Harry & the Pirate I: Querida
Chapter 27 "Deleted Scene"
~ 3 ~
They walked along briskly then, speaking of this and that, and the miles passed quickly.
Jack told her of life on “the finest, most fearsome pirate ship in the Caribbean” (a somewhat expurgated version, but with enough juicy meat to pique her interest) and a little of his life growing up in England: neither lowborn, nor high, a profligate’s bastard, spending his somewhat lonely childhood in the green countryside, in their own little cottage, his mother, and then the local vicar teaching him his letters, trying to keep the quick mind occupied and from mischief, with somewhat indifferent success.
She spoke of her girlhood and her family, and her life of privilege, and her impatience with the shackles of convention, though ultimately she would bend to her father’s will with her marriage to Corazón.
“There are but two roads for a woman, my friend,” she told Jack, with wry humor and a wisdom beyond her years, “and my temperament is ill-suited to the convent, I fear.”
“Oh, sí! Of course, there is not so much risk in being a ‘Bride of Christ’.”
“No,” she agreed, thoughtfully. She glanced sidelong at him, coloring a little, and said bluntly, “You have made love to many women?”
He raised a brow. “Now what sort of question is that for a gently bred lady to ask a pirate, eh?”
She gave him an impatient look. “Do not toy with me, Malvado! It is a perfectly reasonable question. I think you must have had many women, for my ‘Lita was correct about your appearance.”
The face of a fallen angel. Jack smirked, and purred, “Then why ask, if you already know the answer, Querida? Or is it something else you really wish to know?”
She flushed deeper, but said, “Ah! You have guessed it. I wish to know what it is like, you see-to make love. And who better to ask than you, whom I will likely never see after this night, and who is possessed of much knowledge. My aunt tells me only that it is a woman’s duty and that my husband will teach me what I need to know. And my ‘Lita tells me to ask my aunt! No one will tell me anything to the purpose, and I am to be married in a month. Madre de Dios it makes me angry! I am no longer a child!”
Jack’s mouth twisted. “Querida, I appreciate your candor, and quite understand your curiosity as well, but do you think I am unaffected by speaking of such things, and with a great beauty near at hand? I must beg you: be merciful!”
“A great beauty?” she repeated, blankly, then exclaimed, “Do you mean me?”
Jack frowned reproval. “This ingenuousness sits ill upon you, señorita.”
Juana stared, and then said, “But no! I…you think me beautiful?”
“Good God, niña! Have you no mirror?”
“Of course I have! It tells me I am well enough.”
“‘Well enough’!” Jack shook his head. “I find you absurd, Querida. Suffice it to say that Don Alejandro is the most fortunate of men. The good God grant that he keep it in mind, all the days of your lives.”
Juana stared up at him. “What a pretty thing to say! You do not sound like a pirate in the least.”
Jack shrugged. “And how many pirates have you met, Querida? They are no more all alike than other men.”
“There was the one who would have ruined me. A very different man than you, I think.”
“The dishonor of women is against our code. He will suffer.”
She shivered. “What will come to him?”
“A flogging, niña. Little enough.”
She nodded, and was quiet for a while. Then she said, “So you will not tell me of this thing they name ‘love’ - the way of a man with a maid?”
Jack sighed, and retorted, “So my entreaties for mercy fall on beautiful but deaf ears?”
“Oh, sí. Quite deaf. Tell me.”
He chuckled. “Very well, Querida, I…” But his voice trailed off as a new sound met his ears, quite suddenly, from around the next bend in the road, a little way ahead.
“Caballos!” Juana hissed. She’d no sooner spoken the word than the troop of horsemen came into sight. She gasped, recognizing the intruders in an instant, and noting out of the corner of her eye that Jack’s hand had grasped his sword hilt. “No!” she exclaimed, and shoved him into the shadows. “Pirata estupido! They are too many! We must hide!”
Jack, who on hearing the horsemen suddenly realized he had been utterly careless in his speech and actions with this engaging child-for in truth, she was hardly more! -had half expected her to break from him and hail the intruders, calling on them to rescue her and to belay her piratical escort. But she did not, instead scolding him like a shrew, and urging him forcibly to safety.
Accordingly, they both scrambled down into a shallow ravine that ran along the road, overhung with trees that kept off the revealing moonlight. Fetching up against the bole of one aged specimen, they stopped, Juana clinging to Jack’s arm.
“Hush!” she demanded, imperatively, peering up to where the road lay.
Jack smiled in the darkness, feeling her hands gripping the sleeve of his coat. As the horsemen came closer…closer…they shrank into the deep shadows. And then the threat was passing, with a drumming of hooves, headed up the road in the direction from which the two had come.
“It is the Commandant and his men,” said Juana. “They must somehow have received word. I hope your Capitán finished his work quickly, or there will surely be bloodshed.”
“I think they will have gone, Querida,” said Jack. “It is less than an hour ‘til night fades.”
They stood silently together, until the patrol was well past them. And then Jack took Juana by the shoulders and turned her toward him in the darkness. She put up her hands and placed them against his chest, but made no other objection, and he could see how her great eyes were shining as she looked up at him.
“You did not call them to you, and I thought you might,” he said. “I thank you, mi amor. “
“Call them?” she repeated. “You thought me capable of such a thing, after you saved me from….that villain? For shame!” She gripped the edges of his coat and gave him a little shake, to emphasize her words.
“Querida!” He said slowly, “Trust is a luxury in my life, and I am unaccustomed to the sort of truth we have spoken tonight. Forgive me for doubting.” He reached up with one hand, and lay it lightly against the side of her face. To his delight, she tilted her cheek against his hand a little, half-closing her eyes, just for a moment. But then she opened them again, peering at him closely, trying to see him in the shadows.
“No. You are right, mi amigo,” she said. “I too have trusted, more than I should, perhaps.”
There was a moment’s hesitation, and then he murmured, “Trust me a little longer, then, Querida. Let me show you something of what may lie between a man and a maid.”
He drew her close, and felt her breathe his name before his lips met hers, tenderly, tentatively. She was very still, whether from fear or some other emotion, but then she made a little unformed sound and a quiver ran through the slender form. He smiled against her mouth as her arms slid up around his neck, her hands slipping beneath his hair. He withdrew his lips just enough to whisper, “Ah, Juana!”
“Malvado!” she said, the word belying her meaning.
Another kiss, his embrace less gentle now, one arm about her shoulders, his other hand straying down, past the trim waist, daring to caress the rounded, provocative flesh covered by the heavy skirts, pressing her close against him, briefly indulging his hunger, showing her how very much she was desired. She gave a tiny gasp, but there was no sign of protest. Indeed, another delicious sound of longing escaped her, sweet as music, and her arms tightened around him.
Lord, he thought. Time to end this, before he forgot what she was. What he was. He moved his lips from hers, and thence across her cheek to whisper soft against her ear, “Mi amor!”
She uttered a shaky laugh, loosened her hold on him, and looked up. “Am I, Juan? Is this part of your truth?”
“For tonight, Querida. It is.” He let her go then, with great reluctance. She stepped away, and the loss was nearly anguish.
She said, “We should go, Juan Gorrión. It…it grows light in the east.”
He nodded.
They helped each other climb back onto the road. All was still again, but for the beating of two hearts.
Juana reached out to him. “I wish…” But her voice trailed off, for it was useless to say such things in the face of their separate realities. Her hand fell to her side, a touch of irony in her smile.
Jack’s smile mirrored hers, for a moment, but then faded. “I wish, too, Querida,” he said simply.
They were silent after that, as they continued on the last mile of their journey, but Juana slipped her hand into Jack’s, saying all that needed to be said.
Presently they came to the top of the last hill, where they could look down on the pretty hacienda and its outbuildings, laid out around the bay.
“Look!” Turning toward the ocean, Jack pointed to the dark ship riding the swell, waiting to claim her own. He glanced down at Juana, and smiled to see her look of wonder at the sight of the Black Pearl.
“Someday, I will be her captain, Querida,” he said, pride and certainty in his voice.
She smiled. “I do not doubt it.”
The moon was setting, and dawn glowed in the east as they made their way down to where the hacienda lay sleeping.
Juana turned to Jack as they reached the gate. He picked up the hand that he had been holding all this while, placed a kiss on her fingers, and released her.
“Ve con Dios, Juana Alba.”
“Y tú, Juan Gorrión,” she said, her voice husky. “I will not forget you.”
She left him then, and began to walk toward the house, the little figure slim and very straight, her shining braid swaying. But before she’d gone far, he spoke, as though compelled. “Querida!”
She hesitated, but then turned back, to face him, her face pale and perfect in the faint light, and she did not smile but simply looked.
He said, slowly, “If it chances that Don Alejandro should fail to be worthy of such a treasure, send word.”
Her eyes widened as she took in all the implications of this statement. A little smile tugged at her lips. She nodded once, gravely, and turned again, and walked quickly to the house, and she did not look back.
But Jack waited in the shadows by the gate until Juana had opened the heavy door and slipped inside, and in the pale light he heard the startled greetings of the few servants who had risen with the dawn, and of Juana’s own sweet voice, exclaiming: “No, indeed, I am well! ‘Lita is safe with Consuelo, and I escaped from them! It was the Black Pearl, amigas! The fiercest pirates in the Caribbean!”
o-o-o
“So you had only the one kiss of her! How very sad.”
Jack raised a brow and looked quite shocked at this sentiment. “She was sixteen, Harry! Little more than a child, for all she was betrothed.”
“Humph” his love scoffed, “I remember sixteen quite well, in spite of my advanced years, and girls ripen early in these warmer climes. She wanted you, and you barely touched her, honorable as you are!””
He snorted. “She may have thought she did.”
“You would have been so good to her. You would have been first, and she would have loved you all her life.”
“As you loved Fanshawe?”
That made her pause, but then she frowned, her eyes holding a rueful twinkle. “No, not at all. You are nothing like Charles. You… you think.”
“I do now. And,” he added, when she opened her mouth to object, “I suppose I did then.” His smile faded, and he hesitated, and stroked her flushed cheek with his knuckle. “Did he hurt you?” It was barely a question, for he already knew the answer.
And there was something in his eyes that made Harry think it well the Duke was safe underground. “He did,” she said, her voice unsteady. “But that was another journey. This time, you came with me, just as you did with Juana.”
He gave her a kiss, eyelids drooping now, his fingers drifting, light and slow, across her breast, and then lower. “Not quite the same. And you weren’t a maid of sixteen, were you, love?”
With a sigh of delight, she renewed her own explorations, but chuckled ruefully. “Nearly as untutored, however. Fortunately I seem to be a very quick study.” She arched suddenly beneath his touch, and gasped, “Ah! Jack!” His mouth came down on hers, muffling her little cries, and she gradually relaxed, trembling, into his touch. Then he gentled the kiss and pulled his lips away, enough to feel her quickened breath upon them, and to look into her eyes, his own full of intended mischief.
“Malvado!” she murmured, smiling.
He smiled, too, at that and trailed kisses across her cheek. And then, as her questing hand found what it had been seeking, his own breath caught, before he gave a pleased sigh, and whispered, “Querida!”
~ Finis ~