you are an outrageous flatterer, and capable of luring helpless females into a game at which you are obviously a master, Captain Marston. Yes, I can well believe that you are capable of charming a snake out of its basket. How many female hearts have you stolen with such honeyed sentiments?’
His look was swift and predatory, and a roguish gleam brightened his eyes. ‘Some—although I see nothing helpless about you. However, most women would think such thoughts but never utter them.’
Cassandra saw laughter lurking in the depths of his dark eyes. He was mocking her. Annoyance stirred and her eyes flashed. ‘I am not most women, Captain Marston.’
He raised an eyebrow with an amused admiration. He hadn’t missed the flare of temper in her eyes. ‘I couldn’t agree more. You are unaware of the potency of your charms that makes you different, Mistress Everson, and I meant no insult.’
Cassandra smothered a smile at the man’s outrageous audacity. ‘None taken.’
‘And you will allow me to call on you when I return?’
‘Yes, of course. I shall look forward to it,’ she murmured.
‘Thank you. Duty may take me away from you now, but not for long. I will not lose you. If you are not here when I return, then I will find you in London.’ His voice was low, urgent and persuasive, and he was studying her from beneath his strongly marked eyebrows, watching her face as he bowed his dark head politely, his expression appraising as she turned and began to move away and followed the young midshipman and her companion off the beach.
Stuart’s eyes continued to watch her. Her step was one of confidence, as if she sensed hidden dangers ahead but determined nevertheless to enjoy them. She moved gracefully, with an added fluency that drew the eye to the elegance of her straight back and the proud tilt of her head. In those first dazzling moments when he had scooped her out of the capsizing boat, neither had been prepared for the impact of their meeting, for the attraction had been mutual and instantaneous. The unexpectedness of it astounded Stuart, and Cassandra would have been surprised if she had known the depth of his feelings as she walked away from him. Suddenly, this, his final trip on the Sea Hawk, had begun to take on a certain appeal.
Young, original and fresh, Mistress Everson possessed an indescribable magnetism in abundance, with that unique quality of innocence and sexuality rarely come by. She was a woman, hardly more than a child, with a combination of youthful beauty and an untouched air of shy modesty, and yet she had about her a primitive earthiness that sat strangely at odds with her well-bred gentility. When she smiled a small dimple appeared in her cheek, and her rosy parted lips revealed perfect, small white teeth. Stuart was enchanted. He thought he had never seen anything quite so appealing or irresistibly captivating as Mistress Everson. Women like her were as scarce and as hard to come by as a rare jewel and must be treated as such, and he was determined that she would not escape him.
He knew practically nothing about her, but the violence and depth of his attraction, and his instinct, told him he had met the woman with whom he wished to spend the rest of his life. He had always avoided any sentimental attachment, yet here, against his will—for he had not thought to look for a wife until he returned to England—he found his head filled with thoughts of Mistress Everson, and he became determined that as soon as he returned from Jamaica he would embark on the most exhilarating and exciting chase of his life.
As he was about to turn away he stopped in his tracks and looked at her again, checked, suddenly, by a memory when he saw a thick strand of her silvery gold hair, having come loose from the pins securing it beneath her hat, become caught by the breeze. It toyed with it and raised it high, and it rippled and danced behind her as she walked like a ship’s pennon borne on the wind. His brow became creased in a puzzled frown when the memory stirred once more. He tried to think what it was and to remember of whom it was Mistress Everson reminded him. He got no further, for at that moment he was distracted when one of his crew drew his attention, and he was forced to turn his mind to other things.
Cassandra knew Captain Marston was watching her as she walked away through the vibrant, colourful profusion of people thronging the beach. She was tempted to turn her head and look back, but for some strange reason that was beyond her she kept her eyes focused ahead.
How could it be that after a few minutes away from him she was already craving his company once more? When he had looked into her eyes she had felt the intensity of his regard, and had known that he was passionately aware of her. Their meeting had left her tingling with pleasure, for she had never met a man so fascinating, stimulating and exciting. That he was a man of power and accustomed to obedience from others was clear.
She very much hoped they would meet again—or did she? She sighed, totally confused. What was wrong with her? Had she lost control of her reason? Was the island getting to her already? Was it the heat or some temporary madness? No one had ever made her feel this way. Could it possibly be that she was falling in love with a man she had met just once?
Chapter Three
T he Courtly plantation lay some four miles inland in the parish of St George, a broad lowland area separating the higher central uplands from the southern region. Since the settlement of Barbados by English colonists in 1627, the island had developed with astonishing rapidity, as forest clearance had proceeded apace, and the production of sugar, and its by-products, rum and molasses, had become the island’s principal economy. Barbados was politically stable, with the institution of slavery dominating every aspect of life on the island.
Protected from the sun’s hot rays by a parasol she had acquired in Trinidad, seated beside Rosa in the swaying carriage, Cassandra had a good view of the sun-drenched island. At the back of her was the jewel-bright sea, and before her stretched an undulating landscape of small settlements, modest hills and a patchwork of flat, tidy sugar fields, with the sight of expansive sugar plantations and poorly maintained settlers’ cabins dotting the verdant landscape.
Winding footpaths cut through brush and forest, thick with tropical foliage. The size and shapes of the trees, many of them towering fringed cabbage palms, were awesome. Leaving the road, they travelled down a wide track. Ahead of them were the outbuildings and the main house of a sprawling plantation. The three-storey stone and timber house, sturdy and handsome, which had been built on a rise above the cane fields to catch the cooling breezes and to look over the estate, was a stately English manor house in a tropical setting.
The plantation consisted of boiling houses and distilleries and other factory houses necessary for the manufacture of sugar, along with the squalid rows of palm-thatched slave huts, which were at the rear of the big house. They were partly hidden from sight by a barrier of trees and far enough away so any unpleasant odours did not offend the refined noses of the gentry who inhabited or visited Courtly Hall.
John had told her a little of Sir Charles Courtly, whose father, backed by merchant capital in England, had arrived on Barbados in the 1640s. Growing sugar had been his carriage to wealth and he had amassed a fortune, which, on his demise, had passed to his son. The family had become one of several that had come to dominate the island’s economy and politics. When he wasn’t in England—where he displayed an ostentatious lifestyle—Sir Charles Courtly hosted some of the most elaborate social gatherings on the island.
The carriage travelled up a long, narrow avenue lined with fringed palms. As they neared the house Cassandra’s reaction to the heat, the smell, the noise and the people she saw going about their work was almost physical. She breathed deeply with pleasure, for nothing had prepared her for this, but when the carriage stopped at the door of the house her heart throbbed. Knowing the painful interview with her cousin was close, a tension began to build inside her.
The door was opened by a servant, a man resplendent in pale blue silk, and when he saw Cassandra and Rosa, a wide, incredulous smile of welcome split his black face. The man, whose name was Henry, was so polite and his smile so infectious, that the two women were put at ease immediately.
When Cassandra introduced herself and Rosa and told him who it was she wished to see, he bade them enter. Cassandra paused to enquire of the young midshipman about paying the driver of the carriage,