Beyond paradise (17 page)

Her head shook slowly because of her astonishment. "No ... no, I don't," she said when she'd found her voice, "I don't have a choice."

"Yes, you do," he nodded, "I'm telling you right now that you have a choice. I'm giving you a choice. Do you understand?"

Sylvie wished desperately to be somewhere else. Her eyes impulsively moved to the door. She could think of nothing to say to him and no way to escape the conversation. "Jervais, I . . . I'm marrying for my family, I. . ."

"I have money, too," he told her firmly, almost defen-

Elizabeth Doyle

sively. "Not as much as Etienne, perhaps. But I am not a pauper. I can help your family somewhat, and in time . . ." He sighed hard, thinking about the difficult road ahead. "In time, your family will accept me. When they see what good care I take of you—Sylvie you can tell them 'no'. You can make your own choice."

"Jervais, I can't." Her words were what she'd expected, but her feelings were not. She'd meant to tell him she couldn't because she must obey her family. But the true feeling behind her words, much to her astonishment, was that she didn't want Jervais. At that moment, she didn't want him. On so many nights she had dreamed of him, lain awake thinking how it would be to have his arm about her shoulders, to have his hand lift her gown in the dark. He had been the fantasy that kept her sane in her turmoil. But now that he was really there, making her an offer which made sense, which seemed possible to accept, she found that she had no desire for him. Not the kind of desire that would make a woman abandon her family and future. Not the kind of desire she'd had for Jacques.

"I think I know what it is," he said. "It's the pirates, isn't it?"

For a moment, Sylvie thought he had guessed the truth, but then she erased the thought from her mind. It wasn't possible.

"I think I understand," he said bravely, giving her hand a mighty squeeze. "You're afraid that if I knew what happened while you were on board their ship, that I. .. that I wouldn't want you anymore."

That was more or less accurate.

"But it's not true," he said firmly. "Sylvie, I... if they ..." He bowed his head against the unspeakable. "If they hurt you, I... "

"They didn't hurt me," she said in the way of a gentle interruption. "Really, they didn't."

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She was so convincing with her honest smile and warm

[fhe hadn't known better, he would have believed her.

"Sylvie," he began again, "you don't have to say that. I've been

fighting pirates all of my life. I know what they are, what

they do"

"They didn't," she said brightly. "I promise you, they didn't."

Her consoling pat on his knee angered him. He had meant to console her, not the other way around. In the beginning, he had hoped and prayed that he would find her before the pirates had ravished her. He had struggled with whether he would still feel the same way about her, would still yearn for her if she had been used. But many long talks with his first mate had brought him to sanity. It would be impossible for her to return to him pure. And the moment he'd lain eyes on her in the pirates' cabin, looking even prettier and more angelic than he'd remembered, he knew he would not hold it against her. His love, it seemed, was stronger than that. "Sylvie, you don't have to be brave. I can be braved/or you. Give your burden to me and I'll take it. Tell me which one of them ... intruded upon you."

"None of them," she replied, though this answer was a little less honest than her others. She had been intruded upon indeed, but she had welcomed it.

He dropped her hand in frustration. But then he took several private breaths and decided not to further reveal his annoyance. If he were going to win her, he mustn't start scolding her. He must be patient and he must be kind. But he could hardly wait for the day that she would become his, and he could start laying down the law. Rule one, he would demand fast and truthful answers to anything he asked. He could not have a wife who lied in order to be brave. Once she trusted in his strength, once she learned that they did not need two brave people in one household, she would stop her silly show of independence. He was sure of it. But he must be patient.

Elizabeth Doyle

"I've given you a lot to think about, I know," he said, in a way that sounded much like an apology. "Perhaps it's best I bid you farewell for the night and let you get your rest."

Sylvie tried not to nod too enthusiastically, but it was difficult. She stood up and walked him to the door.

"Let me just leave you with this," he said, placing a hand on her back. And without warning, he pulled her into a rough, passionate kiss. He forced her head to bend backward, catching it with the strength of his palm. He kept his hips a tasteful distance away, not wishing to scare her, but with his lips, he had no mercy. As soon as he released her, he bowed softly and said, "Good night."

Sylvie watched the door close and stared at its polished wood. Time must have passed but it did so without her participation. After some moments, it seemed she had been staring so long, she wasn't sure she could recall how a person might go about sitting down. She was dizzy. She had always expected her affairs to be so simple. She would marry whomever her parents chose. Now it seemed that no matter what she did, her heart would be torn and her circumstances confusing. She didn't know whether to feel utterly popular or utterly miserable. It was all so overwhelming. Just how many men could one woman marry?

Seventeen

Sylvie could not sleep. Her bed was soft and much too big for one person. She felt like a guest in a lavish, floating home. It was comfortable and exciting to lie between sheets of black satin, gazing out through a porthole into the starry sky. Her ordeal was finally safely over. She missed her family so: her mother's furrowed brow, sharp tongue, and gourmet cooking; her father's elegant, strong, but understated presence in a home that was truly run by his wife. And Chantal. She could hardly wait to see Chantal. On the pirate ship, she had begun to fear she would not have the chance to see Chantal grow into the wonderful woman she knew she would be. She missed the little girl who looked up to her so, who would not be a little girl for long, and would someday, no doubt, be Sylvie's dearest friend. There would be a new equality between them in adulthood.

She bit a nail through her smile. It really would be a nice life to which she was returning. She would always walk with the warm St. Pierre breeze blowing through her hair. She would grow old with her sister, and lead an independent ex-

Elizabeth Doyle

istence with Etienne moving in the background, keeping her parents in finery. She smiled. What a fool she had been even to consider Jervais's offer. She had everything under control, a vision for the feel and flow of the rest of her life. Nothing would interfere.

She heard a strange noise. In fact, she had heard one like it only moments before, but it had been much softer then. This time, she was sure it was not the snoring of a sailor in a distant cabin. It sounded like yelling. No, not yelling ? exactly. She strained her ears for another taste of it, and this time, there could be no doubt. Someone was screaming. Fearing she might be the only one awake to hear, she leaped from her bed and bolted from the room, holding her bed gown tightly to her breast. If anyone saw her adorned in the white cotton, cinch-waisted sleeping gown, it would be a scandal, no doubt. But this sounded like an emergency. Someone was in terrible pain and needed her help. This was no occasion to consider her modesty.

She followed the deep-throated howling though the hall and down a flight of stairs. Fearing that she might be too late, she stood in the ship's hold, looking about her and waiting for another scream. This time, the yell was so clear that she knew exactly which door she had to open. She burst into an unknown room, prepared to rescue someone who may have been trapped under a heavy box or writhing in illness. But what she saw was far worse. The pirates were bound together, unable to separate their ankles or their wrists, or themselves from one another. They were forced into awkward, crouched postures from which they could neither rise nor relax. She guessed they had been that way since their capture. But one of them had been freed. One of them was hung from a hook on the ceiling, his arms stretched painfully, with blood drizzling into his eyes. Around him, a mob of Jervais's pirate hunters were gathered, poking him with a hot iron,

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kicking him angrily, and making him swing against the hook. Some of the pirates watched in fear, others turned away. It looked as though they were lined up against the wall, waiting for their turns. She couldn't see Jacques anywhere.

Sylvie's voice emerged like a ghost's. It was not loud or demanding, but jarring because it was so drenched in quiet emotion. "What are you doing?" she asked unblinkingly.

The pirate hunters looked at her as though she were a little girl who'd gotten up too early on Christmas morning. "Get out of here," said one. "You've no business down here."

She didn't even think about moving. "What do you think you're doing?" she asked in a deep, scolding whisper. "That's a human being you have up there."

"Human being, my eye. He's a pirate. Now, get on back to your cabin. Felipe, bring her upstairs." Casually, he put down his burning iron and picked up a cat-o'-nine-tails. He was going to start whipping.

Sylvie broke from her astonishment the moment her elbow was grabbed. "Stop it!" she cried, yanking her arm from his grip. "Stop it! I will not leave! Leave that man alone!"

"He's our prisoner," her assailant explained gently. "He'd do the same to us if we were in his place."

"And that makes it right?! Stop it!"

But he moved her bodily to the door, and as hard as she struggled, as much as she tried to duck under his imposing arms, she was unable to keep herself from being shut out. She turned and ran. There was no hesitation at all. Her head felt light while her heart felt heavy and full. She had to put a stop to this immediately, or die trying. That's right, she would die trying. She would never stand for this. She raced to Jervais's cabin door and knocked, much more loudly than she had planned. When she heard shuffling inside, she bounced anxiously, tempted to break in rather than wait. But she con-

Elizabeth Doyle

trolled her impulse and let him open the door in his own time. He appeared before her, his black hair disheveled from restless sleep, his powerful arms battling the restraint of his sleeping gown.

He looked down with a great deal of surprise. He had expected to see his first mate at eye level. But instead, he'd seen nothing until he bowed his head and glimpsed the petite Sylvie in the lacy night wear he had given her. She looked lovely in it, as he'd known she would. The ivory brought out hints of peach in her skin. The broad lace clung to her narrow throat and waist. He just wanted to eat her alive. "May I help you?" he asked courteously. He despised being awakened, but he could hardly complain, given that he was getting to see the young lady in a sleeping gown. It wasn't that he could see any more skin than usual, but the fact that it was a bed gown, that it was what a lady wears only before her husband, was enough to make it sensual.

"Jervais, you've got to stop them."

The urgency in her voice made him snap into a completely different state of mind. "What is it?" he demanded, like a ship's captain. "Has someone offended you?"

"Jervais, they're tormenting the prisoners. I heard them in the hold, where they've got them tied up. They were burning them and beating them."

"Oh." He relaxed considerably. In fact, he broke eye contact and absently scratched his chin while she continued to prattle on about the horrors she had witnessed. He wondered what time it was.

"Jervais, you've got to stop them," she said, having finished her tale.

He looked down and tried to get a feel for her expression, for how seriously she was expecting him to take this. "Well, I ... I'm not going to stop them," he said drowsily, "but I can ask them to quiet down."

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"Quiet down?!" she cried so loudly that it hurt his ears and made him wince. "Jervais, they are torturing them. You can't just stand by here and ..." She took a second look at him. He was rubbing his eyes wearily. "Well, all right," she said, "maybe you can just stand by here, but I can't. Jervais, please!"

He was moved by her desperation and the anguish of her frantic voice. It was so typical of a woman, he thought, to become panicked over something as inconsequential as the discipline of prisoners. In a sense, he found it adorable, particularly in Sylvie. Though it was frustrating, there was also something appealing about a woman's sensitivities. And because of that, he reasoned that he could scold his men at least for allowing themselves to be observed by this respectable passenger. "Very well," he said with a weary sigh, "we'll speak to them."

He disappeared for a moment, returning with a long cloak. "Put this on," he said. "You shouldn't be in front of the men dressed like that." He tried to keep the fury from his voice, but the notion that they had seen her in her sleeping wear gave him nausea. He helped her into the cloak and then led her with a firm hand down the stairs and into the hold. "Which room?" he asked her. Apparently, the pirates were scattered among the storage rooms. She pointed, and he prodded her to the door. He opened it without a knock or a hesitation, as one who owned every inch of the ship. "Gentlemen," he said, causing all of the sailors to come to full attention.

Their eyes fell upon Sylvie as though she were some horrendous tattletale. But she met their gazes with fierce determination. They were the ones who should feel ashamed, not she. Jervais did not even spare a glance at the tortured pirate, hanging by his arms. Sylvie couldn't help noticing that. He didn't even acknowledge the man. "Gentlemen," he said, "you've awakened our guest. I'm going to have to insist you take your frolic elsewhere."

Elizabeth Doyle

Frolic? Sylvie had to force herself to ignore the horrific phrasing, just so long as the poor man would be let down from that hook. "Aye, sir," came a multitude of rumbling voices.