His answer thrilled her, for it was in a rich-timbred voice roughened by emotion. “In the circle of my arms.” And then more softly, as she relaxed, giving herself up to his love, to his will, “I will make you happy, Anna, if it is in my power to do it. That I promise.” His deep voice had a rich hypnotic quality that went through her like a bar of music, deeply felt. In that moment Anna believed him implicitly. Brett had promised her happiness—and he would make good that promise. Whatever happened. Her face was pressed against the muscles of his neck and she swallowed once, for she had been briefly very close to tears. And clung to him as if she were drowning.
“Anna,” he murmured, interpreting the fiery ecstasy of her mood. “Anna...”
And then passion claimed them like a driving force, sliding their bodies together as a key fits a lock, hurling them forward into a mad burst of caressing and loving and trembling together upon the brink of fulfillment—until at last with a groan he carried them both over the precipice and the little world of their moonlit cabin seemed bright and shining with its own vibrant glow.
Yesterday morning she had been Anna Smith, thought Anna sleepily as her naked body fell away from Brett’s at last, sinking in exhausted fulfillment toward a warm oblivion. But tonight-—tonight she was Anna Danforth—Brett Danforth’s bride.
It was a lovely thought.
Worn out with the bright torrents of love and emotion that had passed between them, Anna lay beside Brett, her naked hip touching his, her burnished gold hair haloing her pillow. Bermuda and grasping Bernice and vengeful Arthur Kincaid all seemed remote and far away tonight. As if they could never touch her, never again. As Anna drifted off into exhausted sleep, a lovely unruffled future seemed to stretch out before her, as the sails of her honeymoon ship took the wind and carried her onward to her destiny.
Part Two
The Man From Boston
Some vengeance comes from God himself
And some from hell, deep down,
But none wreak vengeance, high or low,
part2 Like the man from Boston Town!
The Bermuda Islands,
Late September 1673
Chapter 2
But although Anna, lying content in her lover’s arms, had forgotten about Arthur Kincaid, Arthur had not forgotten about her. He paced the gardens of Waite Hall, glaring out into the hot Bermuda sunshine with a mixture of expressions on his handsome evil face. For him the brilliant blossoms of the bougainvillea went unnoticed, the heady scent of tropical flowers went unsmelled. He was obsessed with but one thing:
Anna Smith.
Her beauty had lanced into him from that first day he had seen her. Her wide skirts had seemed to float as she picked her way daintily through the barrels and kegs along the waterfront in St. George.
Arthur, strolling along in unconcealed boredom beside his cousin, Walter Meade, who was doggedly intent on showing him the town, had come abruptly erect at this vision. His body had leaned forward like a hunting dog scenting a bird. Anna was dressed in a madly bright flowered calico overlaid—and its colors softened by—a light pink silk tissue that drifted on the sea breeze and at the moment Arthur sighted her she was bending down to examine some stalks of yellow bananas. Arthur was quick to recognize how stylish was this girl in the wide-brimmed hat afloat with plumes. He would have been thunderstruck to know that Anna—who was always one to experiment—had had the dress made up herself. Swaying over her pink-plumed hat was a ruffled pink silk parasol carried proudly by little black Boz. who loved these excursions into town. Anna’s slim waist was nipped in by the tightest of bodices, her skirts billowed luxuriously, and the spill of expensive white lace at her cuffs was to Arthur's dazzled eyes no whiter than the pearly skin of her breasts, so daringly displayed by her low-cut gown.
At that moment Arthur had thought her the most exquisite thing he had ever seen—-and to his dismay he still thought so.
“Who is that?” he had demanded sharply of Walter Meade, and Walter, who’d been squinting to make out the name on the hull of a ship anchored far out, said absently, “Who?”
“The girl in pink.” Arthur’s lettuce green taffeta-clad elbow gave him a dig in the ribs.
“Oh.” Walter got his sights adjusted to matters on the dock. “Why, that’s Mistress Anna Smith of Mirabelle Plantation.”
Arthur had already heard that Mirabelle was the finest plantation in Bermuda. His cousins at hospitable Lilymeade, where Arthur was a guest, constantly sang its praises.
“Present me to the lady, Walter,” he urged, seizing his host by the arm and hurrying him across the dock.
Anna turned as Walter hailed her and smiled as he introduced his houseguest, just arrived from Boston.
Arthur swept her a bow so low his rich dark hair would have brushed the dock had not a practiced flourish of his green-plumed hat held it back. “Mistress Anna,” he said fervently. “I’d no idea these dismal islands had anything like you to offer.”
“So you’re from Boston? Where it snows?” Bermuda-bred Anna studied handsome Arthur curiously and with a hint of malice in her turquoise eyes, for she was used to the adulation of the island swains and felt a flash of resentment at Arthur’s remark about “these dismal islands” and the superiority of his tone.
“Snows as white as your bosom. Mistress Anna.” Arthur’s impudent gaze lingered on that breathtaking expanse and he was gratified by her sharp intake of breath that rippled her youthful breasts. “And often as deep as your knees.” His hot admiring gaze passed on down her bodice to rest upon her soft outthrust hips, then wandered down to her knees—or the place her knees should be beneath her voluminous skirts.
Anna lifted her eyebrows warily and Walter cleared his throat in embarrassment, for he was uneasy about Arthur’s light way with the island ladies. Arthur’s remarks did not seem to Walter either proper or called for—especially this calling attention to Mistress Anna’s bosom and knees on such short acquaintance and in so public a place.
“As deep as my knees,” mused Anna. “Then you must have had a deal of a hard time floundering about in it.” She laughed. “And I’ll wager in winter your boot tops must always be full of snow!” She nodded toward the wide-topped, fashionably turned down boots that graced Arthur’s handsome legs.
“Oh, no, Mistress Anna,” said Arthur, delighted at the way her little white teeth flashed in her pretty mouth when she smiled. “When the snow is deep, we wear our boots turned up.”
“Oh, really?” Anna’s lazy turquoise gaze played over the handsome Bostonian. She was determined to prick his vanity. “And here I thought that in the wilds of Boston, you all wore Indian moccasins!”
That brought Arthur up with a start. “The wilds of Boston?” he repeated, stunned, and Anna was quick to catch the chilliness of his tone and be amused by it.
“Yes,” she said lightly. “I’m told ’tis not fashionable there as it is in Bermuda and Barbados, and that if one goes there, one should be careful not to take one’s lowest-cut gowns lest one attract unfavorable attention. A lady in Barbados, I’m told, sent some old clothes to Boston to be sold and felt obliged to keep all her best and sheerest whisks as they were far too scandalous for such a staid place.”
Staid! Unfashionable! Arthur’s chest was beginning to expand with anger. Beside him, Walter realized that Anna was punishing this newcomer for his disparagement of the islands. He watched in open amusement as Anna, with the politest manner, poked fun at Arthur.
“Boston is a center of culture and refinement,” Arthur declared through clenched teeth. And Walter, frowning now for he saw that Arthur’s face had grown pale with wrath, said jovially, "Come now, Walter, can’t you see that Mistress Anna is only teasing you?”
Anna’s mocking smile refused either to deny or confirm that. “How is your mother, Walter?” she asked graciously.
“Not very well, Mistress Anna.” Walter shook his wheat-colored head. “She takes to her bed more frequently now.”
“I’m sorry to he
ar that, Walter. I’ll send over some of the fresh citrus we just received on one of Papa Jamison’s ships that called at Barbados. Mangoes, lemons, limes, grapefruit, oranges—I know how she loves them.”
“Indeed she does. Mistress Anna,” agreed Walter. “And most grateful to you we’ll all be, for fresh fruit has been none so plentiful this season.”
Anna turned to Arthur, who was scowling at her.
“And do you have fresh lemons and oranges in Boston?” she asked with a negligent toss of her burnished gold curls. “Or do they spoil at sea before they can reach Boston harbor?”
“The produce of the entire world reaches Boston harbor—unscathed!” declared Arthur ringingly. “Spices from the Orient, dates and figs from the Mediterranean—”
“And buccaneer goods from Tortuga and Port Royal?” she taunted him. “We have our choice of those!”
Arthur’s jaw was thrust out at a pugnacious angle. “And buccaneer goods as well!”
Anna felt she had punished Arthur enough—besides, he was a guest of the Meades and she liked all the Meades. “You must bring your visiting cousin over to Mirabelle, Walter,” she told big Walter in a casual voice. “Since he is so familiar with the goods of the world, he will appreciate the scimitar Papa Jamison brought back from Jamaica on his last voyage. He believes it to be Turkish but Mr. Cartmell insists it’s a native weapon from Madagascar.”
“What would Cartmell know about it?” scoffed Walter. “A minister’s not likely to voyage to Madagascar!”
“True,” countered Anna, with her dazzling smile. “But, then, who’s to refute the words of a man of God?”
As Walter and Anna wrangled happily over this, Anna insisting that Mr. Cartmell claimed his brother was a missionary who had visited Madagascar in an attempt to convert the heathen there, the brother having claimed he had narrowly escaped death from just such a sword as the one she described, the anger melted slowly from Arthur Kincaid’s flashily handsome face. The little minx! She’d been but baiting him—and now she was actually asking him to call upon her at home. Now he understood her thorny attitude toward him—transparent wench, she had been but trying to arouse his interest! He preened himself a bit, tried to stand taller in hope of peering down her bodice, and stared narrowly at her buttocks as she took her leave of them and turned to go. Round and firm they looked to be, if one could but strip away the flowered calico and tissue silk! And he Arthur would find a way to do just that—oh, he had no doubt he would! For Arthur had had his way with many women—sometimes by force—and never doubted that lustrous Anna Smith would be added to his list of conquests and brought to heel like the others.
Those few who’d protested, who’d held him off, even managed to escape his lust, he’d generally made to suffer. Like the chambermaid Ruth, when he was but fourteen. She’d been hired for the upstairs work and the son of the house meant nothing to her—for Ruth had a lover of her own back in Glasgow who meant to come to America and join her. When Arthur had made lewd offers to Ruth, she’d simply turn her head, look blank as if she hadn’t heard him, and scurry away. Arthur had had an answer for that. He had broken the lock on Ruth’s door, which no one got around to fixing. And one dark night after Ruth had been working very hard all day and Arthur was sure she’d be too exhausted to struggle much, he had slipped silently into her cubbyhole of a room. The moon had picked out for him the narrow cot where she lay sleeping heavily with her long dark hair spread out on her pillow.
Without hesitation, Arthur had leaped upon the sleeping girl and stifled her strangled scream with a savage mouth.
But Ruth was strong. She managed to throw Arthur off and in doing so accidentally brought her knee up into his groin with a force that left him writhing in pain on the floor. Uncaring of his gasping moans, she had dragged him from her room and, with a violent slam of her door, left him to recover in the darkness of the hall.
Arthur had crept away, sobbing, vowing revenge.
His chance had come the very next day. He had been hanging around the lower hall waiting for just such an opportunity, when he saw Ruth appear at the head of the stairs staggering under the weight of a heavy laundry basket. She had given Arthur a warning frown as he trotted up the stairs toward her. Looking straight ahead, apparently ignoring her, he was aware of how she hesitated, balancing the heavy basket, at the top.
When the girl saw he was not even looking at her, but staring coldly past her as if he meant to brush on by, she took a cautious step downward—and that was her undoing. For Arthur casually reached out a booted foot and tripped her, sending her hurtling to the bottom of the stairs to land with one leg twisted beneath her, under a pile of laundry.
“Ye’ll have to pick all that up, ye know,” he had called down callously and gone off whistling down the hall.
But Ruth had not picked up the laundry. She had not been able to lift the basket or indeed to rise at all. Her leg was broken.
Amid an anxious whispered conference held by the servants in the kitchen, it was decided what to do. ‘His nibs,” as they called Arthur’s father, would never punish the boy—and Arthur would lie about his part in it, he always did. They put Ruth into a wheelbarrow, for she had no money, and wheeled her through the alleys to her mother’s ramshackle house and there deposited her. The leg, set at last, did not heal right and Arthur always took delight later in seeing dark-haired Ruth move unsteadily through Boston’s crowded streets, carrying heavy baskets of laundry, for with her new disability she could find no job at all and had to take in public laundry as best she could.
He had punished Ruth, all right!
And that other chambermaid, Sal her name was. She was a buxom girl fresh out of Leeds and she had dared to slap away Arthur’s hand the day he pinched her breast in the front hall. And another time she had aimed a halfhearted kick at him when he had slipped up behind her, reached an impudent hand up her skirts and pinched her bare bottom when she was carrying that huge crock and he caused her to drop it. The kick had but grazed him but even that halfhearted kick had marred the brilliance of Arthur’s shiny boots.
He had glared from the boots to her for a full minute and Sal, seeing his expression, had slunk away in fear.
Well might she have feared him, for not two days had passed before Arthur found her bending over the hearth, which was full of glowing embers. Arthur pretended to slip and lose his footing, lurched heavily against Sal and sent the girl tumbling into the fireplace. His father heard about that, for Sal, writhing in agony—for she had saved her face only at the expense of a pair of badly burned arms—screamed that Arthur had done it on purpose. But Arthur had sturdily insisted it was an accident and his lie had been believed.
Sal had recovered after long suffering, but she had endured permanent scars and ever after had to wear long sleeves. As soon as she was well enough, she left the Kincaid employ and moved in with a sailor, and after him another and then another. For buxom Sal. her ingenuous dairymaid’s face now rouged and painted, maintained to all who would listen that she preferred even the life of a waterfront whore to being Arthur Kincaid’s plaything.
After Sal’s injury, the female servants in Arthur’s Boston home had gone in deadly fear. ’Twas best to submit, they’d whispered, for not to submit brought terrible things down on one’s head. The life of those chambermaids was one long nightmare, for Arthur, strong and rested and malicious, waited for the tired girls in dark corners and bent them remorselessly to his purpose. And worst of all, he tried out on his terrified victims all the cruel, sadistic things he’d heard muttered about at school or rumored in the waterfront haunts he sometimes frequented.
More than one housemaid fled the house screaming.
His most unfortunate encounter—from his point of view—was with that trollop of a tavern maid! It was because of her, of course, that he’d left Boston in such a hurry. He’d given her some bad burns and that, of course, he did consider an accident, for it was just bad luck that the lighted candelabrum he flung at red-haired Nell w
hen she resisted his advances chanced to ignite the bottle of brandy he’d already thrown at her for the same reason. The splashed brandy had ignited Nell’s kirtle and she’d fled the house with her skirts alight and the fire had not been put out till she reached the street, where an alert passerby had flung her summarily into a mud puddle and extinguished the blaze.
Money changing hands in the right places had prevented Arthur’s arrest, of course, but Nell had a burly sweetheart, a sailor, and when word had reached Arthur that the sailor intended to pour a whole bucket of brandy—accounts differed as to whether it would be brandy or rum—over Arthur’s head and ignite it, Arthur had packed his trunks and left Boston for Bermuda, ostensibly to visit his cousins, the Meades.
The Meades had turned out to be boring provincials, their female servants were all well along in years and built like blockhouses, and Arthur had almost despaired of enjoying his enforced temporary exile in Bermuda until he had seen the lithe young figure of Anna Smith swaying on the dock beneath a pink silk parasol.
The vision faded, and Arthur found himself no longer lost in retrospect of the way the world had wagged that day on the dock but back in the Waites’ household with his whole life changed—for the worse.
The wench had toyed with him, goaded him, and then tricked him into marriage—not with herself but with mousy little Mattie Waite! And when Anna had been brought low by Jamison’s death and Arthur had managed to maneuver himself into possession of her Articles of Indenture, she had brought that Danforth fellow into his life and Danforth had snatched Anna away and delivered him such a blow as had broken his front teeth for him!
Now Arthur’s tongue licked his broken teeth angrily. The pain of them was bad enough—but the sight of himself in a mirror! It sickened him to see his beautiful smile destroyed, and the fact that he had richly merited the blow did nothing to assuage his fury. He had all but stopped smiling, keeping his mouth in a firm straight line that brought out the beauty of his chiseled features, speaking through nearly closed lips. And as if that was not enough, he was now cursed with a permanent lisp. He who was so used to barking orders at his inferiors—and forcing obedience at the toe of a boot—now found air whistling through the space where half his front teeth used to be—he sounded as if he were wheezing!
Rich Radiant Love Page 7