I intend to keep Kells away from her! thought Carolina. Aloud she said, "Why should I do anything about her?"
"Because," Penny pointed out with slow deliberation, "it is apparent to one and all that you fancy Don Diego."
"Yes. I fancy him." That much at least she could admit!
"So how do you plan to wrest him from Dona Jimena's arms? By making him jealous of Don Ramon?" And when Carolina turned to her with a gasp, Penny chuckled.
"Don't imagine that you can keep secrets here in Havana, Carol. Over at the governor's palace the servants talk of little else. It seems you took the town by storm when you strolled through it yesterday-and Don Ramon squired you about, took you to a tavern, and bought you a new pair of shoes!" She cast her eyes about and saw the high red heels peeking out from under the bed. "And very good-looking they are, too. I must remember to tell the governor that his wife's shoes don't quite fit me." Her throaty laugh bubbled. "Perhaps we will use the same bootmaker, Carol!"
Carolina gave her sister a wan smile. Usually it was a delight to talk to brash, lighthearted Penny-but not today. Today she had more important matters on her mind.
"Do you think you could get me a truly sheer chemise?" she asked. "The governor's wife must have had several in this climatel"
"Oh, I'm sure I can," sparkled Penny. "And if I can't find one in her trunks, I'll filch one from Marina."
"Don't get into trouble," warned Carolina.
Penny shrugged. "I've been in trouble all my life," she said carelessly. "It's really too late to do anything about it now."
Carolina supposed that was true. The Penny she had known at Level Green was gone and in her place was this worldly amusing stranger, this-yes, she might as well face it-this courtesan. Penny had been right when she had described herself. She was not born to faithfulness-she was born to lie in the arms of many men. And love it.
"What will you do, Penny, if you ever find a man you really want?" she asked soberly.
Penny's dark blue gaze mocked her, but her voice was suddenly as hard as steel.
"Why, then I will take him," she drawled. "And nothing-nothing will stand in my way."
So Penny was still searching for that love she had never found-and might never find.
Carolina's face was wistful as she watched her sister depart.
That night at dinner she was on her best behavior. She chatted with Don Diego-whom she now was certain was Kells even though he himself did not know it-she showed her pretty teeth winsomely as she smiled, she agreed with everything he said, she urged on him more wine.
She hoped that she was making a good impression, and it seemed to her eerie that she should be thinking such thoughts about her own husband, a man who knew her as well-sometimes, she thought, better-than she knew herself.
She was very careful not to bring up the subject of Spain, to speak only of recent happenings in Havana as reported to her by old Juana, who was a veritable mine of information.
The man across from her was watching her warily. She guessed he was wondering what had transformed this tempestuous wench into so pliable a companion. In truth he was marveling at her beauty, admiring the way she held her spoon as she daintily ate her flan. And he was wondering why there was such an odd tug to his heartstrings at the very sound of her voice. There was something about her that tantalized him, drew him. Something more than sex. Although he remembered no women before Havana-indeed, nothing of his past life-he felt an easiness in women's company that told him that many of them had succumbed to his charms.
So what was different about this girl whose eyes flashed silver and whose hair was gold in the candle-light? She had lain in his arms but once-and that time under a misapprehension that he was somebody else-yet he had felt an almost overpowering flash of jealousy at the thought that she had let Don Ramon buy her a pair of shoes.
How could the wench have got her hooks into him so quickly? he was asking himself-and she a buccaneer's woman at that! For as a caballero of Spain, he had only scorn for the buccaneers. They were outside the law, outside the true faith-and this woman had been one of them. He must watch his step with her.
But tonight Carolina was all wiles, all femininity. She sat long at table and finally yawned delicately and said it had been a long day-she must to bed. And graciously she thanked him for the shoes again, stretching out her foot so that he might admire them and showing a length of pretty ankle and calf as she did so.
Up the stairs, past the tinkling fountain she went-there to don the sheer black chemise that Penny had smuggled over to her this afternoon. It was a trifle too large but that did not matter-what mattered was that it was almost transparent, and in the candlelight the pale pink tips of her breasts glowed through it rosily, her slim hips and long slender legs were richly displayed through its rippling length, and the lace around the hem caressed her ankles.
On tiptoe now she stole down to Don Diego's front bedroom and threw back the coverlet. She lay down on the bed, carefully arranging the chemise so that it was pulled up enough to display one gleaming bare leg. She sat up and beat the pillow into submission, then she tossed out her long hair so that it would stream out around her like the radiance of the sun-she did it twice to make sure she had it right. She lay there with out flung arms, one leg drawn up so that a white knee glimmered.
And waited.
Don Diego did not linger downstairs long. Presently she heard his light step ascending the stair and for a moment her stomach muscles tensed. Then she reminded herself sternly that this was her husband who was about to enter the room, and why should she fear him? Certainly he had offered her no hurt!
The door was flung open and Don Diego, entering fast, came to a full stop and stood there staring at her. Carolina moved slightly, luxuriously, every motion an invitation.
"I am tired of sleeping alone," she pouted.
The dark brows rose, but the gray eyes considering her narrowed. "I have told you, Mistress Lightfoot, that I will not substitute in your arms for another man. Now-"
"But I want only you," she said beseechingly. "I have been thinking about it all through dinner. Surely you find me attractive-your eyes have told me that"
"I find you damnably attractive," he said reluctantly.
"Well, then?" She shrugged, and that slight motion rippled her breasts deliciously.
The sheer chemise seemed a gossamer cloud about her enticing nakedness. Her hips swayed a little in anticipation, her breath came quickly, her eyes had darkened with desire. He could not miss the sincerity of her passion. Her voice had gone husky. "I promise to think of no one but you," she said, and there was a richness in the way she said it that brought a slight flush to his cheeks. God, the wench was inviting, lying there!
In silence, devouring her with his eyes, he took off his clothes. In silence, joined her.
In silence, wrapped his arms about her and kissed her lips, her breasts, her silken stomach, the triangle of golden hair at the base of her hips. He kissed her knees, her elbows, her shoulders, her throat.
And then he moved luxuriously and single-mindedly above her, took her soft rounded buttocks in his hands and pressed her body tightly against his-and with his first thrust brought a soft moan of joy from her lips.
He smiled down at her-so young, so willing, so wonderfully responsive to his every move. It was as if they had made love before, sweetly and often, for she fit into his arms as if formed for them alone.
She did not speak. In silence she shared his joy, his wonder as their bodies moved and swayed softly against each other, and the linen sheet rasped lightly against the smooth skin of her back-for her chemise had somehow come down and her breasts were bare to his gaze. Indeed it had ridden up as well so that it lay across her slender waist like a sheer lacy scarf, forgotten by them both.
Her hands caressed him as she moved to his rhythm, her lips moved against his chest, her back arched to bring her closer to him and she seemed to hear singing, impossibly sweet, as all the familiar glory of her love for this man returned to remind her of how it had been between them.
What matter that he did not know who he was or that they had made love before on countless starlit nights? He was here and he was hers again-and he was falling in love with her; that much she had already guessed.
And then passion swept her up on stormy wings and she soared with him to shimmering heights to an explosive world licked by the flames of desire-c-and fulfillment. And at last she descended reluctantly to the real world of sheets and bedstead and found him smiling down at her.
"You are a wonder," he murmured. "How well you fit into my arms!" It was on the tip of her tongue to say, I always did! But she refrained. "Do you think it would shock the servants if I stayed here for the night?" she asked with mock innocence.
He laughed. "I think they expect it!"
She studied him through seductive lashes. "And what will the governor think when he hears?" "I think he will be delighted," her lover said cryptically.
Although his daughter will be less so! Carolina was thinking with satisfaction. She did not voice the thought. "So we are pleasing everybody," she said. "Most of all ourselves."
There was a smile on his face as he turned over and went to sleep.
The next week was a sort of bittersweet honey-moon for Carolina. No longer did he own her as his wife-but she had become his mistress.
And for her, lying in the scented darkness while he strained above her, it was enough.
She heard him explaining to the governor's daughter that he could not ride with her because his head wound bothered him-and smiled. She heard him give orders to Luz to tell Dona Jimena, if she called, that he was out-and her smile broadened.
Perhaps she had not won him yet, but she was winning him! For he could not seem to get enough of her perfumed body. They made love and then they would lie there companionably in the afterglow, talking about all manner of things. He spoke to her with pride of this handsome New World town of Havana, of the strength of its defenses. It was the pride of Spain speaking, and she never by word nor look let him know that he was not Spanish, that the pride he took was in enemy fortifications, that he would find himself hanging high if others learned about him what she already knew.
And then on Saturday she could stand it no longer. She waited until the house was dark and quiet and all the servants had gone to bed-for no one must hear what she was about to tell him. She let him make love to her and then she sat up and looked at him thoughtfully in the candlelight.
"I have something to tell you," she said. "And you would do well to listen for it is your life I hold in my hands."
He grinned at her. "You may have all of me, querida." And reached out again for her.
But this time she eluded him.
"First," she said, "tell me how Captain Juarez recognized you, for I am told that he found you dangling unconscious, tangled into the rigging of the Sea Wolf in Port Royal. He had never seen you before. How did he know it was you?"
"By my boots," he told her with an engaging grin, "since you're so interested. They were made for me especially by the King's bootmaker, and one of them had a message sewn into the side."
"They don't fit you very well," she scoffed, casting a glance at the scarlet-topped jackboots which he had so recently removed.
"Ah, that's because they were made up from an old pair that must not have fit me very well either," he countered. "It seems that I had left them at my bootmakers and their fit was duplicated."
"I'm surprised you didn't have them adjusted," she observed.
"And let the King of Spain know I didn't like his gift?" He laughed. "I'm rumored to be an ambitious man!"
"In Port Royal," she said slowly, "you had just had a new pair of boots made. We quarreled, and you stalked out in your old ones. I think I know what must have happened. When you took the Santo Domingo, the salt air must finally have done in your boots-and you put on the boots of a dead man. Don Diego Vivar."
Her words hung between them like an accusation.
"So we are back to that, are we?" he said grimly.
"Kells, listen to me." Her voice was low and urgent. "I have been married to you, I know you well. There is not a mark on your body that I do not know. I can tell you how you got that scar on your wrist-and that one along your side. They were both in defense of me."
"You have not explained how I speak Spanish so well, nor why the ways of a Spanish caballero are second nature to me," he said harshly.
"You lived in Spain for a time. In Salamanca. You told me all about it. It was there you learned to hate the Spaniards. It was really because of what happened to you in Salamanca that you became a buccaneer! Oh, Kells, you must escape from here-you are in deadly danger! At any time one of the Spanish prisoners who had been held on Tortuga-and so many of them must have come back to Havana-could recognize you and you would be lost!"
"And any day a galleon could arrive from Spain with someone who knows me from my days at the Spanish Court," he countered. "And recognize me as my true self-Diego Vivar!"
"No," she said in panic. "That will not happen. It will be a disaster if anyone comes here from Spain who has known you!" In truth she had forgotten about that-he was menaced from both sides: Not only those who had known him in Tortuga as Kells could de-nounce him-those who had known the real Don Diego in Spain could denounce him as well!
He was staring at her, a cold light in his gray eyes. "What would you have me do?"
he asked at last.
"I would have you leave here by the fastest way possible," she urged. "Steal a boat, anything-but get away. Anytime you show your face you could be recognized!"
The ghost of a smile passed over his lean features. "And how do you account for the fact that I have not already been recognized as this Kells?" he demanded.
"It is because your clothes are so very different," she said frankly. "Because you sit beside the governor, you ride with his daughter. But if ever you take off your coat and stand with your shirt open in the sunshine, if ever you wear leathern trousers or sport a cutlass--!" She shuddered.