Beyond paradise (10 page)

Sylvie thought of home and felt too traumatized to cry. How small her earlier dilemmas seemed now! So she was to marry a boring womanizer. So what? She would live near her family and see them often. Her life would not change so very much. What could have seemed so bad about it, so tragic that she should have endangered her life? So mournful that she was willing to risk honor, safety, and even her reputation just to rebel? What a silly child she had been. She grimaced at the memory of herself. A pirate? Oh my! I want to see a pirate! She dropped her head in her hands. Well, she had certainly seen one. She had brought this on her own inane self, she knew. What would she not have given to take it all back, to return home, and to accept her impending marriage? How glorious it would be to go to sleep and know that when she awakened in the morn, she would be facing another frivolous day on the island, with problems too small to worry about. She looked upward and said a silent prayer. "Let me get off this ship alive, and I will never complain about any small trial again." Then she remembered her Bible, and that it was wrong to make bargains with God. She corrected herself.

Elizabeth Doyle

"Just let me get off this ship alive. Please. For no reason. Please."

Sylvie didn't know what she would do without her Protestant faith. It was almost as strong as her faith in her family. Never had she needed both sources of courage more than she did at the moment the door was finally flung open and her solitude was broken. Jacques was returning, but not alone. He had with him a band of friends—four of them, in fact—who were all laughing and joking in French. Sylvie recognized two of them as having wrestled her roughly into the lifeboat. They all seemed so joyous about Jacques's return that she didn't think they would take any notice of her. But she was wrong. Almost immediately, a dark-eyed one with handsome, charcoal hair cast caring eyes upon her. "Hello," he said, "I am Sebastien." He reached out his hand and expected her to shake it as though she were a man. She did so, feeling strangely amused. "Jacques told me that we bruised you while bringing you to the ship. I'm very sorry about that." He nodded in the way of an apology, and his face was rather sincere. "We did our best to be gentle, but I suppose our best wasn't good enough this time. I am sorry." She couldn't believe he hadn't even tried to excuse himself by suggesting she had struggled too hard. She was one to be impressed when admiration was due. She returned his nod with a stern one of her own.

"Is it true that you're the daughter of a comte?" asked a red-haired companion, flopping into his hammock with a bounce.

"Yes," she said quietly.

"Well, we really hate comtes around here. But we forgive you." He turned his head within his palms to smile at her. "I'm Laurent, by the way."

"Hello, Laurent. Don't any of you use surnames?"

"No," said Sebastien, "we don't like to be associated with

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our fathers or our heritage. The captain likes to have a full name because it makes him sound important, but most of us prefer the individuality of a given name."

"Why?" broke in Laurent. "Would you rather we called you Mademoiselle something-or-other rather than Sylvie?"

Sylvie thought about that. "No," she said with a nervous swallow, "no, Sylvie is fine."

"You're going to fit in well here."

Sylvie liked the sound of that, for it sounded as though they were going to keep her—and not kill her. Sebastien slapped a fist into his palm and twisted his hands together, then pointed to his chin. Jacques replied with some variation of the signal. "What are you two doing?" asked Sylvie.

Sebastien shrugged. "It's just a sort of game we made up several years ago. Rather like a secret code."

"Oh." Sylvie thought it looked rather like fun.

Jacques was freshly shaven now, and wearing a clean ivory shirt with sleeves that ballooned and a neck that formed a "V" along his tan, masculine chest. His breeches were tight and handsome, his boots still the same battered ones he'd worn in jail. Sylvie wondered over his scraped chin. Why would he shave his face? Most men trimmed their beards, but why scrape it entirely while living the otherwise unsanitary life of a pirate? Not that she was complaining. There was nothing in his face that she would have wanted to hide. She tried to distract herself by asking Laurent, "How many people on this ship speak French?"

"Just the five of us," he said, gesturing at Jacques, Sebastien, and the silent two. "In fact, we don't even like each other. But these were the only people 1 could talk to in my first language—so what choice did I have? We had to be friends."

"Or at least pretend to be," Sebastien chimed in cheerfully. "Jacques, are you coming to the galley for supper? You've got to be famished."

Elizabeth Doyle

He shook his head. "No, I'll just grab something and take my supper in here." He jerked his head at Sylvie. "I feel I should look after her."

Sebastien seemed to agree. "Why don't we all take our supper in here then?"

"That's a good idea."

Laurent broke in. "Why can't she just eat with us?"

Sebastien looked at him as though he were daft. "If you were a pretty young lady that no one had ever met before, would you want to go meet them while they're getting drunk?"

Laurent didn't seem to have a great capacity for empathy. "I don't know," he shrugged.

Jacques grinned at Sebastien. "If only we could make it happen—turn him into a girl and throw him in there."

"He might develop some empathy."

They laughed and seemed to agree that everyone except Laurent would come back and keep Sylvie company. "Oh, Sylvie," Jacques called over his shoulder, just before they'd stepped out, "is there anything that you don't eat? Anything to which you're allergic?"

"Don't bring me any lamb," she said. She had made it this far in one piece. She would pray the same for that filthy, scrawny sheep whose chances at surviving were looking less good than her own now, but whose chances of having dignity and virtue when she was slaughtered Sylvie still believed to be more promising. Warily, she brushed her hand across Jacques's hammock, something she'd dared not do before. Then she looked across the empty cabin with fixed eyes and muttered, "God help me."

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Supper was fish and rice. "Don't become spoiled," said Sebastien. "Once we reach the high seas, this luxurious food will run out, and we'll be back to dried meat."

She was going to laugh at his joke, but by the look on his rugged face, she wasn't absolutely certain he had made one. She ventured a glance at her "luxurious food": overcooked, rubbery fish that hadn't been thoroughly skinned, and a plate frill of very starchy rice. "Well, I'll enjoy it while I can," she announced, forcing a grand smile accompanied by a spasm of fluttering blinks.

The cabin was still empty. A few men had wandered in to change clothes and leave again, but most had gone directly to supper. The ones who had come in had eyed Sylvie most disrespectfully, but Sebastien had been quick to say, "Stop staring. She belongs to Jacques." And Sylvie had been allowed peace.

*1 was afraid we wouldn't see you again," Sebastien said to Jacques, now that the cabin was quiet. "When that pig pirate hunter caught you, I thought you were finished."

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"So did I," said Jacques between ravenous bites. Like the others, he was sitting on the splintered floor, eating with his hands.

"My heart nearly stopped," said Francois, a rather quiet member of their crew, a young man with a chestnut beard so long, it made him look much older than he was. "I saw you go into the merchant's and I was about to catch you when that huge man followed behind. I could just tell by the look of him that he was the Law."

"They always have that fixed stare, don't they?" asked Sebastien. "As though glancing around and looking about would make their eyes bleed."

As she picked at her fish, Sylvie had the strangest sensation that she was being watched. She looked up and saw Jacques's eyes fixed on her. At first, she didn't know why. But then she remembered. He had seen her with Jervais. He knew that she knew him, and in this room, that made her guilty of something. She wasn't sure what. Jacques released her from his stare with a sudden move of the eyes. "I think he was looking for me specifically," he told his friends. "I think it wasn't by chance that I'm the one who got nabbed."

"Why?" seemed the obvious question.

Jacques shrugged. "I'm thinking it's something to do with Blanchet."

For some reason unfathomable to Sylvie, that made all of his friends fall silent. It was as though he had muttered an unholy curse. Sebastien touched Jacques's arm in a manner of self-conscious camaraderie, something between a stroke of comfort and a punch. "I'm sure it's nothing to do with him, friend. I'm sure Blanchet is long gone. You've just got to forget him."

Jacques quickened his eating in the manner of someone who was not lending great credence to anyone's words at the

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moment. Sylvie wondered at their discourse, but she did not ask. Something told her not to. After a long silence, the fourth present member of the French speakers announced, "Well, we were all very glad that you made it back alive." His name was Remi, a fair-haired man with a wispy, whitish ponytail.

'The captain wanted to leave you," grumbled Sebastien, despite Francois's nudge at him to stop. "Well, it's true," he said. Jacques looked up from his rice, most interestedly. "The captain said you were as good as hanged two days ago. If we hadn't put up such a stir about how it's tradition to wait a full two weeks, I think he would've set sail, the bastard."

Jacques shook his head in muted annoyance.

"He's not a very good captain," Remi remarked.

Nobody else wanted to chime in. They all dropped their chins and paid careful attention to their food, except for Jacques, whose eyes were squinted in thought. At last he spoke, and everyone leaned in, praying for a change of subject. "He wanted to have Sylvie." He pointed to her.

It was not as much of a change in topic as they'd hoped for, but it was better than nothing. "Well, that would be no good," said Sebastien, casting a kind eye on Sylvie. "You're better off with Jacques."

"So he keeps telling me," she answered quietly.

Sebastien laughed, but said, "No, really. The captain .. . isn't good with women. Well,"—he smiled at his friends— "he's good with them, but not to them."

"What do you mean?" she asked with disinterest.

"He, uh ... well, he wines and dines and romances, but... then he drinks too much. And when he does, he .. . well, he becomes a great deal less charming."

"He hits women," said Frangois.

Jacques made a frantic signal with his hand.

"I'm not scaring her," Sebastien replied rather defen-

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sively. "How could it scare her? She's not going to be with him—she's yours." He turned to Sylvie. "Jacques doesn't hit women. Don't worry."

Sylvie smiled awkwardly.

"Anyway," Sebastien went on, "of all the pirates who could have claimed you, you're lucky it was Jacques."

"I would have been luckier if it had been no one," she remarked with a false smile, slightly lifting the mole at her mouth's corner.

"Well, yes, and you would have been luckier if you'd been born to a king instead of a comte, too, but if it had to be one of us, I'd say you did well."

Sylvie rolled her eyes. She couldn't believe the casual way in which these men discussed her kidnapping. It was as though they assumed she was abducted all of the time. Were they not even suspicious of her unnatural comfort with Jacques? Had he truly been her captor and rapist, would she be so easy in his presence? Had horror become so routine that they forgot how an outsider would feel in her place? While eating, she had begun to think of them as regular men, talking and commiserating like old friends, but now she recalled that there was nothing ordinary about them at all. They were men, yes, not monsters as Jervais would have them be. But they were rugged and ruthless men who thought that women, like treasure, were to be divided amongst them and spent. Their lives were hard. She could see that in their worn hands, scarred arms, and sunburned faces. But they had no sympathy for the hardships of others. Especially not hers.

The rest of the crew returned from supper, gradually and drunkenly. The noise of their entrance made Sylvie freeze and Jacques leap to his feet. "Come here," he beckoned her. "Let's get you under the blankets before they start any trouble."

"We'll defend your right," Frangois assured him. "She is yours."

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1 wish everyone would stop saying that," muttered Sylvie.

Jacques put a finger over her lips. "Don't be stubborn." He hurriedly tossed a thin blanket over his hammock and said "Get under."

Sylvie didn't like being ordered. "I'm fully clothed. I can't sleep like this," she told him. "Am I to hide under the blanket forever?"

In his haste, he growled, "You'll stay under there for as long as I tell you to." She opened her mouth, but he interrupted. "This is not a game. The only thing that's saving you from being bedded by every man in this room is their belief that you belong to me. Don't take it lightly. If you fight me once they get here, I'm going to have to show them I'm in control. If you refuse to stay in the hammock, I'm going to have to wrestle you back in. I don't want to hurt you, Sylvie. Please, just do as I say."

"But my clothes ..." She tugged at her girdle.

"It's safer if you sleep in them."

"You. . . you weren't jesting about our sharing a hammock?"

"Of course not. Now hurry, get in there."

"Whoa! There she is!" A group of drunken pirates had just made their way to the cabin, and were speaking English, a language Sylvie could not understand. "We heard about the little fairy you found in jail. Let's have a look at her."

"No," said Jacques in English, with a friendly but firm smile, "you don't need to look."

"Pretty hair," he said, peering. Sylvie had pulled the blanket to her chin, and turned away from the door. But he could see her thick, cinnamon hair sparkling with hints of red. "Has she got a pretty face?"

"It doesn't matter," said Sebastien, stepping forth with heavily crossed arms, "she doesn't belong to you." A lot of pirates were now paying grim attention to the situation. Those

Elizabeth Doyle

whose hammocks were on the far side of the room got to casually glimpse Sylvie's lovely, delicate face and small, pointed nose. Her eyes were closed, though, so they couldn't see their brilliance.

"Can't you share just a little?" asked the English-speaking pirate. "We'll give her right back." There was an evil spark in his eye.

Jacques met it with his own hateful look, only his held some cockiness and good humor. "Lending a woman isn't like lending jewels," he said. "It's more like lending an arm. Once you cut it off, it's most likely gone for good."

The man stared at him for some time in puzzlement. He was drunk, but his meanness came from something deeper. At last, he comprehended the joke and let out a loud shriek of laughter. Some of his English-speaking friends followed suit, though none of them knew why they were laughing. "Very well," he relented, tearing his shirt from his chest. "She's yours, she's yours. I'll get one of my own." Somehow, that seemed to settle it for the group, and they all went about the business of undressing, taking only a few curious peeks at the young woman lying quietly in the bunk among all of their manmade darkness.

Jacques gave her a reassuring squeeze through the blanket and whispered, "Don't look. They're undressing. I promise I'll keep my breeches on, but some of them won't." If he'd hoped that would keep her from looking, he did not know Sylvie well. Her eyes flung wide open and she immediately looked about. "Did you hear me?" he asked.

"Oh ... oh, yes," she said. "I should keep my eyes closed." She pretended to do so, but left the corner of one lid fully alert. Would they take all of their clothes off? She tried to find a handsome one to study. If once she had been desperate to see a real pirate, now she was equally determined to see a man in the raw. She caught a glimpse of a well-muscled

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young sailor with long, chestnut hair. She saw him toss away his shirt and then waited anxiously to see the rest. He cast a nervous glance her way, as surely, none of the men had forgotten there was a lady about. The moment he looked, she squeezed her eyes shut, but then she opened them again. This time, certain she was not aware, he lowered his breeches. The minute Sylvie caught a glimpse, she lost her courage and turned away. She bit her lip hard. She couldn't believe what she had seen. She had seen everything.

Glancing up to check on Jacques, her heart seemed to stop. He was gazing at her, directly in the eye, and he was smiling wickedly. Grinning from ear to ear, he shook his head at her like a scolding father and resisted the urge to mutter, Get a good look? He said nothing, and helped her wrap the blanket more thoroughly about her shoulders, finishing with a friendly pat. "I'm definitely keeping mine on," he said quietly, "now that I know you're not going to be a gentleman about it."

She pretended not to understand, she was so humiliated. "I don't know what you mean."

"Mmm, no. Of course not. Move over. They're about to turn out the lanterns."

Sylvie felt positively sinful as he slid next to her, and she learned with a startle exactly how close two bodies can be when they are swinging in the same hammock. As hard as she tried to keep her distance, she kept falling toward the center, and right on top of him. "It's no use," he whispered as the lights went out, "we have to sleep like this. I know it's awkward, but there's no way to separate in a hammock." He tried to keep his arms stiffly at his sides, but he just couldn't sleep that way. He was extremely uncomfortable, and felt exasperated about it. He'd spent nights chained to a cell wall, and had anticipated an evening of peaceful slumber far too long to try slumbering like a statue. It was only a moment

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before he asked, "Could I... I'm sorry, I hate to ask this." He frowned at himself. "Could I just. .. put my arm . .. perhaps ... here?" He slid it under her neck so that it was stretched comfortably to the side. "Is that all right?"

Sylvie definitely did not mind. His strong arm was under her head like a pillow, and she could smell him. He smelled like the soap with which he had just bathed, but even more than that, he just smelled like a man. There was no other way to describe it. He smelled like a fierce, warm, natural man. "That's fine," she replied shakily. But she had forgotten about his weak hearing.

After a moment's pause, he said, "Did you reply? Just nod your head, if you would." She did so, and that made him settle with a sigh. He was truly exhausted. Yet, when he closed his eyes, nothing happened. The dreams just didn't come. Puzzled, he opened them again, wondering what was the matter. He looked down at Sylvie, and saw her blue eyes aglow in the dark. "Can't sleep?" he asked.

She shook her head against him.

He scratched his hair. "I, uh . .. I know this is frightening. You're, uh ... you're a daughter of a comte, after all."

"Stop saying that."

He squinted. Her face was now clear to him in the dark. It was a delicate, classically French face, as befitted the daughter of nobility. "Stop saying what?" he asked stupidly.

"I am scared," she replied, "because I'm a human being, and I don't know what is going to become of me. Not because I'm someone's daughter."

His face froze. She loved the shadow on his upper lip, exaggerated in the dim light. "Listen to me," he said. "I am not going to let anyone hurt you. Don't worry about what will become of you. I will see that you get safely home. It will just take some time. All right? Can you trust me?"

"It isn't a matter of trust, it's a matter of practicality. I'm

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scared it can't be done. I have been lying here asking myself how I could possibly reach home again, how you could return me safely, and I cannot find an answer. I think I'm stuck here for a good, long while, even with you as an ally."

"I will get you home," he growled.

"Just as you promised not to take me on the ship?"

"That was different," he said, struggling to get his arm out from under her so he could sit up and have some dignity while he argued. "I didn't know that would happen. They should have respected my wishes and set you free. I didn't know the captain would fancy you."

"Then that's what I mean," she said calmly. "You can have the best intentions, and still fail. I don't think I'm going to see home again and it frightens me."

Frustration looked much like anger on his bronzed face.

"Come now," she said, "we must think together. We have no magic—we're going to have to think hard."

"I said I will get you out of here. Do you think I'm not able?"

"Well, you're not omnipotent," she chuckled.

He sat upright, rocking the hammock with a heavy swing. In truth, her remark made him angry. He was angry that he found her realism intelligent—attractively intelligent. Of course, he had been trying to convince her that he could make anything happen, that her freedom would be assured as long as the task of securing it was his. Of course he had. He'd done it to make her feel secure, to try to help her through the dangerous situation into which they'd jointly drawn her. But perhaps he'd also done it in a boyish attempt to attract her. It was an embarrassing revelation. He couldn't remember the last time he'd tried to impress a woman. And nobility, no less? He hardened himself against the memory of women he had loved, unrequited. Hadn't he learned his lesson yet?

He lay back down, folded his hands under his head, and

Elizabeth Doyle

recoiled when he realized she was absently snuggling into his chest. Stop that, he wanted to say, but didn't for fear of waking her up. It was a good thing he had sworn off women long ago, he thought. It was a very good thing. Because the skin of her cheek was awfully soft against his chest. And her breasts were well, they were like ripe peaches rolling left and right beneath her gown every time she stirred. Jacques closed his eyes tightly. If he hadn't sworn against it, he feared he might do something ... something he hadn't done in a very long time. And he knew what would happen if he gave in to his deepest impulses. She would reject him. It's what they always did in the end. How long before he would learn? No. The last thing he needed was another scar on his tattered heart. He would never let her know how many hours he was tormented that evening before finally finding rest.

"I cannot believe that my own mother would call me a coward." Etienne was having a very bad day. Nobody seemed to understand that it made more sense for him to stay home while the pirate hunters searched for his bride. "Can you not understand, Mother, that I would be useless on a ship, that I would do nothing but hinder her rescue?"

"I understand," replied the stern-faced woman, "that your bride-to-be is in the clutches of pirates, and that you have remained behind to fraternize with other women."

"What I do while I mourn is irrelevant!" he cried. "Every man has a different way of expressing his pain. In my case, I need distraction. But the point is, it would have been senseless for me to go after her."

"The point is that you have not seen fit even to oversee the rescue of your own bride. It is the gesture, Etienne."

"The gesture?" he scoffed. "The gesture? I'm expected to

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risk my life at sea, chance being caught in a battle with pirates, and all for a gesture? Mother, honestly."

"You should be there when they find her."

"I isten to me. I shall throw her a grand soiree if she makes it home. How is that for a gesture?"

His mother rose from the parlour chair like a queen from her throne. She was not a tall woman, but somehow seemed taller than her lanky son, with his long, false curls tumbling about his shoulders and a flimsy sword at his side. "Do you know my humiliation?" she asked him. "How do you think your father and I felt when the comte himself arrived at our door demanding to know what was being done to save his daughter, and I had to tell him, 'We sent someone'? How do you think I felt when he asked me what you personally were doing and I had to tell him in the most charming terms I could muster, 'Absolutely nothing'?"

"Mother," he groaned, "what difference does it make what the comte thinks? He lives like a peasant, and—"

"He is titled!" she cried. "The one thing this family has not is a title. You are our only chance at getting one—Lord knows I would have chosen another son if I'd had one—but you are this family's only hope. And if the Davants decide that you are unworthy of their daughter after all, then our hopes are dashed and you will have shamed us one more time."