Hot Winds From Bombay (13 page)

Another knock sounded—Mrs. Wilkes delivering their supper. She set it on a small table before the fire.

“There now. Is there anything else I can bring you?”

Zack noted that she had not forgotten the jug of wine he’d ordered with their meal. “No, thank you. This will do us just fine.”

“Have a good night, then,” she answered.

“Oh, we will,” Zack assured her with more certainty in his voice than Persia enjoyed hearing.

Persia found she was ravenous. The boiled beef and cabbage warmed her and filled her. And the musky, smoke-flavored wine wasn’t bad, either. At first, she refused to drink it. She’d never tasted spirits before in her life. But when Zack insisted that they toast their coming marriage, she had little choice in the matter. The wine burned on the first taste, but she soon grew accustomed to it, and the liquid caressed her tongue and throat like warm velvet.

When they had finished their supper, some wine remained. Zack, toying with her fingers, poured her another glass.

Her eyes, misted with a film of exhaustion and drink, gazed down at his hands on hers. She watched his strong, thick fingers walk up her hand to her wrist and then climb back down again. The sight gave her a strange feeling. She knew exactly where he was touching her, she was watching it happen. However, the sensations he aroused did not manifest themselves in her fingers, but deep down inside her, tugging at some inner cord that seemed attached to her nipples, stomach, and womb. It was all very disconcerting, but she could not deny that she loved the feeling. She smiled.

“Persia?” He squeezed the fingers he had been fondling.

“Yes, Zack.”

Slowly, she tilted her face up to his. She had no idea the urgent message the blaze in her blue eyes was transmitting.
She
knew what she was feeling… wanting. But she was sure the secret was her own. Never would she have dreamed of coming right out and saying to Zack: “I want you to make love to me.” That would have been unthinkable!

Silence reigned between them for some time. Their locked gazes and the impact of their hands touching were far too weighty to leave enough breath for speech. The small clock on the mantel chimed twelve times in the stillness.

“Time to come to bed now, Persia,” Zack said softly. “This is our wedding day.”

They rose as one and went to the opposite sides of the bed. Together, without a word, they turned down the red-and-blue quilt. Zack moved about the room, blowing out the lamps, until only the soft glow of the fire repelled the darkness of midnight.

Persia sat on the side of the bed and removed her shoes. Then she stretched out, tucking her skirts close in under her, and pulled the quilt up to her chin. She lay tense, waiting, too nervous to turn her head to see what Zack was doing. She heard one boot drop, then another. Her heart gave a rapid flutter. When his weight sagged down the mattress next to her, she had to bite her lip to keep from crying out. He stretched out beside her but didn’t touch her. She felt as if she were stranded in some unsettling suspension of time and space—needing him, wanting him, but terrified that she might betray herself.

“Persia? You aren’t asleep, are you?” His hand touched hers, and she jumped.

“N-no!” she cried. “I’m awake.”

“Good.”

Good? Why good? she wondered. What was he thinking? What was this
stranger
going to do to her?

His finger traced along the line of her lower lip with no more pressure than a feather. She trembled and a burning sensation throbbed in her lower body.

“Do you want to go to sleep, Persia?”

“Zack!” She turned toward him abruptly, and the finger that had been tormenting her lip tangled in her hair. “You know I’m exhausted. We both are. We need sleep.”

“Persia, darling.” His lips were so close to her face now that his warm breath bathed her flesh. “I need something else more than I need sleep.
I need you!”

When his mouth met hers, there was a pleading urgency in his kiss. It fired her own need, as hard as she tried to fight it. Still holding her prisoner with his lips, Zack let his hands move to her bodice. Her breasts strained to meet his touch. With dexterous fingers, he freed her from her gown, lifting her in his arms to pull it away.

“Oh, Zack, please…”

The “no” that would have completed her sentence lodged in her throat as his moist lips searched down her neck to her breasts and found the nipple they sought, peaked and ready to be taken.

White fire flashed through her body, and she arched to meet him, thrusting with her hips. She hardly noticed when he dragged her camisole and petticoats down, finally shoving them away with one foot. All she knew was that explosions of desire were igniting deep inside her. Shaking her. Pounding her. Turning her from a woman of flesh and blood into a trembling mass of molten longing…

She moaned his name and twisted beneath him, thrusting once more with such force that the sharp edge of his teeth grazed her tender nipple. Then Zack’s hands were on her hips, pressing her down, holding her in place. The fact that she could no longer move only aroused her more. Her head tossed from side to side. Her fists clenched and unclenched in his thick hair.

He gave up his hold on the aching tip of her breast for a moment. The cessation of feeling gave her a sudden sense of having been cut loose from a mooring. She drifted, breathless, glad that he had released her, but yearning to be taken in tow once more.

She reached out to him. Sometime, she wasn’t sure when, he had shed his clothes. Her hands touched his bare chest. Her fingers curled through his tight man-hair. She felt him shudder against her open palms.

“Oh, Persia,” he moaned. “Oh, dear God!”

He found her parted lips in the darkness and suckled her mouth in much the same tantalizing fashion that he had tortured her nipple moments before. It was almost more than she could endure. She wanted to scream and cry and beg. But she could do nothing. He held her voice prisoner in the same manner that he was captor of her body and her senses.

Without even knowing it, Persia’s hands were doing things to Zack that seemed calculated to drive him mad with need. Her nervous fingertips seemed unable to rest—roaming over his chest before moving up his neck to entwine themselves in his hair once more. Tiring of that, they strayed over his ears and down once more to his shoulders, where they paused, nails digging into his flesh. As her body strained against his and her breasts kissed his chest, her silken, nomadic hands discovered the small of his back, drawing tight little circles on his skin. His buttocks tightened, awaiting the next assault. When it came, her hands cupping and releasing in a torturous rhythm, he rose from her, throwing his head back with a primeval cry of need.

When Zack leaped off the bed, Persia’s shock and disappointment were total. He had brought her to this fiery threshold. How could he leave her there, with the very quick of her longing exposed to the painful night?

“Zack,” she whispered in a trembling voice. “Come back to me.
Please.”

But in the next moment she realized that he hadn’t left her. He was kneeling beside the bed. His warm hands cradled her foot, massaging the arch, stroking her toes. She relaxed once more under his tender ministrations. But she let her guard down too soon. A moment later, she felt his tongue glide up her sole. She gasped and struggled, but his hold on her ankle was like iron. As he sucked at her toes, stroking the soft flesh between them with his tongue, Persia felt the heat of his touch shoot up her legs, making them weak. And such a burning ache scourged her body that she could hardly stand the pain, although it was not pain at all.

When he had done with both feet, he climbed onto the bed, kneeling between her legs. With his palms flat on the inside of her thighs, he moved up to her slowly, parting a way for what was to come. At the moment his hands met at the V where her limbs joined her body, his fingers touched the fiery tip of her womanhood and she cried out. He ignored her pleas and let his fingers dip into the warm fountain he had discovered, exploring the cavern at his leisure. He touched and stroked, teased and soothed, until Persia was beyond speech, beyond hearing, almost beyond breathing. All she could do was feel. And the feelings were beyond her powers of description.

“Persia… my love… my bride.”

Zack’s words seemed to come from far away. She was conscious only of an emptiness gnawing at the very heart and soul of her. An emptiness that demanded to be filled lest it consume her totally.

Then he was there once more—his lips on hers, his hands on her shoulders, his weight bearing her down. But she became aware of a new pressure, hot and throbbing, between her thighs. She knew somehow that their moment had come. Instinctively, her muscles tightened, refusing him entry. One hand moved from her shoulder down and down. He raised his hips. He stroked the aching juncture where all her yearning seemed to come together and intensify. Her muscles relaxed. She parted a way for him.

He filled her. A single thrust and it was done. Pain and shock gave way to a sense of wholeness, oneness. Her body seemed to expand to accommodate his size and strength. Flesh and fire mingled. She thought she heard music from far away—or was it coming from inside her body as it sang out its delight, its ecstasy?

He stroked slowly at first, allowing her to catch his rhythm and match it with her own. But as they rode the dark sea of love together, the tempest within them both grew and accelerated until they were whirling, flying, speeding through uncharted waters to a fragrant, distant shore. But would they ever arrive? Was the blissful peace her mind and body sought only a shimmering mirage on some far horizon?

“Darling, I love you,” Zack whispered.

The words beckoned her toward that calm port. But first they had to cross the reef, the tumultuous white water that called its siren song to them even as it menaced.

Suddenly, Persia knew she was there. Warm foam broke over her while cold spray stung her body. The sun blazed down, searing her through and through. She clung to Zack, begging him not to let go until they were safely on the shore. He offered a deeper, surer thrust to let her know he was with her. They rode it out together until finally they burst through, onto shimmering white sands—exhausted, sated, euphoric.

Persia fell back among the pillows, her whole body tingling. Her breath came in short bursts. Zack eased himself out of her and rested his damp head on her breasts, sucking gently and whispering quiet endearments to the woman he loved… the woman who was his wife now, even if no vows had been exchanged.

“Zack,” she murmured at last. “I do love you. You’ll never doubt that, will you?”

“Not if you’re always the way you’ve been tonight, darling.”

“I didn’t quite believe what you said earlier about being born for each other, but now I’m sure it’s true.”

He laughed softly and pressed his palm to her belly, feeling it quiver at his touch. “It’s true all right! Thank heavens I didn’t decide to marry Europa to collect my bet. All the gold in the world couldn’t have paid me well enough if I’d lost you in the bargain.”

Persia was frowning. Marry Europa? Had he ever really considered it? And what bet was he talking about?

“What do you mean, Zack?”

He kissed her breast and then her lips before he answered, “Nothing, my love. Nothing at all. Come here.” He gathered her into his arms. “I want you close in case I wake up and need your love.”

Zack fell asleep soon after that with his lips close to hers and his body pressed so tightly against her own that she could feel his every heartbeat. But Persia couldn’t sleep.

His mention of Europa had been ill-timed, and it had brought with it a rush of guilt and pain and doubt. What would her selfish actions mean to the members of her family? Would they ever forgive her for running away… for creating such a scandal?

The wondrous world she had discovered in Zack’s arms drifted to the background of her mind, replaced by black doubts and fears. And when she slept at last, her dreams were peopled with grotesques and monsters from the deep.

Even when Zack awoke near dawn and drew her beneath him to take her once more, her troubled mind denied her the ecstasy she had experienced earlier. Chilly from the heart outward, she climbed from the bed to put on the nightgown she’d packed for her wedding night.

Afterward she slept, worn out by Zack’s loving thrusts and the jabbing of a thousand devils’ pitchforks.

Persia stayed in bed most of the next day. Sometime near noon, Zack woke her with a loving caress. But when she glanced at the window, she wasn’t sure of the hour. The sky looked brown as the sun’s faint rays tried to pierce the driving, wet snow. Frost fogged the panes. The wind howled at the eaves like demons searching for lost souls.

“I’m going out for a while, darling.”

She accepted Zack’s kiss on her cheek, then pulled the quilt up to her ears once more. It wasn’t until she heard the door slam behind him that she came fully to her senses. She sat up and called his name, but it was too late. She was left alone to face the full impact of what had happened the night before. It weighed heavily on her conscience.

This wasn’t the way she had planned or imagined it would be. She and Zack were meant for each other. Their love was perfect and right and perhaps even holy. So why should she be feeling this nagging guilt about Europa? Why had he even mentioned her sister’s name the night before?

She sat up in bed and stared out the window without even seeing the snowstorm raging in silence. Her body felt heavy. Her limbs ached. Her brain burned around the edges as if what she and Zack had done last night had somehow tainted her mind and soiled her soul. She shivered at the thought.

“No!” she said in quiet desperation. “No, it wasn’t wrong. It couldn’t have been.”

The longer Zack was gone, the blacker the mood that took hold of her. She watched the hands of the little china clock on the mantel creep slowly around its enameled face. Once, twice, a third time. The storm inside her raged as furiously as the one outside the window. She bathed, she dressed, she nibbled absently at the light lunch the landlady brought up to her. Slowly, what little light there had been to the day began to fade. And with the coming of darkness, her fears grew larger and more ominous.

When, at last, she heard Zack’s footsteps approaching the door, she leaped up from her chair and ran to meet him.

“Oh, Zack!” Even to her own ears, her voice sounded almost hysterical.

“Darling, what’s wrong?” He held her away from him and smoothed back a lock of hair from her forehead.

She looked up at him, taking in the warm concern in his brown eyes and the crease of worry marring his brow. He was there. He was real. She was touching him at this very moment—gripping his damp sleeves with tense fingers. What did she have to be anxious about? Suddenly, all her hours of apprehension seemed a silly waste of time and energy.

She forced a laugh, but it was thin, with an edge of nervousness still clinging to it. “Nothing’s wrong. It’s just… I’m just… I’m glad you’re back. The storm… it’s getting dark, ” she stammered.

“My little Persia.” He pulled her to his chest and cradled her there, rocking gently as if she were a terrified child. “I’ve heard of women being afraid of the sound and fury of a thunderstorm, but never a snowstorm.”

“I know. I’m just being silly. And now I feel horribly foolish. Forget it, darling.” She buried her face against his chest and hugged him tightly.

But Zack refused to let the matter drop. Slipping his hand under her chin, he raised her face to his and kissed her lips gently. There was no mistaking the deep shadow of worry in her usually clear eyes.

“Something
is wrong. Out with it! There’ll be no secrets between us, Persia Whiddington!”

She shuddered slightly at the mention of secrets. Without realizing it, Zack had hit upon the exact nature of the problem. She didn’t want there to be secrets between them, either. And although her guilt at running away troubled her deeply, she understood in that moment that Zack had been keeping something from her.
That
was what bothered her most.

“I agree, Zack. We should tell each other everything.”

Silence followed her quiet statement. Zack thought she was working up the nerve to tell him what was troubling her, while in truth she was waiting for him to speak.

Finally she said, “Well?”

“Well what?”

She didn’t want to have to pry it out of him. She wanted him to give to her freely, as she had given to him the night before. “Please, Zack, tell me what you meant… about the bet.”

Persia watched a tense nerve throb at his temple. His eyes narrowed for the briefest moment just before his smile broadened to almost unnatural brightness.

“Oh, that’s nothing. I shouldn’t even have mentioned it.”

She kept her voice steady and quiet. “But you
did
mention it. Now, please explain.”

“Darling, there really isn’t time for that,” he replied. “I’ve spoken to a minister who’s willing to marry us within the hour. But we have to hurry. He’s several blocks away, and the storm is getting worse. If we don’t leave now, he’ll be gone by the time we get to the church.”

Zack’s words only served to bring out Persia’s stubborn streak. She dug in almost visibly, shaking her head slowly as she continued to stare at him.

“If we miss him today, he can marry us tomorrow. After last night, a few hours or a few days will make little difference.”

Zack felt the smile melt from his face. He knew he was frowning, but he couldn’t help his sour expression. What was she saying? Had she changed her mind?

He cursed himself silently for having mentioned the bet at all. If he tried to explain at this point, he could only make matters worse. Still, he refused to begin their relationship with a lie. The wager had been the foolish act of a sailor ashore with too much rum in his belly after a long, dry voyage. Surely Persia would understand that. After all, her own father was a man of the sea.

Zack took her hands in his and led her to a chair by the fire.

“I’ll tell you what you want to know, but first you have to promise me something.”

“What?”

“Promise me that you will try to understand and forgive me. Promise?”

A new kind of terror gripped her. Could it be that more had gone on between Zack and Europa than she had been led to believe? No! She couldn’t allow herself to imagine such thoughts. Still, if that was what Zack was about to tell her, she wasn’t sure she could live with the knowledge. She almost told him to forget her demands.

Don’t explain anything. Don’t even talk. Just take me to the church. Marry me! Love me!
The words were screaming in her brain and trembling on the tip of her tongue, begging to be spoken aloud, but she couldn’t bring herself to say them.

“How can I promise I’ll understand when I have no idea what you’re about to tell me?” She reached out and touched his hand. “I promise I’ll try, though.”

Her answer was not what Zack had hoped for, but there was no turning back now.

He cleared his throat and began. “Persia, that first night I met you, I did something utterly stupid. Instead of going straight up and getting the rest I needed when I got to the tavern, I stopped off in the taproom. One of my shipmates was there and called me to join him. Mind you, I’m not blaming Enrico in any way. He tried to keep me in line. But there was a lot of backslapping and drink buying. They were all calling me a hero for saving Europa.”

Seeing Persia wince at the mere mention of her sister’s name, Zack realized his task was going to be more difficult than he had imagined. But he plunged on.

“To make a long story short, one of the other men in the bar bet me a fortune that I couldn’t get either you or Europa to agree to marry me within the week.”

Persia felt a stab at her heart and caught her breath audibly. Tears of anger and disappointment pressed just behind her eyes. She wanted to scream at him, claw his face, tear out his eyes. But most of all,
she wanted to die.

How could any man have played such a cruel trick? To convince her to leave her family and run away with him. To tell her he loved her. To make love to her, using as his carrot on a stick his promise to marry her. And she, like the little fool she was, had gone right along with his plan.
What
was she supposed to do now?

Her voice came in a cold rush of fury. “So you tried to convince Europa to go along with your scheme, and when that failed you turned to her silly little sister.”

“Persia, no!” Zack cried. He dropped to his knees before her, gripping her arms. “No, that’s not the way it was! I never wanted Europa. I was trapped into the wager, in over my head before I even realized what the other fellow was proposing. By then, it was too late. The tavernkeeper had my purse—every cent I had in the world. I knew I loved you. Granted, it might have taken me longer to get around to asking you to marry me had it not been for the bet. But you have to believe me when I tell you that I would have. I love you!”

Tears blurred her vision and she was aware of his face only as a dark form, silhouetted against the bright orange of the flames in the fireplace.

“Do you love me more than you love Europa?”

“Yes! I mean,
no!
I don’t love Europa. I never even thought I could love her.”

“But you wagered that you could marry
either
of us. Why was that? If I hadn’t agreed, would you then have tried to convince my sister to be your wife? What kind of man are you? I don’t know you at all!”

Her hysterics unnerved him. He rose and tried to take her in his arms to kiss her, but she turned her face away.

Feeling defeated, he said hesitantly, “Persia, I’m the man who loves you… who loves
only
you.” He tried once more to capture her lips.

“Please don’t!”

He moved away. “Then you refuse to understand?”

“It’s not that I refuse. I simply
can’t
understand such manipulation in the name of love.”

“But it wasn’t manipulation. I did love you. I
do love you\
The bet was simply something that happened, but had nothing really to do with the feelings I had for you already. Please, Persia, you have to believe me. Don’t do this to us.”

“Me?
What have
I
done? I’ve allowed myself to fall right into your trap. You should be grateful that you haven’t yet married me. You’re a rich man because of me. And since we aren’t married, you won’t have to support a wife.”

“But I
want
to marry you!”

“But maybe I don’t want to marry you any longer, Zachariah Hazzard!” She had been screaming, wanting to hurt him as he had hurt her. But now her voice went quiet and cold.

“All right!” His tone echoed hers. He was not a man to beg. He had asked Persia and she had refused him. It hurt. “I’m going to leave you for a time and let you think all this through. But I want you to remember how it was last night… how our bodies sang in tune and our hearts beat against one another… how I fit into you as if you were the mold and I had been cast from it. It was good, Persia. You can’t deny that. I don’t want to lose you. But I won’t make a further fool of myself by staying here and groveling. If you decide you still want to be my wife, I’ll be at the Tail of the Devil Tavern. Remember, we have only an hour before the preacher leaves. If you haven’t come by then, I’ll go. And I won’t bother you again.”

Persia stared up at him, her mouth open and her eyes wide. She knew Zack was everything she wanted. But how could she give in to such an ultimatum?

He hesitated at the door, waiting for her to speak. But her lips drew tightly together to close off any further communication. She refused even to look at him.

He shrugged and turned the doorknob. “There’s money in my satchel if you decide you want to take the stage back to Maine.”

“Take your satchel with you. I don’t want your ill- won money!” she raged. Then, remembering Fletcher’s gold piece, she added, “I can pay my own way home.”

“Whatever you say.” His voice sounded dull and hopeless as he picked up his bag to leave. “Just remember this before you decide: I love you and I always will.”

The click of the latch as he left was like a shot fired point-blank at her heart. Persia wanted to slump to the floor and sob the ache away. But there wasn’t time. She glanced at the clock: four twenty-five. Her whole destiny would be decided in the next hour.

“So little time,” she murmured. But still, she could not make herself move. She sat where Zack had left her—stock still in the chair, staring into the fire.

The only sound in the room was the ticking of the clock.

Zack jammed his fists deep into his pockets and bent his bare head into the windblown snow. His boots crunched loudly, caving in the ice-crusted drifts in great, angry bites. He was too angry and hurt and frustrated to feel the chill bite of the blizzard against his face. But the sensation he was most aware of was an aching emptiness.

“Dammit,” he growled down into the collar of his coat. “You stupid, arrogant bastard!”

Already he sensed that his show of stubbornness would get him nowhere with Persia. He should have handled everything differently. He should have explained about the bet before he ever brought her to Boston… before he ever made love to her. Then, if she’d turned him away, at least it wouldn’t have hurt so. He’d never have known what he was missing. He would have shipped out, and the memory of her engraved on his heart would have blurred with time. But after last night his very soul bore her mark. If she did not come to him, he would no doubt have other women in the coming years. But he knew he would never enjoy them as he had before. Not after last night. Not after Persia.

He shouldered his way through the door of the tavern. The small room was thick with smoke from pipes and cigars and a faulty flue in the chimney. His eyes smarted, and the tears he was too much a man to shed over Persia now oozed from the corners of his eyes. He swiped at them angrily and shouted at the barkeep, “Goddammit, Clancey! I thought you were going to get that fireplace fixed before I made port again.”

“Zachariah Hazzard?” bellowed the big-bellied man presiding behind the rough bar. “Can it be you, man? In the flesh? I was sure by now you’d been swallowed up by one of them monsters of the deep—or at the very least caught the pox and been put ashore to fester and die. Welcome home! Will you have an ale?”

“Aye! In the biggest tankard you’ve got.”