stride. But, even more, she loved the hard rhythm of his haunches, trim and rippled with muscles. She stopped to watch as he splashed into the shallows.

G.o.d forgive me, she thought, how I do adore him. What I'd most like right now is just to enfold him, to capture him in my arms. And never let . . .

Good G.o.d, what am I saying?

The water was deliciously cool, and it deepened quickly. Before she knew, she felt the rhythm of the waves against her thighs.

"Katy, the time has come." He turned back and admired her for a second, then thumped a spray of water across her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "Let's see if you really can swim." Abruptly he leaned forward, dipped one shoulder, and stroked powerfully. The curves of his body blended with the ripples as he effortlessly glided across the surface. A startled triggerfish darted past, orange in the sun. He stroked again, then yelled over his shoulder, "I'm still not sure I can always believe everything you say."

"Nor I you, Hugh. Though truly you say little enough." She leaned into the water, fresh and clean against her face. She gave a kick and another stroke and she was beside him. The sea around them seemed a world apart from the bondage of convention. He was right for wanting to swim. "So today, to repay me for showing you this spot, I want you to tell me everything, all the things you've been holding back."

"Unlike you, who's held nothing back? Like this island and what it means to you?"

She just ignored him, the best way to handle Hugh when he was like this, and stroked again, staying even, the taste of salt on her lips.

The white sands of the sh.o.r.eline were gliding past now, and behind them the palms nodded lazily in the sun. Then she rolled over and kicked, drifting through the blue. He rolled over too and reached to take her hand. They slid across the surface together as one body.

She was lost in the quiet and calm, almost dreaming, when she saw his face rise up. "How far can you see from those rocks up there?" He was pointing toward the craggy rise in the center of the island. "I'd like to go up after a while and have a look."

"You want to know everything about this place. All at once. Is that the only thing you care about?"

"Not quite." He pulled next to her. "I'll grant you've proved you can swim. And d.a.m.ned well." He smiled wryly. "It's doubtless a good thing to know how to do. We may all be needing to swim out of here soon, G.o.d help us."

"Not a word, remember your promise." Her eyes flashed as she flung a handful of water. Then she looked past him, at the white sand and the line of green palms. "Let's go ash.o.r.e for a while. That spot up there, at the trees--it's too beautiful to pa.s.s."

The afternoon sun had begun to slant from the west as they waded out onto the sparkling sand, his arm circled around her waist. The breeze urged a sprightly nip against their skin. "Hugh, I love you. Truly."

She leaned against him to feel his warmth. "I don't know what I should do."

He was subdued and quiet as they stepped around a gleaming pile of sh.e.l.ls. Then he stopped and quietly enfolded her in his arms. "It's only fair to tell you I've never before felt about a woman the way I feel about you." He kissed her softly. "The troubling part is, I ought to know better."

He turned and led her on in silence, till they reached the shade of a low palm. She dropped down onto the gra.s.s and watched him settle beside her. A large conch sh.e.l.l lay nearby, like a petrified flower. She picked it up and held it toward the sun, admiring its iridescent colors, then tossed it back onto the gra.s.s and looked at him. "I meant it when I said I wanted you to tell me everything."

He glanced up and traced his fingertips across the gentle curve at the tops of her white b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "Are you sure you want to hear it?"

"Yes, I do." She thought she detected a softness in his eyes, almost a yielding.

He leaned back in the gra.s.s. "I guess you think there's a lot to tell, yet somehow it all adds up to nothing. To lying here under a palm, on an empty island, with a price on my head in England and little to show for all the years." He looked out to sea and shaded his eyes as he studied a sail at the horizon. "It seems I'm something different to everybody. So which story do you want to hear?"

"Why not try the real one?" She pushed him onto his back and raised on her elbow to study his face. It was certainly older than its years.

"Why won't you ever tell me about what happened when you first came out here? What was it about that time that troubles you so much?"

"It's not a pretty tale. Before I came, I never even thought much about the New World." He smiled at the irony of it now. "It all started when I was apprenticed and shipped out to the Caribbean for not being royalist enough."

"Where to?"

"Well . . ." He paused automatically, then decided to continue. "In truth it was Tortuga. Back when the Providence Company had a settlement on the island."

"But wasn't that burned out by the Spaniards? We all heard about it. I thought everybody there was killed. How did you survive?"

"As it happens, I'd been sort of banished by then. Since I didn't get along too well with the Puritans there, they'd sent

me over to the north side of Hispaniola, to hunt. Probably saved my life. That's where I was when the Spaniards came."

"On Hispaniola?" She stared at him. "Do you mean to say you were once one of . . ."

"The Cow-Killers." It was said slowly and casually. He waited to see how she would respond, but there was only a brief glimmer of surprise in her eyes.

"Then what some people say is true. I'd never believed it till now."

She laughed. "I suppose I should be shocked, but I'm not."

He smiled guardedly. "Well, in those days they only hunted cattle.

Until toward the last." He paused a moment, then looked at her sharply.

"But, yes, that's who I was with. However, Katy, don't credit quite everything you may hear about me from the Walronds."

"But you left them. At least that tells me something about you." She held his hand lightly against her lips. The calluses along the palm were still soft from the water. "Why did you finally decide to go?"

He pulled her next to him and kissed her on the mouth, twice. Then he ran his fingers down her body, across her smooth waist, till he reached the mound of light chestnut hair at her thighs. "I've never told anyone, Katy. I'm not even sure I want to tell you now." He continued with his fingertips, on down her skin.