Beyond paradise (23 page)

"That's ridiculous," he growled. "You wouldn't tell a man to lie there and take a beating if he's outmatched."

"Well, of course not. That's entirely different."

Jacques raised an eyebrow.

"Well, a man can learn to overcome the difference, with practice," he explained.

"So can she."

"No, she can't," he laughed. "Women are ... well, they're built differently." He put out his hands to indicate breasts. "They have parts that get in the way. They ... they don't have the coordination."

"Sylvie has very good aim. You should see her catch an object. Her hands and eyes work in perfect unison."

"Well, maybe for a woman, but..."

Jacques was shaking his head disappointedly. "You know what?" he said. Frangois looked puzzled as he waited for the rest of it. "You're the same kind of man who said I couldn't do anything because I'm deaf."

"Oh, come now," he groaned indignantly, "that is ridicu-

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lous. I would never have said that. You may be deaf, but at least you're . . . you Ye still a man. I . . ."

Jacques cast him a warning look and walked away. He had a talent for walking away as no one else could, because the moment he turned his back, it was well known he heard nothing more. He gently wrapped his arm about Sylvie's waist, careful not to startle her, as her back was turned. She looked at him with an irresistible smile. "Are we ready?"

"I am if you are," he nodded, and led her downstairs, where they could use an empty storage room and not be disturbed by people like Francois.

The giant cabin was dusty and musty and brown—just like a real training hall. A little light shone through some portholes high up near the ceiling, and particles floated in the streams of sunshine there. Their footsteps veritably echoed in the vast emptiness, for the pirates had stolen all of the goods which had once been stacked high in this hold. And now, it was all in the hands of Jervais. Talk about shooting oneself in the arm ... some of those boxes of dried goods would have come in handy right now. But as it was, the enormous room, smelling of staleness as though even time had never moved through its expanse, made a perfect forum for a fight. Sylvie smiled nervously at her teacher, fearing he would commence by punching her in the gut.

Some of Jacques's enthusiasm had been stilted by Francois's cynical words. But looking at his small, eager student grinning at him with anxious expectation returned some of the spring to his step. "All right, I've .. . I've never taught anyone before, so you'll have to be patient with me."

"Should we start with sword fighting?" she asked eagerly.

"No," he said with a gentle cock of his head, "sword fighting, the way you're thinking of it, isn't very valuable to a pirate." In response to her puzzlement, he explained, "You see, there is such a thing as sword art, and that's what men use in

Elizabeth Doyle

duels and such. But when you're fighting on board a ship, there really isn't enough room for any fancy movement. There might be another fighter bumping into you on the left and bumping into you on the right, and you barely have enough room to fight at all. So that's why we use the cutlass." He patted his sword with affection. "It's a sloppier weapon, more like a meat cleaver than the weapon of a knight. But it gets the job done when you're right next to your opponent and don't have room to swing. So that's what I'm going to teach you—fighting close up, when your opponent is right here." He put a hand in front of his face.

"We'll start with the knife then?" she asked, drawing it from its sheath.

"No, put that away," he said. "We're going to start with fistfighting. That's the basis for all other true combat. Once you know how to do that, then the knife or the sword just becomes an extension of the hand, a way to put a blade at the end of your fist."

"Well, what about guns?"

He shook his head. "I can teach you marksmanship later if you want. But it's really not that useful in the heat of battle. Pistols only fire once and then it takes you ages to reload them. In the meantime, you have to put them down and find another weapon. They have a time and a place, but not on ship raids, not unless you're firing from a good distance and there's nobody nearby who may attack you."

"But I thought you didn't want me on ship raids."

He cautiously looked away. There was nothing that would have thrilled him more than to show Frangois that Sylvie could be made useful on a ship raid. There was a piece of him that wanted to teach her just that. But he knew it would be too dangerous for a beginner of either sex to take part in a raid. And he knew that in a strange way it was selfish of him even to think it—he just wanted to prove he'd been right. So

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he said "Well, in a situation where you're grabbed, a flintlock won't do you much good either. So we'll start with this"

He moved toward her, causing her to cross her arms and flinch. "You're not going to hit me, are you?"

He laughed with a very friendly light in his eyes. "No, Sylvie," he said, trying to unlock her arms and put them at her sides, "1 may not be much of a teacher, but I think that wouldn't be the way to start. What I actually want you to do is hit me, because .. ."

She threw out a fist and punched him in the gut.

He touched his stomach with a pained, wide-eyed expression. "Ouch." He straightened up and gave her a smile. "How long had you been waiting to do that? Actually, I wasn't finished speaking yet."

"Sorry."

"What I was going to do is explain where and how to hit. Now let me show you something." He took her fist in his hand and spread open her fingers one by one. "See, you have your thumb tucked into your hand. That's no good. You'll break it that way. Always put it on the outside, like this."

She tried not to blush, but she loved the way he was touching her.

"The other thing is you should never punch someone roundabout like that. You swung your arm to the side before hitting me. You should always punch straight from you to me."

"But I've seen men brawl that way on the docks."

"I know, I know. But they didn't know what they were doing. Never lift up your shoulder and swing. Just punch straight and fast."

She practiced in the air a couple of times, and he observed her doing this, for the first time viewing her not as a woman but as a fighter. "Bend your knees a little," he said thoughtfully, chewing on his lip. "If someone kicks them,

Elizabeth Doyle

you don't want to fall. Good. Now practice on me, but..." and he emphasized this with a warning finger and a grin, "don't punch hard and don't punch me in the gut."

"How's this?" she asked, punching him on the chest.

"Good," he said, catching it. "You know, I might have thought it would take some coaxing to get you to actually hit me. I'm delighted to see it comes so naturally."

She failed to catch his sarcasm. "Yes, this is fun," she said. "When can I use the knife?"

Jacques turned his eyes skyward. Perhaps this hadn't been such a wonderful idea, after all. He smiled at this new side he had revealed in Sylvie. He had known she was an angel, a woman of his dreams. But he had never guessed she might also be a companion and a friend, someone who loved the things he loved. He feared he was losing his heart to her. And that would be a mistake, he knew For what woman could ever love a deaf man and a pirate? What woman should?

Late at night, they ate quietly in the privacy of their cabin. Their hunger was greater than their slivers of dried meat could cure, but they both chewed slowly, hoping to make it last. Sylvie had no idea why Jacques was being so quiet. She had loved their lesson, and could hardly wait for their next. First thing in the morning, he had promised her, and she planned to hold him to it. In fact, she had enjoyed her whole day, more than any other she could immediately recall. She loved the ocean, she loved their ship, and she had been delighted when the men voted to name it Sylvie after her. They were all being so kind to her. Even homesickness wasn't getting in the way, nor was fear of the future. She was living in a trance. Drama had freed her from reflection. Feeling that circumstances were beyond her control, that worrying and missing would do her no good, she had never been so de-

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lighted to live in the here and now. Where she was seemed like a lovely place to be. So what could possibly be wrong with Jacques?

"Are you ill?" she asked him. He was staring at the strip of meat in his hand and paying her no heed. She shook him to get the attention of his eyes and repeated, "Are you ill?"

"No," he said as though displeased that she would steal him from his thoughts to ask such a silly question. He returned to his meal.

She moved to shake him again, but this time, he looked up expectantly before feeling her touch. "What?" he demanded.

"Jacques, I. . . well, I don't mean to trouble you. I only noticed that you don't seem very happy."

He grumbled, but did not really reply. He returned to the task of eating.

She watched him, wide-eyed, finding that her own appetite was quickly shrinking. He was ignoring her. Perhaps thinking ill of her? Her heart sank. It seemed there wasn't anyone in the world whose tenderness and good will she wanted more. As was always her nature, she decided to speak her mind. She touched his hand, the one that was gripping meat with such fury, and forced him to cast angry eyes upon her. "Jacques, is it because of the marriage?" His expression revealed nothing. "Is it because I don't believe we're married, and I don't wish to be?"

He felt cornered by her honesty. He had not planned to have this out, not here and not now. Maybe not ever. "Yes," he said just a bit snidely, "I suppose it is."

Sylvie dropped her eyes and tried to explain. "Please don't be so angry, Jacques. It's just that you rushed me into this, you dragged me to the wedding, you . .."

"And if I'd given you more time you would have said 4 yes'?" He laughed brutally. "The hell you would have."

"How can you accuse me of not caring for you? I gave

Elizabeth Doyle

you my .. ." she clenched her hands tightly, finishing in a whisper, "... my innocence."

His reply showed no consideration for the sensitivity of the topic. "You were looking for excitement," he said. "You never cared for me."

"I saved your life! I lost everything for you!"

"You did it out of kindness . .. not out of love." He lowered his tone, humble in the presence of someone as truly good as she was. "I never said you weren't kind."

Sylvie wanted to soothe him so desperately that she tried to say something untrue. "Jacques, I ... I think I would have married you if you'd given me more time to ... to get used to the idea, to ... well, you know I had a fiance, and I didn't want my parents to be disappointed, and at the time, it wasn't a matter of life and death. I think if we'd just been together longer, if things had been different..."

"Well, things are different now," he challenged her with eyes that stung, "so why aren't you delighted to be my wife?"

Sylvie felt as if her throat was blocked. She swallowed over and over to try to rid herself of the obstruction, but she just couldn't make a sound. The truth was that she didn't want to be married to a pirate. Agreeing to be someone's wife. To her, it was like agreeing to represent him, to have his identity imposed upon her own. Even if she had loved Jacques, she would not have wanted to join him in that way. She would not want people to look at her and see the wife of a penniless pirate. She knew it was wrong. In her deepest heart, the one that always collided with the world around her, she knew it was not good and true to feel that way. But it was reality. To save a man from death was noble. To adore him when he was so handsome was natural. But to marry him? She would have had to love him more than life itself to be humiliated in that way. "Our wedding was a sham," she reminded him.

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He pounded his fist on the table scaring her. "Because you want it to be!" he cried. "Because you deny it!" He walked angrily to the tar side of the room so she would not fear his temper. She watched him, an expression of pain frozen on her face. It hurt terribly to see him despise her in this way.

"I didn't agree" she told him, but her voice was not as strong as she wanted it to be. "You never even asked me to be your wife. You just told me it was going to happen. You just assumed . . ."

'That if you were willing to share my bed, you'd be happy I intended to make an honest woman of you?"

Sylvie looked down despairingly. "I was wrong," she admitted. "I should never have done that. I should never have ..." She nodded at him to take her meaning, not to make her say it. "It's just that you're . . . well, you're . . . you're so handsome!" she exclaimed, folding her arms bitterly against his glare of disbelief. "Well, it's true!" she cried. "You tempted me—I couldn't help myself. You men don't know what you do sometimes. You . . . you walk around without your shirts and display your muscles for any woman to see, and then you're angry when we fall prey? It's just wrong! Don't you see that? Men are like . . . well, they're like tests to see how strong our will is. You're just living, breathing tests. And I failed! I admit it, I failed. But you can't expect me to marry just because I had a moment of weakness."

Jacques had never been confronted with an accusation quite like that one before. He wasn't sure he knew how to reply. He cast her several strange looks, started to speak, then changed his mind. After a very long pause, he shook his head briskly to clear it and said, "I'm sleeping in another cabin."

Sylvie wanted to stop him. There was so much more she had to say. She wanted to remind him that it was he who would not teach her his secret language, he who resisted the closeness, he who failed to commit to love. She wanted to

Elizabeth Doyle

tell him that demanding marriage was not the same thing as professing love, and that she did not believe his heart was with her any more than hers was with him. But he was leaving quickly, and she didn't have enough time to blurt out anything except, "Wait!" And that proved ineffective. He was gone in an instant, a shirt tossed over his arm, and the door slammed behind him. Sylvie bowed her head in sorrow, her face aching from wanting to cry but being too proud to do it. She couldn't bear to run after him. But oh, she wanted to. The moment he stepped out, she felt his absence like a hollowness in the night air. She felt his disappointment in her. She felt it in the walls, in the blanket, in the lantern. Oh God, she thought, scolding herself, shaking her head mournfully from side to side, how many people can I lose in the course of one summer?