LAVENDER BLUE (historical romance) (24 page)

From behind a massive desk Cristobal looked up from the logbook opened before him. Slowly he lowered the pen and rose to face the wraith framed in the doorway.

“
You slimy bastard,” the wraith hissed through clenched teeth.

His soul seemed to
sigh deep within him like the fluttering of Death’s wings. The play was over. He had lost her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

T
he revolver, a French pistol this time, was leveled at him. There would be no missing at that range. He laughed. There was nothing else to do to ease the great pain that ripped at his heart. He saw that his laughter shook her. The barrel wavered slightly, its gleaming metal winking at him like some cycloptic eye in the cabin’s lantern light. His lips curled in a wicked smile. “Yes, Jen, I am all that, a slimy bastard. But I would have you any way I could take you. You see, I am not like my honorable friend Armand was, am I?
Un preux chevalier, sans peur et sans repoche.”

“
You’re not fit to ever have called him your friend!” she cried out. Her finger twitched dangerously on the trigger, but the need to vent her wrath delayed the moment of reckoning.

He moved steadily toward her. “
But I’m fit enough to take his place in your arms, aren’t I?”

“
That’s not true! I didn’t know . . . I had no choice!”

He laughed lowly, and he saw the small shudder pass over her slight frame. “
Your body had a choice—it didn’t have to respond.”

“
No!” she cried out. Anguish contorted her face into a death mask. The revolver jerked spasmodically. With serpentine swiftness his hand curled about her wrist. The revolver clattered to the floor. He jerked her up against him. Her back arched as she struggled to get away. Her legs slashed the air, landing painful kicks at his shins. Her fists struck in blind fury against his chest and face. Knuckles caught his mouth, and he tasted blood.

Tears coursed down her cheeks. “
I’ll go to Mejia!” she raged, the tears choking her voice. “I’ll tell him who you are.” She gasped for air. “The Mexican Imperialist general will make certain you never show your face in Mexico again!”

He hardened himself to what he had to do. He could not let her go. Not now. Not until he found out what strategy Mejia was mapping for the French invasion of northwestern Mexico, where the rich mineral mine
s were located. Not until he could deliver more war supplies to Juarez. And that meant at least one more run between Havana Bay and Bagdad—unless Jen revealed the subterfuge of his French citizenship to Mejia and exposed him for the Juarista he was.

He dro
pped her and shoved her face forward against the wall. The breath whooshed from her. With one hand he pinned both of hers above her head.

“
Oh, God, I hate you,” she screamed, but her voice was muffled by the wall.

“
Don’t move,” he warned, “or you’ll hate what I do even more.”

With a needless thoroughness his hands began a search of her. They started beneath her armpits and rapidly moved down over her rib cage before slipping forward between her breasts. For a fraction of a second they hesitated in that vall
ey. Her gasp of rage was like a spewing teakettle. In spite of himself he smiled. Jen had always been a little termagant.

Briskly he finished his search, his fingers lightly sliding down the outside and up the inside of her thighs. She trembled, and he cou
ld almost feel her fury, pulsating off her like heat off an engine’s furnace. “To think I ever thought you a friend!” she cried bitterly.

Goaded out of his usual self-containment, he grasped her by the shoulders and spun her around. Her hat tumbled to the floor and her braid swung over her shoulder. “
I have been your friend more than you know, Jen!”

“
You call friendship marrying under false pretenses?”

"You asked me to marry you,”
he reminded her drily, “I didn’t ask you.”

He saw the flush of shame wash out the freckles that bridged her nose. But her lips curled scornfully. “
At least I asked you in the name of something worthwhile.”

“
In the name of the Confederacy?” he scoffed.

“
Yes!” Her eyes glittered at him with hatred. “But then you wouldn’t know anything about values such as patriotism and honor and love and—”

His fingers gripped her shoulders. “
And Armand did, didn’t he?” His hands fell away. He pivoted from her and crossed to the cabin’s bay window, darkened by night. His shoulders slumped. “God, there have been times when I almost hated my friend,” he said in a voice raw with self-loathing.

Animal-alert, he detected behind him a sudden
rustling and whipped around. Tears streaming down her face, Jen hurtled herself against him. Her fists beat ineffectually at his chest. “You have no right to call Armand your friend!” she sobbed. “You used his wife, you used the Cause—all for your own selfish needs!”

He caught her wrists and held her away from him. It was as if he had suddenly donned the Greek mask of comedy. His lips twisted in a travesty of a smile. "
Si
, Jen. I’m selfish. Selfish enough to take you by force, fraud, or farce. Selfish enough to want you more than any damnable cause. Could you have said as much for Armand?”

“
You’re not half the person he was!” she spit.

His smile should have warned her. “
And you are? A woman who sells herself for a price?”

Her hand lashed out. He made no move
to dodge the stinging blow. Her eyes widened when she saw what she had done. Gingerly he fingered the red imprint on his jaw. “Your social graces leave a lot to be desired, Jen.”

Expecting retribution, she faltered back a step, but he moved past her and c
rossed to the door, saying, “Make yourself comfortable in my cabin. It’s time to weigh anchor.”

“
Wait!” She hurried to him. Her hand clutched at the soft cambric of his sleeve. "What do you intend to do with me?”

He grinned, but it was no longer the foolis
h grin that the hidalgo, Cristobal, had worn. “Take you with me on the run to Havana.”

For a moment Jeanette remained rooted before the cabin door, unable to believe what had happened to her, what was happening to her. But there was still time to jump ship! She flung open the door. Solis stepped before the doorway. An apologetic look crossed his ravaged face. “You would never make it to shore,
señora
.”

Helpless, she stood with him in the doorway and listened as the heavy iron chain slid out of th
e water with a splash. Four bells rang in the engine room and the sloop started forward. A moment later she heard Cristobal shout, “Hard-a-port!”

The sloop seemed to gain extraordinary speed. With hands braced against the companionway wall to steady her, J
eanette made her way out to the upper deck and crossed to the railing. Like a shadow, Solis followed close behind. She loved the feel of the fierce night wind blowing against her face, whipping strands of hair free from her braid. If only she could be free.

But there was no hope of that as the lights of the shoreline rapidly faded into glimmering specks and then vanished. At that same moment she heard somewhere out beyond the
Revenge
the beat of paddles upon the water. But sound in darkness was so deceptive that she could not tell from what direction it came.

Suddenly a warning calcium flare skyrocketed into the night sky. “
Merde!
” Solis cursed. “The blockaders are riding our wake!” He grabbed her wrist. “Into the cabin,
señora
, and for the love of God, stay there!”

He half pushed her back down the companionway and into Cristobal
’s cabin before hastily leaving her. She ran to the window. Kneeling on its cushioned seat, she strained to see through the darkness. If only it were the French men-of-war patrolling the Mexican shore who sought haul over the
Revenge
! She could prove to Mejia that the cargo of cotton was to be exchanged for arms and ammunition—destined for Juarez! Then she could watch Cristobal crumple before Mejia’s firing squad!

But what if the Feder
al blockader succeeded in hauling over the
Revenge
? Cristobal might be able to prove he was running supplies to Juarez, allies of the Federals. With dawning horror she realized that it was she who could be in danger. Cristobal could easily identify her as Lavender Blue. Surely the United States Government wouldn’t shoot or hang a woman, would they? But had not the Confederate spy Belle Boyd been sentenced to an execution squad before she escaped?

Thunder roared outside the window and the ship
’s timbers vibrated at the same moment that water geysered hundreds of feet high directly before her. A man-of-war was shelling the
Revenge
!

A second l
ater the sloop rocked violently with the after shock, and Jeanette clutched at the rough-textured abaca curtains to keep from being flung to the floor. The terror of drowning, of sinking to a dark and watery grave, ripped at her stomach like shark’s teeth. The thunder, the spray of water, and the rigorous shuddering repeated themselves. Again and again. The ship’s timbers groaned their distress.

Jeanette huddled in a far comer of the window seat. Prayer trembled on her lips.
God, spare the
Revenge
. I’ll devote myself to good works. I’ll live a life beyond reproach.
Foolish promises but nonetheless sincere ones.

Throughout the night the bombardment continued, though the interval between each shelling lengthening. In contrast to the heavy iron-clad men-of-war,
the Revenge had been built for speed. But the Revenge was weighted down with three hundred tons of cotton. To forget her fear Jeanette tried to focus on more pleasant thoughts, but only Cristobal filled her mind. She was in his cabin. The Frenchman’s cabin! He had made love to her here—her eyes strayed to the wide bunk crouching in the corner.

There
—in that bed. She hid her face in her hands and groaned, and the ship’s timbers echoed her agony.

She recalled the words of contempt she had flung at the French
man in English, thinking he did not understand her. Oh, how he must have laughed at her! Cristobal—the dandy, the fop. Kitt—the Frenchman, the man to whom she had given herself with such wild abandon. One and the same. Ohhh! She opened her eyes to escape the image of her body stretched beneath his, her legs and arms entwined about him, opening herself to his lovemaking.

But even then she could not escape Cristobal. On the massive desk before her lay his nautical instruments
—a polished brass telescope, a glass barometer, a brass-bound sextant, an hourglass. And papers and maps strewn everywhere with his powerful handwriting scored across them, giving evidence of his dominion. As she did.

Shame, embarrassment, anger coursed through her. She wrung her hands. Go
d grant her revenge, she importuned, completely forgetting her earlier vow to live a life beyond reproach.

A gray dawn filled the window. Still the Revenge plowed steadily through the rolling waves in its bid to outrun the blockader. At least the blockader
had ceased its shelling. Perhaps the Federal vessel had even given up.

Jeanette, lavender smudges beneath her lavender-blue eyes, left her watch to make her way to the quarterdeck. The deck vibrated beneath her feet. Torrents of black smoke poured from th
e
Revenge's
funnels. All about her the deck was piled with bales of cotton. Sailors were pitching bales into the sea, counting on Yankee avarice to stop and pick them up, for the cotton was worth five or six hundred dollars a bale now. Jeanette understood more clearly the desperate effort the Revenge was making to escape.

A sailor, his face blackened by smoke, emerged from a hatch, and she crossed to him. “
Your captain—where is he?”

Exhaustion denied him immediate speech. He jerked his head over his shoulde
r toward the hatch and muttered something about thirty-minute shifts before staggering past her.

The smoke burned her eyes as she carefully felt her way down the steep, narrow steps. It was as if she were descending into the fires of Hell. The heat intensi
fied. By the time she reached the engine room, sweat beaded her face and rolled down the valley between her breasts. In the fire room a silent, shadowy crew of figures, Stygian wraiths, shoveled coal into the devouring furnace. Its red-hot mouth illuminated the room with an unearthly light. Now she understood the thirty-minute shifts. No human being could stand it down there longer than that.

The piston rods rose and fell with quiet strokes. Yet the engine room seemed to dance under the vibrating blows of t
he screw so that standing was nigh impossible. Jeanette staggered against the wall. The hot metal rib burned her fingers and she gasped with pain. A hand seized her wrist and dragged her up out of the hellhole. The fresh salt air hit her. Her face tilted upward, and she greedily gulped in air like a beached fish.

“
You were told to stay in the cabin,” Cristobal gritted at her side.

Without waiting for her reply, he hauled her back up the companionway stairs toward his cabin. She tried to tug loose, but he sh
oved her inside and stood with fists low on hips, coolly surveying her as if the two of them had never come together in the intimate act of love. The mouth she had always thought of as handsome but weak was stretched into an implacable line by the grooves of fatigue at either side. Soot blackened the hollows of his jaws, and sweat sheened his swarthy skin. His dark eyes watched her with a grimness that frightened her.

Would he demand of her what she had so easily given him? Worse, would he betray her to the
Federal Government if she refused to comply? She could not bring herself to believe the friend of her childhood would do such a thing. But then, did she really know Cristobal at all? A lot could have happened to him since he and his family left the United States—many things could have changed him and molded him into another man. Certainly, she thought wryly, Cristobal had turned out to be a multifaceted man.

“
Well?” he demanded. “What was so important to bring you out?”

She held her ground. “
You’re jettisoning the cotton bales to halt the blockader’s pursuit. Put me in a longboat. They’ll be forced to stop for me.”

His lids drooped over hot brown stones, imparting that sleepy look. “
No.”

“
Why not?” she cried. Then her eyes narrowed. “You said you were my friend.”

His eyes flickered warily at her sudden woman
’s tactics. “I am, Jen.”

“
Then release me,” she begged piteously.

“
I can’t. A hundred things could happen. Our wake could swamp the longboat. The blockader might not stop for you. They might gain too much on us.”

“
If you were truly my friend you would let me go!”

A slow grin creased his lips. “
I am afraid, Jen, that my friendship for you is overridden by my desire.”