Chapter Eleven
On the second day of their voyage, word came that a heavy fog had settled over the ocean and they were being forced to cease traveling until it lifted. It lasted for three unbelievable days and nights, during which time Garrett cursed as he waited impatiently for it to lift. Then, when it did at last disappear, it returned for one additional night, some distance up the coast. Tempers grew short among the crew and Garrett and John Baxter had their hands full containing them, as they themselves felt total sympathy for the men. It was one thing to serve on a swiftly moving ocean vessel; it was another to be trapped on one with nothing to do but wait for the uncontrollable to happen.
Soon after their frustrating experience with the fog another natural event gave them all too much to do. Off the coast of Maryland they hit an early summer squall that threatened to give them real trouble. Garrett decided to pull into one of the unnamed coves along that shore, to wait out the storm. The decision hadn't been easy for he knew tempers would continue to flare, but in view of the human "cargo" he carried, he felt it was his best option. Kidnapping the daughter of a powerful and influential landowner was one thing; kidnapping and drowning her at sea would be something entirely different and probably spell out his end. So they waited out the storm in the cove.
As the days passed at sea, Christie kept to herself or spent time with Lula, and sometimes Lula and Jasper. She saw little of Garrett, who had fashioned himself a hammock in a part of the hold that was removed from the crew's quarters, much preferring that uncomfortable solitude to the cold mask of Christie's face or the withering glares he caught from Lula, who, by now, knew all of Christie's story.
Only at mealtimes, did Garrett enter the cabin and then it was usually a silent dinner that took place. Christie made no conversation except for that dealing with the bare civilities—passing the salt or asking for more wine, please—and Garrett chewed his food while staring at a point somewhere over her head.
But then one night, after the storm had begun to ebb, Christie was on the bunk, trying to find enough comfort from the tossing of the ship to be able to sleep, when suddenly, the door opened, and with a lurch, Garrett stepped in. His clothes were rumpled and it quickly became clear from his movements, that he had been drinking, although he didn't seem totally drunk.
"Bitch!" he shouted. "Too proud to be a man's mistress, are you?"
He threw himself at her as she sat on the bunk. To keep it from opening, she clutched in front of her, his
that she wore as a nightgown.
"Well, let's see if you're too proud to be a man's whore" he snarled, dragging her from the bunk to the center of the room.
"Garrett, you're drunk!" she cried, frightened now what he might do.
"Drunk, am I? Aye, mayhap. But not too drunk to put a proud little bitch in her place and teach her a lesson or two!"
Holding both her arms as she began to struggle, he pushed her toward the dining table, where he savagely thrust her forward, forcing her to bend over the table while he continued to hold her arms together forward of her head.
Then, when he had raised her makeshift nightgown above her bare buttocks, she cried out, "Oh, No! Please, don't beat me!"
Garrett's free hand froze where it was, at the half-undone buckle of his belt.
Beat her? He hadn't intended to beat her. He was going to—
Slowly, like a giant ship which has suddenly lost the wind for its sails, he released her and then turned away, his mind suddenly sober. What he had been about to do would have been akin to beating her— worse—but in that one naive remark, she, in her innocence, had disarmed and defeated him totally. With a snarl of disgust and not a single glance in her direction, he turned toward the door and stormed out.
The next evening when Christie saw him at dinner, his manner was again taciturn, and he showed only cold indifference as before. But as they were nearing the end of the meal, Garrett broke the silence by addressing her abruptly.
"In a day and a half, if the wind holds, we should be in New York. Once there, I'll find accommodations for us while we arrange to have a message sent to your father. We'll say you were shopping in town, buying—oh, hair ribbon, whatever—and when there, you met the New York cousins of Mr. Garrett Randall, who was showing them about Fredericksburg where they'd run into each other in port. We'll say that you were introduced and invited to board the New York-bound cousins' ship for a 'bon voyage' cup of tea—I had already left at this time—and that, on your way off the ship, you tripped, hitting your head against some water barrels on the deck and falling unconscious behind one. You weren't found until several hours later, when the ship was already at sea and couldn't return. It may not be the most plausible story, but it's all we've got, and since Charles loves you as he obviously does, I'm willing to bet he'll accept it because he'll want to believe it. The alternatives would be just too hard for him to bear, I think."
He looked at her coolly as she sat attentively listening. She was dressed in the garb of a cabin boy, as she had been since that morning after they had argued, Lula having begged the pieces of attire from Jasper and another crew member. Her hair was twisted into a large knot at the top of her head, except for the loose strands which had fallen about her face and neck and which curled softly in little wisps and tendrils; and her turquoise eyes reflected little lights
from the candle that flickered in the large brass lantern on the table.
Christie could read nothing from the expression on Garrett's face as he spoke, though, so closed was it to any emotion whatsoever. It was a skill acquired from long years of attention to a matter in the handling of which he couldn't allow himself to reveal his feelings to others.
Deciding to respond by asking him something which had been on her mind, she assumed her most civil tone.
"What is the business which takes you to New York? Will making the arrangements for my return interfere with it very much?"
Garrett lowered his brow in a frown that nearly shriveled her, his voice distant as January.
"For the inconvenience your transfer to Virginia will cause, I've assumed total responsibility and therefore I shall bear it, no matter what the cost tome in time or energy. What business takes me to New York is no concern of yours. It is a private matter which in no way includes you—understand?"
Christie bristled.
"Well, pardon me, Mr. Randall! Had I known my question would find such disfavor with the captain, I would have substituted silence, which seems to be one of the few things the man understands!"
She rose from her chair and moved toward the door.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"Up on deck—that is, if it meets with the captain's approval. The air in here seems to have suddenly gone bad!"
Garrett's eyes were flint hard. "No, it does not meet with my approval! You know very well that I have limited all traffic on deck for you and Lula to daylight hours, at designated times. For a woman to walk about the deck at night is to invite trouble. My crew is a good enough bunch of lads. But they are men, too, and none of them has been alone with a woman in over a week. You will remain here!"
His tone was sharply domineering and antagonizing in its impact now. Suddenly Christie could bear no more. She had put up with as much abuse from him as she felt she could and that had been coupled with long days of confinement and boredom on the voyage. Finally, she simply didn't care to watch her tongue any longer. Emotions pent up for days found their vent.
"You despicable wretch! Is it not enough that you have kidnapped me, taken me against my will to a far-off port, after robbing me of that which was mine only to give once—my honor—but that now, beyond such initial offenses, you find it necessary to compound them by brutalizing me with your tongue as well as your body, and then see fit to keep me from that one final refuge of the wretched—solitude? Well, let me tell you something ray fine Captain Randall, I hope that bloody enterprise which takes you to your precious New York is a miserable failure! I hope you nev
er see it through! I hope you rot in hell, you—" If she hadn't been so intent upon finding phrases caustic enough to damn him, Christie might have caught the look in his eye as Garrett listened to her, but as it was, she missed it, and suddenly he had sprung from his seat at the table and crossed to where she stood in two easy strides. Grabbing her by both shoulders, he began to shake her violently; so violently, in fact, that the pins holding her hair came loose, and it tumbled about her shoulders while her teeth rattled in her head.
"Little bitch! You will never—ever utter words that deny me favor on the matter of this work I am about! If I hear any such from your vicious mouth again, lady, I will not be responsible for the consequences! Do you comprehend my meaning? Do you?"
Christie's face had gone ashen under the assault, and her eyes were wild with fear, but somewhere, from her last reserve of pride and the desperate need she felt to maintain some inner portion of that freedom of spirit she had always held as inviolately her own, she hurled back at him, "I curse your mission— Yes, a pox on it!" And she spat in his angry face.
With a sound akin to the snarl of some wild beast in pain, Garrett raised his hand and struck her fully across the face, sending her head back like a puppet's out of control, and she stumbled and fell to the floor from the force of the blow.
Finding himself out of control for the first time in years of careful schooling to keep his emotions in check, Garrett was stunned by his own reaction. He had never hurt a woman—never considered it before—and the sight of her lying there, crumpled in a heap with an angry welt beginning to form on her cheek was enough to confuse and unsettle him. After staring at her for several long seconds, he grabbed his jacket from the peg where it hung and, slinging it over his shoulder, stormed out.
Lula was making her way to the cabin at the time, having had word of their argument from Jasper; when she met Garrett outside the door, she was told more by the look on his face than his words.
"Keep her out of my sight until we dock, understand? On peril of your job, Lula! Out of my sight!"
And he swept by her and went quickly up on deck.
Lula hurried into the cabin, half-expecting what she found there, half-expecting worse.
"Chile, chile, you musta done sumpin' to reach him good dis time—dat man look lahk he got de devil hisse'f on his back! Don' move so fas', now. Easy, baby, easy. Lawd! Look lahk Lula gonna need some co'd compressions fo' dat face o' yo's."
And again, as before, it was Lula who helped patch together Christie's bruised body while she did what she could to ease her pain inside as well.
Chapter Twelve
They made New York days later, docking shortly before noon in a steady downpour of early summer rain. Garrett immediately went about finding a suite of rooms in a respectable hotel on the eastern side of Manhattan. The place he chose was named The Duchess, and they were registered as Mr. and Mistress Garrett Randall. If Christie found this distasteful or annoying, she got no chance to mention it because Lula was taking no chances on a recurrence of hostilities between her employer and the young woman she'd come to regard as a friend. That tiny black creature saw to it that Garrett's order to keep Christie away from him was carried out to the letter, and then some. Letting Garrett and Jasper unload and quarter the horses, it was Lula alone who accompanied her young charge to their rooms, taking a hired carriage for the ride from the Marianne.
The Duchess was a hotel constructed after the architecture of some French houses of the period, the owner having been born abroad before emigrating to New York shortly after the American Revolution. Its rooms were large and well appointed, there being six comprising the suite: two large bedchambers, a dressing room, a large sitting room, and two smaller bedrooms for Lula and Jasper. Lula explained the absence of Mistress Randall's baggage by saying it was being sent from the ship. This she planned to cover, for she had already prevailed upon Garrett to see the necessity of buying his "wife" some suitable garments—quickly—and had on her person when they arrived, more than enough money to take care of the matter. If the man at the desk questioned Christie's arriving from a sea voyage in a riding habit—expertly repaired by Lula's capable fingers— he made no mention of it to anyone. He was given to understand the young couple were on their honeymoon, and if they acted slightly strange, why, who could blame them?
It was midafternoon when Lula went out with her son and a headful of Christie's measurements to visit the premises of one of New York's finest makers of ladies' apparel. There she explained that she was acting on behalf of her young mistress who was ill and could not be present to select a new wardrobe to replace the one which had been lost in transport. She was successful in obtaining four garments immediately with some six additional to be ready in. two days. The finished garments, together with all appropriate accessories, she took with her in the hired carriage, letting Jasper lug the boxes that were piled higher than his head.
"Now, Jasper, don' you drop nothin', boy! We done spent a whole heap o' de cap'n's money on dis stuff—hee! hee! Alraht, man—" This to the carriage driver, a fellow freedman— "Now fin' me a place a whut sells luggage 'n trunks!"
So they bought some appropriate-looking bags and the like to put Christie's new clothes in and then drove them down to the Marianne, where a puzzled Mr. Baxter was asked to send them—in one big hurry—to The Duchess.
It was six o'clock by the time they returned to the hotel, arriving shortly after Mistress Randall's baggage, and when she saw what Lula had accomplished, Christie laughed for the first time in days, her sore jaw aching as she did so.
Garrett had not arrived yet. No one knew exactly where he had gone, except that it appeared to be on urgent business, so Christie had met Lula in the sitting room where she had spent the afternoon reading Gulliver's Travels, a book she had found aboard ship. She laid the book down gladly—certain passages made it clear why Charles had not made it available to her at Windreach—and rushed to receive Lula with an affectionate hug.
"Oh, Lula, I'm so glad you're back. You don't know how lonely I felt while you were gone. How I dote on your company!"
And suddenly a sad look crossed her face.
"Lula! I'll never see you again after I leave for home! How can we let that happen?"
"Don' go fig'rin' t' lose li'l Lula dat easy, honey! Ah specs yo' daddy kin use a good paih o' black han's aroun' his place, don' you?"
A broad smile of delight broke across Christie's countenance.
"Oh, yes! Yes! You'll come with'me. then? And Jasper, too? Oh, Lula! You're wonderful!"
"Whut's wundahful is de mess o' fahn clothes ah done bought you, baby. Come along, now, an' try dem on t' see!"
And she whisked her off to Christie's bedchamber while Jasper was told to ready a bath in the dressing room next door.
When Christie saw the lavishness of the gowns her new friend had selected, she gasped, but when the pronouncement of their cost was accompanied by a wicked look of pure mischief on Lula's face, she laughed so hard, tears came and she had to wince from the ache this caused her bruised jaw.
Lula was laughing too, and it was this muffled sound of merriment from the inner chambers that greeted Garrett as he entered the suite.
The afternoon had gone well for him. He had called at the offices of The New World Trading Company and found that Mr. William Harper, while out of town at the moment, would be back tomorrow and most likely be glad to meet with him. Harper was now chief shareholder in that firm and would have access to all old records as well as to his own memory of the events in which he himself had played a part. Things were at least off to a favorable start.
He had arranged for Thunder and Jet to be quartered in the hotel's own stables and, almost as an afterthought, had gone back to the ship to see about having his own baggage sent to The Duchess. This, he was told, had been arranged when the young lady's trunks were forwarded. Puzzled, he had finally decided that the maneuverings and mental workings of his new womanservant were as devious as any woman's and probab
ly second only to those of her young mistress as something to be dealt with suspiciously.
Now, as he listened to the laughter coming from the chamber beyond his own, he made a mental note to keep those suspicions in good working order as he stepped in that direction.
He opened the door to find Christie whirling gracefully before a long mirror while Lula tried, unsuccessfully, to place a few extra hairpins in the wheaten curls piled loosely atop her moving head. Covering Christie's slender figure was the most pre-Revolutionary beguiling piece of finery he'd ever set eyes on. The gown was in the new fashion influenced by the democratic rumblings of pre-Revolutionary France, dictated by an interest in less overdone artifice and greater freedom of movement. It was, therefore, without panniers or stays and concocted of many layered yards of sheer fabric which sheathed the body in a narrow silhouette that appeared soft as gossamer. The color was a deep midnight blue, so lark it appeared almost black, and against Christie's creamy skin, the contrast was striking. A wide satin sash worn tightly about the midriff underscored a soft upper bodice that barely managed to contain her high, rounded breasts, which were allowed to assume their natural shape beneath the soft folds of fabric. As she now bent to adjust a fold in the hemline, most of what was concealed there came into view, causing Garrett to blanch at the exposed flesh. It was a gown intended for a woman of some sophistication and chic, and it at once transformed its wearer along these lines, as Lula had known it would.
Forcing himself to tear his eyes away from the seductively curving swells of flesh above the low decolletage, Garrett took a deliberate deep breath before he spoke.
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