Into His Arms (12 page)

“Let’s speak on more pleasant things.” He gestured to the book in her hand. “What do you like to read?”

“I’ve never read anything that wasn’t religious. My primer as a child was based upon the Bible. ‘A is for Adam. In Adam’s fall, we sinned all.’ When I became old enough, scripture was all that was allowed. My parents always felt poetry and plays to be a frivolous waste of time, even wicked.”

Some mysterious mirth danced beneath the surface of Geoff’s face, but he simply said, “Well, Herrick is an Episcopal minister, if that soothes your worries.”

Instant relief appeared on her face, and he almost felt a bit guilty. Almost. “Save it awhile, though. I’ve something else to help you bide your time.”

He handed her a slightly battered package wrapped in brown paper, and she pulled it off eagerly, then stopped as though she had been caught doing something very, very naughty. It was the silk, the exquisite silk that had somehow played a part in setting her on this tumultuous journey!

“Oh Geoff, ‘tis beautiful, but I truly cannot accept this.”

“Why not? No sumptuary laws here forbidding rich dresses, no self-important clergy to disapprove.”

“‘Tis—” she paused, running her hand over its luxurious texture. It spilled across her lap like the waters that surrounded them, and she felt—covetous! “Well,” she amended, “I’ve read the Bible many times, and it seems to me I’ve never seen any proscriptions against silk.”

“No ‘thou shalt nots’ about pretty clothes?”

“Nay, only pride and vanity.”

“Venial sins! God made you to wear a gown of this silk, I assure you,” he coaxed.

“My other gowns are a shambles,” she vacillated.

Wickedly, he added fuel to the fire. “You can hardly meet your aunt for the first time in either of them. Winston Hall is a prestigious plantation.” At her surprised look, he supplied, “Giles told me. Now, why would you tell him the reason you were bound for Jamaica and not me?”

Faith absently rubbed the heavenly fabric against her cheek and closed her eyes. “I didn’t know if I could trust you,” she answered dreamily.

“But you trusted him?”

She opened her eyes, and he was pleased to see a trace of humor in their fathomless depths. “More than you,” she said with a smile that was almost saucy.

He smiled back, the price of the silk more than repaid in this new facet of his little Puritan maid, for he did, indeed, feel something akin to possessive with her. “Wise woman.”

“What a pity,” she replied, mocking his words of the previous morning.

He knelt with one knee on the bed and held the silk back to her face, bringing his own within close proximity. His golden eyes pinned hers of blue-green and his breath was warm upon her face. The fabric was a bad influence indeed, for instead of moving away, Faith merely closed her eyes and waited.

Geoff waited, too, though it cost him more than she would ever know. When she opened her eyes again, they were filled with hurt confusion, but she said nothing.

“You must ask, Faith. I gave my word.”

“Your word?”

“I swore to Giles that I’d do naught for which you didn’t ask.”

She looked away and shook her head. “I don’t know what you mean. Whatever would I ask you for?” Even as she uttered the words, she felt a pang of conscience. She knew exactly that for which she longed.

Geoff caught her face gently between his hands and pulled her toward him. “Look at me, love. Do you want me to kiss you?” He read her look of indecision, and in a moment of insight, knew why she could not answer. “Lying is a sin, Faith.”

For a split second, she was tempted to swear. She might have succumbed had she not been so sure that, in her heart, she was committing another sin, altogether.

“So is lust,” she answered.

He laughed softly, but not unkindly. “A wish for a simple kiss is not lust, love.”

“What is?”

“Something far more potent, I assure you. Something to save for another day. For now, what do you want?”

His face was still inches from her own, and she could see a faint shadow where he had shaved earlier in the day. There was a force about him, a warmth that drew her, and she closed her eyes again. “Kiss me, if you please, Geoff.”

She was unprepared for the strong wave of heat that engulfed her at the tender touch of his lips to hers. Her first instinct was to pull away, but he still held her face between his hands, then slipped one gently to the nape of her neck. His mouth moved softly against hers, as though he had all day to accustom her to the feel of it, and at last, she relaxed, her own lips softening, yielding. When he pulled away, she felt as supple and soft as the cloth upon her lap.

“Are you sure this is not lust?” she asked.

“Nay,” he replied, his voice rough. “I’m not sure of that, at all.” He rose and ran a hand through his hair, his face troubled.

“Did I displease you?”

He gave a strangled laugh. Nay, she had pleased him far more than he expected. He did not look at her again until he knew he could face her with a light smile. “‘Twas a fine kiss, love, but I’ve no time to dally, and you sorely tempt me. You’ll find scissors, needle and thread in there as well.” He nodded to the package that lay open on the floor. “I hope that will help occupy your time.”

“Aye, between this and the book, I’ll be fine.”

A shadow passed over his face but quickly evaporated. “Save the book awhile, love. You’ll have plenty to do with the dress.”

When he left her, she was enthusiastically spreading the fabric across his desk, which somehow brought to mind the thought of her skin sliding as lightly across his body. Still, there was more to the turmoil inside of him than the simple anticipation of bedding her. He had made her happy, and he could almost believe that should she remain stalwart in her purity, her happiness was enough.

The thought brought him up short. What was it about the wench? Damned if he wasn’t beginning to like her! Oh, wouldn’t Giles be ever-so-smug about that? He allowed himself a wry grin at his own expense. So he liked her! Even Faith would be hard pressed to find the sin in that.

In the cabin, Faith set about carefully measuring and tracing a pattern with a light heart. She had never met anyone like this captain who seemed two completely different men. He was at once a hardened cynic and a gentle romantic. Oh, she well knew that the gift was but a part of his campaign to seduce her, but there was something else there. She could feel it like the timeless movement of the ocean.

Mayhap he was a rogue. Mayhap he was nothing like the good and pious men she had known all her life. But neither did he ask her to be anything but what she was. In his rough way, he was honest and kind and generous. It occurred to her that, just as there was a world beyond her small village, so was there a goodness beyond her small understanding of goodness.

Chapter 10

For the seventh time on this one voyage, Diego closed his eyes and bowed his head over a shrouded body. The priest, who had accompanied them as a passenger to the New World, chanted sonorously in Latin, swinging his censer and, through some miracle, bringing Diego’s patron saint to him. In the darkness behind his eyelids, he could see her! She was beautiful, dressed much like the mother of God in all the paintings and on all the statues, but darker, with jet-black hair and full, red lips.

“Fear not, Diego,” she whispered in a lilting, foreign accent. “This will be the last taken by fever. You have been brave and strong. Yours has not been an easy journey, and it will be harder yet.”

His first instinct was to fall to his knees, and it was a moment before he realized that he was already there. He remained dimly aware of the priest’s voice and the scent of incense. His heart pounded and his mouth went dry. Who was he to be visited by a saint?

“Santa Maria,” he begged her in his thoughts, “more trouble we can do without. I do not know how much more I can get us through.”

“You are a man of generous heart and great pride. You will do whatever you must. But I warn you to remember this: sometimes what you wish for most is not meant to be. Take care of your men. It is not yet time to play the hero.”

Alarmed, he opened his eyes, and she disappeared in the blinding sun that bounced off of the snowy linen shroud before him. He glanced around at the men who surrounded him. They were respectfully silent, fearful of all that had befallen them, but none seemed as if he had seen a saint on their ship.

Diego wiped his sweating palms on his breeches. The sun, that was it. He was still fighting the effects of illness himself, though he had never fully surrendered to it. The heat of the sun and the last vestiges of fever were toying with his mind. This was no time to fancy himself a visionary.

Still, he could not help but hope that she spoke the truth when she said that this man would be the last to die. Of course, she had also said the journey would be harder still, but that it was “not yet time to play the hero.” Now what did that mean? Females, even female saints, were a mystery to him.

*

Faith and Geoff supped together, and he taught her to play backgammon. He told her that the men placed wagers on this game and asked what she might stake, but she only smiled and shook her head at him. The water was always flavored with rum, as it took little time in the ship’s barrels for it to begin to taste a bit off. Tonight he poured the libation more liberally.

“Are you hoping to inebriate me?” she asked.

“Is that a sin, too?”

“Aye, it is,” she said, as she took a healthy swallow.

She showed him her progress on the gown, and he explained how the mysterious backstaff worked.

“You see, you stand with your back to the sun, like so,” he said, standing behind her to guide her hand, “then look through here.”

Faith giggled. “There is no sun in here.”

Geoff looked all about the cabin, as though the fact had escaped him. “True enough,” he admitted, but he stayed behind her, his hands still holding hers. “We’ll have make do with our imaginations.”

“I think that you do but seek an excuse to stand so close together.”

He gave her wounded look, but he could not keep the sparkle from his eyes. “Me? Stoop to petty excuses to touch you?” His large, callused hands covered her own white ones, though they were strong and work roughened, as well. “You have fine hands,” he whispered in her ear, sending a thrill down her spine.

“So do you,” she replied, slipping her hand from beneath his to caress with one finger the veins that raised his dark flesh along the back of it.

He turned her smoothly to face him, and she had to tilt her head back to look up into his eyes, placing her hands on his shoulders to keep steady.

“Do I always have to ask?”
What has become of me?
Faith wondered silently, but her heart beat more rapidly in anticipation.

He didn’t answer, simply pulled her to him and took her soft lips to his own. She knew what to expect this time and welcomed the rich, melting sensation that flowed from her mouth to her limbs. Her hands tangled themselves in his hair, and she pulled him closer, wanting something more, but not sure what.

Geoff tore himself away before he lost every last shred of self-restraint he possessed. “That’ll do, love. We’ve a whole night to make it through.”

Faith smothered her disappointment and changed the subject. “Why do you call me that?”

“What?”

“‘Love.’ You say you don’t believe in love, yet you call me by its name when you tease me.”

“Believe me, Faith, it is not I who is teasing. Nevertheless, ‘tis just a word. A pet name.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call me that, not if you don’t mean it.”

“Don’t start getting sentimental, love—uh—my sweet. Is that better? Why is it women like you cannot simply enjoy a little pleasure without turning it into something ridiculous and complicated?”

“Women like me? Ridiculous and complicated?”

“Oh, now don’t get cross.” He smiled winningly, but she refused to be taken in. “I meant no harm.” He took her hand and pressed his lips to her palm, causing a pleasant bolt of sensation to race from her hand through her arm and straight to her heart. “I mean to have you, that’s sure, but not under false pretenses. We’ll have a good time, maybe be friends, but we’ll part ways in Port Royal.”

Faith pulled away from him and moved to the window. In the dark there was little to distinguish sea from sky but the moon that wavered murkily behind the glass. She did not want to be friends and part ways. She thought perhaps she wanted him, too, but she couldn’t help it, she believed in forever.

She didn’t dare look at him. Surely her heart was in her eyes, and he would scowl and scold her. Instead, she glanced around the room with a light smile. “Yes, we’ll have a very good time, we two good friends. We’ll play backgammon and chess. Perhaps I’ll tell you Bible stories. They are quite exciting, some of them. I could tell you about Mary Magdalene. Surely she’s a woman from the Good Book whom you could admire.”

Geoff gave an exaggerated shudder. “Bible stories? We have a very different notion of a good time, you and I. But I confess, you have my attention. Why would I like this Mary Magdalene? Was she not the so-called virgin who gave birth to Jesus?”

Faith shook her head vigorously. “Nay! That was Mary—well, just Mary. Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. A repentant sinner who served the Lord ere He was sacrificed.”

“Repentant sinner? Nay, she’s lost my interest there. I think she’s one prostitute I would do better to avoid.”

In fact, he decided it best to avoid temptation all together. The thought of listening to Bible stories from the very lips he had yet to taste enough of was too disturbing. Likely as not, he’d silence her in ways that would take them straight to bed, with or without her illusive consent. He gave her cheek a chaste peck and hied himself to the deck, where no one would simultaneously preach to and tempt him.

Hours later, when Geoff came to bed, Faith lay awake, unable to sleep. He seemed more awkward than most nights and gave her a toss when he fell into bed beside her. Within moments it hit—the smell of rum. She knew enough to know she could never trick him into believing her asleep.