A Whisper Of Destiny

by Monica Barrie

“He’s got Kira. Don’t let him get away!” Cornwall ordered while one of the men awkwardly slipped his way to the window.

  Sean hurried down the alley, with Kira still a limp bundle on his shoulder. He knew he would have only seconds before the men in the office started out the front of the building. Praying for his luck to hold, Sean rounded the corner and spotted Kira’s carriage and, without hesitating, threw her into it. Then he jumped into the driver’s seat, startling the lean black man who had turned to see what the commotion was all about. Sean pushed Abraham from the wagon and grabbed the reins.

  Sean whipped the horses forward. He stood and urged the horses along the cobblestone street. Approaching a corner, Sean glanced quickly backward and saw James Cornwall pointing after them. The other man was trying to aim his pistol. The loud report warned Sean of his peril, but he made no attempt to crouch in the seat or swerve the fast-moving carriage, knowing the distance was too great for an effective shot. The ball landed short and he heard no more shots behind him.

  Ignoring the screaming protests of the pedestrians as he flashed past, Sean sought the streets that led him out of Charleston. Within minutes, he was on the dirt road that led away from town, toward Haven. He slowed the horses’ pace and glanced back at Kira. She was sitting up, staring at his back.

  “Well, m’lady, saved today for ya, didn’t I?” he said to her in his ridiculous accent, accepting the hatred and loathing pouring from her green eyes.

  “Stop the carriage!”

  “In time, m’lady,” he said with a roguish smile which showed a set of clean, white, even teeth. Kira stood up, ready to jump from the carriage. With a snap of the reins, Sean urged the horses into another spurt of speed that tossed Kira back onto the seat. He smiled to himself, as he kept the horses galloping.

  Finally, when he spotted a stand of trees, he pulled the horses into the tall grass and drove through, pulling the carriage behind several of the bushier palmettos in an attempt to camouflage it and the horses from casual observers. When he had stopped the carriage, he jumped from the seat and bowed low to Kira. Then he extended his hand to her to help her down.

  Kira looked at the hand with disdain and whirled around, jumping from the opposite side of the carriage. She landed heavily and began to run. Fear at being alone with such a low specimen lent speed to her feet, but she didn’t watch where she was going and tripped over the roots of a tree. Within seconds, the seaman was upon her, holding her down.

  “If you’d relax for a moment, you’d realize you are in no danger,” said Sean in his regular voice. Kira bit back an angry reply, realizing this was not the creature she thought he was. She studied the man’s face and slowly her eyes widened. Up close, she recognized him at once.

  “Get off me!”

  Sean stood up to his full height and stepped back from her. His eyes were drawn to the exposed creamy skin that showed above the top of her dress, but as Kira saw the direction of his glance, she pulled her jacket closed.

  “How is your chin? I’m sorry, but you gave me no choice.” Kira’s hand flew to her jaw, and she winced when she touched the skin near the corner of her mouth.

  “Really! You broke into my father’s office, and you say I gave you no choice?” Her tone matched the incredulous expression on her face. “You throw me across your shoulder like a haunch of beef, then spill me into my own carriage, throwing my driver to the ground, and run off with me, and you say I gave you no choice?”

  With legs apart and his hands on his hips, Sean threw back his head and roared with laughter at her tirade. “Well spoken, Mistress Kira.” Even in his shabby clothing, he caused a flash of warmth to course through Kira. Now as furious with herself for her feelings, as she was with him for his actions, Kira ignored the proffered hand and stood up without assistance.

  “Kira,” Sean began, but she cut him off.

  “I don’t know who you are or who you think you are, but I will tolerate no more. You have killed a member of my family and have treated me brutally. I had every right to be in that office, doing what I was. You, sir, had none!”

  “I want to help you.”

  “I think you’ve helped me, and my family, more than enough already. I am beyond help! Go back to your cousin—your mistress!—and help her.” Kira spun away from him, not wanting to betray the emotions his presence aroused. She sensed him coming up behind her and an instant later his arm circled her waist. She tried to wrest free, but he pulled her back against his chest. His lips touched the skin at the nape of her neck and her whole body turned to fire.

  From the moment Kira turned her back to him, Sean was overwhelmed by a rising flood of desire for her. He could not speak and simply surrendered to the yearning he felt. Reaching for her, he pulled her to him, kissing the back of her neck and feeling the soft skin against his mouth. With the taste of her on his lips, he could scarcely control himself. He grew rigid with desire and spun her to face him. He did not hear her protests as he quieted them with his lips on hers. For a long moment he kissed her, and then, moving effortlessly together, they sank to the ground. Kira tried half-heartedly to push him away, but he was stronger and oblivious to her resistance. His hands roamed freely over her body. His fingers slid under the top of her dress, feeling the fullness and softness of her breasts. When they finally reached what they sought, he found her nipples standing stiffly, awaiting his touch.

  As Sean pulled his mouth from hers, Kira felt overwhelming fires erupt in her body. Her mind fought against this surrender, but she could do nothing. Her thoughts were a mass of confusion. The events of the last weeks had been too much for her. Now, at the touch of Sean’s hands and mouth, all her resistance melted and her breathing was heavy with desire. Her arms pulled him to her and pushed him away at the same time. She felt the bodice of her dress open. Her head began to move from side to side in protest even as she cupped the back of his head with her hands and pulled his mouth to her breasts.

  With the last remnants of control, she found her voice. “Please. Sean, please stop…”

  Sean drew back as her whispered plea penetrated his desire-fogged mind. He looked down at her beautiful face and exposed breasts and realized what he had been doing. He forced control over his body, but remained pressed against her, unwilling to move or free her.

  “I cannot offer you an apology; I must repeat what I told you before. We are bound by destiny. I have never known a woman such as you.” Pausing, Sean searched to find the right words. Knowing Kira would not understand, not yet, he swore to himself that she would before long.

  He sat up, freeing her, and watched as she attempted to close her bodice. “Kira, I have told you before that I am not what I appear to be and that the loss of your father affected me sorely. I must make you understand that…” Sean looked at the tears in her eyes, and a wave of compassion rushed over him. He bent and took her chin in his hand. He kissed her gently, until he felt her respond, her hands falling away from her bodice as he tasted her lips. Then, suddenly, he heard the sound of horses behind him.

  Damn this luck. His turned attention to Kira. “Try to find a place in your heart to trust me.” Saying this, he drew her to him and felt the heat from her breasts. His eyes stayed riveted to hers, watching the turmoil within the green orbs. Then Sean turned and ran to the furthest stand of trees.

  Kira was numb, angry, yet filled with a strange sadness as she watched him run from her. Her body continued its war with her mind. The fires that Sean had started moments before still burned. It had taken all of her will to ask him to stop, and she could not shake off the unfulfilled longing that remained. She hated him with all the powers of her mind. She hated his manner, his arrogance and self-importance. She hated him for the memories his appearance awoke, but her heart fought this hatred. Her heart reached out to him as it never had to anyone before. Why? Why was it him?

  At that very moment, the first two riders reached Kira’s side and one dismounted swiftly. “Are you all right? Did he harm you?” asked Clemens, the
clerk who had allowed her entrance into her father’s office. Kira saw that his eyes were locked on her opened bodice, and she quickly pulled the material together. Then she shrugged, signaling that she was unharmed. “Where is he?” Clemens asked as two more riders joined him. Kira lifted her hand and pointed to a stand of palmetto trees far from the one Sean had used for escape.

  Clemens mounted his horse and galloped off with one of the other men. The third rider remained, staring down at her from his horse. She looked up at her uncle James, conscious of her disheveled appearance, and waited.

  “Who was it?”

  “I don’t know,” said Kira in a hoarse voice. “He tried to—” but she could not continue. She did not want to betray any information to her uncle.

  Cornwall stared down at her, glaring his accusation. “Why were you in the office?”

  Kira chose her words carefully, aware that a word not fully believed, would cause her more trouble than she could handle.

  “I came to get some of my father’s personal things to take back with me to New Windsor. Then that horrible man burst through the window. He bolted the door and, when I tried to get away, he hit me.” She placed her hand on the still tender spot and unbidden tears filled her eyes.

  James Cornwall, mistaking the emotion for terror at what she had been through, dismounted and walked over to her. He lifted her chin with his fingers and closely inspected it. The discoloration formed a ragged circle near the line of her jaw.

  “That will be an ugly bruise,” was his only comment, and Kira shivered at the lack of concern in his voice. Kira pulled away and started to search the ground as she walked to the carriage. “What is it?”

  “My bag,” she said, not looking at him. Where was that yellow envelope? When she reached the carriage, she saw that it was not inside either. “I must have dropped it in the office,” she said as casually as she could. When she turned back to Uncle James, she saw him looking over his shoulder at the returning riders.

  The two men pulled abreast of the carriage, and Clemens shook his head. “Too many close trees; we couldn’t find him.”

  Shrugging, Cornwall remounted his horse. “Take my niece back to Charleston.” Clemens flashed a smile and tied his own mount to the back of the carriage before assisting Kira into the carriage and sitting in the driver’s seat.

  Kira was silent on the ride back, although the young clerk seemed eager to engage her in conversation. She kept her eyes fixed on her uncle and the other man as they rode in front of the carriage. They were deeply involved in conversation, however, and neither bothered to glance back at her.

  When they reached the offices, Abraham was waiting for them anxiously. He jumped from the sidewalk curbstone; grabbing the reins from the driver, he pulled the carriage to a stop. As soon as he had ascertained that Kira was unharmed, he stood by the side of the carriage and helped her down.

  “I’m fine, Abraham, but I want to go home immediately.”

  “Yes’m,” said the tall, thin black man. He gave her another searching look and then went to the side of the building to retrieve the items for which he had been sent. As he put them in the back of the carriage, he watched Kira walk to her uncle, who was standing at the front door of the offices.

  He led her inside to the door of her father’s private office, which lay askew, half on the floor and half held by one remaining hinge. Cornwall put his booted foot near the hinge and gave a sharp kick. The door broke free and crashed to the floor.

  “Why were you in the file cabinets?” Cornwall demanded harshly.

  “I wasn’t,” lied Kira. “It must have been the seaman.” She looked quickly around the office and spotted her bag lying below the window. As she went to it, her eyes traveled swiftly, searching for the yellow envelope amid the papers strewn on the floor. Gone!

  Before she could pick up the bag, James Cornwall was upon her, snatching it from her hands. He opened it quickly and reached his hand inside. He found the gold frame that held the miniature of her mother and pulled it out and then dumped the rest of the contents on the desk beside him. At last, satisfied that there was nothing of importance in the bag, James Cornwall handed it back to Kira. She stood silently, anger and humiliation burning through her chest, and feeling as violated by her uncle’s probing fingers as if they had traveled her body.

  He turned from her, oblivious to her reaction, and surveyed the office. “It will take hours to find out what he took, if anything! Return to Haven. Continue your packing. You’ve only the rest of today and tomorrow.” Cornwall dismissed her abruptly.

  Kira, not trusting her tongue, strode out of the office and to the carriage. Throughout the trip home, Kira’s mind churned over the question of the yellow envelope. She had barely had enough time to look inside, but she had seen a copy of a letter from her father to a friend in Annapolis. The opening line, she recalled, read:

  To my dear and trusted friend, the Honorable Abner Tulley. Attached to the correspondence you will find my last will and testament. If anything should befall me, I leave you in charge of its execution.

  That was all Kira had read when Sean had entered the room. What happened to the envelope? Would Uncle James find it in Father’s office, or had Sean found it? And if he had, why did he want it? Kira closed her eyes. She was confused and afraid of the future. This afternoon’s treatment by her uncle left little hope of her being anything more than a prisoner in his home. And he was not a man to deal kindly with prisoners.

  CHAPTER 9

  Sean received confirmation that Kira had moved to New Windsor four days after that afternoon of confusion and desire on the road. Only Ruth, along with several trunks of Kira’s belongings, had been allowed to accompany her. James Cornwall had then finished his inspection of Haven and the word that Sean received from the men he had there was not good.

  All the slaves except those of the lowest station were to be sold off. It seemed James Cornwall’s only interest was in the property and not in what Haven could return to the estate. Sean had a hunch about Cornwall’s intentions for Haven. The warehouse space in Charleston was dwindling, and it was accessible to all passing eyes, whereas Haven was one of the most secluded plantations in the Charleston area. Another benefit, and it was not a small one, was that Haven was situated less than ten miles inland on the Ashley River. It would be a perfect place to load the contraband and arms of the unfriendly ships that would dare passage in the moonless hours before dawn.

  Night had fallen; Sean, Francine and Chatham were now on route to the docks to meet the sloop that would transport Sean and Francine to Annapolis.

  Francine’s face retained the pallor of the sickroom, although her cheeks were flushed with color from the exertion of the ride. She sat between them, holding Sean’s hand, and her head resting on one of Chatham’s strong shoulders. She pretended to be dozing so the men would talk freely and not feel obligated to pay their ailing ward any attention.

  “I think,” Sean said, as the carriage bounced over a particularly bumpy section of road, “you should arrange for the purchase of some of the house slaves from Haven. With luck, we’ll be able to gain some additional information.”

  Chatham looked at Sean closely, raising one eyebrow. “Exactly what sort of information?”

  “I don’t know, but we have to get something going again. Since the death of Jonathan Cornwall, we’ve been stranded for the first time in over eight months, without a well placed inside informant.”

  Even the yellow envelope that Sean had taken from Kira had been of no help as yet. The contents consisted of a copy of a letter to Judge Abner Tulley, dated two years earlier. It named him executor of Cornwall’s will and directed him to obey its instructions. The only problem was that no copy of the will was enclosed. Sean and Chatham decided to approach Judge Tulley in Annapolis and explain what was happening in Charleston. Hopefully, with Tulley’s help, they would be able to forestall James Cornwall’s plans for Haven and Kira.

  Sean refrained from mentioning a sec
ond plan because it would include Francine, and Chatham seemed openly hostile to stratagems involving her. At first, Sean put this down to medical considerations; Chatham, the doctor, did not want to see his patient put into further danger. He stopped in mid-thought. Could it be that Chatham’s feelings weren’t medical, but emotional? No matter the reason, Sean decided to keep the next step of his plans to himself. If Kira was freed from her uncle’s domination by probate of the will, there would be no way for Sean to use her to spy on Cornwall. Also, if the will did prove breakable, and the original was reinstated, it would be a time-consuming process and would take far too long to be of any help to Haven’s slaves, who would shortly be auctioned off. Of course, if he did nothing about the will and if some of his other ploys were successful, he might still be able to enlist Kira’s aid as his inside informant at New Windsor. But even that would be hard, considering the impression she already had of him.

  “How many?” asked Chatham.

  “How many what?”

  “Slaves! I thought that’s what we were discussing,” said the doctor dryly. “How many slaves should I purchase?” Chatham shook his head. “We don’t have unlimited funds available, and I don’t think the auctioneer or Cornwall will accept a military voucher.”

  “Buy whatever you can with the funds we have left. When I return from Washington, I’ll bring a new supply of cash.”

  The conversation ended abruptly as the carriage pulled to a halt at the entrance to the docks. Jeremy opened the door and assisted the passengers down. A thin man of medium height approached the carriage. His skiff sat in the water and was manned by two seamen who held their shipped oars. The three moved to the dock, and the man quickened his pace to meet them.

  “Captain Rouger,” he said, looking directly at Sean, “Lieutenant James Lawrence at your service, sir.”

  Sean shook hands with the officer. “Are you ready?”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Sean looked at him. Commodore Finch had spoken highly of this man several times. He was being groomed to take command of the Chesapeake after the frigate was made seaworthy again. The Chesapeake was a sore point with the Commodore, as its four crewmen had still not been returned by the British.