Fires of Delight (8 page)

“God, but I love you,” he said. Her laugh of delight was husky, low. No man or woman on earth could possibly know the things they knew, or give pleasure so keen, or enjoy it so much. It was magic, all of it, when he came upon her, eased into her like coming home.

He was gentle at first, each approach, each questing stroke almost like an exploration. Their mouths were as ravenous for each other as their bodies were, and in the fire of their mutual need, the memory of pleasures they had shared in the past enhanced each sensation they felt now. Selena fitted herself beneath him, around him, until she became another part of Royce, moving with him, proudly feeling his urgency, a throb to the depths of her being. It seemed impossible that he could plunge so deep, but just when she thought she could not bear it anymore, he would begin to retreat. Then she held onto him as hard as she was able, crying out to have him deep again. His entire body trembled in her arms, and she drew her long, sweat-glistening legs up around him, locked her slim ankles behind his back—Royce riding higher, faster on her now—and her fading mind listened as she gasped and gasped
again, felt her body, over which she had no control anymore, open and thrust, only to open and thrust and clutch and plunge again, maddened by pleasure and joy.

Selena felt the pressure building, but she no longer possessed enough of her conscious mind to hold onto reality. From far away, she felt her body moving, twisting, rearing faster and faster, and so too did the sweet body of her beloved by which she was mounted and ridden, by which she was melded by a magic greater than them both. He was moving into her now with strokes so powerful they made her cry out at each one, always wanting another and after that another, never wanting them to end.

In order to pleasure him more, she reached beneath him, teasing with swirling fingertips the heavy gourd of his nature. The feel of his leaping essence triggered her own release, and clinging to him, all of the world, all sensation, lived for an instant in an evanescent pinpoint of her body. He was her body then, and she his, in soul, in flesh.

Then, slowly, slowly in the afterglow of ecstasy, the pleasure spread throughout their bodies and into the very air, back into the wild universe from which it had come and for which it had been created.

Royce slept.

It was dawn.

Selena lay beside her beloved for a long time, watching him sleep, pressing her cheek against his warm chest, listening to his heart beating. Life was, indeed, passing strange. Every person on the wide earth,
every single person
, had heart that beat, lips that kissed, tongue for sweet words or sweeter flesh, arms that embraced. But the body of one’s lover was ever a mystery, and even the best lovemaking no more than a feeble attempt to possess that body, to enter into it and know what it knew.

It must all be part of some vast plan
, Selena mused, kissing Royce’s neck where the big vein beat,
and we make love over and over, trying to know that which is unknowable
.

A very good plan
, she decided.

At length she arose, pulled a sheet around her, and walked to the window. Cautiously, she drew an edge of the curtain aside and peered out. This room was at the end of an alley, as she had surmised on the previous evening, but she was surprised to see how close the harbor was. She saw the Battery fortress, squat,
ugly and ominous, and the Union Jack atop it, whipping in the breeze. If Washington were to be successful, God grant, in the forthcoming campaign against Cornwallis in Virginia, the Stars and Stripes would fly above that fortress soon. The moment had been a long time coming too. It was October of 1781; the war was over five years old.

Selena noted as well the many ships lying at anchor in the harbor, the freighters and the little gunboats and three monstrous British men-o’-war. She saw another ship too, which, by its position in the harbor, she knew to be the one she’d seen while clinging to the pier ladder last night. Neither warship nor freighter, it was low and sleek. A row of cannon gleamed along its main deck. She saw no flag atop its mast, but the one word
Liberté
, stood out along its gleaming hull.

French? That was impossible. It would have been the height of lunacy for a French captain to bring his vessel into New York harbor, which the British Navy dominated so thoroughly.

Maybe it was a captured French ship.

Still, the name of the vessel struck a chord, and she fingered the golden cross at her throat.

Then she washed, ate a piece of bread left over from the night before, and drank some water from the pitcher, wondering how soon Gilbertus Penrod would arrive. She would have to ask him to try and get a dress, a coat, and a good pair of shoes. Royce’s clothes—the British officer’s uniform—sagged across the back of a chair, his boots on the floor beneath the table. A good disguise for him if they meant to get out of New York unaccosted. She would need rather fine garments as a woman travelling with such a man. One thing you had to say for the British: They knew how to outfit an army in style.

Too bad for them that they did not know how to win wars.

Royce stirred, rolled over, sighed luxuriously, but went on sleeping. Selena smiled. What a glorious day this was!

Growing restless, however, she got up and walked around the room. It was small, but after her tiny cell, it seemed like the great hall of a palace. She traipsed about quietly, exulting in freedom. Then as she passed the little cupboard, she remembered that Royce had gone to it just before he’d joined her in the bedroll. Glancing over at him, she stooped and opened it. Another bottle of wine, some apples, and a rather woebegone blanket. She took
an apple and bit into it greedily, noticing as she did so a small, dark bundle half-concealed by the blanket.

She reached in and took it out.

A pouch made of leather with a rawhide drawstring. Its contents were lumpy and hard.

Taking the apple and the pouch, she went back to the table, sat down, and undid the drawstring.

An observer, had there been one present, would have seen her eyes widen in astonishment, even alarm, would have noted how she seemed to gulp and stop chewing the bit of apple in her mouth.

Selena looked into the pouch and saw a cache of gold sovereigns along with emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and several diamonds of various sizes.

There was a fortune in the pouch!

More startling, the gems were cut and polished. It appeared that they had been deliberately and expertly removed from their settings in brooches or rings, bracelets or necklaces or earrings.

Why did Royce have these jewels?

Looking over at him now as he slept on, she could not help but remember what he’d been like when she’d first met him, and how he had cherished adventure on the high seas, enriching himself with the bounty of plundered ships.

But he was no longer like that at all.

Was he?

Mystified, distracted, and a little worried, she tightened the drawstring and returned the pouch to its hiding place.

“I’ll ask him about the gems when he awakens,” she said to herself.

No
, she decided a moment later.
He must have a good reason for being in possession of those things, and he must have had a good reason for placing them out of sight
.

Who wouldn’t hide a fortune?

Besides which, the pouch was none of her business. Trust must exist between lovers, or their relationship is surely founded upon quicksand, or worse. He
must
have a good reason, she reassured herself. He’ll tell me about the pouch if it is something that concerns me.

Still, she was a little perturbed, and when Royce awoke a short time later, he asked her why she seemed so pensive.

“Just feeling lonely,” she fabricated, going to him, and when he took her again she forgot all about the bag of gold and jewels. Indeed, Royce gave her another fortune in gems, which danced in colored lights behind her closed eyelids, as with his body, strong from sleep, he sorcerered her dazzled flesh once again. Selena, still luxuriating in the ebb of previous pleasure, felt every sensation more keenly this time. With her fingers clinging to his shoulders, his back, with her head, her wild hair, whipping from side to side, she thought she could not bear it, and writhed as if trying to cast him off. But the thrashing, turning, twisting only increased the power and the splendor of delight, and when the glowing rush did come for both of them, when she squeezed him with her body as tightly as she could, he had to muffle her sobbing cries with a gentle hand.

“If Lieutenant Oakley has ears to hear”—Royce smiled after they had collapsed in glorified exhaustion next to each other—“he could hear you all the way to the fortress.”

“Oakley!” she pronounced, her loathing for the man reborn, and while Royce dressed she told him of the lieutenant’s strange nature, the balance between savage fanatacism and professed love of truth and beauty that existed within him. Royce was surprised to hear of the paintings, but suggested that talent often coexisted with mania.

“In Oakley’s case,” he said, “it may be that the dark side has the upper edge, perhaps due to his unfortunate visage. A person serene of soul looks out upon a world of color and light, and the world reflects back those same qualities. But if it is otherwise, the world may seem very black indeed.”

“All I know is that I am afraid the lieutenant will pursue me to the ends of the earth. He as much as said so. Something about beauty, beauty and truth, and there being a bond between us.”

“Then we shall break that bond,” vowed Royce, going to the window. “I wish Penrod would hurry, but it may be difficult to slip through the British.”

“If I’m captured,” said Selena in jest, recalling Royce’s words with the horseman on the pier, “you’ll doubtless have to share the reward money.”

“Not bloody likely,” he shot back, matching her tone, “you know I’d want it all for myself.”

His words brought back to mind the pouch of sovereigns and gems, and Selena fell suddenly silent.

Gilbertus Penrod, dressed in his fine business clothes of handmade linen, wearing a silk shirt and carrying a pearl-knobbed walking stick, entered the room worriedly just before noon. He also had with him a traveling bag of supple, expensive leather, and after greeting Royce and kissing Selena, he set the bag on the table.

“This will have to do, I’m afraid,” he said. “There are redcoats on the streets of lower Manhattan today. I won’t be able to make the trip again without arousing unnecessary suspicion.”

Penrod opened the bag and began to remove a set of clothing. “Royce,” he continued, “I knew you had an officer’s uniform, so I decided it would be best to outfit Selena as your manservant.” He set upon the table a pair of knee-length breeches, black stockings, buckled shoes, white shirt, gray woolen jacket, and a black hat with a small crown and flat, circular brim.

Selena gazed doubtfully at the clothing—drab was rather the word for it—but Royce was pleased.

“Wise choice, Gil,” he said. “All officers have boys to serve as valets and wait on their personal needs. I don’t know if Selena will take kindly to being a boy, however.”

“I’ll do the best I can,” she promised, as the two men laughed.

“I also brought,” said Penrod, reaching into the bag again, “sustenance!”

He showed them a bottle of wine, a smaller container of brandy, a long, thick stick of hard salami, a metal can full of hardtack, and a jar of strawberry jam. “Best I could do,” he said.

“Splendid,” said Royce.

“What are your plans?” the other man asked.

“We’ll hole up here until dark, slip out, make our way to the west side, and hire a boat to take us up the Hudson. We’ll cross Westchester into Connecticut and then proceed to the
Selena
in Newport.”

“How does it feel to have a ship named for you?” Penrod asked Selena.

She pressed herself against Royce, smiling. “It depends on who’s done the naming. In this case I’ll accept the honor.”

He put his arm around her. “Gil, I’m a little low on funds…”

This statement surprised Selena as she knew about the sack of gems. She was almost certain now that something was going on about which she did not know and which she wasn’t at all sure she’d like.

“I understand,” Penrod said. He pulled a thick, alligator-hide wallet from his waistcoat pocket, and counted out a number of bills. “Here’re both British notes and Continental Congress paper. You’ll be ready for either eventuality.

“Well, I guess that’s it,” he added, facing them. “I’d best slip out now. Godspeed.”

The two men shook hands warmly, the hearty grip of comradeship, which is also male affection. Penrod leaned over and bussed Selena lightly on the lips.

“Don’t let go of him this time,” he advised tenderly.

“Never again,” said Selena.

Penrod crossed to the door, then turned. “Oh, Selena, I almost forgot. I gave you that cross in prison yesterday because I was afraid the British would take it…”

“Yes?” said Selena, who thought he meant that he hadn’t wanted the English to have Erasmus Ward’s last possession. She pulled the sheet she wore a little way down from her neck. “Here it is. I’m wearing it in honor and memory of him.”

It happened very quickly, but Selena was sure she saw Penrod and Royce exchange a veiled glance.

“It’s all right, Gil,” Royce said. “The cross is in good hands. Or should I say around a fine neck?”

“Absolutely,” agreed the businessman, nodding. It was as if the two men were discussing something, something quite important too, beyond Selena’s ken.

Penrod left then, and Selena set about preparing a breakfast of brandy, hardtack, and strawberry preserves.

“Is there some significance to this cross?” she asked, keeping her voice even, as if she were not at all interested.

“Of course not,” replied Royce, with a similar—and equally feigned—insouciance. “Why on earth would you think a thing like that?”

Selena almost—almost—brought the issue to a head then and there, the issue of the cross and the gems. Later she would wish
that she had, but she didn’t. They had a gay breakfast during which Royce allowed that sometime in the future they would be sailing to Europe. But such a trip seemed so far away, the brandy was heady and sweet, and he was hers.