The Captain's Caress (29 page)

“You know I wouldn’t,” Brent began, but he didn’t go on.

“No, not if you were in your right mind,” Smith said gravely, “but in your present state I wouldn’t care to risk it. One of us has to be in condition to tend to the ship’s business.” The truth of Smith’s words made Brent so rousingly angry that he then worked off the worst of his spleen by quarreling with a crew of stevedores. He left them shaken, confused, and unable to account for the argument or its abrupt conclusion.

Smith knew what was troubling his captain, but he meant to let him discover it for himself. Brent wasn’t going to be happy when he figured it out, but he’d be less likely to face up to the truth if it came from someone else. He had never been one to accept news he didn’t like; he preferred to bend Fate to his will. At last, Smith suspected Brent would be the one who would do the bending.

Smith picked up his pen, then paused before turning to his ledger. He hoped Summer was at the hotel. Someone had to deal with Brent, and since she had destroyed his peace of mind, she should be the one to restore it.

Brent knocked sharply at the door of Summer’s suite. When it remained closed, he struck the door so hard it rattled, but he still received no answer. Too angry to wait for anyone to bring a key, he smashed the lock and stormed in; there was no one there. Annoyed and perplexed, he strode to the bell rope and set about ringing it wildly. Someone had to know what was going on, and he was damned well going to find out. By the time he had paced the room for nearly ten minutes, he was in a black rage and was itching to tear someone to pieces. It was Alonzo who finally hurried into the room.

“Where in the hell is Summer?” Brent roared, too angry to remember to use her title.

“The countess has gone out,” Alonzo gasped, out of breath.

“Where?” Brent demanded.

“Unfortunately she did not inform me of her plans.”

“Then get me her maid.”

“The countess gave her maid the afternoon off. I didn’t even know that Chichi was absent until you began ringing the bell so frantically. I’ve already sent someone to fetch her.”

“That scatter-brained wench was never worth a farthing,” Brent gnashed his teeth, “but I thought she would at least stay where she belonged.”

“I believe the countess gave her permission to visit her mother.”

“I’m not paying her to visit her mother,” Brent said with biting sarcasm. “I’m paying her, and you too, for that matter, to take care of the countess.”

“I have every reason to suppose the countess is being well cared for,” Alonzo disclosed, stung by Brent’s unfair accusations.

“And exactly what do you mean by that, you miserable worm?” Brent advanced on the hotelkeeper with grim resolve.

“The countess spends most of her afternoons in the company of Gonsalvo de Aguilar.”

“Do you mean to tell me you allowed her to leave the hotel with that rake?”

“I do not know for certain she is in his company,” Alonzo countered, wishing he had remained silent. “It is just that he and his sister are constant visitors. I have seen no one else.”

“His sister? Do you mean that tiny, squat creature?”

“He has only one sister.” Alonzo was unruffled.

“That slithering reptile would be certain to keep his serpent’s eyes hooded until he has his prey in his grasp,” Brent shouted.

“But I thought he was a friend of yours, a business partner?”

“He’s a lecher,” Brent said brutally, “and he uses his charm and good looks to conceal an unwavering determination to seduce every female that interests him, no matter how briefly.” Just then Chichi rushed in, breathless from running all the way back from her mother’s cottage.

“Where have you been, you stupid girl?” Brent demanded, rounding on her with boiling rage. “And what do you mean by letting your mistress leave the hotel with a deceiver like Gonsalvo de Aguilar?”

“They are going to spend the day at Casa Carvalho,” stammered Chichi, intimidated by Brent’s rage.

“And you were such a blockhead that you let her go?” Brent roared so violently that Chichi retreated behind a large sofa. Alonzo turned pale, but stood his ground.

“How could I stop her?”

“You could have told her not to go.” Brent felt that he was talking to two-year-olds.

“The de Aguilars are a very respectable family,” protested Chichi, “and he said he was your friend.”

“He is
not
my friend and he is
not
respectable. All you had to do was ask.”

“But you weren’t here. You’re never here when the countess wants you,” Chichi said with a hint of her old spirit.

“I never thought you were very intelligent, but I didn’t expect you to be witless.”

“You are the one who is always telling her never to listen to anything I say, that I am a great fool,” Chichi shot back at Brent.

“And so you’ve proved to be.” Brent gathered up his coat. “Alonzo!” he thundered, so ferociously the little man wondered if his time had come. “I want a carriage at the door in five minutes, and it had better be harnessed to the four best horses in your stable.” Alonzo’s eyes nearly started from his head. He opened his mouth to protest such an impossible order, but he closed it when he encountered the bloodthirsty look in Brent’s eyes.

“Don’t waste your breath telling me why it can’t be done. If that carriage isn’t waiting for me when I step out of this hotel, you’ve drawn your last breath.”

Alonzo escaped Brent’s presence determined to have a carriage ready in the required time if he had to stop one in the street and pull its rightful occupants from it.

“As for you,” Brent roared, whipping around and causing Chichi to gasp in fright, “have everything the countess owns packed and be out of here when I return. I don’t want to set eyes on you again, or I’ll not be responsible for my actions.”

“Please, Captain Douglas …” Chichi began, but her words were cut off by a blast worthy of a medieval dragon.

“Goddammit girl, do as I tell you,” Brent said, then he opened Summer’s bedroom door and watched coldly as the sobbing maid ran in. “Remember, you’re to be gone before I get back,” he commanded before striding out of the suite. He closed the door with such violence that one of the hinges was torn from the frame.

More than five minutes had elapsed before Brent appeared in the hotel courtyard, but a carriage was waiting and four fretting horses were ready to be off. Alonzo had instilled abject fear of Captain Douglas in the grooms, and had thus enabled them to harness a team in a time previously thought impossible. They, in turn, had communicated their fear to the horses, making them restless.

“There’d better not be a slug among them,” Brent warned Alonzo as he climbed into the carriage and took up the reins. “Out of my way before I run over you,” he shouted to the groom holding the lead horses.

Alonzo watched him disappear in a thick cloud of dust, greatly relieved that he was not the object of the captain’s rage. He hoped that Gonsalvo had had the good sense to leave the countess in the company of his mother and his sister. Nothing less would be likely to convince Captain Douglas of the man’s honorable intentions.

As the sun moved across the sky, a few iridescent rays slipped below the fringe of the parasol. Their heat made Summer uncomfortably warm and she opened her eyes. Gonsalvo was sitting beside her using his hat as a shield against the sun.

“A thousand pardons,” he said, smiling in a way Summer found particularly attractive, “but I’m afraid I let the sun get in your face.”

“Have you been shading me with your hat the whole time?” she asked, sitting up.

“You were dozing so peacefully I didn’t have the heart to wake you.”

“It was rude of me to fall asleep, but I’ve never been on a river before, and I feel wonderfully refreshed.” She smiled, wishing he wouldn’t sit so close.

Gonsalvo covered her hand with his, and gazed at her with a smile she didn’t feel appropriate for casual friends. “I treasure any time I can spend with you.”

“That’s very sweet of you.” Summer removed her hand from his. “But you shouldn’t say it. And you shouldn’t sit so close to me either.”

“But I can’t resist,” he said, looking at her in a manner that increased her uneasiness. “Your presence is a drug that inflames my sense.”

“I’d just as soon you didn’t feel that way. I
am
a married woman.”

“You can’t imagine how happy that makes me.”

“Why should that make any difference?” Summer asked. She was becoming agitated.

“An unmarried girl such as Anita would never be allowed so much license, but you may go where you please.”

“It would please me to go back to the house. You must have a very strange idea of Scotland if you think it’s all right for wives to wander all over with just anyone.”

“There’s no need to go anywhere,” Gonsalvo said, moving even closer. “It’s barely the middle of the afternoon, and there’s still a lot of river you haven’t seen.”

“We can save that for some other time.”

“But we can’t leave now.” Gonsalvo leaned so close that Summer could feel his breath on her neck.

“Why?” she asked distrustfully.

“The carriage is not here yet. It won’t meet us for another hour.”

“Then we can walk back.”

“We can’t reach the gardens from this part of the river. We have to wait until we come out near the avenue.”

“Can’t we go any faster?” Summer asked, flustered.

“That sounds like the request of someone who is not enjoying herself.” Gonsalvo’s voice was perilously close to a purr.

“I’ve had a wonderful time, but I’m rather tired of being in this boat.”

“I’m afraid the boat is not provided with oars. It’s only intended to float along with the current.”

“You mean there is no way to get off this thing for a whole hour?”

“Not unless you’re prepared to swim ashore.”

“I’d drown in all these clothes!” Summer declared.

“Never fear, I’d save you.”

“Thank you just the same, but I’d prefer not to be saved.”

“You mean you’d rather drown than be with me?” Gonsalvo teased, but Summer was not in a mood to be amused. “I’m beginning to think you are angry with me.”

“I’m not angry with you yet,” she said, trying to remove her hand from his grasp, “but if you don’t let go of me, I will be very angry indeed.”

“But you have such an elegant hand,” Gonsalvo declared, raising her fingers to his lips and dropping clusters of kisses on each knuckle.

“That’s no reason for you to be slobbering over me,” Summer said, exerting unladylike strength in an attempt to remove her hand from his. However, Gonsalvo was too involved to bridle at her words.

“Two such lovely hands,” he crooned, possessing himself of the other as well.

“Did you expect me to have only one? Or were you hoping for a third so you could indulge yourself without restraint?”

“I need nothing more than the invitation of your lips,” he said, and he gathered her in his arms despite her spirited resistance.

“My lips are not inviting you,” Summer said impatiently.

“Your neck, your shoulders, your ears, even your elbows …” Gonsalvo continued his litany.

“You sound like a butcher inspecting a carcass he’s about to cut up,” Summer scoffed as she battled vainly to break his hold on her. “If I’d had any notion you were such a rude man, I would never have come with you.”

“It’s all your fault, fair charmer,” he murmured as his hot lips began to plant little kisses on her neck and her cheek. “The narcotic of your nearness has destroyed all power to struggle against my longing.”

Summer was able to twist her mouth away from his long enough to utter an impassioned shriek, but Gonsalvo was much stronger than she was and she remained in his arms.

“I have dreamed of this moment for days,” he said. “Every time I have been near you, it has been an agony not to touch you, to caress your cheek, to tell you how much I love you.”

“You can’t love me,” Summer declared in disgust. “You hardly even know me.”

“I’ve loved you from the first moment I saw you,” he insisted. “Since then you’ve haunted my dreams and filled my thoughts every waking moment.”

“How dare you maul me like this!”

“I can’t help myself.”

“Get off me.” Summer tried to push him away. “I’ll never be able to explain why my clothes came to be in such a mess.”

“You won’t have to. Anita and my parents have gone to visit a neighbor. They won’t return for another hour or more.” Summer realized with a jolt that there was no one to help her. She was on her own with this man who seemed to have a dozen hands.

“I want to make love to you.”

“In a boat in the middle of the river?” she exclaimed unromantically, unable to believe that he could be serious.

“I could make love to you any place on earth,” he rhapsodized. “But here, amid the sublime beauty of Nature, it is a most appropriate place for our love to come to fruition.”

“But I don’t love you,” Summer barked, and she raked her nails across his face leaving several ugly streaks that began to ooze blood.