Love and Adventure Collection - Part 1 (Love and Adventure Boxed Sets)

by Jennifer Blake

  “Is there? The results will be the same when word reaches New Orleans that we were at least one night, unchaperoned, upon the road.”

  “We would not have been unchaperoned if you had not left my maid behind!”

  “Remiss of me, but she did not, I think you will agree, represent a very formidable bulwark against gossiping tongues.”

  “She would have been adequate if we had arrived in New Orleans this evening,” Catherine insisted.

  “But then I would have had to think up some other way of compromising you.”

  Robbed momentarily of speech, Catherine could only stare at Marcus. He reached across and patted her hand. “Come, chérie. Be sensible. It is extremely uncomfortable for a woman without a man in this world—”

  “And even more so for a man without money,” she flashed.

  An unpleasant look appeared in his eyes. Slowly his grip on her fingers grew tighter. “As you say,” he agreed. “There is no need to cut up about it, however. We each can solve the problem of the other. You are an attractive woman, Catherine. I freely admit that you have a heady appeal to my senses. It will be far from a hardship to live with you.”

  “And all your protests of undying love?” she asked levelly.

  “Were based on fact.”

  “You will not, I hope, be surprised if I fail to believe you.” The ends of her fingers were beginning to tingle and burn but she refused to be cowed.

  He sighed. “Must you make things difficult for yourself?”

  She laughed, a cold mocking laugh. She felt resolve grow inside her. “Your scheme has a fatal flaw. I want nothing from Rafael. I refuse to write any such whining letter to him.”

  Following her ultimatum there was a silence so strained that she grew aware of the muttered comments and the perfectly audible slap of cards from the game in the next room. The hazel eyes of the man across from her narrowed. His features grew livid with a swift rising color. Deliberately he released his grip on her fingers, drew back his hand, and slapped her across the face.

  The blow wrenched her head back and sent tears starting into her eyes. Before she could recover, he was around the table, his fingers clawing at the neck of her gown. The back of his hand smashed into the other side of her face. When she staggered he twisted the material in his hand, wrenching her back toward him.

  Rage and pain exploding in her mind, Catherine brought her hands up, slashing with her nails at the arm that held her.

  With an oath Marcus slammed her against the wall, losing his hold as the lace of her collar and jabot came away in his hand along with a strip of her bodice. A vicious jerk, and the material was ripped to her waist. Free for an instant, Catherine twisted away with a cry of desperation, evading the clutching fingers at the low neck of her chemise. The resistance seemed to madden him for he dug his fingers into her loosened hair to drag her back. Doubling his hand into a fist, he hit her in the chest again and again, striking for the tender globes of her breasts.

  When her knees buckled under her, he stood over her, holding her head up by her hair. His breath rasping, he said. “I think you will write that letter now — chérie — unless you — want more of the same.”

  As a final humiliation he dropped to one knee and covered her mouth with his kisses, forcing her to accept his hot probing tongue while his hand roved over her bruised flesh.

  A thumping on the door roused him. He raised his head slowly, and when he spoke his voice had thickened. “What is it?”

  “It’s about the boat you wanted!”

  Reluctantly Marcus got to his feet, tugged his coat and cravat into place, and started toward the door.

  A long shudder of purest revulsion shook Catherine. She found she could not stop trembling. Moving carefully against the sick throbbing of her head, she raised herself enough to reach the bed. She dropped down upon it and pulled the sheet up to cover her dishevelment.

  It was dark in the hall but even so Catherine got a brief glance of the person at the door. Catherine thought she recognized the young man with the limp who had been leaving the inn as they entered.

  If he saw her he gave no sign. He thrust a twist of paper into Marcus’s hand and immediately moved away.

  Turning the message toward the light of the innkeeper’s lamp, Marcus opened it and skimmed its contents.

  “It’s from that fool of a captain, something wrong about the boat,” he said without looking in Catherine’s direction. “I will be back.”

  The last had sounded remarkably like a threat to Catherine’s sensitive ears. She wasted no time in either relief or listening to the sound of his receding footsteps. She surveyed the ruin of her gown. Momentarily she was carried back to the night she had met Rafael. She shook the memory from her head. She had managed then, she would manage now.

  Gathering up the tattered strips of material with shaking fingers, she tucked them into the low neck of her chemise. Her collar and jabot were located under the table. These were separate, handmade lace pieces which were not attached directly to the gown with which they were worn. Their button loops were torn, but enough remained to fix them in place over the bare expanse of her bosom. Perhaps in the poor lighting downstairs the repairs might pass unnoticed.

  She had not thought beyond leaving the inn — and Marcus — behind. The fear of the future could not be allowed to interfere with the necessity of the present.

  Her hair was hopeless, but her bonnet would cover it. Where—

  She was brought up short by a tap on the door. For a moment her heart beat high in her throat. She clasped her hands together to still them before moving forward with a rush. It was doubtful that Marcus would knock and wait for an answer on his return.

  The young man who had delivered the note stood in the opening. “Compliments of the captain, Ma’am. He — he is of the opinion that you might be glad of an offer of transportation.” He ducked his head in the direction of the next room. “We couldn’t help overhearing — if you don’t mind the saying so, Ma’am.”

  His voice was rough, his words hurried. There might even have been a tinge of embarrassment in his manner. His gaze flicked over her, then away. Still, there was something intrinsically trustworthy in the set of his shoulders and the way his hands hung still and straight while he waited.

  “Your — your captain has a boat?”

  He gave a stiff nod. “A keelboat. But you must come now — if you wish to come—”

  “Yes — yes, but — you are certain this is not the boat the — the gentleman who is with me has hired?”

  “Quite certain, Ma’am.”

  She knew an impulse to ask where the boat was going, but, after all, what did that matter, so long as it was away from this place. Moreover, all boats going downstream eventually arrived at New Orleans, did they not?

  Turning back into the room, Catherine snatched up her bonnet. “Let us go — and quickly!”

  Her guide led her in the opposite direction from the narrow stair to the common room. He stopped before a window shuttered with rough boards at the end of the hallway. With a glance around, he lifted the bar that held the shutters closed and pushed them outward.

  Below was a dark emptiness, or so Catherine thought until the man swung a leg over the sill and stepped out of the window. He appeared to search for and find a foothold, then Catherine saw the top rungs of a crude ladder fastened against the wall of the house.

  “When I’m halfway down, you follow. Don’t forget to push the shutters closed behind you — and don’t worry. If you fall, I’ll catch you.”

  Before he had finished speaking his head had disappeared from sight. Gingerly, Catherine perched on the windowsill and swung her slippered feet over. Her skirts caught on the corner of one shutter and for a precarious moment she clung to the sill, her breath coming fast through her clenched teeth as she fought for balance. It had been many long years since she had climbed trees or slid down bannisters. Her skirts had been shorter then. How was she to turn — Yes, that was it. Mustn�
�t forget the shutters. Splinters. The devil! Sacré mille diables!

  Her head swam so that she had to lean against the ladder a long moment when her feet touched the ground. It was not the height, it was the merciless headache, the quivering weakness of her limbs, and the taste of illness at the back of her throat. But she could not stop now. With an effort that brought beads of perspiration to her upper lip, she released her hold on the ladder.

  “This way,” her guide said in his expressionless voice, and moved away through the night, leaving her to follow as best she might.

  Their route to the boat was a circuitous one. Due to the darkness of an overcast night sky, progress was slow, and they halted often in the deep shadow of overhanging branches while the boatman searched the trail behind them and the path ahead. Preoccupied, he made no effort to help her, to give her support over fallen logs or disentangle her skirts from clinging saw briars. She began to doubt that all his caution, and the long halts that went with it, was for the sake of safety alone. A tremor of doubt shook her, then she dismissed it. She was in no position to question.

  She was extremely grateful to see the keelboat riding gently on the water. She did not even mind when her guide scooped her up and lurched through the shallow water covering a small sandspit to hand her to other willing arms onboard.

  Such unconcern could not last indefinitely, of course. When she was set on her feet at the center of a group of river roughnecks every bit as sinister as those she had seen in the tavern, Catherine was assailed by a wave of panic. They crowded about her pushing, shoving, peering over each other’s shoulders, mumbling among themselves. Then, as the man who had led her there appeared over the side of the gunwale, he was greeted by a hearty slap on the shoulder, and a “So you got her, did ye?”

  “As ordered,” he grunted, and pushed his way to her side. “You’ll want to go below, Ma’am,” he said. “It will be better that way.”

  Catherine could trust herself to do no more than nod.

  “Bar the door,” he instructed as he turned her toward the door of a cargo box much like the one on the keelboat she had traveled in upriver.

  “When — when do we leave?” she asked.

  “As soon as the captain has finished his business.”

  He waited while she entered the makeshift cabin then began to shut the door.

  “Wait,” Catherine said, placing her fingertips on the panel. “You have been most kind. I appreciate it more than I can say.”

  “It was the captain’s idea, Ma’am. Save your gratitude for him. He will — enjoy it.” With a stiff inclination of his head, he limped away.

  17

  “What a strange man,” Catherine thought as she tried to fit the bar in place across the door. It was a heavy length of wood with a diabolically human stubbornness. Whether it had warped in the river damp, or because she lacked the strength, it would not go into its brackets.

  After weary minutes, she ceased struggling with it. The best she could manage was to prop it against the door at a sharp angle, with the foot of it against the head of a peg in the floor.

  Straightening, she surveyed the cabin. An oil lamp swayed from the ceiling with the surge of the waves driven by a rising wind. Unlike the other cabin she had shared, this one had only one bed, a low, tightly made-up bunk fitted against one wall. There was a table with a ledge around it bolted to the opposite wall, and a heavy chair beside it. At the far end, built on either side of what appeared to be the base of a mast, were a pair of clothes cupboards. It was Spartan accommodation, but surprisingly clean and — shipshape. A shame to disturb the smoothness of the tucked sheet and blanket, the neatly aligned pillow, but she had to lie down. She had to.

  When she opened her eyes once more she was being thrown violently from side to side. The lamp above her danced a dangerous jig, with a fuzzy nimbus about its wildly leaping flame. The wooden bar had slipped down. The cabin door swung back and forth on its hinges, while through the opening came the vivid flash of lightning. Watching the motion with a bemused stare, Catherine gradually became aware of voices shouting over the wind.

  “Sure, and the captain won’t think of putting out in this storm!”

  “You don’t know the captain! ‘Sides, he’ll be takin’ no chances of losing his ‘cargo’!”

  “I disremember seeing him so het up about anything — or anybody!”

  “Yeh, that blonde-headed yahoo will be lucky to stay alive. The captain sure weren’t too happy to hear him laying his fives to ‘er!”

  “Could think of better things to lay, hisself, I’ll bet!”

  The men, Catherine thought dazedly, were sheltering from the wind on the lea side of the cargo box. Their voices carried plainly. Too plainly. But she must not be upset. Men talked like that. It meant nothing. If she could just get up and shut the door again—

  “Five to one we tie up downriver while the captain pays our ladyfriend a visit!”

  “I don’t know, this one has got guts. My money says he gets a flea in his ear and no scratch!”

  “I’ll take it. From what I seen, the captain ain’t in no mood to take a no answer!”

  Slowly Catherine raised a hand to her head. Dear God, what kind of a mess had she landed herself in? The captain. Could they be speaking of that huge braggart with the cast in his eye she had seen in the tavern’s common room? That crowing animal of a man? What had the innkeeper said? He had “quite an eye for the ladies.” Was his offer of sanctuary no more than a ruse to have her for himself then? She should have known, and yet she had been brought up to believe in the chivalrous gesture, the generous impulse of men toward a helpless female. A silent laugh shook her. How wrong, how pathetically wrong, such teachings were. In her experience the weakness of a woman, her lack of protection, was more likely to excite the instinct of the hunter.

  But was she weak, was she helpless? She had been, in the past. Defenseless against superior strength, she had been tricked, dishonored, coerced, bullied, and beaten. No more. Deep in her breast there was a grim, slow-rising revolt. She would commit murder before she submitted to another man’s will.

  It was difficult getting to her feet in the pitching boat, but she managed it. Holding to the swaying door, she negotiated the small set of steps back up to deck level.

  At the sight of her the boatmen stared, their bearded faces washed a pale gray in the lightning flashes. She herself must look like a bedraggled wraith, Catherine reflected as she gave them a short nod. She turned her back on them as quickly as possible, by no means sure that the tattered condition of her bodice was still a sufficient covering.

  As she moved toward the dark stern of the boat she could just see the flicker of lamplight from the tavern, like the gleam of a firefly seen through the thrashing branches of the trees. It seemed a greater distance away than it had been before, then she saw that their mooring line had been played out, perhaps to keep them from being blown aground on the sand bar. The wind was surely strong enough for that. It tore at her gown, molding it to her body and snapping the hem like a flag. Loose tendrils of hair streamed across her face so that she kept pushing them back, trying unavailingly to secure them.

  What could she do? Where could she go? She could not stay here and await the coming of the captain. Ashore was Marcus. Inland if she could make it that far, was Rafael. Better the devil you know — the old saying went; but no, she would not go back. She could not. Who might help her? Fanny? She had not been at all sympathetic. Giles. Yes, possibly Giles. Without vanity, she realized that he had a fondness for her.

  First she had to reach him. How that was to be accomplished, she did not know, but an obvious first step was to get off the keelboat. And it must be done quickly, before the captain decided to come aboard, cutting off her escape.

  “Ma’am! Hey, Ma’am!”

  The hail came from among the boatmen. Turning, Catherine saw the lame man coming toward her, and at that moment she heard the first drops of rain begin to fall on the roof of the cargo box, fe
lt them upon her face. Her hands tightened on the gunwale. He was coming to lead her back below. Whatever she was going to do must be done now.

  She had swum the distance from the boat to the riverbank before, but never in a storm, never fully dressed, and not in many years. Still, what did it matter? If she did not make it — then one death would do as well as another.

  She hesitated for only a moment before stepping up onto the gunwale and diving in.

  The shock of the cold water took her breath. The river dragged her down, clutching her in its dank embrace. She struggled frantically against it, until, with a final kick, her head broke water. Dimly she could hear an outcry but it faded away before she could pinpoint its direction. All around her was darkness. She had lost the beacon light of the tavern. She could feel herself being carried swiftly along on the river’s current. Odd, she did not remember it being so strong, but then her swimming lessons had been given in a different stretch of the river in the doldrums of late summer.

  A wave slapped her in the face. She breathed water, choked, and coughed, blinking desperately to clear her vision. Was that the bank, that black, uneven line?

  She struck out, arm over arm, straining, throwing muscle and courage into each stroke. Her goal came no nearer. For a moment’s rest, she treaded water then tried again.

  She was alone in an immensity of water, a bit of human flotsam rolling sluggishly in the flow of water. The muscles of her arms and back ached, and her eyes burned. Her legs seemed like heavy weights, her brain a useless thing pulsating with pain.

  She would not give up. Another effort must be made, and another.

  At some time in that nightmare of chill and wet and the thunder in her ears of water and weather and her own blood, she saw a sawyer coming toward her. In the ghostly flicker of lightning its roots had the look of hands upheld in horror. It scraped along her side, igniting a streak of fire down her cold flesh. She felt herself entangled, caught fast by her hair and dragging skirts among the trailing leafy branches. To free herself was impossible. Twisting and turning, her hand struck the hard roundness of the trunk or a large limb. Her fingers gripped, then convulsively she clung to the rough bark, hugging it to her.