by Pamela Clare
Cassie stomped and swore. This was all his fault. He’d known what he was doing. Why else would he have taken his time bandaging her hand, practically seducing her? He’d probably planned to kiss her all along. She had played into his hands so easily. Now Nan, whose instincts Cassie had always trusted, was suggesting she was becoming enamored of the knave. Was she?
Of course not! Though she had to admit his being a convict and as handsome as he was made him fascinating in a beastly sort of way, he was hardly the kind of man a woman would choose to love. But then she remembered the heat of his gaze and the softness of his lips as they brushed fleetingly over hers—and she wondered whether a woman could fall in love against her will.
* * *
Alec followed the sound of the drums, letting the pulsing beats drown out the pounding of his own heart. What was happening to him? He’d lusted after women before. He’d even thought himself in love once or twice. But never had he lost control of his own actions.
He had not meant to kiss her. But then he hadn’t expected to find the feel of her skin so tantalizing. He hadn’t planned on being bewitched by her emerald eyes or enthralled by the sound of her voice and the scent of her skin. When he’d seen the effect his touch had on her, something in him had snapped.
This was insane! He was acting like a stag in rut. Of all the women in Virginia, why did he have to lust for the one he could not have, the one he could never trust, the one whose father owned him? Perhaps he wanted her simply because he could not have her. Perhaps it excited him to court disaster. He’d not been himself since he landed on these shores.
Or perhaps she was simply the most enchanting female he’d ever met.
Regardless, he had to put her out of his mind for good. The sooner, the better. He could ill afford the consequences should his appetite for her become common knowledge. While even King Carter would have considered him an exceptional catch had Alec wed one of the land baron’s daughters with his name intact, pursuing Miss Blakewell as a convict put at risk his own life and her reputation, though he suspected the latter was already tarnished because of her son. Who was the boy’s father? The man deserved a sound thrashing for abandoning her and the boy.
Ahead, he could see slaves gathered around a bonfire. Women were singing and dancing to the beat of the drums. The rhythm and movements were like nothing Alec had ever seen. There seemed to be no discernible pattern of steps, as with the dances he knew. Instead figures moved about in a combination of leaps and slower, more sensual motions, shouting and singing. All English accounts he had read of African tribal culture described the ceremonies as primitive, but Alec brushed that term aside. Their dancing and singing under these circumstances seemed an act of defiance, of spirit.
He spied Luke sitting just beyond the light of the fire and headed toward him. Rather than returning his greeting, Luke eyed him suspiciously and stood. The drumming and dancing ceased, and Alec realized the slaves were staring at him, even the children.
“I apologize. I didn’t mean to interrupt. I was enjoying the music.” It had not occurred to him he might not be welcome among them. Though Alec was aware that many of the indentured servants did not like Africans and disliked having to live and work with them, he had not realized the slaves felt the same way about the English. Certainly Socrates had never pushed him away. “Please continue. Forgive my intrusion.”
Somewhere in the crowd, hushed words were exchanged in an unfamiliar tongue. As he turned to go, someone placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Stay.” Luke motioned for him to sit on a tree stump.
Alec looked from Luke to the other faces, illuminated by the light from the fire so their dark skin seemed to glow. Their eyes held suspicion and curiosity, but not the outright hatred he’d glimpsed in some of the bondsmen. He sat. The drumming resumed, the dancing and singing with it.
Luke smiled. “You are a strange one, Cole Braden.”
“Do bondsmen never join you around your fires?”
Luke laughed loudly. “The white servants would rather choke to death than sit with a slave.”
“But they work beside you all day.”
“That’s why they hate us. They’re ashamed to work same as us, to live same as us. They know they’re gonna be free again one day and we won’t. See for yourself.” Luke pointed.
Alec glanced across the field toward the cabins to see redemptioners staring at him, surprise and disgust etched on their faces. He had obviously violated an unspoken rule everyone here accepted without question. He’d always believed Socrates had embellished his stories of cruelty and bigotry to make them more exciting, but now Alec was beginning to think Socrates had been restrained in the telling.
He dismissed the bondsmen and turned his attention to the dancing women. Their bare feet kicked up dust. Their limbs glowed with sweat. Their sensual movements did nothing to calm his overly stimulated blood. Someone tapped him on the shoulder and handed him a cider jug. Welcoming the chance for a drink, he smiled his thanks, tossed back the jug, and swallowed deeply. Unholy liquid fire burned its way down his throat and into his stomach, making him gasp for air and causing his eyes to water.
Luke and the men around him laughed. This was not fermented cider, but the strongest, most lethal whiskey he’d ever tasted.
“Satan!” He shook his head, feeling like a young lad given his first taste of Scotch. “You might have warned me.”
Luke grinned and shrugged.
Not willing to be outdone, Alec took another swig and, apart from a slight grimace, managed to control his response.
“Where’d you learn to make that?” he asked hoarsely, passing the jug to Luke, who swallowed it as if it were water.
“Old Charlie say the master taught ’im.”
“The master?”
“In the old days he used to come and share a jug with us.” The elderly man Alec assumed was Old Charlie gave him a wide, toothless grin. “But Miss Cassie, she don’t know ’bout it. It seems she thinks corn ought to be for eatin’.”
The men around him burst into laughter.
Alec smiled at their good humor, pondering what he’d just learned. The master used to drink with his slaves.
“I’ve never met Master Blakewell. What kind of man is he?”
Someone cleared his throat. Old Charlie looked at the ground.
“We’re just his slaves,” one of them said at last.
It was a strange response, almost is if… They were hiding something.
The whiskey made the night air seem even warmer. Alec accepted another swig, then sat back and watched the dancing. The young woman he recognized as Nettie seemed to have her gaze on Luke. She was tall for a woman, with long, coffee-brown limbs, a slender waist, and pert breasts that swayed provocatively beneath her dress, which she had lifted to give her feet more freedom. Her hair was wrapped in a flowered scarf. Whenever she faced in their direction, she looked directly at Luke with large brown eyes that glittered with excitement. Her invitation was unmistakable.
Luke, however, seemed not to notice.
“She seems to favor you,” Alec pointed out.
Luke frowned, the humor that had danced in his eyes only moments gone. “She’s young. She don’t know what she’s doin’.”
“She seems to know perfectly well what she’s doing.”
For a moment Luke said nothing. When at last he spoke, his voice was so low that Alec might not have heard him had he not been sitting beside him. “I had a wife once. We had us a child—a girl. But the master, he died. His son, the new master, had himself a rotten heart. He wanted my wife. He took her.”
Luke reached for the whiskey and drank deeply, then spoke again, his voice devoid of emotion. “I came back from the fields to find her cryin’, her face bruised. I ran to the house and demanded to see the dog, but he kept hisself hid. I warned him, tellin’ him I’d kill him if he touched her again.
“That night I broke the blade off a bucksaw, made her a knife. The next mornin’ the
master had the overseer flog me for threatenin’ him. I didn’t care, as long as he stayed away.”
Alec’s gaze dropped to the lash scars peeking out from under Luke’s shirt.
“But he came again, and she cut him. Gave him an ugly scar across his face. He broke her neck.”
“I’m sorry.” Alec struggled to comprehend what he’d just heard. Then the horrifying question came to him. “Where is your daughter?”
“He done sold her. Then he sold me.”
“And you have no idea where she is?”
“I wouldn’t be here if I did.” Luke motioned toward the bondsmen with a jerk of his head. “Now you see why they hate us. Someday they’re gonna own land, and that means they’re gonna own slaves. If they’re good to us now, they can’t treat us like animals later.”
Redemptioners huddled with their families around cookfires near their cabins, sending Alec disapproving glances.
Luke stood, then walked out of the circle of firelight into the darkness of the forest.
Nettie follow him. She returned moments later, disappointment on her face.
The dancing ceased. The slaves broke into groups, as families and friends spoke to one another in low voices and returned to their cabins for the night.
Alec thanked the men who’d shared their devil’s brew with him, stood, and walked toward his cabin. In the distance he saw dim light spilling from the upstairs windows of the great house, and his mind returned to Miss Blakewell, whom he had desired so fiercely just a short time ago. Now she seemed repulsive to him. She lived, if not in outright luxury, then in comfort, while outside her door, men and women lived in squalor as her chattel. How many men and women worked each day to support her family?
One hundred and fifty? Two hundred? The majority of them would do so until the day they died, as would their children and their grandchildren.
There was no way under heaven to justify it. No way at all.
“Ye’ve got a taste for darkies?” A grizzled old Scotsman stepped into Alec’s path. His small, piggish eyes glared at Alec with undisguised contempt, work-roughened fingers scratching at the stubble of his beard.
“Have you got something to say to me, man?”
“Ye’d be wise to stick with yer own kind. True, some of their lasses are pretty enough to make a man fair burst his codpiece—” Alec grabbed the Scot by his collar, cutting his words short, and lifted him until only his toes touched the ground.
“Watch your mouth, old man, or I’ll knock the few teeth you still have down your miserable throat!” With that, he pitched the man into the dirt and walked off.
“Ye’d best watch yer back!” the Scot yelled.
Alec ignored him.
“Cole!”
Alec walked on.
“Blast it, Braden!”
“What do you want?” Alec spun around to find Zach following him.
Zach threw up his hands in a mock gesture of surrender, a grin on his face. “I’m not fixin’ to fight.”
“That bastard’s lucky I didn’t smash his skull in.”
“This is how it is here,” Zach said. “There’s nothin’ ye can do about it except get yer fool head knocked off.”
“Is that a threat?” Alec took a step toward Zach, knowing full well the ham-fisted young man could easily break his neck.
“No. I’m against slavery, too. But in most places these days it’s harder bein’ a bondsman than a slave.”
“Why do I find that hard to believe?” Alec turned and resumed walking toward his cabin.
Zach fell in beside him. “Slaves are worth a sight more than servants, considerin’ they belong to their masters forever.”
Alec snorted in disgust. “I fail to see your point.”
“Bondsmen serve their masters for seven years, slaves for a lifetime. When a slave takes sick, his master pays to doctor ’im. He feeds his slaves well and hopes they’ll breed. But a bondsman isn’t worth as much. If he takes sick, the master is just as apt to let ’im die as nurse ’im to health. If he can save coin by feedin’ ’im less, even if it means starvin’ ’im, he will. A bondsmaid found with child is likely to be flogged and forced to serve longer, even if it’s the master’s babe she’s carryin’.”
Alec shook his head in disgust, stopping in front of his cabin.
“Like I said, Braden, we’re lucky. Miss Cassie and her father are fair to slave and servant alike. They’ve been mighty good to you. I’ve heard most convicts are kept in shackles and chained to their beds at night.”
“This is barbaric.”
“You’ll pardon me for sayin’ so, but it isn’t that different from jolly old England.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I knew what I’d be facin’ when I came here, but I came anyway. I was tired of bowin’ and scrapin’ to gentlemen who weren’t worth their own weight in dung.”
Alec felt his temper begin to rise again. “Owing deference to one’s superiors can hardly be equated with slavery.”
“I say it is slavery.”
“Luke’s wife was raped and killed by his master, Zach. In England, the bastard would have been hanged for it. Here, no one looks twice.”
“Aye, he’d have swung—if the court convicted him. But how often are gentlemen made to account for crimes against the common folk? You claim to be a landed gent. How many women spread their legs for you because they felt they had no choice?”
Alec’s fist connected squarely with Zach’s face, knocking Zach flat on his back in the dirt. “Goddamn you, man, I’ve never used my station to force myself on any woman!”
The pain in his knuckles was nothing compared to the rage that surged through his veins. Then he thought of Philip and the alewife’s daughter. Rage was replaced by a vague sense of nausea.
Zach sat up with a moan, massaging his jaw. “God’s balls! Ye pack one hell of a wallop, Braden—or whatever yer name is. I’ll give ye that one, because I earned it. But don’t do that again. I don’t want to have to hurt yer pretty face.” Zach laughed heartily, his eye already beginning to swell.
Alec helped him to his feet, feeling enraged with himself, with Miss Blakewell, with the whole insane situation. “That was poorly done.”
“Don’t go givin’ me none of that gentleman shite. Like I said, I earned it.” Zach slapped him on the back. “What kind of concern did ye say ye owned back in England?”
“A shipbuilding firm.”
“Who buys your fine vessels?”
Alec did not understand the change of subject, but he was too tired to care. “Most of our contracts are with the Royal Navy. But we also sell ships to merchants.”
“To merchants?”
“The East India Company, traders to the Baltic and the Levant, long-distance merchants in Liverpool and—”
“Slave traders?”
Alec felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach.
Chapter Eight
Cassie barely heard the thunder that disturbed her dreams, snuggling deeper into the softness of her bed.
“Do I? Or do I, perhaps, not go far enough?”
Cole’s arms encircled her and pulled her against him. The smell of his skin and the feel of his hard body were intoxicating, but not nearly as exciting as the feel of his lips as they took hers. He kissed her with a tenderness that turned her body to liquid and flooded her with desire. “Cole!” she whispered against his throat, entwining her fingers in his thick, dark hair.
“Don’t you think you should find out if he’s telling the truth before you fall for him, Missy?” Nan asked as she washed dishes somewhere behind them.
The truth? Yes, the truth. The truth was she wanted him to keep kissing her.
His lips possessed hers as his hands worked gently to free her hair from its pins.
Rolls of thunder pierced her sleep completely.
It was raining.
Rain.
Cassie sat upright, suddenly wide awake. It was finally raining!
She leap
ed from bed, ran to her balcony doors, and threw back the curtains. Though it was past dawn, the overcast sky gave the impression of daybreak. Quickly she donned an old chemise and an underskirt, delighted to be free for at least one day of the infernal tightness of a corset and the silliness of stockings. Why women should have to wear such uncomfortable clothing in the first place, she didn’t know. Her old yellow dress, although tight around the bosom and a bit too short, would be perfect for what lay ahead.
She had just pulled the threadbare gown over her head when a knock came at her door. It was Rebecca.
“Micah said to wake you, Missy, but I see you’re already up,” she said with a curtsy.
“I’m on my way. If you could help Nan today, I’d be grateful. I’m taking Elly to the seedbeds.”
“Aye, Missy.”
The two women shared a conspiratorial smile. Elly was going to hate this.
Cassie decided to forgo wearing shoes and, grabbing a frayed ribbon, followed Rebecca down the stairs, tying back her hair as she went. From the hallway she saw that Jamie’s bed was empty. He was no doubt already playing in the puddles. He’d always been an early riser, though usually he crawled into her bed and waited for her to wake up before going outdoors.
The rain was heavy and cool and brought with it a sense of giddiness even as it soaked her dress and hair and trickled down her skin, leaving goose bumps. Since she was a small child she had loved planting days. Not only was the normal routine abandoned, but propriety was tossed to the wind. Mud became the fashion. Master, servant, and slave worked together in an air of celebration—at least on Blakewell’s Neck—putting in the crop upon which all depended for survival. Although few planters these days actually worked with their servants, her father had maintained the practice even when the need no longer existed, saying it reminded him of the old days when slaves were scarce, and planter, slave, and servant slept in the same house, ate the same food at the same table. Cassie, who’d been allowed to work in the fields, intended to uphold his tradition.
She crossed the courtyard to the cookhouse.
Elly greeted her with a look of defiance. “I’m not goin’ out there.”