"Kells," she whispered and held out her arms to him, and sank backward down upon the bed.
His gray eyes kindled at the sight of her naked loveliness, so charmingly displayed upon his coverlet.
"Then you will come to Spain with me?" he asked as he divested himself of his clothing.
Her smile was wistful. She would never go to Spain with him-for him to go to Spain, she felt, would be to die. "Perhaps not to Spain ..." she murmured.
"We will stay here, then," he said eagerly. "I will find a post here. I will write to someone in power there." He frowned suddenly, looking down at his hands. "It is strange," he said, "but I have also lost my ability to read and write."
"You never knew how to read and write Spanish," she told him. "You only spoke it.
Prove it to yourself. Take up a pen and write something in English-you will find it comes to you very easily!"
Instead he divested himself of the last of his clothing and strode over to the bed, stood looking down at her with yearning.
"Carolina," he said. "Whatever I am or may have been, I love you past all allegiance.
And if you will take me as I am, I will defend you against all the world."
Carolina's tears spilled over and the tall naked figure before her blurred. "That is all I could ever ask," she choked and lifted her arms to enfold him.
Very gently he lowered his big body over hers, very tenderly bent his dark head and pressed a kiss that was a promise upon her trembling mouth.
And although she had lain in his arms many times before and fit to his lean body better than the gauntlet gloves he often wore fit to his strong hands, this joining-here in Havana in the bright light of morning -had a wondrous quality to it. They had found it again-all the breathless magic of new love. And she thrilled to it, knowing from the way he suddenly lifted his head and stared down at her in the golden sunlight, that he must feel the same.
In truth he did. Even as his strong arms had gone round her, even as his lean hips had lowered to caress her feminine softness, he felt that he had known her always. In some other life perhaps? he asked himself whimsically. Or was her incredible story true? He thought not-s-and at the moment he cared not. It was enough to strain with her there on the big square bed, enough to know that he was carrying her with him to the very heights of passion, the outermost shores of desire.
He had found his woman, and whether she called him Kells or Rye or Diego Vivar mattered not to him. What mattered was that she loved him in return--and her ardent responses to his lightest caress told him that she did, her broken murmurings told him so, the desperate way she clung to him as if afraid that he might leave her told him so.
It was enough.
Eventually they left the big bed, eventually they ate, smiling at each other in the courtyard. Eventually they went back to the big bed and Carolina, lost in love, looked up at her lover in the moonlight with big luminous eyes.
The governor's daughter called the next day and was told that Don Diego was sleeping late and had asked not to be disturbed. She sent word that a mighty galleon, the white and gold El Dorado, had cast anchor in Havana harbor, and to ask Don Diego when he woke if he would not care to view such a splendid ship.
"She will not let you alone-you know that?" said Carolina ruefully, when the message was delivered.
"She will. I promise it." Kells left off stroking her hair and went down to leave word with old Juana to tell all who called that he had contracted a slight fever and feared to spread contagion. He would be on his feet again soon; meantime they were not to worry.
Hearing the instructions he had left, Carolina laughed. "Marina will stamp her foot!"
she told him. "And break things."
The thought of the governor's spoiled daughter breaking things because she could not persuade him to drive out with her amused him. "I think she will recover," he said dryly.
"Oh, no doubt," Carolina said. "But I pity the chambermaids when she receives your message for it will be their duty to clean up the broken crockery!"
"Carolina." His voice had grown serious. "I took your advice. I set pen to paper and wrote something in English. You were right, it came to me very easily." He gave her a hunted look.
Her heart leaped. "You see?" she said eagerly. "It is proof of who you are!"
He ran distracted fingers through his dark hair. "No, it is not proof," he corrected her.
"It tells me only that the part of me that writes in Spanish is somehow blocked by the blow I received."
She was disappointed but she sank back. "Come and make love to me," she murmured. "We must make the most of your 'fever' for the world will not let us alone for long!"
He was very willing.
And the next day he said, "I have seemed to remember something. It is just a fragment but it seems to come from my past and not my imagination. . . . I seemed to be standing with you on a ship, looking out at a tall dark mountain that rose out of the sea. There was another man there. He spoke to you in English and my hand sought my sword. I think I might have killed him from the way I felt. But. . . that is all I can remember. "
Her eyes were wet. "We have been on shipboard so many times," she said. "But that particular time would have been in the Azores. And that black mountain rising out of the sea would have been the Island of Pico. This man you wanted to kill-he looked like you, didn't he?"
He gave a slight start. "Yes, he did in a passing sort of way."
"He was Robin Tyrell, the Marquess of Saltenham," she said bitterly. "And I suppose it is a pity you did not kill him for you yearned to do so. He had masqueraded as you and sunk English ships and cost you your king's pardon. It was because of him you went back to buccaneering. It is because of him that you are here today." She moistened her lips. "A disaster I brought upon you because I begged you to spare his life." She gave him a sober look. "I have much to answer for where you are concerned, Kells."
He shrugged. She was so believable, was this silver wench who flitted like moonlight through his life. And yet he could not believe it, it was too bizarre. He was under her spell, he told himself. Like a witch, she had cast an enchantment over him, and it would be easy to believe anything she said.
But the next morning he told her of a rambling white house where a great battle with cannon had taken place.
"You have remembered our house on Tortuga," she told him calmly. "And the night EI Sangre attacked it. You had a cannon mounted in the garden. You won a great victory."
He stared at her in wonder. "I seem to remember a garden, too," he muttered.
"With a green door," she supplied.
"Yes ... with a green door." He frowned. "You have bewitched me," he muttered.
She gazed on him fondly-yet with fear, too. For one day soon-very soon-he would come to himself and realize who he really was. But would it be too late? Oh, she must guard against his being recognized, she must keep him off the streets.
And the best way to do that was to keep him in her bed. She found-him most agreeable to all her suggestions that they lie about, dallying through the long hours.
"Do you not wish yourself to be off surveying a great white and gold galleon in the harbor?" she teased him as they lay panting in the heat after a long bout of lovemaking.
"I had rather survey the white-gold of your hair," he responded gallantly.
But in spite of his gallantry, she thought he cast a restless look at the outdoors. He was not a man to be cosseted indoors, she knew; he was a man of action.
"If only we could find some place by the sea for a while." She sighed and moved restlessly in his arms. "Some place where we could be alone." She sounded more wistful than she knew.
He stirred. "I know of such a place," he said suddenly. "Captain Juarez told me of it. It is a great cavern with its mouth opening above a strip of sandy beach. He says it is a romantic spot."
Carolina sat up, all excitement, and surveyed him from a vivid face framed by rumpled fair hair. "Oh, do you think we could go there?" she cried. "I could ask Juana to tell everyone your fever had persisted!"
He laughed. "You will have the governor sending me a doctor!"
"No," insisted Carolina seriously. "Juana can manage it-she loves intrigue. She will frighten the other servants with stories of contagion so they will stay away from our room." She sprang from her bed and began energetically to dress. "I will go downstairs and discuss it with her. I am sure she will be able to ward people off without alarming them too much."
Trusting in old Juana's diplomacy, they rode off just after dusk through the quiet streets. Carolina was sure that no one had seen them go for she had looked carefully about her. They were riding double on Kells's big chestnut horse, who seemed tireless and glad of the exercise.
Kells was an easy rider; he sat loose and relaxed in the saddle and Carolina sat before him, leaning back luxuriously against his chest, feeling the pleasant pressure of her legs against his hard thighs as the horse moved beneath them. Kells kept an indolent arm about her waist that could be tightened should the horse stumble and unseat her. He did not talk much but occasionally nuzzled the softness of her hair and seemed at peace with the world as they left the white city behind them and rode out across the green Cuban countryside. The moon came out as they rode along the broken coastline, shining down on majestic royal palms and waving coconut palms that rustled overhead.
"This cavern is somewhere along the coast not far from the city," Kells told her.
"Juarez told me I could not miss it if I look for a great landmark rock that looks like a castle."
They were riding atop seaside cliffs as he spoke and he was peering down at the white beach below where waves were foaming in. "I think I see it-over there."
Carolina pushed back her hair, which was blowing in the sea wind, and peered in the direction in which he waved his arm. There before her, surrounded by a white collar of roiling surf, rose a great dark rock, glistening with sea spray. In the moonlight it really did look very like a castle, she decided-a crusaders' castle with a curtain wall.
"The cavern should be just past the castle rock on a little promontory. Juarez said to watch for some natural steps leading down that have been worn into the rock at the top. I think we will walk from here on." He dismounted and lifted Carolina down. She could very well have jumped down, but it was more delightful this way, being held-even though briefly-in his arms.
They strolled along the cliff top, leading the horse, enjoying the beauty of the wild scene below them with the sea breaking around a pattern of spray-laced rocks.
"Juarez tells me there is a tiny fishing village nearby where vegetables and fruit and fish can be bought. And that the cavern is spacious with a view of the sea." He grinned. "I think he was hopeful that I would take a lady love there so that he could have a freer field with Marina."
Walking along with her arm about his middle, while his was draped lazily over her shoulder, Carolina gave him a swift expressive little hug. She was so relieved to be out of the tense atmosphere of Havana and alone with him in the open countryside at last! Indeed she fervently wished Captain Juarez a free field with Marina!
Soon enough, they found the natural steps carved by nature into the rocks. From them it was an easy climb down the cliff face to the entrance of the big limestone cavern. And Juarez was right-it was a romantic spot. The cavern's central chamber, which lay open to the sea, was high-vaulted and smooth-floored and airy although farther back she could see forked and curving passages where tall stalactites and stalagmites almost met-and beyond that, mysterious darkness.
They left the horse atop the cliff contentedly grazing near a little spring that sparkled like a many-pointed star in the grass. Nearby they gathered armloads of the sweet-smelling grasses to make a bed near the cavern entrance, carrying great piles of them down the worn limestone steps to heap up in their seaside lair.
"Is this romantic enough for you?" laughed Kells.
"It is," said Carolina. She dropped her grassy burden and stretched, standing in the cave entrance with the sea wind blowing and tangling her long hair, looking out over a wide expanse of ocean that would by morning be bluer than the bluest blue, and at a white beach where surf frothed lacily upon the moonlit sands.
"I wish we could stayIhere forever," she murmured and turned to face her tall buccaneer-her buccaneer who sturdily refused to believe himself ever to have been a buccaneer.
Against the moon a broad-winged bird swooped and dipped, and somewhere across the smooth phosphorescent face of the sea there was a silvery flash as a fish leaped out of the water. Aside from that they might have been alone in the world.
"We have bided the night in many wild places," she told Kells softly. "But none more lovely than this."
"Then come to bed," he suggested, divesting himself of his clothes in the warm night but leaving his sword near to his hand in case of need.
Carolina, who had worn her dark formal riding habit, quickly slipped out of it, kicked off her slippers with their high red heels, removed her garters and silk stockings, and pulled the drawstring of her chemise. She did not pause to let it fall in folds about her feet, but caught it as it slid down her bare hips and stepped out of it, folding it neatly and placing it atop her black riding clothes.
She rose from her bent position and stood smiling down at him. He thought she had never looked more beautiful than she did at that moment, naked against the moon, her delicate female body ethereal in silhouette in moonlight that gilded her shoulders and kissed the sweet rounded lines of her hips. He caught his breath at the sight of her, standing there as if to entice him, her long flowing blonde hair cascading over her shoulders to her waist in a bright enchanted halo that dazzled the senses.
"Come to bed," he repeated softly and reached out his arms to her. In the moonlight she could see a certain well-remembered glimmer in his eyes. "Oh, Kells," she sighed, falling to her knees upon the soft piled-up grasses and looking down at him tenderly. "I thought you would never understand."