The woman’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “But, monsieur, it is impossible! A month at least, please.”
“I am sorry, madame. In a fortnight I set sail. In five days I shall return with my wife for fittings and in ten I want everything delivered to me finished aboard my ship. There will be an extra profit for you if they are ready and well sewn. If not, it is your loss. Can you do this?”
Madame Fontaineau couldn’t let such an order go. Even if she had to share some of the profits with other couturières, she would still make quite a large sum. She would have all her friends and family sewing from now until that time, but she would have them ready. The man struck a hard bargain, yet he was accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed. He was to be admired, for he would accept nothing but the finest work.
“It will be as you wish, monsieur,” she said.
“It is settled then,” Brandon said. He gave Heather’s shoulder a quick squeeze. “We must go now, my love, and see to finishing your wardrobe.”
He helped her rise and drew his cloak over her shoulders again. A few moments later they were leaving. Madame Fontaineau stood at the door of her shop watching them go.
“La petite madame is smarter than I,” she concluded silently. “By asking first for less she was given more. And he is happy to have purchased the best for her. All women should be so wily.”
Then she turned and clapped her hands loudly. “Claudette, Michele, Roaul, Marie. Come quick. We have work to do.”
Chapter 5
Well dressed ladies and fine gentlemen crowded the shops of London and pushed and shoved to get where they were going. Remembering her childhood pleasure of going with her father to these same shops, Heather felt her spirits rise. She chatted gaily with shopkeepers, tried on silly bonnets, giggled at herself in mirrors, danced about and completely charmed those persons who could be charmed. Brandon stood back and watched her and was silent. He only nodded to the shopkeepers when she tried on something that met with his approval and paid out the necessary coin. Even when unthinkingly she dared to catch his hand and pull him along with her into a shop, he allowed it and did not rebuke her. But never did she ask for anything nor expect it. She had fun in just looking. She had not been able to do so for a long time. She watched as grand ladies paraded in front of her and laughed to see fat, little husbands trying to catch up. Her eyes shone and her smile was quick and easy. She swirled gaily and turned her head with a carefree air, making her braids swing and causing men to follow her with their eyes.
It was only toward dusk, when her eyes fell on a wooden cradle in a shop, that she suddenly became very quiet and thoughtful. She touched the tiny cradle with trembling fingers and ran her hand over the smooth wood. As her teeth tugged at her bottom lip her eyes raised slowly to his. She was again uncertain.
Brandon came to her side and studied the crib as if considering its purchase. He tested it for sturdiness.
“There is a finer one in my home,” he said at last, still inspecting it. “It was mine but it is yet strong and capable of supporting a child. Hatti has been wanting to see it used for a long time.”
“Hatti?” she inquired.
“She’s the Negress in charge of my home,” he answered. “She was there before I was born.”
He turned and walked slowly from the shop, and Heather followed and came to his side as he motioned for a livery. His voice was gruff when he spoke again.
“Hatti has been waiting impatiently at least fifteen years for me to wed and sire children.” He peered at her obliquely. “I’m sure she’ll be overjoyed to see you on first sight considering you’ll be quite rounded when we arrive home.”
Self-consciously Heather overlapped the cloak in front of her. “You were to be married when you returned. What is to happen? Hatti will surely resent me for taking your fiancée’s place.”
“No, she won’t,” he replied brusquely and glanced toward the approaching carriage.
His manner didn’t allow further questions and Heather was left wondering why he was so positive the Negress would not resent her. It did not seem right.
The livery stopped before them and Brandon gave the name of their inn to the driver, then tossed the packages in and handed her up. Heather sank wearily to the seat, feeling suddenly very tired and exhausted. The shopping had sapped her strength and now she longed to crawl into bed and drift into restful slumber.
Brandon studied the small, dark head on his shoulder a long time before he slipped his arm around his wife and eased her head to his chest. She sighed contentedly in her sleep as her hand moved to his lap. The breath caught in Brandon’s throat. He went pale and suddenly began to shake. He cursed himself for letting a mere girl affect him this way. She played havoc with his insides. He felt as if he were again a virgin, about to experience his first woman. He was hot and sweating one moment, cold and shaking another, a sensation not normal for him, a man who had always enjoyed a woman casually, had her at his whim, made love to her for his pleasure. Now this girl needed to be taught a lesson and he could hardly keep his hands off her. Where was his cold, logical wit, his easy self-control? Had it all flown out the window when he swore to her never to treat her as his wife, then knowing that he mustn’t touch her, she had suddenly become the one thing he must have? But he had desired her all along, even when he thought she would never be seen again.
What, pray, was the matter with him? She was barely a woman, hardly old enough to be carrying his child. She should have been somewhere safe with someone mothering her, instead of being here with him and soon to become a mother herself.
But the fact was undeniable. He wanted to make love to her. He wanted to take her immediately, did not want to keep himself in restraint another moment. How much more could he endure of having her near and seeing her in various stages of undress without throwing her down and satisfying himself with her?
Yet he couldn’t let himself make love to her, no matter how much he wanted to. He couldn’t let his threats slide. He swore she would pay for intimidating him and, by damned, she would! No one could blackmail him, then be happy and content after doing so. It was the devil in him that wouldn’t let him be bested, and pride was the devil’s name.
She was just a woman and women were all alike. She could be forced from his mind. He had never known one who couldn’t be.
But Heather was different and it wasn’t fair for him to say that she wasn’t. The others had all been willing and eager partners in the games of love, knowing well what they were about. This girl was an innocent whose virginity he had taken by force and who knew nothing of men and romance. Now she was his wife, and pregnant with his child. That alone made her different. How was he to forget his own wife? He hadn’t been able to forget her when she left him. If she were homely, perhaps it could be possible to push her from his mind. But how could he when she was so beautiful, so completely desirable, and now always so close under his hand?
Before he could answer his own question, the carriage drew up in front of the inn. It was night now and gay laughter and singing could be heard from within, and in his arms his wife still slept.
“Heather,” he murmured quietly with his lips against her hair. “Do you wish me to carry you to our room?”
Her head moved on his chest.
“What?” she asked in her sleep.
“Do you want to be carried through the inn?”
Her eyelids fluttered open slowly, but she was drugged with drowsiness.
“No,” she replied sleepily. She made no effort to rise.
He laughed softly as he reached down to cover her hand with his. “If you insist, my love, we can go for another ride through the city.”
With a strangled cry Heather came awake instantly and snatched her hand from him, jerking upright. His leering grin sent the color burning deeper into her face and made her want to die. She stumbled over him to get out of the carriage and almost fell out head first as she flung open the door. It was only his quick action that saved her when he saw h
er begin to tumble. With a cry he caught her and swooped his arm around in front of her and hauled her back into the carriage and onto his lap.
“What were you trying to do?” he barked. “Kill yourself?”
She flung an arm over her face. “Oh, leave me be!” she cried. “Leave me be! I hate you! I hate you!”
Brandon’s face went rigid. “I’m sure that you do, my dear,” he sneered. “After all, if you hadn’t met me, you’d still be living with that fat aunt of yours, taking her abuse, trying to hide your nakedness with gowns twelve times your size, scrubbing and scouring until your back broke, taking what bit of food she threw at you, content to hovel in your corner and grow old with your maidenhood still intact, never knowing what it means to be a mother! Yes, I have been cruel to take you from that pleasant life. You were happy there and I should be damned for forcing you from it.” He paused only a second before he went on more brutally. “You don’t know how sorely I regret letting myself be tempted by your woman’s body without first learning that you were still a child. Now I have you slung around my neck for all eternity and it doesn’t please me one damned bit when I think of it. Oh, but to have been gelded long ago and allowed to live in peace forever!”
Heather’s shoulders slumped forward suddenly and she began to cry as though all the misery in the world was pent up inside her. Her whole body shook with her weeping, and she squalled in her arm as any child would who is lost and forlorn. She didn’t want to be a yoke around anybody’s neck. She didn’t want to be a burden, a dead weight to be endured, hated and unwanted. She had not meant to be such.
Watching her slender body quiver with sobs, Brandon lost all desire to hurt her more. His face was grim and his mouth was drawn downward at the corners. A great heaviness lay upon his chest as he searched unsuccessfully in his coat for his handkerchief.
“Where did you put the kerchief?” he asked with a heavy sigh. “I can’t find it.”
She shook her head in her arm and caught her breath as she sat upright on his lap. “I don’t know,” she muttered miserably, not able to think clearly.
She wiped her tears on the hem of her gown as he searched her dress for pockets. As he did so the driver of the livery stepped cautiously to the door and peered in.
“Is there anything I can do for the lady?” he offered uncertainly. “I heard her crying, and it breaks me heart to hear a woman weep.”
Brandon frowned at the man slightly as he continued the search for his handkerchief. “There is no need for your assistance, sir,” he replied politely. “My wife is just a little upset with me because I won’t let her mother come live with us. She’ll be all right when she learns her tears haven’t changed my decision.”
The driver grinned. “In that case, sir, I’ll be leaving you to her. I know what it’s like to have your wife’s mother living with you. I should have been as strong as you when I first married my wife. Then I wouldn’t be having the old witch in my house now.”
He wandered back to his horses as Brandon finally located his handkerchief between Heather’s breasts. He drew it out and wiped her tears and held it as she blew her nose into it.
“Are you feeling better?” he questioned. “Can we go to our room now?”
A sigh escaped her as she nodded and he stuffed the handkerchief down her dress again and gave her a little pat on the rump.
“Let me get up then, and I’ll help you out of the carriage.”
The inn was noisy and alive with drunken tars and bawdy women whose shrill laughter rang out over the coarse, ribald humor of the sailors. Holding Heather’s hand behind him and walking just ahead to hide her tear-streaked face from the stares of the curious, Brandon led her through the room. George had been sitting by the fire but jumped up when he saw them and followed behind to their room. As Brandon opened the door for Heather and allowed her to slip in, the servant listened attentively to his orders and went off again to do as bidded when his captain stepped into the bedroom. Brandon closed the door behind him and glanced at his wife who was bending over the washbowl splashing water on her face.
“George has gone to fetch a tray of food. I won’t be staying to eat. And I would prefer that you not leave the room while I’m gone. It wouldn’t be safe for you without my escort. If you want anything, George will be just outside the door. Tell him what you want.”
She cast an uncertain glance over her shoulder at him. “Thank you,” she murmured.
Then he was gone without another word, leaving her to stare dejectedly at the closed door.
The fluttering was like a movement of a butterfly’s wings, seeming unreal because of its faintness. She lay very still under the quilt, afraid to move lest it would go away and never come again that night. And in the dark she smiled a little to herself. Once more it came, this time more insistent. Her hand slid to her belly as if beckoned and her thoughts suddenly cleared.
“It does not make it easier knowing he’s right. It would have been impossible to get from the cottage unseen, no matter how desperately I planned and hoped. They watched me too closely. I would have spent a lifetime there if he had not already taken me to him and given me his baby.”
The stirring was felt beneath her hand.
“So now I am to be a mother, and he is to be hated and cursed because he made me so. But must it be this way? Is it too difficult to show him kindness and gratitude though I know he loathes the ground on which I walk and would prefer to be no man at all than have me chained to him. He has been kind despite his hatred of me. Now I must show him I am not a child and I am thankful. But it will not be easy. He frightens me and I am such a coward.”
The sounds of his returning came in the deep darkness of night. He moved quietly about the room as he disrobed and only the lantern outside in the courtyard showed him his way. He eased into bed beside her, turning on his side to face the door. And again the room was still. There was only the sound of his breathing that came to her ear.
Before she opened her eyes the next morning, she heard the rain, a heavy, pouring rain that drove the peasants from the streets and the birds from the air, a clean, drenching rain that washed everything anew. It was the season for rain and sometimes one thought it would never end.
The man beside her moved and she opened her eyes as he pushed away the sheet and sat up. She did likewise and slid out of bed, drawing his attention to her. He frowned heavily.
“There’s no need for you to get up now,” he said irritably. “I must see to a few last things about the cargo, and I won’t be able to take you with me.”
“Are you going right away,” she asked uncertainly, fearing his frown.
“No. Not immediately. I’ll bathe and breakfast before I go.”
“Then if it would not displease you,” she said softly, “I would prefer to rise.”
“Do whatever you wish,” he growled low. “It makes no difference to me.”
Hot water for his bath was carried in, and he lowered himself into the brass tub when the two of them were alone again in the room. He was in a black, untalkative mood and as Heather came hesitantly to the tub, she was fearful of offering him her services. She was so nervous she couldn’t speak, and her hands trembled as she reached out to take the sponge from his hand. He looked up with some surprise when she did.
“What is it you want?” he asked impatiently. “Do you have a tongue in your head?”
She took a deep breath and nodded her head. “I—I wish to help you bathe,” she managed.
His scowl deepened. “It is not necessary,” he growled. “Go dress, and if you so desire, you may breakfast with me downstairs.”
She stepped back from the tub nervously and turned away. He wanted nothing to do with her this morning, it was plain to see. To keep from aggravating him more she must stay out of his way and not bother him with her presence.
Moving quietly about the room, she gathered the underclothing she had washed after her bath the night before and folded it away, still a little damp. She took of
f her nightgown in a corner behind him and dressed, putting on the new blue gown he had bought for her. But as the red gown, it fastened down the back, and though she tried she could not manage more than a few of the hooks.
“It will just have to go undone,” she decided stubbornly. “I am not going to him. I won’t be a nuisance.”
She was trying to comb the tangles out of her hair with her fingers when he finished his bath and got out. He toweled himself off briskly without a glance in her direction and began to dress. He only turned her way when he came after a fresh shirt from a table behind her, and with her heart in her throat Heather glided away from him cautiously, fearing he would notice her. The movement, however, brought not only his attention but his anger as well.
“Do you have to be so damned skittish?” he snapped. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Heather stood trembling before his glare. “I’m—I’m sorry,” she murmured fearfully. “I just didn’t want to get in your way.”
He swore under his breath and snatched up his shirt. “I don’t mind you getting in my way nearly as much as I do seeing you scurrying out of it. I assure you I won’t give you the back of my hand as your aunt was fond of doing. I have yet to hit a woman.”
She looked at him uncertainly, not knowing now whether to move or stay where she was. He was tying his stock, jerking at it in his anger and not doing well in the mood he was in. On an impulse, she went to him and pushed his hands aside. He stared down at her warily, but she wouldn’t meet his gaze. With nervous fingers she rewrapped the stock about his neck and tied it as she had done many times for her father. When it was neat and in place she picked up his waistcoat from the chair and held it up, while he, still scowling, slid his arms into it. Bravely she went even further and buttoned it for him, though she sensed he was restless and would have preferred doing it himself. When she started to get his coat he waved her away.
“Never mind,” he said hoarsely. “I can put it on myself. Get the brush and do your hair.”
The Flame and the Flower Page 17