She pulled the sheet up to her neck and prayed for strength to resist and tried to recall all the questions still unanswered.
Sebastian closed the door quietly.
“Sit here,” he told the servant, indicating the chair near the door. “Come to me for help if she is upset or has nightmares.” The servant nodded and Sebastian headed for the beach. He needed a woman or a swim in cold water, and right now there was only one woman he wanted.
Isabelle Reynaud was a sweet confection. Tiny, not so much short as fine boned and perfectly proportioned, what a Regency man would have called a “Pocket Venus.” Her hair was so dark and so long that he wondered how her neck could bear the weight of it. He could hardly wait to feel that hair once it had been washed, to taste her, to make himself part of her.
But the woman would need to grieve awhile. He understood that, even if death no longer moved him.
Anticipation would make her surrender all the more satisfying. He could spend weeks tutoring her in the finer points of erotic pleasure.
What a lovely surprise Joubay had brought for him. Sebastian decided she was meant as a consolation if Joubay’s idea for ending the curse did not work.
Damn, damn, damn. The old man was free now. Even worse, without him in the world searching for the solution, there was no hope of ending it. A dozen women were not consolation enough.
Shedding his clothes, Sebastian walked into the water, dove into a small wave and swam out to the deeper, cooler part of the harbor.
Three
Isabelle closed her eyes and prayed, for Father Joubay, the ship’s owner, herself and Sebastian Dushayne. She was not sure which one of them needed it more.
Her dreams were filled with grief this time, the dead, bloated bodies of Father Joubay and the captain and a Sebastian Dushayne who did not care if the birds feasted on them. Just as the dream verged on a nightmare, Father Joubay rose from the water and walked through it to the shore, looking like his mortal self. “Do not grieve. We are buried and our souls have gone to God.”
She fell more deeply asleep, sure she could feel Father Joubay’s hand comforting her.
“Do you remember that moment in New Orleans?” he asked. “How I threw out my prepared sermon and talked about how much help was needed on this little Caribbean island?”
“Of course I do. How no one had the most routine vaccinations, and health care was centuries out of date.”
“The Church of Lost Souls was filled with people who understood, who’d been through Katrina.”
Their eyes met as Isabelle remembered, as Joubay announced he was looking for someone trained in medicine willing to accompany him and volunteer for a year. Isabelle had smiled and Father Joubay had smiled back, and their pact was made.
“Dearest Isabelle,” Father Joubay spoke with some urgency as his body began to fade and drift upward. “Do not abandon your commitment. Do not grieve, or better yet, let grief fuel your good deeds. There is so much need here and you are the key.”
All right, Isabelle decided as Father disappeared into the clouds. Let her grief fuel her good deeds. She would stay for the year she had promised. She would sing hymns as Sebastian Dushayne demanded. She would do her best to update the medical care, introduce routine inoculations and set a standard that could save lives. It was what Father Joubay had asked her to do. It was why she had come.
From her own experience she knew that if God wanted her to do something else, she would know.
Finally, at last, Isabelle’s sleep was as pure as her body and as sweet as her heart.
When she woke the third time, Isabelle had no idea what time of day it was or even if it was the same day. She did feel one hundred percent better and decided that the healer’s salve was worth investigating.
The sun shone, so she pushed up from bed, wrapped a sheet around her nakedness and went to the window.
The opening looked out onto a village that was a few hundred yards from the castle, or was this a fort? The one main street was quiet, only a woman and a girl walking its length.
That meant it was probably noontime. This part of the world still understood the merits of a siesta, though more sleep was the last thing Isabelle needed right now.
If she could find some clothes and dress, she would ask someone to show her to the cottage that was going to be her clinic and her home.
There was a shy knock at the door and Isabelle turned back from the window just as a woman came into the room, carrying a bundle of neatly folded clothes.
“Good afternoon, Mistress Doctor. It is a surprise to see that you are up and about. Are you feeling that much better?”
“Yes, thank you, amazingly better. What is that ointment that Mr. Dushayne gave me?”
“Ointment?” She seemed uncertain for a moment. “Oh, yes, it is the curing cream that the healer makes. It is all most of us need.”
Isabelle heard the defensive tone in that last sentence and recalled Father Joubay’s They do not want you. Well, she had faced that before in so many different guises that she was not surprised.
“I can see why you find the cream essential. It really worked. I am so looking forward to meeting the honored healer.”
The woman cackled. “She is no more honored than a witch doctor. She drinks too much, demands the finest pieces of fish and gives the best care to those who bring her anything that shines.” The woman raised her index finger, making the final point. “But she does know how to heal almost everything and that makes us tolerate her shortcomings.”
“Thank you for the insight.” She gave the woman, most likely the housekeeper, a deferential nod. Isabelle would judge for herself, but every piece of information was useful, so she told herself this was not gossip. “My name is Isabelle Reynaud. And I am not a fully trained doctor but a physician’s assistant.”
The woman shrugged as if that made no difference. “I am Vermille, Mistress Housekeeper of the castillo. You may call me Mistress Vermille. I will take you to the bathing room and give you these clothes.” She held up the folded clothes. “All your things were lost or ruined in the storm but these will fit you. The master sent to the hotel for them and he is very good at estimating the size a woman wears.”
“Thank you, Mistress Housekeeper,” Isabelle said, even as she cringed at the use of the word “master” to describe Sebastian Dushayne. His was a small world but he did control all of it.
“I would love to wash my hair. After I bathe and dress, could you spare someone to show me to the cottage in the village where my clinic will be?”
“Yes,” she said bluntly. “Come with me.” Mistress Vermille did not wait but left the room. Isabelle followed her, feeling silly using the sheet as a bathrobe, but the passageway was empty so it really didn’t matter.
“When you are dressed, follow the passage and turn right at every opportunity.”
With that, Mistress Vermille left her at the door of what she called “the bathing chamber.”
The bath defied conventional description. The toilet was no more than a hole in rock and there was no shower or sink, but the bath was more like a small swimming pool, big enough to float freely in. There were hooks on the wall, a very comfortable-l ooking chaise longue and a mirror that was bigger than she was.
The room had three windows, the shutters were pulled closed at the moment and the space was lit with candles. A sybarite’s delight. Isabelle had never been a hedonist, could never afford to live like one, but thought the adjustment would not be hard to make.
She walked around the bath and found some steps at the far end. The water was warm, comfortable, but not as hot as she would have liked. It felt like silk, liquid silk, and she enjoyed the sensuality of it as much as the feeling of being clean.
There were five elegant stone containers with various soaps, all the fragrances different. She chose the one that smelled like jasmine. It was heaven to wash her hair.