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

by Jennifer Blake

  Wesley gave a hoarse howl and rolled off her, thrashing on the ground like a wounded animal. Catherine scrambled to her feet and backed away with the knife in her hand. Her eyes were narrowed, wary.

  After a moment the man was still, then slowly he rolled to his side and, grunting, pushed himself to one knee. His left hand he held pressed to his hip with the leg at a stiff, awkward angle behind him.

  “You bitch,” he said unsteadily. “You God-damned, whoring bitch. You’ve crippled me.”

  There was a long rip in his breeches leg ending at the fleshy part of his hip. Blood had already darkened the material and soaked through to drip upon the green grass with a red gleam.

  “I could have killed you,” Catherine told him in a voice so hard she scarcely recognized it for her own.

  He crawled bit by painful bit to the wheel of the phaeton where he pulled himself up. While Catherine watched unmoving, he clambered into the vehicle and fell across the seat.

  Perspiration beaded his upper lip. His panting breath was loud as he settled himself and reached for the reins. Slowly he swung his head toward her while he moistened his lips with his tongue.

  “If I — ever see you — again—” he said with difficulty, “you will wish you had — killed me.”

  Jerking brutally on the reins, Wesley Martin backed the phaeton, then swung it in a wide circle, heading back the way he had come.

  For a moment Catherine had been afraid he intended to run her down and had moved prudently near a tall tree. When the sound of the carriage wheels had faded she leaned against the trunk, feeling the rough bark under her forehead as she fought to control the trembling weakness of her knees. Her hold on her knife loosened so that it slipped in her hand. Hearing it fall, she dropped to the ground, wiping the blade clean on the grass with a gesture of repugnance.

  Quiet, broken only by the distant calls of birds and the sibilant whisper of the great river, descended around her. Staring at the knife in her hand, Catherine got slowly to her feet. Aunt Em. Jonathan. She could always go back to them. In truth, she was already halfway there. Further along the bluff trail, another two or three miles, was the low shelf where they were camped. If she hurried she could be with them before sundown.

  Her sense of time was correct. The last red rays of the setting sun were tipping the waves with rust when she reached the riverside encampment. The brush shelter was there, and the circle of the campfire. But the embers within the circle were cold and black, the shelter empty. No light shone. No skiff bobbed against the bank. They were gone.

  Out in the fast current of the Mississippi nothing moved except the endlessly flowing water. She was alone.

  20

  The bright light of morning was the time for courage and for hope, the time for a sure and easy step. But in the dark cover of the night lay safety. That it also covered the scream of a panther and the panic-stricken scurryings of smaller animals had to be endured. Somehow. Man was the greater danger.

  It was not hard to keep moving. The difficulty was to keep from running, from descending to headlong, ignominious night from the noises of the night and the fears that stalked her as surely as did the hunting cat of her imagination. Soft, deadly tread. Sinister shadow in the light of a rising moon. Low, vibrating growl, felt rather than heard.

  Rafael. Rafe. They had called him the Black Panther, the most dangerous of men, and yet she had known security in his arms. Security and something more, a perilous joy, a trembling ecstasy.

  She had tried to deny it. Out of pride and mistrust and a cankering resentment for the manner in which she had been forced to marry him, she had built a barrier against him in her own mind. How wrong she had been. The fault for what happened between them on the night of the quadroons’ masquerade was not his alone. Moreover, her experiences with Marcus and Wesley Martin had shown her how different, how terribly different, that night could have been. In her struggles with Rafe she had known instinctively that he would not cause her injury or inflict intolerable pain, that he felt no pleasure in the hurt he reluctantly gave her. Then, and later, after they were married, the strength of his desire had always been tempered by tenderness and a sensitivity to her pleasure.

  These gentle emotions had been absent in his judgment of India, but could she blame him for that? Men and women were whipped, branded, pilloried, and hanged every day for lesser crimes. His decision had been as humane as he dared make it. India’s death had not been intended. Her condition as a slave and the daughter of a slave had caused her crime. The responsibility for that belonged not to Rafael alone, but to all men.

  Time and distance had cooled Catherine’s impotent anger. The same forces had softened the memories of agony and stifling, bloody death. In addition she had grappled with her own degree of blame in the death of Solange. It was inevitable that there must be some readjustment in her attitude, some acceptance.

  What, she wondered, would have happened if she and Rafael had met in the ordinary way? Would he have felt an attraction to her? Would he have acted upon it? Or would he, perhaps, have dismissed her as a boring ingénue?

  A gust of soft laughter caught her unaware so that her shadow weaved a little over the ruts of the sandy wagon road she followed. If they ever met again her husband would have no cause for complaint on that score. If they ever met again—

  The distant whine of a squeeze-box told her she was nearing Natchez. Alerted by the sound, she was able to step off the road, wading through dew-wet heads of pungent black-eyed susans, into the trees in time to avoid a trio of horsemen. They rode past at a tired clop-clop, their carrying voices raised at intervals in desultory conversation.

  A few steps further on she came out on a clearing where the road divided. To her right lay the dark and huddled buildings of Natchez with here and there the moon catching a ghostly gleam from a whitewashed wall, a turned post, or a pane of glass. Directly below was the raucous noise and life of Natchez-Under-The-Hill where open doors dumped yellow lamplight upon the refuse-strewn streets and the moon shone on warm bisque and alabaster nakedness posed at the red-curtained windows.

  What was she to do? Where could she go?

  It was unlikely that Helene would help, even if Catherine could bring herself to ask. Doubtless Wesley had concocted some plausible story to account for her absence, one that would reflect little to her credit. A jealous wife could not be blamed for believing nearly anything of a woman already involved in scandal.

  A cynical smile twisted the pure curves of her mouth. Slowly she turned from the righteously sleeping houses toward the brutal uproar of Natchez-Under-The-Hill. Were the harridan Fates that tenacious? Was it to be the demi-monde after all? For long moments she faced the prospect unflinching, the darkness in her eyes reflecting the lights below, and then the echoing trill of her silvery laughter rose to salute the face of the benign and careless moon.

  “Madame, you have a visitor.”

  Catherine looked up at the innkeeper’s wife in her apron where the woman stood in the doorway. There was a thinly veiled insolence in the clipped, northern voice, but she felt she could hardly object to it. It was because of the vanity of this woman with her thin-lipped face that she had been given a bed, board, and the use of a private parlor. Helene’s bonnet had been the sacrifice. Catherine had passed it over without a qualm.

  Studying the toes of Helene’s slippers, Catherine had been wondering if they were worth another day, or if she might be better advised to offer her services as a chambermaid for her keep. Shelter was the first necessity. That secured, she could turn her faculties to securing a more permanent position. Perhaps as a governess? How this was to be achieved without connections, or without revealing her circumstances, she did not know.

  Now she turned her head to stare at the woman. “A visitor?”

  In answer the innkeeper’s pasty-faced wife stepped aside, revealing a well-dressed woman who advanced with a cordial smile. It was not Helene, Catherine’s first thought, and she was not a lady, though Catherin
e was uncertain how she arrived at that conclusion. The snug cut of the green spencer over her green muslin, the vibrant color of her shawl of tartan plaid? Or was the hair curling about her face beneath her bonnet brim a trifle coarse, a bit too golden-red?

  “Good afternoon. Permit me to introduce myself. I am Mrs. Harrelson.” The woman removed her gloves as with a nod she dismissed the innkeeper’s wife.

  Rising, Catherine responded automatically, “How do you do?”

  “I can see you have no idea who I am or why I have come,” Mrs. Harrelson continued. “Perhaps if I could sit down we could discuss both?”

  “Certainly.”

  Catherine could not bring herself to anything warmer. Mrs. Harrelson seemed pleasant enough, with shrewd brown eyes and classic features only a little blurred by aging, but something inside Catherine resisted being managed. With a brief gesture, she indicated one of the parlor’s two smoke-blackened settles and perched herself upon the other.

  Mrs. Harrelson dropped her gloves and beaded reticule into her lap, placed the silk fringes of her shawl, and looked up. “You are a most attractive young woman.”

  After a moment Catherine answered, “Thank you.”

  “It would not be an exaggeration to say your face could be your fortune.”

  Catherine’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You are too kind,” she parried.

  “Ah, I think you begin to understand me, do you not? In my profession intelligence is not always a virtue, but we will overlook that. Let me be frank. I have it from your genial host here at the Byrd In Bush that you are — shall we say — without resources.”

  “Not quite,” Catherine objected.

  “Not?”

  “I have been well educated. The position as a governess to young girls would not, I believe, be beyond me.”

  Mrs. Harrelson smiled. “Forgive me,” she said in her calm, melodious voice. “I think you have not considered this very well. If I may say so, a wife would be a fool to take you into her house. As a female in a vulnerable position, unprotected by rank or family, you would be an irresistible temptation to most males, whether they be grandfathers, fathers, husbands, or sons. In addition, I fear, Catherine Navarro, that your past has been too well discussed in Natchez to make you acceptable. It is a small town, you see, and it isn’t every day we have a woman return from the dead, especially after flying from her husband. It was amusing also to see one of our most staid but grasping businessmen accept you under his roof. More than one wager was laid on the outcome. I, having some experience of the gentleman, made a pretty profit.”

  “And what was the outcome?” Catherine asked stiffly.

  “Oh, his wife is saying that you took flight on learning that your husband was coming to Natchez. Our Mr. Martin is telling his cronies that you left in a huff after offering yourself to him at such a high price he refused to pay, while the servants say you and their master went for a drive and only he returned. A most curious case.”

  “But amusing,” Catherine said.

  “Did that sound cruel? I am sorry, but that is the way of the world. You do see that what you suggest is impossible?”

  The words were unpalatable but Catherine found she did not doubt what the woman said. She nodded slowly.

  “Good. Now I, on the other hand, am in need of a housekeeper. Oh, you needn’t frown so, you have not misjudged me. I do indeed keep a house of assignation, to put it as delicately as possible. And I will not lie to you. I hope you will decide to forgo the menial task of housekeeping for something less — strenuous. I do not force young women into my house or my way of life, however. Your body is your own. My contribution is only to provide the means to exploit it, and your great advantage, if you wish.”

  “My — great advantage?”

  “Haven’t you realized? You are the keeper of the remedy for man’s most intense and persistent pain. The fear that women will withhold it is the reason why men have kept us subjugated for hundreds of years. They make the mistake, you see, of believing women as ruthless as they are. In retaliation women have kept from them the knowledge that their need is as great as any man’s — explaining why all women have the impulse to lie back and let themselves be taken.”

  “The reasoning, surely, of a woman who sells herself?”

  “You have claws — if a limited vocabulary — do you not, Catherine Navarro? That is good. Spineless women left to their own devices seldom prosper. But tell me, does my proposition interest you? I will tell you freely that you are unlikely to get a better one.”

  “I had thought of asking if they are in need of a chambermaid here—”

  “And find yourself pinned to a mattress by the first amorous traveler who catches you changing his bedclothes? There is no profit in that. Before long innkeeper Byrd himself would be sending you to the unused rooms with an offer of wine and — accommodation. That is, when he tired of following you into the pantry and cellar himself. And I have it from Mrs. Byrd that she will not have you on the premises another night if she can be rid of you without Mr. Byrd’s knowledge.”

  “You seem to have disposed of the alternatives,” Catherine said hardily. There were still her betrothal and alliance rings. They would allow her to live for a time, but she was loath to part with them. She had grown used to their weight upon her fingers.

  Mrs. Harrelson smiled. “I have tried.”

  “Let me be as honest as you then. If something should happen to change my circumstances, if I should see a way to make my way without you, I will leave you at once.”

  “That is fair enough,” Mrs. Harrelson agreed, getting to her feet. Reticule in hand, she walked to the door and pulled it open. The innkeeper’s wife stepped back, smiled, let it fade, then smiled again.

  Mrs. Harrelson surveyed her with grim amusement while she dug in her beaded purse. “I take it you are concerned for your money? There it is, as agreed, and I do trust you will think of the again me next time.”

  The other woman swallowed, dropped her head, and scuttled off, fingers busily tucking her money into her bodice.

  “Do you mean,” Catherine asked wrathfully, “you paid that woman for bringing me to your notice?”

  “I thought it best for you to know; call it, if you like, the beginning of your reeducation. I have little use for anyone with illusions.” Mrs. Harrelson gave her a look of wry speculation. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking you have seen the depths, however. I fear you have much to learn.”

  Walking out of the inn with nothing but the clothes she stood up in, journeying a hundred feet further down the street, and down the hill, to the house of Mrs. Harrelson, Catherine was tempted to tell the woman how wrong she was. It was just as well she decided against it. As the heat of late August gave way gracefully to the long golden glide of Indian Summer, she discovered a chastening amount of truth in the statement.

  The difference between a bordello, where women waited patiently to be visited by men, and a house of assignation where men of means could rent a place of privacy to bring more respectable women, the wives of their friends, was made plain to her. She learned also that despite Mrs. Harrelson’s pretensions, the lady kept both in the same narrow-fronted, two-storied frame structure, with a separate entrance for each. She discovered at first hand the amount of laundry necessary to keep such an establishment in operation, and the part the laundry played in the bordello’s social order. For the bordello contained a caste system based on the number of sheets strung on the clothesline in back. By that criterion the inhabitants of Mrs. Harrelson’s house were the aristocracy of Natchez Under-The-Hill, and behaved accordingly.

  Very few of the women were truly beautiful, though all were attractive in their various ways. The majority were vain, lazy, self-centered, and grasping. A few were intelligent, though that type, according to Betsy Harrelson, usually hated men. A few were romantic, mindlessly thrilled by the idea of men, given to toting up the number they had entertained. A still smaller proportion actually enjoyed their work. Most could
spin a pathetic tale to account for being where they were; one or two such tales were even true. Catherine, moving about the house in her black dress, voluminous apron and dainty batiste mobcap, cleaning, dusting, directing the bevy of black maids, was looked on with suspicion by the girls. They resented her failure to become one of them. They resented her implied censure, her preferred status, her dignity, and her fresh looks as yet untarnished by spite, cynicism, or the aching tiredness of being pawed. In the manner peculiar to women they divined her basic inexperience and delighted in recounting for her all the more bizarre and demeaning things that had been required of them. Several tried to make a personal servant of her, demanding that she iron their ribbons, mend their gowns, dress their hair and a dozen other small but wearying tasks. They were incensed by the ease with which she avoided giving them a direct negative but always managed to slip away and send one of the maids to do their bidding.

  Catherine never went near the front parlor where the girls waited in silk and boredom for men. In the early days she shunned the halls also, retreating at night to the attic room allotted to her, far beyond the noise of music and the shrieks of gaiety and pain. But after a time, Betsy Harrelson, when she was otherwise engaged, appointed her the task of patrolling the hallways to make certain no girl was permanently injured by a client, and to summon one of the husky men hired to deal with such situations if she discovered it. It was a tactical error. The bestial sounds of loveless love coming muffled through the doors brought the taste of revulsion to Catherine’s mouth. Only the realization that she was unlikely to find a different sort of life elsewhere kept her from leaving, running out into the darkness.

  And then came the busy night when Catherine heard a tortured squealing. She had hammered on the door from which it came without response. Her actions brought a bouncer. Standing aside, she watched the door broken down. She was the first inside, first to see the girl, young and nubile, with her pretty mouth gagged wide open and her arms bound with her own silk stockings. The girl’s eyes had been glazed with pain and the inability to understand, and the sheets of her bed soaked with the blood oozing from the stripes that crisscrossed her body. A man stood naked over her, his face twisted with frustration, a stock whip in his hand.