The Captain's Caress (37 page)

“In that case I’d better forget it. You’d probably do quite well at knocking out walls, but I have no faith in your staying around long enough to rebuild them.”

“You dare to doubt my ability?”

“Your ability, no, but I do doubt your willingness to toil when you have others to do it for you.”

“Wise woman. I knew there must be a reason why I loved you.”

“You’d better not forget, you treacherous dog,” she said, pinching him in the side and causing him to jump away from her sharp fingernails. The horses didn’t understand the confusing signals coming through the lines, and one tried to stop while the other attempted to turn. “Pay attention to your horses. You’ve been at sea so long, you don’t know how to guide anything without a rudder.”

“You shall pay dearly for that bit of sarcasm, madame.” Brent settled the horses, then taunted her. “I shall gamble away your dowry and leave you without a dress to your name.”

Summer’s gaiety vanished. “I have no dowry,” she said as though she realized it for the first time. “It was gambled away before I was sold into marriage.”

“You don’t need a dowry.” Brent put an arm around her.

“You ought to get your lawyers to look into my mother’s will,” she said angrily. “Half of the land was left to me, along with the house and the money. The money’s gone, but the house and land are still there if Ashton hasn’t sold them yet.”

“I’ll make you a bargain,” Brent offered, realizing that the question of her dowry was likely to loom larger and larger in her mind. “If you can forget about your dowry, I’ll forget about Scotland. Our lives can begin from this moment. We have only the future and each other. Can you do that?”

“I’ll try,” she said, looking at him with tears and love in her eyes. “I will try very hard.”

“Good. I’m taking you to see the new sugar mills,” he said kicking the horses into a trot despite the roughness of the track. “Tomorrow you can look at the maps of the island and you’ll be able to understand how the plantation is laid out. This field is given over to grain for the cattle. It seems they ravage the crops unless they’re kept fat and lazy. I told Carlos to run them loose in the swamp, but I don’t think he wants to change the way they’ve done things here for ages.”

Brent continued to talk of his estates, and Summer settled back to listen with the part of her mind that was interested in cows and sugar cane. Another part of her gave itself over to choosing materials to cover chairs and deciding on what new furniture the carpenters should build. There was some beautiful wood on the island. In time she could give the house a completely new look. She would have to see to the domestic arrangements as well. Juanita and Pedro did their work beautifully, but it was impossible for such a large house to be run by just two people. Brent’s home had to reflect his wealth and power. It must be perfect.

Maybe she wouldn’t need to become involved in the running of the estate after all. Brent seemed interested, and the overseer quite capable. Why not leave it to them? She could supervise the gardens. She might even design the public rooms as an extension of the gardens, with the terrace as a common meeting ground. Of course, that would have to wait until they had decided upon the changes in the house, but it was an idea that would bear some thought.

Brent continued to talk contentedly about the fields they passed. Summer nodded now and then, but became more and more lost in her own daydreams. She did not want to think of the past. Everything she wanted was in the future, and her future was right here.

“Hmmm?” she said, when Brent repeated his question.

“I’ve asked you twice if you didn’t think that was the best looking bull you’d ever seen.”

“He’s beautiful, an absolutely perfect specimen,” Summer agreed, not knowing whether she was talking about cows or alligators. Brent looked at her out of the corner of his eye. Her eyelids were closed, her head was tilted to one side, and an almost inane smile was spread across her face.

“You haven’t heard a word I’ve said. You have no idea what I’m talking about.”

“I do,” she said dreamily, keeping her eyes closed. “You were talking about bulls, beautiful, perfect bulls.”

“You’ve been in the sun too long.” Brent stopped the trap and began to turn it around beside fields of ripening corn. “I’m taking you back to the house right now. I want you to lie down for a while. Don’t even get up for a glass of water.” He started the team homeward.

“I heard what you said,” Summer murmured. “You were talking of bulls lying down until dinner time. See, I told you I was listening to every word.”

Brent whipped the horses into a gallop.

Chapter 32

“Get those lazy girls moving,” Pedro said to Juanita as he returned to the kitchen. “If we don’t serve dinner soon, those two are going to eat each other right up. They’re just about past human hunger now.”

“You let them be.” Juanita brushed butter on a fat squab. “There’s nothing wrong with being in love. You tend to your business and get the first course served before it gets cold.”

“Nothing wrong, she says,” Pedro grumbled, loading the trays with steaming dishes of food. “The captain brings another man’s wife here and you say there’s nothing wrong.”

“The captain can tend to his own business without help from you,” Juanita scolded before pushing him out of the kitchen. “You just see you don’t slop those peas over the hall floor, or you’ll be the one who’s not all right.”

“If you ask me, he’s stepped into a mite of trouble he can’t handle,” Pedro declared. “You mark my words, this is going to bring trouble, bad trouble.”

“Pedro Martinez, you’ve never been right about anything in your entire life,” his wife said fondly. “Why should anyone listen to you now?”

“Because it’s not right, that’s why, and I know it,” he grumbled. “You just wait and see.”

“I don’t think Pedro’s happy with us,” Summer said to Brent as he sipped his after-dinner brandy. “I’m afraid you’ve gone against the poor man’s principles.” Summer had declined to leave Brent to enjoy his brandy alone, so they sat together on the terrace.

“Damn his principles.” Brent snorted. “Pedro will do as he’s told and keep his morals to himself.”

“Do you think the rest of the servants know?”

“I don’t care. None of it will matter in a few days. Now come here and take my mind off all these problems. There’s a particularly lovely terrace halfway down to the sea. I want to show it to you.”

“I’m not sure I trust you in the dark.”

“Where do you trust me?”

“Nowhere, so now you’ll ask me why the dark should make any difference,” she chortled. “I know what you’ll do if you get half a chance.”

“No, you don’t. You don’t know much about me at all. If you think I’m going to make love to you on the goddamned grass when I’ve got a perfectly good bed upstairs you know even less than I thought.”

“I most humbly beg your forgiveness,” she said with exaggerated humility. “I will never question you again. Lead on, master.”

“A little more of your lip and I’ll tumble you in the grass after all. You deserve it.”

“Aha! You admitted it, you confessed that you lied and that you are the treacherous lout I thought you to be all the time.” Brent made a playful lunge for her, but she dashed behind the table. “I’ll scream if you come one step closer.”

“The first person to show his face will get his neck wrung for his pains.”

“How unfair of you. How else am I supposed to hold off your improper advances?”

“You’re not.” Brent vaulted over the table and captured Summer before she could take a step. “Now, my little dewdrop, I’m going to lap you up and make an end of you.” Summer happily subsided into his embrace, and they walked contentedly down the path that led to one of the sculptured terraces bathed in iridescent moonlight.

With misty eyes, Juanita watched from the house as they walked arm and arm. “Isn’t it beautiful?” she said to Ana who was folding the last of the freshly ironed linen. “I never saw two people more in love.”

“It shouldn’t be hard to love her. She’s so beautiful, and so nice too.”

“The captain’s not a hard mouthful to swallow either.” Juanita chuckled. “If I weren’t tied up to Pedro, I’d be making eyes at him myself. What a man!” She sighed.

“The captain’s not going to be looking at a fat old woman like you.” The outraged Pedro was bringing in the last of the polished glasses to store them in the cupboards. “It’d be enough to sour him on women altogether.”

“Leave me be,” Juanita replied with good humor. “I don’t know why I put up with a dried-up piece of rind like you anyway. Never could understand what got into me to want to marry you.”

“Couldn’t have been much to choose from if he was the best of the lot,” said Ana.

“He wasn’t so bad once upon a time,” Juanita quickly responded. She never allowed anyone but herself to disparage Pedro. “But he’s gone off right sharply since then.” Pedro reappeared from the cupboard, and with an expert flick of the wrist, he twirled a table cloth into the air above the two women. It settled over them, making them look like two humps on a camel’s back. He then wrapped the two ends around the giggling women and drew them toward him.

“Any more of this and I’ll hang you up in the smokehouse with the rest of the fat meat.” Their giggles turned to laughter. “I’d get enough lard for a year’s supply of soap.” As the laughter turned to helpless shouts of merriment, a pitcher of water caught Pedro’s baleful eye.

“Maybe this will calm you down a little.” He dumped the water over the tablecloth. Most of it ran onto the floor, which would have to be mopped before they went to bed, but enough soaked through the cloth to get the women thoroughly wet. They emerged ready to do battle, but Pedro had already made good his escape.

It was fortunate for Brent that Summer was unaware of the interest they had inspired among the servants. He would have been inclined to punish them, then forget the incident; but Summer’s evening would have been ruined. To her, it was pure bliss to be able to go about freely with Brent and not to have to hide her feelings. She luxuriated in this freedom, drinking it in as a dry desert absorbs an all too brief shower.

As she lay in Brent’s arms and felt his warm body against hers, she could hear his soft rhythmic breathing in her ear. She snuggled closer, letting her hands rove over his hard, muscular body. Brent moved in his sleep, but when he did not wake, Summer continued her explorations. She was becoming less shy, but she still couldn’t match his complete acceptance of their physical hunger. She enjoyed his explorations of her body, responded thrillingly to every new and exciting expression of their love, but she couldn’t think of doing the same to him without turning pink, at least not while he was awake. She let her hands sink lower, timidly seeking the instrument of her pleasure. Gingerly she touched him there, amazed that anything so small, soft, and pliable could become so large and rigid. Then it began to change and within seconds it was full-blown and ramrod-stiff. She snatched her hand away.

“I didn’t know you wanted me to wake up,” Brent whispered, biting her ear. “All you had to do was ask.”

Summer didn’t have time to be embarrassed. Brent’s passion exploded like volcanic lava, wrapping them both in torrid heat, wiping out all embarrassment or hesitation. Joyfully she met him in a union that seemed to release her from the limitations of her physical body. They were independent of weight and space, two spirits who needed only each other to be complete.

The weeks flew by, each one more wonderful than the last, until Summer found it easy to forget that she had ever heard of the Earl of Heatherstone or that Brent had once been a feared pirate. She settled into a daily routine that was at once satisfying and extremely pleasant. There was always a lot to be done, but the tropical abundance kept the job of providing for each day from becoming a burdensome task. If they didn’t grow it or couldn’t make it on the plantation, Summer had only to express a wish and Brent would send a boat to Havana to buy or order whatever she wanted.

“If you don’t stop, I’m going to be afraid to open my mouth,” she said one evening after a half-dozen men had spent hours hauling a huge mirror up from the docks.

“There’s no reason why you can’t have everything you want.” Brent’s smile was a besotted one. “I have enough money to last forever.”

“No man has that much money.” Summer laughed. “You’ve got to stop buying everything I so much as mention.”

“Why?”

“A woman talks about a lot of things, it’s fun to daydream, but I have to make choices or the house will end up looking like a furniture shop.”

“Then I’ll build you another house to put things in.”

“We can’t live in more than one at a time,” Summer chided.

“Then we’ll save that one for the children.”

“They won’t want it. Children never do.”

“In that case we shall have to give it to Pedro and Juanita.”

Summer laughed and then turned the conversation to other channels. She loved being spoiled, but she was also worried. Brent had been like this since they’d come to the island. At first she thought it was the result of the absence of outside pressures, but gradually she began to think that there were other reasons for his perpetual gaiety.