Devil of the High Seas, page 17
Gavin stood at the helm, guiding the Cornish Pixie through the shallow waters along a path only he knew that kept the ship from catching on reefs or sandbars. The ship turned gently at his subtle guidance as it sailed safely past places that would have trapped other vessels. He slowed the Pixie down, and soon the anchor was dropped. Ronnie gave the order for two boats to be lowered so that some of the crew could accompany Gavin and Josephine ashore.
More than a dozen people flocked to the shallows as the boats slid onto the white sand of the beach. Men, women, and a few children, all of them dark-skinned, gathered to wave at them as they climbed out of their boats. Men doffed their straw hats and women smiled in warm welcome.
“Gavin!” A young boy in rolled-up trousers and a white shirt rushed over and tackled Gavin in the waves.
“Sam, you devil! Been up to trouble while I’ve been away?” Gavin wrestled with the boy, who couldn’t have been more than six, and lifted him up, carrying him under one arm like he was a sack of flour. Josephine covered her mouth to keep from laughing at the pair of them.
“Josephine, this is Sam,” Gavin said, depositing the boy back on the sand in front of a beautiful dark-skinned woman who wore her hair tucked up in a scarf around her head.
“It’s about time you brought a woman home, Gavin.” The woman held out a hand to Josie as though she had known Josephine all her life. “Come, let me feed you. Ship food is nothing compared to island cooking.” She studied Josephine’s manly garb. “And I will find a dress for you to wear. My name is Jada, and this wild child is my son, Sam.”
Gavin gave Josephine an encouraging nod before he faced his men and began giving instructions. Jada led Josephine toward a two-story white house.
Thick forests surrounded part of the home and a garden in the side yard was a garden full of vegetables rather than flowers. As they drew closer, she marveled at both the garden and the home itself. A porch wrapped around the other side of the building and was decorated with four comfortable-looking chairs that faced the sea. She could easily imagine sitting in one of those chairs and watching the sun set over the water. Large windows were open and white curtains billowed out with the sea breeze. The beautiful home felt light and airy.
“Will Gavin be joining us?”
“Come along, Miss Josephine. Your man will come soon enough. He has to see to his men and tell them the rules of this island.”
Josephine couldn’t help but blush at Gavin being called her man. While they’d been on the Pixie, the two of them had felt like they were in an intimate bubble. Now they were back in the world again. It felt different, somehow even more surreal than ever that she was with a man.
Jada led her inside the home, and Josephine’s lips parted at the sight of the staircase leading up to the floor above. Even though the house was outwardly like many of the lovely houses she was used to back in Cornwall, the interior of the home was vastly different. Seascapes had been painted on the walls. It made this home feel like it was right on the edge of the water.
“Does it ever flood here?” She had heard Dominic spin tales of fierce hurricanes that could sweep entire villages off the map, killing everyone.
“No, this island is blessed.” Jada chuckled. “We see the storms, but they always pass us by.” Jada led her upstairs and opened a tall wardrobe in one of the bedrooms, where several dresses hung.
“Let’s try this one,” Jada said as she held up a light linen gown the color of pink coral, like the reefs surrounding the island.
Josephine was startled to realize that the gown Jada had given her did not take any sort of undergarments. No padding, hoops, or panniers were required to give the gown shape. Instead, it there was a single billowy petticoat under her dress. Josephine supposed that was to be expected, given the climate. It would simply be too hot to wear more than that beneath a dress most of the year.
She stood before the tall mirror in the corner of the large bedchamber and gazed upon her natural form, with her curves displayed gently rather than in the exaggerated fashions of London. The dress was short enough to show her ankles and let the breeze ruffle the skirts. She grinned and swayed her hips, making the skirts twirl around her legs.
“Much cooler, yes?” Jada chuckled and lightly squeezed Josephine’s shoulders. “So, you are Gavin’s lady?”
The hint of a question echoed in Jada’s voice.
“Um . . . yes. I’m Gavin’s wife.”
Jada’s eyes twinkled. “Newly married?” she guessed. “It is good to see that man finally settle down.” Jada’s smile faded. “But where’s the Siren? That is not Gavin’s ship anchored in the cove.” She nodded at the open window, where they glimpsed the Pixie floating on the water.
“No, that’s my brother’s ship.” She wasn’t sure how much Gavin would want her to tell Jada. Did Jada already know that Gavin was a pirate? If not, Josephine did not want to be the one to tell her Gavin’s secrets. “He gave us the ship as a wedding present.”
“I see.” Jada mused on that thoughtfully, then flashed her a bright smile. “Let’s put some food in that belly of yours.”
They wandered down to the kitchen on the ground floor, and Josephine noticed more men and women moving about the house, seeing to the various duties of cleaning. She couldn’t help but be curious as to their role here. Gavin hadn’t mentioned anyone when he’d spoken to her about the island. Slavery was not something her family approved or condoned. As a woman, she often felt owned herself. The thought of owning another person simply felt wrong.
“You must be wondering if we are slaves. We are not. Gavin stopped a slave ship three years ago and freed everyone on board. My son Sam was only three years old and I was one of the lucky women who didn’t have my child taken from me because of his age. Thirty of us chose to come here to this island with him. It is safer than the other islands, and we risk recapture if we go anywhere else. Here . . . it is only us. We have fields, we sow crops, the people here have their own houses. We live quiet but content lives.” Jada’s voice held such peace that Josephine envied her. What would it be like to feel so at peace with one’s world?
Jada ushered Josephine to a seat at the table and then joined an older woman who was cooking in the kitchen. The two of them spoke softly to each other in a lyrical language before the older woman leaned over the stove and pointed at Josephine, whispering something. Jada nodded in reply. The woman’s eyes widened, and she smiled shyly at Josephine.
Jada came over and introduced the woman. “This is Kai, our cook. I am Gavin’s housekeeper. There are another six people who choose to live in this house and help Gavin with household duties since he is gone many months of the year. The rest of the island’s residents work in the fields and gardens and live in a group of houses on the opposite side of the island. While Gavin is away, which is often, we all share the work of keeping the island supplied with food and the houses repaired. It keeps us busy, but we enjoy working and owning our own land and homes.”
Josephine was impressed and glad to see that Jada and the others had escaped a life of slavery and now had lives all their own in this little bit of paradise. It was all she’d ever hoped for too.
“It’s lovely to meet you, Kai.” She smiled at the shy cook.
Jada chopped a pineapple into chunks and brought Josephine some of the fruit on a plate to eat while they waited for Kai to finish. Something delicious was cooking on a skillet, and when Kai removed the skillet from the stove, Josephine was treated to spicy grilled chicken. Wonderful new flavors exploded on her tongue.
She was licking her fingers clean, unashamed of her unladylike behavior, when Gavin stepped into the kitchen. He greeted Kai and Jada with a roguish grin. Kai said something to him in her language and tossed a towel at his face. He caught it and laughed, then kissed Jada’s cheek in a brotherly way. She realized that this was Gavin’s family now, one that he had made all on his own.
“And you,” he said as he turned at last toward Josephine, that smile of his so bright that it nearly blinded her. She felt seen, loved, when he looked at her that way. In the last four weeks they’d sailed together, she and Gavin had grown close, not just physically, but emotionally. She hadn’t imagined that it was possible to feel so connected to another person. She’d lived her entire life with her family, but she felt that she knew Gavin’s heart and soul better than anyone else. She’d tried not to think about the future, about their lives diverging at some point. She only wanted to bask in the days she had left with him.
His once rare smiles were now becoming more frequent, and she’d grown addicted to how that made her feel. Like she could do anything in life.
“You’ve chosen your bride well,” Jada said.
“I have, haven’t I?” Gavin swept an examining look over Josephine. “Let me show you my island, Josie.” He held out a hand, and she placed her palm in his. They left and started up a sandy path toward the jungle. She was grateful for the sandals Jada had given her.
She had asked Jada about the clothes she’d been given, wondering if Gavin had brought other women here. He hadn’t. The dresses had been sewn by Jada and the other women on the island in hopes that someday Gavin would bring a bride home. They’d made clothing in all sizes, and leather sandals as well. Everything had been patiently waiting for someone to open that wardrobe and put them on.
“Your house is so beautiful, Gavin. It’s so very different.”
“Yes. No stuffy drawing rooms, no gloomy portraits. It’s warm and welcoming, the way a home should be,” he agreed. “When I built it, I wanted it to feel like it was mine.” He said this with such simple honesty that she was moved to tears.
To hide her impending tears, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “I fell in love with you when I saw your gloomy portrait,” she teased.
They halted on the beach path that led toward the jungle, and she wondered what she’d said to make him stop. And then she realized she had said the words.
“You love me, lass?” His face was so serious it seemed carved of stone.
“Yes,” she replied. “I do. And I have no regrets in my admission. It’s how I feel, and as long as I draw breath, I shall own my feelings. I’m proud of them, good or bad, because they are mine. You don’t have to say anything.”
“But I will.” He cupped her face in his hands and gazed deep into her eyes. “I love you, lass.” His voice was rough with emotion, but his lips curved slightly in a smile that threatened to break through the solemnity of the moment. “I want you to be my wife in truth.” He smiled fully then, and it felt as though the sun itself burned inside her.
He stroked the backs of his knuckles over her cheek. “I heard once . . . if you say you marry someone three times, it becomes true.”
She tried to ignore the flutter of excitement as he bent his head to kiss her.
“I marry you,” he said, then kissed her again. “I marry you.” He paused, nibbling at her earlobe before finally saying, “I marry you.”
She threw her arms around his neck and covered his face with kisses before repeating the words back to him in such haste that he laughed with delight.
He kissed the tip of her nose. “Who knew you’d be so thrilled to have a second marriage proposal?”
“I’m thrilled because it is the right one, from the right man.”
The words held no weight in a court of law or with any church, but to Josephine they were real. Those words tied her soul to his forever.
“Let me show you our island.” He took her hand and led her into the jungle.
Gavin’s heart fluttered with excitement. Married. It might be in name only, but it felt as though he was truly tied to Josephine. They would marry legally as soon as he could arrange it, but for now he was overjoyed simply feeling married to her. The old Gavin, the one who had fled to the seas and stopped believing in love, would have scoffed at the prospect of being married, but the month he’d spent with Josephine on board the Pixie had changed him forever. He no longer wanted to be alone, no longer wanted to mourn his once broken heart. Now he was moving toward a bright and beautiful future.
The path they took divided into several smaller paths throughout the forest. He led her down the central one toward the heart of the island. He pointed out yellow elder bushes with their clusters of flowers that resembled yellow daffodils, wild sage with its orange flowers, and the light-purple jacarandas that bloomed everywhere. The songs of tropical birds echoed through the canopy, and parrots of all sizes and colors flew from branch to branch ahead of them as they walked.
“Are all these birds from this part of the world?” Josephine asked, taking in the multicolored flocks above them.
“Many aren’t native. They flew off ships passing by and found this island,” he explained.
“Their melodies are beautiful. I used to love the morning after a thunderstorm as a child. I would lie in bed and hear the birds chattering in excitement, and the sun always seemed to shine a little brighter after those storms.”
As they walked, Gavin asked a great many questions about her life, and she did the same. He shared with her tales of his childhood and stories of his battles at sea. She drank in each detail.
“To think, you’ve known my brother Dominic longer than I have,” she mused.
He paused on the path and stared at her. It was true. In a strange twist of fate, he’d known Dominic for a longer time than she had.
“You were a mere babe when he left, weren’t you?”
She nodded. “I wish . . . I wish he’d known how much we missed him. It was like a piece of our hearts went missing with him when he vanished.” Gavin saw a flash of unexpected emotion in her eyes. “I caught my mother talking to his portrait once. She thought no one was around. She said, ‘I keep believing you’re just on a simple journey and that one day you will come home and laugh it all off as a grand adventure. But what if you don’t? What if you are truly gone and I never had the chance to say goodbye? Do you know that I loved you? Do you know how much I still do?’” The memory of this seemed to create such pain in Josephine that she choked down a sob.
Gavin pulled her into his arms and kissed her forehead, then held her tight. He wished in that moment he could take all of her pain away.
“If this is a dream, I don’t wish to wake,” she whispered against his chest. “But I’m so afraid, Gavin.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Of losing this, of losing you.” Her words tore at his heart. “The future has never frightened me more than it does at this moment because I have so much to lose now.”
“All dreamers must wake up sooner or later . . . But what if we wake to something even better than this?” he asked.
“You said you weren’t romantic.” She rubbed away her tears, and he couldn’t help but smile at her.
“Any man in love becomes a romantic.”
She lifted her head at his words. “You truly love me? That’s twice now you’ve said it.”
“I think it would be impossible not to love you,” he said with such seriousness. “Perhaps I should show you, since you need some more convincing.”
Josephine followed Gavin to a deep pool at the heart of the tiny island jungle, and she stared in awe at the bright-blue water. It was clear enough that she could see down to the bottom, perhaps twelve or fifteen feet deep.
“It’s a freshwater spring,” he explained and began removing his clothes.
She watched him, truly feeling he was hers, all hers. Gavin had a strength in him that went far beyond his body, which was impressive. He moved with an easy grace, yet he bore the scars of a rough life lived on the high seas. She wanted to kiss each one. As he undressed, peeling away each bit of clothing with an almost deliberate slowness that both teased and tortured her, she bit her lip and held back a moan of longing at seeing his beautiful body.
Perhaps there was some sort of magic in the air of this island. It was Gavin’s sanctuary, and now she felt it could easily be hers too, if they had this life together they both desperately wanted. She fisted her hands in her skirts as she watched with sensual hunger as he bared his legs and arms. Her fingers itched with the memory of lazy nights aboard the Pixie, where she had touched him with passion. He’d taken care to explore her body most of their nights in his bed, but now she wanted to explore him with the same freedom.
“Join me in the pool, wife,” he called out with a flirtatious grin, then plunged into the water entirely naked.
She scrambled out of her clothes, trying not to think about how silly she looked, stripping down with such haste in front of him. She had never bathed quite so freely before. When she had bathed in a copper tub, she’d had a sheet draped over her for modesty, and when she’d swum in the sea or the lake, she’d always been in a chemise and petticoats. Now she was bare, naked, free. She dipped one toe into the water and sighed at the heavenly warmth of the pool. The water was surprisingly warm.
Gavin was treading water in the center of the pool, watching her, his eyes hot with desire.
“Jump in, lass!” He swam toward the back of the pool to give her room to leap in.
With a shriek, she leapt and plunged down into the brilliant water. When she reached the surface he was ready for her, catching her in his arms. She wrapped her arms around his neck while he guided them toward a rocky ledge that was deep enough in the water that when he sat on it and pulled her toward him, they remained chest-deep in the water. She straddled him as he sat, and their bodies rubbed teasingly against each other. He claimed her mouth, kissing her deeply. His lips tasted like the sea and were so wonderfully soft, while the rest of him was hard.
She fisted her hands in his hair so she could hold on to him as he moved his mouth lower down her body. He lifted her up in his arms until her breasts were level with his mouth and sucked at her nipples as though he was starving for her. The insistent tug of his mouth on her breasts sent sharp spikes of need through her.
As he drew one tip into his mouth, his palm cupped her other breast, his thumb and forefinger lightly pinching her nipple and tugging it, then gently kneading her breast. She rocked against him, almost mindless, desiring nothing more than to be taken. Her womb throbbed painfully for him.
