Fires of Delight (15 page)

Selena thought to stop it, but only for a moment. Then it was too late to do anything but ride along on vaulting waves of passion.

Royce
, she thought guiltily, somewhere far back in her mind. But that region was in an area of consciousness soon blotted out by incessant assaults of sensation, which, when set alive, like a hunger, required more and more ecstasy. Or doom.

She closed her eyes so as not to see, so as to shut herself entirely in this wonderful vortex. The destiny of flesh did the rest. His lips upon her nipples caused her to cry out, and she was stroking him with the instinctive skill of a woman who knew love and knew how to give it. The force of his desire as he moved upon her, into her, sent ripples of burgeoning passion from the dewy, need-filled petals of her flesh to the very center of her being, and Selena gave
as he gave, her body pushing upward toward his strokes, falling away and thrusting again and again to savor the immense shape of him, the very measure of a good man. And when she felt the rushing flood of his enchantment, knowing that she had pleased him utterly, Selena cried out as much for his pleasure as for her own.

But afterwards, lying beside him, there came an attack of doubt and troubled spirits. He was murmuring words of gratitude, words of endearment, but she heard them indistinctly, as from a great distance.

“Selena, what’s the matter?” he asked finally.

She looked at him with sad eyes and shook her head.

“You’re thinking of that Royce Campbell, aren’t you?”

Her silence was an affirmation.

“We both lost control,” he went on. “I didn’t mean for this to happen any more than you. But I’m glad it did, and I shall always be.”

He kissed her lovingly, high on her cheekbone, and tasted the salt of a fleeting tear.

“Selena, love,” he said then, looking deeply into her eyes, “why would I think less of you just for being human like me?”

Nevertheless, she could tell that he was falling more deeply in love with her, even though their intimacy was not repeated, as the
Liberté
changed course and made its way toward Haiti and St. Crique. The knowledge both troubled and pleased her. Jean Beaumain was a man whose attentions would flatter any woman, yet only Royce could ever stir her to her soul. Jean was more like a friend, whose needs she understood, whose spirits roused her as much as his anguish touched her. She did not want to lose his friendship, but when she saw his eyes upon her, saw the scarcely hidden hope in his gaze, she knew that mere comradeship was not what he wanted from her at all.

He wanted the kind of raw, sudden love they had shared in the hammock, wanted it again and again.

So Selena spent much time in her cabin—she had sewn herself three dresses by the time they neared St. Crique—or went on deck and looked out at the ocean through the spyglass, always imagining that she would see, far out on the horizon, the great white
sails, the implacable black hull of the ship that bore her name, streaking toward her out of the north.

But she did not, and one afternoon in late October, the sentry in the crow’s nest hollered “Land ho! It’s St. Crique, dead ahead!”

Everyone came up on deck. Jean Beaumain slipped his arm around Selena as they stood together at the bow, and nuzzled her hair.

“I hope you like it,” he said. “Next to love,
home
is the best word in the world.”

St. Crique Isle, a lush, low-lying atoll, a startling green jewel of a cay twenty miles off the north coast of Haiti, immediately entranced Selena with its untamed, indolent beauty. The eerily blue waters of the Caribbean rolled gently upon its white sand beaches, beaches that rose slowly toward a rain forest of exotic, dazzling flowers, ferns, palms, primordial vines thick as tree branches, and trees laden with exotic, multihued berries and fruit. Above the whole island, under the sun, shimmered a still, hot haze.

“It’s gorgeous,” said Selena, “but where is your home?”

She could not see a hint of settlement or domicile.

“I call it ‘Hidden Harbor,’” Jean replied, even as the
Liberté
rounded a narrow peninsula and sailed straight for shore. There, to Selena’s amazement, was an opening in the thick foliage, through which the ship slipped—Jean’s men were bringing down the sails now—into a lagoon of clear, placid water, sparkling and diamond pure. At the far end of the lagoon, ivory-white on a rising sweep of jade-green grass, stood a splendid, sprawling house shaded by palm and rubber trees.

“There it is,” exclaimed Jean Beaumain quietly, proudly, as the
Liberté
drifted to a halt just offshore. “Home.”

And even as Selena marveled at this luxurious architectural masterpiece in the midst of nowhere, she thought how different it was from Coldstream, or from any place that Royce would have chosen. Hidden Harbor reflected Jean’s deepest nature. It was neither monument nor statement nor challenge to the world, but rather a place of respite and peace. Flowering gardens, symmetrical in their arrangement and tended to perfection, ran down from the veranda at the front of the house to the water itself. A pier thrust out into the deep water, to which the ship drifted. And upon the pier, waiting, stood two women.

Jean waved at them and they waved back.

Selena saw a handsome, brown-haired woman of middle age, shapely, tall and serene. Her companion was of the same height, about Selena’s age, perhaps in her early twenties. Her skin was the color of old honey or gold, set off by gleaming jet-black hair. Selena’s competitive instincts were immediately aroused. She had seen great beauties in her time—she herself had often been deemed one—but this creature, even from the distance of high deck to low pier, was surpassingly gorgeous.

“The older lady,” said Jean, noticing Selena’s interest, “is Martha Marguerite. She is the wife of the man who designed Hidden Harbor. He died last year of tropical fever, tragically, and she stayed on to manage my household affairs. But she is a Parisian noblewoman and really yearns to go back home.”

“And the other one?” asked Selena, trying to manage a matter-of-fact tone.

Jean permitted himself the hint of a smile. He saw the manner in which Selena was regarding “the other one.” “That is Yolanda Fee,” he said. “She’s Haitian. An octaroon. That is, she’s of mixed blood.”

“And what does she do here?”

“She’s my mistress.”

“I see. She’s very beautiful.”

“But so are you,” said Jean.

While the
Liberté
was roped to the pier, Selena looked at the two women and they stared at her. In India, Davi the Dravidian had, among other insights and advice, once said this:
“Selena, it is sometimes difficult to know a friend, but enmity stands out like a black panther on a field of snow.”

Selena smiled pleasantly at the two women, feeling waves of hatred coming up at her.

She did not know from which of them the hatred proceeded.

Maybe both.

Martha Marguerite wore a scarlet gown, high-necked, long-sleeved, and flowing. Yolanda was dressed in a peach-colored, frilly little garment which exposed her breasts almost to the nipples, and which, with its tight waist, accentuated the voluptuous curves of her body, a body made to drive men mad.

Now Selena understood to whom the two types of dresses in Jean’s shipboard wardrobe belonged.

She herself was wearing one of the blue satin dresses she had
made during the trip, conscious of its makeshift quality in comparison to those of Martha and Yolanda. She was still wearing Ward’s cross, of course—Jean had noticed it without much interest, saying only that the words upon it “were being used by some revolutionary hotheads in France.” She gathered up the other two dresses she had fashioned, along with the bag of sovereigns and jewels—about which Jean did not know—and went down the gangplank onto the pier. Jean Beaumain made the introductions. Martha Marguerite could not have been more pleasant as she smiled and offered her hand.

“Welcome to Hidden Harbor, Selena. I shall do everything in my power to ensure that you enjoy your stay here.”

The manner in which she said this, however, seemed to indicate that she hoped such a stay would not be long. And on the third finger of her right hand, she wore a ring of gold, onyx and diamond; a dot, a circle and an oval, the shape of an eye.

“You have suffered much,” observed Yolanda Fee, gazing at Selena with her hot, black eyes as Jean told what had happened in New York. Her eyes were depthless, full of feeling, but Selena sensed no malice. The only unusual part of the encounter was the way in which Yolanda stared at the cross and gold chain around Selena’s neck.

“We have heard news,” Martha Marguerite said, “that the Americans were victorious at a place called Yorktown. The war is over. America is free.”

Jean threw his hat down onto the deck in exultation, and Selena shivered in what might well have been called an ecstasy of triumph. If only Royce were here with her now to share this news! Rafael, Louis, and the other sailors, who had secured the
Liberté
and were now clambering down the gangplank and onto the dock, shouted and cheered in joyous unison.

“It is a great time, a great time,” Jean pronounced, “particularly for Selena.” He told the two women of her background, her struggle, her deeds. “We must have a huge feast tonight in her honor,” he declared.

“I shall see to it right away,” said Martha Marguerite, not quite as excited as Jean was.

Yolanda Fee just smiled and said nothing, reappraising this newcomer in the light of the adventures her lover had related.

Martha Marguerite, friendly in a cool, detached manner, led Selena up the pier toward the great house.

“I’ll get you settled, my dear, and see that you have suitable garments”—her opinion of Selena’s handiwork was not wildly flattering—“and we can talk more later when we dine this evening.”

As she was shown into the house, high-ceilinged to preserve the cool, teak-floored, with vast white walls, Selena turned for a moment and noted Jean and Yolanda. They were walking up toward the house too. His arm was around her slim waist, and her lips were pressed close to his ear. Jean was smiling, and Selena knew that the sloe-eyed Haitian beauty was promising things she would do to him in just another minute, when they were alone.

Martha Marguerite read Selena’s thoughts.

“If you have dreams of him, give them up,” she said, not without sympathy. “No matter what may have happened on board ship—and I’m certain that something did because I know Jean like a son—forget about it. Because Yolanda Fee is a temptress and a witch. Nothing stands in the way of what she wants.”

“Thank you, but I’m afraid you have the wrong impression. I am betrothed to another, and he will come for me or I will go to him as soon as possible.”

“But meantime you are here,” Martha Marguerite observed pointedly, “and I saw the way Jean was looking at you.”

She clapped her hands. Three white-garbed servants appeared.

“Show the young lady to the rose bedroom. She will wish to bathe, I’m sure. Call for the seamstress. Prepare a plate of fruit. Fetch wine.”

The servants bowed and scurried away. Martha Marguerite was very much in command of Hidden Harbor.

Before Selena was taken to her quarters, Martha Marguerite leaned close to offer a warning terse and strange. “Do not cross Yolanda in any way,” the woman hissed. “She knows the secret of black magic. I have seen it.”

Black magic?
wondered Selena a while later, as she soaked in the scented waters of the bathing pool, alternately savoring sections of an orange and sipping port.
There is no such thing as black magic
. Oh, in Scotland during her girlhood she had heard tales of peasant women who mixed strange concoctions which,
when consumed, were said to guarantee winning a lover or curing the ague. But magic was superstition, a leftover myth from Europe’s Dark Ages. These were modern times. No one believed in that sort of thing anymore.

Languidly, she stepped from the pool, dried herself with a fragrant towel, and slipped into a thin, lemon-colored robe she had been given. The rose room, named for the primary color of its walls and furnishings, was a marvel such as Coldstream Castle did not possess. Clear water from a hidden source emerged mysteriously into a spacious tub of rose-tinted marble, flowed about, and sank away. The effect was luxurious, soporific.

Selena lay down on the wide, soft bed, drifting against her will toward sleep. She wanted to dress, go out, and have a look around.

Black magic…

At the same time, somewhere in the indeterminate distance, there were sounds that held slumber at bay, low, intermittent keening moans, oddly familiar and…exciting.

The sounds of passion.

These persisted, and presently Selena arose. The rose room, wide and spacious, gave out onto a tropical garden in which a flagstone path seemed to disappear into tropical undergrowth. She opened the French doors and stepped out into the garden. The sounds, the gasps and cries, were clearer now, and she was sure they were coming from the undergrowth itself.

Looking around, guessing that she was unobserved, Selena sped down the flagstone path and tentatively pushed aside the leaves and vines. To her surprise, they parted easily, like a curtain, and revealed a continuation of the path itself. She stepped through the veil of greenery and once again looked about. At the end of the path, she saw a small, domed structure like a miniature temple. The keening cries were more audible now, and they were coming from the temple.

Curious as always, and already thrilled physically by the moans of ecstasy, she tiptoed stealthily along the flagstones, approaching the temple. An insinuating fragrance came to her then, and she recognized it as the perfume she had smelled on the vexing white dress aboard the
Liberté
.

Then Selena crept up next to the temple itself, pressed close to
it, and peered into one of the airy, vaguely oriental slits with which the structure was perforated.

She did not know why her gasp of wonder was not overheard.

Jean Beaumain, his body glistening with sweat and oils, was in the center of a great circle of burning black candles. He was naked. His eyes were closed and his head was thrown back in the transports of ecstasy.