Surrender to Love

by Sands, Cordelia

  The problem was, there never was much money, and little there was generally didn’t come rolling in on a daily basis. Julia wanted parties. Julia wanted fancy clothes and jewels and everything a dirt farmer could never give her.

  But he had been young and foolish enough at twenty-five to believe a society girl from Boston wanted him, when all she was really after was a way to get back at Daddy for not letting her take a grand tour of Europe. If he had only known then how hardhearted the selfish wench could be….

  How she came to be in the Kansas Territory he never knew, but Julia fawned and flirted until Michael knew he couldn’t live another day without her. The second worst mistake of his life, he admitted only to himself, was the day they drove to the minister’s. That day he had managed to get himself trapped in hell.

  Only one month they had been married when they fled Lawrence. And for two weeks he had listened to her cutting taunts and vicious tongue until they landed in Havana. Within three weeks she had found a lover, and, within another two, had disappeared with the first dashing gent who had a few coins in his pocket.

  And then, to add further insult to injury, she left a note stating she wished he had been lynched in Kansas.

  Bitch.

  He had hated her for a while, his ego having been bruised and betrayed by her wanton disloyalty. But now he didn’t care. Didn’t feel a thing – even when word came round that she had succumbed to some disease or another last fall. It was as though she had never existed.

  Julia had managed to strip a lot of him away, but the emotions, the caring, were slowly coming back to him, and he was ready to take a risk again with his feelings, his heart…maybe. Two years was enough time to get over his hurt.

  But not with her. Not with some kid like Sabine.

  “It’s getting late,” Michael informed her, his voice hoarse as he shook the entire incident from his mind. “Let’s get you something to eat.”

  He led her to the kitchen and motioned her to sit at the roughly hewn table. She did, idly swinging her bare feet under the rungs of the chair as she glanced curiously, cautiously, around the room. Small, but neat and cozy. She liked it. Just like a home should be.

  But the personal touches were missing, and a place like this could have so many little things to truly make it hers.

  Sabine caught her breath, her eyes widening. What was she even considering? Hers? This would never be hers – nor did she ever want it to be – just like freedom would never be hers either. And she shouldn’t even think these ludicrous things. Her home, indeed.

  “I’d think your other servants would have done more with this place,” she stated pointedly as she attempted to subdue the beating of her own heart, the hot blush of embarrassment staining her cheeks. Could he read her thoughts? Did he know what had just passed through her mind?

  An amused grin played on Michael’s lips as he contemplated her remark. How was he ever going to explain his way out of this one? The little wildcat would probably lash out at him with her claws unsheathed. Well, there was nothing else he could do but reveal the truth…and face the consequences.

  He wasn’t quite sure he’d ever be fully prepared for her reaction…no matter what it was.

  Placing a hot bowl of stew in front of her, Michael cleared his throat and closed his eyes in preparation of the inevitable tongue-lashing he was going to receive…if not something worse. Problem was, he couldn’t’ keep a straight face, and he fought to suppress a smile.

  “The sole girl I have to run this place just recently arrived,” he announced with full seriousness, the smirk still tugging at the corners of his mouth. “She’s been a little out of sorts, but I’m sure she’ll have the place cleaned up in no time.”

  “I didn’t mean to say that – “

  “You’re it,” he cut in with a grin.

  Her jaw dropped as her stomach tightened with trepidation. Like a frightened bird, Sabine poised at the edge of her seat, her instincts preparing her to take flight at a moment’s notice. Oh, no, her rational brain staunchly insisted. This was not going to happen. He was not going to keep her trapped here with no one other than himself.

  The mischievous grin from across the table was replaced with an intense look of concern. He knew what she was thinking without even asking. He had thought that by making light of the matter she would understand he meant her no harm. It had failed, just as he had instinctively known it would. He didn’t expect her to welcome the situation with open arms, but he wanted her to trust him, to be sure of the fact that nothing bad would happen to her here.

  Why did everything have to be so damned difficult?

  “It’s not what you think,” Michael told her, his whisper intense, cutting through the thick silence between them.

  “Oh, isn’t it,” she asked, her voice raising an octave as fear set in.

  “Don’t be like this, Sabine.” Desperation edged his words as his hands, white-knuckled, gripped the sides of the table. “When are you going to give me a chance? When are you going to realize I’m not like Manuel Colón…or probably every other man you’ve known?”

  The tone of resentment in those last words stung, and Sabine’s eyes dropped back to the contents of the bowl, her fingers absently swirling the spoon through its contents. She would not give him the satisfaction of knowing what he said was not far from the truth.

  When his comment was met with silence and fleeting, uneasy glances, his brow creased in frustration. He looked away from her, studying his calloused hands, now resting on the table in front of him. Forget it. He should simply forget about the whole thing, he concluded. His obsession had become his mistake, and now he was paying dearly for it with a trust he thought he could win so easily. What a fool he was, believing what she would still be an innocent child, trusting and naïve.

  But what had he done so far to gain her trust? Win her from Colón in a card game? Scare the hell out of her every time she turned around? Even if he wanted to set her free, he didn’t have the money to draw up her manumission papers. He didn’t have the money to send her back to wherever her home was or even to pay her to stay on here as hired help.

  And he sure as hell had no intentions of sending her back to Havana to fend for herself.

  “I have no ulterior motives, Sabine,” Michael continued, hoping she would listen, but knowing his words would fall on deaf ears. “Granted, by law, you’re my property, but I’ll treat you fairly and expect the same from you. I don’t want any additional favors, except that you keep my house clean and cook my meals. If you have’t’ figured it out by now, I’ll tell you I’m not much of a cook.”

  He certainly hit that nail right on the head, Sabine thought as she set down her spoon. The stew tasted as though it had been simmered in a vat of salt.

  “All right,” he said, noticing the look of distaste on her face as she sampled the food he had put in front of her. “I can’t cook at all. You’re not ready to put your faith in me,” he told her, returning to the subject at hand. “I can understand that. So, until you’ve been convinced that I’m not a monster, I’ll keep my contacts to a minimum. I think that’s fair enough.”

  He locked her gaze with his and said no more. The weighty silence hung over them like a thick cloak, hot and stifling. Why didn’t she fear him, even though every instinct should be warning her to run at this very second?

  “If that’s all, Mr. Pierson,” she told him crisply, “then I shall return to my room. Breakfast will be ready at seven.”

  Sabine turned, wincing inwardly, attempting to hide her discomfort as she mistakenly stepped on her wrenched ankle. She swallowed painfully, praying he did not see. His help she didn’t need, didn’t want. She could rely on her own instincts, her own desire for survival; hadn’t she learned that from Patsy? It didn’t matter that she knew not a single soul on this island who could aid her in escape or send word that she was alive. And she most certainly could not return to New Orleans knowing Troy lay in wait.

  “Half past five,” Mic
hael said after several moments.

  Jerking her head up, she looked at him quizzically.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Half past five,” he repeated with a smirk. “I have to be at the Roderigues plantation by seven.”

  Sabine nodded in compliance.

  “I’m quite sure you’ll be prompt,” Michael said, “but don’t you think you’d be more comfortable if you took a bath, and maybe some care with that ankle? Perhaps I’d better look at it.”

  He rose, and she skirted to the opposite end of the table, far from him, far from those probing hands that would most certainly want more than simply to tend her ankle.

  “I can take care of it myself,” she stated quickly. “But I would like a bath,” she said after a pause. “If you’d just tell me where – “

  She did not have to ask twice. Michael hauled a great tin tub out of a back room and lifted a pot of water off the stove.

  “I knew you’d say yes even before I asked,” he said with a boyish grin as he poured the steaming water into the tub.

  Through a veil of feigned indignity, she watched as he made a makeshift screen from a blanket and two kitchen chairs. Darn it all, why couldn’t she stay angry with him for very long? Regardless of whatever he said or did, her animosity somehow seemed to be short-lived – too short, as far as she was concerned.

  “I give my word,” he said with mock solemnity as he raised his right hand, “that I’ll remain upstairs for the rest of the evening. I have paperwork to do. I’ll see you in the morning.

  She watched as Michael turned on his heel and exited through the other room. Sabine forced back a smile, but it surfaced anyway. Already he was trying to prove himself, but he was right; she didn’t trust him an ounce, even though his boyish charm had managed to crack the walls of her hardened determination.

  She needed time to learn how to trust again. He knew that…and it was a fact he readily accepted. It was almost too good to be true, and Sabine expected at any moment that reality would rear its ugly head and slap her down.

  After sending one fleeting glance in the direction of the stairway that led to the second floor, Sabine carefully, cautiously, removed her clothing. Michael Pierson had better not break his oath!

  She draped the gown over the back of a chair and regarded it disagreeably. He was right. The garment was the most unsightly piece of fashion she had ever laid eyes on. Where, in God’s name, had he ever found such a dress? It wasn’t even fit for a tart.

  Well, it didn’t matter, she thought as she stepping into the warm water and let it envelope her in a protective blanket. Clothes were clothes, she thought with a sigh, and there was nobody she had to impress anyway.

  She closed her eyes, and gently the lilac soap washed away all the troubles and cares that had encompassed her life over the past weeks. Into the bath water went Manuel Colón, the slave auction, Troy Markham, the lies she had been led to believe all her life. Dissolved. Disappeared. All of it was gone…and now she would start anew: a new life, a new country. Her place was here, and she would make the most of her situation.

  Sabine dried herself briskly and wrapped the linen towel tightly around her middle. The bath water could keep until morning, she decided as she gathered up that monstrosity of a dress. She could empty the tub before breakfast. And if she was lucky, she might find a way to dispose of that gown along with it.

  She crawled into bed, and the sweet comfort of sleep began to take her, the faint creak of the door’s hinges jerked her to awareness. Her body tense with apprehension, she opened her eyes cautiously, not daring to move for fear he would discover she was awake.

  Please, please don’t let him go back on his word, she prayed fervently, her heart racing wildly as she closed her eyes tightly. He promised.

  In the doorway, illuminated by a single candle, Michael Pierson stood, staring intently at his new charge, and he cursed audibly to himself. How could anyone even contemplate doing this girl harm? The haunted look in those emerald eyes alone were enough to wound him.

  She was soft underneath all that hardness; he could see it as plain as day. She needed time to learn to trust again, and yes, he was willing to give her all the time in the world. Sooner or later she would put her trust in him; he only hoped it was more of the former, and less of the latter.

  Beautiful she was, even in sleep, and it took all his willpower to resist venturing closer just to see her, to watch the rhythmic rise and fall of her breathing, to smell the fresh cleanness of her hair. Why did she stir this crazy kind of reaction in him?

  Sabine watched him through the lowered fringe of her lashes as Michael lingered in the doorway, his gaze soft and inviting. She almost trusted him right then and there, but the little voice inside her head warned him against such foolhardy thoughts. He was a man, and like every other man, he was only looking out for his own interests, only concerned with his own desires.

  Sabine’s breathing returned to normal when Michael closed the door to her room and retreated upstairs. He could not possibly be the monster Manuel Colón had been, but why was it that her heart raced wildly whenever he walked into the room? And twice tonight she found herself wanting to reach and touch those locks of blond hair that curled at his shirt collar.

  “Stop it,” she muttered to herself and turned over, jerking the blanket up over her shoulder. “You have the most ridiculous thoughts I’ve ever heard in a woman.”

  She would give him a chance, though her congeniality might be slow in coming. Perhaps his motives were sincere; she wanted to believe they were. Could she actually bring herself to accept his trust, however? Once before she had put her trust in someone – too many people, as a matter of fact – and in the end she had only been used and hurt; she was not sure if she was ready for it to happen again.

  And if Michael betrayed her trust, she knew she’d crumble into a million unsalvageable pieces.

  Chapter Thirteen

  How he had ever managed to survive here was an absolute mystery to her.

  After twenty minutes, Sabine managed to hunt up only a scant variety of staples, in addition to some cooking utensils. A smile lifted the corners of her mouth and she shook her head in amusement as she picked up a battered frying pan. If that had been in reach last night, she thought with a short laugh, she probably would have taken a good, swift swing at his head with it.

  How in the world could anyone be so aggravating?

  With a swift hand, she mixed a pan of cornbread and popped it into the baking oven. Then, humming no particular tune under her breath, she set a dollop of lard into the frying pan and set to work on the five remaining sausages she had found hanging in the pantry. And…as an added surprise, there were just enough ingredients leftover to make a modest stack of hot cakes.

  He would be so proud of her.

  Puffed up with satisfaction, Sabine stood back and observed her handiwork as it lay spread across the table. It was amazing what she could do what she could do with only a handful of provisions, simply amazing.

  Straightening, her face beamed with pleasure as Michael entered the kitchen, and she waited expectantly for the praise that was bound to follow.

  “I’m starving,” he announced gruffly, and he sat down at the table, generously helping himself to the food she had placed before him.

  The enthusiasm faded quickly from her face, and her teeth clenched indignantly. This was the gratitude she received for her labors? “I’m starving”? during the past hour and a half she had managed to provide him a burgeoning feast on next to nothing, and he found it unnecessary to offer even a single compliment; a simple “thank you “ would have been more than sufficient.

  Tears of disappointment sprang to her eyes, and Sabine angrily slammed a wooden spoon on the table next to him.

  “If you need anything else,” she informed him through gritted teeth as she fought back her outrage, “I’ll be straightening my room.”

  “Wait,” Michael said anxiously as he rose, motioning to the sea
t across from him. “Why don’t you sit down? The room can wait.”

  “I don’t think so,” came her icy reply.

  Part of her wanted to turn and walk away, prove to him that she couldn’t be coerced by the charm of his smile and the depths of those blue eyes. But the other part…

  Hesitantly she pulled out a chair and complied with his request. She sat silently, uncomfortably, as she intently surveyed the kitchen walls and then at the hint of pink sunrise that peeked through the window, anything to avoid his gaze. Gnawing her lower lip awkwardly, she waited for him to say something – anything – to her.

  Even still, as hard as she tried to ignore him, she was just as inextricably drawn, and she found herself watching him through the lowered fringe of her lashes. He was interesting to look at – handsome, she decided; so incredibly handsome, in fact, that whenever she glanced at him, her heart leaped into a series of flutters that sent shivery rivulets dancing down her spine. And when he smiled at her, it was as though no one else in the whole world mattered.

  Darn it, why did he have to be this way? Why couldn’t he be so cruel and vile that she would have no problem despising him?

  “I’m sorry,” Michael spoke up after a pause. “I told you last night I’d keep my contacts to a minimum, so I have. Have you eaten yet?” his query came as he finished off the remainder of his coffee.

  Warily, Sabine shook her head, and squirmed uncomfortably in her seat. Why did he keep looking at her like that? So many times she had caught him watching her, intently studying her every movement.

  “Would you care for more coffee, Mr. Pierson?” she asked quickly as she tore from his gaze.

  She rose from the table to grab the pot of coffee, eager to escape the probing scrutiny of his gaze.

  “Sabine, please.”

  Michael caught her arm, capturing her as she passed, and he obliged her to look at him. Oh, God, it was all coming to an end here and now, her frantic brain insisted. He wanted more than she would willingly give, and he would most certainly make her do things Colón had tried to force her into doing. Already she could feel his hands roaming over her in unseemly places, touching and grabbing and feeling…