Lovestorm (3 page)

Feeling greatly relieved, Elizabeth left the hut and followed the sound of the waves down to the water's edge. She stopped and looked around her, taking deep breaths of the invigorating, salt-tinged air. A white sand beach stretched in either direction as far as the eye could see. The blue-green sea was calm beneath a glowing sun, and the surf rolled in gentle waves against the damp sand. It was a beautiful spring day, and the air was full of the scents and sounds of an untouched paradise.

Seagulls and shore birds of many kinds strutted along the surf line, or swooped and dove in the sky overhead. Elizabeth laughed as a crab scuttled around her feet, dragging a lacy bit of green seaweed like a ribbon behind it. “You remind me of an overaged maiden dancing around the Maypole,” she said.

The crab reared up on its back fins, waved one claw in the air, and fled toward the safety of the water, still dragging the seaweed behind it.

“Coward,” she taunted. She crouched down to inspect a tiny hole in the sand, when suddenly a man's head and torso surfaced above the waves directly in front of her. Startled, she jumped and fell on her backside. A rushing wave surged around her, wetting her deerskin tunic to the waist.

Cain threw back his head and laughed. He stood waist-deep in the water and held up a spear. A large fish wiggled on the end of it. “I catch our midday meal,” he called. Still grinning, he pointed to the sun. “Are you always so lazy?”

He waded toward her, and Elizabeth leaped to her feet, staring in disbelief. The man was totally nude. Sparkling drops of water ran down his powerful chest and narrow waist. His hips and loins were as smooth as marble, his belly taut above his exposed male organ.

Elizabeth swallowed hard, unaware of Cain's amused scrutiny. She had seen forbidden books, and once a Greek statue, but never had she gazed upon a naked adult male. An unfamiliar tingling in her midsection caused her breath to quicken, and she took a step backward. He's beautiful, she thought.

“Are there no men in your country?”

Cain's question brought Elizabeth instantly to her senses. Her cheeks flamed as she realized she had been staring at his unclad body and thoroughly enjoying the sight.

“
I do not mind if you look.”

“Where are your clothes?” she flared. “You're indecent!”

He motioned to where his loincloth and leather vest lay on the sand a few yards behind her, then ran a hand through his wet hair. “Do the English always say one thing and think another?” he asked, tossing down the spear. “I will dress if it pleases you, but only a fool would spear fish in buckskins.”

Trembling, she turned away, mentally cringing under waves of shame. How could she have done such a thing? Now he might think she . . . Elizabeth bit her lower lip. He couldn't believe she found his primitive charms attractive.
Liar!
an inner voice cried. It had not been mere curiosity that had caused her to stare at him. Indian or not, Cain was an extremely virile man. There was a sensual magnetism about him that transcended race and culture. Shaken by her own realization, Elizabeth began to walk swiftly away down the beach.

“Where are you going?” he demanded, sprinting after her.

She stiffened her shoulders and lengthened her stride. “I'm going to Jamestown,” she said. “If you won't take me, I'll find it myself.”

“Very well,” he answered solemnly, “but there is something you should know.”

She whirled to face him, fists clenched at her sides, green eyes flashing with sparks of iridescent gold. “And just what is that?”

“You're going the wrong way.”

E
lizabeth's eyes narrowed with suspicion, and she shook her head forcefully. “I don't believe you!”

“Shaakhan Kihittuun does not lie.”

She began walking again.

“Eliz-a-beth.”

The sound of her name on his tongue was oddly disturbing. It was soft—almost a caress. No one had ever said her name in quite that way. She stopped and took a deep breath, trying to force herself to gain control of her own emotions. At least he had tied that skin apron around his waist again. Attempting to converse with a naked savage was must unnerving!

“You will tire yourself,” he persisted. “You are still weak. You have . . .” He struggled for an unfamiliar English word. “. . . your back. I have medicine to make healing.”

Tears welled up in Elizabeth's eyes and she blinked them away. Her back did hurt. Vaguely, she remembered being struck by something before she reached the longboat on the
Speedwell.
“I want to go back to my own people,” she said stubbornly.

Cain stepped in front of her, blocking her path with his solid, muscular body. “You must forget them,” he said gently.

“You're crazy!” She turned away from him and looked out over the rolling surf. Her hands were trembling and she balled them into tight fists at her sides again. “They will think I'm dead.”

“Yes.”

“You don't understand.”

“It is you who not understand. Many years I wait for you.”

It was hard to think when he was standing so close to her. She couldn't get her breath, and she felt dizzy. The air between them seemed to crackle with strange energy. “Nonsense!” she stammered. “You couldn't have been waiting for me. You didn't even know I was alive until you found me in the boat.” Elizabeth kicked at the damp sand with her bare foot, trying to ignore the fluttering sensations in the pit of her stomach.

“I go back to wigwam now. Cook fish. Eliz-a-beth come when tears stop.” It was more of a question than an order.

“I'm not crying,” she lied, dashing away the betraying moisture with the back of a hand.

“The sea brought you to me as my vision promised. To fight against the will of Manito is useless.” He moved closer. “You are very beautiful, Eliz-a-beth. This one does not think your mind is as empty as
honneek
the squirrel. Accept what must be.”

Unable to respond, Elizabeth stood rigidly staring at the water. It was minutes before she suspected he was gone. When she could stand it no longer and turned her head to look, Cain was trotting down the beach, back the way they had come. “Damn you,” she whispered. Trembling, she sank down onto the warm sand, stretching her legs out in front of her.

“Why?” she asked.

There was no answer. The deserted beach seemed to stretch on forever on either side. The sky overhead was a brilliant blue, the sun hotter than any sun she remembered in England. “Maybe this is all a dream,” she murmured. But she knew that it wasn't—it was all too real.

Nothing in her twenty-two years had prepared her for the sinking of the
Speedwell
and the events that followed. Adversity had never threatened her gilded world; certainly she had never been in physical danger before. Even Cromwell's iron rule of England had had little effect on her sheltered childhood.

Sighing, Elizabeth picked up an empty shell and tossed it into the water. Her family had always had the cunning to be on the winning side of any political dispute, even those that dislodged kings and destroyed other noble houses.

Her great-grandfather, the sixth earl of Sommersett, had been a devout Catholic and a strong supporter of Charles I. When the King was defeated, the wily old earl transferred all his wealth and lands to his oldest son, Elizabeth's paternal grandfather, a professed Roundhead and Protestant convert.

The family had maintained their estates under Cromwell, paying lip service to the attempted army-controlled republic and secretly supporting the royalist cause by sending money to Charles II abroad. Elizabeth had been eight years old when her father, Roger, took part in the ill-timed Presbyterian rising in 1650 and became part of Charles's court in exile.

Although she had not seen him again until the King's restoration in 1660, her life was little changed by his absence. It was the Sommersetts' custom to raise their children on country estates, far from the bustle of London and court affairs. Even before her father's exile, she saw her parents only once or twice a year. Elizabeth, her brothers and sisters, and an assortment of Sommersett cousins had been cared for by an ever-changing staff of servants.

When her father fled the country, Elizabeth's grandfather, the earl, disowned his son Roger and denied any responsibility for his treason, thus keeping the Sommersetts in favor until Cromwell's death in 1658. When King Charles took the throne, Roger, now earl of Sommersett due to the old earl's death, received a favored position at court and huge grants of virgin land in the Virginia Colony. He had quickly decided that this thickly forested land halfway across the world would be an adequate dowry for his younger daughter, instead of the Hampshire estate he had originally promised her.

“It's all the fault of that damned Virginia land,” she muttered. The family had arranged her betrothal to fifteen-year-old Edward Lindsey when she was only nine. Edward, the second son of a powerful earl, was considered a good catch for a second daughter. Even if he had little hope of inheriting his father's title, he was financially secure.

With King Charles's restoration and her own father's subsequent popularity, she, her sisters Alice and Ann, and her brothers had at last gone to court. Elizabeth had quickly been caught up in the color and excitement of the seemingly nonstop masked balls, fetes, and theater performances. She had been surrounded by ardent gentlemen paying her excessive compliments, writing poetry in her honor, pressing her into dark corners, and singing tearful romantic ballads in an effort to gain her favor.

Her betrothed, Edward Lindsey, was conspicuously absent from this crowd of admirers. Rumor had it that his father, the earl of Dunmore, had sent Edward to the Virginia Colony to keep him from wasting any more of his inheritance. To Elizabeth's delight, her parents had postponed plans for her marriage to Edward, hoping to replace him with a more advantageous match. Finally, after three years' delay, Dunmore complained to King Charles, demanding that Elizabeth follow Edward to Virginia to fulfill the contract.

Elizabeth threw another shell into the water. Would that her parents had broken the betrothal agreement! Then she would have been safe at court instead of stranded in this wilderness. She hadn't wanted to come to America, and she certainly hadn't wanted to marry Edward Lindsey.

Now, Edward seemed the lesser of two evils. “Doubtless his complexion has cleared in the years since I last saw him,” she said wryly. Wrinkling her nose at the thought of that last awful meeting, Elizabeth stood up and brushed the loose sand off her legs.

Cain had insisted that she was walking the wrong way down the beach. Did that mean that Jamestown was south? She tried to remember the maps of the American coast she had seen. Far to the north was the Massachusetts Colony. What was between Virginia and Massachusetts? Was Cain telling the truth about where she was?

Elizabeth sighed and pursed her lips. There was no way to be certain. She could walk a hundred leagues north or south and find nothing but wilderness. She knew she couldn't survive alone on so long a journey; she would starve or be devoured by wild beasts. As distressful as the solution was, she would have to stay with Cain until she could persuade him to take her to the English, or until someone else came to help her. Resolutely, she began to follow his tracks back toward the hut.

 

Elizabeth smelled the fish before she saw it broiling over the flames. Cain had built a fire outside the hut and was crouched beside it, naked to the waist, arranging clams on a slab of wood. She paused, gathering her courage, then cautiously approached, being careful to keep the firepit between them.

He glanced up at her and smiled, his large dark eyes concealing none of the satisfaction she supposed he was feeling at her return.

“Don't look so smug!” she snapped. “Did you expect me to stay on the beach and die of exposure?”

The corners of his mouth twitched with amusement. “On such a hot day? That would be irrlogical,” he answered.

“Illogical!”
she corrected. “The word is
illogical.
Your English is atrocious.”

Cain moved to turn the fish, and his back muscles rippled beneath his skin in a way that made Elizabeth's heart seem to rise in her throat. Her breath quickened, and she became aware of the strangest sensation between her thighs. Suddenly weak, she sat down on the ground and tried to catch her breath.

″
Il-log-i-cal,” he repeated, carefully mimicking her pronunciation. “I must remember. It is a good word, and my grandmother will want to know that she is saying it wrong all these years.”

“I . . . I think my fever has come back,” Elizabeth ventured. She did feel overly warm. Surely, an April day couldn't be this warm—even in America.

“That would not be il-logical,” Cain said, savoring the taste of the English word on his tongue. He rose to his feet and came toward her.

Elizabeth threw up a hand. “No . . . I . . .” she stammered. “Don't . . .”

He dropped to his knees before her and laid a broad palm on her forehead.

His face was inches from her own, his hand touching her familiarly. “No!” she said, shoving his hand away. “Don't touch me.” His eyes held hers; she was unable to tear her gaze away. “Please . . .” she said.

Cain shook his head. “I feel no fever,” he said gently. “But if you have sick you must rest.” Ignoring her protests, he swept her up in his arms and carried her toward the hut.

“Put me down!” Elizabeth cried. “I said
put me down!”
Her mouth tasted of ashes, and the sudden knowledge that she was afraid turned her fear into white-hot anger. “Release me at once, you . . . you red savage!” Balling her right hand into a fist, she struck him as hard as she could on the side of the face.

Cain gasped, and Elizabeth felt his muscles tense. “Tshingue,” he muttered between clenched teeth.

She raised her fist to strike him again.

“Do not,” he warned softly.

His stride quickened. They were past the hut and moving swiftly toward the beach.

“Where are you taking me?” she demanded as the sound of the ocean grew louder. “Cain!” Her voice took on a shrill edge. “Cain!”

“You want down,” he said. “You get down.”

“Cain, no!”

Water splashed around his ankles.

“Cain!”

“If you have fever, cool.”

Without warning, Elizabeth was in the air. Before she could catch her breath, she plunged into the icy water of the Atlantic. “Ohhh!” Coughing and sputtering, she struggled to get her feet under her. An incoming wave tripped her, and before she could recover her balance, an iron hand closed around hers and dragged her back to the beach.

She sank down on the warm ground, spitting out sand and salt water. “Damn you,” she choked. “You tried to drown me.”

Cain's answering chuckle was almost more than she could bear.

“You're inhuman!”

“This one does not know this word
inhuman,″
he said solemnly.

“Stop it! Stop taunting me. I hate you!” she cried.

He dropped to the sand beside her.
“
I do not think you hate me.”

″
I do! I—”

Fiercely, Cain pulled her into his arms and silenced her words with his mouth against hers. Elizabeth tried to pull away, but he was too strong. Her struggles went unheeded as Cain seared her lips with a fiery, all-consuming kiss. Then, as suddenly as he had begun his assault, he released her.

“Look into your heart, Englishwoman,” he said huskily. “Wipe the salt from your eyes and truly look. Tell me then if it is hate you feel for Shaakhan Kihittuun.”

Before she could reply, he was gone, walking back toward the hut.

Shaken by his kiss, Elizabeth wrapped her arms around herself and rocked in trembling silence. Her bruised lips tingled, her thoughts were in turmoil.
Why?
an inner voice cried.
Why does this savage affect me this way?

She was not new to the art of kissing. Men and boys had kissed her since she was twelve. Many had tried to take greater liberties. She had kept herself pure, despite the surroundings of the decadent Stuart court, but she could not deny that she had allowed herself to be fondled by ardent swains. She had known physical desire before . . . or what she had believed was desire. But there had never been anything like this raw aching that swept over her at Cain's touch.

Elizabeth swallowed hard. Her pulse was racing, and her knees were too weak to stand. Tentatively, she touched her lower lip with the tip of her tongue, remembering the feel of his hard mouth on hers, savoring the bittersweet pangs of sensual longing.

“I don't hate him,” she whispered. “God help me, I don't.”

For nearly an hour, Elizabeth sat on the beach, not knowing what to do. Then she heard Cain call her name.

″
Eliz-a-beth.” He came toward her carrying a bowl of food.

She got to her feet and faced him, unsure of what to say or do.

Cain stopped a few yards away and held out a carved wooden bowl containing fish and clams and some sort of green leaves. His wide brow furrowed with concern. “I have great shame,” he admitted. “I am sorry. I have anger at you for hitting me, and so I kiss you.” He took another step closer. “I bring you food. You must eat and come out of the sun.
Kiisku
will burn your pale skin.”