Читать книгу The Countess Misbehaves - Nan Ryan, Nan Ryan - Страница 10

Later that morning, Lady Madeleine was alone at the ship’s railing, gazing expectantly out over the churning blue waters. A couple of hours had passed since she had spotted the ancient lighthouse rising majestically from the very last island of the Florida Keys. She had experienced a great rush of excitement when the huge ship had rounded that final spit of land and headed northward into the Gulf of Mexico. Now the Keys had been left far behind and no land was visible.

The winds, she suddenly realized, had risen dramatically since she’d first come out on deck that morning. She now had to cling tenaciously to the railing to keep her balance. And she noted that the waves had grown much higher, so high they were actually lifting and tossing the heavy vessel. Her breath caught when, all at once, deep swells rose beneath the huge craft and it swung and rolled violently.

Madeleine became curious, and increasingly anxious, when the ship’s crewmen began rushing about, hurrying to obey shouted commands from the stern-faced first officer. There was a sudden burst of activity as passengers hurried onto the decks. She heard a gentleman shouting to his companion as they passed that a West Indian cyclone was upon them.

Alarmed, Madeleine started toward her stateroom when the ship took a frenzied swing. As she struggled against the rising winds, she overheard two crewman speaking softly. One claimed the ship was taking on water.

Seconds later, the captain appeared on the promenade deck. Calm, collected, he walked briskly among the passengers speaking quietly, yet with clarity. “Passengers should return to their state-rooms,” he instructed. “No need to rush, no reason to panic,” he said, although he was more worried than anyone would ever know. Not only were there not enough lifeboats, they were painfully short of life preservers. And the waterproof integrity of those pitiful few vests on board was in doubt. “Return to your staterooms and secure the portholes,” he repeated again and again. On encountering her, the captain said reassuringly, “Merely a safety precaution, Lady Madeleine.”

She smiled and nodded, but she knew better. A full-fledged hurricane was racing toward them.

Struggling against the worsening winds and dodging scrambling passengers as they fled to their cabins, Madeleine finally reached the door of her stateroom. She banged on the solid wood and Lucinda yanked the door open and anxiously drew her mistress inside.

There the two women huddled together in growing fear as the S. S. Starlight pitched and rolled in the punishing winds as if it were a child’s toy. The roar was deafening as mountainous seas and fearsome gales assaulted the mighty vessel.

While the fierce storm raged, sending the huge ship into fits of savage rocking and lurching, the Starlight’s crew and many of the male passengers—including Armand de Chevalier with his suit jacket cast aside and his shirtsleeves rolled up—toiled tirelessly at three bucket brigades to reduce the flooding in the engine room.

Soaked to the skin, striving to stay on their feet, the contingent labored manfully to keep five hundred tons of boilers and engines afloat in the angry, storm-tossed Gulf of Mexico. But it was a losing battle. Soon it became evident. The S. S. Starlight was irreparably breached. The huge ocean liner was going down.

The ship now badly listing, a terrified Lady Madeleine and Lucinda rushed back outside. Terror-stricken passengers ran about on the slippery, slanting decks shouting, “Where are we to go? What are we to do?”

Families hugged their loved ones to them and herded them toward the ship’s railing where lifeboats were being deployed. Frightened people were pushing and shoving, fighting to gain a coveted spot in one of the lifeboats.

“Hurry!” shouted Lucinda to Madeleine, “we must hurry!”

The servant clung to her mistress’s hand and pulled her along through the pressing crush of humanity. But when Lucinda realized that most of the lifeboats, filled to capacity, had already dropped into the sea, she panicked. Survival her only instinct, she dropped Madeleine’s hand and elbowed her way through the mob, desperate to flee the sinking ship and a drowning death in the ocean’s depths.

Lucinda made it to the railing, climbed over, and jumped down into an overflowing lifeboat as it was being lowered down the ship’s tilting side.

The countess, struggling against the ferocious winds and screaming passengers, anxiously followed. Fighting her way toward the lowering lifeboat, badly hampered by her heavy hoop skirts, she was struck by a giant wave and flung violently against the railing and momentarily stunned.

If not for the strong hands that reached out and caught her, she would have been washed overboard.

“My God!” shouted Armand de Chevalier, “why have you waited this long? We must get you into a lifeboat at once!”

Madeleine’s head snapped around and she stared up at him in shocked surprise. She would have supposed that this self-absorbed Creole would have shoved women and children out his way to get to a lifeboat and save his own hide.

“Why have you waited?” she shouted against the wind.

Ignoring the question, Armand firmly propelled her through the hysterical crowd to the railing. Armand looked over the ship’s side and saw the last of the lifeboats splash down into the boiling sea.

Against Madeleine’s left ear he shouted, “We have to make it to the other side of the ship. There may still be lifeboats off the port that have not yet been deployed!”

The pair fought their way up across the badly listing deck, falling once, slipping back downward toward starboard. But Armand managed to rise again and pull Madeleine up. Holding on to anything they could find to steady themselves, the pair fought on.

It was far from easy.

The howling winds kept ballooning Madeleine’s skirts, threatening to lift her off her feet. Quickly assessing the situation, Armand propelled her to a deck chair that was bolted to the deck. While she held tightly to the chair’s back, Armand took a small, sharp-bladed knife from a leather holster at his ankle. He lifted Madeleine’s damp dress and slashed the threads that held her fashionable crinoline petticoats. In seconds the heavy crinoline frame fell away and Armand lifted her out of it. Free of the impeding contraption, it was easier for Madeleine to keep up with him.

After what seemed an eternity, the embattled pair finally reached the ship’s rising port side. Gripping the wet wooden railing, Armand drew Madeleine in front of him, enclosing her in his arms as he clutched the rail. His eyes watering from the wind and salt spray of the sea, he anxiously peered over the ship’s side in search of a lifeboat.

There were none.

All the lifeboats had cast off and were rapidly rowing away from the doomed ship.

“God in heaven!” Armand swore in frustration. “There are no more lifeboats!”

“I know,” Madeleine said, exhaling resignedly as she pushed a soaked lock of hair off her cheek and gazed wistfully after the departing boats.

For a long uncertain moment the couple stood there together on the badly listing deck of the sinking vessel. The winds roared relentlessly and the huge waves rose to awesome heights, badly buffeting the crippled ship. Dozens of people, washed overboard, clung to wreckage. Others bobbed about like corks in the roiling sea, supported by life belts. And above the din, the terrible screams of people filled the air as they flailed about and drowned.

Madeleine trembled and a sob of fear escaped her lips.

“Come,” Armand shouted, “let’s get in out of the wind.”

His arm firmly around her, Armand guided the frightened Madeleine back across the slick deck and up the tilting bridge to the captain’s cabin, just off the wheelhouse. Sheltering her against his tall body, Armand tried the door. It was jammed. He pressed a muscular shoulder against it, pushed with all his strength and it flew open.

Quickly he handed Madeleine inside and followed, closing the door behind him. The cabin was deserted. The captain was gone. The crew was gone. They had either been swept overboard or had fled cowardly in one of the lifeboats.

Madeleine stood in the center of the small, tidy cabin, hugging herself. Chilled with fear, she thanked Armand with her eyes when he took a large white towel from a sea chest and handed it to her.

She blotted her wet shiny face, then began rubbing her thick, soaked hair. She watched as Armand took another towel, peeled off his drenched white shirt and dried his dark chest and wide shoulders.

“I’m sorry there are no dry clothes here for you to…” he began.

Swearing, he tore a clean gray blanket from a narrow bunk that hung from the far bulkhead by strong link chains. He wrapped the blanket around her trembling shoulders and suggested she sit down. She looked around, realizing the bed was the only place to sit. Madeleine shook her head and said she’d rather stand. The words had hardly passed her lips before a giant wave crashed against the cabin, sending her sprawling on the sharply canted deck.

Armand reached her in an instant, drawing her to her feet. “Are you all right?” he shouted, clasping her upper arms.

“Yes,” she shouted back, “but maybe I had better sit down.”

He guided her to the bunk and she sank down onto the mattress’s edge. Armand drew down the bunk’s canvas restraining straps and cinched them around her waist. “That should hold you,” he said. Then he exhaled heavily and sat down on the bed beside her, realizing there was nothing more to be done.

The ship continued to pitch and roll and plunge and rise as the hurricane-force winds slammed mercilessly into the crippled vessel. Strapped down in the captain’s bunk beside a virtual stranger, Lady Madeleine Cavendish tried very hard to be brave. She had been reared to keep a stiff upper lip in moments of crisis and to never let others know she was upset.

But she had never faced anything like this. It was impossible to hide the fact that she was terrified.

“We are going to die, aren’t we, Mr. de Chevalier?” the shivering Madeleine asked, her eyes round with fear.

Armand was quick to offer hope to the frightened woman. “No. Certainly not. This vessel has a wooden hull, which means it can stay afloat for hours,” he said and slid a comforting arm around her shaking shoulders. “There’s every chance that we will be picked up.” He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze, then dropped his hand away, bracing a stiffened arm behind her on the mattress.

“You don’t believe that,” she accused, studying his dark face for signs of sincerity. His unchanged countenance revealed nothing. “Do you?” She pulled the blanket closer around her shoulders.

“Yes, I do.” Armand insisted, keeping up the pretense for her sake. “With any luck another ship will pass by here within the hour and take us on-board.”

She nodded, but she was not fooled.

Her shoulders slumped with despair and try as she might, she could no longer hold back the tears that were stinging her eyes. Madeleine began to quietly cry. Armand didn’t hesitate. He took her in his arms and pressed her wet cheek to his bare chest. He stroked the crown of her damp hair, gently patted her slender back and comforted her with soft spoken words of solace.

In her rising fear, Madeleine put her arms around his trim waist, clasping her hands together behind his back. The blanket fell away from her shoulders. She clung to Armand as if he were her lifeline to survival. Tears spilling down her cheeks, she buried her face in the warm solidness of his naked chest and closed her eyes. Above her bent head, his deep, calm voice soothed and reassured.

Madeleine’s tears soon ceased, but Armand continued to hold her in his arms. On a soft inhalation of breath, she raised her head and looked up at him apologetically.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“For what?” He replied, then smiled at her in that devil-may-care way of his as if nothing were amiss. She knew that he was being brave and strong for her sake. And it touched her. She smiled back at him and realized, as she did so, that it was the first time she had ever really smiled at him. His dark, beautiful eyes lighted in response.

And as she smiled at him the thought struck her that his handsomely chiseled features would be the last face she saw this side of heaven. The two of them were going to die together in this tiny cabin. It might be an hour. It might be less. But soon the sinking ship would plunge with decisive finality into the dark, fathomless depths of ocean and she and de Chevalier would drown.

They were going to die together, two strangers who knew nothing about each other. Neither of them would ever see their homes or loved ones again. They would never again eat a sumptuous meal. Or drink chilled champagne. Or warm themselves before a roaring fire. Or laugh in the rain. Or dance beneath the stars.

Or make love.

Madeleine stirred against the handsome man who held her. The sea pounded against the ship. Waves slapped against the cabin. She clung to Armand, her arms wrapped around him, her head on his shoulder.

It was crazy, she knew, totally insane, but she wondered—as she had that first night when they had danced—what it would be like to kiss him. To be kissed by him. Through the cover of her half-lowered lashes, she gazed with interest at his sensual mouth.

And was amazed when Armand said, as if he could read her thoughts, “Kiss me, Countess.” He gently drew her closer, pushing the blanket completely away. Her head fell back against his supporting arm. He slowly bent his dark head to her upturned face. “Kiss me, once.”

Not waiting for permission, Armand kissed Madeleine. It was not a soft, feathery kiss of two people slowly becoming better acquainted. It was not a tender, closed-mouth caress of a lover who had forever and a day to win and woo his reluctant lady fair. It was not a brief, introductory meeting of two tentative pairs of lips.

It was a kiss of such flaring fire and primordial passion that Madeleine was instantly overwhelmed. Dazed and clutching at his smooth, deeply clefted back, she felt herself go limp in his strong arms as he swiftly deepened the blazing kiss. He thrust his tongue inside her mouth, boldly exploring all the highly sensitive regions, stroking her tongue with his own, sending her wits scattering and her pulses pounding.

Madeleine realized, as her lips were combined with his, that she wanted this handsome, hard-faced rogue. Before she died she wanted to know—one last time—the kind of passion she barely remembered from her first nights as a newlywed.

If any man could give her even the slightest taste of that kind of rapture, it was surely this dark, seductive Creole who was kissing her with such unrestrained passion. She sighed into Armand’s mouth and her nails raked down his warm smooth back. The more she considered the two of them making love, the more she wanted it.

The more she wanted him.

When at long last his conquering lips released hers, her head fell back against his rock-hard biceps. She looked into his eyes and trembled with rising desire.

“Mr. de Chevalier,” she said finally, almost shouting to be heard above the wind’s constant roar, “will you…that is, I…could we…?”

“What? I can’t hear you.” He leaned down, placed his ear close to her lips.

“Make love to me, Mr. de Chevalier,” she blurted out. Armand raised his head, looked at her, one dark eyebrow lifting slightly. She rushed her words, “We are going to go down with this ship. You know we are, I know we are. So what difference would it make if we…we…” Her words trailed away and she lowered her eyes, sorry that she had made such a preposterous proposal.

Until he put his thumb and forefinger to her chin, raised her face to his, and looking straight into her eyes, said, “I’ll make love to you on one condition.” He brushed a kiss to her temple. Madeleine’s brows knitted in puzzlement. He smiled and said, “If you’ll stop calling me Mr. de Chevalier. Say ‘Armand, make love to me.”’

Aroused by his stirring kiss and the granite hardness and awesome heat of his lean body, Lady Madeleine eagerly said, “Armand, make love to me.”

“With pleasure, Countess.”