Chapter One
1628
The late afternoon sun dipped low on the western horizon, suffusing the tropical isle of Java in a red glow that crept through the tall, narrow windows and reflected off Luanna’s slim naked beauty. Sleekly formed hips, narrow as a boy’s, caught the sun as she raised her arms to undo the pins at the back of her head, allowing her jet-black hair to cascade to her slim waist. Her small breasts were firm and high; her body absent of hair as was the Javanese tradition. Luanna was fully aware of the sensual picture she presented to Regan van der Rhys. As the most sought after and notorious prostitute on the island, it was her business to know how to appeal to a man’s lusty appetites.
Regan watched Luanna’s preparations; mentally comparing her to a sultry feline. She moved toward the bed where he waited, sliding in beside him, pressing her hips suggestively against him. Her oblique, dark eyes smiled into his. Regan pulled her to him, conscious of her slender length against his flesh, feeling his responses rise to a throbbing urgency. Her skin was cool and fragrant, her hair perfumed and silky, falling over his face as she kissed and nibbled artfully at his lips. He returned her embrace, tasted her mouth, enjoyed the suppleness of her body. His hands found her breasts and he heard her make a faint sound almost like the purring of a contented cat. He wanted to taste, to feel, to lose himself in her, to forget.
Passions mounted and he tumbled her beneath him, burying his face in her cloud of hair, experiencing the slow curl of heat in his belly, aware that Luanna was matching his movements with a rhythm of her own.
Luanna’s hands kneaded the broad muscles of his back, drawing him closer, excited by his increasing passion. Her thighs closed savagely around him, locking him to her as she felt herself being swept away by the wild emotions this man created within her. “Regan ...” she moaned against his demanding mouth, tasting the sweetness of the wine he had consumed.
She was aware of the thick golden fleece on his chest brushing against her breasts, stimulating their coral tips to stand erect, the hard flat muscles of his stomach pressing against her, the strength of his arms and hands, the clean masculine scent of him. Each of her senses was heightened and filled by this man who could make her feel as though she’d never known another lover, who could make her believe she was created for his pleasure alone and, in giving that pleasure to him, find her own.
Her fingers traced the lines of his face and, even with her eyes closed, she could perceive his image. The brightness of his hair was like moonbeams captured on the water, thick and crisp and whitened like the grasses on the hillside during the summer. His heavy brows gave such a defiant, determined expression to his cool, agate-blue eyes, eyes that could pierce a woman’s soul and make her his slave. The bronze of his skin, warmed by the sun and stung by the sea; his full sensitive lips—his smile, white and strong—the cleft in his chin which gave him a certain boyishness and endowed his handsome, almost craggy features with a vulnerability.
Touching his broad shoulders and rock-ribbed torso, she knew the power of this man, a force and energy that made a woman aware of her own defenselessness. But she also knew his gentleness, his consideration. She was reminded of it and reassured by it with each caress stirring her desires and leading her to the threshold of ecstasy. His hands reached down to grasp her hips and she gasped with anticipation. His mouth closed over hers and she began to moan and he carried her with him. Together they spun over the threshold of sensuality into the universe, whirling on a roll of thunder and blinded by a flashing bolt of rapture. In the quiet of the room she heard his voice, deep and heavy, “Sirena ...”
Afterward Luanna’s fingertips traced the frown that furrowed his brow. Lightly she kissed the slight downward pull at the corner of his mouth. She had seen him this way many times in the past months and she knew he only came to her when his passions demanded release and he needed the arms of a woman to comfort his sorrow. “There was a time, Regan, when I would have cheerfully killed you if you had whispered another woman’s name while you lay in my arms,” she said softly, watching the traces of bitterness cloud his eyes. “Do you know you call out for her?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Regan growled, making a move to leave her side.
“No, stay here with me,” she whispered, pressing him back against the bedding. “It’s time you told someone of your grief.”
Regan turned and looked at Luanna’s lovely face beside him on the pillow. “There is nothing to tell.” Wresting himself free of her, he rose from the bed and reached for his clothes.
Luanna sat up, her long hair falling over her shoulders, cloaking her nudity from his eyes. “You lie! Each time you come here to be with me it is her name you call out. Don’t you think I feel it in your touch? It’s not my body you reach out for, it is hers!”
“Leave me alone, Luanna. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He spoke in a monotone, teeth clenched, frightening in his intensity.
Still, Luanna persisted. “I know. I am not stupid! Ever since you came back to Java with your wife and infant son you do not seek Luanna’s arms. You want no other woman, only Sirena. Yet, since your young son died it is to Luanna that you come with such loneliness in your eyes.”
“Nonsense!” Regan growled as he fastened the buttons on his shirt and reached for his boots.
“It is not nonsense. Do you think it is only Luanna who sees this change in you? Bah! You men! Always so strong! But a woman knows, Regan.”
“It’s your female imagination,” he bristled, angry with this turn in the conversation. “I don’t come here for advice, Luanna,” he smiled with bravado.
“You can’t fool your Luanna. It is not for me that you cry out at the moment of release. It is for your wife... Sirena! Go back to her, Regan, go to your Sirena. I can’t bear to see your heart breaking this way. Don’t you think I know a man starved for love when I see him? Go to her. Bare your heart to her. Make her love you. Force her if you must. Break through her grief, Regan, make her see that she needs you and loves you!”
Regan was taken aback by the sincere tears he saw in Luanna’s eyes. In the manner of a woman she saw straight through to the root of his problem. “Is this what I’ve come to, Luanna? A man who evokes a whore’s pity?” he asked softly.
“And the best damn whore in all the Indies!” Luanna a defended proudly.
Tentatively, he stretched out a hand to brush away the tears glistening on her smooth round cheeks.
“Get out of here, Regan! Go back to your Sirena!” Picking up the bedside lamp, she held it threateningly. “Go home to your wife!”
Silently Regan left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
Twilight was descending again upon the long stretch of lawn that came to an abrupt end at the edge of the dense primeval jungle surrounding the van der Rhys mansion. From here, the busy growth of Batavia, Java’s primary seaport, was unnoticed. The vibrant foliage insulated the house’s inhabitants against any intrusion from the outside world. The splendid dwelling and outlying plantation had become the entire world to Sirena van der Rhys in the six months since the death of her only child, Mikel.
Tonight, as every night, Sirena took her place near the delicate pane-glass doors leading out to the garden, to stand sentry. Her deep green eyes penetrated the falling darkness as her mind trod the path to the edge of the lawn where Mikel’s lovingly tended grave rested.
If the once ebullient servants in the van der Rhys home were subdued and watchful in her presence, Sirena did not notice. If their once spirited steps were now a quiet shuffle, she did not care. If Regan looked to her for a sign of affection or a soft word, she did not think to respond. Sirena’s only thought was of Mikel. His world was her existence; his eternity her fate.
Regan watched his wife from beneath lowered eyelids as she stood near the doors. The muscles in his lean, clean-shaven jaw tautened as he observed her shoulders slump and her classic profile turn once more to gaze out over the lawn. It had been an error of judgment to allow Sirena to place Mikel’s grave so close to the house. He should have insisted that the child be placed beside his grandfather in the small plot of ground at the far end of the nutmeg grove. This standing guard, playing sentinel to a child six months cold was bringing him to the breaking point. He ran a sun-bronzed hand through his thatch of wheat-colored hair and groaned inwardly.
Why couldn’t Sirena turn to him? Where had he failed her? Could she not see that the loss of their son was as painful a cross to bear for him as it was for her? Couldn’t she see that sharing the loss would make the burden lighter for both of them? Where was the woman he had once known? Where was his Sea Siren? Had the spirit left her at the same moment the breath had left Mikel’s body?
Regan closed his eyes against the mournful sight of Sirena and he saw her once again as he remembered her; tall and slender, an expression of supremacy on her delicate features, the light of challenge burning in her eyes. Once again he reveled in the memory of her long raven tresses swept by the sea’s errant winds and the haughty set of her shoulders and the daring lift of her chin. He lived again the moments when he had seen her with a mantle of spindrift clouding her hair and settling in a salty wetness on the smooth, tawny flesh of her long, sensuous limbs.
How long had it been since he had heard her laugh? He imagined he heard it now as he had that day when he first saw her aboard her phantom ship, nearly six years ago. She had been a sea witch as she stood with feet placed firmly apart, the rapier’s point dug into the deck and her rippling laugh coursing over the waters to taunt him. Then, he had been aware mostly of her abbreviated costume which revealed much of her swelling breasts and all of her lightly muscled legs.
He had never seen a woman as beautiful as the Sea Siren and he realized that beneath the somber, heavy gowns which had become Sirena’s regular attire, the same beauty still lurked. The same loveliness, yet so much more. Her skin was still buffed ivory. Her eyes, once flashing emeralds, now without luster beneath a thick black fringe of lashes, were nevertheless wide and slightly tilted at the corners, giving her an Oriental appearance. And her full, sensuous lips were now drawn into a firm line. But once they had been mobile, smiling over strong, dazzling teeth. Motherhood had ripened her beauty and softened it. Though still as slim as a girl, there was a lushness about her.
His arms ached to hold her, to press her head lovingly against his chest and fill her world with love and tenderness and share with her again that all-encompassing. yearning for one another. His desire to love and be loved was only secondary to his wanting to comfort her, to be comforted.
Yet Sirena had denied them both this sweet release from grief. She had spurned his advances and turned him away. And fool that he was, he had allowed it His desire to see her comforted had controlled his passions. In his respect for her grief he had determinedly quelled his needs for her as his wife.
Currently, as Regan shifted his weight in the deep armchair he knew that the constraints of that respect had reached the breaking point. He wanted her, he needed her now! Mikel was dead and if the situation were allowed to continue there would be no respite from the eternal sorrow.
Night had fallen swiftly and the edge of the lawn was barely discernible. There was no moon to light a silvery path to Mikel’s grave. These were the times Sirena dreaded the most—when Mikel was shrouded in darkness.
The sound of Regan shifting in his chair caught Sirena’s attention. In the glass panes of the doors she saw his reflection. A deepening grudge burned within her. It was this emotion that was the only part of her still alive. She returned her attention to the darkness outside and recalled her horror the day Regan had come upon her soon after the child’s death when she had been placing a lantern upon his grave. “It’s for when the nights are black and long,” she had explained tearfully. She had expected Regan to understand. Instead he had wrung the light from her hand and sent it crashing against the simple stone marker. There had been a fury in his blue eyes and a tensing of the muscles along his jaw.
“Mikel is dead!” he had exploded in a demonstration of rage. “There is no earthly light which can ease his soul. Where’s your Christian belief, Sirena? Were you not taught that all little children find their place beside the Lord?”
“My son,” she had returned, “was fearful of the dark!”
“Your son!” Regan had bellowed. “Was he not also mine? Would you deny me my own grief that he should be taken from me so cruelly?”
“You bury what misery you feel in your damnable office. You leave this house with thoughts of business on your mind and give not a second thought to your own flesh and blood placed so heartlessly beneath this ground. Tell me, Regan, was it for you Mikel called in the night when a stray wind would blow out his lamp? Did you hurry from your bed to cradle him and chase away his imaginings of winged creatures?” Sirena’s face became alive with anger. “More than once you pulled me back against you with reassurances he would be over his terrors that much quicker if I paid them no mind! When I think of the times I heeded you, when I rested again in your arms and closed my ears to his whimpers to listen instead to your soft murmurings of love, it grates my soul! And now you would deny him this final respite which we alone can give him—a lantern on his grave!”
Regan had appeared as though struck full in the face. His features whitened, his mouth drew downward with sorrow. “You would have me believe Mikel cried out in fear. Think back, Sirena, and know the truth for what it is. When Mikel suffered nightmares, there was no chance for anyone besides you to go to him. I swear there were moments when I felt as though you kept your slippers on your feet perchance he should call to you. And those whimperings. Childhood dreams! The boy never turned in his sleep or sighed over dreams of angels that you didn’t rush to his crib to watch over him. If there were indeed nights when I was able to take your thoughts from him and turn them to me, they were rare indeed!”
“Now you would have me know you were jealous of your own son!”
“No, Sirena,” Regan had said truthfully, his rage calming and a tenderness creeping into his tone, “both of us know we exaggerate. It wasn’t nearly the picture we paint. You were a loving mother and I a loving father. We both know this. Scenes of our son resting against your breast still haunt me. Would that we could have another child to soothe your sorrow and lighten my heart.” A gentleness shone in Regan’s eyes as Sirena looked up at him. His golden head had been framed by the blue of the sky and the deepness of his eyes paled the heavens. He pulled Sirena close, crushing her against him, reveling in the feel of her breasts firm and full against his chest and the fragility of her waist’s small span.
Sirena’s senses had been filled with him, this man who could still quench her desires and fill her life and consume her, robbing her of every thought save him. The sun had beat warmly against her back but warmer still had been contact of their flesh; her body against his, his mouth upon hers, drinking in the sweetness of her kiss.
Regan’s hands had explored the soft swell of her breasts and he had reached lower to press her hips more firmly against him. Their thighs had strained toward union and their breath came in rasps of long-suppressed passion. Here was life, here was promise in Regan’s arms. His fingers found the lacings of her gown and she had felt the bindings loosening and the touch of his hand against her bare flesh. Her arms had tightened about his neck, pulling his head down to her, feeling his breath upon her cheek. She had offered him her mouth, her breasts, her rapture and the sweet remembered sharing between them became alive again.
Regan had been overcome with the return of his ardor and had felt the desire within his wife bloom to full flower. The sensation was heady, drowning his senses in the flood tide of longing for her. He had tasted her salty tears running in rivulets down her cheeks to the place where their lips met.
Sirena had felt herself on the verge of giving herself to him when the sound of Regan’s booted foot crunched upon the splintered glass from the lantern. The sound had penetrated her being and imbedded itself in her soul. Fraught with anger she had wrested herself from his embrace. “Would you take me here within sight of Mikel’s grave? Where is your decency? Upon the very earth which covers his tiny coffin? You rutting scurve! To think I almost was a party to your perfidy!”
Regan’s gaze locked with Sirena’s. Slowly and deliberately he had ground another shard beneath his heel. “Where will You lay with me, Sirena?” he asked in controlled fury. “Not anywhere near here, not within the walls of our bedroom, not upon a deserted windswept island ... where, Sirena? Where will you give yourself to me?”
The brilliant sparks had seemed to fly from Sirena’s eyes, the furies unbound her rage as she had turned to face him. Were she a dragon her nostrils would have spewed fire, were she an angel the vengeance of Heaven would have crashed down upon him. Her voice was a low, menacing hiss and the cords of her neck bespoke hatred. “I am not Gretchen Lindenreich. That German bitch, that flagrant whore, who would have no respect for those things sacred. She would have lain with you upon any grave, upon any deserted isle, indeed upon the Avenue of Lions within the heart of Batavia for all of Java to witness!”
Regan had knotted his hands into fists, his rage consuming him, depriving him of all good sense. “How easily you spit Gretchen’s name,” he had menaced, “now that she’s dead and therefore no threat. Leave the dead be, Sirena.”
“How quickly you jump to her defense! If that German bitch were here among the living, we would not be here spitting like two cats. You’d be in her bed!”
“You could do with a bit of the warmth Gretchen yeilded to me!” Regan had heaved in injury.
“To you and any other man upon the island!”
“Gretchen was always there,” Regan had said in a lowered tone, his eyes piercing Sirena’s with meaning.
Her eyes had murdered him as her reflexes had their way and the palm of her hand stung the flesh of his cheek in a resounding blow.
Without a second’s hesitation, Regan had retaliated in kind, sending her a blow which had knocked her off her feet and left her sprawling upon the shallow mound of Mikel’s grave.
That had been nearly six months ago and the same measured footsteps by which he had left her there, sobbing upon the soft earth, were now advancing upon her as she stood sentinel at the doors. She looked again at Regan’s reflection in the dark glass and saw there an expression about his mouth and a light in his eyes which spoke of his intentions.
Sirena withdrew from the doors and skirted past a small table, her movements wary and her sea-green eyes feral. Her fists, alabaster white in the dim lamplit room, clenched tightly into balls as she turned to face her husband.
Her eyes pleaded with him; her breath caught in shallow sobs. She thrust her chin upward in a silent demand that he understand her feelings. Still he advanced, slowly, purposefully. She was assaulted by a memory of a long-ago occasion when he had confronted her just this way, with the same deliberate glinting in his eyes. Then he had taken her against her will. Regan had had his way. Rising above her desperate agony, Sirena managed to whisper, “I need more time, please, Regan. Don’t do this to me. Just a little longer.”
Regan stalked her slowly, insidiously, the magnitude of his strength looming between Sirena and the glowing light. His shoulders were massive and appeared even broader in comparison to his tapered hips and lean length of thigh. The white shirt he wore emphasized the bronze of his skin and was open to the waist, revealing the golden fur on his chest. He held his arms at his sides, his strong, capable hands barely touching his tight-cut breeches, calling to Sirena’s attention the swell of his manhood beneath the thin, buff-colored fabric.
Regan realized the effect these movements were having upon Sirena. He could see the wild look of apprehension in her eyes and sense her sharp anxiety with each step he took. Within him, he was aware of a desire to quell her misgivings and tell her of his yearning for her, the longing, the agony of this life apart from her, the need to be yet still within the reaches of her gaze and the aura of her presence. He needed her as he needed the air he breathed and the blood which coursed through his veins. He needed his wife, for she alone could ease this void in his heart. Yet these words would not come from his lips. He knew she would find argument with them and he would spend another night alone with his arms hopelessly reaching out in his sleep to cradle her close to him. If Sirena were to become his wife in every way, as she had once been, it would call for stronger methods.
“You have avoided me long enough, Sirena. You asked me for just a bit longer months ago and since that day, we have been separated in more than body. We have separated in spirit. I’ve respected your wishes, but the time has come for you to respect mine.” His voice was low and matched his deliberate motions.
“Please, Regan, a little longer,” Sirena breathed, taking a step backward.
“Do my ears deceive me, are you pleading with me? The Sea Siren begging?” His laugh came harsh and tinged with menace in the quiet room.
“The Sea Siren is dead. That was another life, long ago. Before Mikel, before everything.” Still Regan advanced and Sirena read the determination in his eyes. She felt his powerful emotions as if they were tangible. Ironically, she remembered the effect his blue eyes had once had upon her. She knew how they could render her immobile, bent on his bidding.
Regan advanced another step as Sirena clutched at the edge of a square table, keeping its width between them. “How long?” he taunted. “A day, a week, a month? How long?”
“I don’t know. Just a bit more... I...”
“My patience is at an end. Six months is more than any man can be expected to bear. You’re my wife and I expect you to act like it!”
“I can’t ... not yet ... just—”
“Mikel is dead. You can’t bring him back! Put it behind you and go on from there. If you don’t, then we’re both doomed. There can be other children; we have years.”
“Easy for you to say, your arms aren’t empty! I was his mother, he was my flesh and blood! I’ve had everyone taken from me, everyone I loved. Tio Juan, Isabella—and now Mikel. This godforsaken land has taken everything from me.” Sirena’s gaze became misty and her lower jaw trembled from suppressed tears.
Regan’s heart went out to her. She was so vulnerable, so defeated. “And what of me, love? I haven’t been taken from you. Can’t you find some small joy in the fact that we still have each other?”
Regan’s words caught Sirena’s attention and stirred her from the depths of self-pity. The lamplight behind him cast deep shadows over his rugged face but there was an emotion to be read there which made Sirena issue a slight moan. Regan was a virile and vital man, not one to be put aside to spend the remainder of his days in celibacy. She loved him, she knew that, yet her arms seemed weighted and strapped to her sides, her feet frozen to the floor. There was a dull ache deep within her as she recognized his loneliness, yet she was powerless to lift her arms to embrace him. Her feet refused to take that first small step which would take her to him and find her crushed against him, sharing the burden of grief and finding joy in loving.
Regan watched the play of emotion Sash across Sirena’s face. He saw the thick, black fringe of lashes close over her wide, cat-like eyes. He experienced a weakness, an anticipation of hunger soon to be fed, a longing and yearning near the brink of being fulfilled. Her moist lips parted and he could not take his gaze from them, remembering their warmth and sweetness as they clung to his, easing his passions and replenishing his sense of wonder that this vivacious goddess, who had once been named “Sea Siren”, should have chosen him above all other men to gift with her love.
Regan’s heart thundered in his chest. Somehow he had to stir Sirena from her apathy and make her come alive. Again he pressed, “Am I to think I count for nothing?”
“That’s not what I meant...” Sirena stammered. “I speak of what was mine. My flesh and blood.”
“You told me once that a person can’t own another. You didn’t own your uncle and your sister. We were both parents to Mikel.”
The dark head lifted, her sea-green eyes turned murky. “Mikel was mine. I gave birth to him and now he’s dead. That fool of a doctor killed him and you let it happen!”
Regan’s shoulders slumped, but only for a moment. “There were two doctors and they both agreed. Even the natives, who have lived with the fever for as long as memory, agreed. Mikel was beyond saving. Place no blame on my shoulders, Sirena. If it’s children you want, then you’ll be pregnant nine months out of the year,” he grinned mischievously.
Her eyes sparkled dangerously. “So you can run with every whore from Java To Sumatra? No thank you.”
“You expect too much,” Regan said with forced evenness. “I’m a man and six months is—”
“Too long to be faithful!” Sirena interrupted. “Say it, Regan. You don’t care how I feel and what I think. All you know is that you must have your lust satisfied. Then go satisfy it somewhere else,” she hissed, her eyes narrowing, the delicate line of her jaw tight and forbidding.
“I will do exactly that,” Regan growled, “but not until—”
“Think again, Regan. I’m only yours if I want to be.” Sirena said softly, blood surging through her. “I have no intention of playing this cat-and-mouse game. I know what you want. I know what all this is leading to. I gave you my answer once and I will only repeat it one more time. I am not leaving this island!” She came around the table, stepping close to him, challenging him, speaking slowly, giving each word its full weight. “I stay here with Mikel. I will not live with the thought of the damnable jungle creeping over my son’s grave, obliterating it! I stay here. When I begged you to leave while Mikel was still alive, you refused. Now the shoe is on the other foot. I’m staying here! Go, go to Spain and see to my, holdings. That’s what you want. You want to take everything from me. Take it. I no longer care!”
“Your inheritance is mine, but only in the eyes of the law. You speak as though your holdings are my sole interest in you. Still, someone must put them in order,” Regan said defensively.
“And you’re that someone! I know the laws, you made me painfully aware of them a long time ago. What I own is yours, not mine, not ours, yours. Take everything that belongs to me and I’ll still survive to tend my son’s grave.”
Regan drew his breath in sharply. “The child is dead, you must stop grieving. Life is for the living,” he said, reaching out for her.
“Leave me alone,” Sirena warned, grasping a decanter of wine, holding it aloft.
“And if I don’t? Will you fight me when I simply want to claim what is mine?” Regan asked churlishly.
“Why can’t you be more patient? Why do you have to be such a bull? Listen to me, Regan,” she said softly. “Much has happened to me. So much, too much to forget. My arms ache to hold Mikel. My eyes burn for the sight of his sweet face. My heart is dead. In time I’ll accept my loss, but that time hasn’t come. I do love you. I’ll always love you, but you can never replace that which I felt for my son. Why won’t you understand?”
His agate eyes clouded, spelling their own message of loss. “He was my son, too. We should share our grief. We should comfort each other. I tried to ease your agony but you rejected me just as you rejected Caleb. How do you think the boy feels?”
Sirena’s hand, holding the decanter, lowered. A new pain came into her eyes when she thought of young Caleb. She adored him. He was like a brother to her. A much-loved brother. But he wasn’t Mikel. Somewhere in her mind it registered that Regan was too close, almost upon her. “You have Caleb. He is your son, your flesh and blood. I have nothing. You lost one son. I lost my only son! I have nothing. Nothing!”
Regan grasped her arms, pulling her across the floor, her heavy, black skirts trailing.
“Take your hands off me! No man will ever again subject me to rape and that includes you!” she snarled, her teeth bared. “Sooner or later you’ll have to release one of my hands and the moment you do, you’ll be blinded. I’ll pluck your mocking eyes out of your ignorant head!”
Regan merely laughed, the sound raising the hackles on the back of Sirena’s neck.
“Damn your soul to Hell!” Sirena shrilled, her fists beating against his hard chest. Regan’s hold on her forearm was viselike, yet she continued to struggle. Her legs thrashed out at him from beneath her cumbersome skirts.
Regan locked both her thin wrists in one large hand, his other drawing her face to within inches of his. He looked deep into her stormy eyes and grinned. This was the Sirena he knew and loved. This woman of determination, of vitality; who would fight and spit and turn the fates to her advantage; who could stir his blood and arouse his passions; who would meet him on equal footing or see them both dead before admitting failure. Sirena, his Siren. This was the temptress who was the creator of her own destiny; who would never compromise with what life sent her way but would rush out and meet life and savor it and change that which was not to her liking.
He forced her face still closer and crushed her mouth with his. “Devil!” he shouted furiously as he drew back, blood oozing from his lip. His grip loosened momentarily and Sirena wrenched free, racing to the long, curved stairway and up to her bedroom and the security of its locked door.
In a rage Regan bounded up the steps, his arms reaching out in an attempt to catch her by the skirt.
Fleet of foot, Sirena eluded him and breathlessly gained the top of the stairs. Regan was close behind her, careening in a zigzag pattern, his heavy shoulders glancing against the wall.
Sirena reached her bedroom and successfully slammed the door, turning the key in the lock. Her eyes wide and staring, she backed across the room, cursing herself for her foolhardiness. A wooden barrier would never stop Regan; she should have run through the garden doors and out into the jungle. There, in the dark, hidden from view, she could have bided her time until Regan’s fury cooled.
Regan threw himself against the door. Once. Twice. The third time the teak splintered as a result of his force and Sirena’s spine stiffened as she prepared herself for his attack. Regan stepped over the fallen fragments. His head lowered, glaring up at her from beneath hooded lids, his mouth a line of grim resolution.
“Have you no respect for bereavement? Have you no respect for your son’s death or his mother? Do you think of nothing save that which rests between your legs? Get out of here! Satisfy your lust somewhere else!”
Still he came, step by step, shoulders hunched, eyes blazing.
“Leave me to my mourning. I’m warning you, Regan ...,” she said huskily, backing into the room, putting the width of the bed between them. An instant later Regan was across the bed, his arms reaching for her. Sirena jerked her arm free of his grasp and felt the fabric of her sleeve rip as she luched around the foot of the bed.
“Bastard!” she shrieked. “Tear my clothes, will you?” The lamp found its way into her hand and sailed past Regan, missing him by a scant hairbreadth. A crystal scent bottle followed. Regan tried to brush the scent from his clothes. “Now you smell like the brothels you play in,” Sirena gasped as a brush and then a heavy jar sailed toward him.
Regan chuckled, “How is it you know how a brothel smells?”
“Whoring bastard!” Sirena shrilled. “You talk in your sleep. I learn everything about you when you sleep. I ask you questions and you, fool that you are, answer me.” Suddenly she laughed, a high, silvery tinkle that bounced off the walls and came to rest on Regan’s ears. He flinched at the sound but leapt across the bed.
Deftly, she sidestepped him, flinging a small, jeweled coffer at his head.
“If that had found its mark, I would be seriously hurt,” Regan growled.
“I know,” Sirena answered softly, “you’ve grown fat, Regan. You’re slow and clumsy, like all Dutchmen,” she trilled. “Rich food and too much rum has added inches to your girth. I have no desire to bed an obese man,” she taunted. “Find your way out of my presence.”
“You can’t win, Sirena. I mean to have you and I will. Come here to me and we’ll make a new son.” The instant the words were out of his mouth he wished he could take them back. Never had he seen such unleashed fury.
The room was a living explosion of objects hurtling as though they had a life of their own. Dresser drawers and anything that could be lifted had to be reckoned. with. Dodging a high-flying shoe, he covered his head, cursing all Spaniards and women in general. Sirena returned his oaths just as quickly and vehemently. “All you want is for me to be ugly and heavy with your child.”
“I’m a man,” Regan said through clenched teeth, “and you’re a woman!”
“Which means what?”
“Which means I’m the superior. We’re not fighting with weapons now. Now it’s man versus woman and the man is the stronger.”
“I have only your word for that. Chaezar Alvarez made the mistake of thinking the same thing,” Sirena said quietly as she gauged the distance between herself and the doorway.
“Chaezar,” Regan sneered, “was an animal, not a man! I am a man, Sirena, your husband, and when I say I mean to have you, I will! You are also coming with me when I leave for Spain. I’ve had enough of this nonsense,” he said, racing toward the door as soon as he saw what her objective was.
Roughly he grasped her by both shoulders, his fingers biting cruelly into her flesh. He issued an epithet of disgust as he threw her onto the bed. The breath driven from her body, Sirena could only gasp. Regan stood looking down at her, his face a mixture of emotions. “I mean to have you ... one way or the other,” he said distinctly. “And make no mistake, you’ll be aboard my ship in the morning. I have just now decided to hasten my departure and you will be with me!”
Sirena lay quietly, her eyes half closed. She neither acknowledged hearing his words nor that she cared what he stated.
“Stand up!” Regan ordered.
“No.”
Regan pulled her to her feet. “Take your clothes off,” he ordered. “You always did have a penchant for wearing mourning garb. When you first came here, you hid yourself beneath your black gowns and your prayer beads. All the while you were commanding a ship, playing the part of a lady pirate. Lady! Bah! You were no more a lady than the monkeys in the trees. I’m sick of this drab attire. Take it off!”
“No.”
“Then I will do it for you,” Regan snarled as he tore her gown from throat to navel. Her breasts, free of their restrictions, were taut and erect beneath the thin chemise she wore.
“Remove the rest,” he commanded sharply, his eyes on her quivering bosom.
“No.”
Staring steadily at his face, Sirena felt the rest of her gown slip to the floor and lay about her feet. Regan’s hands were clenched into fists and it was with effort that he opened them to lower her gently to the soft mattress. She remained limp, her eyes wide and unblinking as his lips crushed hers. Desire mounted in him as he touched and caressed her, knowing which delicate caress awakened her desire and response.
Caught in his passions, he mouthed sweet words of love as his lips feverishly sought her mouth, her throat, her breasts. He willed her to respond, demanded it, needed it.
His kisses were gentle and expert as he worshipped her. Tenderly, his lips clung to hers, softly he tasted the sweetness that was hers alone. Their breath mingled, the pulse of her throat beat a tattoo against his hungry mouth. She was warm and supple beneath him, her breasts flattened against his chest, her hips answering his.
A small cry escaped her as he kissed her with passion-bruised lips. Her senses whirled and soared, making her dizzy with a joy that bordered upon lust. Her arms closed about him, drawing him nearer.
She craved his touch, the taste of his mouth, the smell of his skin. She had been starved for him and she hadn’t even realized it. She had been so caught up with thoughts about Mikel that she had lost all touch with her own feelings. She had turned away from Regan because he could make her aware that she was alive and she hadn’t wanted to be alive. She had denied Regan and herself. This man she adored with her whole being, wanted her, needed her, and she had needed him in return.
Now he had put her back in contact with life. And she wanted to give herself—her body, her love–to him. Her sensuous embraces were answered with Regan’s scorching passion. Moaning with ecstasy, she turned her body in his arms, pliant to his demands, relishing the sensuality that was rising to the surface. A sensuality too long held dormant.
Exulting in his pleasure, Sirena sought for and found the most sensual caress and was enraptured with the pleasure and inspiration she gave him. Against his lips she murmured, “Have me, have me, Regan. For now, for tomorrow, for always...”
Afterwards they lay in each other’s arms, both of them having found peace. Sirena’s eyes closed languidly.
“Darling, have you changed your mind? You will come with me, say it. I need to hear you say it.” Regan’s voice was warm and his arms tightened about her, urging her answer.
“Shhhh,” Sirena whispered, laying a gentle hand on his lips. “We’ll speak of it later.”
“No.” Regan’s tone was gentle. “We must discuss it now. I want you to travel to Spain with me. Caleb is in school in Holland. We’d be closer to him in Spain. Say you’ll come.” He was just making a formal gesture in asking. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that her answer would be in the affirmative. “Your holdings must be put in order. You’ve always wanted to return to your homeland and now I’m ready to go with you.”
“But Mikel. I can’t leave him,” Sirena said tearfully.
“Sirena,” Regan said kindly, “Mikel is gone. Staying here won’t change anything.”
“I can’t. I can’t leave. I hate this island and what it has robbed from me,” Sirena cried, “but I can’t leave. How can you be so inhuman as to ask me such a thing. Didn’t Mikel mean anything to you? How can you want to abandon the one thing our love created? I don’t understand you, you’re his father.”
“Was his father. Why don’t you understand? Day after day you sit there by his grave and pull the weeds so the jungle won’t claim that small mound of earth.”
“I can’t leave,” Sirena repeated, burying her head in the pillow. “Don’t force me to go with you.”
“No, I won’t make you do something against your will,” Regan said sadly. “But I’ve decided to leave in the morning. If you change your mind ...”
He was answered by Sirena’s sobs as she buried her face deeper. Regan stretched out beside her, holding her, comforting her. God, how I love him, she thought. Why can’t I do as he asks? He meant to go with her or without her. Regan never made half statements. How could she survive without him? How could she desert Mikel?
Sometime during the long night Regan quietly left their bed. He stood looking down at Sirena for a long moment, etching her lovely features upon his memory.
Sirena stirred, feeling his glance as though it were a loving caress. She sat up in bed, hair tumbled into a wreath of cloudy darkness, eyes bright with unshed tears, and cheeks flushed with emotion. “Regan, your ship isn’t ready to set sail. You planned this trip for the end of the month, why are you leaving so soon?”
“You know the answer to that, darling. It’s become a simple matter of choice. Mikel or me. Last night reminded me how much I love you and need you. There’s no place in my life for half a wife. Come with me now, Sirena. Be my love. Take Mikel with you in your heart.”
She dropped her eyes, not being able to bear seeing the pain in his. When she again looked up, Regan’s look was cold and bitter. “Then this is good-bye, Sirena. If you should ever tire of your prayers and your vigils, perhaps you will join me in Cádiz. But I won’t wait forever, Sirena.”
“I understand,” she said flatly. “Have a safe voyage,” she whispered, her throat constricting with her words.
“Sirena ... I ... ,” the words were lost as she lay back against her pillow, her face calm, her eyes tearless. Regan smacked one large fist into the palm of the other hand and looked down at her. She appeared as if she were already dead and his heart went out to her. Was there nothing he could say to bring her out of this lethargy? Last night there had been a fire in her. He glanced about the room and saw the shambles they had created with their struggling. Was that the only way he could bring about her response? Did he want to spend the rest of his life raping his own wife, begging her for a physical expression of caring? For the first time he accepted the fact that she would never journey to Europe with him. Never join him on a new adventure. She had made her choice and he would have to acknowledge it, no matter how difficult it might be.
When Regan left, Sirena lay on the tumbled sheets for some time. Emotion flooded through her, threatening to drown her, choking off air. Regan ... Regan ... her heart cried. She cried for the love they had shared, the life they had made together ... the son they had lost.
Why couldn’t Regan realize that somehow her loss of Mikel was easier to bear when she was near the little plot of ground where the child rested.
Sirena rose and scouted the room for her dressing gown and slippers. A smile brightened her face as she perused the wreckage of the evening before. He had been magnificent. He had conquered the feelings of emptiness engulfing her. He had demanded her love and had received it. He had been right. She did need his love. She did want it. She was a vital woman—a woman grown used to feeling the arms of her lover around her and the passions he could arouse in her.
The house seemed suddenly empty. More desolate than it had when Caleb had gone off to school in Holland. Then, she still had Mikel to fill the day. And Regan to fill the nights. Now it was the loneliest she had ever known it to be. Even Mikel’s death had not made her feel this way. Regan’s leaving had made it become no more than a frame, a dwelling. Regan had made it a home.
Down the stairs she ran, out to the garden. The dew glistening on the lawn soaked through her slippers and the chill morning air made her shiver.
Heedless of the wetness, Sirena knelt beside the grave. Images of Mikel’s laughing face scampered through her memory. “Mikel ... Mikel ... ,” she cried, throwing herself face down over the shallow mound as she had done on so many days in the past. Only this time she could not feel her son’s presence. This time he seemed so distant Pathetically her fingers dug into the soft earth, clutching, gasping, refusing to be separated from her child. Heaving sobs shook her body, tears mingled with the dew. Her grief was a lonely monster strangling her, cutting off her life, making her one of the living dead.
To her own amazement the name she cried out was not Mikel’s, it was Regan’s. Over and over she repeated his name, suffering his loss. Then an image of herself crept into her consciousness. It was of an old woman, alone and unloved, weeping over the grave of a child hundreds of years dead. She was empty ... There was no comfort to be derived from this little plot. Mikel wasn’t really beneath this ground, he was in her heart. He was in Regan’s heart. No matter where Regan would go, no matter what he would do, he would carry Mikel with him. And so could she. She could leave Java and take Mikel with her. He would always be with her in a place that was warm and bright.
“Regan! Regan!” she called, stumbling across the wide lawn, running, running toward her love. “Regan!”
Up the stairs and into her room, searching and seeking for her gown, her shoes. She would go to Batavia and tell him to wait for her. She would go anywhere with him, now, tomorrow, forever! And Regan would wait, she knew he would. They would come home together and see to closing the house. There was packing to be done and Frau Holtz would need time to gather together her own possessions. They would be together. Always together.
“Frau Holtz!” she yelled from the top of the stairs, “Frau Holtz, where are you?”
“Ja, I am here,” came the reply from the old housekeeper as she began to climb to the second floor.
“No, don’t come up. There’s no time. Have a horse brought around to the front of the house for me.”
The urgency in Sirena’s voice alarmed the aged woman. “Is there anything wrong? Where are you going, Mevrouw?”
“No time to answer questions,” Sirena said with exasperation. “Just do as I say!”
“Ja, I do it!” Frau Holtz agreed as she turned on her heel toward the back of the house. Her step was lighter than it had been in months and for some strange reason her bones didn’t ache as badly as they had just a moment before. A smile on her wizened old face, the housekeeper went to find the stable boy. This wonderful change in Sirena was a miracle. Only yesterday she had thought that she would never see that spark of life lighting Sirena’s eyes again. “Ja, I do it,” Frau Holtz repeated to herself. “I do anything to see her alive again!”
Galloping down the dusty road to Batavia, Sirena laughed and urged the horse onward. Her long, dark hair billowed out behind her, her eyes flashed vibrantly, her smooth cheeks were flushed with excitement and she carried in her the picture of Regan’s face when she told him she would never let him depart without her. They belonged together. They had the strength, the wonder, of their love to draw upon. Wildly thrashing the horse’s flanks, she urged it faster, faster, to Regan.
Down the elite Avenue of Lions she galloped, then through the narrow little streets to the offices of the Dutch East India Company. The wharf was a cacophony of longshoremen and traders. They turned to glance at her in amazement. The horse’s hooves beat like drums upon the planks leading out over the water. Regan’s office was at the far end of the wharf and she could see his mount tethered outside the door.
Sirena rushed into the offices, breathless and disheveled and looking more beautiful than she had in months. The Company clerks dropped their quills, their mouths gaped open in astonishment. Not stopping to make explanations, Sirena burst into Regan’s office, her face wreathed in smiles, her eyes glowing with anticipation.
“Regan, darling, I’m coming—” the words were choked off in her throat. Instead of Regan there was their friend, Captain Dykstra.
“Peter,” Sirena asked breathlessly, “where’s Regan? I have wonderful news for him—” Captain Dykstra’s handsome features were drawn into a scowl and something in his bright blue eyes frightened her.
“Peter, where is he?” Sirena asked again, this time quietly, almost subdued.
“Peter?”
“Sirena, he’s gone.”
“Gone? Gone?” she stammered, not comprehending what he meant. “But that’s impossible? I’ve come down here to tell him I’ve made up my mind. I’ve decided to go with him, go anywhere with him? Where has he gone?”
Peter Dykstra’s throat swelled with emotion. He knew Regan and Sirena when they were first married. He had seen their love grow and now the pain in Sirena’s eyes was almost more than he could stand. Wordlessly he took Sirena’s arm and led her over to the window facing the sea. There, just at the horizon she perceived the top of a sail.
Her flashing, green eyes searched Peter’s wildly. “He’s left? Without me?” She needed no answer; it was there in Captain Dykstra’s face.
“The tides were right, Sirena. He said there was no sense putting off sailing. I tried to stop him, his ship hasn’t been properly careened for such a long voyage. I told him it was foolhardy but he wouldn’t listen. He never listens!” Peter grumbled.
Staggering to a chair, Sirena dropped heavily into it, covering her face with her hands. Beneath her nails was the thin, black line of dirt that had come from digging her fingers into the earth on Mikel’s grave. Gone! Regan was gone! “Peter, you’ve got to help me. I must go to him! Help me,” she implored, reaching out and clutching his sleeve.
Peter Dykstra was helpless. Her agony was clearly apparent and mirrored that of Regan’s which he’d witnessed earlier. “I can’t help you, Sirena. There isn’t a ship in the harbor ready to make sail. Even if there were, they’re filled to the brim with cargo. You’d never catch him. The best you can do is wait a month when the next ship sets sail for Europe.”
“The Rana,” Sirena said hopefully, “I could—”
Peter Dykstra shook his head. “No, you couldn’t. She’s not seaworthy. She’s been in drydock. Be reasonable.”
Sirena looked to the window. Even from where she sat, she could see the tip of Regan’s sail drop over the horizon. Peter was right. She could never catch him.
“Sirena, let me take you home,” Peter said softly, touching her hand in consolation.
“Home? Where is that?”