Rachel paled.
“But I admit I would feel comforted with you here. I know not why, but fate has bound us together, dear. You must know that as well as I. Please, will you consider it? I would love to have you here with me.”
She remembered Grey’s passionate plea for her to swear an illicit vow of faithfulness to him, and resolution stiffened her will.
“All right. I’ll bring Emily in the morning.”
Jennie heard the unhappiness in her voice, and she patted Rachel’s arm. “Thank you. And don’t worry, dear. The Lord knows what’s best.”
Her eyes closed, and Rachel turned away, wishing she had the benefit of divine wisdom.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Later, long after Rosalie slept, Rachel dressed and left the house. She strolled aimlessly, hearing the sounds of celebrating in the slave quarters. The night was hot and still and muggy.
Was he with her? She doubted it. And somehow, the knowledge of his loneliness intensified her own. In another time, perhaps they could’ve found a way. But it wasn’t meant to be. Her reason for being in this time was half-done.
And the mystery grew deeper. Who was Jack Sheppard? What had happened that night she’d remembered in Grey’s arms? What was the connection between that, and all else she’d learned? She and Camisha had endlessly tried to piece it together, to no avail.
As she turned toward the house, she saw Grey. She watched him move toward the stables with that easy gait. When he was out of sight, she moved on, troubled by the memory of his proposition. It couldn’t be considered a proposal. Before, his offering had enraged her; now, it moved her. He had offered her what little he had.
When she approached the house, she heard a woman’s scream and froze, her attention riveted on a small door she’d never noticed in a recess of the house. The scream had come from somewhere beyond that door. Should she run to get Grey?
Instead, she wrenched open the door and saw nothing but darkness below. Propping the door ajar with a large stone, she hurried down the narrow, winding stone steps. The air was dank and it closed about her the farther down she went. The moaning grew louder as she heard a hissing strike of leather. She reached the bottom, turned the corner—and she tried to make sense of what she saw.
She stood in a wretched room—a dungeon. Letitia Trelawney lay on a bed, her wrists and ankles secured in irons. The overseer Manning stood over her. Stripped to the waist, he wielded a delicate riding crop.
Rachel gasped, and Manning’s head jerked up. Before she could do more than turn to the stairs, he grabbed her. “If it ain’t Lord Windmere’s whore. Look, Letty, I believe we’ve a playmate.”
Manning’s arm strapped across Rachel’s chest, cutting off air. His beefy strength held her powerless, and her pulse was pounding in her ears. He pressed a latch, freeing Letitia.
“My dear,” Letitia said, “you were quite rude to me this morning. I suppose you know punishment is in order.”
Rachel jabbed at Manning’s ribs, screaming Grey’s name long and loud, for all she was worth.
Manning slapped her.
And the coolness of the macabre dungeon suddenly became the stifling heat of a summer evening in her childhood. It was coming back, and she fought it. This time, she feared, it would be too much. Too real.
He threw her to the bed, pinning himself over her as he grabbed one wrist and then the other, shackling her. Sweat dripped from his ruddy, bearded face as he loomed over her. But it was no longer Manning, only a man who looked strikingly like him. That man, with the crescent moon on his cheekbone, and she smelled the overwhelming stench of him.
“A mark to remember,” he whispered. “Forever her mark will be upon you, as it is upon me.”
She fought the memory; she knew what lay there, didn’t want to see it again, couldn’t bear to face the unthinkable fear, confusion, and heartbreak. Now an adult, she could place names to the awful acts her child’s brain had been unable to process. And she wasn’t ready; she would never be ready. She rejected the memory.
She felt the blow fall, slicing through her thin gown, a hot sting between her breasts. And even as she heard a familiar voice—Grey’s voice, forcing her still deeper into the memory—she slid away into a chasm of darkness as she gave up her fight.
She saw the glint of a silver knife the man wielded, and a scream burst within her as she felt its tip enter her face. He slung her away, and Rachel covered her face in her hands, screaming at the pain as tears mingled with her blood. She heard a piercing cry and her pain was forgotten; he’d cut her sister’s face, too. Rachel stumbled to her cowering sister, but the man was already lumbering toward the cradle, where the baby lay peacefully sleeping, spared the horror. Rachel began shouting. No! No! No!
The baby’s screams, sudden shuddering shrieks that came from her tiny abdomen, horrified Rachel, and she rushed to the cradle. Blood trickled from her tiny face, where the man had left his gruesome mark.
“They’re here,” the woman said from the window. “Where’s the babysitter?”
“Gone.”
Rachel tried to calm her sisters, and then her heart raced with a sudden idea. They would hide in the closet while the man and woman were arguing, and when Mama and Daddy came home they would come in and find them. Mama would take them to the doctor, and he would bandage up their cuts, and everything would be just fine.
“Everything will be fine,” she assured them, drawing the baby out of her cradle.
Hold Julie’s head, sweetheart. Mama’s instructions returned to Rachel as she carefully gathered the bundle in her arms. The baby’s name was Juliana.
“Come with me, Merri.”
Merrilea. They called her Merri.
She grabbed Julie’s bottle from the cradle and the girls peered at the man and woman as they stole down the hall toward Mama and Daddy’s bedroom. They crept into the closet and Merri tiptoed to reach the closet light.
“No!” Rachel whispered. “He’ll find us.”
She whimpered when Rachel turned off the light, and they burrowed behind the racks of clothes. She placed the nipple of the bottle into Julie’s howling mouth. She choked, sputtered, and gulped, then finally her tears stopped as she pulled on the nipple. Time passed as the hot stillness of the closet began to close around them. As they waited silently, fear rose up within her. It had been too long, Mama and Daddy had had time to come home. Where were they?
“Here, you hold Julie. I’ll see what’s wrong.”
“No, Rachel. I’m scared of holding her. And it’s dark.”
Rachel knew she was going to have to take the baby with her. She stroked Merri’s cheek, feeling the dried blood. “It’s all right, honey,” she soothed her, just the way Mama always had. “I’m just going to go find Mama and Daddy.”
She silently crept into the hall. She heard a strange grunting noise coming from the living room, and she heard a woman weeping, and then her pleading voice. A voice that rang with the trills and bells of a church hymn. Mama’s voice.
“Please, John. Please let me go. My girls need me. I’m all they have left—”
Mama knew this bad man? Her voice broke off abruptly, and Rachel waited fearfully for her to speak again. At last, Rachel rushed into the living room. The lights had been turned off.
“Mama? Daddy? Daddy, I can’t see you!”
Rachel’s arms were full, holding Julie, but she leaned against the wall for support, tiptoed to reach the light switch and pushed it on, then quickly grabbed for Julie again, facing the room once more.
She stared, uncomprehending, at the grisly scene before her. There was Daddy, on the floor near the door. The bad man was bent over him, and he abruptly rose. His knife was stained red.
Rachel knew her father was sick. He lay very still, and she rushed forward, kneeling beside him, laying Merri on the floor for just a moment. “Daddy?” she whispered, shaking his shoulder. “Daddy, wake up!”
She shook harder, and his head lolled to one side. Rachel tried t
o scream, but couldn’t. Why was there blood all over him?
She carefully pulled Julie into her arms again and scrambled unsteadily to her feet.
A hand grabbed her shoulder, jerking her away from her father. She swung around, seeing her mother, then, lying not far away. Her dress—one Rachel loved, because it was covered with yellow daisies—was bunched up around her waist. Mama stared at her, and she cried, “Mama!”
Mama didn’t answer. She just kept staring at Rachel without moving. Without blinking. “Mama! Mama, say something! This man cut us, and we’re scared—”
“Shut up!”
She flinched at the man’s shout, but she forced herself to say, “You hurt my daddy. And you hurt my mama.”
“You didn’t see nothin’, kid.”
“Call the doctor, mister,” she pleaded. “Please hurry. My mommy and daddy are hurt, and I saw you hurt them! I’ll—”
“Nothin’, you hear me? You didn’t see nothin’, you don’t know nothin’, and you damn sure better not say nothin’!” He shook her and she buried her face against Julie, holding tight.
“Jack, I don’t feel good.”
Rachel looked up at the woman. She huddled on the couch, her arms wrapped around her waist, shivering.
“We gotta get rid of these damned kids, too.”
“Jesus, Jack, they’re just kids! They ain’t gonna know what to tell anyone.”
“They’re his kids, damn it. I told her I’d do it if she didn’t come with me. I don’t care what Max says—it happened, just like I said. He knows—”
“Your brother thinks you’re crazy, Jack, and if he finds out about—”
“I’m getting rid of the kids,” he repeated bitterly.
“Then let’s come back for them,” the girl said, and her whisper was raw. “I gotta have something.”
“Mister—” Rachel began again.
He grabbed her shoulders, and she flinched, hugging Julie tightly.
“You keep quiet and you’ll do just fine. You hear me? Open your mouth and you’ll all end up just like them two. I swear, we’re coming back for you.”
“Come on, Jack.”
“We’ll be back in a while, kid. You better not move.”
The door slammed, and Rachel stared from her father to her mother. Dazed, she walked to the phone and dialed the number Mama had taught her and Merri long ago. As she dialed, she tried to blot out the horrible images etched indelibly on her memory.
“Richmond Police Department,” a woman said. “What’s your emergency?”
Rachel focused on her mother’s unseeing gaze, and she worked to get the words out.
My mommy’s hurt. My daddy’s hurt.
“Hello? Can you speak?” And then, in the background, the woman spoke some numbers. “Wellness check, 14 Harriman Road. I can hear what sounds like a little girl, crying.” Then she spoke again to Rachel. “We’ll have someone there soon, honey. Can you tell me your name?”
My name is Rachel Louise Miller.
“That’s okay, sweetie. Don’t worry, everything will be fine. Do you know your address?”
Help me. Please hurry. My mommy and daddy are hurt badly.
“Rachel?” Merri’s soft cry from the bedroom reminded Rachel of her sisters. They could never see Mama and Daddy, hurt this way.
In a rush, she put the phone down on the table and ran back to the closet. They had to hurry and get out of the house, now. The man would be back, and when he came, he would hurt her sisters just as he’d hurt Mama and Daddy. She washed her sisters’ faces then tried to remember everything Mama did when they went on a long Sunday afternoon drive.
First, she found their red wagon on the front porch and raced to the kitchen, now in a hurry. Those people would be back soon.
She looked into the fridge and the pantry, dumping in items that she thought they might need. Apples, the gallon of milk, the loaf of bread, the sliced ham left over from yesterday’s Sunday dinner, bottles of water. They only needed enough until Mama and Daddy got well enough to find them.
She quickly grabbed all of the cans of condensed milk and reached in the drawer for the can opener. Two of Julie’s empty bottles. She returned to the bedroom, bundling Julie in a cotton blanket and stuffing a handful of her cloth diapers into her diaper bag. All things she’d seen her mother do. Then she swaddled Julie into the empty space in the wagon, and they left the house. As they walked, Rachel remembered.
“Rachel.”
Tears streamed down Rachel’s face in the still summer night as they walked, as she remembered the mother who had loved her and laughed over her and taught her to watch over her sisters. As she remembered the father who had indulged her and treasured her laughter and taught her to always protect herself. She remembered the times they’d all spent at Grandpa’s house in Richmond, or in the mountains, or at the beach. She remembered lazy summer afternoons in the backyard when Daddy let them run through the sprinkler after he got off work. He giggled uproariously when they grew bold and grabbed the sprinkler, turning it on him.
Then they’d arrived at the old farm house. Rachel knew that when Mama and Daddy got better, they would come for them. They would find them. And as day after day passed, she waited. And waited.
But they never came.
“Manning!”
Rachel fought the intrusion of Grey’s voice, drinking deeply of the life-giving waters of memory. Days with gilt-edged beauty, photographed and locked away in a box that was guarded by a sentinel of unimaginable horror.
The sudden rush of noise jarred her from the past, and she saw Grey as he stormed into the room. In less than a moment he took it all in: Rachel, spread-eagled and shackled to the bed, silent tears streaming down her cheeks; Letitia, without emotion save annoyance, and Manning, half-naked and wielding a riding crop above Rachel, poised to strike again. Grey’s eyes were cold, his face a mask of rage. And then his arctic silver gaze settled on Manning.
“You’ll die for this.”
Before Manning could realize the magnitude of his foolish mistake, Grey was on him. He slammed the larger man to the ground, wresting the riding crop from him and smashing the stock into the overseer’s face with merciless wrath. Twice, thrice—then he flung aside the crop and used his fists. The huge overseer’s brawn was powerless against Grey’s violent rage.
And only one thing was able to pierce his blinding fog of rage: the sound of Rachel’s voice, calling his name urgently.
His anger frightened her; she feared he meant to kill Manning, and she begged him to stop. At last, Grey straightened, jerking Manning from the ground. “You’ll be off Rosalie in five minutes, if you hold your life dear.”
“My lord,” Letitia interrupted. “The number of whores you bed makes no difference to me. But I’ll not tolerate your interference in my private affairs.”
Grey whirled on her, and he grabbed her arm, their eyes clashing. Revulsion contorted his face as he released her, and his voice was deadly calm. “Madam, as a solemn vow, if you ever show your face on Rosalie again, I shall kill you where you stand.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
When Letitia and the overseer were gone, Grey rushed to the bed and released Rachel. He gathered her close, stroking her hair. “Are you all right?”
She nodded. “Manning only struck me … once, I think. I don’t know.”
“Don’t know?” He raised his head suspiciously. “Did you remember something?”
Her arms went around his neck, gripping tightly.
“What?” he asked, brushing her hair back tenderly.
“I remembered it all. I remembered my parents, and—” She stopped, revulsion wracking her at the freshness of the memory. Unremembered for more than two decades, it was as if it had happened yesterday. “I saw them murdered.”
For some minutes, he comforted her. Then he swept her up in his arms and made his way through the labyrinth. Taking the stairs nimbly, he stopped at his room, carrying her inside. The door slammed behind him as h
e gently deposited her on the bed.
“Tell me what you remembered.”
“I understand it all now. Well, most of it. The man who killed my parents was Max Sheppard’s brother, and he had a woman with him. But I don’t think she had anything to do with it. And then we hid in the closet, and when I came out … my parents were dead. He raped my mother as she lay dying. She called him John, the woman with him had called him Jack.”
His mouth was grim. “Did you remember anything else?”
“Yes.” The memories soothed her as she sifted through her childhood, choosing the brightest and most beautiful to show him. “My father was a history professor. And Grey—my mother was English! She had this wonderful accent, and this cultured, old-fashioned way about her. She stayed home with us while my father worked. And we were at a house my grandfather owned, when it happened. It was this big stone house outside Richmond.”
“A stone house, you say?”
Rachel nodded. “Why?”
He shook his head. “What else?”
“Mama had a beauty mark on her cheekbone,” she murmured, “in the shape of a crescent moon. I guess that must be why he cut us. He had a tattoo like that, also.” She was silent for several moments, then at last went on. “And the locket—my sister, Merrilea, gave it to me for my sixth birthday. Merri didn’t have anything to give me, and the poor little thing was just three. She took it from our mother’s jewelry box. Mama didn’t have the heart to ruin Merri’s surprise, even though she was a thief.”
“Oh, Rachel, Emily can’t keep it, then.”
“I want her to have it. Daddy had given it to Mama for Christmas, before Julie was born. At one time there were two—um, portraits, in it. One of me, and one of—of Merri—”
She was overwhelmed by fresh grief as she felt anew the loss she’d blotted out for more than twenty years. For several minutes, he held her silently, allowing her to feel the sorrow that had been locked away too long.
“I remember Mama and Daddy talking about Jack Sheppard. He was a student in one of Daddy’s classes, at William and Mary. My father was worried about him, but my mother said he worried too much.”
Tender (The Trelawneys of Williamsburg Time Travel Romance Book 1) Page 22