The Acquisition
Page 24
He stared at the pile of gold coins. "What's this?"
"Every last gold coin you paid me seven years ago for my maidenhead! If I had accepted that money, I would most certainly have been a whore. But I am not a whore, save to you. I have been enslaved to you all my life!"
"There are no slaves in all of New Bedford," he said, haughtily, self-righteously, indignant that of all faces, she should throw the issue of enslavement at his own dark one. "Your very own Quaker father taught me that slavery is an abomination. No man may enslave another."
"Fine sentiment, yet I wear your brand of ownership."
He said, discomforted, "That is not at all the same. You entered a financial arrangement, and of your own free will. You could have refused the tattoo the same as you could have refused me. You are only vexed because I refused you the dragon."
"A nautical knot is how you mark your acquisitions."
"A lot you know about knots," he mumbled under his breath.
She walked away from him. "A lot you know about me!"
Like a madman, he hollered after her. "You went off with a man aboard my own schooner! You were about to take a stranger down your throat."
"His name is Dan Green, and he is a slave catcher, and I pray to God he remains a stranger to you, sir."
And with that she slammed out of his study and stomped up the staircase, her revelation leaving him too revolted to move.
At the thought of Harry servicing a slave catcher, Joshua heaved the contents of his belly into the spittoon kept beside his desk for the convenience of his tobacco-chewing business associates.
* * * *
Through her open bedchamber window Harry heard voices coming from the gardens--a man's voice, a woman's voice, Joshua Kane's brusque sea captain's voice. Surrounded by a wall that kept out the noises and prying eyes of the street, the gardens were Joshua's own private retreat. Save for the handful of guests that night of his party, he never brought visitors to the gardens...
Curious, she went to the sill and peeked over.
The man and woman to whom Joshua spoke were runaway slaves. She felt it in her belly, knew it in her soul; this was no freeman and his wife scurrying after Josh's coattails. Their furtive and hunted looks gave their fear away. When the sea captain led the couple to the little garden house and locked the door latch behind them, Harry knew for sure that the shed served a more noble purpose than the storing of honey; that little garden house was a way station in New Bedford's active Underground Railroad. It was no accidental happenstance that Joshua had interceded in Atlanta on behalf of an escaping slave. He must regularly transport slaves on the first leg of their trip north. That's what his errand in Boston had been all about. He had escorted that young lad through to Niagara Falls, a common route for fleeing slaves on their journey to freedom in Canada. Captain Joshua Kane was more than a philosophical abolitionist; he was an activist against slavery.
Her heart swelled with pride.
Her heart quaked with fear.
And as soon as he returned to the house, she would tell her hero she wished to be his helpmate, to do anything she might to support his cause. She would tell Captain Joshua Kane what pride had prevented her from telling him before, that she loved him with all her heart.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
"Good day to you, Emma Howland," Joshua said with a dip at the waist.
"A good day to thee as well, Joshua Kane." The Quaker lady smiled softly, her voice as gentle as her face. "I have come for the two passengers in need of transportation to the train station."
"The schedule for the departure was suddenly changed, thus the need for a daylight transport," he whispered.
"I did wonder about the change of plans. When does the train leave?"
"At dusk. From Lexington." Offering the good woman his arm, and saying loud enough for anyone passing along the cobblestone street to overhear, "Won't you come walk with me in my garden? The roses are in bloom and I would dearly love to show them to you."
Before turning away, Emma called up to her driver, "Samuel Lewis, would thee kindly bring the horse and buggy around back? Joshua Kane has graciously invited me to see his flowers. Afterwards, I will leave that way. We shouldn't be too long."
His lovely guest turned back to him. "Shall we go?"
Once behind the garden walls, straightaway, the lady commenced to sneeze. She always did; flowers, bless her good heart, were Emma Howland's bane.
"God bless you," he said, and meant it.
Her smile was radiant. "He already has. Now show me to these train passengers, Joshua Kane."
"Be careful on this trip, Emma," he said, opening the door to the garden shed. "These are dangerous times."
Emma peeked in at the two fugitive slaves she would transport to Lexington. "Know thee is safe," she said twice, to allay each of the runaways' fears. "My rig is through the hedge. Watch for the break in the greenery. You will hide in the wagon, under the canvas sail in need of mending. My driver will show you."
After the fleeing slaves had departed, Josh turned to the social activist who had quietly practiced civil disobedience, for as long as he'd had the pleasure of knowing her.
"Godspeed," he said quietly, kissing her cheek, as was their custom of long standing.
Suddenly, the Quaker's eyes changed, as though transformed by the Inner Light Friends always strove to achieve.
Joshua wasn't a Quaker but he quaked in his boots then, for some said it wasn't faith at all that allowed Emma Howland to see into besieged hearts and minds; some said Emma Howland had been born with the gift of second sight, a sort of empathy that could heal troubled souls.
"Believe her!" she ordered.
"Pardon?" He asked, though Josh knew exactly to whom Emma referred.
"She who thee doubts, she who has lost her Quaker faith--believe her! Do not let vanity stand in the way of seeing what is true."
Josh was stunned, so shaken that for an instant he could not speak.
How could he relate to this spiritual lady the horrible secret he carried within his breast about Harry?
This was neither the time nor the place for that discussion. Not that this would ever stop the Quaker lady; she brought the light into dark areas regardless of the inconvenience to herself or to others.
Josh gathered his wits about him. "Emma Howland, I am not plain, but neither am I vain!" he said in his own defense. "And you have a train to catch."
She touched his face. "Joshua Kane, thee are a good man. Thee will find the true way if thee but look in the right direction."
And then Emma was slipping through the break in the greenery, leaving him alone with the havoc of his thoughts.
Did Emma mean his true way was Harry?
No! Emma could not possibly mean that. Or if she did, for once the lady who saw too much was mistaken! The way for him had never been Harry.
He was turning back toward the house, his eyes seeking the recently occupied upstairs servant's bedchamber, when he saw the bees. Loosed , they swarmed in a thick buzzing cloud through the gardens.
Bees only swarmed in agitation when their hive was disturbed.
His gaze darted for the apiary.
Someone had toppled it over. Who? Why? What random act of maliciousness had caused the apiary to topple? And more importantly, where was the culprit now?
An instant later, he saw Harry backed against a tree.
A moment after that, he discerned a stranger, an intruder who had no business being in his secluded garden, scaling the wall to the street, trying to make his escape, an angry army of bees attacking.
For Josh, there was no decision to be made: He let the man go, in favor of stalking to Harry. "An assignation with a lover in my own gardens!" he exploded, unmindful of the swarming bees. For how else to explain the presence of this stranger, this intruder who violated the serenity of his walled retreat, but that he was there to rendezvous with his wayward acquisition
"Josh, it wasn't like that. There was no assignation, no
"Explain!" he shouted, his gaze narrowed on her exposed breasts. "What is there to explain? That man had his hands all over you. I can see the red welts of his love bites on your throat!"
"There is no other man. There was never another man. Only you. I have always been faithful to you," she said almost incoherently, as sobs wracked her body.
"Faithfulness!" he scoffed. "What does a whore know of faithfulness?"
"I speak the truth," she cried.
"Don't speak to me of truth, you lying bitch!"
"Oh, God," she screamed, tearing at her hair "The stinging. Please, Josh! Make the hurting stop!"
He threw back his head and laughed at her supposed hurt. "You love your pain, madam. You crave the sting of it..."
It wasn't until her eyes rolled back in her head and Harry fell to the ground that he noticed the bees. They had somehow managed to get trapped under the fall of her red hair.
"Christ no!" Dropping to his knees beside her, he scooped up handfuls of wet garden soil.. Plastering it to her nape, her throat, her face to ease the painful swellings, Josh picked Harry up in his arms and ran for the house, the bees trailing them every step of the way.
* * * *
"You did a fine job extracting the stingers, Captain Kane," the doctor told him. "All things considered, I would say the patient is a fortunate woman. No breathing problems are apparent. Other than the swellings, there appears to be no serious harm done."
Joshua stopped his pacing outside the bedchamber door. "Thank God."
"I must tell you, though, she is suffering from what I would say is chronic exhaustion. It looks to me as though your housekeeper has been overworked for quite some time."
"The lady is not my housekeeper."
The doctor looked at him over his spectacles. "But Mrs. Smith was installed in the servant's bedchamber."
"A mistake on my part. A miscarriage of justice, and not the only one for which I am fully responsible." Josh took a deep breath. "Thank you, Doctor. Peggy will see you out."
Turning on his heel, Joshua raced in to see Harry.
There was a truth too long delayed in telling.
She was sitting up in the narrow servant's bed when he strode toward her. "The doctor tells me you will be fine."
She seemed disinterested in the prognosis. As if her well-being were of no import, she said, "Joshua, it wasn't as it looked. That man wasn't in the garden to see me."
He brushed her explanation aside. "I don't care how it looks. I forgive you."
"P-pardon?"
"I forgive you all," he said prepared to be generous "A person cannot be blamed for their nature."
"You arrogant jackass! You pompous boob. You pretentious dolt. You conceited peacock! If you expect gratitude for your trite magnanimousness, you know me even less than I think you do!"
"W-w-what?"
"I said, stuff your damn forgiveness up your arse!" She rose from the bed, a beautiful if swollen virago, the bee sting welts red enough to match her hair and flaring temper. "I may not be a paragon of virtue like your Quaker lady, but I demand to help you too!"
"Help me? How would I ever have need of your help? I think the shoe is on the other foot here, madam. You are in grave need of someone to look out for you. Which is why I think we should wed, regardless of your unfaithfulness..."
"Wed! From whore to wife in one breath. Are you completely mad? I have managed fine all these years without a husband."
"Ha! Only because you had men to protect you."
"I need no man to protect me. And how many times must I tell you? There have been no other men!"
"I know for a fact you worked at Ruby's. Why, you told me so yourself, and in graphic detail." Who could forget her lewd reference to flagellation?
"I worked in Miss Ruby's kitchen. As her scullery maid and as her apprentice cook. In exchange, she gave me lessons in seduction."
"There you have it! You learned a whore's tricks."
"I did, for you. Because I had disappointed you in bed, and I wished to learn to please you. So you wouldn't leave me, never to return. But you left me anyway, without a word of goodbye. I was quite bereft."
The guilt inside could no longer be contained. Harry spoke the truth, the truth that deep in his heart he had known all along: she was the wounded party here, not him. He was in need of her forgiveness, not the other way round. To protect himself, and what he had done, he had refused to see the light, and admit all blame belonged to him. His reprehensible actions that night in the brothel assigned the culpability of everything that came after directly on his head.
All the words exchanged, all the hateful words! Harry had every reason for her epithets; he had no such excuse. He was older and experienced; she was neither. He should have taken care! He should have cherished her sweet innocence instead of treating her like a ... like a whore!
"Oh, Harry, I'm so sorry, sweetheart. I raped you that night..."
She held up her hand. "Oh, we end this nonsense right here! You cannot rape the willing. I planned that seduction, and then backed out at the very last moment, leaving you high and dry. I was prepared to trap you into returning to me, but I had not the sufficient information as to how the task was accomplished. And so I disappointed you." Her chin fell.
He picked up her fallen chin, looked directly into her eyes. "I am all the names you called me and more, but I swear you have never disappointed me, particularly not in bed! You are a fair tigress in bed."
"Oh, sure, I am now," she preened, gone from despair to a boast in the blink of an eye. "But not then. Back then I was a silly and nervous twit, with half-arsed ideas about what men and women do together. And you were so very large and forceful..." She grinned. "I do so enjoy your forcefulness."
"How can you smile? I raped you, and afterwards, like a craven coward, I couldn't face you. That's why I didn't come 'round and say goodbye. I was ashamed, you see. I had treated you with such little reverence when I worshiped at your feet."
Ignoring his heartfelt declaration, she gave her head a brisk, business-like nod. "I wish you to know that I have never lain with another man, not for money or for anything else. I wish you to know that you have been the only man. Not that I have not had my share of propositions, you understand, because I have. Why do you think my last employer had it in for me?"
She answered her own question. "Because I turned him down flat, is why. That is not to say that I didn't steal from the silverware drawer on the way out the door, for to even the score with the lecher, I certainly did relieve him of some knives. A fine set of cutlery it was too, but I never stole any jewelry.
"And that man on the schooner, that slave catcher, Dan Green? I must make a clean breast to you--I wish you to know that I would have taken his rotting cock in my mouth. I am not a paragon of virtue like your Quaker lady. I am a pragmatist who does what must be done to survive, to enable those I love the same opportunity. The world can be a harsh place, Joshua Kane, and only the strong survive. You need me!"
She wove on her feet.
He caught her under the arm, supporting her with all his strength. "Do not tax your health, girl."
"I am strong! And you need my strength, my cunning, my fast thinking. I can protect you. That man in the garden was Dan Green, the bounty hunter. As of right now, today, he only suspects you of aiding fugitive slaves. But who knows what the morrow will bring? You are in desperate need of someone to watch your back. If you continue as you have been doing, you will be caught for sure."
"You speak nonsense. Must be all those stings you took to the head..."
She laughed. "You pigheaded lout! My childish opinion of you was correct. You, Captain Joshua Kane, are a fuck'n hero, and I want in on this Underground Railroad."
"Un-underground what?"
"You were wounded by that bounty hunter's knife in Atlanta while aiding and abetting fugitive slaves. Your damn garden shed is a way station for escaping slaves. Do not think me a fool."
His eyes narrowed. "The apiary?"
"I tipped it to let loose the bees."
He grinned. "That was my intent when situating it on the path on the way to the garden shed. Had I not been otherwise occupied, I would have done the same thing myself."
She snorted. "Otherwise occupied indeed! You were too busy kissing the cheek of the Quaker lady to notice. You certainly are taken with her."
"I am only taken with you," he said solemnly. "A marriage between us is dangerous, my skin tone makes it so. There will be questions, especially now when there is a war looming on the horizon. People will be called upon to choose sides on the slavery issue."
"I stand by your side. But there is no need to wed me for that."
"My life is ... complicated. If you stand too close, you may get hurt. I couldn't bear it if you were ever hurt."
"I am not afraid, Joshua Kane. Do not denigrate me by offering me a protection I never asked for, and which is overzealous at best, and stagnating at worst. See me as I am, before it is too late for us," she cried. "I went to Ruby's to learn how to seduce you. I failed you as a woman, and I vowed never to fail you that way ever again. I lusted after you as a silly and ignorant maiden, and I lust after you all the more now as a woman, but if you refuse to trust me, to let me into your life, to aid you in your work, I will be the one who leaves you this time."
"I never left you! Not the way you mean."
"You left me as I always feared that you would, and you never even said goodbye. You always left me." She doubled over, her arms around her middle.
Christ! What had he done? "I needed to provide for you..."
"You needed to rid yourself of a child who couldn't satisfy you in bed."
He took her in his arms. She fought him, but he held her close despite the blows she landed.
What was he to do? This going round and round resolved nothing. He needed her to accept what he had done, and grant him pardon! How could he go on otherwise? But they just kept going around in a circle! A circle has no beginning, no ending, no resolution!
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