VIRGINIAN LOVER
BY
MARINA OLIVER
Bella is forced, by her illegitimate half brother Henry, to marry the abusive Edward who is emigrating to the new settlement in Virginia.
After a brutal wedding night she escapes, but Henry finds her and forces her to sail on the next ship.
While caring for her sick baby brother Toby and his nurse Alice, she is helped by Adam, a wealthy settler already established on a James River plantation, and they fall in love.
In Jamestown, however, Edward, by threatening Toby, forces Bella to go with him to his own recently acquired plantation.
Can she ever escape from his cruel domination?
Virginian Lover
By Marina Oliver
Copyright © 2011 Marina Oliver
Smashwords Edition
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Cover Design by Debbie Oliver
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form, including digital and electronic or mechanical, without the prior written consent of the Publisher, except for brief quotes for use in reviews.
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Print editions published as Forbidden Love under the pseudonym Donna Hunt 1981 and 1982 by Macdonald, 1991 by Ulverscroft.
See details of other books by Marina Oliver at
http://www.marina-oliver.net
AUTHOR NOTE
Americans have created marvellous audio-visual displays of, for instance, Civil War battlefields, and 'theme parks' recreating life in the days of early European settlement. There is Plymoth, where visitors can see how the Puritans from the Mayflower lived, and Williamsburg, where many of the early crafts such as making bricks and printing are displayed. In both of these the 'actors', if I can so describe them, stay rigidly in their historical personae.
In Virginia there are the romantic stories of Captain Smith, the earliest settler, and the Indian Princess Pocohontas who saved him when he was captured by her tribe. Her marriage to another Englishman and visit to England created enormous interest in Virginia.
In Jamestown, where much of this novel takes place, there are replicas of the fragile ships in which the settlers crossed the Atlantic, and this sparked the idea of 'Virginian Lover'. The cover is from a photograph I took of these ships.
VIRGINIAN LOVER
By MARINA OLIVER
Chapter 1
They were in the church, a small, ill-lit place where the tombs of the dead overawed the living, before Bella awoke from the daze that had held her unresisting for the past two days. She shook her head slightly to clear her mind as they left the chill sunlight of the early April day and entered the dank cold of the stone building. Her companion, interpreting the gesture as a refusal, tightened his grip on her arm and hustled her onwards.
'Oh, no, you don't! It's too late now to draw back. You made your choice and must abide by it. Edward is waiting for you, and an anxious bridegroom he is.'
'Choice?' Bella queried scornfully, her spirits quickly reviving. 'You call it a choice that you gave me?'
'It's more than most would have done, to have provided you with a dowry and a husband, when you have no claim on me,' the man replied with a short laugh. 'You and the brat were lucky not to have been turned out into the streets to beg for a living.'
'Where is he? Where is Toby?' she demanded.
'Awaiting you, as I promised, with old Alice to take care of him. You can spend the night at the inn before boarding the ship tomorrow. A comfortable bed in an inn is preferable to a ship's bunk for a wedding night.'
'You are a fiend, Henry Martin!' she replied, and relapsed into silence as she glanced round the church.
There were two candles on the altar, and some indistinct shapes of men nearby. Bella clutched her cloak round her as she was pushed forward, and scanned their faces anxiously as soon as she was able to distinguish their features. There were three men, but she ignored the parson, a pale, thin figure who coughed apologetically and began speaking in a low voice to Henry Martin. The second of the waiting men was small and elderly, with a straggling grey beard and creased face. He stooped forward, his shoulders were rounded, and he plucked nervously at an elaborate lace collar with gnarled and twisted fingers. Surely even Henry would not have agreed to a marriage with such as he, Bella thought, and turned to the third man who must be the one she was here to wed.
What she saw in his hot, hungry glance made her wish fervently that it was greybeard after all who was to be her bridegroom. The man was tall and broad, with a jutting chin and square face. A long scar crossed his dark-skinned cheek, leaving a thin white line that dragged the left corner of his mouth up slightly. Deep clefts between the nose and the corners of his mouth gave him a cruel, perpetually sneering expression. His bold dark eyes raked her from head to foot in a manner which caused her to flush angrily. She felt as though she were stripped naked before him, and suddenly angry, she threw up her head and gave him back stare for stare. He laughed delightedly and turned to Henry Martin.
'You spoke the truth, my friend. A beauty, as far as I can see. If her form matches her face I shall be well pleased. Well, Master Parson, be about your business. I can scarce wait for your permission to bed my wife.'
Bella gasped in fury, the parson twittered in dismay, and Henry Martin laughed, pushing Bella forwards so that she stumbled and fell against her bridegroom. He made no move to assist her, and it was only by clutching at his doublet that she saved herself from sprawling ignominiously on the ground at his feet.
'Patience, my love,' he scoffed. 'There are some formalities with Master Parson before you can show me your aptitude on your back. You did not inform me how hot she was,' he added, turning to Henry, who smiled grimly but did not answer.
Suddenly Bella realized what she was doing. Her world had suddenly collapsed, she was on the verge of a new life, and yet she had had so little choice in it!
She had always accepted that she would marry where her parents chose, but she had trusted them to select a man she could love. When her mother had died and then her father, her thoughts had been far from marriage. And then the other disaster had overtaken her. It had been on the day of her father's burial.
*
'Henry Martin wants to speak to you. I've told him it's not fitting, but he won't go away,' Alice, one of the maids who had lost her own baby and become her young brother's wet nurse two years earlier, announced disapprovingly.
Before Bella could answer Henry Martin had forced his way into the parlour where she sat. Thrusting Alice aside he came to stand menacingly before Bella.
'What do you want?' she asked, puzzled at his behaviour, for he normally avoided her company.
His position was a strange one. Bella's father openly recognized him as a bastard son, and he had never attempted to presume on the relationship. Now, however, he appeared aggressive and determined.
'What is mine by rights!' Henry replied. 'Look at these.'
He thrust some papers into her hands, and Bella, puzzled, glanced at them.
'All these years I've had to bear the stigma of bastardy. Men have laughed at me behind my back – they dared not to my face. All to protect you and your damned brother. Well, it's over now. These papers show that my mother was wed to my father, but she left h
im, and she's still alive. It's you and the squalling brat who are the bastards. And I am the rightful heir!'
Bella had tried not to believe this incredible revelation. How could her gentle, courteous father have married her own beautiful, loving mother if he had a previous wife still living? But Henry Martin had brought lawyers from London who had told her that the papers he possessed undoubtedly proved him legitimate, and as such her father's heir instead of her brother Toby.
Shattered by this calamity so soon after the death of her father Bella had been threatened with destitution. For herself she did not care knowing that she, young and strong, could soon begin to earn her bread. It was another matter for her brother Toby. Henry threatened to place him in a foundlings' home where if he survived the rigours of such a life he would become a labourer or be sent to sea. There was no way that Bella could earn for them both, keeping Toby with her.
It was when Bella had finally admitted the reality of this desperate plight that Henry had offered her an alternative.
'I've a friend bound for Virginia. He wants a wife. He'll take the brat too. But you'd best decide now, he leaves England in a few days.'
Faced with this ultimatum Bella had been forced to agree, but as she now looked at the man in the church who was to be her husband she wondered whether the alternative might not have been better for both herself and Toby.
Nervously the parson directed them where to stand and Bella, seething with fury but utterly helpless, forced herself to say the words that, incredibly, made her the wife of this detestable man – a man whose full name she only then discovered to be Edward Sutton- a man who had never previously seen her, but who was to take her and Toby away from England for ever, to face danger and quite possibly death in the new lands far across the seas.
The parson mumbled his way hastily through the service, avoiding Bella's eyes, and peering down at the book shortsightedly. He backed away nervously when he had done and Edward Sutton, holding the hand Bella had been forced to give him in an unyielding grip, pulled her to him and encircled her waist with his other arm, crushing her against his chest in a cruel hug. His mouth, unexpectedly wet, covered hers as she opened her lips in a gasp. She writhed to avoid him, but was imprisoned so securely that there was naught she could do but endure his hateful embrace as best she might.
It was Henry Martin who ended it.
'Come, Edward, it is time to leave.'
'Are you so anxious to thrust us into bed together?' Edward replied, releasing Bella and laughing down at her as she instinctively dragged her hand across her mouth to wipe away the stain of his kiss.
Her cloak had fallen away from her shoulders during the rough embrace. He looked appreciatively at her slender waist and the curves of her breasts under the thin silk gown she wore. Bella flushed and pulled her cloak about her, but her heart was bleak. The old way of life was ended suddenly and ruthlessly, and in two short weeks she had lost almost everything.
Only her small brother, whose birth had cost their mother's life two years ago, was left to her, and it was for his sake that she had agreed to this match. From now on Edward Sutton, of whose very existence she had been happily unaware but two days ago, had complete dominion over her and could do with her as he wished. It was clear already that he would be no gentle husband, and she shivered as she thought of the days and months to come when they would be trapped on a small ship along with others voyaging to the new colony of Virginia. She reluctantly refused to think of what lay in store for her during the hours of darkness, knowing that if she permitted her fears to gain an ascendancy over her determination she would long only for death. And that, for little Toby's sake, was unthinkable.
Meekly Bella followed her new husband out of the church and Henry Martin, possibly afraid that she might make a sudden bid for freedom, again grasped her arm. The older man, with a look that she thought was of pity, muttered a few indistinguishable words and hurried off towards East Cheap, leaving them to turn back to where the huge white pile of the Tower reared up beside the river.
Beyond that fortress lay the Pool of London and the ship which was taking the colonists across the seas. Many times in the carefree past Bella had watched similar ships sail up the Thames, setting off on what she had then thought enviable voyages, or returning laden with exotic treasures. Little had she expected, as she rode on the Kentish banks of the river, that she would one day leave those green hills and sail on one of the ships.
The two men led Bella to a small, shabby inn huddled close by the walls of the Tower. Here a parody of a wedding feast had been set out in a small private parlour.
Alice sat on a settle beside the fire, rocking her nursling who was so soon to be sent away from her. She was a blonde, buxom woman about ten years older than Bella. Daughter of one of the older servants, she had been with the Cliffords all her life until she had married a groom. But he had been killed soon afterwards when he had fallen under a wagon, and Alice's baby had died a few days after his birth. She had gladly returned to nurse Toby, and since his own mother had died of a fever regarded him as her real son.
Toby, with chubby arms that clung tightly to Alice as he sat on her ample lap, looked at Bella hopefully as she entered the room. There were the streaks of tears on his fat rosy cheeks, and his vivid blue eyes were swimming with more unshed ones. His dark curls were rumpled, and he pushed away all the tempting morsels Alice offered to him, burying his face in her bosom as he hid from the loud voiced, large men.
Bella sat beside her new husband, numb with the detestation she already felt for him, and despair at her plight. She nibbled at the wing of a chicken while he and Henry ate and drank their fill.
Her distress, however, went unnoticed by Alice, wrapped up in her own misery at the impending loss of Toby. She had little pity to spare for Bella. Apart from the scar, Edward was a strong, broad, not unhandsome man. Doubtless once Bella had recovered from the shocks of the past few days she would grow to love him. There was little else she could do, and she tried to convince Bella of this when it was time for her and Henry Martin to leave.
Bella nodded, blinking back her tears, and then busied herself consoling the little boy, who wailed as he sensed the strangeness of the moment.
'For the Lord's sake, stop that!' Edward ordered.
'He's tired and frightened,' Bella protested.
'Then he's best in bed. Our room is through here. See to him.'
There was a cupboard bed in the room, and Bella saw her brother tucked in. With an occasional sob shaking him, he fell quickly asleep, and she nerved herself to go into the next room.
Edward had been drinking as he waited, naked on the side of her bed. He glanced up at her.
'Get undressed,' he ordered brusquely.
*
When she hesitated he rose to his feet. He was somewhat the worse for drink, she realized, horrified, and involuntarily stepped backwards.
'Come here!' he shouted, strode towards her, and seizing her by the arm, threw her across the bed.
Before she could move his hands were fumbling at her gown. Impatient at the fastenings, he suddenly dragged the bodice from her shoulders and ripped it down to the waist, exposing her firm breasts.
Bella, suddenly furiously angry, struggled to escape from his groping hands which were fondling her as they tore off the rest of her clothes. She fought, scratching and biting, but was no match for him. Indeed the opposition appeared to stimulate him.
He laughed triumphantly as, capturing both of her hands and holding them imprisoned above her head, he straddled her body, his weight driving the breath from her. 'You're my wife, you'll do as I wish,' he panted, forcing her legs apart. Helpless to resist, but too angry at his savage brutality to consider begging for mercy, she endured the humiliation in silence, sobbing once only as he penetrated her roughly and the searing pain tore her apart.
When he was sated he rolled away to the side of the bed and fell asleep, sprawled negligently on his back, snoring with his mouth open.
Among the possessions which Edward had thrown onto the floor when he had discarded his clothes lay a short, wicked looking dagger. Briefly Bella looked from it to the unconscious form of her husband, wishing that she had the courage to use it and rid herself of him. It would not serve. She would be caught and hanged. She was married to him, and he could do as he liked with her. A great sense of bitterness came to her as she saw endless years of harsh misery to be endured at the hands of this brute, and she suddenly determined that, although she could not murder him, she would escape from him. He would not again use her for his selfish pleasure.
With new hope she dressed speedily, thankful that her cloak would conceal the tatters of her gown. A purse heavy with gold lay on a small table. Cautiously she lifted it and slipped it into her pocket. Then, praying that Toby would not cry out when she wakened him, she went into the next room. Fortunately the child was sleepy, and she dressed him and carried him out of the inn before he could begin to chatter. No one saw her departure, and, keeping to the shadows, Bella began to walk westwards, away from the forbidding Tower.
Throughout what seemed an endless night, Bella crept through the streets of London, hiding in doorways from those who roved in the dark in search of helpless victims. Toby had fallen asleep in her arms, and his weight forced her to rest often.
Soon after dawn she ventured to approach an inn and hire a horse. She had no other family who might help her, but in these last few desperate hours she had thought of one of her father's old friends who lived near Canterbury, and who would surely give her shelter and advice until she could think of some way of making a living for herself and Toby.
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