Surrender To Love

On the verge of offering Menika a bribe of a gold bracelet or several rupees, Alexa thought better of it and instead used the courteous word karunakolla, which also meant please but was for the most part used between equals and implied respect for the other person at the same time.

“You shouldn’t ask such a thing of me. If the other lady wakes up she will be very angry and blame me! And it might not be safe to swim there alone. Colombo is full of thieves and bad men who might think, seeing you dressed like…not like an English lady…”

“We are surely not going to be troubled by any desperate characters in the gardens of Queen’s House? I remember seeing uniformed guards everywhere when we arrived.” Alexa’s voice went from coaxing to teasingly mischievous. “Oh, do unbend for once, Menika! Have you never been tempted to do something forbidden? Isn’t there any special friend that you sometimes slip out to meet? I’m sure you know how we can avoid running into any of the sentries, who are all probably asleep or playing cards at this hour anyway. And I’ll go barefoot, and be very quiet, I promise you. Look, I’ll even take my little pistol just in case we run into a snake—of any species! And I can use it too. I never miss.”

Caught between what Sir John Travers, who was a scholar, would have termed “Scylla and Charybdis,” poor Menika found herself left with no real choice after all. She could hardly let this unusual young Englishwoman try to find the tiny natural inlet known as the Governor’s pool by herself, for if she got lost or something happened to her, she, Menika, would be blamed for everything. But on the other hand, this young Englishwoman wore the costume of the people without a trace of awkwardness, and she had just proved by the swiftness and ease with which she had loaded her pistol that she was quite familiar with such weapons, this one now carefully hidden in the folds of a lace shawl.

If I do as she wishes perhaps it will not turn out badly after all, Menika thought consideringly. After all, she acts as if she can take care of herself as well as any man, and there is no soft fat on her body. Perhaps, once her wish is gratified she will grow bored and want to return. And besides, hadn’t she actually asked her politely instead of ordering?

Sensing surrender, Alexa smiled at Menika, impatiently running fingers through the heavy mass of her hair before twisting it into a knot at the nape of her neck.

“Come, let’s go quickly on this adventure, and I promise not to take too long. And as for my aunt, I know she’ll sleep soundly until morning. She’s probably taken one of her headache powders as she usually does when she is tired and wants to sleep without interruption.”

Resigning herself, Menika bowed her head. “If you are determined, then it would be better, I suppose, if I took you by the easiest and safest way. There is a back staircase that is used only by servants, and it is very narrow—you will have to watch your footing. And there is a secret path. I have never used it myself, but my mother who has worked here for many, many years showed it to me once. There are no guards posted along that path or about the bathing pool either. A previous Governor gave the order…” Menika’s eyes darted to the face of her unlikely companion, and detecting no shock but only a lively curiosity, went on in a soft voice: “He was a man who, like most men, enjoyed women. Others, beside his wife.” Speaking in her native tongue instead of the pidgin English she had acquired, Menika seemed much more at ease. Now she said hastily, “But please, from this moment we must be very quiet. There are guards close by.”

Hurrying along on bare feet over dew-damp grass, feeling and relishing with a mounting sense of exhilaration the freedom from the restriction of layer upon layer of heavy clothing, Alexa wanted to laugh out loud. With Menika leading the way they slipped between tall hedges that shut out most of the moonlight, following a path that was almost completely grassed over so that it was now a mere track. An owl hooted from somewhere close by, and the fragrance of flowers lingered in the air. Some people would have called this a romantic night, but to Alexa it was only another example of the beauty of nature itself. And now, sensing the nearness of the ocean, she began to long for the feel of silky-cool water against her skin…to be floating on her back while she watched the moon float above her, and feeling herself rocked gently by the motion of the never-still sea.

“The…the cry of the owl…it is supposed to be a bad omen!” Menika was obviously nervous.

“Nonsense!” Alexa said as bracingly as Harriet might have done. “The owl is only awake at night. Does the twittering of birds in the daytime alarm you? There is nothing frightening or mysterious about the night; it is merely a time when the sun is shining on the other side of our world…when the sun is resting,” Alexa quickly amended, catching the puzzled look Menika threw over her shoulder.

“I had never thought about it that way,” the girl said with a note of surprise in her low voice. And then she broke off suddenly to point ahead. “That is the place. It was not made by any person, but by the sea itself, slipping through that narrow opening there to form a protected bathing place. But the former Governor I told you about had rough steps cut into the rocks. See? On this side. The pool, however, is quite deep, so I have heard.”

“How beautiful! And especially under the moon! Don’t you want to come in too? I could teach you how to float if you’d trust me.”

“No…no!” Menika stepped backward apprehensively. “I cannot swim, and I would not dare try the water. It frightens me. Please, perhaps we should return to the house? The water looks so black where the moon does not touch it, and it keeps moving as if it was breathing…”

“Well, I’m going in, and this is probably the last opportunity I will have to swim out in the open—under the sky—without all the hampering clothes I shall be expected to wear all the time now, I expect. Oh, how I hate clothes, and everything they represent! Repression—hyprocrisy—sham!” Alexa was talking to herself, almost, as she removed the skimpy bodice and tossed it aside before undoing the carelessly tied knot that held her improvised “skirt” about her hips. She stood there in the moonlight like a naked Greek goddess carved out of marble, stretching her arms out wide over her head with an almost primitive sense of ecstasy she did not quite understand herself as she paid homage to the moon and to the ocean—both female like herself. And then she said carelessly, “Are you sure it’s deep?” and dived in without waiting for a reply, her body cleaving through black and silver with hardly any splash at all—coming up for air with her hair dripping and hanging heavily down her back; the reflected shine of the moon gleaming off her wet skin as well.

“Ohh! It’s wonderful! And actually quite warm too. Do join me, Menika. Be daring just this once! I can swim and I promise to look after you.” But the girl only shook her head, backing off as she glanced nervously behind her.

“Please, if you do not mind I will wait here for you and watch.” There was no budging her for all Alexa’s coaxing; and all she would say, stubbornly, was, “I will wait, and guide you back when you are ready.”

In the end, seeing Alexa begin to swim back and forth—sometimes diving under water like a fish and coming up some moments later to shake back her long, strangely colored hair—Menika decided resignedly that she might as well rest for a while, since she was tired and had hoped to snatch a few hours of sleep tonight. Retreating a short distance into the shadows thrown by the shrubbery that had been allowed to grow wild at this particular place, Menika leaned her back against a tree, tucking her feet under her. Oh, but she was tired! She had been awake since five in the morning and had been working ever since. Perhaps if she could just close her eyes for a few minutes…

Poor little thing, Alexa thought contritely as she came up for air, delighting in the salty tang and taste of the sea. Perhaps she should forgo her own selfish pleasure and go back for Menika’s sake. But then, watching the riding lights of a ship that was anchored some distance away, beyond the coral reef that protected this part of Ceylon’s coast from sharks and enormous breakers that could crush any unwary bathers, Alexa decided that she might just as well enjoy herself and the glorious feeling of freedom that bubbled in her veins. She had never done anything this daring before. Swimming stark naked in the Governor’s private pool on a moonlit night. What if the Governor himself had the same idea? She had to resist the impulse to giggle at that thought. Not the Right Honorable James Alexander Stewart Mackenzie, most certainly! Balding, bespectacled and quite overshadowed by his wife, whose name he had adopted upon their marriage, he was hardly the kind of man who would dare to stray—and especially since he was devoutly religious as well. Or so Aunt Harriet had warned her, begging that Alexa should on no account enter into any kind of discussion on religion or religions, as the case may be.

Well, I did promise everyone that I was going to behave and be a credit to them all, Alexa reminded herself stoutly. But that is tomorrow, and tonight is mine alone…my last secret adventure, perhaps. Just for tonight I can be what I feel and what I am. Turning on her back, Alexa floated lazily again, letting the slight swell of the water rock her while she stared back at the silver face of the moon and let her thoughts wander as they pleased.

4

How gentle the ocean was tonight, with hardly a wave to break its smooth, swelling surface; and how bright the moon, splintered into a thousand, a million tiny silver fragments that danced along the gentle swells. A magical, enchanted night with the moon a fairy godmother who could turn every hidden, secret wish into reality for just a few precious hours. Alexa knew that Harriet would have frowned and told her that she should think rationally. Learn to be more practical. But how she hated that word! Ah, tonight was meant only for fantasy…was only a fantasy, perhaps, as she felt herself caught up in a silver-spangled web that transported her into a magical place where wishes came true and anything was possible if you closed your eyes and believed hard enough.

Almost mesmerized into believing she could disappear into the silver eye of the moon as she stared into it, Alexa found herself remembering the fairy tales that Mama used to read to her when she was very young and Freddy hadn’t even been born yet. Stories of handsome Princes, and Princesses with long golden hair that could be let down castle walls. Of dragons that could spit fire, and tall giants and twisted gnomes. Enchanted forests and bramble bushes that could grow in the twinkling of an eye to shut in a sleeping beauty who could only be awakened from her slumbers by a kiss. “Stuff and nonsense!” Aunt Harry used to scold. “The child’s head shouldn’t be filled with fantasies and falsehoods that have nothing to do with real life!” But what was wrong with escaping from real life sometimes into the magic world of fantasy where anything was possible? To imagine herself the fairy princess held captive by the spell of the wicked magician—waiting, wrapped about in her silver-webbed sleep for the Prince who was destined to rescue her. Or a pagan sacrifice like Andromeda, waiting for her Perseus. Waiting, like a moon-silvered statue, for…it did not matter. She felt herself flow into the moon and felt the moon flow into her, and she was magic and part of the night itself that was the birthday gift of her fairy godmother. A gift of magic…

Still floating languidly, Alexa suddenly felt a different, almost agitated motion of the water beneath her. A sudden wave that had managed to force its way in through the tiny entrance to this miniature bay? A splash…? No, her own moon-fevered imagination. What had she expected, a sea monster? She should not have let herself stare so hard at the moon that she became altogether lost in the fantasies her imagination surrounded her with. There was no one, and nothing here but poor sleeping Menika and herself. Annoyed at herself, Alexa closed her eyes for an instant against the silver brightness that seemed reflected everywhere, and began to tread water while she pushed annoying strands of wet, clinging hair from her eyes. So much for fantasy!

And then, on the very heels of that particular thought Alexa almost felt her heart stop as she felt something touch her. Seaweed? Then the strangest sensation of having her skin stroked underwater, all the way up from her calves to the length of her thighs. Not a shark? No, only some large fish that had somehow managed to find its way in here through the narrow opening that separated this pleasant little pool from the sea beyond it? Suddenly frozen and losing all power of motion for some seconds Alexa felt herself sink under water, to come up gasping and spluttering and blinded momentarily again by her water-logged hair, which clung to her face and neck like choking strands of seaweed. Helplessly, and unbelievingly, she could feel herself being moved backward in the water until her back scraped uncomfortably against a rocky-surface—one of the “steps” hewn into the rock here on the land side of the pool. She was still quite incapable of speech, having accidentally allowed herself to swallow a considerable amount of salty water, and barely capable of thought either until she heard an unmistakably human voice that held an annoying undercurrent of amusement.

“Well, well! I seem to have caught myself a mermaid! Or is it a sea witch? One of old Neptune’s wicked daughters?”

It was also, Alexa realized belatedly, unmistakably a pair of human hands that held her hard, and far too familiarly about the waist at this moment. And if only she was not still choking and coughing in a most unladylike way she would have used some of the barracks slang she had picked up from some of the young officers who sometimes forgot that she was a female. Oh damn, damn, she thought; why did her damned hair always have to get in the bloody way? How often she had longed to be able to crop it off! She shook her head fiercely, pushing heavy tangles back from her temples, and found herself looking into a face that was far too close to hers—a face she could hardly see, because the moon was at his back.

Alexa had not, until tonight, ever really believed in superstition or ancient legends; but now without her willing or her wanting, the sudden memory of her earlier fantasy thoughts raced through her mind. A man (and she knew instinctively that he was as naked as she was) who had risen out of the sea—or so it seemed. Had she managed, by some impossible accident, to conjure up some dark spirit from the ocean depths? Poseidon? No, Lucifer himself—no fairy prince! She could only see him as an outline against moon-bright sky and water…archetypal man, as pagan and primitive as the night itself. Alexa felt spellbound; and she had never known the meaning of that word until now. As if she too had been turned by a silver-tipped wand into someone else. As if, while she had lain floating on her back and offering herself to the moon she had suddenly had her offered sacrifice capriciously taken up and had lost herself. Even her voice, since her vocal cords seemed to have become frozen and immobilized like the rest of her senses as she stared into the darkness of a face she could not see.

“I never thought to wonder whether mermaids could speak or not…and perhaps it’s better they don’t. Is that why you’re such temptresses?”

The man’s voice was rough, because he had had time to study her face in the moonlight, and he did not like to admit, even to himself, the unwanted emotions it aroused in him. It was a different face, one which might indeed have belonged to some mythical creature, whether sea nymph or siren. Wet hair always looked dark, but hers seemed to have strange shimmers of light shot through its wet, curly masses wherever the moon happened to touch it. Well-defined dark brows were etched against the pale oval of her face; and her eyes? They reflected the moon in miniature, but were they black? Dark grey? He had the instinct that they would be, even in daylight, the kind of eyes no one could read.

He had spoken to her twice and she hadn’t answered—had just continued to stare at him with those strange dark and silver witch-eyes. Was she only held transfixed by terror, or was it possible that she could not understand English? Perhaps she was the pretty Eurasian mistress of one of the English officers or the Governor himself; or a trespasser afraid to be found swimming in the Governor’s private pool. Whoever she was he hadn’t meant to scare the poor girl out of her wits when he’d navigated that little channel underwater. He’d meant to come to this place late tonight to swim in privacy, and then he’d seen her, hardly believing his own eyes. A naked pagan goddess under the moon, as open and unashamed of her nakedness as the women of Tahiti and the Sandwich Islands; women who had not yet had civilization trap them and change them from natural to artificial products of an unnatural society. Who was she? Ah, but did it really matter?

Almost unconsciously he had been looking at her parted lips, noticing that they were chiseled and well-shaped. Tempting lips. And so, without thinking, he bent his head and kissed them, acting purely out of instinct, his hands sliding up from her waist to her shoulders to bring her body closer against his. He wanted to taste and feel the texture of her lips, her mouth, to feel the pressure of her high, pointed breasts against his chest as they rose and fell like the sea itself with the motion of her breathing. He wanted much more than that, and his loins told him so; but he did not relish the thought of rape, and enjoyed seduction and the building up of desire that was mutual—the long, lazy enjoyment of lovemaking. So all he did for the moment was enjoy kissing his captive mermaid, who, as he had already discovered, possessed two long, sleek legs instead of a tail. And he kissed her gently at first, savoring the salt taste of her, the faint answering tremor he felt under his seeking mouth in the beginning and then under his hands. He could sense that she was like a shy, only half-tamed animal that might spring away in panic or begin to struggle desperately to escape if he moved too fast. But God, she had the sweetest, most temptingly perfect body in the world; and when at last her mouth yielded to him and her head fell back against his arm it was hard to remember patience.

And as for Alexa herself, she was still in a kind of trance. A dreamlike feeling of unreality had taken hold of her, while in the depths of her mind she wondered if, like some bold Greek maiden of ancient times who had dared challenge the gods, it was her fate to be held captive forever in the silver-webbed spell spun by the moon while strange sensations she had never experienced before chased themselves up and down her spine before spreading all through her body; making it feel unaccountably weak. She had never been, never wanted to be, kissed by a man, and yet it was happening and she was enjoying it! Even when she felt his hands caress her body, touching her everywhere like an exploration, it was as if the slightest brush of fingers over her skin explored her senses as well—evoking feelings she had not known existed within herself, making her feel breathless and no longer in control of anything that was happening to her.

She heard him whisper against her ear as his lips left her mouth and moved there on a trail of burning kisses, “I want you, sea witch. Silver moon maid. But you know that, don’t you?”

He “wanted” her? What did he mean by that? Did he mean to carry her off with him somewhere into the depths of the sea or wherever he had come from? Who was he, what was he? And what was it she was supposed to know? With a concentrated effort that cost her almost all of the strength she had left in her, Alexa tore herself free and dived back into the water, swimming vigorously as she tried to gather her already scattered wits about her. Moon maid, he had called her. Moon mad was more like it! Lunatic…now she realized how the word had been coined.

When she came up for air, shaking wet hair away from her face, Alexa found him before her again. Without her knowing it, she was playing the coquette—going from the innocent playfulness of a moon child to deliberate teasing. The cynical side of the man’s mind told him that she was playing a calculated game with him. Of course! Wasn’t that what most women were taught from infancy? Sweet deception. Blow hot, and then cold. Tease and pretend while you played “catch me if you can”; a game guaranteed to drive a man to his knees. But the fact remained that she was here like a fantasy turned flesh and blood—a naked nymph whose shoulders gleamed like silver in the light of a sinking moon—and he was the mortal man who had come upon her by accident, overcome by desire for her, as she probably knew very well!

Alexa still could not make out his features too well, although she could at least see that he was dark-complexioned. And although his English had been impeccable, he had a slight accent she could not quite recognize. Was he a gentleman? But then, how could he take her for a lady? It suddenly occurred to her that in spite of all the books she had read on almost every subject under the sun and in so many different languages, there were still many things of which she remained ignorant. Like…well, how did one act if you found yourself alone with a strange man on a moonlit night and neither of you had any clothes on?

Irrepressibly, Alexa started to laugh, perhaps as much from nerves as from the awkwardness of the situation she found herself in. But he did not laugh with her. In fact his voice sounded as if he was gritting his teeth while he spoke.

“You find something laughable about this?”

“I’m nervous! I always laugh when I’m nervous. And none of this seems quite real yet…”

It was the feeling she had that his body was suddenly poised—for attack? Assault?—that made Alexa suddenly break off in mid-sentence and turn in panic to swim for the steps again. But as she had half-dreaded and half-anticipated he was there before her to bar her way to safety and security. Ridiculous! She, Alexa Howard, had never been cowardly enough to run away from danger, and of course she was not afraid! And yet, when she felt his arm go around her, she could not help the sudden tremor that ran up under her skin.

As if they were merely continuing a polite conversation he said casually, with his head bent to hers, “What is it, mermaid? What did you suddenly think of? And were you thinking or—calculating?”

“Calculating? And what do you mean by that?” Indignantly, Alexa tried to shrug off his arm as she added, “Not that it matters in the least, of course; except that you have intruded upon my privacy, and you…”

“Indeed?” His drawling voice made her hackles rise instinctively as he continued sarcastically: “But then, you see, I had counted upon having some privacy myself tonight, and I happen to know that you are not the Governor’s wife nor the wife of the Lieutenant Governor either. In fact, I really cannot imagine you as the wife of any one of the very proper British gentlemen I’ve met, for that matter…having the courage to go out swimming under the moon without a stitch of clothing on! Which makes me wonder about you, sweet sea nymph…”

“Oh!” Alexa felt her face grow hot and was glad he could not know it. It was quite insufferable, as well as ungentlemanly of him to mention it, of course. Sitting one step lower than he was, she slid herself deeper into the water until her shoulders were safely covered; and hearing his soft, amused chuckle at her strategy, Alexa would dearly have loved to use her nails on him. But instead, controlling herself with an effort, she said stiffly: “Since I happen to be a guest at Queen’s House, I can only believe that you must be the trespasser here. And if you had any decency you would leave at once! In fact, I don’t even think you are English! Where did you come from anyhow? I’m sure you have no rights to be here, and if you are wise you’ll leave before…”

She did not quite like the sound of the short laugh that cut off her half-uttered threat as he said: “Before…what? Would you call the sentries and let them see you as you are now? A guest at Queen’s House? I had guessed you for some lucky man’s light of love, not His Excellency the Governor’s, for I don’t think his wife would permit him such an indulgence; but perhaps one of his senior officers? Obviously one of the older ones, or you would not be out here by yourself to seek your solace from the moon and the sea, would you?”