by Pamela Clare
She picked numbly at the roast beef, only half hearing Geoffrey’s self-aggrandizing account of his latest hunt. Sure she could not keep her food down, she put only the tiniest bite in her mouth and was surprised suddenly to feel quite ravenous. The first bite was followed by a second, and, before she realized it, she had cleaned her plate.
Geoffrey was laughing again, his smug voice intruding into her thoughts.
“I knew you were hungry, my sweet.” He shook a finger at her. “Let this be a lesson. When you refuse my generosity, you harm only yourself.”
“The inexcusable and horrid events of these past days have left me feeling unwell.”
“I see you’re feeling better now.”
It was plain he did not believe her. He thought she’d refused to eat simply to vex him, but she didn’t care. At least the babe was finally getting some nourishment. Little did he know that by forcing her to eat, he was also feeding Alec’s child. From that, at least, Cassie drew some satisfaction. She would eat when she could, and eat well, for the sake of her baby.
The slave woman removed her plate and replaced it with another, motioning to the kitchen slaves to serve the second course. Platters of meats were replaced by puddings and pies, bread and butter, sweetmeats and fruit.
“Hurry up, else the pudding will grow cold!” Geoffrey yelled to the slaves. “It is no wonder their race finds itself enslaved, as slow and stupid as they are.”
Cassie started to object, but held back her words with a bite of bread. Geoffrey was detestable.
“You find my manner disagreeable, Catherine?”
She said nothing.
“You’d best remember slaves and servants are not coddled here.”
Still, she ignored him. There was something about the bread. It was wheat bread. She swallowed, a lump forming in her throat. How had she not recognized it immediately? The taste, the smell—it was Nan’s bread, soft and sweet. Had Nan baked it, knowing she would eat it? God, how she missed them all.
Geoffrey rambled on, bragging about having beaten Landon Carter at whist, tallying this month’s wins from gaming.
“Stop!” Cassie didn’t know she had cried out until she heard her own voice. “I … I’m sorry, Geoffrey. But you promised me word from home if I dined with you, and I am here. Please tell me what I want to know. I’ve no interest in whist or hunting or anything else you do.”
The silence that followed was deafening. Cassie did not need to see Geoffrey’s face to know he was angry. She could not believe her ears when he began to chuckle.
“Tsk, tsk. Mind your manners, Catherine, or I’m afraid there won’t be much to tell.”
A sob caught in her throat, but Cassie vowed not to cry. Not in front of Geoffrey. Not again.
For what seemed an eternity he babbled on, complaining about his father, seeming not to notice she wasn’t really listening. She buttered another slice of bread, defeat sitting heavy and gray on her heart. Geoffrey would tell her nothing tonight. She’d been a fool to believe that he would.
“I had my men bring several loaves of old Nan’s bread. I thought you might enjoy it.” He pointed to the slice she held in her hand. “The cook said you’d be grateful. You are grateful, aren’t you?”
She nodded.
I am grateful to you, dear, sweet Nan.
Geoffrey seemed happy with her response and smiled. “You will be happy to learn Jamie was found, safe and sound.”
Cassie tried to hide her shock and dismay, but Geoffrey had delivered the news so suddenly. “Wh-where did you find him?”
“Hiding in the stables. Try not to look so disappointed, dear. Surely being safe and sound in his own home is better than knocking about the forest with that painted witch.”
“Is he well? Does he ask for me?”
“I said he was safe and sound, did I not?” Geoffrey bit off the end of a pastry and began to chew. After what seemed to Cassie an unbearable silence, he continued. “I seem to recall he has asked about you once or twice. I told him you were well and with me, and that seemed to put an end to it. He runs and plays as young boys do.”
Poor Jamie. She’d thought him safe, far from Geoffrey’s reach. But Geoffrey held him prisoner, too. How Cassie ached to hold Jamie, to see his sweet smile, to know for certain he was safe.
“I should like to see him,” she said, adding, “Please,” as an afterthought.
“Perhaps. In a week or two.”
“Why not tomorrow? You would have brought him here that night had he not run off.”
“True.” Geoffrey dabbed the napkin at the corners of his mouth. “But your conduct of late leaves much to be desired. Perhaps in a fortnight you’ll have regained my favor. Until then—”
“But he is a child, and I am the only mother he’s known.”
“Aye, and you’ve coddled him, as you’ve coddled everyone else. It will do him good to be out from under your skirts for a time.”
A new fear began to seep into Cassie’s heart. Geoffrey treated children much the same as he did animals and slaves. “You’ll not lift so much as a finger to harm him—”
“As you and he are now my charges, I shall do with you both as I deem fit.” Geoffrey clapped his hands and called for a bottle of port.
Cassie found herself unable to breathe, unable to think, strangled by fury and frustrated by her own helplessness.
“Have you ever tasted a good Madeira, my dear? You haven’t touched your wine. Here, let’s have a glass of this instead. It will settle your nerves.”
Cassie ignored the glass he placed in front of her.
“I see you do not like my decision.”
“No.” She struggled to control both her words and her quavering voice. “I do not. It is cruel, as you are cruel.”
“Some would say I’ve been merciful.” He paused to take a sip of port. “You’ve not asked for word yet of the convict. Has your fickle woman’s heart forgotten him already?”
Cassie’s breath caught in her throat. “Would you answer me truthfully were I to ask?”
Geoffrey laughed, finished off his port with a gulp, and poured himself another. “For a price.”
Cassie felt her chest grow tight. She had known this would happen.
“Tell me how to get through the marsh to your father’s island, and I’ll tell you whether the convict still lives.” His expression was cocksure.
“I’ll tell you nothing.” So Henry had seen. Her pulse beat an erratic cadence in her breast.
He leaned forward, his fingers brushing her cheek. “In time you will learn to do exactly as I ask. There are those who would suffer otherwise.”
“You are contemptible!” Cassie felt rage swell within her, anger keeping hopelessness at bay.
Geoffrey smiled. “Have it your way, dear. His pain will be upon your head.”
“Then he lives?” She hated the weakness she heard in her voice.
“For now. But tomorrow?” Geoffrey swallowed his wine, refilled his glass. “Come, my dear, you haven’t had a drop.”
“I’m afraid I’ve no taste for wine tonight.” Alec is alive!
“Oh, come now.” Geoffrey moved closer. His gaze dropped to her cleavage, his eyes darkening with desire. “A bit of wine will do you good.”
Hoping to deflect his attention, Cassie picked up the small crystal glass and took a sip.
“That’s better.” Then Geoffrey reached over and began to caress her arm.
Cassie felt her stomach turn and hastily pulled her arm away.
“We could have so much happiness together, Catherine. If only you could overcome this stubbornness, I’m sure you could learn to love me as I love you.” He leaned over and tried to kiss her.
Cassie drew back, pushing him away. “No.”
His face went rigid, a muscle twitching in his jaw. “You spread your legs for that convict and haven’t so much as a kiss for me?”
“I do not love you.”
“You loved me once. Don’t you remember?”
“I only did what you forced me to do.” His hand moved to caress her fingers. “In time you will come to see that.”
She tried to pull her hand away, but his fingers tightened around hers and held them fast. “There isn’t enough time in eternity to forgive what you’ve done.”
For a moment Geoffrey seemed genuinely taken aback. His expression turned into a predatory sneer. “I could take you here, in this room, on the table, and no one would stop me.”
“It matters not what you do, here or later. I could not possibly hate you more than I already do.”
“You say that because you are angry, but you will grow to like my touch. Women do.”
“I will never lie with you willingly, Geoffrey. Each time you touch me, it will be an act of rape.”
His face hardened into a grimace. His fingers squeezed her hand painfully. Then he released her with a snort of disgust and stood, turning his back to her. “You are wrong, dear Catherine. It will not be rape. One week hence you will become my wife, and then you will have no say in the matter. When I wish to have you I shall, and the law will smile upon it.”
Cassie sprang to her feet. “Whom have you found to perform this sham of a ceremony?”
“A man who understands the value of good coin—and who truly wishes to save you from yourself. He believes you are carrying my child and wishes to spare you shame.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him it was not his child she carried, but Cassie held back, certain that he would harm her—and the babe. Then the terrible truth dawned: If she did not escape soon, she would have to lie with him in order to convince him the babe was his when her belly began to swell. Her baby’s life might depend on it.
She couldn’t. She wouldn’t. “No! God, no! Damn you, Geoffrey! I will never consent to marry you, not in this life or the next!”
When he turned to face her, he was smiling. “Oh, but you will. The convict will pay the price should you resist.”
The room spun. Cassie sank back into her chair, Geoffrey’s voice nothing more than a buzz in her ears. Gulping breaths of air, she tried to calm her stomach and clear her head.
“Come now, Catherine, control your womanly hysterics.”
But control was impossible. Cassie bent over and lost her dinner on the dining room floor.
* * *
Alec brushed Aldebaran’s coat, trying to ignore the pain that shot across his back with each movement of his arms. His skin was not yet healed, and he hadn’t yet regained his full strength, but the fever had broken two nights ago, and Takotah could force him to stay in bed no longer. He’d lost so much time already. God only knew what hell Cassie had been forced to endure these past eight days.
Alec closed his eyes and took a deep breath, willing his heart to become as cold and hard as a blade. He’d be no good to her if he could not control his emotions. Already his feelings had run the gamut from blistering rage to self-loathing. He’d known that loving her could bring her to ruin, and still he’d given in to his need. Whatever she suffered now, she suffered because of him.
He would leave at sunset.
Aldebaran snorted and stomped his feet nervously as a mouse scurried amid the straw and disappeared through a crack in the wall to the fading light beyond.
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of mice, old boy.” Alec stroked the stallion’s silky chestnut coat.
How he wished he could take Aldebaran, but Takotah had urged him to leave the stallion behind, sure the horse would give him away to the dogs. If he wanted to make it to Crichton’s lair undetected, he would have to travel by foot, a good day’s journey if he stuck to marsh and woodland, as Takotah had advised.
The Indian woman’s help had been invaluable. While Alec had lain unconscious with fever, she’d traveled the distance herself and learned from one of Crichton’s kitchen slaves that Cassie was being kept prisoner in a room on the third floor. Takotah had drawn a map for him in the sand and shared with him her secrets for eluding the hounds. Then she’d pressed a leather pouch into his hands. Its contents, she told him, would ward off sleep and dull pain.
Alec’s plan was simple. He would arrive under cover of night, free Cassie, and be back in the forest before sunrise. Takotah said he need not fear resistance from Crichton’s slaves, who were so abused as to loathe their masters. No one would sound the alarm or block his path, but neither would they come to his aid. With any luck, he and Cassie would be safely within this island sanctuary before evening tomorrow. As soon as he had fully recovered, Alec would take her and Jamie north and sail for England.
Alec put aside the curry comb, giving the stallion one final pat on his gleaming flank. Back outside, tendrils of pink-orange sunlight stretched across the dull autumn sky, heralding day’s end. Nearby, Jamie was trying to teach Pirate to fetch. The child had been valiantly hiding his fear and sadness over Cassie’s abduction, but more than once Alec had heard him whimpering in his sleep, muttering her name.
“Here, boy! Here, Pirate!” Jamie called.
Pirate ran stubbornly in the opposite direction, stick in his mouth, tail awag.
Jamie’s lower lip began to quiver, tears spilling down his cheeks.
“He’ll come back, tadpole.” Alec was certain it was Cassie’s absence more than the puppy’s stubborn behavior that brought tears to Jamie’s eyes.
“No, he won’t.” Jamie sniffed and wiped the tears from his face with the back of his hand, leaving a muddy streak across one cheek. “Pirate!”
Pirate sniffed a fern, then ran deeper into the pines.
“Try calling him again. This time use a strong voice, one that tells him you’re his master and he’d best obey.”
For a moment, Jamie looked up at Alec, his green eyes clouded by doubt. Then he lifted his little chin in defiance, his stubborn expression reminding Alec so much of Cassie that, for a moment, Alec felt overwhelmed by the sorrow of missing her.
“Pirate! Come here!” Jamie shouted with fierce determination. The pup turned about and dashed back, ears flopping, stick still in his mouth.
“Now praise him.”
“Good doggy.” Jamie patted the puppy’s head until the animal’s entire body wagged in delight. “Did you see, Cole? He came back to me!”
“Aye, Jamie. I saw.” Alec ruffled the boy’s curls, suppressing the urge to sweep him up in a crushing hug.
I will bring your sister back, tadpole, or I’ll die trying.
“He’s goin’ to be as bullheaded as his sister. Runs in the blood.”
Alec turned to see Micah approaching, Cassie’s father’s pistol box in his hands. Crichton had driven Micah off Blakewell’s land, threatening to make him a slave, but Micah had only pretended to leave, traveling north by day, but moving under cover of night back to the safety of this little island. Strange to think this small sliver of sand had become a haven for them all.
“I cleaned and oiled ’em both,” Micah said. “Hope you don’t need to use ’em, but the powder’s good and fresh if you do.”
Alec accepted the box with a grateful nod, then cracked the lid to view the two gleaming pistols within.
“You leavin’ tonight?”
“Aye.”
Dinner seemed to last forever, fish and cornbread sliding tastelessly down Alec’s throat, the tension in his body building with each passing moment. They’d all agreed Jamie should be told nothing of his plan to rescue Cassie, lest it fail. The boy chattered gaily as he ate, apparently unaware of the grim faces around him. Introduced to a father he could not remember, Jamie treated the old man with the kindness and concern only a child could show, even crawling into his father’s lap to tell him of his latest adventures and imaginings. His father’s lack of response didn’t seem to discourage him.
“Cole, will you tell me a bedtime story?”
“Not tonight, tadpole.”
Disappointment cast shadows in Jamie’s eyes, but he d
id not protest.
Alec suddenly felt like an ass. If not tonight, when? He might never see Jamie again. He glanced out the tiny window, where the last bit of daylight still clung to the sky. There was time.
He lifted the child into his lap. “On second thought, tadpole, tonight is the perfect night for a bedtime story. What do you want to hear?”
“Blackbeard!”
Half an hour later, Alec slogged through frigid, knee-deep marsh water, the cheery light of the cabin vanishing behind him. Mud oozed beneath his feet, threatening to suck off the leather moccasins Takotah had made for him. Driven by a growing sense of urgency, he moved through the mire as quickly as he could, straining to see and hear through the oppressive darkness, to make out the ghostly shapes of trees and rotting stumps, the sounds of unseen night creatures a chorus around him. More than once he slipped, tripping over slick rocks and hidden roots. The chilly water made even his bones ache. His body, weak from days of fever and wounds that hadn’t fully healed, struggled to keep up with the demands he made of it.
He had to reach Cassie. He had to get her to safety. Nothing else mattered.
Wet to the waist and numb with cold, he forced discomfort to the back of his mind and reached into the pouch Takotah had given him. He pulled out a leaf, put it in his mouth, and chewed. The bitter taste at first made him choke, but almost immediately he felt warmer, stronger. Pain faded from his thoughts, and he pressed on, driven by one intent, one purpose, until he found himself scrambling uphill onto dry land.
Ahead, the pale silver of moonlight beckoned through a break in the trees.
Then, in the distance, he heard it.
The baying of hounds.
Chapter Thirty
Cassie looked out the carriage window, her stomach in painful knots. How she wished she could throw open the door, leap to the ground, and run into the forest. But Geoffrey held her arm fast, his fingers digging possessively into her skin. He would stop her before she’d even laid a finger on the door handle. Besides, he’d made it clear that Alec’s life, perhaps even Jamie’s, depended upon her obedience. She had no choice but to do as he bade.