Twice Loved (copy2) (10 page)

Laura had no choice but to accept the main course when it came her turn. But the veal stuck in her throat, along with the flirtatious conversation continuing on the other side of the table.

The smitten Miss Hussey continued to delineate the doctrines of the chivalric order of island ladies devoted to loving only proven whalers, until Rye was forced to ask politely, “And are you a member of th’ group ... Miss Hussey?”

At that precise moment, Laura nearly choked on a piece of veal, for something soft and warm was working her skirts up and caressed her calf beneath the table.

Rye’s foot!

“Indeed I am, Mr. Dalton,” DeLaine Hussey simpered.

The gall of the man to do a thing like that while innocently smiling down at DeLaine Hussey! Why, he knew full well it was his and Laura’s old playful signal that they wanted to make love when they got home!

While Rye’s foot made shivers ripple through Laura’s flesh, the doe-eyed Miss Hussey continued batting her sooty lashes and gazing devastatingly into Rye’s eyes while pointedly asking, “Have 
you
 killed your first whale yet, Mr. Dalton?”

Rye laughed uninhibitedly, leaning back until his jaw lifted before he grinned engagingly at his table companion again. “Nay, Miss Hussey, I haven’t, and y’ well know it. I’m a cooper, not a boatsteerer,” he reminded, using the official name of the harpooners.

At that moment Rye’s toes inched up and curled over the edge of the chair between Laura’s knees, all the while he smiled into DeLaine Hussey’s eyes. This time Laura visibly jumped and a chunk of veal lodged in her throat, sending up a spasm of coughing.

Dan solicitously patted her back and signaled for the server to refill her water glass. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“F ... fine.” She gulped, struggling for composure while that warm foot brushed the insides of her knees, preventing her from clamping them shut.

The coughing, unfortunately, brought her hostess’s attention to Laura’s plate, and Mrs. Starbuck noted how little her guest had eaten and inquired if the food was all right. Thus, Laura felt compelled to lift yet another bite of veal and attempt to swallow it.

Just then Rye smiled nonchalantly at Laura and said, “Please pass the salt.” He could see she was in misery: he remembered well enough her abhorrence of whalebone corsets.

To Laura’s surprise, she then felt a 
tap! tap! tap!
 against the inside of one knee. And while across the table Rye and DeLaine Hussey engaged in a seemingly innocent conversation about coopering, Rye cut two pieces of his own veal, ate one, and covertly dropped the other on the floor, where the Starbucks’ fluffy matched Persian cats immediately cleaned up the evidence.

Laura raised her napkin to her lips and smiled behind it. But she was grateful to Rye, for at the next possible opportunity she practiced the same sleight-of-hand he’d just demonstrated, which ultimately saved her from embarrassing either herself or her hostess—or both.

The meal ended with a rich rum-flavored torte, which neither of the cats liked—a barely perceptible shrug of Rye’s shoulders made Laura again take smiling refuge behind her napkin—so she was forced to eat half her serving, which left her stomach in a perilous state.

By the time Rye chose to remove his foot, Laura was not only queasy but flustered. Their host and hostess were rising from their chairs when Laura could tell by the look on Rye’s face that he was searching for his lost shoe. She let him suffer, slipping it further underneath her chair while up and down the table guests were getting to their feet and repairing to the main hall. Dan moved behind her chair, and for a moment she considered leaving the shoe where it was, but if it were spied there, it would convict her as well as Rye, so his scowl was rewarded a second later by the safe return of the shoe.

A string quartet played now in the main hall, and some couples danced while others visited. A small group of men stepped outside to smoke cigars, among them Joseph Starbuck and Dan, who reluctantly left Laura’s side at his employer’s request. But first he observed that Rye was still in the clutches of DeLaine Hussey, so he assumed Rye would have no chance to bother Laura.

Laura, meanwhile, did not need Rye Dalton to be bothered. She realized if she didn’t soon ease her whalebone corsets she was going to either vomit or faint.

As soon as it was gracefully possible, she escaped through the back door, inhaling great gulps of night air. But the air alone did little to relieve her, for it was laden with fog tonight, and she nearly choked on the tang of tar, spread as it was beneath the fruit trees of Starbuck’s orchard, to control canker worms. Picking up her skirts, she ran at a most unladylike clip between the apple trees, where the cloying scent of blossoms only worsened her nausea. She groped futilely for the row of brass hooks and eyes at the back of her dress, but knew full well there was no reaching them. Her mouth watered warningly. Tears stung her eyes. She clutched her waist and bent over, gagging.

At that moment cool fingers touched the back of Laura’s neck and quickly began releasing the hooks while she broke out into a quivering sweat.

“What the hell’re y’ doin’ in these things if y’ can’t tolerate them?" Rye Dalton demanded.

For the moment she was unable to answer, battling the forces of nature. But finally she managed to choke out a single word.

“Hurry!”

“Damn idiotic contraptions!” he muttered. “Y’ should have more sense, woman!”

“Th ... the laces ... please,” she gasped when the dress was open.

He yanked at the bow resting in the hollow of her spine, then jerked it free at last and began working his fingers up the lacings until Laura breathed her first easy breath in three hours.

“May you b ... burn in hell, Rye D ... Dalton, for ever bringing whalebones to shore and m ... making women all over the world miserable!” she berated between huge gasps.

“If I bum in hell, might’s well do it for a lot better reason than that,” he said, moving close behind her, slipping his hand inside her loosened corset.

“Stop it!” She lurched away and spun on him while all her frustrations boiled to the surface. This incredible trap he’d caused by insisting on going whaling, the torture of these damned insufferable whalebones, the cozy little piece of flirtation she’d just been forced to witness—it all sparked an explosion of temper that suddenly raged out of control. “Stop it!” she hissed. “You have no right to sail in here after ... after 
five years
 and act as if you’d never left!”

Immediately, his temper flared, too. “I left for 
you
,
 so I could bring you—”

“I begged you not to go! I didn’t want your ... your stinking whale oil! I wanted my husband!”

“Well, here I am!” he shot back sarcastically.

“Oh ... She clenched her fists, almost growling in frustration. “You think it’s so simple, don’t you, Rye? Playing footsie under the table, as if the most important thing I have to decide is whether or not to take my shoe off. Well, you can see what a state it’s put me in.”

‘‘And what about the state I’m in!”

She turned her back disdainfully. “I’m fine now. Thank you for your help ... 
Mister
 Dalton,” she retorted, imitating DeLaine Hussey, “but you’d better go back before you’re missed.”

“I did that so y’d see what I’m forced t’ go through every time I see you and Dan together. It bothered y' didn’t it—seeing your 
husband
 with another woman?”

Again she whirled to confront him. “All right ... yes! It bothered me! But I realize now I have no right to be bothered by it. As I said before, you’d better go back before you’re missed.”

“I don’t give a damn if I’m missed. Besides, all I’m doin’ is standin’ in an orchard visiting with my wife. What’s wrong with that?”

“Rye, Dan won’t like—”

At that moment Dan’s voice came from just beyond the nearest row of apple trees.

“Laura? Are you out there?”

She turned toward the voice to reply, but Rye’s hand found her elbow and he moved close, placing a finger over her mouth, breathing softly beside her ear, “Shh.”

“I’ve got to answer him,” she whispered while her heart drummed. “He knows we’re out here.”

He grabbed her head with both hands and brought her ear to his lips. “You do, and I’ll tell him your corsets are loose because we were just enjoyin’ a little roll beneath the apple trees.”

She jerked away angrily, frantically scrabbling to retie her rigging. But it was futile, and Rye only stood by grinning.

“Laura, is that you?” came Dan’s voice. “Where are you?”

“Help me!” she begged, turning her back on Rye as Dan’s footsteps came closer. He was walking between the trees now; they could hear the branches snapping.

“Not on your life,” Rye whispered.

In a panic she grabbed his wrist, picked up her skirts, and ran, pulling him along after her. Down the rows they went, ducking between trees, skimming silently through the fog-shrouded night, which buffered the sound of their passing. Foolish, childish thing to do! Yet Laura was unable to think beyond the fact that she could not let Dan discover her half undressed out here in the misty night with Rye.

The orchard was wide and long, stretching away in a maze of white-misted apple trees which gave way to quince, then to plum. The fog blanketed everything, obscuring the two who moved through it like specters. Laura’s wide skirt might well have been only another explosion of apple blossoms, for the trees cowered close to the ground, protecting themselves from the incessant ocean winds, until they took on the same bouffant shape as a hooped skirt.

At last Laura stopped, alert, listening, one hand pressed against her heaving breasts to hold the dress up. Rye, too, listened, but they heard not the faintest strains of the music drifting from the house. They were surrounded by billows of white, lost in the swirling fog, alone in a private scented bower of quince, where they’d be neither seen or heard.

She still clutched his wrist. Beneath her thumb she could feel his pulse racing. She flung the hand away and cursed, “Damn you, Rye!”

But his good humor was back. “Is that any way t’ talk to the man who’s just loosened your stays?”

“I told you I had to have time to think and work things out.”

“I’ve given y’ five days ... just what have y’ worked out?”

“Five days—exactly! How can I get a mess like this worked out in five days?”

“So y’ want to string me along and lead me out t’ the apple orchard where we used t’ do it right under Dan’s nose even when we were kids?” He moved closer, his breath coming heavy, too, after their run.

“That’s not why I came out here,” she protested, and it was true.

“Why, then?” He put both wide hands on her waist to pull her closer. Immediately, she grabbed his wrists, but he would not be waylaid. He caressed her hipbones while his voice blended with the soft fog to muddle her. “Remember that time, Laura? Remember how it was ... with the sun on our skin and both of us so scared Dan would find us right there in the daylight, and—”

She clapped a hand over his mouth. “You’re not being fair,” she pleaded, but the memory had been revived, as he’d intended, and already served Rye’s purpose, for her breath was not easing. Instead, it came heavier and faster than when they’d first stopped running.

So he kissed the fingers with which she’d stifled his words. Immediately, she retracted them, freeing his lips to vow, “I’ll tell y’ right now, woman, I’ve no intention of playin’ fair. I’ll play as dirty as I have to t’ win y’ back. And I’ll start right here by soilin’ your dress in this apple orchard if y’ won’t take the damn thing off.”

His hands pulled her against his hips again, then slid up her ribs and onto her back, finding the openings in her laces, pressing against her shoulder blades until her breasts touched his jacket.

She turned her mouth aside. “If I kiss you once, will you be satisfied and let me go back?”

“What do y’ think?” he whispered gruffly, nuzzling the side of her neck, biting it lightly, sending goosebumps shivering across her belly.

“I think my husband will kill me if I don’t get back to the house soon.” But she inched her lips closer to his even as she said it.

“And I think 
this
 husband will kill y’ if y’ do,” he said, almost at her mouth. He smelled of cedar and wine and the past. She recognized his aroma, and it prompted her response. The silence hemmed them in, so immense and total that within it their heartbeats seemed to resound like cannon shot. The first day when he’d kissed her, she’d been in shock. The second time he’d taken her by surprise. But now—if he kissed her now, if she let him, this one would be deliberate.

“Once,” she whispered. “Just once, then I have to go back. Promise you’ll lace me up, ” she pleaded.

“Nay,” he returned gruffly, breathing on her lips. “No promises.”

Sensibly, she pulled back, but it took little effort for Rye to change her mind. He simply touched the corner of her mouth with his lips.

And the old thrill was back, as fresh and vital as always. He had that way about him, Rye did, that she’d tried to forget since being married to Dan. Call it technique, call it practice, call it familiarity—but they’d learned to kiss together, and Rye knew what Laura liked. He let their breaths mingle, then wet the corner of her mouth, dipping to taste before savoring fully. She liked to be aroused one tiny step at a time, and she waited now, her neck taut, her breathing labored, while he held her with one hand around the side of her neck, his thumb massaging the hollow beneath her jaw. The thumb circled lazily. Then came his tongue, wetting the perimeter of her lips with patient, faint strokes, as Rye sensed the fire building within her.

The memories came flooding back to Laura ... being fifteen in a dory with lips tightly shut and eyes safely closed, being sixteen in a boathouse loft and knowing well the use of tongues; moving toward full maturity and learning together how a man touches a woman, how a woman touches a man to create impatience, then ecstasy.

As if he read her mind, Rye now murmured, “Remember that summer, Laura, up in the loft above old man Hardesty’s boathouse?”