Pirate's Golden Promise Page 9

  All traces of blood drained from Wynter’s face as the import of his words struck her.

  “Not you!” she blurted out, her eyes wide in alarm.

  “Your outrage wounds me, little one. But, aye, I’ve decided that you shall belong to me.”

  She rose so quickly from her seat that her hip struck the table and knocked the wine from the decanter, staining the cloth a cherry red. “You’re a madman, a crazy pirate!” She swung away, heading for the door as fast as her feet could carry her, but with a wide swoop Cort grabbed her arm and yanked her to him.

  “I’m many things, Wynter, but not mad in the way you mean. I’ve been mad over you since the moment I saw you in your father’s drawing room, preening before me, teasing me with eyes the color of a rainy spring morning and hair so thick and soft I could lose my fingers within its depths. I’ve never wanted a woman as much as you, and I don’t intend to wait forever until you tire of this game you’re playing with me. You want me as much as I want you, and you won’t admit it.”

  His hands moved to her waist, spanning its width until his fingertips met. She could feel him drawing her closer to him, practically raising her from her feet until her lips were even with his. Fire glittered in his tawny-gold eyes, beckoning her closer until any resistance she felt faded, and she yielded the softness of her mouth to his. The kiss seared her to the very depths of her soul, branding her with the velvet warmth of his lips.

  A groan escaped from Cort, a sound which only intensified Wynter’s suppressed longing for him. She knew she shouldn’t want this man, but a force beyond her control drove her past caring. She returned his kiss with all the pent-up passion she’d hidden from herself since the night they met. Never in her life had she experienced such a dizzying, melting sensation. And she knew that the night she became Fletcher’s wife had been nothing in comparison to this kiss.

  “Wynter, my love, my heart,” Cort moaned and lifted her into the shelter of his arms. He carried her to the bed and covered her body with his. His lips began a burning investigation of the base of her neck, raining scorching kisses along the pathway to the lush valley that separated her breasts. In the dying sunlight, Cort’s hair was a golden red, almost amber, and when he looked at her from passion-drenched eyes, she knew that eventually she’d yield herself to him … that from the moment they met, she was destined to be his.

  “I can give you so much, Wynter,” she heard him saying from the warm fog that enveloped her. “I’m a wealthy man and all my worldly goods will belong to you. I promise you you’ll never regret loving me.”

  Worldly goods? Had she heard him correctly? The haze evaporated and she saw him clearly. Did he believe she wanted him only for what he could give her? Was he asking that she become his mistress, not his wife? But she came to her senses to remember that she already had a husband, a very kind husband who loved her.

  “Cort,” she began hesitantly, almost fearful of his answer, but she pressed forward in determination to ask it. “Do you want to marry me or make me your mistress? I have a husband already, you know.”

  He scowled. “I remember, but your husband is of no concern to me. I can easily obtain a divorce for you.”

  “Suppose I don’t want a divorce?” she said.

  Cort sat up, bringing her with him, and she felt the hard, unyielding hands still at her waist. “You’ll belong to me in all ways, Wynter. No man shall have a claim on you but me.”

  A shiver of apprehension ran through her to realize that this man truly desired her the way a man should and not in the boy-like way that Fletcher did. Yet a glimmer of hope rose within her that Cort truly loved her and would marry her.

  “Are you asking to marry me?” she said, breathlessly.

  Cort gently lifted her chin with his fingertips and smiled an almost pitying smile. “No, my sweet. I want you as my mistress. You knew that in England.”

  “Then you don’t love me?”

  Wynter’s voice broke despite her resolve not to allow him to know that her heart was breaking, that she had fallen in love with him the moment he kissed her in this room, that perhaps she had loved him from the first second she saw him at McChesney Manor. When he answered her, she almost felt that her heart had fallen from her body and splintered like glass at her feet.

  “No, little one. I don’t love you. I desire you, but I’ll never love anyone—ever again.”

  She had her answer. She pushed at him and jerked off of the bunk in a flurry of petticoats. Straightening her gown about her, she rearranged her stray curls. “I’m afraid the wine has undone me, Captain,” she said with more bravado than she felt. “Please excuse my behavior. I must return to my husband now.”

  Wynter began to move away, but Cort was up and grabbed her hand. “You can’t mean to go back to that sniveling boy you married, to a life of servitude. Why, you’ll be old before your time. I can’t imagine you cooking, cleaning, or pressing gowns for some sour employer. Wynter, you’re not thinking. I offer you myself, my ship, my bed as your own. What more do you want?”

  “Love, Captain Van Linden. That’s all.”

  Cort sighed resignedly. “Love is one thing I’m unable to give.”

  “Then my husband is more man than you. Fletcher has given me love.”

  He laughed a deep, roaring laugh. “He’s such a simpleton, my sweet, that that’s all the lad can give you.”

  “Fletcher has given me a gift beyond price,” she said heatedly.

  “Ah, now it comes down to price, does it?” he asked and considered her. “Tell me, Wynter, just what is your price to become my mistress?”

  “I have no price, sir. No amount of money will buy my favors.”

  He dropped her hand and opened the door for her. “All women have a price,” he told her as she hurried down the passageway. “I will be most pleased to discover yours.”

  CHAPTER

  8

  That night Fletcher slept peacefully, but the next morning shortly before sunrise he began coughing again, much to Davey’s annoyance. Dirk appeared and ordered everyone up.

  “Where are we going?” Hilda asked sleepily.

  “To work, vrouw.”

  Work consisted of helping in the galley.

  A huge, round cooking pot was in the center of the room and rested on a brick hearth. Jan, the cook, looked up in relief as Dirk instructed the women on what to do. Henrik, the boy who had brought them tea the day before, appeared very pleased to have extra help also. It turned out that they must cook breakfast for 150 men, with Davey and Fletcher supplying the plates and cups.

  “This is absurd!” Wynter voiced her aggravation to Dirk. “I demand to speak with Captain Van Linden at once. I shall not work here like a servant.”

  “Ja, ja, you will,” said Dirk in amusement at her blustering. “That’s what you are, missy. Captain says to tell you so.”

  Wynter placed her hands on her hips in annoyance. So that’s how things stood, she thought. She had refused to become his mistress, and now the wretched man was determined to force her to work off her indenture. She spun around at the sound of Jan’s voice as the first of the biscuits came out of the oven. “Hurry along, Vrouw. Hungry men piling in.”

  And hungry they were. Wynter had never seen so many men at one time wolf down so much food, and she admitted grudgingly that Cort Van Linden supplied good food for his men. The biscuits dripped with butter and cheese, and each man had a hearty serving of oatmeal before attending to his individual duties. She was so busy serving that she hadn’t seen Cort enter the galley and find a seat on the wooden bench near the back. When she did glance up, it was to see Fletcher doubled over with another coughing attack.

  Immediately she ran to him and took the load of plates he carried to the wash bin.

  “Fletch, you should rest,” she softly scolded him. “You’re not well at all.”

  “And not likely to get better,” he said and grinned a bit. “But I’ve got to do my share, Wynter. We’ve got to make our fortunes so you
can get back McChesney Manor.”

  His words touched her more than if he had held out a hand to her. She put her arms around his shoulders. “We will. I promise you we will.”

  “Vrouw.” Dirk appeared, a look of displeasure on his broad face. “Captain Van Linden wants his breakfast.” He pointed to Cort who lounged lazily on the bench, his back against the wall.

  “Tell him to get it himself,” Wynter snapped. “I must tend to my husband.”

  Dirk shook his head in disbelief. “He wants you to serve him. Nobody disobeys the captain.”

  “Is that so?” Wynter shot Cort a withering gaze, which he reciprocated with one of his own.

  “Serve the bloody pirate his breakfast,” Fletch told her when the spell had passed. “We won’t see the likes of him when we get to Virginia.”

  Wynter didn’t have the heart to tell Fletch or the others that they’d never see Virginia; and she knew that she had better serve Van Linden his breakfast as his scowl deepened.

  Grabbing a wooden bowl, she filled it with oatmeal and carried a buttery biscuit to him. She set the bowl in front of him and held out the biscuit.

  “Your breakfast, sir,” she said curtly.

  “My thanks, Mistress Larkin.” He took the biscuit from her, but grabbed her hand. Her fingers were stained with melted butter. Without knowing what he was going to do, Wynter watched in amazement as Cort brought her fingers to his lips. His tongue swirled around each fingertip, tasting of their creamy sweetness. She vividly recalled the feel of his lips on hers the night before and remembered how they had felt as they burned a path to her breasts. Desire flared within her, then humiliation when a group of men nearby laughed and nudged knowingly at one another.

  Wynter jerked back her hand, and she knew her cheeks were rosier than normal. “I think you’re a barbarian,” she hissed.

  “And I think you’re a tantalizing morsel much too good for that boy you married.”

  She didn’t know what else to say to him. Fleeing back to the front of the galley, she turned her back and prepared to help Fletch wash the dishes. Tears of rage and embarrassment stung her eyes.

  “I’ll save you from that nasty bloke,” Fletch said to her. “He won’t touch you again.”

  Wynter replied nothing, but wondered who would save her from herself.

  For the next two days, Wynter and the others worked before the sun was up till after the sun had set. The men, for all their crudeness, were courteous to her, and Mary didn’t seem to fear molestation any longer. In fact, it seemed she would have welcomed it if the young cook she had her eye on had approached her. But he took no interest in her, and more than once she voiced her eagerness to arrive in Virginia.

  “Don’t think we’re headed for Virginia,” Davey said one night when they all lay on their pallets after a tiring, long day in the galley. “We’re on a more southerly course.”

  “How do you know that?” piped in Hilda.

  “The air’s warmer.”

  “Stop joshing us all,” Mary said. “What do you know, Davey, about anything?”

  “I know we ain’t going to Virginia.”

  Wynter was so bone weary and sleepy that she didn’t tell Davey he was correct. Instead she yawned and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. Hours later, Fletch wakened her and the others with the worst spell of coughing he’d had so far. Though he tried to muffle the sound in the crook of his arm, it was useless. Wynter put out a hand to pat his cheek and instantly drew it away. He burned with a fever so high it nearly scorched her flesh.

  Getting up, she went to a barrel filled with water and tore a strip of cloth from her petticoat. Immersing the cloth in the water, she wrung it out and made a compress. Then she knelt beside him and gently washed his face with the cool cloth.

  “You’ll be fine,” she promised him.

  In the murky darkness of the room, she could see his eyes alive with fever. He didn’t speak to her, and she wondered if he could hear her.

  “Fletch needs a doctor,” she told Hilda when the older woman moved closer to them.

  Hilda touched Fletch’s hand. “Go get one, girl, or your man won’t live out the night.” Instantly Wynter was on her feet and running up the landing, then down the passageway, until she came to the area where she knew the men slept at night. She’d never been inside the 124-foot hull, crowded to overflowing with the crew, but she needed to find a man Henrik had once pointed out to her as Dr. Dietz, the ship’s physician.

  Quietly she entered. Loud snores and mutterings met her ears. There were so many men sprawled before her that they were like a maze. How was she ever going to find the doctor now?’

  “What are you doing here?” She heard the hiss of Cort’s voice behind her.

  She twisted around, almost glad he had appeared from nowhere.

  “I need Dr. Dietz,” she whispered frantically. “Fletch is very sick.”

  She half-expected Cort to refuse, but he surprised her by motioning her to wait. He nimbly made his way across the body-strewn floor to the prone figure of Dr. Dietz. Immediately the small man was up and behind Cort.

  Later, after Dietz had examined Fletch, he pulled Wynter aside. “Your husband is very sick, Vrouw Larkin. He shall probably not last longer than a day or so. The best we can do is to make him comfortable. Chances are he won’t recognize you or where he is. The end shall be peaceful.”

  Wynter’s hand flew to her mouth. “He—he can’t die, Doctor. Fletch is still a young man. He has to make his fortune.” She knew she sounded idiotic, but at the moment nothing seemed more important than for Fletcher to fulfill his dream.

  Dietz sadly shook his head. “You must realize that there is nothing to be done. Keep him as cool as you can and comfortable. I’ll look in on him later.” He patted her arm before he left.

  Cort, who had been standing nearby, came and stood beside her. “Wynter—” he began, but didn’t say anything else when her eyes hardened upon his face.

  “Get away from me! I don’t need your forced sympathy now. If you wouldn’t have worked him so hard the last few days, he might have had a chance.” She pushed past Cort and knelt beside her husband, bathing his fevered brow. She didn’t realize until half an hour later that Cort had gone.

  “Ja, ja, Captain. The girl loves him. That much is plain. She’s still keeping watch over him and spooning a bit of broth between his lips. Not that it matters much. The boy is as good as dead.”

  Cort heard Dirk’s recounting of Wynter’s death watch with a mixture of anger, pain, guilt, and jealousy … Yes, jealousy, he admitted to himself. He, a man who could have any woman he wanted, a man who had had many women he didn’t want, was jealous of a dying youth. Never in his life had he wanted something so much as he wanted Wynter McChesney’s love. And he still thought of her as unmarried though he knew she was Fletcher Larkin’s wife. However, he didn’t believe for a second that the boy had taught Wynter passion. For all her shrewish tongue and teasing ways, he knew a woman who was still untouched in spirit, who had yet to taste passion. Wynter McChesney was such a woman—nay, he decided, still a girl. But before this trip was over, she’d become a woman under his tutelage. He’d see to that.

  Yet as he stood on the quarterdeck and gazed at an ocean which matched Wynter’s eyes, he wondered if he’d be allowed the chance to teach her. He remembered her hard, cold words to him the previous night after Dietz had examined Fletcher Larkin. He hadn’t known the lad was so sick, but if he had known, would he have insisted that the boy rest? Cort wondered this himself. With the husband out of the way…

  He shook his head to drive the distracting thought from his mind. He hadn’t wanted harm to befall young Fletcher; he only wanted the boy’s wife. He doubted if Wynter would even look at him now. God, he ached to see her eyes filled with desire for him, needed to have her love him. But love was an emotion he felt unable to give in return. Not since Katrina had he loved anyone.

  Cort hated thinking about Katrina Verleth, despised the way he rememb
ered the nights spent in her arms when he sneaked into her room. Katrina had been 14 when she came to live with his Aunt Lena and Uncle Fritz in their huge stone house overlooking the North River near New Amsterdam. Cort had been 18 and very lonely until she arrived.

  His parents had died when he was five, and his Uncle Fritz had gladly provided a home for him. A smile touched Cort’s mouth to think of his plump and happy Aunt Lena. Though they were kind to him, he hadn’t felt he belonged at Lindenwyck, and his cousin Rolfe didn’t make things any easier. From the beginning, Rolfe taunted him, tried to best him in sports, and then when they were older, with the ladies. And more times than not, Rolfe succeeded, because it was a well-known fact that when Fritz died, Rolfe would inherit Lindenwyck and its immense wooded acreage. Cort would be lucky to receive a small parcel of land, but that was fine with him, because from the moment Katrina entered his life, he wasn’t lonely any longer.

  Blond, blue-eyed Katrina. He’d never forget the first time he saw her after Lena had offered her their home. The Verleths had been killed in an Indian raid, and Katrina was the only survivor. She’d been dirty, her dress torn from running all night through the woods to the safety of Lindenwyck. But to Cort’s eyes, she was the most beautiful, the bravest girl he’d ever seen. And once she was washed and dressed in an altered gown of Lena’s, Cort saw that the girl was nearly a woman with all the necessary physical endowments to tempt a man. And tempt him she did.

  She might be 14, but Katrina seduced him with her honeyed voice, the lilac scent wafting from her hair, and with gentle fingers which played like fire across his chest. He made passionate love to her the day she turned 15. And for the following year, more times than he could count, he proposed to her, and more times than he cared to remember, she always refused him with a little giggle, stating she wasn’t ready to marry. He nearly went out of his mind with wanting her as his wife, but the thought that she was his was the only thing that kept him sane.

  Then on a wintry evening, she met him on the bluff that overlooked the frozen North River. They watched some skaters for a while, Rolfe among them.