Blue Velvet

  "I appreciate your laundering them the first time, Jim," she said with an answering smile. "You didn't have to. I could have done it myself. I'm not used to being waited on."

  "No trouble," he said breezily as he turned and strode back to the door. "You did us quite a favor springing us from the inn last night. Turnabout is fair play, as they say."

  As the door closed behind him, she swung her feet to the floor and wrapped the sheet more tightly around her, tucking the folds beneath her arms. Some favor, she thought wryly as she removed the red-checked napkin covering the tray. They were just lucky that no one had been really hurt on deck last night. She had meant well, but perhaps Beau was right about her impulsiveness. Well, she wasn't going to waste her time in gloomy retro­spection when the sun was shining so brightly through the porthole and Beau was waiting for her on deck. She'd savor every moment to the fullest as she'd always done.

  And she'd start with this breakfast of bacon and eggs and homemade biscuits that were light as a feather and absolutely heavenly. It seemed that she hadn't eaten in a century or so and it was no chore at all to obey Beau's instructions to eat every bite. Come to think of it, she hadn't eaten much in the last few days. She'd had breakfast on the Searcher day before yesterday and a little stew at Consuello's cottage before they'd started for Mariba.

  Beau couldn't have eaten very much either and he must have appreciated his breakfast as much as she was appreciating hers now. What did he like to eat? she wondered curiously. There were so many things they had yet to learn about each other. The intimacy bred by danger and their explosive physical union had brought them so close it seemed amazing she didn't know the little mundane things about Beau. Well, they'd have time to learn all the things they needed to know now. She couldn't hope that Beau's passion for her would last forever, but from what he'd said last night, he did feel something for her other than desire. Perhaps if she worked very hard and devel­oped the sophistication and poise he was accus­tomed to in his women he'd begin to feel a little of the love that was beginning to possess every atom of her being.

  Forty-five minutes later she gave her glossy curls a last pat and tucked the soft white cotton shirt more firmly into her jeans. She made a face at the reflection in the bathroom mirror. Spick and span she definitely was, but sadly lacking in romance or glamour. Much more cousin Melanie than Beau's Scarlett O'Hara.

  Still, when she reached the upper deck and saw Beau leaning indolently against the rail idly talk­ing with Daniel, she didn't feel like sweet whole­some Melanie. She felt as hopelessly romantic and lovesick as any Juliet, Heloise, or Guinevere.

  Beau must have changed sometime during the night, for he was wearing close-fitting pale beige jeans. His chocolate brown shirt with sleeves rolled to the elbow made his bronze hair shine even more in contrast. His eyes were more dark hazel than gold today though and there were dark circles beneath them. Hadn't he slept at all?

  He frowned disapprovingly as she came toward them. "You've taken off your bandage."

  "It got wet in the shower." So much for her spick-and-span allure. All he'd noticed was the lack of that dratted bandage. "I didn't need it anyway. The cut will be better without it." She breathed deeply of the clean salt air. "No self-respecting wound would dare not heal in surroundings like this. Cobalt sea, sapphire sky, and the sunlight . . ." She trailed off searching for a phrase that would describe the sparkling iridescence that was sing­ing through her. "It must have been a morning like this when Noah realized the earth was reborn and sent out his dove."

  The frown on Beau's face was superseded by amusement. "First she compares you to Charon and now Noah, Daniel. When she gets to Methuse­lah you'd better think seriously about shaving off your beard. Evidently it's not projecting the kind of virile image a stud like you would like to present to the world."

  Daniel didn't appear equally amused. "Playing ferryman to a bunch of lovesick animals sounds, a hell of a lot more appealing than what you had in mind for me," he said with a scowl. "It wouldn't even be legal, damn it. It takes all sorts of special seaman's papers to be qualified for a job like that."

  "Then we'll have to move on to plan two," Beau said grimly. "It's got to be legal. If we get someone on board with the right papers and it takes place in American waters ..."

  Kate was looking from one to the other in bewilderment. "What's this all about? I must have missed something along the way."

  "Yes, Beau, tell her what it's all about," Daniel said silkily. "After all, it does concern her. In a minor way of course."

  "Shut up, Daniel," Beau growled. "You're not making this any easier." His expression was grave as he turned back to Kate. "We have a small prob­lem. Last night when I came back up on deck to talk to Daniel I had to make a decision about where we were going."

  "Yes?"

  "I made it. We're about a half-day's journey from our destination now."

  "And that is?" she asked, puzzled.

  "Santa Isabella." He paused. "First."

  "First?"

  "Then we're going to continue on to Norfolk, Virginia."

  "Virginia!" she echoed. "But that's the United States. Immigration will never let me in without a passport."

  "I decided I was tired of batting around the Car­ibbean. I want to go home," he said quietly. "And you're coming with me just as you agreed."

  "But I can't without a—"

  "We'll get you a passport, but it may take time to track down your papers. That's why we're stopping off at Santa Isabella. We need to get all the informa­tion out of Brenden we can regarding your birth and the possible whereabouts of your mother. In the meantime I'm not willing to sail around aim­lessly like the Flying Dutchman waiting for the lawyers to come up with something."

  "Then you'll obviously have to go without me," she said, trying to smile.

  "The hell I will," he said softly. "Not when there's a way that I can have it all. Daniel can fix it."

  Fix it?"

  "Right now we're anchored a mile or so off the coast of Lanique, a U.S. possession. That means we're in American waters. Since Daniel isn't quali­fied to do the job himself he's going to go ashore, find a justice of the peace or some other official and bring him on board the Searcher." He took a deep breath. "To marry us."

  "Marry?"

  "Marry," he repeated, a trifle nettled. "You obvi­ously view it with very little enthusiasm."

  "A very intelligent lady," Daniel said promptly. "Let's forget you ever had this latest attack of insanity, Beau." He made a face. "If it ever got back to Sedikhan I'd played Cupid for love's young dream, it would totally ruin my reputation."

  "We're not going to forget it," Beau said grimly. "We're going to be married today. Once we're ashore we'd have all sorts of problems tying the knot without papers for Kate. The minute we're married, she's automatically an American citizen and has the protection of both the Lantry name and the Lantry conglomerate. We'll still have trouble with Immigration but it should simplify the whole process enormously."

  "That's a pretty drastic solution," Kate said daz­edly. "Isn't there any other way around it?"

  Daniel opened his lips to speak, but Beau gave him a quelling glance and said quickly. "There's no other way. You made me a promise and this is the only way you can keep it." His lips twisted. "You needn't be so apprehensive. Even conventional marriages seldom last more than a few years these days. It's not as if it has to be forever."

  No, it wouldn't be forever, she thought dully. It would only be a convenience in order that Beau could have her at his disposal for as long as it suited him. She mustn't let those words hurt so much.

  "I know that," she said quietly. "I was just thinking that in time you may consider it to be more trouble than it's worth."

  "I rarely regret any decision I make, regardless of the consequences," he said with a curiously bitter­sweet smile. "I'll consider it worth it, Kate. You'll do it, then?"

  "If that's what you want."

  "Very docile," he said mocking
ly. "Is our Kate so tame now?"

  "I don't think I'm particularly meek," she said, meeting his eyes steadily. "I just believe in keeping my word."

  "And so do I," he said, his expression softening. "Remember that, Kate. So do I."

  His mood was changing from moment to moment with lightning rapidity, she thought daz­edly. What did he actually want from her? She'd agreed to what he'd said he wanted, but she was still aware of the current of leashed restlessness and discontent behind that mocking facade.

  "Hop to it, Daniel," Beau said. "I want to get it over with as soon as possible." He shrugged. "We'll be married in your cabin. It's as good a place as any."

  "No!" Kate said. She'd never thought much about weddings, certainly not her own wedding, but she was experiencing an odd repugnance at the idea of a hurried ceremony rattled off in the confines of Daniel's cabin. The vows they were going to speak may not have any importance to Beau, but they did to her and she wanted to be sur­rounded by beauty when she said them. "Up here on deck, in the sunlight."

  There was a flicker of understanding and tender­ness in Beau's eyes. "Why not? Then we can have the entire crew as witnesses. We're going to need all the documentation we can scrounge together."

  "I'm on my way," Daniel said, turning away. "I'll have to go down to my cabin first and get my cap­tain's papers and the credentials Clancy provided to prove how respectable I am these days, A justice of the peace isn't precisely the type of official I'm accustomed to using my powers of persuasion on."

  Kate took a step forward and placed an impulsive hand on his arm. "You don't really mind, do you, Daniel?"

  Daniel's impatient gaze traveled from her hand on his arm to her troubled face. "You bet your sweet. . ." He stopped abruptly as he met her eyes. He was silent a long moment before he smiled with surprising gentleness. "I'll live through it." He pat­ted her hand. "I'll not only be best man, I'll even make the supreme sacrifice for the occasion."

  "What's that?"

  He glanced ruefully down at his naked muscular chest with its curly thatch of auburn hair. "I'll put on a shirt." He turned away. "But don't expect any­thing else from me. Enough is enough!" He was almost to the door leading below deck when he abruptly turned around again. "Well, maybe one more thing. You're going to need a ring for the cer­emony. I know Beau never wears one. Do you have one, Kate?"

  She shook her head.

  He was taking a large ring of Florentine gold off his right hand. "Use this one." He tossed it to Beau. "It's my lucky ring though. I want it back."

  Kate studied the ring. It was obviously very valu­able, aside from the fact that it was fashioned of pure gold. The workmanship was exquisite and the design on the surface very unusual. A rose in full bloom pierced by a sword. "Lucky?"

  Daniel nodded. "It was given to me by a powerful Sedikhan sheik I did a favor for once. I didn't know it at the time, but wearing it put me automatically under the sheik's protection. That particular sym­bol is recognized throughout Sedikhan." His lips twisted. "The revolutionaries I told you about stole the ring after they captured me. When they sold it in the bazaar the buyer took it to the sheik and he contacted Donahue. Together they traced it and that led them to me. After six months in the hellish hotbox I was ready to believe the ring wasn't only lucky but pure magic."

  "I can see how you would," Kate said. Magic. This marriage could certainly use any magic as well as luck the ring could bring them. "Thank you for letting us use it, Daniel."

  "My pleasure." He disappeared down the stairs.

  When she looked back on that strange ceremony it was all a jumble of flickering impressions. The movement of the ship beneath her feet, the clear warm sunlight bathing everything in its radiance, the crew in attendance, their faces surprisingly solemn. The thin, graying justice of the peace, Mr. Carruthers, with his sweet smile. Daniel, dressed in his cutoff jeans but with a pristine white shirt buttoned to the throat with endearing circumspec­tion, the exotic gold ring being slipped on her fin­ger. Beau's voice low and oddly husky as he repeated the prescribed vows, her own voice, faint and far away. It was all vaguely dreamlike until almost the very end when Beau turned to face her.

  "I'd like to say something," he said softly. "You're probably not aware of it, but it's become very popular these days for a couple to make their own vows. I think it started back in the sixties with the flower children." He smiled gently as he took her hand in his. "I never thought I'd be tempted to fol­low their example, but here goes." He paused for a long moment and when the words came, they were distinct and clear with a jewellike richness.

  "There are only a few qualities I've ever discov­ered worth holding onto when I've found them in this tired old world of ours. They are honesty, fidel­ity, and a loving generosity of the spirit. I've found all of them in you, Kate." His clasp tightened and his golden eyes were liquidly brilliant as they held hers. "I promise to give you my own honesty and fidelity in return. I can't promise to give that same generosity of spirit. That particular quality is so very rare it's almost priceless and I don't know if I even possess it. I will give you my strength to pro­tect you, any knowledge and experience I've acquired through the years, and my friendship." He drew a deep shaky breath. "They aren't gifts I give lightly. Will you accept them, Kate?"

  "Oh yes." She was so moved she could hardly get the words past the tightness of her throat. "I wasn't expecting this. I don't know what to say in return."

  "Nothing," Beau said simply, turning back to Mr. Carruthers. "You don't have to say anything. I just wanted you to know. Let's get on with it."

  "There's only a few more lines," the justice said gruffly, hurriedly bending his head over the Bible in his hands.

  She scarcely heard the final words that com­pleted the ceremony. She felt as if she were wrapped in the golden warmth of the words Beau had spoken. So beautiful. No words ever had such shining beauty and Beau's gentle kiss at the end of the ritual was also gravely beautiful.

  She was vaguely conscious of Beau thanking Mr. Carruthers and an envelope exchanging hands. Then Daniel was inviting them all down to his cabin for a drink before he had the justice taken ashore.

  Beau shook his head. "I'm afraid you'll have to excuse us. I need to talk to Kate." He turned to Kate. "Will you come down to the cabin with me?"

  She nodded dreamily, barely conscious of his hand on her elbow propelling her away from the others and down the stairs. The door of the cabin closed behind them and she turned to face him, her eyes still glowing with that soft misty lumi­nance. "What did you want to speak to me about?"

  "What?" he asked bemusedly. Then he shook his head as if to clear it. "Do me a favor and don't look at me like that, okay? I had no intention of doing anything but talking when I brought you down here."

  "And now?" she asked softly, moving a step closer.

  "Now I want to throw you on the bunk and have my wicked way with you."

  "I didn't find your way at all wicked before," she said, a little smile tugging at her lips. "I found it very enjoyable. Are you planning on doing it differ­ently this time?"

  "Certainly." Beau's eyes were twinkling. "Variety is definitely the spice of life, particularly when it pertains to doing 'it.' " The humor faded from his face. "Listen to me, I'll have you with your clothes off and lying in that bed in a couple of minutes and that's not why we're here. I have to tell you why we went through that ceremony up on deck just now."

  "You've already told me," she said, smiling lov­ingly at him. Her hands began to unbutton her white cotton shirt. "I understand perfectly. You want to go home. I've never really had a home, but I understand the pull is very strong. If that's where you want me, then that's where I'll go." She'd go to the penal colony on Devil's Island if he'd only look at her again as he had on deck while he'd said those beautiful vows. "And you needn't worry that I'll take advantage of you. Whenever you want it dissolved all you have to do is tell me and I'll go away." The words were very hard to get out but they must be said. "And while
we're together I'll try not to forget the marriage doesn't really exist. I promise I won't be a Xanthippe."

  His eyes were fixed on the lush cleavage revealed by her bra as she shrugged out of her shirt. "Dissolved? What do you mean dis—" He broke off. "Who the hell is Xanthippe?"

  "She was Socrates's wife." She was struggling with the back fastener of her bra. "She was very bad-tempered. Socrates said that by living with her he learned to get along with the rest of the world." "No wonder he was so willing to drink that cup of hemlock," he said absently. He inhaled sharply as the fastener was at last released and she slipped the straps down over her arms and tossed the bra aside. "Why do I get the impression that you're try­ing to seduce me?"

  She stepped still another step closer and began to unbutton his brown shirt. "Perhaps because I am," she said serenely, her naked breasts swaying and heavy against him. The sensitive tips brush­ing against the cool smoothness of his shirt were already burning and peaking with the readiness that was surging through her entire body. "I've read a few books on the subject. Aggressiveness on the part of the female at times is a very welcome variation." She grinned up at him mischievously. "And you just told me that variety is the spice of life." She pushed the fabric of his shirt apart and rubbed her breasts against him. "You've been the aggressor every time so far. I want my turn."

  "Nag, nag, nag," he growled, a dark flush mount­ing to his cheeks as he instinctively leaned forward to meet the thrust of those tantalizing nipples. "You may not be familiar with women's lib as yet, but heaven help us poor males when you are, Xanthippe."

  She slipped the shirt from his shoulders and drew it with painstaking slowness down his arms, brushing against him with every breath and every movement. She could hear his breathing begin to grow labored and the pulse in the hollow of his throat was leaping crazily. How wonderful to know she could have that effect on him. But she wanted to do more, she wanted to give him so much plea­sure that he'd be dizzy with it. She loved him so very much. How had it grown so quickly to fill her entire life? Perhaps if she could bring him enough pleasure he would love her, too, if only during the moments of passion. "Have your wicked way with me, Beau. Please."