Virginian Lover

by Oliver, Marina

  *

  Was it the truth? Had she fled from her husband's ill-treatment, which must have been terrifying if it had driven her to run from him. Was it that which had caused her to reject him finally that morning when she had seemed to be welcoming him?

  'Are you so distrustful of men?' he asked, coming to kneel beside her and gently taking her hands in his.

  Bella shivered slightly. 'My brother sold me, and my husband used me against my will. It was not until I met you that I discovered men could be kind and gentle. Do you forgive me for assuming that you had helped me only for your own purpose?'

  'Perhaps you had reason. But why do you choose to tell me so now, when I might so easily take advantage of you?'

  Why was he making it so difficult? Bella silently asked herself. Did he expect her to say openly that she wished to become his mistress and beg him to save her from her husband.

  'I do not now think that you would force me,' she replied, turning her face invitingly towards him. Their lips were but a few inches apart as he knelt there, and she closed her eyes and swayed towards him. Slowly Adam slid his hands about her slender waist and pulled her closer, kissing her gently to begin with and then with greater passion. Bella was at first stiff in his arms, but under his practised guidance she gradually relaxed and her lips became soft and pliable while her hands crept involuntarily about his neck.

  He kissed her mouth and then her eyes, and then buried his face in her neck, kissing her throat and moving tantalisingly slowly down towards her breasts. The gown she wore buttoned down the front and she felt his fingers warm against her bare skin as Adam very gradually and deliberately unfastened the buttons and gently caressed her, his hands creeping almost imperceptibly lower. Then he pulled aside her bodice and cupped the firm, rose tipped orbs in his hands, while Bella breathed deeply, fighting the rising tide within her that urged her to abandon herself to the same sensations that had almost overwhelmed her before when Adam had touched her in such a way.

  Now he was kissing her between her breasts and her heart pounded against his lips as his thumbs teased her nipples into hardening response. When he stood up and pulled her with him she yielded eagerly into a closer embrace, seeking his mouth with her own as he held her hard against his body.

  Unhurriedly Adam slipped her gown over her shoulders, and the chemise followed. She stood naked before him, lost to everything apart from the need she had for his hands, supple and firm as they caressed her body, stilling the tumult within her. When he again drew her against him and his hands travelled across her back, he did not need to exert any pressure to mould her form to his, she was clinging to him freely.

  The bunk was only a step away and Adam gently picked Bella up and carried her to it. As she lay there looking up athim he smiled and unhurriedly divested himself of his own clothing. Bella's eyes took in the broad shoulders, muscular arms, and deep chest, then he smiled and turned to the lamp hanging from the hook in the ceiling, and lowered it so that it gave out the faintest flow before moving to sit on the bed beside her.

  Leaning on one elbow beside her, Adam gently explored Bella's body with his hands and lips. Her thoughts were in turmoil. Adam's lovemaking was so very different from the brutal violence of Edward, and she felt as though she would drown in the sensations his touch engendered in her nerves, responses he evoked which she would not subdue and which she did not, with one part of her, want to control.

  For a few panicstricken moments she asked herself how, if she became so helpless with his expert lovemaking, she could ensure that she was using him and not the other way about? He had not said one word about his intentions once they reached Jamestown, and this, she told herself frantically, was her sole purpose in encouraging him.

  Unable to think calmly Bella ceased to care when Adam's lips began to caress her breasts, drawing her nipples into his mouth and gently stroking them with his tongue. Almost without her being aware of it his hands slipped down her sides and he held her tightly to him.

  Slowly, careful not to startle her by moving too quickly, Adam caressed her thighs and buttocks, and soon Bella, consumed with a desire she had never before known or imagined, was straining against him. She had ceased to think, to compare this unimagined delight with the violation of her wedding night, or to care for anything apart from the unknown climax which was building up inside her.

  When Adam slid his hand between her legs she sighed and shuddered, unresisting as he gently raised himself and crushed her beneath him. As he lay above her she sought to kiss his lips, and her arms were wound about him, pulling him even closer. She moaned softly when at last, controlling his own fierce desire for consummation, he entered her slowly and with murmured endearments guided her expertly to an undreamed of culmination of passion as they clung fiercely together in a prolonged climax.

  Gradually Bella recovered her lost powers of thought. She was lying cradled still in Adam's arms, and he was kissing her softly. She emitted a long shuddering sigh and smiled shyly up at him. Why had it been so different with Edward? Then it had been painful and humiliating. Her husband could never, she was certain, evoke the same abandoned response in her. Never, she vowed, would she return to Edward or grant him power over her body. And with that resolution she relaxed, sighed deeply, and suddenly fell asleep.

  Adam gazed down at her, a tender smile on his lips. She had behaved quite unlike his more experienced mistresses, almost as though she were still a virgin. If she had been telling the truth and her husband had taken her roughly, it explained a great deal.

  *

  The next two days passed with Bella in a dreamlike state. By day she stood at the rail of the ship with Adam watching in fascination the shores of Chesapeake Bay drift by. They were covered in tall trees and lush meadows intersected with many creeks and streams.

  'How beautiful it is!' Bella exclaimed when she first saw the forests in the full riotousness of their October colouring. All about them were the green, gold and yellow, the russet, brown, red and bronze produced by the trees in a final burst of defiance before the onset of winter.

  'Changeable, like a beautiful woman,' Adam said with a laugh. 'Dressed in all their glory, but soon to be bare!' He pulled her to lean back against him, his arms about her, for they were on a secluded part of the deck and none could see them. When his hands slipped down past her waist and caressed her hips and then her stomach, she gasped and turned to kiss him.

  At night, locked in his arms, she forgot she had meant to claim his protection against her husband, but whenever she was parted from him the old anxieties rose in her, reminding her he had not said what he intended to do after they landed. If he did not soon discuss plans it would be too late. Had she, after all, permitted him to use her body merely to satisfy his lust? Was it to be in vain?

  There was no time to find another protector, and she shuddered even at the notion. Yet Edward was only a few miles away. In a day or so she would be delivered into his power. Bella suspected that the horror of that first night with Edward would be nothing to her sufferings now she had experienced Adam's tenderness. And yet she resolutely refused to examine her own feelings for Adam. She went to him at night and accepted his company during the day for one purpose only, to escape her loathsome husband.

  Adam, she concluded with despair as they approached Jamestown, had cleverly tricked her. He never spoke of love, had never mentioned the future. She was utterly unaware of the effort this cost him.

  Longing to reassure her of his love and protection, but never having felt such need for any woman, he too was puzzled. He had been independent for so many years he hesitated to bind himself, especially to one who withheld from him her full confidence. Did she love him or was she merely using him as a way of satisfying ambition? Until he knew which he would make no commitment.

  It was in this state of indecision that they sailed up the James River on the third day after sighting land. At first the river was wide and the tree-scattered shores sloped easily down to the sandy beaches.
There were a few habitations, but the voyagers caught glimpses of half-naked Indians, watching them from amongst the trees. They never obtained a satisfactory view of these strangers, but were aware always of eyes following their progress along the river. The Captain kept a strong watch at all times, particularly at night, but the tawny-skinned men came no closer, seeming content to view these new invaders of their tribal lands from a distance.

  That morning they were about eight miles away from Jamestown, rounding a point of land which Adam told Bella was named Archer's Hope, after Gabriel Archer, secretary to Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, one of the leaders of the 1607 expedition.

  'It was the first suggested site for the colony, but Captain Wingfield, who became the first President, resisted it, probably because he resented not having discovered it, and so they went on to Jamestown.'

  'Was it better?'

  'Possibly easier to defend, for it is a long peninsula with but a narrow neck of land joining it to the mainland. Not quite an island, but almost.'

  Bella looked about her.

  'It's beautiful,' she said slowly. 'It's a lovely country.'

  They watched together and then, without warning, the ship gave a violent lurch. Tearing noises, followed by terrified shouts and the screams of women and children came from the hold.

  'Stay here!' Adam ordered, and went swiftly along the deck.

  Bella found that the ship had twisted off its course and now was drifting and listing sideways. With another shuddering jolt it came to rest at a precipitous angle. Many of the less well secured crates and barrels slid protestingly across the deck.

  The screams and shouts from below intensified and sailors, nimbly avoiding the shifting deck cargo, scurried towards the hatches. Others clambered amongst the rigging, hastily furling the sails, and Bella realized how dangerous the wind could be now the ship was incapable of moving. Peering cautiously over the rails she found she could see the river bed, and saw they had run aground on a sandbank covered with only a few feet of water. Some of the people who had been in the hold packing their possessions in anticipation of landing later in the day at Jamestown, now climbed up onto the deck. Some of the women were sobbing, others trying to comfort screaming children.

  'What is it?' Bella asked, taking one child from a woman who was helplessly attempting to calm three little ones.

  'We must have hit a rock, they say,' the woman answered jerkily. 'It was in the lower hold, mostly, where the stores are, but the water came in onto us too. Hush, Benjy, you're safe now, love! But there were men in the hold, they say, sailors getting ready for unloading, and two of them were crushed. The crates were loose and the movement landed them on top of the men. They may drown if they can't be brought out quickly!'

  For a while there seemed to be total chaos, but when all the passengers had emerged from the hold and were assembled, shivering, on the sloping deck, the injured men were carried up and their crushed limbs and torn bodies attended to. Adam was busy organizing teams of men to redistribute the cargo while the ship's carpenter made frantic efforts to block the gaping hole.

  'We could go no further until proper repairs were made, even if we had not grounded,' Adam told Bella when he paused beside her as she was comforting some children.

  'How shall we get off?' Bella asked.

  'The river is tidal so the ship will be lifted off at the next high tide, but it is not likely that we can take her straight to Jamestown, at least not with all the passengers. Later I am going with a few men in the shallop to fetch help. There are many small boats, for that is the main form of transport here, and tomorrow everyone can be taken off with their baggage. It will be an uncomfortable night, for the hold is wet and useless, and everyone must sleep on deck. I must go now, I will be with you again in the morning.'

  *

  He was gone, and Bella felt suddenly bereft. It was the fear he would not return, that her submission to him was after all to be useless, she told herself firmly, that caused her to feel so lost. But she lay sleepless that night, remembering his arms about her, his lips on hers, and the exquisite sensations he could arouse in her at will. Falling into a restless sleep towards dawn, she whispered his name in her unconsciousness, and on waking unthinkingly stretched out her arms, realizing too late that there was no one there to welcome her.

  A couple of hours after daybreak a flotilla of small boats appeared from upriver, and were met with cheers by the ship's passengers. A noisy, cheerful disembarkation began as families were taken on the small boats with their baggage and set off on the last stage of their long, adventurous journey.

  It was to be as eventful as the rest. There had been no time for Bella to speak with Adam who, on his return to one of the first boats, had disappeared into the Captain's cabin with a couple of other men. Delaying leaving the ship until the last, she eventually had to scramble down a ladder and into a boat manned by two young men.

  Alice and Toby followed, and their hastily corded boxes were lowered after them.

  The boat was a hundred or more yards from the Virginian when Bella's straining eyes saw Adam appear on the deck. He looked towards her, but she could not be sure whether he recognized her, for he turned back and seemed to be supervising the lowering of some fragile cargo into the last boat.

  'Those must be the men who were injured,' one of the rowers said, and Bella saw what she had thought was cargo was in fact the sailors, strapped safely onto boards.

  They had gone a couple of miles when from the boats ahead came panic-stricken screams, and suddenly a blood-curdling howl erupted from the bank. As Bella and Alice stared in consternation, several of the boats ahead turned round and headed back towards them. On the bank of the river a small group of men were running swiftly towards the river.

  They wore only short fringed aprons, but their brown skins were painted with red and black circles and lines. Their hair was black, long and tied back, but curiously shaved from the right sides of their heads. In the knots of hair most of them had fixed brightly coloured feathers. They carried short bows, and almost without pausing would aim and shoot arrows at the boats, howling fiendishly all the time.

  Some of the men in the boats dropped their oars and seized guns, and soon a spasmodic fire was being directed at the Indians, most of whose arrows had fallen short or into the water. After the first rush towards the river bank they retreated into the shelter of the trees. The next few miles developed into a running skirmish between the Indians on shore and the travellers. The newcomers after a while took over the guns from the owners of the boats. With practised rowers they were able to make faster time and soon rounded the last bend of the river before Jamestown.

  Adam, with the injured sailors and some of the crew of the Virginian had overtaken Bella's boat much earlier, but without even appearing to see her. Now she could only hope he would be awaiting her when they landed.

  The town, surrounded by a high pallisade, stood as Adam had said, on a long peninsula projecting into the centre of the river. It was clear, however, from the two large ships tied up to the trees near the edge of the shore, that there was deep water on that side. By the quay there was a tremendous bustle as people and cargo were landed and and many of the newcomers seemed completely bewildered and lost. A few were already moving off into the town, helped by earlier settlers avidly demanding news from England.

  Bella looked about her for Adam but he was nowhere to be seen. The injured men had disappeared too, presumably through the large wooden gates which guarded the fort. As they swung open she glimpsed the houses inside. They were small and squat. One storey high, with wooden frames and thatched roofs, wattle and daub walls, they could have been part of an English village.

  Where was Adam? Had he deliberately avoided her? Did he want to be rid of her? It was true that he had spoken no words of love, and what, after all, did she know of him and his life here in Virginia? Such a man would undoubtedly be able to take his pick of mistresses even though there were still few women in the colony. His mis
tress might even now be awaiting him, and even if she tired of his absence there would be others only too anxious to take her place.

  Even if by some miracle he preferred her to these unknown women he might hesitate to thwart the laws of the puritanical Council by openly taking another man's wife. It could bring drastic punishment on them both, apart from what Edward himself might do. Although she acquitted Adam of any cowardice, it would be foolish to disregard the laws and customs of his fellow settlers when he needed to live at peace in a law-abiding small community. Only a fool would deliberately court severe legal reprisals.

  These thoughts flashed through Bella's mind as she stood on the quayside looking about her. Then she smiled determindly at Alice and started to walk towards the gates.

  'Come, we had best discover what we have to do.'

  Inside the gates there was a crowded collection of buildings, mostly small single storey houses with one or two rooms and a loft, small windows, and families crowding round the doors watching the new arrivals. Round most of the houses, in small and ill-defined patches of garden, grew strange tall wide-leaved plants which encroached even onto the roadway. In the centre of the town was a larger building which appeared to be a church, and before it a wide open space where many of the ship's passengers had congregated.

  Bella walked slowly forward.

  'Mistress Bella Sutton! What a pleasant surprise! Welcome home!'

  *

  She turned, heart thumping – and saw Edward lounging at the door of one of the houses near the church. Two other men stood with him, and they looked Bella up and down familiarly as though she were a piece of merchandise to be assessed.

  'Well, my friends, what do you think of my wife?'

  'She don't look overjoyed to see you!' one of them said, nudging Edward in the ribs.

  'Wonder if a little bird flew out to the ship and whispered secrets?' the other said. 'Never mind, mistress, I'll be only too happy to – '

  'Keep your mouth shut!' Edward snarled. 'Come here!' he snapped at Bella. 'I've a score to settle with you, wife, but I'll do it in private! My canoe waits for us!'