Captive Splendors (39 page)

 

The late afternoon sun dipped low on the western horizon, suffusing the tropical isle of Java in a red glow that crept through the tall, narrow windows and reflected off Luanna's slim naked beauty. Sleekly formed hips, narrow as a boy's, caught the sun as she raised her arms to undo the pins at the back of her head, allowing her jet-black hair to cascade to her slim waist. Her small breasts were firm and high; her body absent of hair as was the Javanese tradition. Luanna was fully aware of the sensual picture she presented to Regan van der Rhys. As the most sought after and notorious prostitute on the island, it was her business to know how to appeal to a man's lusty appetites.

Regan watched Luanna's preparations; mentally comparing her to a sultry feline. She moved toward the bed where he waited, sliding in beside him, pressing her hips suggestively against him. Her oblique, dark eyes smiled into his. Regan pulled her to him, conscious of her slender length against his flesh, feeling his responses rise to a throbbing urgency. Her skin was cool and fragrant, her hair perfumed and silky, falling over his face as she kissed and nibbled artfully at his lips. He returned her embrace, tasted her mouth, enjoyed the suppleness of her body. His hands found her breasts and he heard her make a faint sound almost like the purring of a contented cat. He wanted to taste, to feel, to lose himself in her, to forget.

Passions mounted and he tumbled her beneath him, burying his face in her cloud of hair, experiencing the slow curl of heat in his belly, aware that Luanna was matching his movements with a rhythm of her own.

Luanna's hands kneaded the broad muscles of his back, drawing him closer, excited by his increasing passion. Her thighs closed savagely around him, locking him to her as she felt herself being swept away by the wild emotions this man created within her. “Regan . . .” she moaned against his demanding mouth, tasting the sweetness of the wine he had consumed.

She was aware of the thick golden fleece on his chest brushing against her breasts, stimulating their coral tips to stand erect, the hard flat muscles of his stomach pressing against her, the strength of his arms and hands, the clean masculine scent of him. Each of her senses was heightened and filled by this man who could make her feel as though she'd never known another lover, who could make her believe she was created for his pleasure alone and, in giving that pleasure to him, find her own.

Her fingers traced the lines of his face and, even with her eyes closed, she could perceive his image. The brightness of his hair was like moonbeams captured on the water, thick and crisp and whitened like the grasses on the hillside during the summer. His heavy brows gave such a defiant, determined expression to his cool, agate-blue eyes, eyes that could pierce a woman's soul and make her his slave. The bronze of his skin, warmed by the sun and stung by the sea; his full sensitive lips—his smile, white and strong—the cleft in his chin which gave him a certain boyishness and endowed his handsome, almost craggy features with a vulnerability.

Touching his broad shoulders and rock-ribbed torso, she knew the power of this man, a force and energy that made a woman aware of her own defenselessness. But she also knew his gentleness, his consideration. She was reminded of it and reassured by it with each caress stirring her desires and leading her to the threshold of ecstasy. His hands reached down to grasp her hips and she gasped with anticipation. His mouth closed over hers and she began to moan and he carried her with him. Together they spun over the threshold of sensuality into the universe, whirling on a roll of thunder and blinded by a flashing bolt of rapture. In the quiet of the room she heard his voice, deep and heavy, “Sirena . . .”

Afterward Luanna's fingertips traced the frown that furrowed his brow. Lightly she kissed the slight downward pull at the corner of his mouth. She had seen him this way many times in the past months and she knew he only came to her when his passion demanded release and he needed the arms of a woman to comfort his sorrow. “There was a time, Regan, when I would have cheerfully killed you if you had whispered another woman's name while you lay in my arms,” she said softly, watching the traces of bitterness cloud his eyes. “Do you know you call out for her?”

“I don't know what you're talking about!” Regan growled, making a move to leave her side.

“No, stay here with me,” she whispered, pressing him back against the bedding. “It's time you told someone of your grief.”

Regan turned and looked at Luanna's lovely face beside him on the pillow. “There is nothing to tell.” Wresting himself free of her, he rose from the bed and reached for his clothes.

Luanna sat up, her long hair falling over her shoulders, cloaking her nudity from his eyes. “You lie! Each time you come here to be with me it is her name you call out. Don't you think I feel it in your touch? It's not my body you reach out for, it is
hers!”

“Leave me alone, Luanna. You don't know what you're talking about.” He spoke in a monotone, teeth clenched, frightening in his intensity.

Still, Luanna persisted. “I know. I am not stupid! Ever since you came back to Java with your wife and infant son you do not seek Luanna's arms. You want no other woman, only Sirena. Yet, since your young son died it is to Luanna that you come with such loneliness in your eyes.”

“Nonsense!” Regan growled as he fastened the buttons on his shirt and reached for his boots.

“It is not nonsense. Do you think it is only Luanna who sees this change in you? Bah! You men! Always so strong! But a woman knows, Regan.”

“It's your female imagination,” he bristled, angry with this turn in the conversation. “I don't come here for advice, Luanna,” he smiled with bravado.

“You can't fool your Luanna. It is not for me that you cry out at the moment of release. It is for your wife . . . Sirena! Go back to her, Regan, go to your Sirena. I can't bear to see your heart breaking this way. Don't you think I know a man starved for love when I see him? Go to her. Bare your heart to her. Make her love you. Force her if you must. Break through her grief, Regan, make her see that she needs you and loves you!”

Regan was taken aback by the sincere tears he saw in Luanna's eyes. In the manner of a woman she saw straight through to the root of his problem. “Is this what I've come to, Luanna? A man who evokes a whore's pity?” he asked softly.

“And the best damn whore in all the Indies!” Luanna defended proudly.

Tentatively, he stretched out a hand to brush away the tears glistening on her smooth round cheeks.

“Get out of here, Regan! Go back to your Sirena!” Picking up the bedside lamp, she held it threateningly. “Go home to your wife!”

Silently Regan left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

 

Twilight was descending again upon the long stretch of lawn that came to an abrupt end at the edge of the dense primeval jungle surrounding the van der Rhys mansion. From here, the busy growth of Batavia, Java's primary seaport, was unnoticed. The vibrant foliage insulated the house's inhabitants against any intrusion from the outside world. The splendid dwelling and outlying plantation had become the entire world to Sirena van der Rhys in the six months since the death of her only child, Mikel.

Tonight, as every night, Sirena took her place near the delicate pane-glass doors leading out to the garden, to stand sentry. Her deep green eyes penetrated the falling darkness as her mind trod the path to the edge of the lawn where Mikel's lovingly tended grave rested.

If the one ebullient servants in the van der Rhys home were subdued and watchful in her presence, Sirena did not notice. If their once spirited steps were now a quiet shuffle, she did not care. If Regan looked to her for a sign of affection or a soft word, she did not think to respond. Sirena's only thought was of Mikel. His world was her existence; his eternity her fate.

Regan watched his wife from beneath lowered eyelids as she stood near the doors. The muscles in his lean, clean-shaven jaw tautened as he observed her shoulders slump and her classic profile turn once more to gaze out over the lawn. It had been an error of judgment to allow Serena to place Mikel's grave so close to the house. He should have insisted that the child be placed beside his grandfather in the small plot of ground at the far end of the nutmeg grove. This standing guard, playing sentinel to a child six months cold was bringing him to the breaking point. He ran a sun-bronzed hand through his thatch of wheat-colored hair and groaned inwardly.

Why couldn't Sirena turn to him? Where had he failed her? Could she not see that the loss of their son was as painful a cross to bear for him as it was for her? Couldn't she see that sharing the loss would make the burden lighter for both of them? Where was the woman he had once known? Where was his Sea Siren? Had the spirit left her at the same moment the breath had left Mikel's body?

Regan closed his eyes against the mournful sight of Sirena and he saw her once again as he remembered her; tall and slender, an expression of supremacy on her delicate features, the light of challenge burning in her eyes. Once again he reveled in the memory of her long raven tresses swept by the sea's errant winds and the haughty set of her shoulders and the daring lift of her chin. He lived again the moments when he had seen her with a mantle of spindrift clouding her hair and settling in a salty wetness on the smooth, tawny flesh of her long, sensuous limbs.

How long had it been since he had heard her laugh? He imagined he heard it now as he had that day when he first saw her aboard her phantom ship, nearly six years ago. She had been a sea witch as she stood with feet placed firmly apart, the rapier's point dug into the deck and her rippling laugh coursing over the waters to taunt him. Then, he had been aware mostly of her abbreviated costume which revealed much of her swelling breasts and all of her lightly muscled legs.

He had never seen a woman as beautiful as the Sea Siren and he realized that beneath the somber, heavy gowns which had become Sirena's regular attire, the same beauty still lurked. The same loveliness, yet so much more. Her skin was still buffed ivory. Her eyes, once flashing emeralds, now without luster beneath a thick black fringe of lashes, were nevertheless wide and slightly tilted at the corners, giving her an Oriental appearance. And her full, sensuous lips were now drawn into a firm line. But once they had been mobile, smiling over strong, dazzling teeth. Motherhood had ripened her beauty and softened it. Though still as slim as a girl, there was a lushness about her.

His arms ached to hold her, to press her head lovingly against his chest and fill her world with love and tenderness and share with her again that all-encompassing yearning for one another. His desire to love and be loved was only secondary to his wanting to comfort her, to be comforted.

Yet Sirena had denied them both this sweet release from grief. She had spurned his advances and turned him away. And fool that he was, he had allowed it. His desire to see her comforted had controlled his passions. In his respect for her grief he had determinedly quelled his needs for her as his wife.

Currently, as Regan shifted his weight in the deep armchair he knew that the constraints of that respect had reached the breaking point. He wanted her, he needed her now! Mikel was dead and if the situation were allowed to continue there would be no respite from the eternal sorrow.

Night had fallen swiftly and the edge of the lawn was barely discernible. There was no moon to light a silvery path to Mikel's grave. These were the times Sirena dreaded the most—when Mikel was shrouded in darkness.

The sound of Regan shifting in his chair caught Sirena's attention. In the glass panes of the doors she saw his reflection. A deepening grudge burned within her. It was this emotion that was the only part of her still alive. She returned her attention to the darkness outside and recalled her horror the day Regan had come upon her soon after the child's death when she had been placing a lantern upon his grave. “It's for when the nights are black and long,” she had explained tearfully. She had expected Regan to understand. Instead he had wrung the light from her hand and sent it crashing against the simple stone marker. There had been a fury in his blue eyes and a tensing of the muscles along his jaw.

“Mikel is dead!” he had exploded in a demonstration of rage. “There is no earthly light which can ease his soul. Where's your Christian belief, Sirena? Were you not taught that all little children find their place beside the Lord?”

“My son,” she had returned, “was fearful of the dark!”

“Your son!” Regan had bellowed. “Was he not also mine? Would you deny me my own grief that he should be taken from me so cruelly?”

“You bury what misery you feel in your damnable office. You leave this house with thoughts of business on your mind and give not a second thought to your own flesh and blood placed so heartlessly beneath this ground. Tell me, Regan, was it for you Mikel called in the night when a stray wind would blow out his lamp? Did you hurry from your bed to cradle him and chase away his imaginings of winged creatures?” Sirena's face became alive with anger. “More than once you pulled me back against you with reassurances he would be over his terrors that much quicker if I paid them no mind! When I think of the times I heeded you, when I rested again in your arms and closed my ears to his whimpers to listen instead to your soft murmurings of love, it grates my soul! And now you would deny him this final respite which we alone can give him—a lantern on his grave!”

Regan had appeared as though struck full in the face. His features whitened, his mouth drew downward with sorrow. “You would have me believe Mikel cried out in fear. Think back, Sirena, and know the truth for what it is. When Mikel suffered nightmares, there was no chance for anyone besides you to go to him. I swear there were moments when I felt as though you kept your slippers on your feet perchance he should call to you. And those whimperings. Childhood dreams! The boy never turned in his sleep or sighed over dreams of angels that you didn't rush to his crib to watch over him. If there were indeed nights when I was able to take your thoughts from him and turn them to me, they were rare indeed!”