The Lost

One

“We should not have come. The curse will never die.” Father Joubay blessed himself as he spoke.

“A curse? What curse?” Why in the world would he say that? Isabelle wondered. It was a gorgeous day. The boat chugged its way through calm water clear to the seabed, filled with fish and sea grass.

The sky ahead was as blue as a sky could be, the island they were headed to as lush as one expected in the Caribbean. The air was warm. The old fort that loomed over the bay was the only thing that kept the shore from looking like a postcard picture of a tropical paradise. The home of the mysterious Sebastian Dushayne. A man who owned an island and lived in luxury. But a man Google had never heard of.

When Isabelle Reynaud turned to question Father Joubay, she saw that he was not looking at their destination, but was mesmerized by something behind them.

Isabelle looked toward the wake of the boat and drew in a sharp breath of shock. The sky on the far horizon was darkening with astonishing speed. Even as she watched, the rapidly building clouds eclipsed the late-afternoon light.

“How can there be a storm from the west? The weather never comes from the west here.” Isabelle folded her hands in front of her heart. “It’s only a squall.”

The boat lost its smooth momentum. The engine still ran steadily but the increasingly choppy waves made the going rough.

“Squalls pass quickly.” Please God. Isabelle breathed the prayer as the waves around them grew.

“We will outrun it,” the captain called back to them as the small boat sped up noticeably. Lightning lit the storm clouds, and a dozen prongs of light chased after them.

“We cannot outrun this,” Father Joubay said, and Isabelle agreed with him. It was true that neither of them was a weather expert. They were, however, realists.

Isabelle turned from the storm to look toward the land, grabbing on to the strut that supported the canopy over the engine house.

The waves had grown from choppy to malicious. Not only was it a challenge to stand but the waves were so high Isabelle could not see the shoreline or the trees, only the fort rising over the harbor. It was more threat than comfort despite the lights that flickered through the dark.

The rain began, pushed by the wind, so that it fell like needles. Isabelle and Father Joubay moved to the partial shelter of the windowless cabin, bracing themselves against the wooden walls that gave scant protection.

Were there any life jackets? she wondered.

The captain yelled back to them, “Life jackets are in the covered bin.”

Isabelle found only two. The orange kapok was older than she was and bug infested, but better than nothing. “You take it. You and the captain. I can swim.”

“No!” Joubay shouted and pushed the life vest back to her as if it were too hot to handle. “I will make the right choice this time. This is my salvation!” Father Joubay threw the other life jacket to the captain, who ignored it.

A strong wave poured more water on them and they were thrown to the other side of the shelter. Father Joubay fell to the deck and Isabelle slid down to sit beside him.

“Are you hurt?”

“No, no, Isabelle.” He reached for his hat but the water swept it away. “May God help you, child. For me, I welcome death, but I pray, with all my heart, that you survive even if this place is cursed.”

“What curse?” she asked again, pointedly. “Father, you know there is no such thing as a curse.”

“My dear, do you think that only God can work wonders? So can the devil, for that’s what a curse is. The devil’s miracle.”

Isabelle saw no fear in his eyes even as the rain and wind grew stronger, whitecaps crowning the waves that were now taller than the boat.

“Tell me what you mean,” she insisted and did her best to ignore the fear. She would put her faith in God’s wisdom and her own ingenuity.

“You will learn eventually, Isabelle. There is not enough time now.”

She stood up to see if the boat could possibly reach shore before it fell apart, but she could not see to the shore. The waves and the rain defined their world.

The boat rode up high, very high, and before it slammed into the trough of the wave, she saw lights above them, much closer now, but still too far away for the boat to make landfall before the worst of the storm overtook them.

The wooden trawler rose and fell, shuddering and rattling as the boards loosened and water seeped through the seams. Isabelle struggled to her feet, and helped Father Joubay stand as water pooled around their legs.

Another shudder and the roof of the cabin flew off. When the storm broke the boat apart, they could ride out the waves on one of the bigger pieces. The water was warm enough for them to survive for hours.

“Isabelle, listen,” Father Joubay shouted over the storm. He took her hand, pulling her down below the side of the wheelhouse so she could hear him. “When Sebastian Dushayne gave us permission to come to his island for a year of medical and missionary care?”

“Yes?” Hurry, she thought. We don’t have much time.

“There are two things you should know, Isabelle. One is rather odd.”

“Odd?” she prompted, worried that he would not finish before the waves swamped the boat.

“The first is that the island healer will not cooperate with you, and Dushayne insisted that I bring a doctor who could sing.”

Sing? A doctor who could sing? That was absurd. And besides, “I can’t sing and I’m a nurse, not a doctor.”

“You are as good as a doctor, Isabelle, and you have a lovely voice.”

“But that’s only in church. I only know hymns.”

He shook his head sharply as the waves took control of their lives. He shouted, “Sebastian loves music, especially music that is sung. It did not seem too much to ask. And if it was meant to be, I knew a singing doctor would appear, and you did. I do not think that will matter now. Kneel down.”

Father Joubay put his hand on her head and began to pray over her. “God keep you safe, Isabelle. Show Him that your love is true and pure and free.”

Show Him that your love is true. Is that what Father Joubay had said? God knew her heart better than anyone.

Isabelle felt the boat turn into the waves again, but this time instead of climbing over the mountain of water, it wallowed in the troughs.

The screeching wind made any more conversation impossible. His lips moved, but Isabelle could not hear what he said. Prayers surely. They held on to each other and, as the giant wall of water broke over them, she whispered, “God bless you too, Father.”

The storm came with such force that Sebastian Dushayne had to brace his body to stand at the open window and watch the harbor, his narrowed eyes the only concession to the rain that bit into him.

Anger pulsed through him, his rage matching the weather around him. Sebastian knew the boat would be lost the moment that the clouds dimmed the sun and the servants began to light candles.

The curse would not allow those on board the island trawler to reach the shore. Joubay and the doctor would die along with the fool who let money convince him that his boat could beat the curse’s fury.

The storm brought an early twilight, but Sebastian could see the boat as it struggled in the waves with a desperation that he could feel even this far away.

Joubay would pray. Sebastian knew better than to try that. God had no place here. This was the devil’s playground. The sounds of the revelry in the next room proved that. God’s minions were not welcome and lasted only as long as it took to seduce them with life’s pleasures.

The boat disappeared from sight and the words of the curse crawled through Sebastian’s memory as clearly as if it had been yesterday. Joubay, because you love this island, I cast you out. If you dare to return, you will die.

Even if Joubay was coming back with a solution to the curse, it would die with him. Sebastian wished he had never trusted, even for a moment, that there was a chance he could escape this island, his prison. He continued to stare at the roiling harbor. Suddenly, quiet settled around him as though a shield of silence held him between his world and some other place.

Two ephemeral shapes rose from the water, shrouded in the rain, but rising, rising, rising out of sight as a song echoed, sung in a lovely voice more than alto but not quite a soprano. “I will be with you always in light and in love. My light surrounds you with love from above.” The song ended, the cocoon vanished and the wind came back with renewed strength.

Cursing, Sebastian pushed the shutters closed, pressing with all his strength against the east wind that battered them.

He returned to the grand salon where the others partied, all of them unaware that people were dying within sight of this room. Why tell them, he thought. They were tourists, here for entertainment, for the taste of another time as if man had lived better or more fully in 1810.

If he told this group what was happening, they would be shocked and it would ruin the mood.

Sebastian had watched people die for so long he had grown used to it. He would take one of the women to bed and let her help him forget what he had witnessed.

The prettiest in this group, he was fairly certain her name was Genetta, reached for the one remaining cream cake and drank the last of the champagne with drunken greed.

No one complained. The group was already bored with the illusion of nineteenth-century life conjured for their entertainment and were well into the carnal pleasures that transcended time and place.

Genetta looked at him with a provocative pout and he nodded. She would be the one. Her gold blond hair was natural; her body was not too muscular, like so many other women these days. But Sebastian already knew what sex with her would be like.

She would be less entertaining than most. Not evil, not at all, but shallow and self-i ndulgent. And not very creative.

With a promise to bring back more champagne, Sebastian left the salon, found his way to the open courtyard, the inner ward of this onetime fortress.

As he crossed the wet stone, the squall was already passing. The last of the rain fell as a soft mist.

Sebastian opened the small door in the giant iron gate facing the sea. He saw the wreckage floating, random pieces of wood, the ship’s wheel, and among the debris a body in black, arms outstretched.

Sebastian Dushayne lived a curse of his own making. He had no doubt that he would spend eternity living it, but the least he could do was send word to the village and order a decent burial.

Two

Isabelle wondered if this was heaven and she was resting on a cloud. Impossible. She was sure heaven would be more than her idea of a perfect bed.

Besides, Isabelle knew she was alive. Her chest rose and fell with each breath as aches and pains marched over every inch of her body.

Where were Father Joubay and the trawler’s captain? Opening her eyes, Isabelle hoped to find them lying beside her, but all she could see was the crown of a massive canopied bed and the soft light of the candles on the table nearby.

Isabelle turned her head toward the light, and the illusion of well-being disappeared. A man stood beside the bed, surrounded by darkness. How could he be in shadow when so many candles lit the room? Her heart began to race and anxiety twisted in her stomach.

He was not tall, but powerful in build, but that was all of him she could see. Isabelle wished he would say something. Even as she had the thought, she realized his body spoke a language all its own. Anger radiated from him.

Maybe I’m the one who should say something. But she was too tired to speak; too tired to do anything but stare at him and wish for comfort.

“Sleep for now. You were almost dead but you will live.”

Isabelle gave a little nod and closed her eyes. As she fell asleep she gave the man a name. Sebastian Dushayne.

Sleep was the perfect escape at first. Then the nightmare of the shipwreck overwhelmed her. She was in the water, being tossed by the waves like a piece of driftwood, held under by some current until her lungs would burst, then freed and allowed one more breath.

Fighting, fighting to reach the shore until it became too much of an effort, giving in and floating until finally she was washed up onto the beach like flotsam.

She felt a hand on her head, heard a voice whispering. “You will live. You are safe. You survived.”

He must have spoken the words. She most definitely heard them, but the comfort of his hand smoothing her hair was what convinced her. If she had a drink of water, maybe she could speak, could ask him if the others had survived.

The next thing she knew he was smoothing her hair off her face, sliding his arm under her neck, raising her as though he knew how much even that small movement would hurt.

His hands were cool, but they sent a shock of warmth through her. A shock that overrode the discomfort of her bruised body. A feeling so welcome that she turned her face into his shoulder.

“Drink a little.” Sebastian Dushayne held the glass at her lips and she drank, her eyes on his, though he watched the glass and the water and nothing more.

He was handsome and unsmiling, with a straight nose, a rather fine mouth and a dent in his chin. She thought he might have dimples when he smiled. If he ever did smile.

Settling her back on the pillows, he poured more water. “You can have another drink in a few minutes.”

Sebastian Dushayne knew something about trauma care, she thought. Sometimes even a little water was more than the stomach could tolerate.

He pulled up a chair and sat down. Now he did look her in the eye. His brown eyes were not at all friendly. She saw none of the warmth or comfort she had felt when he touched her. She braced herself.

“Joubay is missing. As is the boat and its owner.”

Isabelle’s throat clogged with tears. She knew it was true, though her heart begged for their lives.

He gave her a handkerchief and stood up.

“Are you a doctor?”

“A nurse,” she answered in a rusty voice.

“It hardly matters which. You are a woman. Joubay knows I will not allow a woman to live here. Now neither one of us can ask him what he was thinking.”

“I want a phone. I need to arrange for their funerals.”

“First you must rebuild your strength. Then we will talk about what you can and cannot do.”

Where had the kindness gone? she wondered.

“I want answers.” She cleared her throat and hoped she sounded determined.

“You will not have them today.” He stood up as if he was going to leave without another word.

“Father said there was a curse. What did he mean?”

“Joubay lived a fool and died one.” Now Sebastian Dushayne did walk away, but stopped at the door and asked, “Can you sing?”

If Father Joubay had not warned her, she would have thought him mad to ask such a question. “I can only sing hymns.” The way her throat felt now, she doubted she could sing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”

His laugh was cynical and not at all appealing. “Of course you sing hymns. Next you will tell me that you are a virgin with a heart as pure as snow.”

Isabelle wanted to know where the cynicism came from, but he did not give her a chance to speak. “I don’t care what you sing. It has been years since I heard a new voice, new songs. Perhaps your hymns will convert me.”

Before Isabelle could agree, argue or ask for more water, he left the room.

She fell asleep almost immediately, her dreams such a mix of nightmare and grief that it was a relief to wake up.

Dushayne was there again and she wasted no time, determined to move, to speak and to find some answers. She struggled upright in bed, then realized she was naked and pulled the sheet up to cover her breasts. He did not turn away but watched her with a disinterest that told her she was the only one who was embarrassed.

Isabelle reached for the water and groaned as the pain of damaged muscles spread from her fingers to her neck. Forcing herself to drink the water, she thanked God for the feel of it sliding down her throat, freeing her voice.

“You are Sebastian Dushayne.”

“Yes, and you are?”

“Isabelle Reynaud.”

He bowed with old-world courtliness. “How do you do, Mistress Reynaud.”

“I am not married.”

“Yes, I know, but mistress is a term we use for every grown woman.”

“Where am I?”

“You are in the Castillo de Guerreros on the Isla Perdida.”

“The Castle of Warriors on the Lost Island?”

Dushayne nodded and Isabelle wondered what it would take to get more than basic answers from him.

“The village healer sent some of her salve to ease your bruises and sore muscles. Sit up and I will put some on your back, where you cannot reach.”

Isabelle wanted to say no, but she also knew that to reject his help would send all the wrong messages, to him, to the healer, even to the servants. She could see one peeking around the corner of the door. “Let the servant do it.”

“Are you afraid I will seduce you?” Genuine humor made her blush. “Believe me, Mistress Reynaud, I am not the slightest bit interested in a woman with a body that is no more than bruises and hair still filled with sand and seaweed.”

Even though her arm blazed with pain at the action, Isabelle raised her hand to her head. Her hair felt like lengths of used raffia. Who knew what was in it besides sand. “I need to wash it. I hate the sand. I want to wash it right now.”

“Yes, I will send my housekeeper to help you. But first the salve. It will make it much easier to move.” He added, “Please,” as though it was a password of some kind, and Isabelle gave a half nod and looked away from his smile. He did have dimples.

She leaned forward. Even that hurt. She held back the groan and kept the sheet in front of her. The air felt warm on her back and she waited for the even warmer touch of his hand.

Isabelle could not see his face, but watched him scoop a portion of the salve from a stone dish, and rub his hands together. They were strong, well-shaped hands, tanned, with long fingers and blunt-cut nails, with a pronounced curve of white cuticle. There was a scar on one knuckle, the white of it in contrast to the warm tan of his skin. The scar did not look very old.

He raised his hands to her back and Isabelle stared out the window at the water, today looking as benign as a baby’s bathtub.

Sebastian Dushayne smoothed the cream, warmed by his hands, from the back of her neck all the way down her spine, then began to rub it in with the most sensual of pressure, not too soft and not hard enough to hurt, but just firmly enough to make her feel wonderful. He might not be interested in seducing her, but that did not mean she was oblivious to it.

Dushayne ran his hands very slowly down the outsides of her arms and then, even more slowly, up the insides of her arms so that his fingertips brushed the edge of her breasts.

She straightened instinctively but said nothing, wondering if she was overreacting, deciding she was when he stepped back a moment for more salve.

Dushayne used both hands to massage the cream into her lower back, the feeling so relaxing that Isabelle dropped her head, her long hair falling around her face, loosened crystals of sand spilling onto the sheet.

Moving his hands over her hips, he cupped her buttocks and she wondered whether the magic was in the salve or in his hands.

“That is quite enough.” Isabelle used as firm a voice as she could command, the kind she used to the children who were using markers to make tattoos on one another.

Dushayne ended the treatment abruptly. The next thing she felt was his breath near her ear. “No,” he whispered. “Do not lie. It is not nearly enough and we both know it.”

Isabelle wasn’t lying. It wasn’t nearly enough pleasure, but it was quite enough temptation. She turned around to tell him that and saw the door closing.

How could she even be thinking about something so physical when she still ached, when her friend was dead, when Sebastian Dushayne himself was such an unknown?

For now, all she wanted was sleep. The scent of the ointment was part of its power, she was sure, so soothing.

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.

The experience would have been perfect if the door had a lock on it. It did not, and the whole time she was bathing she was aware that anyone could come in. The only “anyone” she worried about was the master, Sebastian Dushayne. This bath was definitely big enough for two and she suspected that he would not hesitate to invite himself to share it with her.

And, because honesty was such a fundamental part of her, Isabelle admitted she might enjoy it. Her imagination headed down that wayward path and it was not hard to imagine him naked. Too easy, in fact. Broad shoulders, strong arms, powerful legs. She hurried out of the bath before she could visualize any more of his body and left the image behind, swirling in the deep end of the water.

The toweling was different from the kind she was used to. More like an absorbent linen than fluffy cotton.

With her hair wrapped in one of the lengths, she dressed as quickly as she could. Isabelle had never worn a thong before and found it more comfortable than she thought it would be. The bra was a stretch of lace that was more sexy than useful. She had never been able to decide if it was fortunate or unfortunate that she did not need much support, but in this case it was a good thing.

Add to that a sleeveless cotton shirt and some capris in a blue and white print, and she was dressed perfectly for the warm weather. The shoes were not what she would have chosen. Some kind of close-toed, sneakerlike synthetic material, similar to the old well-worn Diesels she wore at the clinic in New Orleans.

It felt very strange to know she owned nothing but what she wore, and even that was a gift. Isabelle comforted herself with Jesus’ admonition to his disciples to take nothing but the clothes on their backs. She thought that was the phrasing. If she could find a Bible somewhere, she would look it up.

Untwisting the linen, she picked up the comb and worked it through her hair. There were lengths of ribbon in a basket near the entrance, and Isabelle took one and tied her hair back.

With a deep breath and a prayer for wisdom, Isabelle opened the door, walked down the passage, turning right at every opportunity.

The castle was huge and still seemed deserted. Making her way down an enclosed set of winding stairs, Isabelle came out onto what looked like the inner courtyard, surrounded on all four sides by a covered passageway supported by elegant arches that ran in a square. The only break was where the great iron doors stood closed tightly against the pitiful village just outside the gate.

Doors and windows set in smaller arches lined the walls on the other side of the passageway. Benches in some dark, worn wood gave evidence that there were times when the courtyard held a crowd.

Isabelle crossed to the giant door, at least twenty feet high and almost as wide, and was in front of it when she saw a small door set in the wall nearby open from the other side.

A boy, no more than ten, came into the courtyard, all confidence and good nature. “Good day to you, mistress. Mistress Vermille says I am to take you to Mistress Esmé, the healer.”

“Thank you. But I need to see where my cottage is first.”

“No, no. I am sorry, mistress, but you must see the healer first. You have no choice.”

Isabelle was not surprised and only a little irritated at this command performance. Clearly power plays existed on little islands in the Caribbean too. There was no other reason she could think of for the healer to insist on seeing her before she had even set foot in her cottage.

Isabelle followed the boy who said his name was Cortez. He pointed out the village’s most significant sites, which were cottages that all looked the same to Isabelle.

Whitewashed with palm-l eaf roofs, well kept and so small it was hard to believe that one housed a barbershop and a beauty shop, another a dry goods store and a third the produce shop. She could smell bananas and realized that she had not eaten anything since she had arrived here.

“Cortez, can we stop here so I can buy a banana, please?”

“No, no, you cannot buy.”

Just before she lost a hold on her temper, the boy produced a coin. “I will buy you the best and biggest banana there is.” He popped into the store and a minute later came out with a lovely, firm, yellow banana big enough for two. Indeed, Isabelle broke off a quarter and shared it with him and they continued down the street in companionable silence.

Cortez took the peel and Isabelle brushed her hands on her pants just as they reached a house that was set back from the street. Larger than the rest, it had an actual door and two windows.

Cortez did not have to tell her that this was the home of the healer, Mistress Esmé. A woman came to the entrance when Cortez pulled the bell. She gave Isabelle a long look that made her feel dirty and uneducated.

“I am Esmé, the healer, and you are the nurse.”

“Isabelle Reynaud,” Isabelle answered even though Esmé made the word “nurse” sound like a lower life-f orm.

“I told you, master, she will not do at all,” Esmé called over her shoulder. “There is no place for a nurse in our village. What can she do that I cannot?”

Isabelle stepped past the woman and into the entry hall, having faced this prejudice before and determined to prove her worth. She stopped short when she realized that Sebastian Dushayne was stretched out on a bed, his shirt off, his arms up against the headboard.

Four

Sebastian Dushayne laughed at the dismay he saw on Mistress Isabelle Reynaud’s face. This woman must have come from a convent to be so shocked by the sight of a man without his shirt on. He hoped seducing her, introducing her to the world of carnal pleasure, took a very long time. It was hard to tell with the innocent. For some their naiveté was only skin deep; for others it was a way of life.

Letting go of the bedposts, he sat upright. “For God’s sake, Healer, finish this or I will be in misery all day.”

“You should not have gone swimming today. You know that after a storm the fire worms are found in unexpected places.”

“Yes, yes, now come and finish taking the bristles out. They hurt like hell.”

“How do you treat them?” Isabelle asked, walking closer to him, her expression now very serious. She no longer saw him as a man, he thought, but as a patient.

“I remove bristles with tweezers and then rub the area with papaya to ease the discomfort. With stings from sea life it is wisest to stay still for a while to be sure that the sickness has not reached other parts of the body. There have been deaths from the worst stings. Of course, Sebastian does not have to worry about that, though I tell him he could lose an arm. I can usually find a way to keep him in bed.”

Now Esmé was trying to shock the girl. They were closer to enemies than lovers, and her idea of a cure for any of his ills usually involved as much pain as she could possibly induce.

“It sounds like an excellent treatment, Healer.”

Sebastian watched Isabelle’s demeanor, standing back, behaving as if she were in training and not the one who should be teaching. He could tell that it was not easy for her to be so subservient. Somewhere she had learned self discipline.

The burning along the right side of his rib cage made him swear. “Give me the papaya if you two are going to talk all day.”

It took less than five minutes to finish the treatment. He pulled his cotton shirt over his head but left the buttons undone. He could tell by the healer’s stony expression that she was going to dismiss Isabelle the moment he left. “I know what you are thinking, Esmé, and I tell you that you must work with her.”

Before he could walk out the door, Isabelle objected. “Mr. Dushayne, the healer will work with me when she can trust me and not one moment before. She is established here and I am the newcomer. Why should she believe that my ways are superior? Indeed, that is not always true.”

Sebastian shook his head. “As you wish. But that behavior will be seen as a weakness. Do not forget you are here to sing as well. Come to the courtyard of the castillo before the last meal of the day.” This time he left before either one of them could object.

Isabelle made a nasty face at his departing back and then closed her eyes and prayed for self-control. Her temper was one of her greatest weaknesses. One of many.

Now she had to decide which was more important, to convince the woman, Esmé, she had no interest in Sebastian Dushayne or to convince the healer, Esmé, that she was not going to compete with her.

“The master wants you.”

Isabelle could get really tired of that term for their boss, but Esmé’s statement did choose the subject for her. “Maybe so, but I do not want him.”

“You lie.”

“No,” she said, understanding the misunderstanding. “I can see that it sounds like it. He’s very appealing. Who wouldn’t want him? His eyes demand everything you have and he has a weary way with the world that makes a woman think he needs her. Of course I want him.”

“Then why say you do not?”

“Because, Mistress Healer, I do not want him on his terms. I want love too. I want to receive as much as I give. I want true sharing. And it’s clear that he does not know the meaning of the word.”

“Hmm. I think you want too much.”

“I’ve been told that before.” Isabelle shrugged, undaunted.

“Call me Esmé or simply Healer. And I will call you Isabelle. The next person who walks through the door, you will treat and I will decide if you stay.”

No sooner were the words spoken than a boy came hopping through the door, doing his best not to cry.

Isabelle turned to Esmé for permission. The woman nodded with a smile that Isabelle hoped was pleasure at her fawning but feared was satisfaction at Isabelle’s likely failure.

Patience, she reminded herself. Pretend that Esmé is this island’s version of the nun in charge.

After his own questioning glance at the healer and a second nod, the boy plopped down in a chair and put his foot up on a stool.

“I see you have a splinter,” Isabelle said after examining the foot without actually touching it. Beyond filthy, the soles of his feet looked calloused. Did none of the children wear shoes?

“A splinter. Yes.” The boy nodded.

“Tell us how it happened.” The boy explained and with her usual prayer for guidance, Isabelle went through the process of removal. She never once looked to Esmé for help but always included her in the explanation of what she was doing. It did not take long to remove the splinter. It was set rather deeply but was in one good-sized piece. The boy bit his lip and did not show that he felt pain.

With the splinter out, his toe began to bleed.

“Stop the bleeding,” Esmé demanded.

“No, I think not, Mistress Healer.” Isabelle thought she deserved points for her model behavior. “The blood cleans the site of the wound and pushes out anything that might cause infection. We should keep him here until it stops, which will be any moment now.”

Even as she said the words the bleeding stopped and a scab began to form.

They all stared at the spot and then Isabelle said, “As a rule, I prefer to let the air reach it, but since it is on his toe and he does not wear shoes, I think it should be covered.”

“I agree.” Esmé handed her a large bandage and Isabelle completed the work and the boy trotted off with a smile and a piece of some sweet that Esmé gave him for “not crying like an infant.”

Isabelle cleaned up the work area and did her best to estimate where everything went when not in use.

Esmé circled the room with her arms behind her back, which tested Isabelle’s pride to the limit. “Very good, Isabelle. You may stay for the rest of the day and then I will decide.”

“No, Mistress Healer,” Isabelle spoke firmly but with respect and thanked her years of experience. “You must decide now. I know that I am good at this work. You have the advantage of years more experience with the illnesses here, but I can give the islanders protection against illnesses that you know nothing about. We are evenly matched and could complement each other. I am willing. It is up to you.”

“All right.” The healer shrugged her shoulders, which made Isabelle feel that she had given an ultimatum where none was necessary, which meant that the healer still had the upper hand. The islanders’ health is why you are here. Isabelle pushed the prideful vanity out of her head.

Esmé might drink too much, be vain and greedy, but she was true to her word. By midafternoon they had treated another simple wound and talked to two pregnant women, girls really. They obviously had children young here.

By the time Esmé showed Isabelle to her cottage, “with two hours to rest before you sing,” they had established a cordial working relationship. Despite that, Isabelle doubted they would ever be friends.

It had been a very mundane afternoon. Her calling here might be to help the villagers, but Isabelle did not think they needed her medical expertise. They had excellent care in the Mistress Healer, and her ability as a midwife was impressive.

Isabelle hoped she would feel more useful when she began the inoculation program, though the chance of the children being exposed to measles and mumps was amazingly limited. According to Esmé, you could leave the island, but once a person did, he never came back. And any visitors who came from the hotel came in the evening and never saw anyone but the master and a few of the servants who lived at the castillo. Exposure to illness was limited but, remembering the boy’s bare feet, tetanus inoculations were essential.

Her cottage looked like the others, with the same palm-woven door and roof. Inside she found one large room with a very primitive bathroom and no way to cook anything. The room was loaded with boxes that she recognized as supplies she had sent from New Orleans.

In a little space, bumped out from the side of the cottage, was a sleeping alcove surrounded on three sides by walls. Small openings circled the room where the wall met the ceiling, a clever way to welcome a breeze and light and still maintain privacy.

The bed was freshly made. There was a curtain that could be pulled across the space during the day so the room looked more like a living room or a work space than a bedroom, or could be used at night for privacy.

As always, work had energized her all day, but as soon as she saw the bed, exhaustion enveloped her.

She would have fallen on the sheets fully clothed, if Esmé had not insisted she undress and put on the night-gown that hung on the hook nearest the bed. Isabelle complied, too tired to be embarrassed by her ridiculous bra and thong.

She was aware of Esmé putting her clothes on the hooks but was asleep before the healer left the cottage. Her sleep was spared nightmares, though the dream she did have, of Dushayne watching her bathe, left her feeling restless. It wasn’t hard to guess why.

“Mistress Nurse, the master wants you.”

She heard the voice and in her dream, it became very clear that the master wanted her. He pulled her from the water, laid her on the chaise lounge and began to dry her with one of the lengths of linen. His touch on her breasts, her stomach and between her legs made her writhe in her sleep, both frustrated and eager for more.

“Mistress Nurse.” The voice was closer and more urgent. “You must sing.”

Isabelle opened her eyes and saw Cortez’s worried eyes.

“You were moaning. Are you sick?”

“No, no. Just very tired.” Isabelle closed her eyes. It was not a lie. She wasn’t sick and she was tired.

“Yes, mistress. It’s late. I will be outside while you dress.”

Isabelle hurried into her clothes, determined never to call Sebastian Dushayne “master.” It was a demeaning, demoralizing title. It reminded her of everything awful about the way a man treated women and servants, as if he was superior by his very masculinity. It was an antiquated, outdated concept, everywhere but here in Sebastian Dushayne’s corner of the world.

She pushed open the palm door and fell into step beside Cortez. No matter what Sebastian Dushayne was called, she had promised Father Joubay that she would sing for him.

By the time she reached the street, her annoyance at the demands of Sebastian Dushayne had died. By the time she reached the door to the castillo, nerves made her legs shaky. By the time she reached the center of the castle courtyard, she prayed for help and inspiration.

Both came in the song she began to sing. The courtyard amplified her words, making her sound like a diva on a stage, and she relaxed enough to enjoy herself and think about the words as she sang them. “Be not afraid, I go before you always. Come follow me and I will give you life.”

As the words of the familiar hymn floated upward, Isabelle turned around and around, singing to the empty doors and windows that overlooked the courtyard, and then looked up to the heavens. The thin slice of a new moon lit its corner of the western sky and some planet sent a bold light out into the universe.

Isabelle loved the night sky and smiled as she came to the last of the hymn. That was when she saw Sebastian Dushayne, shadowed in one of the upper windows, lit from behind so that she could not read his expression. She tilted her head slightly, waiting for a comment. He did not move, but once again his body spoke for him. He looked wounded, as though her presence was more than he could bear.

Her heart sped to double time as the truth struck her.

Sebastian Dushayne is why I am here.

The realization came to her so suddenly and with such certainty, Isabelle had no doubt that this was a cosmic truth and not her ego.

It was this man who needed her, not the villagers. His dark presence was as powerful as the storm that had changed her life.

The curse. The dark shadow around him reminded Isabelle that she had completely forgotten to ask about it. Ask who, a boy or a healer who did not like her? Or Sebastian Dushayne.

As she thought his name, he left the window and disappeared into the darkness behind him.

Yes, he would just as soon keep the curse, whatever it was, a secret. Who knew how long she would have stared at the closed window if a voice had not distracted her?

“Dinner is ready. Mistress Esmé says you must eat.”

Isabelle’s stomach rumbled and she knew Esmé was right. She raised her eyes to the empty window, gave a deep bow and left, wondering if Father Joubay had known why Sebastian Dushayne needed her and had died before he could tell her.

Sebastian stepped back into the room, and slumped against the wall. The pain in his heart would have made him fear an apoplexy if it was possible for him to suffer from something so human. He closed his eyes and a kaleidoscope of pictures tumbled out of his mind as if his memory had been unlocked for the first time in two hundred years.

Sebastian saw his wife, his anger, her stubbornness, his insistence and the storm that took her life as she did her best to obey him and come home.

Those dreams, even daydreams, were nothing new. But the pain that came with them was as tortured as anything a sadistic man could devise. Rage, guilt, heartache drove him to his knees even as he remembered how much he had loved Angelique, how much he could not stand for them to be apart, how he wanted her sleeping beside him every night.

How could the inane words of that hymn have done this to him? He was no more afraid of God or of life, whichever it was, than he was afraid of the waif of a woman singing from the courtyard as if her life depended on it.

Sebastian had thought it would be entertaining to have someone new to sing. That a year would be just long enough to enjoy a new voice before boredom set in. He was already bored. He would send for the singer from the hotel even though her voice was failing and her songs were too modern for his taste. Then he would tell this amateur that he never wanted to see her again.

Five

Isabelle was not surprised when Esmé missed work for the next three days without explanation. Whether the healer’s absence was another test or the result of too much liquor hardly mattered.

What did surprise Isabelle was the message Cortez brought telling her that she was not expected to sing anymore. She was brushing her teeth on the second evening when she realized that her voice must have disappointed Dushayne and that was why he had no desire to hear her again. She cringed with embarrassment even though she was alone.

The third day was the busiest of all, and then Isabelle realized it was curiosity that brought so many with hard-to-diagnose headaches and upset stomachs.

It was almost dusk when Cortez came running to her. “You must come. You must come. One of the master’s servants is hurt and needs help. It is Riono and he is bleeding badly. You must come now, Mistress Nurse.”

Isabelle grabbed her bag and ran.

Riono lay on the kitchen floor, a bloody gash on his arm, a kitchen knife still in his hand. The radial artery, Isabelle decided instantly. She pulled a cord from her bag and made a tourniquet.

“Will he live?”

She sat back on her knees and looked up at the cluster of people, trying to find the one who had asked the question. Sebastian Dushayne stood among them, the servants having left a space between them and him.

He watched with a detached interest that reminded her of the doctor who had supervised her clinical work. Isabelle hated the man until she realized that after years of seeing students come and go his disinterest was the only way to protect his emotions. It was too hard to say good-bye over and over again. Did Sebastian Dushayne’s servants come and go with as much regularity?

“Riono will be all right in time.” She nodded to Dushayne but spoke to everyone gathered around them. “I will have to clean and stitch the wound. The healer is not well today, but there is no time to waste.”

“Not well?” Sebastian folded his arms and did not hide his cynicism. “That did not take long.”

Without answering Dushayne, Isabelle asked for help moving the man. Finally they settled Riono on a table moved near the sink.

She explained the procedure to the patient and to Dushayne, who had insisted on observing even though she had asked everyone to leave. “I will have to wash the wound for at least twenty minutes and it will hurt, but it is essential to remove any dirt from the knife blade. After that I have some medicine, a spray, that will block the pain, but you will still feel the stitches going through your skin.”

Riono’s eyes were wide with shock but he nodded. “I heard you sing the other night and cannot forget how beautiful it was. Can you sing while you wash my arm, Mistress Nurse? It will help me think of other things.”

“Yes, if you wish,” Isabelle answered without looking to Dushayne for approval. If the man did not want to hear her, he could go away.

Isabelle started the pump and let the water rinse the wound. Riono gasped and Dushayne took his hand. “Think of your woman in childbirth.” Riono’s grimace might have been a smile.

Isabelle did not look up, but was struck by the contradictions in the man. As she supervised the cleaning she let her mind wander.

Sebastian Dushayne’s ill humor kept company with an essential kindness that left her off-kilter, uncertain whether to allow herself to like him or keep him at a distance, and then she realized that uncertainty was exactly what he wanted.

When the wound was clean, she sprayed the area with li docaine and, as she took the first stitch, began to sing. “I live to serve, I live to love, I live to care as Christ once showed.”

Sebastian winced as the needle pierced Riono’s arm but the man lay there watching Isabelle, not flinching or seeming even to notice anything but the insipid words she sang.

“Let me share your pain. Let me share your joy. Let us share the sun and rain, Till our lives are soon fulfilled and we pass to God again.”

When she sang the last sentence, Isabelle raised her eyes to his, sincerity echoing in every word. Her goodness was more than Sebastian could stand. It tore into him like a double-edged sword. It was all he could do not to beg for forgiveness, and she was not even the one he had hurt.

It was time to show her how overrated virtue was. Once goodness did not shine from her, his pain would ease. “Tomorrow, come back to the castillo after dark, Isabelle. Dress for a party. I am hosting one for the tourists and I think you will enjoy it.”

“Thank you.” She did not smile but seemed pleased.

Oh, you will thank me, he thought. Tomorrow night he would know how bone deep her virtue was.

Of course the perfect dress hung on the hook in her bedroom. It was a gauzy floral print with filmy sleeves and a swirling skirt that made her feel fairylike and feminine. The man certainly did know how to choose clothes a woman would like.

The shoes were not quite as successful. There was no way she could walk to the castle on the four-i nch heels that were the only possible choice.

She had almost decided to go barefoot when someone pulled the string on the bell at her door.

Esmé stood there holding a pair of sandals, much, much better than the towering heels Isabelle had in her hand. The healer pushed them at her and then stood with her hands on her hips. “I tell you, girl, I will know if your soul is corrupted by Sebastian Dushayne or any of his guests. You will not be welcome here when that happens.”

“You can tell even that. How intriguing. Do you think my corruption is inevitable?”

“Yes,” Esmé said firmly.

Isabelle considered a debate, but suspected it would be pointless. “Thank you for the shoes. They’re perfect.”

“Of course they are.” She left without further explanation.

Isabelle walked slowly up toward the castle. She really had no idea what to expect. Cortez told her that the master had company at least once a week and that some of the guests stayed longer. Never the same group and none ever stayed more than a week. It was, by Cortez’s definition, a noisy party with endless drinking and dancing until the people began to play games with one another or wander off to a bedroom to sleep.

Isabelle walked into a party well begun. The men and women were dressed in clothes that were very twenty-fi rst century, but everything else about the gathering had an old-world feel. Even the music was played by a three-piece combo.

The food was not the typical island fare but looked as though it would be better suited to a European dining room. There were tables for cards and other sorts of gambling, but right now most everyone was gathered around a woman dressed as a gypsy, who was telling fortunes accompanied by much laughter and rude comments.

“People of all ages love to hear stories about themselves.”

She had felt him beside her before he spoke. Dushayne was dressed in a fabulous costume and she smiled at him, thoroughly entranced by the picture he made in early-nineteenth-century garb. He reminded her of a rakish Darcy, not in looks but in style, and definitely in the way he showed both pride and prejudice.

“What fun this is. It’s like a step back in time. I wish I had a dress that matched what you’re wearing. Something with a high waist and embroidery around the edges.”

“Next time,” he said with a smile of satisfaction. And yes, there were the dimples. “Everything will be better next time, Isabelle.”

“I hope that’s a promise.” She really wasn’t much of a flirt, but she had a desperate longing to know this man better, to understand him, to keep him smiling.

“Indeed it is.” Dushayne raised her hand and kissed it and then tucked her arm through his. “Let’s see what the fortune-teller has to say about you.”

“Will you ask her to tell your fortune? Or is ‘the master’ ”-she made the words sound as pretentious as they were-“above such things?”

“I never would have guessed that you were such a tease. A temptress, yes, but not a tease.”

“And I would never have guessed that you would not enjoy a little flirtation.” Isabelle refused to be embarrassed by his insulting tone, almost positive that he was trying to make her feel uncomfortable so that he would have the upper hand. Or, she thought, was he the one who was uncomfortable?

Neither one of them spoke as they made their way across the salon. Isabelle wondered why he would feel even a little threatened by her presence. He was the one who had given permission for her to come, along with Father Joubay. So it was not her presence as a medical person that upset him, but something about Isabelle Reynaud herself that bothered him.

Could it be the same thing that bothered her: attraction to a person he was not even sure he liked?

The crowd clustered around the fortune-teller made room for their host and eyed Isabelle curiously. The fortune-teller sat at a round table. The seat across from her was empty and she gestured for Isabelle to take it.

“May I hold your hands, please?” the fortune-teller asked.

The woman was heavily made up and dressed in traditional gypsy garb, but her voice identified her as one of the islanders.

Isabelle smiled and put her hands on the table. The woman took them; then she jerked her head up to look in Isabelle’s eyes. Between their touching hands and staring eyes, the connection between them was so strong that it was an effort to keep smiling.

The woman grinned at her and let her hands go. “You will live a long and happy life, for you have been blessed with optimism and a sense of adventure. You will find love; you will know its deepest meaning but you will also know pain and loss.”

The fortune-teller pressed her lips together as if she wanted to say more but then thought better of it. Leaning forward, she whispered, “Be careful. More than your heart is at risk.”

Isabelle closed her eyes. Yes, she knew that. Had known it from the first time she had sung to Sebastian Dushayne. Isabelle pressed the woman’s hand. “Thank you. I do understand.”

When she stood up, another woman took her place instantly. “Tell me something useful,” she demanded.

The fortune-teller laughed. “If you are not careful, you will lose more than your money on this trip.”

“What does that mean?” the woman demanded.

Isabelle moved away from the group before the gypsy answered. She had no idea what the fortune-teller meant but was equally certain that the woman would not like the details. Sebastian was nowhere to be found, so she accepted a glass of champagne from one of the servants and began to circle the room.

The next hour passed in a haze of names and amusing conversation. Several men and one woman tried their best to corner her for more than talk. Isabelle might look like an innocent, might actually be one, but she had dated enough and worked in some hard places. A party flirtation was easy enough to handle.

Sebastian Dushayne found her in the corner with one of the men who would not take no for an answer. Isabelle had just poured her glass of champagne down the man’s shirtfront when Sebastian pulled her from the nook and propelled her to the dance floor.

“This is a reel. A popular Regency dance. Follow the lead of the people in costume. It is not difficult to learn.”

It was fun. It reminded Isabelle of square dancing but was more elegantly done. By the time the dancers made their last bows to one another, all were a little out of breath and laughing.

The next tune changed the mood completely. “A waltz,” Sebastian told her, “but a Regency waltz. Much more decorous than a Viennese waltz, but for the people of the early nineteenth century it was very risqué.”

Holding her at arm’s length, Sebastian put a hand at her shoulder and one at her waist. They began to move through the steps and within a minute Isabelle felt as though there were nothing around them, only the two of them in each other’s arms.

Stepping closer to Sebastian, Isabelle used her body to tell him that she was going nowhere, that here was exactly where she wanted to be. She saw the pleased surprise in Sebastian’s eyes, but he still held her as if he were afraid she would run.

Finally he relaxed and sighed, a small sigh that she understood as appreciation for the sweetest of pleasures. Closing her eyes, she drew a mental picture of the two of them alone, dancing through clouds set in a dark velvet sky strewn with diamondlike stars glittering around them. A peek at heaven, she decided, or as close as she could imagine. Yes, she could go on like this forever.

“Forever?” Sebastian said, and Isabelle realized she had said that last out loud. “Not forever, only for as long as the thrill of it lasts. Let me show you.”

Isabelle opened her eyes just as Sebastian kissed her. Oh, this is paradise. To be so closely connected to someone you love, or could love. Like an invitation to the best party imaginable.

Then all thoughts evaporated in a rush of emotion, sensation that bound her to him more completely than the touch of his mouth on hers. Her soul opened to him, her heart begged his and she gave herself to him as fully as she could with her mouth and her hands, and every part of her body that touched him. It was not a branding, but a gift, happily given.

Sebastian did not give as easily. Isabelle realized that as the kiss ended. He straightened, his look of shock changing to fear, or was it pain? He pushed her into the arms of one of the other men.

“Take her, Leo. This one is more than ready for a quick fuck. You won’t even need to take your clothes off.”

Leo grabbed Isabelle from behind, his hands settling on her breasts, his arousal pressing into her buttocks. She could smell the scotch on his breath when he nuzzled her ear. Freeing her arms, she used her elbows to pound into his gut and was more than satisfied when he staggered back, cursing.

“A quick fuck? Is that what you said?” Isabelle could feel her temper cut loose. “You are a disgusting excuse for a gentleman.”

“And you are courting trouble.”

“You don’t scare me.” She proved it by closing the distance between them. She could feel anger, passion, even fear shimmering around him. What was he afraid of?

He grabbed her shoulders and shook her a little. “I should terrify you.”

“But you don’t,” she said gently, her anger fading as she realized what he was worried about. “Not at all.”

“If I took you, you would never be the same.” He was pleading with her. She heard no pride in his voice. “You would be no more than a whore because you would never find as much satisfaction with anyone else.”

“But then, neither would you because what is between us is about more than sex. If you are afraid-” She emphasized the word and paused. “If you are afraid to give more than your body, then we will never be together.”

Sebastian Dushayne had nothing to say. In the silence she could feel his fear disappear, along with his anger and almost all his passion. “Time will tell, my little nun.”

“Why do you call me that?” The description made her more defensive than anything else he had said, which, she realized, was exactly why he had used the word.

“Who else but a nun would know nothing but hymns and wear her virtue like it was her proudest possession?”

“What a waste. She has sky-high tart potential and she’s a nun?”

The words of the man nearest reminded Isabelle that they had an audience.

“No, she’s not a nun now,” Sebastian said, looking into her eyes as if he could read her soul. “I imagine they dismissed her for flirting with a priest.”

Isabelle could feel the color drain from her face. “And you are filled with disdain because you’re afraid that if you care for another woman, she will leave you just like the first did.”

If it was possible to wound a person with words, Isabelle realized that they had each dealt a near mortal blow to the other.

She was not sure how Sebastian felt about revealing someone’s deepest secret, but his shock and distress at her accusation made her feel as sinful as Judas when he betrayed Jesus. “I’m sorry,” she whispered and ran from the room before they hurt each other any more than they already had.

Six

Once she was outside of the castillo, Isabelle slowed her steps and tried to calm herself. Tears trickled down her cheeks. She was sorry that she had not been able to control her temper, that his insult had made her retaliate in kind. It was so mean-spirited of her, the worst of all her failings as far as she was concerned. An apology would not change anything, but it was more than he had offered her.

The streets were quiet. The healer’s home the only one still with light. The open door showed people inside. Thinking that there had been an accident, Isabelle pushed her heartache aside, ran up the short path and went inside.

The people gathered were not patients. They were playing some sort of game with dominos and while it may not have required alcohol, every one of the five players took a sip of something after their turn at play.

“Aha!” Esmé called out. “The one we have been waiting for. Come over here.”

Isabelle did as asked, sure that Esmé was drunk and would remember none of this tomorrow. But Esmé surprised her. Her mug held the distinct smell of Earl Grey tea that appeared to have nothing in it but sugar.

“And milk if I had any,” Esmé agreed as if Isabelle had spoken aloud. “But the island has no milk until tomorrow so I make do with extra honey.” She pointed to a chair and then clapped her hands.

“My friends, you have drunk enough of my spirits. I appreciate your keeping the evening with me and will see you tomorrow if you need a headache cure.”

No one objected. All finished the last of their drinks and staggered out of the house with a chorus of “Best wishes to the mistress of this house.”

Esmé stared at Isabelle for almost a minute. “You come back to me with a pure spirit. I will not ask how that can be or doubt my insight. If I had been drinking with my friends, I would not be so certain, but I refrained, intent on discrediting you. Now it appears it was a waste of restraint.”

“I cannot say that I am sorry I disappointed you,” Isabelle answered, “only relieved that you are so perceptive. And honest.”

“Few appreciate how expensive honesty can be.”

“I respect your work, Healer, and will never do anything to undermine your wisdom, unless I know that someone’s life is in danger.” Isabelle paused and when Esmé gave a grudging nod went on. “Yes, I do know how expensive honesty can be.”

Esmé stood up and poured more tea for herself and a mug for Isabelle. To each she added a dollop of spirits from a clay jug and set both on the table.

“He hurt your heart,” Esmé stated.

“Why is he so hard? Why is he so alone? There is immense kindness in him. I have seen it, felt it. Why, if he has a good heart, does he think that lust and drunkenness and drugs are the answer to anything? Why does he stay here when he is so obviously unhappy?”

“Sip your tea and wrap yourself in a shawl. It is a long story and one that will test your faith in my honesty.”

Isabelle took the shawl Esmé handed her and, though the evening was not particularly cool, wrapped the gossamer-light piece around her shoulders.

“Sebastian Dushayne was assigned here as a soldier when the castillo still housed warriors, though they were English soldiers and not the Spaniards who had first built it. Captain Dushayne fell in love with a local girl. Her mother was the village healer. Not me,” Esmé hastened to add. “Despite the mother’s misgivings, which were far more insightful than most people’s, she allowed her daughter, Angelique, to marry Sebastian.”

Esmé sipped her tea and added more spirits.

“Sebastian Dushayne wanted Angelique. He said he loved her, but he wanted her beauty, her sweetness, her pure heart. And it was a fine match. Her goodness tempered his carnal wants and his commanding presence made Angelique aware of the value of a forceful personality.”

Isabelle settled back into the cushions of the sofa to find comfort where she could. This story was not going to have a happy ending.

“After a great storm swept the region, Angelique told her husband that she must go to help her sister on another island. Sebastian allowed it but insisted that she come back quickly, afraid that separation would be too great a test of his vows. Can you see that his love was mixed with too great a need to control?”

Isabelle saw that in him still. The way he told people what to do, never asked a question, demanded rather than suggested.

“Finally, when she had been gone too long, Sebastian Dushayne insisted his wife return. Despite the fact it was the month of the worst storms of the year, Angelique tried to obey him and was lost at sea. Of forty people, only three women survived and one man of God.”

“Man of God?” Isabelle straightened.

“Yes.” Esmé nodded. “Father Joubay took a place in the dinghy. If he’d given the spot to Angelique, she would have lived.”

“Oh, dear God.” Isabelle raised her hand to her mouth.

“The healer cursed both Joubay and Sebastian Dushayne to an eternity of suffering for causing the death of her beloved child. Joubay was forbidden on the island, the one place he wanted to live more than anyplace else, until he could undo his wrong. Dushayne was given total control of this island, but only this island. He was condemned to live here, unable to leave the island, for as long as it took for him to win the love of another woman as pure of heart as Angelique.”

“This is true? You swear it?” Even if Esmé swore, Isabelle was not sure she would believe it.

“Yes, Isabelle, I swear on my skill as a healer. And what I have told you is not even the hardest part to believe.” Esmé pushed her tea away and closed her eyes for a moment.

“This happened in the fall of 1810. Sebastian has been living here, frozen in age and time, for almost two hundred years.”

Isabelle stood up, knocking over the mug. “That cannot be.”

“Yes, it is. I swear it on Angelique’s grave. Sebastian can use the modern version of anything already invented in 1810. He can read any book he chooses and wear any style clothing he prefers, but he cannot use electricity or the telephone or any other modern convenience.”

“What happens if he tries?”

“Whatever it is does not work, or bursts into flame, or disintegrates.”

Isabelle allowed herself to believe it for a moment. The castillo was lit by candles. She had seen no sign of a computer or a telephone. There were no battery-operated radios or even an old-fashioned boom box, and that was odd for a man who loved singing.

“But worst of all, Isabelle, Sebastian Dushayne cannot leave this island for even a moment. Over the years the strip of land that connects the fort here to the main part of the island has been eroded by storms, so now even the islanders can only leave at low tide.”

“But people can come here from the big hotel on the main island?”

“Yes, Sebastian holds his version of a nineteenth-century soiree, which draws tourists to the castillo and they are only too happy to fill his needs. He is a man of broad sexual tastes and greatly interested in experimentation.”

“Stop!” Isabelle insisted. “I do not want to hear any more. I do not believe you. You’re insane or trying to manipulate me.”

“Think what you will, innocent,” Esmé said with a shrug. “But you cannot stay pure of heart around someone like the man he has become, and that is what you must be to save him. A conundrum, is it not?”

Standing up, Esmé ignored the spilled tea and took Isabelle’s arm. “Think about it, dear girl; sleep and pray to your God. Joubay found his answer in you. Who knows? It could be that I am mistaken. If that is so, and I am wrong, we will become enemies. My mission in life, as the healer’s descendant, is to see that Sebastian Dushayne is punished into eternity.”

Isabelle must have looked as stunned as she felt. “You would murder me?”

“Murder you?” Esmé’s shock was sincere. “Never. But there are other ways to make you unwelcome here. Please, don’t let it come to that. Avoid him. He deserves his misery.” The healer patted her arm as she showed her to the door. “For two hundred years. This has been going on for two hundred years. You are not the first innocent and you will not be the last.” Esmé pushed her out the door with a gentle shove and clicked it shut.

Home was five doors down, and even though Isabelle walked very slowly it was not nearly a long enough walk to sift out the truth of the healer’s story.

Hanging her dress on one of the hooks, she brushed her teeth halfheartedly and climbed into bed. Sleep was impossible, but Isabelle felt safest in her snug bed tucked into the alcove.

The sheets were soft with many washings and as white as island sun and lemon could make them.

Relaxing a little, Isabelle began to pray. If she did not actually fall asleep, she did begin to dream. Father Joubay came to her and sat on the edge of her bed, which was, suddenly, aboard a ship being tossed about in an insane sea.

“We are safe,” he assured her. “He is the one in danger.”

In the way of dreams she could see a man swimming, struggling against the waves, but swimming away from them and not to them.

“It really should not be hard to believe that a devil’s curse could hold this man and this curve of land in thrall.” He picked up a wooden cross from the shelf at the head of her bed and held it to his heart. “Isabelle, you believe in the miracles that are in the Bible.”

She nodded and Father Joubay went on, pressing his advantage. “You have seen miracles in your work. Why is it more difficult to believe in the curse of evil?”

“You called it the devil’s miracle.”

“Yes. Like the planes that destroyed the World Trade Center. Like the nightmare of slavery in America or the children who destroyed innocence at Columbine High School. Those were calamitous events and millions of people felt their impact.

“But there are many other curses like the one that Sebastian must endure, curses that do not impact the whole world.” He took her hand. “We could have been spared every one of those events, great and small, if one person had done the right thing.”

“What right thing?”

“Only God knows who or what would have led to a different ending to those tragedies, but there is always someone who could have changed what happened.”

“But no one stopped the Oklahoma City bombing or the Holocaust.”

“That’s true. But someone changed the heart of the man who would have destroyed the San Francisco Bay Bridge and the men set on destroying the Tokyo water supply. A beautiful sunrise convinced your mother not to abort you.”

“Yes, I know that story but not the others.”

“No one knows of those others because they never happened and never will. Goodness in some form changed a heart and drove all thought of hatred from them. And, you, Isabelle, are the one who can change Sebastian Dushayne’s life.”

“You ask too much of me.”

Father Joubay stayed silent, and Isabelle knew what he was waiting for.

“I’ve lived such a sheltered life, at least it was sheltered until I became a nurse. And even since then I have never had a serious boyfriend. How can I help a man as mired in dissipation as Sebastian Dushayne?” Isabelle asked as she pulled her hand from his and folded her arms.

“Because, despite his lifestyle, you can see the good in him. Because you freed me from the curse. Because your heart has love to spare. When our eyes met in church that day I had never felt so hopeful. It was as though you understood.”

“It’s absurd and this is just a dream.” She took the cross away from him and put it back on the shelf. “It’s my mind’s way of making sense of this.”

“Isabelle, do not let the scientist in you reject what the woman of faith believes. Look around you and see that the healer tells the truth.” Father Joubay spoke with a doggedness that belied the gentle way he patted her hand.

A cock crowed and Isabelle woke up, the image of the man disappearing along with the storm and the furious seas.

The sky was leaden today as if rain was inevitable. Taking a page from the healer’s book, Isabelle left a note under her door saying that she was taking the day off. Then she walked on to the castillo, allowing the scientist in her to rule the day.

She visited the kitchen, a massive vault of a room kept cool because it was mostly belowground. A line of windows ringed the ceiling to let in light.

All the household work was done by hand and even in the morning there were already five people busy preparing the main meal of the day. The staff was welcoming, the chef annoyed by the distraction. The mix of twenty-fi rst-century life with nineteenth-century ways was disconcerting.

There were contemporary clocks but no timers. Spoons of all kinds, except plastic, but no wire whisks or eggbeat ers. The fireplace had a baking oven to the side but there was no sign of a microwave or a conventional cooking range. Huge porcelain sinks looked contemporary but the hand pump was not.

Isabelle wandered around the castillo, finally getting a sense of the place as it was before it became one man’s prison. It must have housed hundreds of soldiers once and the construction of the time was impressive.

The Castillo de Guerreros was hundreds of years old but showed little sign of deterioration.

Isabelle found the room she had woken up in after the shipwreck. The curtained bed and candles made more sense now.

The window overlooking the harbor was open and she could hear shouting from the beach.

A group of men and older boys were playing some kind of game. But it was Sebastian who caught her attention. Stripped down to an odd undergarment, a cross between boxers and briefs, he was a magnificent contrast to the darker, shorter islanders with whom he was playing.

The game involved running and kicking, some combined version of soccer and kickball, apparently of island origin. Periodically play would stop, they would all drink something from various mugs, laugh and joke and then begin again.

Sebastian was in such good humor that Isabelle hardly recognized the man who had been so awful to her the night before. She loved watching the way he controlled his body, the ripple of muscles, the flex of his buttocks as he kicked the ball, his agility in avoiding opponents who wanted to stop his progress, the way he bent over, putting his hands on his knees to catch his breath.

The game grew more heated and one of the younger players broke ranks and took a punch at a boy on the opposing side.

The game stopped and Sebastian switched roles, from player to coach. With an arm around the young man’s shoulder he took him to a spot in the shade and they talked. Well, it appeared Sebastian mostly listened while the boy talked.

The others ignored the discussion, drank or found a shady spot to cool down. A few minutes later Sebastian and the boy returned to the team, the boy said something to the guy he’d punched and the game resumed, all ill will gone.

The competition ended a few minutes later with much cheering and back slapping. Then the men stripped off their clothes and ran into the water. When he was waist deep, Sebastian looked up and waved to her.

Isabelle raised her hand to him, but ducked out of sight when the others tried to figure out to whom he was waving.

Those few minutes told her as much about Sebastian Dushayne as she had learned in all their conversations. He was a natural leader, respected by his fellow islanders, capable of being a team player or a peacemaker as needed. He found pleasure in the physical and that meant more than sex. And, oh, yes, he had a fabulous body.

It was a shame that the man’s talents had been limited to this little world for so long. If there were any chance she could free him, she would. With that thought Isabelle realized she did believe that Sebastian Dushayne and Father Joubay had been cursed. For two hundred years.

There was no scientific proof. It was the man and the place, the aura that surrounded both. Despite his youth and good health, the way everyone referred to him as “the master” epitomized the feeling that Sebastian Dushayne was not a part of this world.

But wanting to help him and acting on it without debasing herself were two different things. Isabelle had no idea how she could do it and prayed with all her heart that there was a way.

There is. The two words came to her in a whisper as quiet as a raindrop.

She prayed again that Sebastian would believe. No quiet word reassured her that he would.

Seven

As days turned into weeks, Isabelle wondered if she might have been wrong about her reason for being on Isla Perdida. Had her fascination with Sebastian Dushayne misled her? His tortured world, his wounded heart, his compelling sexuality haunted her but she had seen no sign of him for almost three weeks.

Her work with Esmé and the villagers was rewarding. The healer was open to the idea that Isabelle begin a process of inoculation of both children and adults against the most common diseases.

Isabelle initiated the prototype program used by most world health organizations. Part of the process was a record-k eeping initiative that would identify and track the routine treatment as well as the emergency needs of the village.

Recording a medical history was its own massive chore, as big as convincing the villagers that inoculations would discourage, not encourage, illness. Isabelle found the villagers unwilling to help her with the written work for a dozen reasons down to the fact that they had never kept records before.

Esmé was a superb midwife and the neonatal health of the village women was impressive. Most girls were matched with mates by the time they were sixteen and mothers within the year.

The village was run much like a classic commune with little interference from the outside. Meals were shared in a common dining room and those few who did not work for Sebastian Dushayne fished and raised fruits and vegetables for the whole village.

No one crossed the tidal-submerged strip of land to work at the hotel on a daily basis. Those who did never returned. There was nothing mystical about that. The twenty-fi rst century was too strong a draw.

While Isabelle’s work with the villagers was rewarding, her contact with the castle was nonexistent. Each evening she went to sing and each evening was turned away by one of the servants who told her that Sebastian was entertaining privately and did not wish to hear her.

The fourth week into her work, Sebastian came to the village right after breakfast as Isabelle was walking back to her cottage.

The villagers’ excitement was palpable as the master stopped at the dining area, now empty except for the children dawdling over their fruit and porridge.

The boys and girls mobbed him as he took a seat on one of the benches just outside the dining room. Isabelle watched Sebastian listen to stories, admire toys and suggest that they meet at the beach later.

“Yes! Yes!” the children chorused. “Let’s go now!”

“After school,” he insisted.

“Oooooh,” they moaned.

“It could be that if you work hard today, Mistress Teacher will let you out early. I will be waiting, no matter where the sun is, when you are free.”

As one, the group of children-Isabelle guessed there were fifteen in all-jumped up and raced to the school-room, where the Mistress Teacher waited. She waved at Sebastian, shaking her head as she did, then followed the children inside.

The street was quiet.

“I suspect this will be a difficult day for her to hold their attention.” Isabelle came up beside him and, at his start of surprise, she reached out and touched his shoulder.

“I’m sorry I-” Isabelle began but stopped at the anger she saw. “What is it?”

“You made an agreement, Mistress Nurse. You are to come sing at the castle every night. And you have not visited for three weeks. Do you think to punish me because I am not interested in taking any pleasure from your body?”

“You make it sound as though my body exists for your use.” She did her best to sound reasonable even as her temper seethed. “Men are not that sexist these days and it’s not how I see sex. It’s a way to express affection, to share love in a physical way. It is about the mind and heart as much as the body.”

“Isabelle, we each exist for the other’s ‘use’ as you call it. Let me demonstrate.” He pulled her into the dining room entry hall, pinned her against the wall and kissed her. His lips touched her neck below her ear. Isabelle raised her arms to push him away, but the kiss enchanted her and she encircled his neck instead.

This is more than lust, more than wanting; this is the deepest of feeling. Isabelle tried to convince him as his mouth met hers and she opened to him. Opened more than her lips, opened her body, her mind, her heart as she had the first time Sebastian had kissed her.

He ended the kiss abruptly. His hardness pressed against her, arousing her even though they were both fully clothed.

“This is not the mind and heart, you simpleminded virgin. This is lust at its most powerful. If you think this is the ultimate sharing, then you are amazingly uneducated. This is only the beginning, though I wonder if you will ever free the wanton that is hiding inside you.”

Isabelle’s cheeks burned, and not only because she knew what she was capable of, had dreamed of the two of them together in ways that were very creative and slightly shocking.

It hurt physically to push him away, to deny herself what she wanted to give and he wanted to take-for all the wrong reasons.

“You do have a way with words, Sebastian. Were all men this insulting in 1810? Or have you become so used to being called ‘the master’ that you think of yourself as above everyone else?”

“You annoy me.”

That was stating the obvious, Isabelle thought. He looked like a chastened schoolboy pretending not to have a crush on a girl, but she reminded herself he was definitely not a schoolboy, and the depth of his feelings on the subject of lust and love made the idea of a crush laughable.

“Your talk of love and union is a fantasy.” He stood with his hands on his hips, not angry with her, she saw, but very, very frustrated. That made two of them.

“No, love is not a fantasy,” Isabelle insisted. “I know I will be yours as well as I know what day this is, but you will be mine, Sebastian Dushayne, and that makes all the difference in the world.”

Isabelle smoothed her pants and shirt into place and stepped away from him. “I have come to the castillo every evening since I last saw you and am told every evening that you are ‘entertaining privately’ and have no wish for me to sing.”

Sebastian did not answer her with any more than narrowed eyes, so she left the dining room and began a brisk walk to her clinic to gather the supplies for the day.

“Wait!”

“I am already late,” she said, without breaking stride.

Sebastian fell into step beside her, smiling now. “You have been very busy. Cortez tells me that the immunization program has started.”

“Yes, I was very pleased that Mistress Esmé was so receptive to the idea.”

“I’m sure she was.”

At his cynical tone, Isabelle slowed and looked at him. “Why do you say it that way?”

“Isabelle, my sweet, I never left word that you should be turned away from the castillo.”

Now she stopped walking completely. “You didn’t? But then why would they tell me to leave?” She had a niggling feeling she knew the answer.

“You know why. Because Esmé does not want us to be together. I can guess that she told the gatekeeper to send you away. She is keeping you busy and me distracted.”

“Then you are entertaining privately?” Isabelle did not want to sound coy, but it was such a gentle way to ask if he was having sex with someone else.

“Every night,” he said with rueful nod. “Esmé has a long and deep connection with the concierge at the hotel. The woman on the desk is her cousin and the man is her grandson. They are always on the lookout for guests who suit my taste.”

Isabelle tried not to show her disgust.

He laughed. “Your striving for sainthood is as amusing as it is obvious. Make up your mind, Isabelle. You can be a saint or a woman. Not both.”

“Then you do not understand faith or God at all.”

“Oh, it will be a joy to have you educate me.”

“Yes, it will.” Isabelle had never once heard him use the word “joy.” It was the smallest, tiniest step in the right direction.

“Come tonight, Isabelle.”

“Yes, I will.”

Sebastian watched her leave. Her joie de vivre was endearing. Her honesty amazing and amusing. He was not in a hurry to have sex with her. The dance they were sharing was so much less predictable than what happened in bed.

By the time he visited all the villagers, the noon bell rang for the midday meal, as he was walking through the castle gate. While he had no need for food, he did like the afternoon rest that was a part of island life. He would sleep a little and then head to the beach for his time with the children.

While he dozed, Joubay came to him, sitting beside him on the huge rock that was the shadiest spot on the west-facing beach. They did not look at each other, but watched a sailboat approach, both of them afraid, both of them pretending they were not.

“So Esmé is up to her old tricks,” Joubay began.

Sebastian had not heard his voice in two hundred years but recognized the gravelly sound that came from too much tobacco.

“Doing her best to keep Isabelle Reynaud away from me.” Sebastian threw a rock into the water gently slapping the outcropping beneath their feet. “Does the healer actually think the girl is a threat to the curse?”

“Yes, I do believe so.”

“There could never be another as pure of heart, as generous, as compliant as Angelique was.” He felt the breeze stiffen and the fear became dread. “My love for her caused her death and I deserve every year of this curse. It is not all bad, you know.”

“Nonsense. You cannot lie to me. Sex is an endless seeking for what is lost. You know as well as I do that sex alone is not the answer.”

“Don’t preach to me. You have not been celibate for two hundred years.”

“For more of it than you think. The difference between us is that I knew it was not the answer.” Joubay raised his head as the breeze became a wind and the first of the clouds crept up from the west. “And I had faith that I could find redemption. I have, and I am at rest at last. Need I remind you that Isabelle was the key?”

“I am not going to watch this again, Joubay.” The sky was darkening. Sebastian could feel the rain in the air.

“Then wake up and stop torturing yourself.” Joubay had to shout now as the wind whipped around them. “Sebastian, give the woman what she gives to you and see what happens. It cannot hurt more than you are hurting now.”

Sebastian woke up to the sound of something crashing to the floor and the muffled curse of a servant. Standing up, he shook off the last of the dream and readied himself for an afternoon with the only true innocents on the island.

Eight

The children always refreshed Sebastian in body and spirit. Their teacher was a truly gifted woman, and they had learned from the first that sharing was its own reward. The one little blind girl never lacked for someone to help her down the walkways or to read her the arithmetic problems.

By the time dusk settled on the castillo, he had rinsed off the salt and sand and dressed, ready for his next guest. Sitting in the chair near the fireplace with the smallest of fires, totally unnecessary but very comforting, Sebastian thought about what Joubay had said in his dream. Or it could be that some of the children’s innocence touched his heart. Before he could decide, he heard Isabelle’s voice and walked to the door and out onto the passage that overlooked the inner bailey.

“I will come to you when you need me. I will free you from all your fear. All you must do is accept me and believe that I am always near.”

He felt wet on his hand and brushed another tear from his face. As she finished the song, the words that touched him echoed through his head. “I will free you from all your fear. All you must do is accept me.”

No one had ever named it “fear” before. Sebastian realized that he had not even thought of it that way until the moment the words were out of Isabelle’s mouth.

Fear. He was afraid, afraid of a hundred things.

Afraid that if he loved again, he would die. Not that death frightened him, but it would mean that there was so much that he would never have a chance to do.

He would like a chance to give back to more than his island home. To see the world denied him for so long. To meet men and women like his villagers. People who thought more of others than of themselves.

Fear hounded him. Fear that he did not know how to love. Love was as imperfect as the lover. His way of loving had cost Angelique her life. Was the fear of losing another lover what had kept him from finding someone in two hundred years? He’d never been able to decide if that was part of the curse or his own failing.

The biggest fear of all was that Isabelle would die if he even tried to love again. He put his head in his hand and let the tears fall. Fear weakened him so completely that Sebastian put his head in his hands and cried like a child.

Isabelle left the castillo, annoyed that the master had not shown himself when she had finished her song. He took time to encourage everyone else in the world, everyone but her.

She searched out the spot she called her own, a small grove of very old palms that had the feel of a holy place. She sat on one of the stumps and wished for someone to talk to.

The palms clacked in the light evening breeze. Isabelle did not think that was a divine message. No more than the surf or the sound of the night was. But it did inspire her to sit in silence, and lift her heart in prayer, to be part of nature as nature was part of her. She tried to convince herself that she was not lonely.

An amazingly bright shooting star lit the sky and Isabelle laughed. “Yes, I know I have only to speak from my heart and I am heard. I know some hymn that teaches that truth. But at this particular moment I would like someone to talk with.”

“You could talk to me, Isabelle.” Sebastian emerged from the shadows and sat across from her on the trunk of a palm tree that had fallen in some storm ages ago.

“Where were you tonight?” she asked with an edge to her voice.

“You sang ‘Be Still and Know I Am Here.’ Doesn’t that apply to you too?”

“Yes,” she said, which showed how good she was at preaching but not at living what she preached. “It’s one thing to say the words and another to live them.”

“It took me a while to deal with my fear.”

“What fear?”

“The list would take too long. But the biggest fear is that I will lose what I love the most.”

“It’s inevitable, Sebastian. We all face that fear.”

“Yes, but we don’t all cause death like I did.”

“You do think of yourself as ‘the master,’ don’t you? It happened for a hundred reasons, dear man, and one of them was to bring the two of us together. How else to match two destined souls born almost two hundred years apart?”

“Now, that is a fantasy.”

She laughed. “No more than being lost in paradise for two hundred years.”

“So you think predestination brought us together?”

“Not for a minute. I think a hundred things could have kept us apart. But by some miracle I came here and you listened.” Tears filled her eyes and tracked down her cheeks, not tears of sadness but an overflow of such profound belief she could not hold them back.

“Father Joubay called your curse a miracle of the devil’s making. I think he is wrong. This is a miracle of the highest order.”

“Miracle as torture?” he asked, and she had to agree that it had not been easy for him.

“Maybe all heartache is a gift in disguise. Maybe all good events have some darkness shadowing them.”

She came to him, the tears gone, and looked up into his face, overwhelmed in the best possible way by his physical power and presence. “Sebastian, maybe there is no pure good and bad in the world, but one grand invitation for us to live life to the fullest.”

He smiled, not quite showing his dimples, and kissed her as if it was the only answer he could give. That kiss, filled with a sweetness she had never felt before, gave her hope. He leaned back and now there were dimples showing. “This is too much theology for me. I came to invite you to watch the moon rise with me.”

“All right.” Indeed she had said quite enough. “I imagine you know the perfect spot.”

“I do.” He bowed a little and offered his arm.

She took his hand. It startled him and she decided it would be an evening of discovery for both of them. “Is it far?”

“On the top of the fort.”

“Let’s hurry. I don’t want to miss a moment.”

Isabelle held tight to his hand as they hurried up a ramp, to move guns, he said. They dashed around the outer wall where the gun mounts stood empty and up three sets of stairs. At the very top of the castillo there was a long line of guardhouses that marked the side of the fortress that faced the harbor.

All the while they held hands. His hold was awkward and she loved him all the more for it.

Isabelle let go of his hand, walked over to the wall and looked out to the harbor.

She loved him.

Of course she did. Stupid girl, she chided herself. How else was this story to play out? She could hardly give herself to a man without love. Had actually worried about it a little, knowing how much she wanted him. Now she did not have to worry about it anymore. This was living life to the fullest for her. She had no doubt.

Isabelle twirled around and leaned back on the rock and instantly felt the rock give way. She choked out a scream as she fell, the backs of her knees hitting the broken part of the wall and sending her into the black night.

“No!” Sebastian roared. He grabbed her hand, pulling her into his arms. They fell to their knees. Isabelle held on to him as if he were the only real safety in her world. She buried her face in his chest as she heard the broken chunk of the wall bounce off another rampart and fall into the sea.

“I was going to tell you how perfect that spot was,” Isabelle whispered. “But this spot with your arms around me is even better.”

Sebastian leaned back and took her face in his hands. “Do not die, do you hear me? I cannot have another life on my conscience.”

“I’m fine.”

Sebastian kissed her as if the touch of his lips would make her safe. She felt the sweetness again, and desire. On their knees, his lips begged for acceptance and when she gave it to him, he deepened the kiss. It was everything she wanted. The kiss ended, or at least he moved his lips to her hair and the way he rocked as he cradled her against him was as exciting as it was soothing.

She touched the spot below his ear with her lips and whispered, “Have we missed the moonrise or do you think the moon will wait for us?” Isabelle hoped he would laugh, but when she raised her head to look at his face, she saw that she would have to settle for a smile.

Sebastian stood and took her hand. “Come this way. And do not go too close to the wall.”

“All right,” she said and let him lead the way. Isabelle looked up to see that the stars seemed only just above her reach. “This is one of the most perfect places on earth.”

Sebastian pressed her fingers to his lips and turned her to face the east where the moon had just popped up over the horizon. With his arms wrapped around her and her hands over his, they watched the moon make its graceful climb. It was lemony yellow and huge, though it grew smaller in size as it found its place in the heavens, surrounded by the stars that beckoned and twinkled.

What did the moon see in them? Isabelle wondered. Two people from completely opposite times and places, who found each other. Who, together, were going to end a curse with the miracle of love that was God’s gift to humankind.

Sebastian led her to a bench just like the ones that lined the walls in the castle’s courtyard. This one was more weathered, still comfortable enough if they sat very close together.

Sebastian played with her hair. “Your hair is so thick I cannot believe you can hold your head up. But when I touch it, it feels like the finest-spun silk.” They kissed, and kissed again.

“Tell me about the convent, Isabelle.”

Tears filled her eyes as she squeezed his hand before pulling hers away. She closed her eyes but nodded, and Sebastian sat back, folding his arms, waiting with the patience of a man who had tested that virtue to its limits.

This was how trust began. Isabelle knew she would have to be the first to give. It was about more than the way a man was made. This man had forgotten how to trust a long time ago.

But he had actually asked, cared enough to want to know how she became who she was.

With her eyes closed, Isabelle pictured the huge convent, now much too big for its small community, with echoing halls and the sound of hymns at all hours. The memory still touched that part of her that longed to be closer to God.

“I went into the convent right after high school. I’m from Nebraska.” She glanced at him. “Do you know where Nebraska is?”

“Somewhere in the American midsection,” he suggested without much confidence.

“The Midwest, yes. My parents had a farm that was fifty miles from everyone else. So they sent me to a girls’ boarding school run by a very progressive order of nuns. Then my mom and dad died my second year of high school and I spent vacations for the next two years with relations who really did not want me.”

“I am so sorry, though I find it hard to imagine anyone not wanting you.” He kissed the top of her head. “That would never have happened here.”

“Yes, Cortez explained your way of caring for children,” Isabelle said, pretending not to understand his meaning. “Your community here is impressive, Sebastian, but it only works on a small scale with an enlightened man at the head.”

“Yes, I think the term is ‘despot.’ ”

She fisted her right hand and gently punched his left arm.

“You try so hard to make me see you as a dissipated, ruined man.” She straightened and raised one finger so he would know she was serious. “I tell you, Sebastian, the man I am getting to know is the one I saw on the beach today with the children. The one who took the blind girl up on his back and made her the leader of the group. The one who let himself be buried in sand.” She folded her hands in her lap and waited pointedly for him to answer.

“Yes, Mistress Nurse, I know you want to think well of me and I am sorry to have to explain to one as high-m inded as you that I play with the children so that when they grow up they will be loyal to me; they will stay and serve me as their parents have.”

“Oh, nonsense. You play with them because they remind you of what you miss the most.”

He laughed. “There is no discouraging you.”

“Oh, yes, there is. I have faced my share of disappointments in my life.”

“And convent life was one of them?”

“Yes.” She sighed and took his hand. “I was so very lucky to have a Mother Superior who understood me. When I was accused, more than once, of inappropriate behavior, she took me aside and counseled me.”

Isabelle rested her head against the wall and wondered what Mother would make of her now. “She knew that I was not flirting in a sexual way, but the priests were men after all. In the end she made me see that I did not want to be a nun so much as I wanted a sense of community, a place where I could belong, a place where I mattered to people as I had to my parents.”

Oh, it still hurt to talk about it and remember the day she had taken her one little suitcase and walked out of yet another home. A tear splashed onto her hand and Sebastian wiped it away with one of his fingers.

“We all want to belong, Isabelle.”

“I suppose so, and I was looking for it in the wrong place. We have something in common that way, Sebastian.”

He did not rise to the bait but asked, “How long were you in the convent?”

“Three years. The order helped me find a scholarship for nursing school, which is what I had an aptitude and inclination for. I finished my training as a nurse, went to work and found an organization that would train me as a physician’s assistant if I would work for their relief group for two years. I finished that work with the clinic in New Orleans after Katrina.

“Two weeks later I was in church when Father Joubay asked for a volunteer to come here for a year and here I am, sitting beside you on a gorgeous night wishing I was talking about anything but my past.”

“Such a colorful life it is.”

“I’m not sure if you’re joking or not. But since I left Nebraska it has been one adventure after another.” Isabella straightened and made sure she had his attention.

Oh, she certainly did.

Sebastian was watching her the way a child stared at a treat just out of reach or a shark biding its time until it could pounce. She looked away before the list of comparisons grew even more threatening.

“I’ve worked with prostitutes in Mexico and with the homeless in Thailand after the tsunami. I’ve treated child soldiers in Africa and seen a saint martyred.”

Tears threatened again, but Isabelle had had enough of them and she prayed, not for Joseph, her martyred friend, but for the lost souls, the men who had killed him.

“I have seen people die for lack of the simplest things and seen amazing recoveries. God works around us, through us and in us all the time. I know that as well as I know the hymns I sing.”

When Isabelle stopped talking, she was afraid he had fallen asleep. “I’m sorry, but you did ask.”

“And through all that you are still a virgin?”

“Yes, and if that is the only thing you care about, then I am sorry I told you the story.” She was more than a little peeved by his question. “I think you have some kind of sex addiction. It’s considered a disease now, you know.”

“Oh, what I have is worse than that. Much worse.” He scooped her up into his arms and set her on her feet. “I do not see how any man in his right mind could not pursue you.”

“They have. But I decided that I would wait until it meant more to me than another way to feel good.” She thought of something else. “Sebastian, in 2009, a woman has a right to say no and be respected for that decision.”

They watched each other in silence. Finally Sebastian said, “But you are not saying no to me. You would not have told me your story if you did not want to be closer, would you? And I would not have asked if I did not want to be closer to you.”

Exactly, she thought.

“It’s growing cool here, Isabelle. Come and have some tea or wine.” He started toward the stairs.

“Sebastian, it is hardly ever cool here.”

He looked over his shoulder and showed his dimples. “Pretend, Isabelle.”

When they reached his sitting room, he paused before he opened the door.

“Yes,” Isabelle said, looking at him with her heart in her eyes. “Tea, I think.”

His smile disappeared and he bowed to her as though she had just given him the greatest gift.

Nine

Sebastian could tell by her smile that Isabelle had just given him the greatest gift she could bestow. Not her virginity, but her heart. Her smile said it all. How he loved that smile. Ignoring the dread that came with the word “love,” he bowed to her, following her into his bedroom.

Isabelle ignored the long settee and walked over to the bed. “Tea, later.” She half asked, half suggested, and he knew for a fact she was a mind reader.

Sebastian watched her take off her shoes, brush sand from her feet. Her toes were as sweet as the rest of her, and he realized she did not know the first thing about seduction.

“Isabelle, I’m supposed to help you take your clothes off.”

She wriggled out of her pants and thong and was naked from the waist down. “Oh, no, really?” she said with a tone that told him she knew exactly what she was doing. “Let me help you undress first.”

She climbed up on the bed, giving him an arousing view of her backside, from the waist down, and then turned to face him, kneeling up on her knees, so that they were of the same height.

“I was hoping you would be wearing that Regency costume from the other night. Untangling that cravat would be fun, and we could use it for so many other things.”

She unbuttoned his shirt. The placket ended in the middle, so she pulled it up over his head. When they were face-to-f ace again, she pressed her lips to his.

That kiss was more than Sebastian could stand. He pushed her back on the bed and she let him, laughing and tugging at the fly on the cotton pants he wore. They wrestled like puppies as they undressed, helping, hindering and teasing. They came together as though the other was all the covering they would ever need.

He should go slow, Sebastian reminded himself. She was unschooled, untouched.

When he moved from her lips to kiss her neck and caress her breast, she sighed with such anticipation that he knew slow was not what she wanted. In a wordless communication he had never experienced before, Sebastian knew what she wanted, when, where, how. Her first orgasm came when he touched her between the legs, using his hand to cup and caress her silkiness.

She threw her arms out and then around him, pulling him closer so that his manhood could feel her warmth. “Don’t stop.”

Obeying her, Sebastian pushed himself into her, not as gently as he might have, and she arched up under him. They moved together and when his seed spilled into her, she held herself tight against him as if she needed every bit he had to give.

They played and slept and made love as the moon passed their window and the night waned. When the sun began to lighten the sky, the bed was a tangle of linen, the pillows long gone. Sebastian pulled the curtains around the bed while Isabelle slept, to give them some privacy when the servants brought hot water.

Sebastian watched the dawn and wondered what love meant.

He felt her hand on his back and then her lips where her fingers had touched. “I feel like we are in our own Eden. Come, my Adam”-she held up her arms offering herself to him-“ help your Eve greet the day.”

Lovemaking gave her a glow that made her more womanly than she had been twelve hours before, but Isabelle Reynaud was as fresh and sweet as ever.

His world had not changed either. The battery-operated clock on his nightstand still pointed to midnight as it had for fifty years. If he had harbored the tiniest hope that truly making love with someone so generous and untouched would change his life, then he was disappointed. He did not dare hope that Isabelle would spend her life with him. There were too many forces who would not allow him that kind of happiness, that “living life to the fullest,” as she said.

As he leaned down to kiss her, Sebastian wondered if he was Adam to her Eve, who was going to play the serpent?

When Sebastian invited her to share breakfast with him, Isabelle accepted, hoping, praying that this was the beginning of a lifetime of days and nights together, but first she had to tell him the truth.

“Sebastian, I know about the curse. Esmé gave me the details weeks ago.”

He answered with no more than a slow, considering nod as he poured her coffee. Isabelle could not tell how he felt about her announcement.

She tasted her coffee and found the brew too strong for her taste. After adding enough milk to temper the flavor, the coffee was more white than brown.

“Angelique drank hers the same way.” Sebastian’s eyes burned into her as he spoke. “But that is the only way the two of you are alike.”

“Good,” Isabelle said, “because I do not believe in reincarnation.”

“Angelique was tall and I guess you would say buxom, but in 1810, her size meant she was healthy and well-to-do. Her skin was a creamy brown and she was beautiful in that way that mixed-race children can be. Her blue eyes were startling and her teeth so white and healthy they did not look real. She was perfect.”

“You have no portrait of her?” Isabelle reminded herself that Angelique was a memory two hundred years old and did her best to ignore the sting of jealousy.

“No, I have no painting.” His voice was filled with regret. “The artists here were not very skilled. I did not want to waste my money on a second-rate image when I had the real woman beside me all the time.”

They sipped more coffee, and Isabelle ate some of the bread if only to pretend that everything was all right.

“What version of the story did Esmé tell you?”

Isabelle recounted the conversation as accurately as she could recall.

“Esmé is honest; I will give her that. It’s the truth or as close as makes no difference.” He shrugged, not very successful in hiding the misery the story recalled. “To this day I can dream of Angelique drowning, her heavy cloak and skirts dragging her down, fighting, fighting to stay afloat, to stay alive.”

“Stop. Stop it, Sebastian. It does you no good to relive something that you had no control over.” What kind of love had they shared that he could still feel this pain two hundred years later?

“You think I had no control? I could have told her to wait until the storm season was ended. I could have tried harder to control my lust. I could have prayed instead of cursed when she told me she wanted to stay longer.”

“You missed her.” She swallowed hard. “You loved her. It is perfectly understandable.”

“I do not know if it is. I didn’t miss her so much as I missed the comfort of her body, the way she worshipped me and everything I did. Does that sound like love to you?”

Isabelle didn’t answer.

“No, Isabelle, it was no more love than what you feel for me.”

“And how would you define that?”

“Curiosity. You are a normal, healthy woman and much too old to be a virgin. You are a generous woman and think that if you share yourself with me enough, then all my problems will be solved. You are wrong.”

“No,” she said slowly, “what I think is that if you love me enough, then all your problems will be solved.”

“After two hundred years of trying, I suspect that love is beyond me.”

“Only because you confuse lust with love.” Her hand shook as she put her cup down.

“Do not play with the words,” he said, showing the first anger since the discussion began. “Love and lust are not the same and I know the difference.”

“But they are not exclusive,” she said with heat in her voice. Not that anger would make him listen to her. “I think lust is the body’s longing for love. Lust and love combined are as perfect an intimacy as a man and woman are capable of.”

With a jerk of his hand he dismissed the subject, standing. He looked away from her, his expression more frustrated than annoyed.

Isabelle stood up too. It took a lot of trust to argue, and they had pushed trust to the limit for today. She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her cheek into his back.

“I have to work. I will come back to sing this evening.”

She felt him relax. Because she had stopped questioning him? Because she had said she would come back? Because she left the choice about their future up to him? Because she had not said “I love you”? Probably all of them.

“I will walk you as far as the gate.” This time he took her hand and wrapped it around his arm. “Holding hands is for children. This is much more intimate.” The way his arm brushed against the side of her breast was proof enough.

They walked halfway across the courtyard in silence. Isabelle breathed in the morning air, living in the moment, knowing there was more to come. “It’s so lovely not to be in a hurry. Life in the States is lived at a running pace. I prefer this.”

“Two hundred years of this much quiet is more than anyone needs.”

“Do you wish you could die?” The question popped out before Isabelle remembered she was not going to pester him with any more soul-searching.

“Isabelle, if I knew the answer to that, I am not sure I would tell you.” He was quiet a moment more and then told her, “I don’t think I can. I tried to drown myself before I had been cursed for six months. But someone rescued me. I paid someone to run me through with a sword, but he fell and killed himself instead. I ran into a burning cottage to rescue a child, hoping I would die. I wound up miserably burned on my hands and arms. It took two years to recover completely.”

“I imagine that you gave up after that.”

“Yes. And before you can ask, I tried to leave for the last time about twenty years ago. I cannot. There is no way to explain the force that keeps me here, but it is not human or man-m ade. And at this point there is a whole village of people who depend on me for their livelihood.”

He was nobler than he gave himself credit for.

“Woman, stop looking at me as though I belong with your martyred saints. Go now. I will see you this evening.”

She kissed him, a quick kiss of promise and parting. If she had known what was coming, she would have made the kiss a farewell embrace he would never forget.

Isabelle was committed to her work. It had always been what came first in her life. Last night had changed that. She could hardly wait to see Sebastian again, to do whatever he wanted to do up to and including making love all night long again.

She was not sure if Sebastian loved her beyond amused affection and passion, but she loved him. Their future was uncertain at best, but their present was filled with hope.

Isabelle changed and washed up as quickly as she could and hurried to the healer’s house. Esmé looked awful, as though she had drank and smoked everything she could think of. Why was she at work if she felt so bad?

“You bitch!” The healer wailed and tried to slap her. Isabelle knew how to defend herself and, in less than a minute, Esmé was on the floor, with Isabelle sitting on her back.

“Why are you calling me names?”

“You slept with him.” With that, Esmé’s rage disappeared. It felt as though she were a balloon that had lost all its air. Isabelle moved off her back and sat on the floor beside her.

“Yes, I stayed the night. Why does that upset you?”

“You are still as pure as you were yesterday. He loves you?”

“I don’t know!” Isabelle’s uncertainty came out as anger, and she took a deep breath and tried again. “He hasn’t said the words, but I love him and I think that’s what matters.”

“How can you love someone you hardly know?”

“I have never thought loving someone was about time, but about the connection you feel with them. You know what I’m talking about if only because you and I do not have it.”

“You hate me.”

A hangover-i nduced pity party was imminent. Isabelle got up and went to find the teapot. “I like you and respect your work immensely, Esmé. But there is something missing. Or something so important to you that it will keep us from being any closer than professional colleagues. If friendship is important to you, then you will tell me what it is.”

“No.” Esmé struggled to her feet. “But I can tell you that I can no longer work with you. Leave this house and find some other way to amuse yourself.” Esmé grabbed the teacup from Isabella and pushed her toward the door. “And stop being a fool. Of course it matters if he loves you. If he doesn’t, you will be sent away the moment he grows tired of you or when you begin to demand too much. He is just a man after all.”

Ten

Before Isabelle could answer, argue or leave, a man and woman came through the door carrying a boy whose foot was covered with blood-soaked linen. She could not recall their names but did remember that they had been among the first to come for inoculations.

“He was playing with his brother,” his mother began but started to cry.

The boy’s father patted her awkwardly on the shoulder and took up the story. “They were supposed to be harvesting coconuts, but they grew tired of that and began to use the machete as a toy. Herreo cut his foot and I think he cut off his toes.”

The boy was in shock. As Esmé unwrapped the linen and exposed the wound, it was a relief to see that Herreo still had his toes, though they looked seriously damaged. What a relief that one of the shots they had agreed to had been against tetanus.

The healer began the process of cleaning the wound. Isabelle stayed in the corner of the room, observing. She bit her lip to keep quiet but when Esmé stopped running water over the injury after less than five minutes, Isabelle had to speak. “Healer, I will collect more water if you will wash it out for at least forty minutes.”

“Nonsense. Fresh water is too precious here. The wound is clean.”

“Esmé-” Isabelle began.

The healer cut her off with a look of pure hatred. “I have been cleaning wounds longer than you have been alive. Leave now. You are not welcome here.”

To argue would only upset everyone so Isabelle did as ordered, determined to visit the family later to see if she could convince them to let her treat the boy further. Really the wound should be treated in a sterile environment. In a hospital.

Back in her cottage Isabelle considered the paperwork that was part of any bureaucracy no matter how remote. Her funding hinged on filling out the forms, and she tackled the project even though she was distracted by her worry for the boy. Occasionally she found herself staring off into space with a sappy smile. The smile had nothing to do with her concern for Herreo.

Mother Superior had always insisted that God’s will was for each man and woman to be happy and fulfilled. Well, if that was true, then Isabelle knew she was on the right path, no matter what Esmé said. Her journey was not complete, but from where she sat, even surrounded by annoying forms, she was sure she was headed in the right direction.

After wrestling with the paperwork for most of the afternoon, Isabelle put it away, freshened up and walked to the edge of the village to see the boy. The family welcomed her. Fortunately, they were some of the early adapters you could find in every culture, the kind of natural leaders who were receptive to new ideas.

Herreo was in his bunk, a cup of juice at hand and the healer’s salve nearby. Isabelle raised the bed linen to look at the wound and felt physically ill. Esmé had stitched it closed, not the right course of action for a “dirty” cut.

“What do you think, Mistress Nurse?” Herreo’s mother asked.

“Please let me cut the stitches open. The wound should be cleaned. Please, Mistress Mother.”

Herreo’s mother looked at her husband.

“If you do not allow it,” Isabelle spoke quietly so Herreo would not hear, “the wound will become infected. Even now he should go to the hospital to have it treated properly.”

“If he goes to the main island, he will not come back,” his mother said.

“I think he will come back. He is young and he wants his mother and father more than he wants the pleasures of the main island.” Isabelle looked at Herreo’s father. “Would you rather have him die here or live there?”

“He can go if the master gives permission.” Esmé made her announcement from the door of the cottage. “Go ask him now.”

“Have you been watching me?” Isabelle did not care if her outrage showed.

“Don’t flatter yourself. I was coming to tell you that the master wants to speak with you and saw you walking here.”

“All right.” She calmed a little. “I’ll go ask him but let me cut the stitches open first.”

“No. Go to the master.”

It was the worst of medical protocol to argue in front of the patient’s parents, so Isabelle hurried to the castle wondering why Sebastian would send his message through Esmé when he usually used Cortez as a courier.

At the castillo, the servant was welcoming, but when she asked for Sebastian, the man shook his head. “He is busy now, mistress. You can sing, but he is busy.”

“I have to see him. Right now. This is an emergency.”

“An emergency?” the man said as though he did not know the word.

“Someone might die if I do not speak to him quickly.” That was a lie. It would be days before Herreo’s injury was life-threatening. She would ask forgiveness for her dishonesty later.

With a troubled nod, the servant let her in and, despite his urging that he would “bring the master down,” Isabelle ran to the steps and up to Sebastian’s quarters.

She knocked on the door of his study and waited. No one answered. She opened the door and called, “Sebastian. Where are you? This is important.”

He came then, from his bedroom, barefoot, his shirt open, his pants unbuttoned, as though he was about to undress. “What is so pressing that you have to interrupt me?”

He could have slapped her with less insult. For, as he asked, a woman came out of his bedroom. She was fully dressed but there was something proprietary about the way she put her hand on his arm. “What is it, Sebastian?”

Isabelle wanted to scream, yell and throw things. With the greatest of effort, she prayed for wisdom and focused on her errand. She could deal with this insult later. “Herreo is badly hurt and should go to a hospital. Esmé said if I got your permission, I could take him.”

He did not react at first, but then nodded. “You have my permission. Leave, and, Isabelle, I do not want you to come back.”

This verbal sucker punch caught her where it hurt the most. He spoke with such command that she knew he was serious. If she was not coming back, she would leave him with one last truth. “You know, Sebastian, you can have sex with a dozen women, but none of them will be me.”

“I thank God for that,” he shot back. “I do not want your heart and you cannot have mine. I do prefer variety. I thought I made that clear.”

Numbly, Isabelle left his room, unable to think of anything that might convince him. Her patient was her first priority, but as she reached the courtyard a hymn came to her, one that summed up all the longing she felt. On impulse, Isabelle Reynaud sang to Sebastian Dushayne one last time.

“Come back to me with all your heart. Don’t let fear keep us apart. Long have I waited for your coming home to me and living deeply our new life.”

Hosea’s song had always been one of her favorites. It was true on so many levels. From God to his lost children, from a couple who are estranged even though they were meant to be together, to a family longing for their prodigal son. For Sebastian Dushayne. She wanted him to be happy and fulfilled, but as she let go of her ego and her pride, Isabelle realized that his choices were not in her control.

Father Joubay had said that one person could change the fate of the world. Isabella had taken that to mean that one kindness would make change possible. But there was more to it than that. The one in pain had to accept the act, accept the love, and build on it. She had given all that she could, but Sebastian had rejected it.

Isabelle left the courtyard, wishing that she could see Sebastian again before she left for the hospital, just one last time.

Sebastian gave the woman a handful of coins and moved as far away from her as he could. “Take this and give Esmé her share.” He could feel anger building and did not care what story this woman took back with her. “I know she sent you here to discredit me with Isabelle. And I allowed it for my own reasons.” That there would be retribution he left unsaid.

The woman’s fright showed in her hurry to leave the room, and Sebastian realized he had never once seen fear on Isabelle’s face. For all his cruelty to her she had never been afraid and had almost always managed to mask her hurt. He did not know if that was weakness or virtue.

Forbidding her return was the most unselfish action he had ever taken. His love for her made her as fragile as an orchid. If she came back, she would surely die, be taken from him as Angelique had been. Better to send her away than risk that.

Weariness stole his strength and he sank down on the sofa and wondered if Isabelle’s God would listen to him. Protect her, he prayed, feeling awkward and stupid. Please. “I am begging.” He shouted out loud and then whispered, “I love her.”

Isabella’s hymn reached him even as he heard a voice whisper, “Tell her.”

“Come back to me with all your heart. Don’t let fear keep us apart. Long have I waited for your coming home to me and living deeply our new life.”

Sebastian struggled into his boots, and ran from the castillo. A train of people followed him. The master never hurried anywhere unless it was very important.

“Who is dying?” one asked.

“Has he found something?” another wondered.

“He can’t run far,” a woman observed.

He found Esmé in her house with a bottle in her hand.

“She has already gone to Herreo’s house. She said she is leaving and told me that I have built my entire life around vengeance and for the curse to end, both you and I have to make the right choice. Isabelle insists that I have suffered as much as you.”

Esmé looked at the spirits in her mug. “She is right. I am a healer. Doing my best to see you in pain is destroying me too.”

She poured the bottle of spirits into the sand.

“Will she come back safely if I tell her I love her?”

“Am I seeing the master ask a question?”

“Yes, you poisonous woman. If you have found wisdom, stop needling me and give me an answer.”

“You stupid man. End the curse. Follow her. Your love for her and hers for you will see you to safety.”

He found Isabelle halfway across the strip of land that connected the castillo with the main island. Herreo’s father carried him and the mother walked quickly to keep up with them.

“Isabelle!” he called.

She turned and when she saw him, after a word with Herreo’s parents, ran back to him.

Isabelle leaped into his outstretched arms, and he spun her around and around. “I love you,” he shouted.

“And I love you.” She slid from him to stand as close as she could. “Could anything be more perfect? I promise I will come back as soon as they are settled in the hospital.”

“No one will bring you back, Isabelle. After what happened when you came, no one will take the risk. I will come with you. Esmé agrees with you that love is the key that will unlock the curse.”

“The healer? She told me that her mission in life is to see that you are cursed for eternity. How can you believe what she says?”

Sebastian took her hand and began to cross over to the big island. “Silly woman. You’re the one who taught me that you have to learn to trust.”

Epilogue

“I swear this island never changes.” Sebastian stood at the entrance to the castillo, his back to the door, and watched as the villagers returned to work after their very enthusiastic welcome.

“It never changes because that’s the way you want it.”

Sebastian conceded the point with a half nod. “There has to be one place where I am still the master.”

“The only place,” Isabelle reminded him.

“Admit it, dear wife, you don’t want to have computers in every cottage and generators polluting the air here any more than I do.”

“No, so I guess this is our escape from reality.”

“Or our return to it.”

They walked into the castillo to find the courtyard a beehive of activity. The usual welcome-h ome celebration was planned for the evening, and benches and tables filled the space.

Everyone stopped to welcome them back, to ask where the children were and promise a party “even better than the last one.”

“Where are the boys?” Sebastian asked their mother.

“I wish I knew,” Isabelle countered and began to walk back toward the entrance.

“Mom! Dad! We can’t wait to go to the beach.”

With a glance at Sebastian, Isabelle answered, “All right, but take an adult with you.”

Herreo popped up behind them, his shy smile a welcome that was always one of their favorites. “Am I adult enough, mistress?”

He was tall and strong and one of their dearest friends.

“Yes, Herreo, and thank you. Will we see your parents tonight?”

“Of course. Mistress Healer is coming too. Her newest nurse will be with her.”

There were times when Esmé did not come and times when she could not stay away. Isabelle was glad they would have a chance to see her.

“We can’t wait, Herreo,” the boys shouted. “We can’t wait to go to the beach.” They pulled on Herreo’s hand and were out the side door before anyone could say good-bye.

Sebastian turned to his wife. His dimples had deepened with age, his hair showed just a little gray and the smile lines around his eyes were more pronounced than ever. He often told her he felt wonderful for a man more than two hundred years old, and she assured him he looked wonderful too.

“I can’t wait either,” she said, pulling on his hand like a little girl.

“To go to the beach?” he asked, teasing her.

“No,” she answered, laughing. “If you will come with me, master, I’ll remind you why this is our own corner of paradise.”

Author’s Note

My original intent in using singing as a key part of the story was to include words from hymns I sing in church regularly. I thought that would illustrate that the message of love in the hymns has a meaning beyond their spiritual context.

When it became clear that using most of the hymns I chose would not be possible, I wrote my own words with the exception of the use of one line of the hymn “Be Not Afraid,” with permission of OCP, and words from the hymn “Hosea,” which are from the Bible and therefore not subject to copyright.

If you will take a moment to read the words of the hymns you sing, I know you will see, as I did, that many of them are about love. While the composer certainly had a spiritual view in mind, the meaning of the songs can be expanded to include the kind of love we encounter in dealing with people we are closest too, people we meet by chance and friends.

At the heart of “Lost in Paradise ” is my belief that love is why we are here, and accepting love can redeem even the most hardened of hearts. Isabelle convinces Sebastian to accept love and frees him from his curse. I hope that they will convince you.