Queen Of My Nightmare (Uncharted Secrets, Book 2): Endless Horizon Pirate Stories (14 page)

It felt so perfect. So right. He was kissing me there in the shade of the tree where we’d spent our first date. My husband. At that moment it seemed that no time had passed since that day, and I was once again the sweet young girl who was capable of falling in love. Overwhelmed by the passion of our unexpected, almost mythical reunion, I pulled him down on top of me. His kiss deepened. I held him tighter. His body was lean, so much easier to embrace than Mason, who was so big I could hardly wrap my small arms around him. Mason’s lips were full and soft, and his tongue was thick with the passion he exuded, but Thomas’ lips were thin and the rhythm of his tongue was comfortable and familiar. When we last made love I was a shy little girl, but now I was a woman raging with passion and powered by pain. I moved my hands up his shirt, and rubbed on his back, which was long and hard. He was thin. I could feel his ribcage as I caressed him.

He put his hand on my cheek. I noticed how soft his palm was as he said, “Oh, Hannah, I have been dreaming of this day. I never lost hope, my flower. I knew I would love you again one day.”

“Love me, now, Thomas,” I breathed on his neck.

“Here? In the sand?” he questioned.

“Yes, here.” I reached inside his breeches. Though his expression showed doubt, his body showed no signs of resistance. “What better place than where we first fell in love,” I added to sweeten the mood after my brash assault on his manhood.

Without further questioning, he moved himself inside me. He wasn’t as big as Mason, and his movements were hardly as spine shaking as the masterful, body melting love that Mason had been making to me, but he kissed me, he held me, he whispered sweet things. The glory of the reunion easily compensated for the lack of erotic intensity.

This was making love. This was what husbands and wives did. Thomas would never throw me around like a whore, he would never bend me over a table of bloody maps and walk away the moment he was satisfied. Unlike Mason, he had not experienced women all over the world. His love was for me and me alone, and I wanted to be his and his alone for the rest of my days.

It seemed all too soon when he finished. As the sensual rush left my body, fear and guilt settled in to take its place. Oh, good God, I just had an affair. Or did I? No. Thomas was my husband. Mason stole me from him, I told myself to ease the guilt.

My panic deepened when—while fixing his belt—Thomas said, “Leave with me in the morning, Hannah. Let’s pick up where we left off as if the time in between was but a nightmare.”

Leave? Oh. Leave. I started to sweat. Feeling my son’s tiny little arms wrapped around my neck, hearing him calling me,
mother, mother
, I started to cry. I couldn’t cry. Thomas would ask why I was crying, and I couldn’t tell him about Sterling. No one could know about him.
Stop it.
I told myself,
get your wits about you.
“Tomorrow? Why are you leaving so soon?”

“Because I hate my family. They are as arrogant as ever, and revisiting their bullshit has only assured me that I made the right choice by leaving them.”

“How did your mother react to your reappearance?”

“Ah, I think she believes her own lie about you putting a spell on me. She welcomed me back like I had never done a thing wrong. Apparently, Lloyd didn’t like that very much. He made a fuss about me taking everything he has worked for, but I still don’t want that life. He’s got nothing to worry about.”

“What about that terrible Odelia?”

“Ah, she’s just the same. Pretentious as ever on the outside, but she has already tried to get me to sleep with her, believe it or not. She’s so nasty.”

“She is one of the worst people I’ve ever met, and I have sailed with pirates, so that is a terrible insult.” I giggled at first, but then I began to worry. “Is your mother going to be upset when you leave?”

“Since she is already making plans for me to take over her estate, I imagine she’ll be devastated. But Lloyd will be happy. I guess you can’t please them all.”

“But what if your mother finds out you left with me again? She would kill me for certain.”

“She won’t find out, Hannah. She doesn’t go to London anymore. Perhaps you will be safer somewhere across the sea. Please come with me.”

Knowing that Clarinda’s hatred for me was still a threat, my mind once again ran away with worries about Sterling’s future. I had often wondered what his life would be like without me in it…I was hardly a mother to that child, and it was Mason’s love for him that made him whole. Mason was the only one in the world who could protect him from the hell I had created for him. Mason was the only one who could give him the life he deserved.

It would be better for him if I left. He would never have to worry about my reputation cursing his sweet little existence. He would never have to worry about being burned alive, or humiliated in town. If I was gone, Sterling Mason Bentley would no longer be the son of a nameless, faceless, pirate whore who was falsely accused of witchcraft. He could be the son of Mason Bentley, the strong, proud king of whatever the hell he touched.

Though I could hardly fathom saying goodbye to my son, I knew he would be better for it. And Mason…he would just find himself another whore to hide up on the hill.

Looking deep into the warm brown eyes of the man who I had promised to love until death did we part, I made my decision. “Yes. I will go with you, Thomas.”

He wrapped his arms around me and promised to love me forever and ever.

Hannah no longer had to be queen of her nightmare, because she had finally woken up.

X

Epilogue

Every Time It Rains

As told by Mason Bentley

H
earin
g
the front door shut, I sat up in a panic. In the darkness, I reached for Hannah. Her side of the bed was empty…No it wasn’t. There was a goddamn note laying there.

Without bothering to light a candle to read it, I shoved the cursed parchment into the pocket of my breeches, threw my shoes on, grabbed my cutlass, and headed towards the door. Opening it quickly, but quietly, I saw her walking in the moonlight, wearing her black cloak. Had that woman lost her mind completely?

Heading back in, I checked on Sterling who was sound asleep in his bed, then rushed to Marla’s room and asked her to stay with him while I went to deal with Hannah.

With my son in good hands, I went out after my insane little wife.

Clouds were rolling in, and I wanted to catch her before they covered the moon completely. “Hannah,” I called to her. She looked back quickly. Glad that she had heard me, I picked up my pace to catch up, but she started to run. Goddamn it. Why the hell was she leaving this time? Whatever the hell the reason was, she wasn’t getting away.

Catching up near a massive shrub, I grabbed her shoulder to turn her around, but the little witch twisted around with a wicked hiss on her pretty lips and a dagger drawn in her hand. “Get away from me!”

Without flinching at her threat, I grabbed her by the wrist and backed her up against the shrub. “What the hell is this shit? Where do you think you’re going?”

“I am escaping your prison cell!” she wailed in terror.

“Prison cell?” My mind twisted in confusion. “What madness have you conjured up in your mind this eve?”

“You are the mad one, Mason Bentley!” she screamed, blue eyes beaming in the moonlight. “I know what you were up to all along and I will not stand for it another day! You have wasted years of my life and I will not allow you to waste another moment of it.”

She tried to wriggle free, but I refused to let her go. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I found Thomas today. Well, he found me. He is alive and has been looking for me all these years.”

“Shit,” I huffed. And let go of her.

“See! You knew!” She rubbed her wrists. “Why didn’t you tell me? Have you always known?”

“I just heard about that shit yesterday,” I confessed with my head bowed. “I wanted to tell you, but…but I didn’t want to lose you to him.”

She started to cry. “He is my husband, Mason. You knew that. You also knew that I would always love him, and if this so-stated love you have for me was true, then you would have told me.”

“I was going to…”

“You would have been a day too late. He is leaving for London at dawn.”

“So, what the hell are you doing? Going to have a little affair afore he leaves? This is some hell-bound horse shit Hannah, always accusing me of being untrue while you’re the one sneaking out in the moonlight to go kiss on another man.”

“I am doing more than kissing on him, Mason. I am leaving with him for London.”

Of all the things this woman had done to assault my sanity, those words struck me straight in the heart. The pain was as sharp as the cutlass blade I dropped. “You’re leaving us?”

“Yes. I am,” she stated with straight shoulders.

“You’re leaving your son?” My voice trembled.

She stuttered, “Well, I…I am leaving you, but I still want to see Sterling.”

“Ah, Hannah, your heart left me the day I brought you back to this cursed island, but Sterling? How could you leave him without a word? You promised you’d never leave again without saying goodbye.”

“I left you a note,” she snapped.

“Ah, you did,” I hissed, and grabbed the shitten rotten thing out of my pocket.

In the moonlight I read her words:

Sterling Mason Bentley—the sweetest, most precious secret I have ever harbored—will be safe in the wake of this mysterious disappearance.

For the greatest prize is one hard to find,

And the best kept secret is the one left uncharted.

“That’s it? Goddamn, Hannah, I can’t believe this shit!” I balled up the note.

“You can’t tell anybody, Mason.” She looked so worried. “No one can know where I have gone.”

Gone. Shit. She was abandoning her child and all she cared about was her paranoid secrets. “Shit, I’m surprised you haven’t tried to murder me for catching you in the act.”

“Don’t talk crazy, Mason. I would never do that. I love you, and Sterling needs you. You know he loves you more than he loves me. Even when he was hiding in my womb, he liked you better.”

“Do you hear yourself, woman? He grew in your womb. You nursed him and soothed him, and you still sing to him when he is scared of the thunder.” Imagining that boy waking up without his mother, my pain turned to rage, and I roared, “No! No. You can’t go. He’s going to miss you, Hannah. I’m going to miss you. I don’t know what the hell to do when he cries. I’m at work all the time. What is he going to do without you? What am I going to do without you?”

“You’re going to be fine like you always are, and Marla takes better care of Sterling than I ever have, so he will be fine, too.”

Her voice was cold, slicing me like icicles.

“No. He won’t. You’re his mother. And you’re my wife. Everything I’ve done is for both of you, and our lives will be so empty without you.”

“I am sorry, Mason, but that is how I felt without Thomas for all these years. And now he is back, and he still loves me, and I want the life that was robbed from me.”

What the hell could I say about that? This is what she always wanted, and the last four years of my life had been about giving Hannah what she wanted.

With the memories of the years gone by flashing through my mind, I took a deep breath and rubbed my face. “It is not my place to keep you, Hannah. It never has been. Though I’m sure it helps you to feel better about this brazen runaway to tell yourself you’re escaping my prison cell, you have to know that’s not the truth. I never knew anyone was looking for you. You told me you had no one and I believed you. I knew the world had it bad against you, so everything I did was to protect you from your own fears. I never once held you against your will and I never locked you in a cage. You’re the one who has always wanted to hide from the world, so all I’ve done is given you that place to hide, and I’ve tried my damndest to make it as nice as possible for you.

Everything I do every day is for you and our son, and if you’re here or not, I will continue to do it for him. I don’t know how the hell I’ll do it without you, but I will.”

“I will come back to visit him,” she said.

“No. No, you won’t. You’re either my wife and his mother, or you’re just a ghost who will forever haunt my memory.”

It seemed like an eternity passed as she stared at me in the moonlight. Her white skin, soft and flawless, gleamed like winter snow. One of her braids, woven with a colorful ribbon, poked out from beneath her hood, taunting my mind with the times I wrapped my hands in her hair. Her lips that I loved to kiss and bite, pouted, resisting the urge to cry. And her eyes, as blue as the seas that I left to care for her, were watery and full with tears. One finally streamed down her cheek.

I hoped, I prayed, I begged the Lord to put it in her heart to fall into my arms, but rather, it was this very visual of her—standing in the moonlight with the breeze blowing her black cloak in the wind—that would forever haunt my dreams.

Hannah Bentley chose to be my ghost.

Watching her walk towards the harbor—with that damned cat’s tail sticking out of her bag—it crossed my mind to run after her like an idiot. I even had a few fantasies of killing the bloke who was taking her from me, but it was no use. Any woman who could walk away from the child she birthed into the world, was no woman I wanted to call my own.

On my way back to the house I’d bought for her, the cloud finally rolled over the moon. As the raindrops beat down upon my bare back, I saw her face a million times. Though I had often seen her crying and screaming, at this moment in my life I only visualized her better days. I heard her laughing, I saw her smiling, and of course I felt her swaying on top of me in the candlelight, but none of those pleasant memories would ever trump her final act of treason.

Maybe she was a witch after all
, I chuckled to myself as I passed the orange tree I’d planted for her. But the bewitching little sorceress who left me tonight was not the same one who enchanted me into falling in love with her all those years ago.

Though my stupid heart wanted to dwell on the things I might have done wrong, I knew overall that there was nothing I could’ve changed. I did all I could for that woman while she was mine, but her demons were out of my reach to tame.

Shaking my head in disbelief as I entered the house, I thanked Marla for watching over Sterling and sent her off to her room. Though the rain was beating down on the roof, everything seemed ghostly silent. For the first time in a long time, I felt alone. But I wasn’t. I had my little mate to keep me company. Going into his room, I picked him up out of bed and carried him to the sofa. Sleeping like a drunk ol’ buccaneer, he didn’t bat an eye, but as I sat down he snuggled his little face against my chest.

“I suppose you’ll have to be my navigator, now, mate.” I ran my hand across his hair that was growing long like mine.

“It’s just you and me, now, but that mother of yours, ah…though you may never know her, she will always be the queen of my nightmare, and I’ll remember her every time it rains.”

X