By the Bay (9 page)

Her tiny view on the world was showing her the darkness of a starless night by the time the knock came again at her door and instead of the thin piping of a pre-pubescent lad, she heard Philippe’s mellow tones.

Though tempted to leave him cooling his heels outside, she was too bored to run the risk that he might leave and hurried to unlock the door.

And there he stood, looking delicious and awful at the same time. Awful because his eyes were bloodshot and his face drawn with exhaustion. Delicious because in spite of fatigue and strain, he was still the most gorgeous male she’d seen short of a motion picture screen. And everybody knew those guys wore makeup.

She sniffed as he walked past her, discerning the rich scent of spirits hovering about his person.

“You’ve been drinking,” she accused, then listened with interest as he indulged in a lengthy string of French words that she was fairly sure involved some very colorful swearing.

“Of course I’ve been drinking. Everybody has been drinking. We have celebrated the wedding.”

“Everybody but the bride,” she pointed out, letting some of the steam that had been building up inside her for the past long hours escape
into words
.
“She’s just been sitting around staring at the walls.”

“No sickness?”

“Hey, I grew up on the Gulf. Getting seasick isn’t in my blood.”

He smiled. “I am very grateful. It would be sad to watch you suffer while we sail
ed
the oceans.”

“Oceans? As in plural, more than one?”

“
Absolutely
, the captain and his beautiful wife.”

“I thought women weren’t allowed on pirate ships.”

“Only
my wife
.” He smiled and moved past her to sit on the bed, reclining against the pillows.

“Where have you been?”

“Calming things down. We’ve just survived a mutiny.”

“Does that mean you’re not a good captain and got fired?”

“Fired?” He looked puzzled. “A man called Lightning Jack, who has been stirring up trouble since the day he was born managed to get hold of most of our arsenal and with a small group of men, now in
irons
, he saw to it that I was deposited on your island without food or water.”

She stared at him. “But there’s
little
but sand on the island. That and a few
tiny
crabs, too small to make much of a meal.”

“I would have died there so I found my way across the bay one dark night and washed up by that pier just down from your mother’s cottage.” He took in a deep breath. “The problem was that when I left the island it was 1814 and when you found me there, I soon learned I’d landed in 1942.”

She hardly knew what to say. This was ridiculous, impossible, scientifically unreasonable, but she could hardly say so considering that her own experience seemed to have reversed
his own.

“And so we’re now back in 814?”

He nodded.

“And you brought me because you thought I was in danger?”

“I knew you were in danger. Shadows hung over you.”

“In 1942, in the modern world, we don’t believe in such things as shadows and premonitions and things like that.”

“No,” he countered. “You just believe in a whole world at war.”

She couldn’t think of a good answer to that, but made an attempt anyway. “Oh, no, you just have pirates
sailing around
out in the Gulf of Mexico for goodness sake!  And I’m a history major, I know there was a war in this country in 1812 when the British attacked Washington and Dolly Madison had to save
George
Washington’s portrait when
the British burned the White House.”

He stared at her. “It isn’t over yet. They massed their ships in the
Caribbean
and came prepared to take New Orleans and divide your country in half by taking back the land Napoleon sold to your president.”

She wasn’t a history major for nothing. “You mean the whole Louisiana purchase?”

He raised his black eyebrows challengingly. “The British offered the Barataria
ns
a bargain to bring their ships, arms and men into the battle on their side.”

“What’s a Baratarian?”

“They are us, the privateers who live
on Grande Terre Island just off Barataria Bay not far from New Orleans.
They wanted to approach
the city
through our bayous led by my friend
Lafitte
. Jean played cat and mouse with them and
seemed to agree
, then went to the Americans. He offered our help to the country we considered our own and in return they came to Grande Terre, to our home, and captured our leaders, took our treasure, and burned our homes.

“That is why I was on your coast. Lightning Jack to
ok
adv
a
ntage of the chaos to take over my ship and my men and sail them down the coast to abandon me on your island.”

It was the wildest story she’d ever heard. “But everybody knows that Andrew Jackson defeated the British at the battle of New Orleans and that Jean
Lafitte
and his pirates helped him.”

“That scene has not been played out yet.
Who knows what will happen now? But it
is
essential that I get back here and do my part.”

She frowned. Odd, she hadn’t thought of him as a patriot. He had seemed more attached to his home country than to the new United States. He seemed to have little concept of the U.S. as a place, but then it had been independent for less than half a century in his experience.

Funny. She half closed her eyes looking at him. How could she be at the same time conscious of such things and at the same time tingling with awareness of him. She’d never been silly about boys like some girls, but had tended to develop crushes on distant, unavailable figures like movie stars or high school teachers, men who never even knew she was alive and here she was going all romantic over somebody she hardly knew.

She felt foolish and strangely happy at the same time as an itching of guilt for leaving her mother alone and sick twitched at her mind.

“You’re going back to fight for the United States?” she blurted o
u
t the question.

He sat up. “I go back to fight with my friends from
Grande Terre
and to fight against the British, who are the enemies of my country
.”

“You sound like those people who always
vote
against in any election. You know, I can’t stand Hoover or Roosevelt, not I’m for Hoover or Roosevelt.”

He stared at her without comprehension.

“Never mind,” she said. “You look exhausted.
You need to sleep.”

He stared at her, then, obedient as a little child, lay back down and fell almost instantly asleep.

At first she was irked and sat and thought about how angry she was with him for some minutes. Finally though, she yawned, and
knowing
it was the middle of the night, went over to crawl on to the edge of the bed he didn’t occupy,
and
reminding herself that he had only married her to keep her safe from the pirates, was soon asleep and dreaming.

Chapter Eleven

After several hours of much needed sleep, Philippe came fully and sharply awake. It was part of his lifestyle that he could sleep on demand and wake alert, qualities that contributed to his staying alive in his hazardous profession.

Wondering what had awakened him, he listened to the sounds of the ship, felt the motion through the water, and assured himself that all was well and they were on course toward home.
Though he’d been born and spent his first few years elsewhere, home for Philippe
de
Beauvois was the city of New Orleans.

The girl at his side stirred in her sleep and complete awareness suddenly overcame him.
Jillian, the sweet Texas girl whom he’d kidnapped as surely as any pirate had ever stolen maiden. In the world he normally inhabited, he did not have to steal women. He was a favorite among the women he knew, the women of the demi-mo
de
, beautiful and assured and accustomed to choosing the men they wanted and who would best serve their interest. Now this was something different.

To Philippe, a man from a harsh world, who had few true friends, a woman was another being, not someone he could understand and love beyond even himself.

In a few days, Jillian Blake had turned that around so that he had not been able to leave her behind to face a vague and terrible danger without him. And though it was true as he told her that marriage would stamp her as his property to be violated by any man at risk of his life, the very fact that she was presented to the crew as his woman would have done the same.

The fact was that he wanted to make her his own and had done so with the shipboard wedding.
It was beyond his imagining that she might consider the marriage as less binding than he did. For Philippe a wedding conducted by a ship’s captain in
front
of his crew was as firmly tied as it would have been by a priest in a church. He was a God-fearing man, but one
who
had little opportunity in his life to spend around priests or preachers or in churches.

Now in that world that lies between night and day, he reached for her and pulled her into his arms. She was delicately built, long and slender, her curves fitting against his body with a
perfect
rightness. He moved one hand along her breast, then tickling downward even as she shivered. He closed his mouth against her and she straightened in surprise as she came awake. She didn’t struggle, but grew still as though coming to terms with where she was and who he was and then her mouth relaxed and began to respond, hesitantly at first then with real ardor.

Afterwards they lay tangled together, her legs caught within his, and he felt that in spite of everything going on including the destruction of
his home on Grande Terre
, nothing much could be
wrong
as long as they were in each others arms. A man had to believe in a greater purpose to life, he thought, when love like this could exist.

Soon morning would come and he must be
up
on deck to deal with crew members who would put a knife in his back if they were only brave enough and others who trusted their lives to his management each day, but for this moment there was only him and Jillian and a love that would keep them sane through life’s terrors. As long as she was at his side, he could do anything. He was more of a man because of the woman she was.

Her expression was dreamy, her eyes closed and he wondered if she felt as blissful as he did.

“Philippe,” she whispered.

“Yes, dearest?”

“You really need to teach me to fire a gun. I mean, your kind of gun whatever it is. Uncle
Owen
taught me to shoot a
twenty two
when I was just a little girl, but I don’t figure there are many of those around her
e
.”

This was so unexpected that it took him a few seconds to take it in.  “You wish to shoot me?”

She chuckled softly and rested her head against his bare chest. “Never, my darling, but somehow I don’t feel exactly safe in the company we’re keeping. They’re all bigger and
stronger
than me and a whole lot fiercer. I’m sure some of them are really nice guys at heart . . .”

“Really nice guys,” he agreed, choking with laughter, “though perhaps sensitivity to women is not their most significant quality.”

She cuddled against him and the conversation was stopped by a long kiss. When it was finished, she pulled back only slightly. “About the gun thing,” she reminded him. “I’d feel a whole lot better if I could defend myself.”

“I will keep you safe.”

“I’m sure you will do your best,” she agreed.”

He sighed. She was right. He lived a dangerous life. If he were killed, she must have a weapon and the skill to use it.

“In the morning,” he said. “I will teach you
.”

She rewarded him with a kiss, he returned the kiss and soon they were making love again.

In the morning with the whole crew pretending not to be paying attention, he taught her the basics of loading and firing
his pistol
.
Surprisingly she was not a bad shot and would get better with continued practice. He decided it would be a
good
thing for the crew to witness that practice.

It was
needful
for his men to respect him as captain, but it didn’t hurt for them to respect the captain’s lady as well.

Chapter Twelve

Florence
didn’t know what to do about her sister. Nobody else, not even their friend the police chief, had taken her fears about Jillian’s safety seriously, other than
Owen
.