Silver Moon

by Barrie, Monica

  *****

  Brace tried to sleep, but his mind refused him that escape. Restless, he lit a lamp on his writing table and poured a glass of rum. He drank it in one swallow, exhaled, and closed his eyes.

  Six years ago, he had been happy and looking forward to a future that promised much. Today, all he had was a past. Six years ago, he had completed his studies at the University of Massachusetts. He was mulling over an attractive offer of employment when he received the fateful letter from his father reminding him of the obligation that must be repaid before he could consider another path for his future.

  He did not like what his father had written, but after three drunken nights, he came to understand the necessity of what he must do. Harlan Louden had been good to him and to his family. It was Harlan who insisted that young Brace, at the age of twelve, be sent to America for his education.

  Harlan Louden paid for it all. When he died, after Brace had begun his studies, he left instructions with his estate that Brace’s education be paid for completely.

  Brace knew there were no strings attached; that had he refused his father’s wishes, nothing more would have been said, but his sense of responsibility had always been strong. After sobering up from his rampage, and paying the fines that went along with it, Brace returned to Jamaica, and to Devonairre, to fulfill his responsibilities.

  His father was getting older, and could no longer endure the daily toll that overseeing and managing a plantation the size of Devonairre required.

  “Until she returns,” he told his father upon agreeing to take on the job of overseer. “When she comes back, then I leave to start my own life in America!”

  His parents said nothing. That was six years ago, on the anniversary of his twenty-first birthday. Six long years of waiting for Elyse Louden to return, wondering if she ever would. Brace knew that those six years had indeed filled him with an anger, the extent of which was just now coming to the surface.

  His thoughts went to Elyse. The child he had known was an unspoiled, eager, wonderful little person. The woman who returned seemed the personification of all that he despised. She had learned much in England, he believed, and above all, what her position entailed. She was Lady Louden and no longer the wide-eyed, five-year-old who knew nothing of the real world.

  Shaking his head, Brace poured another drink and lifted it, but before it reached his lips, he stopped and stared at the glass and knew that no matter how much he might drink, it would do nothing to ease his frustrations. Standing, he drew on a pair of breeches, went to his bureau and took out a cheroot. He clipped its end, and lit it.

  Exhaling a blue stream of smoke, he tried again to calm his thoughts, but his efforts were to no avail. Shaking his head, he left his apartment and stepped into the night.

  He walked aimlessly for several minutes, trying to ease his thoughts, when he heard several twigs snap. Freezing, he turned in the direction of the sound. For a few seconds, he thought he was seeing one of Lucea’s voodoo spirits, but reality interceded and he knew the truth.

  Elyse was walking in the garden. From his vantage point, he saw her starlit form wandering. The inland breeze blew against her, pressing her white nightdress to her body, making it appear that she wore no clothing at all. He could see the dark circles of her nipples, and the gentle curve of her small belly. The darker thatch at the joining of her thighs was shadowed, but obvious.

  His chest constricted with desire, and he forced himself to look at her face. The beauty of it struck him fully, and he knew that as long as he was near her, his emotions would never be free.

  Though he tried to walk away, he could not. All he could manage was to watch her as she made her way to the gazebo. When she sat in the swing, something snapped within him and he started forward.

  *****

  Elyse let herself become part of the night as she swung on the bench, breathing in the tropical air and listening to the sounds around her. She wondered why, amidst all this beauty and tranquility, she could not find the peace she so desperately desired.

  In time, she told herself, knowing she must believe that. She heard a sound that was not part of the night, and listened intently until she recognized the noise for what it was—footfalls.

  Stiffening, she tried to see into the surrounding darkness. A moment later, a form emerged on the path. Her breath caught, and the air echoed with its gasping sound, for the form had taken substance—and Brace Denham’s face. She was overly aware that he wore only tight-fitting breeches, and in the darkness of the night, he appeared as though he were a naked god returned from Greek mythology.

  Elyse’s heart beat faster—she thought he must surely hear its volume. Yet, he gave no sign of hearing anything as he approached her.

  When he stepped onto the gazebo, she saw a strange hardness within his shadowed eyes. For just an instant, a different sensation spread along her spine—fear.

  “What...” she began, but the rest of her words died unspoken.

  Brace walked to her and his hands darted out, capturing her shoulders and stopping the swing at the same time. He looked into her face and saw a mixture of fear, bewilderment and, oddly enough, trust.

  “Do you walk about at night to tease me? To make me even more aware of what I can never have?” he demanded in a harsh, deep voice.

  Shocked, Elyse pulled away from his grasp, but could not free herself. Her eyes widened as she stared at him, and then she slowly shook her head, her mind and body fighting the confusion of his words. “Brace…no…I couldn’t sleep. I—”

  “Perhaps you need a man to help you sleep?” His voice changed with the stinging words. His hands slid down her shoulders, caressing her skin through the thinness of the nightdress.

  Elyse shuddered as her skin reacted to his touch and began to burn fiercely. Her stomach tightened as a strange new heat stirred deep within her; his words burned her mind as deeply as his hands burned her skin.

  Moving quickly, she pushed his hands away and stood. In that instant, she was but a hair’s breadth from him and could feel the heat of his body upon hers. She twisted away and stepped back. Shame colored her face, wiping away the desires his presence and hands had brought into being.

  “You uncaring bastard!” she shouted as her arms wrapped across her breasts protectively.

  Brace laughed and Elyse caught the scent of rum carried to her across the small distance. Then he stepped toward her.

  “Stay away!” she ordered.

  Brace moved too quickly for her to escape, and his strong hands again trapped her. Slowly, inexorably, he drew her to him. Her heart raced; she was determined not to give in, yet she was captured completely; she had not even had the time to drop her arms to defend herself.

  She stared at his face, into the endlessly deep pools of his eyes. Then his lips were on hers and the searing heat of his body pressed against her. Elyse froze. She stood stiff against him, forcing her body to be unresponsive to his kiss, although her heart cried out to return it with all her strength.

  A moment later, her willpower threatened to give way. Refusing to let this happen, she gathered her shocked senses, tore her mouth from his, and spun out of his grasp.

  Stepping back, she held her arms defensively before her. “Don’t ever do that again!” Her rage and shame lent an icy force to her words. She turned and walked away.

  Brace stood still, his chest rising and falling. He did not go after her; instead, he remained in the gazebo.

  “I am not a bastard, as you well know. And never before have I been called uncaring.” Elyse spun at his words and glared at him. “Then I shall take it that it was the rum which controlled you tonight. For I cannot think of another reason that would make you act this way considering your deep dislike for me!”

  “No, Lady Louden,” Brace said in a low voice, “it was nothing so simple as rum.”

  Suddenly, Elyse was afraid to find out exactly what he meant.

  With her fears and desires racing confusedly through her mind, Elyse
found one thought to which she could cling. Capturing it, she held it until it fully formed and then she drew herself straighter.

  “In which cane field will the harvesting begin?”

  Brace gazed at her, trying to understand this twist in their conversation. She had spoken as if nothing had happened in the gazebo. “You still intend to go out to the harvesting?”

  Elyse did not reply.

  “The bay field,” he said, after seeing the determination on her face.

  “I shall see you then. Good night.” Turning, she forced herself to walk slowly toward her house, to the safety she would find within it. Yet as she walked, her heart cried out to stop, to turn, and to run back into his arms.

  Chapter Eleven

  The weeks following the tense, ethereal scene at the gazebo passed with the speed of continuing unreality for Elyse. Each morning she rose, dressed, and ate a small breakfast before riding into the cane fields to watch the harvesting.

  On the first morning of harvesting, she and Brace declared an uneasy, unspoken truce. Brace never mentioned the night before, and neither did she. Instead, he slowly began to teach her about the methods and the reasons for the way they harvested the cane.

  Elyse was fascinated in the way the men, women, and children swung their long machetes to cut the cane stalks. Almost as important as the cutting of the cane, was the shearing of the stalk’s tops, which were then stacked separately from the cane. After the harvest, they would bring the tops to a cleared field for the planting of a new crop to replace an older, harvested one. This, she learned, was the process done once every three or four years. A good yielding field of Jamaican sugar cane could last for several harvestings before replanting was necessary.

  The next day she went with Brace to watch the processing, and stared for hours as they turned the cane into molasses, and then into sugar—sugar being the more valuable of the two.

  Soon Elyse’s days fell into a pattern. In the mornings, she went into the fields; in the afternoons, she worked at the processing plant.

  By the time they’d harvested the first four fields, Elyse knew every step of the operation. She pushed herself mercilessly, partially because of her desire to learn everything she could, and partly so she would not have a free minute to think of anything but the work. It was a blessing to return home at night with barely the strength to eat and bathe. What her hard work could not do, was stop the images of the handsome man who fed the passions smoldering within her, making her give birth to desires she’d had no preparation to repel.

  The weeks passed quickly in this manner, helping Elyse to pretend that everything was as it should be. Nevertheless, she knew, in those exhausted moments between awareness and sleep, everything was far from all right.

  Brace treated her with a cool courtesy, never coming close enough so that they might accidentally touch, never speaking of anything other than the work they were watching or doing.

  Only when they were completely engrossed within their work did the tension swirling constantly between them diminish. All the same, Elyse was thankful for Brace’s knowledge, and for his willingness to share it.

  By the end of the last week of harvesting, the weather turned extremely hot, and as Elyse rode from the fields to the plant, rivulets of perspiration rolled down her chest, soaking her top and making it stick to her body.

  When she reached the plant, she reined in her horse and stared, puzzled, at the knot of workers sitting under the shade of nearby palm trees. She knew something had to be very wrong for the workers to be idle. If the cane went unprocessed for too long, it would not produce the quality of sugar they needed. Glancing about, she did not see Brace’s horse. She rode over to one of the workers, Isaac, who was in charge of the processing when Brace was not there.

  “What happened?”

  “There be no water. Something be blocking the aqueduct,” he said. “Brace be fixing it now.”

  “Where?”

  Isaac shrugged. “Could be anywhere. An old section break. A tree be damming the channel.”

  Elyse turned Thistle and rode to the now-dry aqueduct, which brought water to all the fields for irrigation, and followed it toward the mountains.

  She rode for half an hour, guided by the stone and wood channel, which was the very lifeblood of Devonairre, without spotting Brace.

  When she reached the first slope of the mountains, a hillside leading upward, she urged her horse along this steeper incline, continuing in the direction of the aqueduct. Nearing the top of this first slope, she heard the sounds of hammering.

  She reached a plateau-like section a few minutes later, and saw the aqueduct set above ground, held aloft by a wooden trestle. This part of the water channel was made entirely of wood, and resembled a long trough. The legs of the trestle were spaced ten feet apart.

  She traced the direction of the trestle with her eyes until it disappeared into a stand of red birches. It was from there that the hammering came.

  She rode to the copse of trees and the hammering grew louder. When she entered the shaded area, she saw Brace working on a leg of the trestle, trying to position it beneath the broken aqueduct. As he worked, the water from the overhead trough cascaded on him like a miniature waterfall. Lying on the ground near him, in an ever-spreading pool of water, was a dead birch tree that, Elyse realized, had fallen into the aqueduct and broken it at a seam.

  As Brace hammered the wooden stilt, she saw the rippling play of the muscles on his back, and the power in his arms.

  For what seemed like an eternity, Elyse watched him work. Emotions sped through her, making her again aware of his effect on her simply by looking at him. Why does he hate me? It doesn’t matter, she told herself, sure that her feelings for Brace were hers alone.

  After dismounting, she walked to him while he struggled to shift the v-shaped water channel and make it join its severed end, his feet slipping about and making the job more difficult.

  *****

  Brace ignored the water falling on his face as he fought to connect the two ends of the aqueduct. He was working as quickly as he could, conscious of the fact that every minute the plant was without water, there was a growing chance of losing the quality of the sugar.

  When he’d arrived at the plant that morning, everything was going well, but an hour later the water stopped flowing and confusion began to reign. Almost three hundred pounds of half-formed molasses—half-refined sugar—lay in the vats. If the water didn’t start soon, they would lose the sugar.

  He’d ridden out, tracing the aqueduct, until he found the break. The first obstacle was the large birch lying across the broken aqueduct.

  Using his horse, he pulled the tree from the wooden water conveyance and set about repairing it. He worked at a fast pace, ignoring the hot sun in his efforts.

  After engineering a way to connect the severed ends without having to return to the plant for help, he repaired the broken support beam and wedged it beneath the trough. However, trying to connect the sheared ends of the channel itself was still proving to be the hardest job of all, for he needed one hand to hold each end steady.

  Once again, he tried to connect the trough, using all his strength to achieve a delicate balance to free one hand and wrap the leather sling around the trough, but each time he let go of the stilt support, the aqueduct started to shift.

  “I can hold it,” Elyse said as the water began to fall on her head.

  Taken by surprise, Brace stiffened and looked at Elyse. He took in everything with that single glance; the way her feet were planted in the ankle-deep water and the way her hands were evenly spaced on the stilt, holding it with all her strength.

  He did not miss the lines of determination in her face. He stared for just a moment longer before he nodded. Carefully, he released the stilt.

  “Can you hold it?” he asked when his hand was free.

  “If you don’t take too long.” She stiffened her arms, holding the thick wooden pole steady.

  Brace held back t
he smile that her words threatened to bring out and turned his attention to the job at hand. Moving quickly, he connected the two ends and wrapped a leather strap around the trough.

  “Will that do it?” Elyse asked.

  Brace studied the quick job he’d done and nodded. “Until I send men up here to do a proper repair job.” Then he turned and looked at her as she released the stilt.

  “Thank you.”

  Elyse was no longer conscious of the water in which she was standing, nor of her drenched clothing. The hot sun overhead was a thing apart, as her entire being focused on Brace. So close.

  “I. . .” She stopped, unsure of what she wanted to say. The amber flecks dancing within his eyes caught her attention, for they seemed to be calling to her. Giving herself a mental shake, Elyse took a deep breath. “I think we should get back to the plant now.”

  Brace kept his eyes level with hers because he knew that if he dropped his gaze he would see the way her clothing had formed a second skin, and his desires would begin to surface again.

  “Yes,” he said in a tight voice, and turned from her.

  Before she could make her feet obey her commands, her heart overruled her mind and she spoke. “What happened to you, Brace? What made you so bitter?”

  Brace froze. He stood with his back to her for several seconds. His breathing was tight; the muscles in his neck knotted and bulged. He spun to face her, his eyes piercing with intensity.

  “What happened to me? Are you asking what happened to the docile, naive boy? He became a man, Lady Louden, and learned what life is really about.”

  Elyse was unprepared for the sharpness of his words, which struck her like a blow. She shook her head slowly, her eyes never leaving his as she thought of how often she had dreamed of being here, where he had grown up. “But you grew up on Devonairre. You had everything, all you could ever want.”

  Brace smiled; it was not a pleasant smile. “Of course you would think that. You didn’t grow up here; you spent your life among ‘your own kind.’ But you’re right,” he added sarcastically, “what more could a debtor’s son ask for?”