Royally Claimed (12 page)

“My French friend Jack worked in all sorts of bad conditions, and he finally got sick last year. I had worried about that for years, but you can't tell a doctor anything.”

She snickered in agreement, knowing many more doctors than Frank. “Is he okay now? What did he catch?”

“Dysentery.”

“Oh.” Julia groaned. She'd only seen a couple cases of that but knew it was a nasty, possibly fatal disease if not treated properly.

“He's okay now, but he needed several months to recover. In a fortunate twist of fate, he met Lily, an American travel writer, as he was traveling home to Provence. He was planning to sit in the sun to recuperate but instead wound up falling in love. He and Lily just got married last summer and now they are having a baby.” His smile was heartfelt, but maybe a bit wistful.

“How exciting! Oh, look at that hot spring. The water looks almost silver.” Julia hastily changed the subject. Frank came from a big family and probably still wanted lots of little Portuguese babies running around. A young, fertile wife in her early twenties would be the best for that. Funny to think that many women Julia's
age spent their twenties trying to avoid pregnancy and their thirties chasing it.

“There is one pair of taps nearby that has two different springs. One tap has silvery residue and the other is iron.” Frank seemed to shake off his tinge of melancholy and checked the time on his phone. “Almost time to get lunch. Let's hop on the bike and go up to the caldera.”

“What's the caldera?” They went around a turn and Julia saw they were close to the entrance.

He winked. “The rim of the volcano.”

J
ULIA WASN'T SURE ABOUT
going to the rim of any volcano, dormant or not, but a few minutes later, Frank stopped the motorcycle in a small parking lot above the town.

“There's a lake in the volcano.” Julia had thought it would be a gaping crater. “It's beautiful.” The water was a deep, dark blue, sparkling under the sun.

“I'm glad you like it. The volcano is cooking our lunch.” He tugged her along.

“We're not roasting hot dogs over it, are we?”

“Much more fancy.”

Around the corner was another moonscape of crusted white land. Apparently this was safe for walking, since a handful of elderly men stood around on it smoking cigarettes, as if the sulfur fumes weren't enough. Black mounds of dirt dotted the flat area like giant anthills.

One man spotted Frank and called out enthusiastically. Frank waved in response. “Come meet our chefs.”

“Chefs?”

He tugged her along across the crunchy soil—almost as if they were walking on a frozen lake and she wasn't
sure if it would hold them. And she could swear the soles of her shoes were getting hotter as they went.

Frank greeted the men and introduced her to them, remembering each of their first and last names, and with Portuguese names, that was several apiece. The men were clearly flattered at being remembered by the Duke of Santas Aguas and treated her as if she were a princess. Or a duchess. “A pleasure,
senhorina.
” One man—she thought his name was José—gave her a little bow and gestured at the black mound closest to them. “We bring food out here at five o'clock this morning.”

A couple men busied themselves with a shovel, clearing the dirt away to reveal a pail with a lid. Another man hooked a hoe into the lid handle and lifted what looked like a five-gallon metal bucket.

“Here's our lunch.”

“Oh, um, are we picnicking here?” Julia looked around for somewhere to sit. She couldn't even smell what lunch might be.

Frank translated her question and the men laughed good-naturedly. “José says if he sits on the ground he is not getting back up again,” Frank told her, pointing at José who clutched comically at his back and limped for a few steps. “No, we are going to his house to eat with him and his family.”

The men wrapped the pail in a couple of old horse blankets and Frank helped lug it to the parking lot. He pretended to lift it onto the back of the motorcycle as if to drive it to José's house and the old men laughed again. The Duke of Santas Aguas was obviously a well-admired young man.

The pail made it safely into a compact car's backseat,
and the caravan of cars and motorcycle wound down the hill to a pretty white-washed two-story house. José honked the horn to announce that the ducal procession had arrived, and an older woman came out the front door, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. She wore glasses and had short, reddish-brown hair that puffed slightly around her face.

From the way she gestured and scolded José, Julia guessed that she was his wife. The men bore the pail into the house under her strict supervision, and then she turned to Frank. “Your Grace. Welcome to our home.” She even curtsied a bit. It was the first time Julia'd seen anyone treat Frank so formally, and it reminded her that he was indeed a powerful nobleman, cousin to Portuguese royalty, and accustomed to much finer things in life than she was.

Frank bowed back and took the woman's hand in greeting. “It is our honor to be here,
Senhora
Magdalena.” He introduced her to Julia, holding the older lady's hand the whole time.

“Please come in, Your Grace,
Senhorina
Julia.” Magdalena gestured toward the back of the house. “I must make sure the men are not ruining our lunch.”

“Of course. What would we men do without the ladies to watch over us?”

Magdalena gave a surprisingly young-sounding giggle at Frank's gallantry. He furthered his reputation as a gentleman by tucking Magdalena's hand into his left elbow and reaching for Julia's for his right side.

The three of them entered the house. The living room was small but stuffed with comfortable-looking furniture, and the dark wood dining room table was set with
what had to be the good china, white with pink pastel roses around the rims.

José poked his head out of the kitchen. “Hey, Don Franco, you already got a pretty girl, leave mine alone!”

“José!” Magdalena hissed, mortified at her husband's lack of respect for their noble guest. She let go of Frank's arm and burst into a torrent of Portuguese, waving her dishtowel at her husband's head.

The older man just laughed and ducked, obviously used to baiting his wife. She chased him into the kitchen and appeared a moment later, smoothing her ruffled dignity with a serene smile. “Would you like to see the opening of the
cozido?
”

“I'd love to,” answered Julia. She might need an extra few minutes to bolster her courage for eating their mystery-meat lunch.

The kitchen was a smaller version of the one in Frank's villa, dark wood and tiled walls. The pail sat on the center island, surrounded by more women—probably the wives of the men she'd met up at the caldera. The men leaned against the countertops, joking with each other. José put on oven mitts and popped the lid. They all sighed in pleasure as a delicious scent immediately filled the room.

Julia breathed out a sigh of relief, as well. Pork, if she wasn't mistaken. She could handle that. Magdalena reached into the pail with tongs and started pulling out tender chunks of meat, wedges of cabbage, potatoes and other vegetables and plump brown loops of sausage.

Julia's mouth watered. “So the pail acts as a slow cooker and the volcano supplies the heat?”

Frank nodded. “And it's first come, first served to the hot pits where you bury the food. That's why José got
there at five this morning to make sure he got a good spot.”

“All that work for us?”

José overheard her question. “No work, just an honor. The Duke, he is very good to our little islands.”

Magdalena chipped in, “He paid for the school playground, new roof for the church, bus for the handicapped children, new machines at the hospital—”

Frank waved his hands. “Please, please, you're embarrassing me.” His cheeks were turning ruddy, and Julia smiled.

She decided to take the focus off Frank to let him recover from the shower of well-deserved praise. “Magdalena, you speak very good English.” Julia carried a platter of
cozido
to the table and set it where the older woman indicated.

“She should,” said José, pouring a rich red wine into the goblets. “We lived in Falls River, Massachusetts, for thirty years. They say Falls River is the eighth island of the Azores since so many of us moved there when we were young.” The other men nodded.

Magdalena shooed everyone into a chair. She and José sat at the head and foot of the table. Julia sat between José and Frank and the other couples filled in to make about fourteen people at the table.

Julia smiled at their host. “Of course, Falls River.” It was a heavily Azorean enclave famous for its good food and rich culture. “I live in Boston now, but my parents retired back here. We lived here briefly when I was young—on the Air Force base.”

“Eh, we all move back and forth between Massachusetts and the Azores. If you lived here when you were a kid, you already an Azorean, right?”

“Well…” She'd need to learn Portuguese much better to get away with that claim. “That's kind of you to say.”

“Just the truth.” José tapped his wineglass. “A toast.” The table obediently quieted. “A toast to Don Franco, Duke of Santas Aguas, who grew into a fine man like his father and grandfather before him. They would be proud.”

Frank blinked in emotion, but José wasn't done yet. “And to the lovely
Senhorina
Julia, an Azorean-American beauty. Welcome home!”

It was Julia's turn to blush, and she gave what she hoped was a gracious nod to the cheers and claps. She sipped at her wine and filled her plate with juicy pork chunks, sausage and fork-tender cabbages and potatoes. The conversation dimmed as they ate their lunch, but grew in volume as the wine flowed and the eating slowed. It was a mix of English on her behalf and fast Azorean Portuguese. Weather, politics, the local economy were all hot topics that brought out fervent gestures and much fork-pointing.

During one particularly vigorous argument, Julia leaned over to Frank. “I didn't know you were such a philanthropist.”

He grimaced. “I tried to stay anonymous, but Benedito likes to brag about me. He and his wife have three daughters, so I'm the closest thing he has to a son.”

“But that's so sweet.”

“No, you are.” He caught her hand under the table and squeezed. She squeezed back and he smiled at her, his eyes like melted chocolate.

No, Frank was sweet. Sweet to her, his friends, their hosts who respected him for being a decent man more
than just a duke. Nobility was an accident of birth, but good character was no accident.

She realized they had been staring into each other's eyes for quite a while when the table quieted. She and Frank broke eye contact and Julia stared at her plate, her cheeks hot.

Conversation quickly picked up, but Julia caught a twinkle in José's eye and quickly hidden smiles from the women.

Goo-goo eyes and holding hands at a table full of doting Azoreans—phone lines would be burning hotter than the volcano ten seconds after they left.

Frank gave her hand one last squeeze and picked up his wine glass. “I would like to propose a toast to our host José and his lovely wife Magdalena for inviting us into their home, and to all of you as well for welcoming Julia and me to Furnas.
Saude!
Cheers!”

His sentiments were echoed amidst the clink of goblets. Madgalena brought out a huge American-style chocolate cake and traditional pastries. Julia had to decline a second dessert. “I don't want to tip over the motorcycle.”

“A little girl like you,” Madgalena scoffed, clearing away a plate. “Me, on the other hand…” She patted her well-rounded hip.

José grabbed her around the waist. “More of you to love,
meu bem
. And there are other things to ride.” He wiggled his bushy salt-and-pepper eyebrows.

“Oh, you!” She swatted at him with her dishtowel, blushing fiercely.

“What? Like a bicycle. Or a car. Or a donkey.”

“I'll give you a donkey!” Magdalena gave him one
last smack with the towel before flouncing off to the kitchen, José's uproarious laughter in her wake.

Julia smiled at their comfortable relationship, much like her parents. Maybe that was why she'd never gotten terribly serious about any of the men she'd dated. They had been pleasant men but she'd never felt truly at ease with them. She hadn't been able to imagine herself years in the future, older and plumper, pouring wine, setting out a nice dinner for them and their friends.

She offered to help in the kitchen but was roundly rebuffed for being a guest. Frank chatted with the men for a while, but then stood and made his goodbyes, reminding Julia they still had to run their errands and get back to Belas Aguas before dark.

They put on their jackets and helmets and rode away with a roar, waving goodbye until they turned the corner.

The earlier haze had burned off and the mountains were even greener as they rode along, reminding her of photos of Hawaii with its rich volcanic soil.

Frank was warm and solid in her arms, and she wished they were back on the boat so she could hold him face-to-face. As they got farther away from Furnas, she could swear that he was hitting bumps on purpose. Every time he hit a bumpy spot, the throbbing between her thighs increased, and her hands tightened on him. Once they got back to the boat, she would free him from his pants and take him inside her, make him relieve her aching desire.

He found a spot in the road that probably hadn't been paved since her first trip to the Azores and she let out a moan. The road, the throbbing of the engine, the sly touches and teasing…

Frank unexpectedly slowed and pulled into a narrow country lane. He drove the bike under a canopy of hanging trees and shut off the engine. The sound of the countryside gradually returned to her ears as they adjusted to the sudden silence.

He swiveled on the bike and flipped up his visor. “Julia, are you in pain? I didn't realize this road was in such poor condition.”

“No, Frank, I'm fine.” She fought to bring her breathing under control and waved a hand.

He didn't believe her. “Let me see your face.” He popped off her helmet. “You're all flushed, and your eyes are hazy.”

“I'm fine.” She just wanted to get back to the boat and have her wicked way with him.

A devilish smile spread across her face and he unzipped her jacket. “Your nipples are hard, Julia.” He ran his palm over each breast. “And if I were to touch here, would you be wet?” He slipped his fingers along the center seam of her jeans. “Soaking wet. I think our bumpy ride turned you on.”

Her face flushed even hotter. “Get me to the boat and you'll find out.”

“No, I think I'll find out here.” He unbuttoned her shirt and flipped open the front clasp of her bra. The cool woodsy air tightened her nipples into hard little buds.

“Frank.” She half gasped, half moaned at the sensation of the breeze on her bare skin. “What if someone comes?”

He backed her up so she rested against a big tree. “I hope more than one person comes,” he joked, bending to take her into his mouth, and then all joking was
finished. His mouth was hot and wet, like a mineral spring bubbling around her. He licked and nibbled at each swollen tip. She cried out and clutched his head with one hand and the tree with another.

He chuckled and slid his hand between her legs, rubbing at the damp fabric, pressing the thick seam up into her throbbing flesh. Shockingly, she started to climax from just that stimulation in addition to the bike's vibration. She tried to fight it, wanted to wait, but he rubbed harder and sucked her breast deep, pinching the other nipple as she came. Her head fell back and she moaned in pleasure.