River Lady

by Jude Deveraux

  Wesley’s “not much to tell” turned into an hour of extended rapture. Wes had fallen for the beautiful Kimberly instantly, but so had twenty or so other young men, and he’d had a two-year courtship battle to win her. He talked about how pretty Kim was, how gentle, delicate, how sweet-tempered, how she loved beauty, books, and music.

  Leah’s hands gripped the pewter mug so hard her knuckles turned white. “And you’re soon to be married?” she whispered.

  “Early spring. April. Then the three of us, Steven included, are traveling to the new state of Kentucky. I’ve bought land there.”

  “You’ll leave Virginia?” She gasped. “What about your plantation here?”

  “I don’t think Virginia is big enough for my brother and me. For all my thirty-four years, I’ve been called Travis’s little brother. It’s made me want a place of my own. Besides, starting all over in a new land with a beautiful woman appeals to me.”

  “You won’t return?” she whispered.

  “Probably not,” he answered, frowning at her intensity. In spite of her looks and her smell, he found himself drawn to her. “The rain’s stopped and I better get home.” He stood. “It was a pleasure meeting you.” He tossed coins on the table for the drinks. “See you next week, Bess,” he called as he started out the door.

  Leah was after him in a second, but Bess caught her arm. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  Leah jerked away from her sister. “I always thought you wanted me to enjoy men.”

  “Enjoy them yes, but I’m afraid you’re obsessed with Wesley Stanford. You’re going to get hurt and hurt worse than from Pa’s blows. You know nothing about men! All you know is how to plow and scrounge wild plants for food. You don’t know—.”

  “Maybe I can learn!” Leah hissed. “I love him and he’s leaving soon and I have this one chance and I’m going to take it.”

  “Please, Leah, please don’t go after him. Something awful will happen, I know it will.”

  “Nothing awful will happen,” Leah said softly and was out the door.

  Wesley was just mounting his horse.

  “Will you give me a ride?” Leah called, stumbling along the path in the dark.

  Wes stood still, watching her in the moonlight and wishing with all his might that the girl would go away. There was something about her that was almost frightening, as if it were fate that had brought them together, as if what was going to happen were inevitable. And damn! He’d been so good, faithful to Kimberly since they’d become engaged, and he’d planned to remain celibate until they were married. But it wasn’t worry of tumbling the girl that bothered him but her intensity, her seriousness. Why in the world had she kept that coin all these years?

  “Let’s walk,” he said, holding the horse’s reins, not wanting Leah’s thin little body near his on the horse.

  Leah had never felt so alive in her life. She was with the man she loved. Here and now was what she’d dreamed of since she was a child. With one hand on the coin in her pocket, she slid her other arm through Wesley’s.

  He looked down at her and, whether it was a trick of the moonlight or the concealing darkness, she looked downright pretty. The bruise and scratches, now hidden, had kept him from noticing her full lips and that her eyes were large, seductive. He gave the groan of a man lost and started walking with her.

  Leah’s heart was pounding rapidly by the time they left sight of the tavern. Her conscience, dulled by three mugs of beer, was telling her that Bess was right and she had no business here. Yet a part of her was saying that here was her one and only chance for love and she was going to take it. Later, when Wesley was in a faraway place and she was still toiling for her family, she could remember tonight. Perhaps he’d kiss her again.

  With her thoughts in her eyes she looked up at him, and Wesley, with no thoughts at all, bent his head and kissed her.

  She melted against him, her body feeling delicate and breakable in his work-hardened arms, but she kept her lips closed in a childish way. He drew back, his eyes twinkling. The girl was a mixture of accomplished whore and virginal innocence. With her eyes still closed, she moved her lips against his, put her mouth on his again, and Wesley nudged her lips open. He had a thought that she was a quick learner but soon no more thoughts crossed his mind.

  The girl gave herself to him as if she’d been hungering for him, and Wesley responded with months of pent-up desire, his head pushing hers back, his hand burying in the gummy mass of her hair and turning her to better reach her lips. He withdrew, his eyes glazed, his breath coming hard. Her hair had come untied and hung to her waist; her lips were reddened.

  “You’re beautiful,” he whispered and went for her mouth again as his hands tore at her dress top.

  “No!” Leah said, suddenly frightened. A kiss was what she’d dreamed of, a kiss and no more, but as his hands sought her bare flesh, and even as she told him no, she knew she’d never actually deny him. “Wesley,” she whispered as her hands ceased to fight him. “My own Wesley.”

  “Yes, love,” he said distractedly, his mouth traveling down her throat.

  The fabric of the coarse dress was old and tore away easily. Within seconds Leah was standing nude in the moonlight. Her thin body showed every bone, every muscle. The only sign of her womanliness was her full breasts, proud and perfect.

  With great care Wesley lifted her in his arms, then lay her on his cloak, which had fallen from his shoulders.

  Leah, not knowing what to do, how to return the pleasure she was feeling, lay still as he ran his hands over her and unfastened his clothes at the same time.

  When he entered her, she screamed in pain. Wesley lay still a moment, touched her hair, kissed her cheek.

  Leah opened tear-filled eyes to look up at him, and a wave of great love came over her. This was her Wesley, the man she had always loved, would die loving. “Yes,” she whispered, “yes.”

  Wesley continued quickly and only at the end did Leah feel even a tinge of pleasure. And when he finished with a hard thrust, he grabbed her shoulders and whispered “Kimberly” in her ear.

  It was several moments before Leah understood exactly what had happened to her. Kimberly, he’d said.

  He rolled off her, tired for the moment, his eyes half-closed, while Leah stood and pulled on the shreds of her old dress.

  “Good girl,” Wes said drowsily as he reached into the pocket of the pants he hadn’t fully removed. “For your trouble.” He flipped a gold coin toward her and it landed at her feet. “We keep meeting, you’ll have a trunk full of those things.”

  Stunned, Leah watched him stand, fasten his pants, and pick up his cloak and hat. Reaching out, he touched her chin. “You, little girl, are going to get me in trouble.” He drew back. “I hope some of you was clean.” With that, he mounted his horse and rode away.

  It was some time before Leah could move. What an absolute, total fool she’d made of herself, she thought more in amazement than anything else. She felt as if she were a child who’d just learned there were no fairy godmothers. All these years she’d been able to resist the horror of her life because at the end of the rainbow was the great god Wesley. But in the end he was just a man who’d taken what was freely offered to him.

  “Free!” she exclaimed, stooping to grab the coin at her feet. Holding it for a moment, feeling how cold it was, she thought of all the food and clothes she could buy with the money and what it had cost her to obtain the coin. With a laugh at her years of childish dreams, she did what may have been the first totally impractical act of her life: she drew her arm back and threw the coin as far as she could, down toward the blackness that was the river, and when she heard a splash, she smiled.

  “Not all the Simmons are whores!” she shouted at the top of her lungs.

  Feeling better, willing herself not to cry, since she’d learned long ago that tears were useless, she started toward the place she called home. Her body ached and she moved slowly, knowing she’d never make it back before
daylight and that there’d be a beating waiting for her. The loss of her dream made her feet heavy and she dreaded more than ever the life ahead of her.

  Chapter 2

  March, 1804

  The tall, steepled building of Whitefield Church was beautiful inside, with whitewashed plaster walls and sun streaming in through round-topped windows. The pastor’s box was high above the people’s heads, a carved walnut staircase leading to it. Below, on hard benches inside short paneled walls, sat the congregation.

  Wesley Stanford sat next to his bride-to-be, holding her fingertips under the concealing folds of her pink silk dress. Kimberly Shaw reverently kept her head up and her eyes on the pastor. She was a very pretty woman with plump cheeks, big blue eyes, and a soft, desirable mouth. Now and then she’d glance at Wesley and smile, her cheek dimpling.

  Next to her was her brother, Steven Shaw, a tall, big male version of Kimberly, blond, handsome, with a cleft chin.

  Beside Steven were two couples, Clay and Nicole Armstrong next to Travis and Regan Stanford. Travis was moving his big form about in the seat, obviously impatient to get home, and his pretty wife was just as obviously giving him deathly looks—looks that Travis was ignoring. Clay, on the other hand, was sitting quite still, only occasionally glancing at his dark little wife, as if he weren’t sure she was really there.

  Wesley, his grip tightening on Kim’s hand, thought of all the things he had to do before he and she left for Kentucky in two weeks. They’d be married on Sunday, spend the night—oh lovely night—at Stanford Plantation, then set out early Monday morning. Awaiting them in the new state was Wes’s land with a new house and barn on it, livestock tended now by a neighbor. For the first time in his life he’d be in a place where he wouldn’t be judged by what his brother did or said.

  It was while Wesley was contemplating this idyllic scene that the side door of the church flew open with a bang. Reverend Smyth paused in his monotonous intonation to glance toward the disturbance, but what he saw made him cease speaking.

  Crazy old Elijah Simmons, his face red with fury, was pulling behind him, her hands bound with rope, what must have been one of his daughters, but the swollen, distorted face made identification impossible.

  “Sinners!” old Elijah bellowed. “You sit here in the Lord’s house yet all of you are fornicating sinners!”

  He pushed the girl forward so hard that she stumbled to her knees. And when Elijah pulled her up by her hair, it was clear that she was pregnant. Her hard, round belly protruded from her gaunt frame.

  “Travis!” Regan said with a plea, but Travis was already on his feet ready to stop the old man.

  Elijah pulled a pistol from the pocket of his coat and held it to the girl’s head. “The fornicating whore doesn’t deserve to live.”

  “In God’s house!” the reverend said with a gasp.

  Elijah held the girl and backed up the stairs leading to the preacher’s box. “Look at her!” he yelled, forcing the girl’s body back to make her stomach more prominent. “What sinner did this?”

  The preacher started down the stairs, but Elijah pressed the pistol deeper into the girl’s temple. She appeared to be only half-alive, one eye swollen shut, the other drooping tiredly.

  Travis slowly began walking around the walled bench. “Now, Elijah,” he said soothingly, “we’ll find out who did this and he’ll marry her.”

  “The devil did it!” Elijah screamed, his head bent back, and the congregation, eyes on him, gasped in unison.

  “No,” Travis said calmly, inching forward. “A man did it and the man will be made to marry her. Now, let me have the pistol.”

  “There are no men!” Elijah said. “I kept her under my eye; I watched her day and night; I tried to beat some goodness into her, yet the slut—.” He broke off as he bent the girl’s arm backward. “The twelfth of September she stayed out all night. On the thirteenth of September I tried to beat some shame into her but she was born in sin and she will die in sin.”

  Wesley, his face turning whiter with each moment, saw his world collapsing about him. He knew the girl was Leah, the one with whom he’d spent an hour and whose virgin’s blood he’d seen on his cloak the next morning. He knew, without a doubt, that the child she carried was his. If he went forward now, perhaps he wouldn’t have to marry her, but he wondered if Kimberly would be able to forgive him his one lapse. But if he didn’t step forward, the girl Leah might lose her life.

  He stood.

  “Stay out of this, Wes,” Travis said from the corner of his mouth.

  Wesley looked at old Elijah. “I’m the father of the girl’s child,” he said clearly.

  For a moment all sound in the church ceased. The first sound was a half-gasp, half-sob from Kimberly.

  “Take the sinner!” Elijah screeched, and he pushed Leah down the stairs.

  Wesley and Travis worked together, Wes grabbing Leah and sweeping her into his arms before she hit the floor, Travis wrestling the pistol from Elijah’s hand.

  Everyone began to move at once, the congregation excitedly leaving the church, Steven holding Kim, who kept her head high and her eyes dry while Clay, Nicole, Reverend Smyth, Travis, and Elijah followed Wesley into the vestry.

  Regan lifted her skirts and ran out the side door to the parsonage, where she demanded that hot water and clean cloths be brought immediately to the vestry. When she returned, everything was chaos. The girl lay lifelessly on a sofa, her bonds cut away, Nicole kneeling beside her. Clay stood beside Elijah, who was sitting, reluctantly, in a chair. Reverend Smyth cowered in a corner. And in the middle of the room were Travis and Wesley, bellowing at each other like two enraged bulls.

  “You’d think you’d have enough sense to stay away from virginal young girls. What with all the—,” Travis shouted.

  “The bitch flung herself on me,” Wesley answered. “How was I to know it wasn’t her profession? I even paid her.”

  “You fool! Why did you have to pretend to be a saint and say in front of everyone that it was your kid? I could have handled it.”

  “Like you handle everything else in my life, Travis?” Wesley yelled, fists clenched.

  The water came, the housekeeper left, her eyes wide with terror, and Regan knelt beside Nicole. Ignoring the two men in the center of the room, they began tenderly to wash the girl.

  “You think Kimberly will still take Wes after this?” Regan asked Nicole, hope in her voice.

  “Probably,” Nicole answered, and Regan’s shoulders fell.

  “I wonder why she went to bed with Wesley if she was a virgin. And why she went back to that old man afterward. You know, don’t you, about her sister?”

  “I’ve heard,” Nicole answered. Then, with eyebrows raised, she looked at Regan. “You’re up to something.”

  Regan gave Nicole a look of pure innocence. “Look!” She nodded toward the frightened preacher. “They’re scaring the reverend. Tell Clay to take Wes outside, and I’ll get Travis out of here. I’d like to talk to this girl.”

  Regan had to put her small body between her husband and his brother and beat on Travis’s chest with her fists to get his attention. “I want quiet in here!” she yelled up at him. “Go somewhere else and scream at each other.”

  “If you’re telling me what to do—,” Travis began, but Clay caught his arm. “Let’s go outside. The girl is sick.” He nodded toward Leah on the couch.

  “Sinners! All women are sinners!” Elijah screeched, and Clay grabbed the old man’s arm and hauled him out the door behind Travis and Wesley, who’d already resumed their argument in full gale. The reverend tiptoed out behind them.

  “That’s better,” Nicole sighed when the room was quiet. “How do you stand both of them under the same roof?”

  “It’s a big roof,” Regan answered, “but they’re getting worse as they get older. No!” she said quickly to Leah, who was trying to sit up. “Just lie still.”

  “Please,” Leah whispered through swollen, cracked lips. “I must lea
ve now while he’s gone.”

  “You can’t leave. I doubt if you can walk. Now lie still,” Nicole said.

  “I think we ought to take her home and feed her,” Regan said, and the unsaid words and wash her hung on the air.

  “No,” Leah said. “Don’t want to cause Wesley problems. Marry his Kimberly. So sorry about baby.”

  Nicole and Regan exchanged looks. “How long have you known Wesley?” Regan asked.

  “Always,” Leah whispered, leaning back on the cushions. Through her one unclosed eye she saw two women who looked like angels, exquisitely pretty, with soft clouds of dark hair, dresses of fabric woven by gods. “I must go.”

  Regan gently pushed her down again and applied a cloth to her swollen face. “You’ve known Wesley always yet you only climbed into bed with him once?”

  Leah’s mouth gave what could have been a smile. “Only saw him twice.” With that she fell asleep or into a state of half-sleep, half-consciousness.

  Regan sat back on her heels. “I’d like to hear the rest of this story. What was Wesley doing with a girl such as this when he was supposed to be faithful to her royal highness Kimberly?”

  “Her royal—,” Nicole said with a smile. “Oh Regan, you haven’t called her that to Wesley, have you?”

  “No, but I did once to Travis. Stupid men! Both of them think she’s the epitome of womanhood. You know, I’d almost rather see Wes married to…to that—,” she pointed at the bruised mess that was Leah—, “than to the dear, delectable Miss Shaw.”

  Before Nicole could answer, the door burst open and in ran Bess Simmons, Leah’s sister.

  “I’ll kill him!” she cried, falling to her knees and taking Leah’s lifeless hand. “Is she alive? I’ll kill him!”

  “She’s alive and which one do you plan to kill? Her father or Wesley?” Regan asked, standing over Bess.

  Bess wiped away a tear. “The old man. Leah asked for what she got from Mr. Stanford.”