Читать книгу: «The Countess Misbehaves», страница 2
Three
Lady Madeleine Cavendish had a difficult time falling asleep that night. Armand de Chevalier was responsible. As she restlessly tossed and turned, Madeleine reluctantly conceded it was impossible to deny that the insolent Creole had aroused an unsettling emotion in her she’d long thought dead.
She promptly told herself that it was completely normal, nothing to be concerned about. It was quite simple, really. De Chevalier was formidably masculine. She, totally feminine. The polarity generated its own dynamic tension, engendered a natural curiosity and fascination. That was it. Nothing more.
Thank heaven she was wise enough to recognize the attraction for what was. That elementary knowledge was a valuable aid in building total immunity to the Creole’s questionable charms.
There was no need to worry about the handsome de Chevalier. Even if he refused to leave her alone—and she strongly suspected that would be the case—it was no great cause for concern. She was not some flighty, starry-eyed eighteen-year-old. She was an intelligent, levelheaded woman of twenty-seven whose knees did not go weak every time a strikingly handsome man smiled at her.
Decisively dismissing the vexing Creole from her mind, Madeleine let her thoughts drift across the ocean to the two fine men who were waiting for her in New Orleans. She was anxious to reach her destination and genuinely delighted that the charming river city was now to be her home.
With both parents dead and no close family left in England, she would live with her dear Uncle Colfax until next spring when she wed Lord Enfield. Her uncle had assured her that the earl was a gentleman of sterling character, well thought of and quite wealthy after more than a decade in America.
Madeleine smiled in the darkness, pleased that her uncle and her fiancé were such good friends. It was important to her that her Uncle Colfax fully approve of the man she was to marry.
She knew how much her bachelor uncle doted on her, loved her as if she were his own daughter. He had told her, on more than one occasion, that she was the sole heir to his sizable fortune. But she loved her uncle as he loved her and hoped that it would be many long years before she claimed her inheritance.
Besides, she would have no need of her uncle’s fortune. Lord Enfield was a wealthy man in his own right.
Madeleine sighed heavily, then yawned. Sleepy at last, she turned over onto her stomach, hugged her pillow, and closed her eyes.
And was soon sound asleep.
On that first full day at sea, Madeleine awakened to the bright August sun spilling through the port-holes of her luxurious stateroom. A woman who loved excitement and adventure, she dressed hurriedly and rushed out on deck.
A yellow parasol raised above her head to protect her fair skin, Lady Madeleine smiled and nodded to fellow passengers as she strolled along the promenade deck.
Inhaling deeply of the fresh sea air and looking out with pleasure at the calm blue ocean, Madeleine was enjoying herself immensely.
The gentlemen she passed tipped their hats or bowed slightly from the waist, acknowledging her. The ladies smiled and greeted her and several asked her to join them for high tea that afternoon in the ladies’ salon.
On she strolled.
Taking her time. No destination in mind. Smiling easily. Savoring the beauty of the warm August day at sea. Then all at once Madeleine abruptly blinked. She stopped walking. Stood stock-still. She squinted against the brightness of the sun, staring.
Several yards ahead a couple stood at the ship’s railing. They were laughing merrily and in their hands, each held a long-stemmed glass of what appeared to be champagne, although it was only ten o’clock in the morning. The woman, looking up at the man as if he were a god, was a voluptuous brunette dressed in an expensive-looking traveling suit of pale-blue cotton. The man, who was smiling down at the alluring brunette as if they shared some exciting secret, wore a finely tailored summer suit of crisp beige linen.
Armand de Chevalier!
Lady Madeleine felt her jaw tighten and her brows knit. She straightened her spine, threw her head back and started walking. Directly toward the laughing, champagne-sipping couple. As she approached, she waited expectantly for de Chevalier to look up, see her and perhaps motion her over.
It never happened.
Madeleine drew up even with the laughing pair and purposely paused not twelve feet away. She stood there for several long seconds, giving both the opportunity to acknowledge her. Neither seemed aware of her presence. Neither so much as glanced in her direction. They had eyes only for each other.
Madeleine hurried away, admittedly stung by the Creole’s pointed neglect and shocked by such callous behavior. Here was the man who, only last night, had held her in his arms. He had danced with her and escorted her to her stateroom, where he had asked her to have lunch with him today.
Had he already forgotten her? Had she made absolutely no impression on him? Had it not bothered him in the slightest that she had turned down his luncheon invitation? It would seem not. It was as if she didn’t exist. Well, what did she care? It was, after all, she who had advised him to leave her alone. She should be grateful that he was honoring that request. And she was. She was glad he had found someone else with whom to amuse himself. Someone with whom he could share lunch.
By evening, Lady Madeleine had begun to wonder if de Chevalier and the buxom brunette weren’t sharing a great deal more than lunch. At dinner the pair were together at a table close by and they seemed to be having quite a gay time.
After the evening meal, Madeleine joined some of her table companions in the ship’s ballroom. There she spotted, swaying on the floor, the Creole and his enchanted companion. Madeleine swallowed with difficulty. Watching the two of them glide about the floor brought back the vivid recollection of being in de Chevalier’s arms.
Suffering the onset of a sudden headache, Lady Madeleine made her apologies and said good-night. She hurried to the haven of her stateroom. There she stormed around, pacing back and forth, curiously angry and upset.
And much, much later after she had retired and lay sleepless in a shaft of summer moonlight, she heard a deep, masculine voice that she instantly recognized. Curious, she tossed back the silky sheets, got out of bed, hurried across the carpeted state-room to an open porthole and peered out.
Directly below, at the railing, a lone couple stood bathed in moonlight. While Madeleine watched, wide-eyed, the provocative brunette who had spent the day with the Creole, slipped her bare arms up around his neck and lifted her face for his kiss.
Madeleine quickly turned away in disgust.
She had been so right about de Chevalier! He was nothing but a rogue and a scoundrel. She felt sorry for his enthralled victim.
In the days and nights that followed, Madeleine found that the pretty brunette was not the only woman who was entranced with de Chevalier. The handsome Creole never lacked for feminine companionship. Each time she saw him he was with a beautiful woman. A different woman each evening. And each of those beautiful women clung possessively to his arm, gazed adoringly at him and laughed at his every word.
Lady Madeleine pitied them, making such fools of themselves over a charming scamp who changed women as often as he changed shirts. Seeing him for the cad he was helped to extinguish the troublesome heat she had felt for him that first night at sea.
The Creole was somebody else’s problem, not hers.
But the Countess was bored.
As several long days and longer nights at sea passed by uneventfully, Madeleine grew weary of the journey, the idleness. She was tired of being trapped on a ship in the middle of the ocean. She was anxious to step onto terra firma. Anxious to reach New Orleans. Anxious to see Lord Enfield and Uncle Colfax. Anxious to go out to dinner and the theater and the opera.
So she was relieved when finally the long journey neared its end. She experienced an escalating degree of excitement when Lucinda awakened her with the news the ship was rounding the southernmost tip of the Florida Keys before it headed up into the Gulf of Mexico. Sometime within the next forty-eight hours, she would be disembarking at New Orleans’ busy port.
Humming happily, Madeleine quickly dressed and eagerly made her way out onto the deck, blithely ignoring the strong winds that had risen with the red dawn. She shaded her eyes and gazed, smiling, at the old lighthouse rising majestically from the very last island of the Keys. And she laughed when a great gust of wind caught her yellow silk parasol, tore it out of her hands, and sent it skittering away.
Several gentlemen, immediately aware of her plight, went after the dainty umbrella, but each time one of them bent to pluck it up from the deck, another puff of wind sent it toppling out of reach.
Instantly, it became a highly competitive game to see who could successfully seize Lady Madeleine’s tumbling, wind-tossed parasol. Determined gentlemen scrambled to recover the colorful article, each eager to be the lucky one who could present it to its lovely owner.
As fate would have it, the parasol was effortlessly retrieved by a disinterested gentleman who was not in on the game. The flapping, fluttering object slammed up against the trousered leg of none other than Armand de Chevalier. He placed his well-shod foot gingerly on the parasol’s handle to secure it. Then bent from the waist, picked it up and slyly raised it over his head. Turning slowly, he stood there twirling the parasol playfully, waiting for its owner to reclaim it.
Good sports all, the gentlemen who had been chasing the wayward umbrella laughed and applauded de Chevalier’s good fortune. Armand nodded and accepted their congratulations. When the small crowd dispersed and the laughing gentlemen went on their way, Armand stayed where he was.
The Countess, several yards down the deck, also stayed put. She naturally assumed de Chevalier would bring the parasol to her.
So she waited.
And waited.
Frowning she motioned for him to come. He shrugged wide shoulders and a look of puzzlement crossed his face as if he had no idea what she wanted.
Madeleine’s hands went to her hips. She glanced cautiously around, not wishing to attract attention. She looked directly at Armand and, without sound, mouthed the words, “Bring me that parasol!”
“Not a chance,” Armand replied in a firm, loud voice. He grinned devilishly and added, “Come and get it, Countess.”
Taken aback and instantly irritated, Madeleine said, loudly enough to be heard by him as well as by passersby, “Sir, I command you to return my personal property.”
Ignoring her queenly command, Armand’s devilish smile remained solidly in place. “You may have your little umbrella anytime you want it. All you have to do is take the few short steps to me.” His smile grew even broader. “Or, you could stop by my stateroom late this evening and we’ll…”
“Shhh!” Madeleine hissed and hurried toward him, looking furiously around, afraid someone had heard. Reaching him, she stepped up close and said angrily, “How dare you make such a suggestion for all to hear! Your behavior is inexcusable! You would lead our fellow passengers to believe that I might actually come to your stateroom when you know very well I would never do such a disgraceful thing!”
Continuing to twirl the yellow silk parasol above his dark head, Armand said, “Calm down, Countess. I’m quite sure everyone knows you would never consort with the likes of me.”
“I should certainly hope so,” she replied haughtily.
Armand smiled easily, handed her the parasol and then reached out to push a windblown lock of red-gold hair off her forehead. “It’s getting awfully blustery, Lady Madeleine. You might consider retiring to your stateroom.”
“You might consider not telling me what to do, Mr. de Chevalier.”
“You might consider listening when someone gives you a bit of sound advice.”
“You might consider that I neither need nor want any advice from you.”
“You might consider occasionally behaving like the lady you’re supposed to be, my lady.”
Madeleine’s red face grew redder. A strong gust of wind assaulted her just as she started to speak. It caught the umbrella and again tore it from her hands. She anxiously looked at Armand and pointed to the fluttering parasol. Armand didn’t move a muscle.
He smiled and said, “You might consider fetching it yourself, Countess.”
Anger and frustration flashing out of her emerald eyes, she said, “You might consider leaping overboard and ridding this vessel of its vermin!”
She stepped around Armand and took a few tentative steps toward the parasol. Then stopped abruptly. She wasn’t about to chase after anything. Let it go. And let him go.
She spun on her heel and majestically marched over to the railing. Muttering under her breath, wondering if he was still there, she soon hazarded a glance over her shoulder.
Strong west winds pressed the fabric of his slate-gray trousers against his long legs and lifted locks of his jet-black hair. As Armand started toward her she hastily turned back around. He walked up beside her and, without saying a word, put a leather-shod foot on the lower rung of the railing. He swung up onto the wooden railing, straddling it.
Staring, she said, “You fool, what are you doing?”
“I’ve decided you are right, Lady Madeleine. I should just go ahead and leap overboard.”
He threw his other leg over and came to his feet, balanced precariously on the decorative molding outside of the railing.
Her heart in her throat and her eyes wide with fear, Madeleine impulsively threw her protective arms around his lean thighs and shouted, “No! Don’t do it. I was only teasing.”
“You don’t want me to jump? You want me to live?”
“No! Yes! Please, Mr. de Chevalier, come back inside before you fall to your death.”
“Would you care?”
“Of course, I would care. Stop scaring me.”
“Okay,” he said as he agilely turned and jumped down onto the deck. He stood facing her. “Were you really afraid? Did you think you might lose me?”
His safety now ensured, Madeleine felt her anger quickly returning. She was furious that he had frightened her. And annoyed that he knew that she was frightened.
“Mr. de Chevalier, you might consider joining the children down in their play lounge. Your childish stunts clearly reveal that you have the intellect of a backward ten-year-old.”
Four
Later that morning, Lady Madeleine was alone at the ship’s railing, gazing expectantly out over the churning blue waters. A couple of hours had passed since she had spotted the ancient lighthouse rising majestically from the very last island of the Florida Keys. She had experienced a great rush of excitement when the huge ship had rounded that final spit of land and headed northward into the Gulf of Mexico. Now the Keys had been left far behind and no land was visible.
The winds, she suddenly realized, had risen dramatically since she’d first come out on deck that morning. She now had to cling tenaciously to the railing to keep her balance. And she noted that the waves had grown much higher, so high they were actually lifting and tossing the heavy vessel. Her breath caught when, all at once, deep swells rose beneath the huge craft and it swung and rolled violently.
Madeleine became curious, and increasingly anxious, when the ship’s crewmen began rushing about, hurrying to obey shouted commands from the stern-faced first officer. There was a sudden burst of activity as passengers hurried onto the decks. She heard a gentleman shouting to his companion as they passed that a West Indian cyclone was upon them.
Alarmed, Madeleine started toward her stateroom when the ship took a frenzied swing. As she struggled against the rising winds, she overheard two crewman speaking softly. One claimed the ship was taking on water.
Seconds later, the captain appeared on the promenade deck. Calm, collected, he walked briskly among the passengers speaking quietly, yet with clarity. “Passengers should return to their state-rooms,” he instructed. “No need to rush, no reason to panic,” he said, although he was more worried than anyone would ever know. Not only were there not enough lifeboats, they were painfully short of life preservers. And the waterproof integrity of those pitiful few vests on board was in doubt. “Return to your staterooms and secure the portholes,” he repeated again and again. On encountering her, the captain said reassuringly, “Merely a safety precaution, Lady Madeleine.”
She smiled and nodded, but she knew better. A full-fledged hurricane was racing toward them.
Struggling against the worsening winds and dodging scrambling passengers as they fled to their cabins, Madeleine finally reached the door of her stateroom. She banged on the solid wood and Lucinda yanked the door open and anxiously drew her mistress inside.
There the two women huddled together in growing fear as the S. S. Starlight pitched and rolled in the punishing winds as if it were a child’s toy. The roar was deafening as mountainous seas and fearsome gales assaulted the mighty vessel.
While the fierce storm raged, sending the huge ship into fits of savage rocking and lurching, the Starlight’s crew and many of the male passengers—including Armand de Chevalier with his suit jacket cast aside and his shirtsleeves rolled up—toiled tirelessly at three bucket brigades to reduce the flooding in the engine room.
Soaked to the skin, striving to stay on their feet, the contingent labored manfully to keep five hundred tons of boilers and engines afloat in the angry, storm-tossed Gulf of Mexico. But it was a losing battle. Soon it became evident. The S. S. Starlight was irreparably breached. The huge ocean liner was going down.
The ship now badly listing, a terrified Lady Madeleine and Lucinda rushed back outside. Terror-stricken passengers ran about on the slippery, slanting decks shouting, “Where are we to go? What are we to do?”
Families hugged their loved ones to them and herded them toward the ship’s railing where lifeboats were being deployed. Frightened people were pushing and shoving, fighting to gain a coveted spot in one of the lifeboats.
“Hurry!” shouted Lucinda to Madeleine, “we must hurry!”
The servant clung to her mistress’s hand and pulled her along through the pressing crush of humanity. But when Lucinda realized that most of the lifeboats, filled to capacity, had already dropped into the sea, she panicked. Survival her only instinct, she dropped Madeleine’s hand and elbowed her way through the mob, desperate to flee the sinking ship and a drowning death in the ocean’s depths.
Lucinda made it to the railing, climbed over, and jumped down into an overflowing lifeboat as it was being lowered down the ship’s tilting side.
The countess, struggling against the ferocious winds and screaming passengers, anxiously followed. Fighting her way toward the lowering lifeboat, badly hampered by her heavy hoop skirts, she was struck by a giant wave and flung violently against the railing and momentarily stunned.
If not for the strong hands that reached out and caught her, she would have been washed overboard.
“My God!” shouted Armand de Chevalier, “why have you waited this long? We must get you into a lifeboat at once!”
Madeleine’s head snapped around and she stared up at him in shocked surprise. She would have supposed that this self-absorbed Creole would have shoved women and children out his way to get to a lifeboat and save his own hide.
“Why have you waited?” she shouted against the wind.
Ignoring the question, Armand firmly propelled her through the hysterical crowd to the railing. Armand looked over the ship’s side and saw the last of the lifeboats splash down into the boiling sea.
Against Madeleine’s left ear he shouted, “We have to make it to the other side of the ship. There may still be lifeboats off the port that have not yet been deployed!”
The pair fought their way up across the badly listing deck, falling once, slipping back downward toward starboard. But Armand managed to rise again and pull Madeleine up. Holding on to anything they could find to steady themselves, the pair fought on.
It was far from easy.
The howling winds kept ballooning Madeleine’s skirts, threatening to lift her off her feet. Quickly assessing the situation, Armand propelled her to a deck chair that was bolted to the deck. While she held tightly to the chair’s back, Armand took a small, sharp-bladed knife from a leather holster at his ankle. He lifted Madeleine’s damp dress and slashed the threads that held her fashionable crinoline petticoats. In seconds the heavy crinoline frame fell away and Armand lifted her out of it. Free of the impeding contraption, it was easier for Madeleine to keep up with him.
After what seemed an eternity, the embattled pair finally reached the ship’s rising port side. Gripping the wet wooden railing, Armand drew Madeleine in front of him, enclosing her in his arms as he clutched the rail. His eyes watering from the wind and salt spray of the sea, he anxiously peered over the ship’s side in search of a lifeboat.
There were none.
All the lifeboats had cast off and were rapidly rowing away from the doomed ship.
“God in heaven!” Armand swore in frustration. “There are no more lifeboats!”
“I know,” Madeleine said, exhaling resignedly as she pushed a soaked lock of hair off her cheek and gazed wistfully after the departing boats.
For a long uncertain moment the couple stood there together on the badly listing deck of the sinking vessel. The winds roared relentlessly and the huge waves rose to awesome heights, badly buffeting the crippled ship. Dozens of people, washed overboard, clung to wreckage. Others bobbed about like corks in the roiling sea, supported by life belts. And above the din, the terrible screams of people filled the air as they flailed about and drowned.
Madeleine trembled and a sob of fear escaped her lips.
“Come,” Armand shouted, “let’s get in out of the wind.”
His arm firmly around her, Armand guided the frightened Madeleine back across the slick deck and up the tilting bridge to the captain’s cabin, just off the wheelhouse. Sheltering her against his tall body, Armand tried the door. It was jammed. He pressed a muscular shoulder against it, pushed with all his strength and it flew open.
Quickly he handed Madeleine inside and followed, closing the door behind him. The cabin was deserted. The captain was gone. The crew was gone. They had either been swept overboard or had fled cowardly in one of the lifeboats.
Madeleine stood in the center of the small, tidy cabin, hugging herself. Chilled with fear, she thanked Armand with her eyes when he took a large white towel from a sea chest and handed it to her.
She blotted her wet shiny face, then began rubbing her thick, soaked hair. She watched as Armand took another towel, peeled off his drenched white shirt and dried his dark chest and wide shoulders.
“I’m sorry there are no dry clothes here for you to…” he began.
Swearing, he tore a clean gray blanket from a narrow bunk that hung from the far bulkhead by strong link chains. He wrapped the blanket around her trembling shoulders and suggested she sit down. She looked around, realizing the bed was the only place to sit. Madeleine shook her head and said she’d rather stand. The words had hardly passed her lips before a giant wave crashed against the cabin, sending her sprawling on the sharply canted deck.
Armand reached her in an instant, drawing her to her feet. “Are you all right?” he shouted, clasping her upper arms.
“Yes,” she shouted back, “but maybe I had better sit down.”
He guided her to the bunk and she sank down onto the mattress’s edge. Armand drew down the bunk’s canvas restraining straps and cinched them around her waist. “That should hold you,” he said. Then he exhaled heavily and sat down on the bed beside her, realizing there was nothing more to be done.
The ship continued to pitch and roll and plunge and rise as the hurricane-force winds slammed mercilessly into the crippled vessel. Strapped down in the captain’s bunk beside a virtual stranger, Lady Madeleine Cavendish tried very hard to be brave. She had been reared to keep a stiff upper lip in moments of crisis and to never let others know she was upset.
But she had never faced anything like this. It was impossible to hide the fact that she was terrified.
“We are going to die, aren’t we, Mr. de Chevalier?” the shivering Madeleine asked, her eyes round with fear.
Armand was quick to offer hope to the frightened woman. “No. Certainly not. This vessel has a wooden hull, which means it can stay afloat for hours,” he said and slid a comforting arm around her shaking shoulders. “There’s every chance that we will be picked up.” He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze, then dropped his hand away, bracing a stiffened arm behind her on the mattress.
“You don’t believe that,” she accused, studying his dark face for signs of sincerity. His unchanged countenance revealed nothing. “Do you?” She pulled the blanket closer around her shoulders.
“Yes, I do.” Armand insisted, keeping up the pretense for her sake. “With any luck another ship will pass by here within the hour and take us on-board.”
She nodded, but she was not fooled.
Her shoulders slumped with despair and try as she might, she could no longer hold back the tears that were stinging her eyes. Madeleine began to quietly cry. Armand didn’t hesitate. He took her in his arms and pressed her wet cheek to his bare chest. He stroked the crown of her damp hair, gently patted her slender back and comforted her with soft spoken words of solace.
In her rising fear, Madeleine put her arms around his trim waist, clasping her hands together behind his back. The blanket fell away from her shoulders. She clung to Armand as if he were her lifeline to survival. Tears spilling down her cheeks, she buried her face in the warm solidness of his naked chest and closed her eyes. Above her bent head, his deep, calm voice soothed and reassured.
Madeleine’s tears soon ceased, but Armand continued to hold her in his arms. On a soft inhalation of breath, she raised her head and looked up at him apologetically.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“For what?” He replied, then smiled at her in that devil-may-care way of his as if nothing were amiss. She knew that he was being brave and strong for her sake. And it touched her. She smiled back at him and realized, as she did so, that it was the first time she had ever really smiled at him. His dark, beautiful eyes lighted in response.
And as she smiled at him the thought struck her that his handsomely chiseled features would be the last face she saw this side of heaven. The two of them were going to die together in this tiny cabin. It might be an hour. It might be less. But soon the sinking ship would plunge with decisive finality into the dark, fathomless depths of ocean and she and de Chevalier would drown.
They were going to die together, two strangers who knew nothing about each other. Neither of them would ever see their homes or loved ones again. They would never again eat a sumptuous meal. Or drink chilled champagne. Or warm themselves before a roaring fire. Or laugh in the rain. Or dance beneath the stars.
Or make love.
Madeleine stirred against the handsome man who held her. The sea pounded against the ship. Waves slapped against the cabin. She clung to Armand, her arms wrapped around him, her head on his shoulder.
It was crazy, she knew, totally insane, but she wondered—as she had that first night when they had danced—what it would be like to kiss him. To be kissed by him. Through the cover of her half-lowered lashes, she gazed with interest at his sensual mouth.
And was amazed when Armand said, as if he could read her thoughts, “Kiss me, Countess.” He gently drew her closer, pushing the blanket completely away. Her head fell back against his supporting arm. He slowly bent his dark head to her upturned face. “Kiss me, once.”
Not waiting for permission, Armand kissed Madeleine. It was not a soft, feathery kiss of two people slowly becoming better acquainted. It was not a tender, closed-mouth caress of a lover who had forever and a day to win and woo his reluctant lady fair. It was not a brief, introductory meeting of two tentative pairs of lips.
It was a kiss of such flaring fire and primordial passion that Madeleine was instantly overwhelmed. Dazed and clutching at his smooth, deeply clefted back, she felt herself go limp in his strong arms as he swiftly deepened the blazing kiss. He thrust his tongue inside her mouth, boldly exploring all the highly sensitive regions, stroking her tongue with his own, sending her wits scattering and her pulses pounding.
Madeleine realized, as her lips were combined with his, that she wanted this handsome, hard-faced rogue. Before she died she wanted to know—one last time—the kind of passion she barely remembered from her first nights as a newlywed.
If any man could give her even the slightest taste of that kind of rapture, it was surely this dark, seductive Creole who was kissing her with such unrestrained passion. She sighed into Armand’s mouth and her nails raked down his warm smooth back. The more she considered the two of them making love, the more she wanted it.
The more she wanted him.
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