Petals on the River

by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

  Shemaine settled into the rocking chair and cautiously submitted herself to his care as he knelt before her. Allowing him to fold back her sleeves didn’t seem terribly difficult for her to bear, but she was leery nevertheless as he dipped his thin fingers into the ointment and began to rub her slender wrists, spreading the salve. He worked it into the reddened skin with a slow, gentle, circling motion of his thumb until the odor actually began to fade, amazing Shemaine completely, for in its stead a far more subtle scent reached her nostrils as her master bent his head forward while concentrating on his task. It was a strange, pleasant blend of odors: the homespun cloth of his shirt, the leather pants he wore, the soap he had recently used to wash his hands, and a clean, masculine smell, all combining to form a warm, thoroughly intriguing essence that quickened her awareness of the man. Shemaine realized she was affected in ways she had never dreamt possible, for her womanly senses responded to his gentle touch, awakening like the unfolding petals of a flower.

  “I wouldn’t use the leather cords to hold your slippers on anymore, Shemaine, at least not until your ankles heel,” Gage advised as he unwound the slender thongs from around her feet. “They might hamper the healing process.”

  He lifted a bare foot in his hand, quickening the pace of Shemaine’s heart. Her eyes were wide with uncertainty as she met his gaze, but he seemed totally unconcerned as he dipped his fingers in the balm again.

  “You’d better lift your hem,” Gage cautioned. “Otherwise it may get stained.”

  Hesitantly Shemaine pulled her chemise and gown up a modest degree, and though Gage waited, there was no further response. Arching a challenging brow, he peered at her again until she grudgingly dragged the hems a bit higher. Still dissatisfied with the limited area she had left him to work in, Gage sighed in frustration, rested her bare foot on his thigh and, with his clean hand, pushed her skirts up almost to her knee, drawing a startled gasp from her. Ignoring her nervous confusion, he took her foot in his hand again and began spreading the balm around her ankle. He massaged it in gradually, rubbing his thumb around in ever-encompassing circles, over the top of her arch, down to her toes, beneath the sole of her foot. Cupping her small heel in the palm of one hand, he gently kneaded the whole of the foot with the other. His deliberate, methodical strokes soon calmed her, and Shemaine found herself slowly relaxing in the rocking chair, leaning her head back against the curved top.

  “You have a nice voice, Shemaine,” Gage commented softly as he began to rub ointment over her other foot. “Victoria used to sing to Andrew, too. Even as a small babe, he seemed to listen intently before he drifted off to sleep, but there has been no one to sing to him since the accident. I’m not very capable in that area.”

  “You’re so gifted in many other ways, I find myself in awe of your talents,” Shemaine replied, lulled by his tender ministrations and the warming fire that framed his wide shoulders and fine, dark head. “If you didn’t have any flaws, Mr. Thornton, you wouldn’t be human.”

  “Oh, I’m human all right,” Gage averred, caressing her small, dainty foot with his hands. His thumbs combined to work their magic, scrolling leisurely over, around and under. It crossed his mind that he hadn’t seen anything about his bondslave yet that wasn’t worth admiring, even her delicately boned feet.

  “We’re all human.” Shemaine sighed. “None of us is perfect, and we should not expect perfection from those around us. Indeed, if we understood our own flaws better, we’d be more tolerant of the faults of others and be less inclined to take offense at the slightest provocation. If men could forgive with the same fervent spirit with which they wage war, I think we’d be able to live more at peace with each other. Still, there are those who are so evil they must not be tolerated.”

  Gage’s hands moved up to massage her ankle. “Did you meet someone like that on the London Pride?”

  Shemaine knew the time had come to tell him of her enemies. “There were several aboard the London Pride. Gertrude Fitch, the captain’s wife, was one. Jacob Potts was another. But Morrisa Hatcher was the most clever of the three. She worked her wiles to incite the other two, promising her favors to Potts, who, in turn, seemed capable of motivating Mrs. Fitch to take action against the rest of us with his conniving lies. Anyone who didn’t kowtow to him or Morrisa was susceptible to being punished, mainly because of some mandate Mrs. Fitch managed to wheedle or harass from her husband. Although Mrs. Fitch thought herself to be clever, she was actually the most gullible of the three. Potts at least knew what he’d be getting in exchange for doing Morrisa’s mischief. It was a vicious cycle, but Morrisa was the one to benefit from it the most. She seemed far more dedicated in her desire to reap havoc on her adversaries, most especially me. But ‘twas obvious all three harbored resentment toward me and wanted to see me dead.”

  Gage noticed that Shemaine seemed suddenly on edge, as if fearful of something beyond his ken. “And do you think they will continue to seek your death?”

  “Although Mrs. Fitch might long to see my demise, she would not outwardly seek it here in the colonies. ‘Tis one thing for her to reign supreme on a ship owned by her father, but quite another to answer to British authorities in a strange land. As for the other two, they will continue their quest as long as they are here,” Shemaine avouched with certainty. “ ‘Tis what they have promised. Morrisa will send Potts to do the deed and then laugh in glee when he does.”

  “Is he a man I saw on the ship?” Gage questioned, rubbing her leg again.

  “James Harper banished him to the cable tier just moments before you came aboard. He’s a huge man, half again your size, with straw-colored hair, ruddy cheeks and a rather large, bulbous nose.”

  A twinge of his lips gave hint to Gage’s amusement. “Your description leaves me wondering if Potts haunts your dreams at night. You’ve obviously memorized him quite well, Shemaine.”

  “I’d recognize him a fair distance off, to be sure.”

  “Hopefully, you’ll have time to warn me if you see him coming.”

  “But you will teach me how to fire a musket fairly soon, won’t you?” she pressed anxiously, knowing there would likely be days when he would be gone and she’d be left to defend herself if Potts came looking for her.

  Gage raised a brow with blatant skepticism as he asked a pertinent question. “Do you really think you have it in you to kill a man, Shemaine?”

  “If Mr. Potts finds me, I may have to,” she reasoned. “He’ll kill me if I can’t defend myself.”

  “Usually when any of the men or I spot a boat coming to shore, one of us goes down to meet it, but I must confess there are times when we get too busy to even look through the windows of the cabinet shop. Just ring the bell by the front steps or scream your head off if you see Potts. I’m sure one of us will hear one or the other and come running.”

  “I don’t think you understand what you or your men would be up against, Mr. Thornton,” Shemaine answered carefully. “The man is a brute. A huge beast of a man! It would take two like you fighting together to best the monster.”

  “I can usually take care of myself or anything else that belongs to me,” Gage assured her, but he made allowances for his inability to accurately perceive trouble before it happened or to see clearly into the future. “But just in case, I’ll teach you how to fire a musket.”

  Shemaine sighed in relief, having obtained what she had wanted. Leaning forward, she watched as he rubbed a towel down her legs to remove the excess ointment. Then he sat back on his haunches, allowing her to lower her skirts, and began wiping his hands on the towel, seeming perfectly at ease on the floor.

  Shemaine was amazed that she was already experiencing some relief from the rawness of the sores. “I do believe, Mr. Thornton, that among your many other talents, you’re also a very fine physician. My ankles feel better already. Thank you very much.”

  Gage dipped his head slightly in acceptance of her gracious comment, but it was not so much what she said that enthralled him as it wa
s the inflection she placed on certain words, especially his name, for her syllables sounded as magical and pleasing as the silvery tinkling of tiny bells on a breezy morn. Well aware that he had all but insisted she call him by his given name, he had to admit that when the more formal address came from her lips, it stirred his senses no small degree. Her pronunciations, as articulate as they were, had definitely been influenced by the brogue of Shemus O’Hearn.

  “Your ankles should be looking better in a few days,” he predicted. “In a month’s time, the redness will likely be gone, and perhaps by then I’ll be able to afford a pair of shoes.”

  “You needn’t worry about buying me any shoes, Mr. Thornton,” Shemaine replied softly. “I’m grateful to have the ones you gave me to wear. As you accurately surmised, they are a bit long, but ‘twill not be hard for me to get used to them. I know well what it’s like to go without, and I’m thankful to have a pair, whatever their condition or fit. Truthfully, ‘tis far more comfortable to have my feet shod than feel every pebble or splinter I come upon.”

  “It took no great insight on my part to determine that Victoria’s shoes would be too large for you,” Gage pointed out. “Though fine-boned, my wife was nearly half a head taller than you.”

  “Andrew will be tall too, I think,” Shemaine predicted, glancing down at his father’s hands. Gage’s fingers were long, slender, and rather squarish at the tips, as handsome as the man himself. “How can the boy not be when, you’re so tall yourself? I’m sure he’ll be the very image of you when he grows up.”

  “Victoria said as much soon after Andrew was born,” Gage recalled. “And perhaps that will be true, since she was so fair. Her hair was as pale as cornsilk and had a sheen that matched. I used to watch it blowing in the wind and was always amazed by the fact that the strands never seemed to get tangled.”

  Self-consciously Shemaine smoothed a wispy curl back from her face. Her hair was far from finely textured. It was so thick and rebellious, the heavy curls had to be restrained by braids or upswept creations that could test the patience of the most ingenious coiffeur. Her lady’s maid in England had enjoyed the challenge of combing her hair into beautiful styles and bragging about the golden highlights in it. But the woman had brushed and tended her hair since her tenth birthday and naturally was a bit prejudiced. In lauding her own praises, Nola had often claimed that no aristocrat’s pampered darling would ever be as exquisitely coifed as her Shemaine.

  “I fear my hair is as ornery as it looks,” Shemaine complained, wishing she had but a small measure of Nola’s talent. “I came nigh to cutting it off this afternoon, just to be free of the snarls.”

  Gage watched an obstinate tendril readily rebound as soon as her hand dropped away. He wanted to reach out and rub the curl between his fingers just to feel its silky texture, but he checked the urge, guessing his bondslave would bolt like a frightened deer. He was already familiar with a variety of her qualms and considered it a rare accomplishment indeed to have massaged those shapely limbs as long as he had. “I like your hair, Shemaine, and I would not take it kindly if you were to cut it off.”

  Suddenly apprehensive of the areas where she might unwittingly offend him, Shemaine began to fret about what she had already done and decided it was far better to admit the truth than have him learn of her deed in some other fashion. “I hope you won’t be too angry with me, Mr. Thornton . . .” she said in an anxious rush. “After using it, I was careful to wash it and put it back where I found it. . . .”

  “It?” Gage’s brow lifted warily. “What are you trying to tell me, Shemaine? What is it?”

  “Your brush,” she answered simply. “I had to use it to get the snarls out of my hair.”

  Behind an abbreviated smile, Gage breathed a sigh of relief. “Is that all? The way you acted, I was sure you had committed some grievous mayhem.”

  “You don’t mind that I used it?” Shemaine asked in amazement. “You’re not angry?”

  “Should I be?” he questioned with a devilish gleam in his eyes. “Do you have something I’d rather not have?”

  Laughing, Shemaine shook her head. “I’m not aware of any infestation, sir.”

  Gage rubbed his chin reflectively, squelching the desire to grin as he teased. “Perhaps you should be afraid of what I may have given you, Shemaine. You did say you washed the brush afterwards and not before, didn’t you?”

  Bracing her hands upon her knees, Shemaine settled an impishly quizzical glare upon him. “Are you sure you’re English, Mr. Thornton?”

  He responded with a casual shrug. “If I’m my father’s son, then I’m from a long line of Englishmen. If not, my mother was ravished in her sleep, for she laid all the credit for my birth, looks, and stubbornness to William Thornton.”

  “Daddee?” Andrew called sleepily from the bedroom.

  “Coming, Andy,” Gage replied, and rose to his feet in one swift, effortless movement that fairly bedazzled Shemaine with his strength and manly grace. Striding across the parlor to the bedroom, Gage was unaware of the emerald eyes that followed him across the room. He disappeared within, and Shemaine leaned back in her chair to listen as his muted voice blended with his son’s sleepy tones. Though the words Gage spoke were of no great import, his tone was gentle and comforting, warming Shemaine’s heart perhaps as much as the boy’s.

  Evening descended upon the land, and with it came thickening mists that rolled up around the cabin, making it an island unto itself. Outside an owl could be heard hooting in a tree somewhere in the woods to the west. With the darkness, the interior of the cabin had grown quiet except for the crackling and hissing of the fire and the scratching of a quill on parchment as Gage made notations in a ledger in the back corridor. Engrossed in his accounting, he seemed oblivious to the woman whom he had purchased earlier that day, but whenever Shemaine glanced up from her sewing in the kitchen, she could see him through the open doorway. She sat in the rocking chair on the far right of the hearth, with a, clear view of half the hallway. After sharing the food Hannah Fields had sent over for supper with the Thorntons, she had readied the morning fare for an early rising and tidied the kitchen. Later, Gage had put Andrew to bed in his small nook just off the main bedroom, and then had settled down to work at his drafting table while she hemmed the blue gown and the second chemise she had chosen for herself.

  It had certainly not been her intention to compare her master with her fiancé, but as her fingers plied the needle through the cloth, Shemaine’s mind drifted far afield and the inevitable happened. In many ways the two were similar. Both men had hair as black as a raven’s wing. Gage Thornton kept his clipped short and close against his nape, whereas Maurice tied his thick locks in a neat queue behind his head, shunning both powder and wigs. If there was a difference in the height of the two men, then it was too minuscule to even notice. Both were tall, broad-shouldered, lean but muscular, complementing whatever garments they wore, whether it was the deerhide breeches and homespun shirts that Gage favored or Maurice’s more elegant garb. Although her betrothed usually preferred the dignity of black silk over other colors and fabrics for more formal attire, it came to her mind that the Marquess, as handsome as he was, had looked no more impressive in his courtly finery than Gage Thornton in his more durable clothes. Her master’s waist and hips were narrow enough to be envied by the most conceited dandy, and the long buckskin trousers were slim enough to cling to every muscular contour, readily revealing the taut sinews that flexed through his thighs, clearly evidencing the athletic vigor of the man.

  Maurice du Mercer was certainly not without strength, Shemaine mentally argued in an effort to keep her comparisons clearly in perspective. He was, in fact, a formidable swordsman and an accomplished equestrian. He was adept at all the courtly dances and moved through them with as much grace as he rode a horse. Yet the difference in the two men could have been summed up simply by the contrast between their hands. Gage’s fingers were lean and hard. In the grip of such a steely vise, the pale, beau
tiful, uncallused hands of the Marquess du Mercer might have been severely broken.

  At one time, perhaps a century or two ago, Shemaine had been convinced that the handsomeness of her betrothed was unequaled. Certainly none could have denied the aristocratic refinement of Maurice’s features and the beauty of his darkly lashed black eyes. Upon hearing of his marriage proposal, her mother, who had previously demonstrated a firm confidence in her daughter’s good sense, had expressed concern that Maurice and Shemaine had been influenced by a strong physical attraction for one another rather than a deep, unswerving devotion.

  Some time later Camille had again posed the conjecture that Shemaine had been swept off her feet by the grandeur of her fiance’s appearance and his station in life. Shemus O’Hearn may have had a temper to battle, but he was usually wise enough to take his wife’s counsel to heart. Together they had concurred and refrained from giving their consent, begging her suitor to understand that they only wanted Shemaine to be aware of the life she would be committing herself to as a marchioness. Understanding their concern, Maurice had ardently declared his love for their daughter and had promised that she would want for nothing. At least a month had passed before the O’Hearns had finally relented, acquiescing to Shemaine’s quietly spoken assurances that no other man whom she had ever met or possibly would ever meet could measure up to the man she had come to know Maurice to be.

  That was eight months ago in England!

  And this was a different continent and a different time!

  And much had happened since that balmy day in London when Maurice had asked her to be his bride. No longer was she a young lady of leisure, but a bondslave, bought and paid for by a colonial who scraped and worked to make something of himself and his aspirations!

  Shemaine tried tenaciously to summon forth a clear image of her betrothed in her mind, and it was an uncommonly long moment before she realized the difficulty in conjuring a noble semblance of her fiancé stemmed basically from the fact that the sun-bronzed, hard-muscled and very vibrant Mr. Thornton was there in front of her where he could be closely observed each and every time she glanced up.