by Jo Goodman
Seaswept Abandon
The McClellans Series
Book Two
by
Jo Goodman
Author's Cut Edition
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ISBN: 978-1-947833-30-2
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Table of Contents
Dedication
Note to the Reader
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
Meet the Author
Dedication
For my parents. They never stop encouraging.
Dear Reader,
When I began writing about the McClellans in Crystal Passion I didn't anticipate there would be a secondary character who would require a story of his own. What caught me especially off guard was that not only wasn't the character a McClellan, but that he didn't even have a first name. The more I thought about Smith, the more I realized that Rahab McClellan was meant for him. I'm not giving anything away by telling you this at the outset. If you're familiar with my books, then you already know my heroes and heroines tend to work things out between them and then work together. That's why some readers might find Jericho Smith's behavior toward Rae troubling at different junctures in their relationship.
The McClellan trilogy will conclude with simultaneous ebook release of Noah McClellan's story in Tempting Torment. Noah was such a nice guy in the first draft I was asked to toughen him up. Men. And they think we're so difficult to understand.
Best wishes,
Jo
Chapter 1
"Auntie Rae! Auntie Rae! Look at my dress!" Courtney McClellan spun on her small feet, lifting the hem of her frilly pink dress nearly to her knees. "Isn't Mama clever? You can't see where Tommy Miller tore the lace."
Rahab McClellan smiled fondly at the whirling dervish that was her four-year-old niece. Courtney was a near perfect miniature of her mother, and Rae's eyes lifted to her sister-in-law, once again startled by the resemblance between the two. Ashley and Courtney shared thick ebony hair and fair porcelain complexions. They were delicate in stature but long of limb. Mother and daughter had a sweep of jet lashes that outlined clear and laughing eyes. The eyes, so similar in their direct gaze, were different in hue. Ashley's were the color of emeralds, startling green in her fair face, while Courtney's eyes were very much the silver gray of her father's.
Rae did not have to look in a mirror to know her own face had suffered today from the unexpected warmth of the sun. She had refused to wear a bonnet and now there were a number of suspicious-looking brown flecks on the arch of her cheekbones and across the fine bridge of her nose. Freckles, she thought disgustedly, raising her dark green eyes heavenward. She gently mocked her fate at having been born the only McClellan with this particular curse. Her three brothers were dark, her sister fair. She was neither. The plait of hair at her nape was coiled tightly, the style subduing the flash of red in her heavy tresses, and she pretended it kept her emotions in check. There were times when Rae felt herself a changeling among her less temperamental siblings. Somewhat self-consciously, she drew a slim finger across the path of freckles on her cheek.
Ashley caught Rahab's wistfulness and smiled to herself while she gentled her small son in her arms, rocking him with a steady rhythm that kept him peaceful.
"Courtney, please. You are making me dizzy," she scolded her spinning daughter. "And it's naughty of you to ask Rahab questions when you know she can't speak. She has a terrible spring cold."
Rae's hand left her cheek to wave in front of her, brushing aside Ashley's concern. Courtney, looking suitably chastened, barreled into her aunt, hugging her legs and pressing her cheek against the soft cotton of Rae's russet skirt. Rahab was never proof against such affection and she lifted Courtney onto her lap, returning the child's generous hug.
"So sorry, Auntie Rae! I forgot!" Courtney apologized.
Rae tapped her on the nose and mouthed the words, "Naughty minx."
Courtney laughed gaily. "Did you see, Mama? She called me what Papa always does." Her smile faded and she shifted uncomfortably on Rae's lap. Her earnest question was directed at her mother. "When is Papa coming home?"
"Soon, dear."
Although Ashley answered as she always did when Courtney posed the question, Rae could not miss the longing that framed her words. Rae knew Ashley missed her husband terribly, and she loved her for it. Although she was close to all her brothers, Salem was special to Rae. He, more than Gareth or Noah, seemed to understand the ache she felt to be part of the same struggle he was engaged in. Salem never patronized her, or made light of her desire to assist the colonies in their bid for independence. In part Rae knew she had Ashley to thank for Salem's attitude. For all that she looked like a china figurine, her sister-in-law was a spirited complement to Salem's patriotic commitment. It was at Ashley's insistence that Salem had invited Rae to join them in New York nearly two years before.
Rae would have liked to believe the invitation was a way to involve her in the political drama that was part of Salem and Ashley's life, and in a minor way this had come to pass. But Rae was nothing if not honest, and she knew that at the heart of the invitation was Ashley's desire for companionship of a common mind. Ashley had found it difficult to be surrounded by so many people still clinging to the hope of reconciliation with Britain. And Rae had found it difficult to live at McClellan's Landing with her mother and father and sister—and her sister's new husband.
But she was not going to think about Troy Lawson, she admonished herself. In that part of her mind that would allow no deception, she knew they would never have suited. She only doubted herself because she had foolishly imagined herself to be in love with him, knowing all the while that he and Leah were more the thing. She could admit in her most secret thoughts that it was her pride that had been stung when Troy broke with her. Time and distance had eased love's first betrayal, and she would always thank Ashley and
Salem for the welcome into their home.
"But when, Mama?" Courtney asked, pressing for a definite answer on her papa's return.
Rae was shaken from her reverie by her niece's plaintive question. "Shh," she managed to get out, brushing the child's dark curls from her face. "Your mama doesn't know."
Rae's answer successfully diverted Courtney's attention. She chortled. "You sound so funny, Auntie Rae. Like ol' Jacob at the landing."
Ashley and Rae both laughed. Rae thought her gravelly excuse for a voice did indeed sound like the voice of the family's ancient retainer. She was surprised that Courtney remembered Jacob. It had been almost a year since Ashley and Salem had visited the landing.
Ashley spoke to the surprise on Rae's face. "Ol' Jacob whittled her a pull toy and she has never forgotten him. I think she spent most of the visit with him. Your mother would have been quite put out if she hadn't had Trenton to fawn over." She gave her son a small squeeze. "But he was such a handful no one seemed to mind that Courtney was amusing herself."
Rae pointed to the way Courtney was currently occupied with the cameo brooch securing the shawl over Rae's shoulders. "She is fascinated with everything around her," she rasped.
"Oh, Rae! Please don't talk. It hurts just to listen. Shall I make us another cup of tea?" Rae's horrified glance indicated that if she drank one more drop she would consign herself to Boston Harbor. Ashley smiled ruefully. "I suppose I have been overdoing it a bit. And I know drinking tea goes against all your principles, but I find that I cannot abandon my past entirely."
Rae was quick to see the shadow that passed over Ashley's features. Though Ashley tried to hide it, and was successful for the most part, there were those moments when she could not help but shudder at the thought of the life she had known in England, a life that had had very little to recommend it until the interference of one Jerusalem McClellan. Rae would have given anything to have been able to comfort her, but she knew that it was something better left to Salem. He understood more than anyone what demons chased his wife. Rae knew Ashley's brief melancholy had its roots in his absence as much as it did in her fears.
"I know. It's silly of me," Ashley said, seeing Rae's sympathetic look. "When Salem isn't here I brood. I find it hard not to think that Nigel will—"
Rae threw her a sharp look, but it was too late. Courtney's interest in the brooch had waned and she was listening intently to her mother.
"Who is Nigel, Mama?"
Ashley frowned at her daughter's inquisitiveness. "Little pitchers... he is my uncle, Courtney. Like Noah and Gareth are your uncles. But I do not like my Uncle Nigel."
"Why?"
"He is not a very nice man."
"Why?"
"Because he doesn't have anyone to love, I think." She could have added that Nigel Lynne, Duke of Linfield, had only ever loved one woman, his twin sister, and that his twisted obsession had brought about her death. Ashley felt regret that she had never known her mother, but she had made every effort to clear her mind of the haunting bitterness that accompanied such thoughts. Nigel's Machiavellian tendencies were better left in the past. It was only when Salem was away from her that she wondered if she were entirely safe from his plotting.
"Why?"
Rae rolled her expressive eyes at Courtney and shook her head, placing her index finger on the child's pink lips. "Enough," she whispered. "Naptime."
"Oh, Auntie Rae. Must I?"
"Yes, you must," Ashley said, standing. She walked toward the drawing room doors, shifting the sleeping bundle in her arms. "Come, Courtney. Trenton is sleeping now. He will want to have company in the nursery when he awakes."
Rae gently pushed Courtney from her lap and watched her reluctantly follow her mother up the carpeted stairs to the nursery. She waved good-bye as the girl played peek-a-boo through the rails of the banister until she was out of sight. When the trio had disappeared, Rahab leaned her head against the side of her wing chair, closing her eyes against tears that threatened her composure.
How she envied Ashley her family. It was absurd, this jealousy. Rae knew it and didn't like herself the better for it. Ashley Lynne had been the outsider, once upon a time. Five years ago Rae had not known of her existence, but when her brother brought her home to their Virginia plantation, Rae had welcomed her, and now it seemed hard to believe there was ever a time that did not include Ashley. She had presented Robert and Charity McClellan with their first grandchild, and no one seemed at all perturbed that Courtney had arrived earlier than the wedding vows should have allowed.
Stop it! she admonished herself. That was an unworthy thought. Ashley is not the source of all this self-pity. It's this damn plaguey cold and a row of freckles you wouldn't even have if you had worn a bonnet in the first place. Rae listened to the train of her thoughts and had the good sense to wonder why the freckles bothered her so much. She was not one to be vain about her appearance, and this new concern with her looks bothered her not a little. She thought perhaps she was feeling her age.
Twenty-two. In a society where girls were married as young as fifteen, it seemed to Rae that twenty-two, soon to be twenty-three, was a very great age, indeed. Ashley had married Salem when she was nineteen, and Leah, two years Rae's junior, had wed at eighteen. Her brother Gareth's wife had been barely seventeen when she'd married him. Only Noah and Rae remained single, but, Rae reflected, Noah was hardly in danger of becoming the maiden aunt. It was unfair the way Noah was good-naturedly teased about chasing skirts while she was expected to be chased. Or was that chaste?
Her smile was wry. She had certainly been the latter. She had rigidly controlled the ache and longing she felt for the special intimacy shared by Ashley and Salem. Some nights she would bury her head beneath her feather pillow to muffle the sound of their laughter and loving. Thank God they were mostly quiet, else Rae knew she would have had to leave a long time ago. The thought of returning to the landing and seeing, even hearing, Leah and Troy engage in such play, brought bile to her throat. She did not love Troy, but by God, she had her pride.
So sleep with your pride, m'girl. It's all you'll ever know as long as you expect every man you meet to betray you for another. Where's your courage? It's not as if you have any more sisters.
Rae knew the argument well. She had battled with it long enough. But at the moment she convinced herself to take a risk, to allow some man the chance to win her heart, she would remember there were other women who could take him away. When she realized she was spurning her suitors before they could reject her, hurting them for no other reason than that she was afraid, she held herself aloof from them all.
The irony of her name was not lost on her. She was Rahab, named for the biblical harlot at Jericho, and now called untouchable by the men who had approached her. Better that she should have been named Mary, for she was likely to remain a virgin until she died. The unkindness with which she had considered this last thought brought her up short. Restlessly she moved to the large bay window and pressed her palms against the warm panes.
Outside the sun beat new life into the cold ground. There were tender green shoots in the flower boxes that lined the sills of the house across the street. Looking down, Rae saw several small buds in the box below her window. She felt unaccountably frightened for them. So much could happen. They were only ignorant plants, coaxed by the warmth of a fickle sun to aspire to color and beauty. Tonight it would be cold; she sensed it. There would be a frost and the unsuspecting buds would freeze and become nothing but fertilizer for the buds that would replace them. She wanted to protect them, perhaps bring them in for the night, but she could not help them every evening. No, it was better they learned nature's little cruelties now. She turned away, wondering if she were the only one who felt melancholy in springtime.
There was too much to risk, too much in question, this time of year. There were those moments when a spring breeze would catch her unaware. It would be cool and brisk, but thick with the fragrance of new life, and she would feel as if her h
eart were being squeezed with the fear of her anticipation. Springtime reminded her she was lonely, for all that she was not alone.
Ashley stood at the entrance to the drawing room, pondering the gentle slump of Rae's shoulders. It was not often Rahab could be seen looking defeated, yet Ashley sensed this was precisely how she was feeling now. Ashley knew Rae well enough to know nothing would come of questioning her mood. Rahab was a wonderful companion, but she rarely confided her innermost thoughts. She was outspoken on a variety of subjects, but Rae McClellan was not one of them.
Ashley reflected that it had not always been this way. When she had first met Rae the young girl had been vivacious and passionately involved in everything around her. The change in her mien had come on gradually, brought on first, Ashley thought, by Rae's unhappiness with her woman's role in the rebellion. She did not hide her desire to accompany her brother Noah onto the battlefield. She would gladly have taken Gareth's seat among the Virginian delegation if such a thing had been permitted. Once she had tearfully begged Salem to allow her to go with him on one of his clandestine missions for General Washington. He had refused her. With regret, it was true, but it was a firm refusal, nonetheless. She had never asked for anything again.
Salem's refusal had been especially hard to take because Rae knew that Ashley was allowed to contribute. Ashley's help was vital to Salem at formal gatherings, her crisp accent and very British mannerisms doing much to deflect suspicion away from his real purpose at the affairs. Though he sympathized with his sister he was not willing to let her take part, except in a very small manner. Ashley knew it hurt Rahab, though it was never mentioned.