Till Dawn Tames the Night (40 page)

Deciding that the best way to deal with his poor disposition was to ignore it, she went to take her napkin, but stopped. Sitting on top of it was an unpeeled banana. Suddenly she felt her cheeks grow red.

"Hungry?" he asked, the corner of his mouth lifted in a too-innocent smile.

She placed the banana aside and started on her sliced mango as if the banana didn't exist. Of course, he was quite unchivalrous to torment her about her staring last evening, but then, she didn't expect him to behave any better. The worst thing about the banana, though, was that she couldn't understand what he was teasing her about, and she had the horrid suspicion that when she did, she was going to be even more embarrassed than she was right now.

Koonga
, soon bored with her mango, began chattering and climbing the iron chair. Aurora tried to get her to sit still, but it was impossible. The napkin around the monkey's neck was quickly studied, tasted, and just as quickly thrown away. With no other diversion,
Koonga
climbed the table, and before Aurora could stop her, she set herself atop Vashon's shoulder and began picking through the thick locks of his hair.

The expression on Vashon's face was priceless. Aurora couldn't help herself, and she broke into peals of laughter.

"What on earth is she looking for?" he snapped, all the while keeping his eye on the monkey.

"I suspect she's looking for nits."

"Nits!"
Vashon stood and
Koonga
tumbled off, catching herself on the back of his chair. "If I have any nits, that damned creature just gave them to me!"

Aurora laughed again and refrained from assuring him that
Koonga
didn't have lice. She took another bit of mango, suddenly feeling avenged for the banana.

When things had settled down again and
Koonga
was picking the scarlet blossoms off the flamboyant tree, Vashon said dryly, "If we're through with the amusements, I thought I'd show you the
soufriere
today. We've a nice little path to the top." His eyes lifted to the mist-covered emerald mountain above them.

"I'd rather you show me around the harbor," she countered, her voice bitingly sweet.

"Perhaps give you a tour of the
Resolute?"
He lifted one black eyebrow.

"That would be fascinating."

"Showing you my ships, love, won't get one out of the harbor with you aboard."

"One never knows." She sipped her tea.

"Tomorrow we might go down to the beach below
Dragonard
," he continued. "If you're brave enough, I might even coax you out into the bay to see the fish. They're every bit as beautiful as Mirage's flowers."

"I told you I don't know how to swim." "Well, I invite you to cling to me if you find yourself drowning."

She looked up at him, a censorious expression on her face. He smiled and began his breakfast again. She could see it was going to be a long day.

"If you're a worthy man at all, Isaac Corbeil, you will find a way to allow Aurora on the
Resolute
when she sails." After Flossie announced this, she paced the jute carpet and glared at Isaac.

"I shall not betray Vashon, not even for a woman." Isaac glared back, looking quite uncomfortable as he perched on a delicately proportioned settee in Flossie's apartments.

"I don't understand this blind loyalty to Vashon—why, you were ready to trade his life quite readily in Grand
Talimen
."

"You know that was just a sham for
Ignatio
. I've explained that a million times." He shifted his weight. "Listen, why don't you just sit here next to
me.
Perhaps a buss or two on the cheek will calm you down."

Flossie froze. She clutched her chest in a rather melodramatic gesture. "And that's another thing! No more kisses! I asked you here to discuss Aurora, not to be kissed. You've already done that five times since our dinner at the governor's, and I will no longer permit it to continue."

"I rather thought you liked it—"

"Good heavens, certainly not!" she gasped. "It's the most improper, shocking display—"

"C'mon Flossie, I thought you rather liked me chasing you around the table the other day." Isaac grinned wolfishly.

"I did not!" If she'd had her black parasol, she would have bopped him on the head. "No lady of quality would have enjoyed that."

"Well, perhaps no lady of quality would. But you did. I heard you giggling the entire way around."

"Whatever are you implying? That I'm not a lady?" Her voice
rose
several notes.

"You look like a lady to me, Flossie, but what do I know? I haven't met too many ladies in my lifetime." He shrugged.

"Well, I am one, I assure you of that! And I do not enjoy this vulgar pursuit of yours!" She began pacing again. "So with that out of our way, I implore you to reconsider helping poor Aurora. That man will eat her alive! You can see that! I shudder to think what might happen to the child if left too long in Vashon's clutches."

"It seems to me she's holding up pretty well against him. If anything, he's the one who's falling. I wouldn't have ever thought Vashon could fall in love, and if you'd told me a year ago he'd succumb to some spinsterish little schoolteacher,
I'd've
thought you were plumb out of your mind. But now, the way he talks about her, I can see she's under his skin, all right."

"However does he talk about her?" Flossie asked incredulously.

"With the most passionate contempt I've ever heard him utter."

Flossie looked confused.

Isaac shook his head. "Believe me,
Flo,
I've never seen anything like it. Vashon has had his share of women, and there was one in Paris one summer—you know, one of the fallen nobility, a pretty thing with blond curls and an angelic expression—that I really thought he was growing attached to. But nothing came of it. He tired of her soon enough, and moved on. His relationships invariably begin with lust and end with boredom. But somehow Aurora hasn't produced that reaction. I have to admit I thought he'd change after he jumped her in Grand
Talimen
, but now he's almost frothing at the mouth with contempt for her."

"We will not speak of
that,"
she admonished, her plump cheeks turning a pretty pink.

He looked at her, pacing back and forth in front of him. Suddenly he flung his arms around her and pulled her onto the settee. "Grand idea, Flo, let's quit talking."

"Unhand me, sir!" She wriggled on top of him; the settee groaned with their generous weight.

"C'mon, just a bit of sugar." He tried to kiss her; she tried to slap him. "That's right," he said playfully, fending off her blows. "I like my lassies with a little fire."

"This must stop, Captain!" she gasped after he found, her lips for one short kiss. "We're not a couple of lovesick children! Recover your dignity at once!"

"Flo, listen here, now.
No
one'll
be the wiser," he said when she finally beat him back.

"I'll be the wiser," she said, heaving herself to her feet without assistance. "And I'm a widow, if you'd take your hands off me long enough to see the color of my garb."

"Your man Lindstrom's been gone for years and years, Flossie. Don't you ever get lonely?"

She patted her face with a handkerchief embroidered in black. "Of course I get lonely. But I remind you I'm not a young girl. I'm not some trollop ready to go rolling in the hay."

"I know that, Flo. But . . . well . . . truth to tell, I'm nigh on to three score years, and I'd feel damn foolish rolling with either a trollop or a young girl."

"Oh, good heavens, such language!"
She fanned herself with her handkerchief.

"C'mon. Old
Lindstrom'd
understand."

"I won't even consider such a thing with a man who is not my husband."

"Well, I'm ship's captain, and as far as the
law's
concerned, I've just pronounced us married." He stood.

Flossie backed against the large drum table centered in the room and fanned herself furiously with the limp linen square. "You have lost your mind, Isaac. What are you thinking of?"

Isaac's gaze wandered to the adjoining room where Flossie's bedstead stood draped in bleached muslin. "Well, I have to say I'm thinking the worst," he admitted.

"Oh, my heavens . . . I can't believe you even mean this."

He walked toward her and slowly untied his shirt, revealing a bearlike covering of gray hair on his chest. "Flossie, now,
come
along. You know it's been a long time for both of us. How many children did you say you had?
Thirteen?
Fourteen?
Enough to know you damn well liked it."

"Oh, dear Lord!"
Flossie swooned, placing the back of her hand on her brow and staggering backward.

Isaac caught her wide waist in the crook of his arm. His hand rose to her delicate white lace collar. "You know I've been meaning to tell you, you look quite fetching in this. It's a damned improvement to these weeds." His eyes moved lower. "And how do these weeds come off? Are there laces here, or—"

"No, no, no!" She pulled away, blushing.

"You don't expect not to take your clothes off, do you?"

Flossie just stood there, wide-eyed and flame-red.

"Well, I'll take mine off first,
then
when you see I'm not ashamed, we'll coax you out of yours."

"You are an unforgivably bold man, Isaac Corbeil. Your kisses were wicked enough, but this,
this!"
she said in a strangled voice.

"I'm sorry. I just don't know how to do it any other way."

"I couldn't possibly!"

"Oh, you can. Here, how about a buss to loosen you up?" He grabbed for her, but she trotted away.

"Isaac, enough of this insanity.
We're too old for this!"

"Well, I know I'm not too old, and if you'd just let me have, pardon me, my way with you, you may see you're not too old either."

Flossie gasped. "Such talk! Such wickedness! Where are those smelling salts?"

"You don't need those smelling salts, and you aren't going to faint, either." He grabbed her and this time held fast. He gave her a long, passionate kiss, and when they parted Flossie looked as if she'd been drugged.

"Are you ready?" he whispered.

She sounded a weak protest. He took her hand and beckoned her into the bedroom.

The doors were closed behind them. It was quiet for a moment, then Flossie exclaimed, "No, no, Isaac! You can't corner me into doing this! And put your shirt back on!"

Two heavy thuds sounded and Flossie burst out, "Why are you taking off your boots?"

Isaac could be heard chuckling,
then
Flossie cried out, "Not the belt!"

The large pewter buckle hit the floorboards with a clunk.

There were more feverish denials and shocked exclamations emanating from the bedroom—until Isaac's last garment slid to the floor. Upon that, Flossie gasped, "Good heavens, Isaac. You're a Jew!"

Then silence reigned.

For at least an hour.

Aurora lay in her bed that night unable to sleep, her thoughts filled with images of Mirage. The day had been surprisingly wonderful. Vashon had taken her all around the island in the
kittereen
, introducing her to some of the island's workers: tall, muscular divers who offered armfuls of conch and spiny lobster, old men on donkeys who wove baskets from the mangrove, and pretty dark girls adorned with scarlet-and-black
jumbie
beads, whom Aurora was envious to see going back and forth from the kitchens
en chemise.

Afterward Vashon showed her Monkey Hill, where Benny had found
Koonga
. The animals had been brought to St. Kitts a century earlier to be the pets of a wealthy planter. He told her the story of how the monkeys were occasionally hunted on St. Kitts. When too many of the creatures had become harassed by the hunters, they would then suddenly appear on Mirage, firing the speculation that there was an underground passage running between the two islands.

Next he took her to the
soufriere
atop the mountain, the boiling
sulphurous
pit that had once erupted to create the black beaches. They wandered through the misted jungle at the top, and she knew if she remembered nothing of Mirage in years to come, she'd remember the orchids growing on the
manchineel
trees, with petals in all the pale hues of yellow, pink, and lavender.

Last, as they headed back to
Dragonard
, Vashon stopped by a small tree and picked what looked to be, but were not, a handful of small limes. He sat with her on the sand beneath the tree and showed her how to eat them. Popping one
genip
out of its peel, he put it in her mouth as if it were candy. It was unimaginably delicious and as they sat eating handfuls of them, she had watched him and thought how much he loved Mirage, Mirage that was as wild and awe-inspiring as he was.