Petals on the River

by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

  Shemaine only knew how much she longed to see her parents and to be safe in their care again. “What you say, may well be true, sir, but I have no greater ambition than to be rescued by my father and to go home again.”

  “We’ll see how you feel seven years from now,” Gage rejoined, not unkindly.

  His statement drew a disconcerted glance from Shemaine, for he seemed to insinuate that nothing short of death would halt her years of service to him. She could only wonder what would happen if her father did manage to locate her. No provisions had been written in the laws of England that would force a master to sell a bondslave against his or her will. Her master’s claim on her superseded all others? Even her betrothal contract was mullified by his ownership of her. She only wondered if this man could find it in his heart to sell her to her parent? Or would she be required to stay with him against her will?

  Sensing a lingering presence nearby, Gage glanced around to find a thin, aging matron leaning forward in an avid quest to hear as much of their conversation as the buffeting wind would allow. Beneath his perusal, she straightened, only slightly abashed that she had been caught eavesdropping. She gave him a crisp nod of recognition.

  “Well, Gage Thornton, what brings you into Newportes Newes today?”

  Gage was well aware of the woman’s strong penchant for gossip. Indeed, she was probably hoping he would oblige her and answer her simple question in ample detail. But he was hardly one to placate the meddlesome busybody and kept his own greeting politely reserved. “Good day, Mrs. Pettycomb.”

  The matron nodded curtly toward the girl. “And who might this stranger be?”

  Though Gage sensed Shemaine’s reluctance to be introduced, he took her arm and pulled her gently around to face the elder whose speculative stare had come nigh to boring a hole through her slender back. “May I present Mistress Shemaine O’Hearn from England?”

  Alma Pettycomb’s small, dark eyes descended to the bare feet visible beneath the swirling hem. Almost as quickly her sparse brows jutted sharply upward above the tiny, wire-rimmed eyeglasses perched on her thin, hawkish nose. Coming to her own conclusions, Alma clasped a blue-veined hand to her flat bosom, completely flabbergasted by this latest event in the life of the cabinetmaker. He was forever causing a stir among the villagers. Any normal man, for example, would have grieved no longer than a few months after the passing of his spouse. Times were hard here in the colonies, and men were expected to take new wives to relieve the burden of caring for their young. Many a father in the hamlet had foreseen Gage coming to court their cherished darlings and would have bestowed great favor upon him, but he had kept to himself, obviously preferring his state of widowerhood to marriage with any of the local girls. He had further daunted their expectations by hiring the smithy’s daughter to care for his son.

  “Gage Thornton! What in the world have you gone and done?” the matron gasped. “Can it be that you’ve bought yourself a bondswoman from that awful convict ship? Have you taken leave of your senses?”

  “I don’t think so, madam,” Gage replied with detached coolness. “In fact, I’ve done exactly what I’ve been meaning to do for some time now.”

  A fierce blast of air flattened the brim of Alma’s cloth bonnet over her wrinkled brow, but with an impatient upward thrust of her hand she brushed it back into place and gave him a blatantly suspicious stare. “Do you mean to say that you’ve actually been contemplating the purchase of an indentured servant, even before the London Pride sailed into harbor? Why, such a foolhardy deed gives me cause to think you’ve gone daft.”

  The muscles twitched in Gage’s lean cheeks, attesting to his irritation, but his voice was as unfaltering as his gaze. “Be that as it may, madam. I’ve done what I’ve done and do not intend to make amends to anyone.”

  Mrs. Pettycomb raised her thin nose and squinted at him closely through her narrow spectacles. “Not even the smithy’s daughter?” she prodded. “Surely, if there is one in this hamlet you owe an explanation and apology to, it’s Roxanne Corbin. That poor, dear girl dotes on you as if you were some kind of god.”

  Gage remained totally unrepentant. “It has been on my mind of late that I’ve been intruding far too much on Roxanne’s goodwill and should allow her to live her own life without imposing the care of my son upon her any longer. Her father has always required her to tend the chores at their home before coming to mine, and now that Hugh has been laid up with a broken leg, Roxanne won’t be able to come at all, at least for a while. With no one to look after Andrew while I work, I saw the need to search for someone else.” Though he had said as much to Roxanne, she had begged him to ask his neighbors to help out for a time, but he would never have laid more work on others who had just as much to do as he did. Besides, he would never have tolerated Andrew being away from home that much. “Roxanne knew of my need for a nursemaid better than anyone, Mrs. Pettycomb, so it’s not as if this will be any surprise to her.”

  Pointedly rejecting his statement, Alma faced into the wind until he had finished speaking. Then she turned back sharply and shook a chiding finger beneath his nose. “You know very well, Gage Thornton, that Roxanne Corbin has never considered the care of your son an imposition. She loves Andrew as her very own. You’d be wise to realize just how good she’s been to him, how he’d benefit from having her as his mother. In fact, you ought to bear in mind the problems you’ll have to face taking a convict into your home. I’ve certainly never approved of those prison ships bringing the dregs of society to our shores. This girl could be a murderer for all you know! Indeed! You could be doing this hamlet a great disservice by harboring such a woman under your roof.”

  Gage was hardly pleased by Alma’s harsh rebuff of Shemaine. The girl stood beside him in stony silence, but in the few short moments he had known Shemaine, he had learned to read the depth of her vexation by the unyielding rigidity of her back. He was tempted to tell the old crone to mind her own business, but he knew his wrath would only augment the gorgon’s resentment of Shemaine. Quietly but firmly he reasserted his position. “I’m quite taken with my selection, Mrs. Pettycomb, and I intend to keep her.”

  “Aye! I can see where you may have cause to be,” Alma rejoined snidely, and looked toward Shemaine with open disdain. She seemed to fight an inner battle with herself for a moment, as if she wanted to say more. When she continued, it was evident she had yielded to the temptation, for she unleashed a storm of criticism upon the man that was blacker than the menacing clouds overhead. “There are many in this hamlet who think you’re a fool, Gage Thornton, and buying a female convict just about proves it! You’ve wasted nearly every coin you’ve managed to earn building that ridiculous boat of yours when everybody knows it will never leave the James!”

  It was not the first time that Alma Pettycomb had defied proper decorum by passing judgment on the citizenry living in the area. And Gage Thornton was not the first by any means. Though she had taken special delight in closely observing him whenever he came into the hamlet, his reticence had often frustrated her and aroused her suspicions. A man as uncommunicative as he had proven to be usually had something to hide, she had concluded. Now here he was again, setting convention completely aside by taking this vile creature into his home, and he didn’t seem the least bit contrite about doing so. In Alma’s mind, he needed a good dressing-down.

  Gage was by no means surprised by the woman’s lack of finesse. In the nine years he had lived in the area, he had been forced to listen to many of her comments, either by way of her own lips or from others’. Frequently she was wont to express views on matters which did not directly pertain to her and was just as generous with her advice. He would never forget the afternoon he laid Victoria in the coffin he had built for her and brought her into town in the back of his wagon. It hadn’t taken long for news of her death to spread or for Alma Pettycomb to set herself at the forefront of those demanding to be told the circumstances surrounding his wife’s deadly fall from the unfinished prow of his ship an
d just what part he might have played in it, going so far as to suggest that he could have thrown Victoria off in a fit of temper. After all, just a month prior to that occasion he had thrashed a man soundly in their village without any apparent reason.

  Roxanne had been anxious to explain that he could not have murdered Victoria and still been able to reach the spot where he had been when she first caught sight of him only moments after Victoria’s fall. But there were those who had voiced skepticism, implying that the Smithy’s daughter had been hopelessly infatuated with him for years and would say or do anything to see him exonerated, no matter how guilty he may have been.

  When asked directly, Gage had neither confirmed nor denied Roxanne’s story, but had simply explained that he had taken his son back to the cabin to wash him up and could not say what had really happened between the time he left Victoria on the ship and the moment Roxanne arrived by canoe. Having found no hard, fast proof to incriminate him in his wife’s death, the British officials of the governing body of the area had concluded that they could not blandly ignore his alibi, no matter how enamored Roxanne may have been with him.

  “My ship is a seafaring vessel, Mrs. Pettycomb,” Gage informed her stiffly. “And I assure you, she will sail far beyond the tidewaters of this area. ‘Twill only be a matter of time ‘til she proves her worth.”

  Alma Pettycomb was hardly convinced. “That remains to be seen, doesn’t it?”

  Though a stranger to them both, Shemaine was certain the woman had to be nearly witless not to notice the turbulence brewing behind the exterior aloofness of the man. Knowing only too well how her own father would have reacted, she was rather amazed by her master’s rigid control. Had Shemus O’Hearn been the recipient of such vicious chiding, Mrs. Pettycomb would have quickly fallen back before the onslaught of his verbal outrage. In sharp contrast, Gage Thornton kept tight rein on his temper, though he stood his ground like an impenetrable bastion and was intensely loyal to his own ambitions and ideals.

  “I cannot expect you to understand, madam.” Gage had never lent much value to Alma Pettycomb’s opinions and was not motivated to do so now. “It takes someone far more knowledgeable about sailing ships to grasp the importance of my design and to perceive the brigantine’s potential for greater speed ere the day of its launching.”

  Alma was not one to admit there was anything on this particular side of the continent that she didn’t know a great deal about. In truth, she lacked understanding about a lot of things outside of her own realm of interests, at the forefront of which was sailing ships. Still, she avoided being challenged with pertinent questions by directing the subject elsewhere. “When you’re unwilling to listen to reason, Gage Thornton, there’s certainly no purpose in continuing this discussion about your boat. Waste all your time and money on your foolish endeavors, if you wish. What I’m mostly concerned about is Roxanne. She’ll be terribly distressed by this recent purchase. Indeed, you can hardly expect her to entertain a marriage proposal while you have this . . . this creature living under the same roof with you.”

  Gage was no more grateful for the busybody’s meddling advice than he had been her reproofs. “I fear you’ve been seriously misinformed if you think there is anything between Roxanne and me, Mrs. Pettycomb.”

  Alma elevated a thin brow as she cast a haughty glance toward Shemaine. “Certainly not since you’ve purchased this bondswoman.”

  Gage grew emphatic in his denial. “I beg your pardon, madam, but there has never been anything between us.”

  “Are you disavowing any knowledge of the trousseau Roxanne has been embroidering . . . with your initials?”

  Gage was momentarily dumbfounded by her statement. Roxanne had been making overtures ever since their first encounter nine years ago, when he had needed the blacksmith services of her father. More recently she had been strongly hinting that a match between them would be desirable, but he had been extremely careful not to give her any encouragement.

  “I never once broached the subject of marriage with Roxanne or abetted any notion that there could possibly be anything between us.”

  Alma deliberately made a point of dismissing his denials. “You might as well know your claims will fall on deaf ears, Gage. Since there are no other marriageable men living in this area with the initials GHT, we’ve all assumed Roxanne is embroidering monograms that stand for Gage Harrison Thornton.”

  “Then you’re mistaken, one and all,” Gage replied brusquely.

  Mrs. Pettycomb gazed at him in amplified disbelief. “Perhaps Roxanne has reason to believe you’ll marry her because you’ve never gone out of your way to discourage her,” the matron harped. “ ‘Tis plain to all that she has dreamt of becoming your wife for some time now, even before Victoria arrived here in Newportes Newes and captured your attention. If you can’t see that Roxanne is taken with you and has been for some time, then everybody else around here can. You should have told her outright there was no hope instead of leading her on all these many years.”

  Having grown immensely tired of the busybody and her pettish accusations, Gage brought the discussion to an abrupt end. “I haven’t time to debate this matter with you any longer, Mrs. Pettycomb. I’m sorry, but I must get back to my cabin and my son.”

  Alma pressed on, ignoring his curt rebuff. “If you were wise, Gage Thornton, you’d take my advice and forget this inanity of yours. Taking this”—briefly directing a contemptuous sneer upon Shemaine, she sniffed arrogantly and forced herself to be more charitable than she wanted to be—“chit home with you is bound to cause speculation as to your real reasons for buying her—”

  “I must hurry,” Gage insisted, cutting through her incessant chatter.

  “Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!” the woman fussed. “That’s all you do! You have no time to stop and think things through, Gage! Otherwise, you’d recognize when a woman has set her sights on you. You work relentlessly, never stopping. Why do you even bother?”

  “For Andrew, Mrs. Pettycomb,” Gage answered succinctly as a light smattering of raindrops began to fall upon them. “For my son.”

  Dismissing the elder, Gage took Shemaine’s arm and led her away. As he did so, he inclined his head toward an area near the river. “My canoe is over there, only a short distance away. Do you think you can walk that far?”

  “I’ll do my best, sir,” Shemaine replied with an indistinct nod.

  As if to make a mockery of her statement, the gusts strengthened sharply, forcing Shemaine to retreat before their onslaught. Blinking against the heavy droplets that had begun to pelt them, she sought to put one foot before the other, but it seemed a useless endeavor, for the rising gale seemed to hold her prisoner.

  Gage halted abruptly and turned to face her, causing Shemaine to cringe inwardly beneath his frown. She knew she was slow and clumsy, having little strength to rely upon, and fully expected to be reprimanded for impeding their progress. For a moment the tall, broad-shouldered form provided her shelter from the rain. Then, without a word, the man bent and picked her up in his arms.

  “Mr. Thornton! What are you doing? Put me down!” Shemaine gasped, outraged that he had taken it upon himself to handle her with such familiarity. No man except her own father had ever been presumptuous enough to carry her, and even then she had been very young. It unsettled her to be clasped to her master’s hardened frame, for his physical prowess made her painfully aware of just how thin and frail she had become. In the rain his clean manly scent was far more elusive, but it was enough to fill her head and fluster her even more, for she felt filthy to a fault. Faintly she added, “P-people will stare, Mr. Thornton.”

  Gage scoffed, rejecting her concern, and cast a quick glance over his shoulder to find Alma Pettycomb doing just that despite the rapidly wilting bonnet that was crumpling down over her brow. “If any harping ol’ biddy wants to stand in a downpour and gawk at us, then I’m inclined to let her!” he muttered. “As for me, I intend to get home as soon as possible, and I can’t wait around for
you to get your land legs back under you.”

  Gage sprinted across the thoroughfare of the hamlet, motivating Shemaine to throw her arms around his neck and hang on for dear life. They were proceeding at a pace far too swift for her peace of mind, and she could only guess what she would suffer if he slipped in the mud and she went flying. The bruises caused by Potts would probably seem insignificant in comparison.

  His new bondslave was certainly no great burden to carry, Gage Thornton decided as he dashed toward the river’s edge, for she seemed as light as thistledown in his arms. He was also struck by how soft and womanly she felt against him as she clasped her arms tightly about his neck. He likened himself to a teetotaler besotted by the intoxicating pressure of her rounded bosom. The pleasure he derived from the experience gave him cause to wonder if he had been a widower for so long that he had forgotten just how delicious it was to hold a young, beautiful woman within his grasp.

  Gage entered the woods where a line of trees along the riverbank formed a sheltering canopy above their heads. There he came to a halt and stood his bondslave on her feet. Dragging a canoe from a nearby thicket, he nosed it into the water and silently directed Shemaine to the far end. The slender craft seemed far too flimsy to suit her, and though she obeyed her master’s directive, she settled herself gingerly where he had indicated. Cautiously she looked around at the wide river beyond them and then cringed in sudden worry. Aware of the nervous fluttering in her stomach, she turned back, not wanting to face the possibility of being launched into that swirling expanse.