“You won’t see him down there. He’s just coming home from his long voyage; he felt like he’d been at sea forever. He’s tired and hungry and he wants to see his new house.”
“So the luscious Captain Caleb was coming home that night?”
Caleb smiled. “Luscious. I like that word. But this evening he was anything but. As he stepped onto Kingsley Lane he saw his new house lit up—and he didn’t like it. You see, John and Parthenia were getting married that night and half the island was invited. But the Captain didn’t know that. All he saw was that there were a thousand candles, and many carriages and horses outside. The manure was ankle deep.”
“What a romantic image,” Alix said, laughing. “Did the Captain run the people out?”
“No, he was never like that. But he didn’t yet want to see anyone, so he sneaked inside and made his way up the stairs to his bedroom. Unfortunately, he found his bed covered with ladies’ cloaks, so he went up to the attic.”
“To hide away and sulk.”
“No!” Caleb said, sounding affronted, but then he twirled Alix even harder and gave a little smile. “Perhaps it was so, but for whatever reason, he was there when Valentina came upstairs.”
“With a young man?” Alix asked.
“No. She wanted to remove her shoes and be quiet for a moment. She had been danced off her feet.”
“Was this a romantic meeting?”
“Hardly,” Caleb said, a smile in his voice. “You see, he didn?
?t know her and from the look of her, he believed it was quite possible that she was a lady of the evening.”
“It sounds to me like Captain Caleb had just returned from exotic ports, took one look at the gorgeous, voluptuous Valentina, and made a serious pass at her. I don’t think it was his mind that was involved in that first meeting.”
“Perhaps,” he said, grinning. “I think the schoolmaster’s daughter is too clever. You’ll never get a husband that way.”
Alix returned his smile. “My mother is also very clever and she got Captain Caleb.”
His laugh rang out and indeed it was the one Alix remembered so well, so deep, coming from way inside him, rumbling upward like rich, dark, sweet molasses. “I swear I have not laughed so well since you were last here. Now, where was I in my story?”
“John Kendricks’s daughter was too smart for any man to handle.”
Caleb smiled. “It is true that on that first night Captain Caleb tried to persuade the beautiful Valentina to kiss him. But that’s all there was.”
“How much rum was involved?” Alix asked.
“Measured in gallons or flagons?”
Alix laughed. “Did Valentina slap him?”
“No,” Caleb said. “She …”
Alix looked at him. “Are you blushing?”
“That is a female condition,” he said. “Men do not blush.”
“What did Valentina do to the Captain? Who, by the way, might have been a bit tipsy.”
“She played a trick on him. You see, she pretended to invite him to make love to her.”
“What does that mean?”
Caleb kept dancing, holding on to Alix, and took his time in answering. “She got him to remove his clothing.”
“You mean he was naked and she wasn’t?”
“Yes.” Caleb gave a sheepish grin. “Once the Captain had disrobed entirely, Valentina took his clothing and left the attic. She locked the door rather securely behind her.”