INSTALLMENT SEVENTEEN
You will recall that Lady Xenia Bloodsweep is now voyaging from her aunt's plantation in the West Indies to the sultry coast of Malabar, where her prospective husband, Baron Estabrook, a cold and calculating man whose heart never stirs save for sinister pleasure over his latest profit-taking, awaits. But, you will remember, the journey itself seems to have awakened something in Lady Xenia, for Captain Hawksbeam's dark eyes and chiseled visage have set her astir. . . .
INSTALLMENT 17
Xenia had come to the Captain's cabin in hopes of refilling her whale-oil lamp, but when she pushed back the mahogany door, and saw Hawksbeam's statuesque frame coiled over his charts and a glass of blood-dark port, it flashed across her mind that she might yet be filled in other ways.
"Captain, I. . . I didn't mean to. . . "
"Startle me? No, my lady. I, who has ridden the briny toss since hairless boyhood, who has seen the brutal scimtar of the Tripoli pirate, and the cutting teeth of the sperm whale, who has seen the porpoise mount his mate in waters thick with heaves of ice, am not so easily startled."
"Indeed." Now the tables were turned - she herself felt startled. Startled with the stirring in her bosom, the warmth that seemed to fill her loins like steaming water flowing into a teacup. Unsettled, she attributed it to the tropical sea air, the thick molasses black of the ocean night.
"Yes, I have tended no land, and served no king, and apprenticed at no craft. But only the sea, the salt-filled queen who makes slaves of men, has been my master. Surely I hold no regret - not for the men I felled beneath my cutlass, for they were knaves, not for the life left behind on shore, for the life of the shoreman is one of ease and emptiness. Yet one doubt lingers, hovering about me like a merciless bird of prey, slowly flying around a wounded jackal on the African veldt."
She felt herself spellbound, as if captured in a pit of tar, by the Captain's words, which fell from his tongue like gentle snowfall. And like a thirsty drunk, coming across a wine barrel that fell to the street, she drank, deeply.
"What, pray, Captain?" The words could barely escape her luscious lips, for she was nearly bent with unnamed anticipation.
"It is this, Lady Xenia. What has escaped my muscle-corded hands, is love, the love of a woman that stings like poison and fills like stout porrage.
"I. . . I. . ." Xenia could hardly mutter, as she saw the captain rise, his sinews each tense as his manly body rippled as he stood.
"But you, you, with your eyes as azure as the azure stone itself, your skin like cut cream, your hair a raven-toned cascade of inviting folds. You - I must have!"
He moved towards her, his steps full of strength and intent. It was all she could do to stumble backwards, propriety blending with unquenchable desire as she fell back against the hard wood of his seachest. She felt her bodice-pin clench against her heaving flesh as his arms, firm like firewood, encircled her quivering frame.
She would have fainted, fainted with need and desire, but the heat of his manflesh sent shivers of lifesblood through her veins. Softly, with breath weakened by maddening passion, she begged him to take her.
But he knew, knew better than she herself what she needed. His thrusting member rumpled her petticoats around her accepting thighs. And though she was a novice in the arts of sea-bound lovemaking, she didn't shy away, no trembling virgin her. Indeed, she felt herself moved as if by an unseen hand, into him, with a vigor and animal wildness that would have stunned a Mongolian tiger. . . .
INSTALLMENT 17
Xenia had come to the Captain's cabin in hopes of refilling her whale-oil lamp, but when she pushed back the mahogany door, and saw Hawksbeam's statuesque frame coiled over his charts and a glass of blood-dark port, it flashed across her mind that she might yet be filled in other ways.
"Captain, I. . . I didn't mean to. . . "
"Startle me? No, my lady. I, who has ridden the briny toss since hairless boyhood, who has seen the brutal scimtar of the Tripoli pirate, and the cutting teeth of the sperm whale, who has seen the porpoise mount his mate in waters thick with heaves of ice, am not so easily startled."
"Indeed." Now the tables were turned - she herself felt startled. Startled with the stirring in her bosom, the warmth that seemed to fill her loins like steaming water flowing into a teacup. Unsettled, she attributed it to the tropical sea air, the thick molasses black of the ocean night.
"Yes, I have tended no land, and served no king, and apprenticed at no craft. But only the sea, the salt-filled queen who makes slaves of men, has been my master. Surely I hold no regret - not for the men I felled beneath my cutlass, for they were knaves, not for the life left behind on shore, for the life of the shoreman is one of ease and emptiness. Yet one doubt lingers, hovering about me like a merciless bird of prey, slowly flying around a wounded jackal on the African veldt."
She felt herself spellbound, as if captured in a pit of tar, by the Captain's words, which fell from his tongue like gentle snowfall. And like a thirsty drunk, coming across a wine barrel that fell to the street, she drank, deeply.
"What, pray, Captain?" The words could barely escape her luscious lips, for she was nearly bent with unnamed anticipation.
"It is this, Lady Xenia. What has escaped my muscle-corded hands, is love, the love of a woman that stings like poison and fills like stout porrage.
"I. . . I. . ." Xenia could hardly mutter, as she saw the captain rise, his sinews each tense as his manly body rippled as he stood.
"But you, you, with your eyes as azure as the azure stone itself, your skin like cut cream, your hair a raven-toned cascade of inviting folds. You - I must have!"
He moved towards her, his steps full of strength and intent. It was all she could do to stumble backwards, propriety blending with unquenchable desire as she fell back against the hard wood of his seachest. She felt her bodice-pin clench against her heaving flesh as his arms, firm like firewood, encircled her quivering frame.
She would have fainted, fainted with need and desire, but the heat of his manflesh sent shivers of lifesblood through her veins. Softly, with breath weakened by maddening passion, she begged him to take her.
But he knew, knew better than she herself what she needed. His thrusting member rumpled her petticoats around her accepting thighs. And though she was a novice in the arts of sea-bound lovemaking, she didn't shy away, no trembling virgin her. Indeed, she felt herself moved as if by an unseen hand, into him, with a vigor and animal wildness that would have stunned a Mongolian tiger. . . .
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