Chapter 20
The waiting was unbearable as Bess watched the surface of the pool for Kincaid to come up. Her hands were clenched so tightly that her nails cut into her palms; her knees were shaking, and sensations of numbness had spread to her hands and feet.
Surely, he’d been down for more than a minute. How long could he possibly hold his breath? she wondered for the third time.
They had no idea how deep the pool was—or, if the treasure was there, if it could be recovered. Kincaid had insisted on diving down himself to explore the bottom. He’d insisted he was a good swimmer, but what if the water contained poison snakes or alligators? What if the pool was bottomless? What if he went down and never came up?
Unable to stand the strain of waiting any longer, Bess began to strip off her shoes and stockings. But as she prepared to dive in after him, Kincaid’s blond head broke the surface.
He gasped for air, blinked to clear the water from his eyes, and gave her a slow, satisfied grin. Then he raised one hand over his head in triumph. In that hand he clutched a golden disk inlaid with crescent moons of beaten silver.
“It’s there!” she cried.
“Aye, lassie.” He laughed. “Twenty feet down, in mud as thick and black as hell’s ashes!” He tossed her the shimmering object. It spun through the air like a golden bird and she caught it with both hands.
Instantly, the sailors crowded close around, each man stretching out his hands to touch and heft the weight of the Incan nose plate. “Here, there! Let me see!” Tick Warder insisted. He snatched the massive piece of jewelry from the man called Long Tom and tested the gold with his teeth.
“Is it real?” Brown asked.
“Real as the nose on your face,” Warder replied. He stared gape-mouthed at the golden disk as though he expected it to vanish at any second. Bess ignored the seamen. Her eyes were on Kincaid as he took another deep breath and dove down again. This time the seconds passed like minutes instead of hours, and when he resurfaced, he brought up a hammered gold vessel in the shape of a llama’s head and a crumpled golden glove covered with strange designs. Three more dives brought a mace head of silver, a life-size ear of corn with gold-and-silver kernels and a silver husk, a single golden earring the size of Bess’s hand, a silver figurine in the form of a man with shell eyes and jeweled sandals, and a reed boat five inches long and worked in exquisite detail down to the last knot, carved of solid gold.
The sight of so much gold turned the seamen to raving fools. They danced and shouted and laughed as though they were drunk. Each man clutched a portion of the treasure as he cavorted and rambled on, repeating to whoever would listen just what he would do with his share when he got back to English territory.
Bess was strangely unaffected by the discovery. The treasure they’d come so far to find suddenly seemed unimportant. Her overwhelming concern was Kincaid’s safety as he continued to plunge down into the swirling black water.
“I’ll take a turn,” she offered. “You’re tired. I can swim.”
“Nay.” Kincaid wiped the water from his face and rested against the bank between dives. “The bottom is treacherous. It’s a tangle of logs and grass. The chests that held the treasure are long gone, if it ever rested in chests at all. It’s no place down there for a woman.”
“No place for you either,” she said, gripping his hand tightly. “We’ve enough already. Quit before something happens to you.” She couldn’t keep the quaver from her voice. “You’ve brought up a fortune already. There’s no need to be greedy.”
Kincaid’s eyes narrowed and he shook his head. “The men must have their share, not just these with us, but Rudy and the others who remained on the Tanager. It costs money to maintain a ship and a crew. We need enough to get us back to Maryland, and then enough to assure us both security once we get there. I’ll bring up what I can, woman. For we’ll not pass this way again.”
“The Caribs could come back,” she reasoned. “Let’s take what we have and go.”
His only answer was to dive again and yet again, until darkness fell over the glade. Bess knelt by the bank, heedless of the growing pile of priceless artifacts, while tears slipped down her cheeks. So intent was she on Kincaid’s condition that she didn’t notice when the men’s mood shifted from joyful to sinister.
Tick Warder, John Brown, Long Tom, and Murray—the fourth sailor—gathered in a knot on the far side of the clearing while Hah-kobo busied himself with making a fire. The Cuna guide had shown little curiosity about the treasure. Instead, he’d spent most of the afternoon constructing a crude shelter of branches and interwoven ferns and palm leaves. Hah-kobo’s back was to the sailors as he crouched by the fire pit and blew patiently on the glowing tinder.
Kincaid heaved himself up on the mossy bank as rain began to fall yet again. “All right,” he said wearily to Bess. “That’s the last of it. If there’s more gold down there, ’twould take the devil himself to dig it out of that mud.”
She threw her arms around him and pulled his head close to her breast. It was impossible to miss the exhaustion in his low burr. “There was no need to go down so many times,” she murmured, running her hands through his wet hair. “Senseless.”
Rain spattered against their bare skin, but Bess continued to hold him tightly until she was as soaked as he was. “Hah-kobo’s going to cook something he shot,” she said. “I saw it, but I don’t know what it is. I guess—”
Without warning, Kincaid shoved her down and threw his body over her. A flintlock roared and a man cried out. Bess looked up to see Tick Warder staggering across the clearing toward the fire, a fired flintlock in his hand and a tiny feathered shaft protruding from his neck. “What?” she gasped. Her insides twisted and she felt a sensation of the earth falling away beneath her. “Caribs,” she whispered hoarsely.
“Nay,” Kincaid said. “Stay down.” He was already rising and crawling toward the place where his pistol lay on top of his shirt and boots.
Bess stared as Warder fell to his knees, then sprawled forward on the deep moss and lay still. She glanced at Hah-kobo, but the Cuna hadn’t moved. He was watching the remaining sailors as they grabbed what they could carry of the gold and dashed into the forest. When they were gone, he got up and came over to Bess and Kincaid with his hands open to show that he held no weapons.
Kincaid grabbed his pistol and checked the priming, but Hah-kobo shook his head and made a “finished” motion with his hands. He moved in front of the Scot and pushed the barrel of the gun toward the ground.
Bess glanced warily around the clearing. Nothing moved. The only sounds were those of a cicada trilling shrilly and the hushed patter of rain against the forest floor. “I trust him,” she said. “Whoever killed Warder, I don’t think he’ll hurt us.”
Hah-kobo smiled. He cupped his hands to his mouth and uttered a bird call. Seconds later, Che stepped out of the green wall of ferns into the clearing.
“No shoot Che,” Che said loudly. In his hands he carried a blowgun and a handful of miniature arrows. “Englesh bad,” he said. “Englesh want kill yellow hair. Che stop.”
Bess swallowed the lump in her throat and forced a wan smile. “Thank you, Che.” She looked up at Kincaid. “Why?” she demanded. “Why would they want to kill us? We were going to give them a share of the gold.”
“They wanted it all,” Kincaid answered.
“Englesh no kill Star Woman,” Che said. “Che hear Englesh—this fellow . . .” He pointed to the . body of Tick Warder. “This fellow say kill yellow hair. Take woman. Take gold.”
“They wanted you as well, Bess,” Kincaid said. His face hardened in the flickering firelight. “And now the jungle will take them. They’ll not get far without Hah-kobo to guide them. They’ll die of thirst or snake bite, or maybe the Caribs will find them first.”
“Che watch all time,” the little Cuna said, coming to stand beside Hah-kobo. “Carib come, Che watch. Che kill.” He held up two fingers. “Carib bad. Englesh ship fellow bad. Star Woman no bad. Yellow hair no bad. Friend Cuna. Yes?”
“Friend Cuna, yes.” Kincaid extended both hands to the Indian. Che shook them vigorously, then leaned forward and hugged Kincaid.
“Could we get in out of the rain, do you think?” Bess asked. She was all too aware of the dead man lying not ten feet away and of the fortune in gold scattered across the clearing, but she was nearing the breaking point. She had witnessed so much since daybreak that she just wanted to curl up in Kincaid’s arms out of the wet and not have to think. Her head was pounding, and her skin felt hot and goosebumpy all at the same time. “Please?”
Kincaid put his arm around her and led her into the relative shelter of the open-sided hut. “Take off your clothes,” he said. “You’ll catch a fever if you stay in those wet things.”
Bess’s eyes widened. “Here? In front of all of you?”
“I’ve seen you without a stick on more than once, and I doubt you’ll shock Che and Hah-kobo. Out of them, I say.”
“In a pig’s eye!” she cried. “I’ll dry off by the fire, but I’ll be damned if I’ll strip stark for a gaggle of wild men.”
He chuckled. “Ye put me in that lot, do ye, Bess?”
“First in line,” she flung back at him. “Crowned king of barbarians and lunatic savages. ”
“But ye love me all the same,” he teased.
“Aye,” she answered softly. “God help me, but I do.”
Later, after Bess and Kincaid and the two Cuna had shared a meal of grilled sloth and wild plums, Che and Hah-kobo slipped out into the rainy night. Kincaid stretched out beside the fire, and Bess curled up in the shadow of his arms. “Why did they go?” she asked sleepily.
Kincaid chuckled. “I don’t think they feel too comfortable so close to a witch. I think Che’s afraid that you’ll turn him into a frog.”
He was weary unto death, and his eyelids felt as if they were packed with sand, but he knew he couldn’t sleep. He trusted the Cuna, but only so far. In the end, Bess’s safety depended on him.
What had happened here in the clearing was almost too much to accept. The gold was real enough, but before, when the headhunters had attacked them and the ghost. . . He’d gone over and over it in his mind, trying to make some sense of it. He didn’t believe in spirits, or witches, or water sprites. There was no way he could believe this woman in his arms was anything but flesh and blood. But there was no way he could dismiss what he’d seen with his own eyes either. A ghost. An Indian ghost had appeared in a bolt of lightning and slain two of the Caribs by pointing his war club at them. It was crazy, and thinking about it could make a man crazy.
Bess lifted his hand to her lips and kissed his knuckles one by one with caresses as soft as thistledown, causing ripples of excitement to run along his spine. “Am I a witch? Truly?” she asked him.
He stared down into her pale face. In her prone position, her eyes were in shadow, but he felt the heat of her azure gaze and his throat tightened. “Ye have the sight, that’s certain,” he admitted. “And there’s many would name ye witch, but I see no evil in ye, lass. Your soul is as lovin’ and pure as mine is black.”
He felt her flinch. “Don’t say that about yourself,” she said. “You’re a good man.”
His gut wrenched. “I’ve spent a lifetime killin’ men, some a hell of a lot better than me.” Robbie Munro’s homely grin rose in his mind’s eye. “I’m bound for Hell, and I’ve none to blame but my own actions.”
“Soldiers fight.”
“I killed my best friend over a whore.”
“Yes, and you can’t change it. But that’s in the past. It doesn’t mean you don’t deserve some happiness. You can build a new life with me.”
He tensed. “That again.”
“And again. I do love you, you thickheaded Scot, and I know you love me. Can’t you admit it?”
“Admitting that I love ye isn’t hard to do, sweeting. ‘Tis what I know you’ll ask next of me that’s difficult.”
“To be my husband?” She twisted in his arms to face him. “You’re not a poor mercenary any longer. That gold you brought up from the pool today makes you a rich man.”
It was true that his share would buy a lot of dreams, but they were still a long way from home free. “Provided we live long enough to spend it.”
She touched his bare chest, running her hand lightly over his skin, rubbing and massaging until he sighed with pleasure. “It wasn’t all bad,” she murmured, “being a soldier’s woman.”
“Nay,” he answered, remembering the days and nights they’d spent together. There was no chance for them together. He knew it, and if she were thinking straight, she’d know it too. Bess deserved better.
He ground his teeth together as she rubbed lazy circles on his chest. Where would he find a woman to match her? Nowhere. She was one of a kind. And he knew he’d miss the feel of her hair through his fingers, and the sound of her husky laughter, so long as he drew breath. “Ah, Bess,” he murmured. He lowered his head and kissed her tenderly, and the taste of her lips was as sweet as new-milled cider.
For a few seconds he allowed himself to think of what life would be like for him as her husband, living on Fortune’s Gift. Clearing virgin forest land and planting crops . . . Watching the turn of the seasons with Bess at his side . . . Raising children together. Seeing her with his child at her breast . . .
“Nay, Bess,” he repeated, more for himself than for her. “It’s too late for us. I’ll take ye home to your grand plantation, and after a time you’ll forget about me and meet a gentleman who’s worthy of ye.”
“Don’t tell me that,” she said. “It’s not that you’re not good enough for me, and you’re lying to yourself if you say so.”
“And why would I do that?”
“Because you’re afraid of letting yourself love me. You loved your first wife and she betrayed you. Now it’s easier to make excuses than take the chance of being hurt again.”
He let go of her and sat up. “Ye know nothin’ of it, Bess. Leave it be.”
“I’m not Gillian, Kincaid. I’m Bess. You can trust me.”
“I got over Gillian a long time ago.”
“Did you?”
Resentment flared. Biting back the angry words he wanted to say, he rose, snatched up his pistol, and walked out into the rain.
“How far can you run?” Bess called after him. “You know that what I’m saying is the truth.”
He kept walking until the rush of water over the falls drowned out her words and the pool was a black void at his feet. Rain beat down on his face and soaked his breeches, but he paid it no heed. He knew he was being stupid, laying himself open for a Carib arrow or a jaguar’s attack, but he had to get far enough away from Bess to think.
His bare foot struck something hard, and he stooped and picked up a thin, beaten-gold, footed vessel with a hawk’s head. It was too dark to see more than a faint glow of reflected light, but as he ran his fingers over it, there was no mistaking the winged handle or the proud, curved beak on the spout.
He held a fortune between his hands—the price of an earl’s ransom. For once in his life, a wild dream had come true. Idly, he stroked the line of embossed feathers that made up the beautiful design.
Once, long ago, when he was no more than sixteen, he’d run from a lost battle. It was a stormy night; he was in unfamiliar territory with the enemy in hot pursuit. All around him, he could hear the clash of steel, the boom of muskets, and the screams of dying men. He’d run a long way. He had a sword slice along his arm and he was losing blood fast. In the darkness he couldn’t see much of anything, except when the cannon fire lit up the sky. Suddenly, just ahead of him, the path split. One way would lead him back to his own troops, the other to the opposing army’s territory. Trouble was, he didn’t know which trail to take.
Kincaid ran a hand through his wet hair. He felt like that tonight. Despite all he had said, he knew if he left Bess he’d never buy land or carve his own farm out of the wilderness. He’d find another war, and then another and another. He’d spend his share of the gold on strong rum and loose women. And when his luck ran out, there’d be no one to mourn his death or even to carve his name on a grave marker.
Calling him a coward was a killing offense, but Bess had done it. And, sweet Jesus, she was right. He was as scared as he’d ever been in his life. He wanted to believe her when she said she loved him. He wanted to trust her, but he didn’t know how.
All she had to do was look at him with those sea-blue eyes and he hardened like a steel pike. Brushing her hand with his, seeing the curve of her neck when she bent down to pick something up, watching the proud way she walked—all those things tore his guts apart . . . and made him feel ten feet tall. Bess was the most sensual woman he’d ever known. He thought about her every waking hour, and she danced through his dreams at night. She infuriated him, tested him at every step, and made him want to take her in his arms and keep her safe forever.
Want Bess Bennett as his wife? Hell, yes, he wanted her. But it was the keeping her that worried him. If he took her for his own and she ever left him for another man . . . He wasn’t sure what he’d do. God knew he’d never want a repeat of what had happened with Gillian. But the emotions Bess caused him were so much stronger than those he’d felt for his first wife that he was at a loss for direction. If he took Bess, will she nill she, he’d hold her fast, no matter the cost.
Intuition prickled the skin at the back of his neck and he whirled around to see a pair of green eyes staring at him from the jungle. “Go on, get out of here!” he yelled. “Ha!” He clapped his hands together, and the glowing orbs vanished.
“I might as well be a married man,” he muttered. “I’ve lost all reason if I’m standing in the rain arguing with a jaguar.” He turned back to the fire and Bess.
He found her there, huddled by the flickering light. “Can ye forgive a fool?” he asked.
A smile more radiant than the sun spread over her face as she threw herself into his arms. “Kincaid?”
He hugged her against him, thinking how warm she was, how much dearer to him than all the gold that the Spanish had ever stolen from the Indians. He tilted her chin up and kissed her long and passionately. “Damned if I know what they’ll call ye,” he said gruffly when they parted long enough to take a breath. “I don’t even know if Kincaid’s my first name or my last.”
“I thought of that,” she said. “And Robert will serve very well. Mistress Robert Kincaid, if you please.”
“You’ve figured it all out, have ye, ye bold wench?” He kissed her throat, and traced the hollow between her swelling breasts with his lips.
She laughed softly and tightened her arms around his neck. “I’ve waited long enough for a proper proposal.”
“Who said that’s what it was? I was only askin’ what a man would call ye if I did ask.”
“You’re not weaseling out of this, Robert Kincaid,” she teased between kisses. “I take your words as a declaration that you intend to make an honest woman of me, and I accept.”
“Ye do, do ye?” He groaned, trying to maintain his dignity when his heart was turning cartwheels in his chest and he felt like a drowning man who’d just been pulled from the sea.
“I love you,” she said softly. “Love you more than I love Fortune’s Gift.”
He nibbled her bottom lip provocatively. “That’s reassuring.”
“But you’re still an unrepentant horse thief, and I’ll not wed you or forgive you until you bring back my Ginger.”
“So the knight is set a noble task to win the hand of the fair maiden?”
She laughed. “You hardly qualify as a knight and I’m no maiden. But, yes, bringing home my horse is a noble task, and there’ll be no marriage lines until my mare’s safe in her own pasture.”
“And if the beast is crab bait?”
“She’d better not be.”
“You’d reject my suit for the sake of a dead horse?”
“If you know what’s good for you, Scot, you’d best pray for Ginger’s safety. I raised her from a foal.”
“You’re a hard woman, Bess.”
“Am I?” She took his hand and brought it to her breast. “I love you very much, Kincaid.”
“So you’ve said,” he murmured, savoring the soft feel of her breast. He swallowed at the thickening in his throat as he slid his free hand down over her hip and cupped her sweet, rounded bottom. She raised her face for his kiss and parted her lips so that he had access to her silken mouth.
The weariness fell away as his blood grew hot and his loins tightened. He and Bess dropped to their knees together, and he pushed up her shirt and tasted the perfect buds of her ripe breasts. “Little Bess,” he whispered. “I want ye so bad.”
Her hands were all over him, touching, caressing, making him rock-hard and aching for her. He groaned with pleasure as she arched her hips against him and uttered little cries of yearning. He wanted to fill her with his love, to claim her once and for all as his, to feel her one with him.
She wriggled free and pulled the shirt over her head. His breath caught in his throat as he surveyed her beautiful naked breasts, the proud arch of her throat, and the long, slow look she gave him. Intense desire burned in that steaming gaze—desire to match his own hunger and an inborn sensuality that glowed white-hot beneath her rosy skin.
He reached out slowly and untied the ribbon at the back of her head, letting her wild auburn hair fall loose in curling waves around her bare shoulders. She smiled at him and moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue.
His erection strained against the thin cloth of his breeches. Breathless, wanting her now, yet not wanting this moment to end, he stripped away his single garment. “Come here, woman,” he said to her.
She didn’t move, and when he grabbed for her, she laughed and ducked back to snatch up a wild plum from the remains of their supper. Deliberately, she sank her white teeth into the ripe fruit, and the juice ran over her lips and down her chin. Her eyes dared him as she offered him a bite of the plum.
“I’d rather have it from your lips,” he said, seizing her and pulling her hard against him. He knew that the jaguar paced not far from the firelight, but the lure of Bess’s tempting body beckoned more urgently than the voice of reason. Laughing, he kissed her mouth and ran his tongue over the trail of sweet purple juice.
“That was nice.” She sighed and squeezed the fruit, letting the dripping juice spatter over her throat and upthrust breasts.
“Aye,” he agreed. His swollen cock pressed hot and throbbing against her leg. He kissed one breast and then the other, tasting her skin and licking the sticky plum juice away. Her nearness and the feel of her warm body were driving him mad; he knew he was nearing the point of no return. “You are a witch,” he whispered as she caressed the length of his tumescence with her teasing fingers. “You’ve cast an enchantment over me, and there’s only one way to deal with you.”
“Ummm,” she murmured, tightening her grip. “And just what is that?”
“Some things are better shown than told.” The force of his need was gathering like a flood behind a dam. Sweat beaded on his forehead. The pulse of his blood drummed in his veins. It took every drop of willpower that he possessed to keep from throwing her back against the heaped palm branches and driving his aching manhood deep inside her sweet, wet folds.
“I want you to love me,” she whispered. “I want you so bad.” She moistened the tips of her fingers and brushed them over his swollen skin.
“You’ve no need for these,” he said, making short work of her breeches. She was breathing as hard as he was now, and he could tell by the tenseness of her muscles that she wanted him as badly as he wanted her. But he was unwilling to let this pleasant game end just yet, no matter how exquisite the torture was for both of them.
The plum fell from her fingers and he caught it. “Not yet,” he rasped. Slowly, he drew the remains of the fruit down across her flat belly to the soft curls below. She moaned softly as he continued on, kissing each drop away, letting his tongue linger on her damp, quivering skin until he brushed the entrance to her secret garden.
With a cry, her fingers dug into his arms and she crushed him to her. “Now!” she urged. “Now. Love me now.”
Tears clouded his eyes as he granted her wish and his. He crouched over her and drove deep and hard into her loving embrace. She rose to meet him thrust for thrust, until their shared flood of passion broke over the dam with a wild rush of thunderous joy, and he was carried beyond the bounds of physical pleasure to the warm, pure state of utter contentment.
Twice more that night she came into his arms. And it was as if they were drawn together by a power they could not resist, using the act of love and a growing flame of trust to sear away everything in the past that had hurt them, leaving only the shimmering promise of a shared tomorrow.
Dawn came slowly, filtering through the lacy green boughs overhead, slowly silencing the night cries of the jungle, replacing them with the ever-present bark of the monkeys and the chirp of the cicadas.
Kincaid sat up and rubbed his eyes, looking around. Bess was curled up next to him, still sleeping, one arm thrown over her head. The fire had gone out, and ants were marching over the heaped saddlebags. Kincaid stood up and stretched, retrieved his pistol and reloaded it with what he hoped was dry powder, dressed, and walked outside the hut.
The golden treasure still lay strewn beside the pool. As he neared the bank, he drew in his breath sharply. On the muddy rim of the tarn were the clear tracks of a big cat. Sometime in the night, while he and Bess had made love, the jaguar had come to drink.
“Damn,” he muttered. The thought that he’d put her in danger by his carelessness grated on his nerves. He washed his face and hands, cleaned his teeth, and drank deeply. It was beginning to rain again as he returned to the shelter.
“Will ye sleep all day, woman?” he called to Bess. She stirred, and he glanced at her face. Was her skin more flushed than normal? “Bess,” he said. “Wake up, lass.” He bent and touched her arm.
A chill ran down his spine as he felt the unnatural heat of her skin. “Bess?”
Her eyelids fluttered. “Kincaid? ” She moistened her lips. “I’m thirsty,” she said. “So thirsty.”
Pain lanced through his gut as she opened her eyes and he met her feverish gaze. “Bess, are ye all right?” he asked, knowing the answer, but asking all the same.
“I don’t feel so good,” she said weakly. “My head hurts, and I . . . I don’t feel so good.”