Lavinia peered down at her, puzzled. “What do you mean, it’s ‘all over’?” she demanded rudely. “You’re indentured there for another year, aren’t you?”
Lorraine smiled almost fondly at her erstwhile tormentor. No one knew better than she that when a man chose to marry a bound girl he must first buy up her articles of indenture! And Lavinia would know it too! “Not anymore, Lavinia. Hadn’t you heard? Philip is going to buy my articles of indenture from Oddsbud. It’s all arranged. We’re to be married three weeks hence. I’m surprised Philip didn’t tell you, for he’s always told me he feels toward you like a brother.” The thunderstruck look on Lavinia’s face was ample reward for Lorraine’s outrageous lie.
“I don’t believe you!” Lavinia gasped.
“Oh, but it’s true.” The mocking blue-gray eyes turned upward were insolent. “Philip’s building us a stone-ender on his father’s acreage. Until then of course I’ll live with his family. But for today I couldn’t resist roaming about—it’s so good to be free again!” Her laughter rippled.
“That’s a lie!” Lavinia snatched her hat from Walter’s hand. “I’m going straight to Philip!”
“You do that,” Lorraine told her tranquilly. “And while you’re asking Philip questions, ask him where he slept last night—and with whom!”
Lavinia’s face turned white. She bent forward in the saddle and struck at Lorraine with her whip. “Out of my way, wench!” she screamed.
Luckily Lavinia’s aim was not very good. Lorraine sidestepped neatly to let Lavinia’s gray mare thunder by her. Walter turned his head to give Lorraine a shocked look as he galloped on after Lavinia.
Lorraine stood with her back very straight and watched them go. But once they were gone the smile faded from her face and she was surprised to find she was trembling. She closed her eyes and leaned against a tree for a moment to steady herself. Then she lifted her head and hurried back, carrying the strawberries that were left in the kerchief to the beaver pond.
She had scarcely had time to open the kerchief and spread out the meager lot of bright red berries before Raile arrived. She did not ask him how he had got the bucket of grain or the armload of hay he carried—nor the still-warm pie wrapped in a linen napkin that rested on the grain-filled bucket, but he chose to answer her curious look.
“I met a likely lass.” He grinned. “One who thought it a lark to find a bit of hay and grain and some food for a stranger.”
Lorraine decided that Raile was the kind of man who would always find “a likely lass.” And wondered briefly who the girl was, for she knew, at least by sight, most of the girls who lived on these outlying farms. Probably Jenny Mervis, with her wide hips and her boisterous laugh, Jenny, who boasted she “could get any man in Rhode Island!”
“Was she a brunette?” she asked, reaching for the piece of pigeon pie Raile had sliced off for her with the knife he carried in his boot.
Lounging comfortably with his back against a tree bole, Raile asked, “Brunette?” His dark brows lifted. “No, more hazel-haired, with a fine full figure padded in all the right spots and a roguish way about her.”
Lorraine flushed at his teasing voice. That would be Tillie Mervis, Jenny’s younger sister, whom her mother called “a handful.”
“Why?” he asked curiously. “Do you know her?”
“Yes. Tillie Mervis.”
“She’ll be a terror loosed upon the countryside by next year, I’d say,” he mused. “There’s a man-eating look in her eyes.” Raile studied Lorraine over the piece of pie he was lifting to his mouth. There was a droll look in his gray eyes.
As Raile finished his repast, he commented on how tasty the strawberries were. Then he glanced at Lorraine’s petticoat, hung up on a tree branch to dry.
“I take it you’ve already had a dip in the pond, Mistress Lorraine? I’ve a mind to try it myself.”
Lorraine remembered thinking to wash the touch of Philip from her body—from her wounded heart.
And how it had not worked.
“Yes, I’ve already bathed,” she said unevenly.
Was that pity she read in the tall stranger’s eyes? She turned her head resolutely away. “I’ll nap while you take your dip.”
It gave Lorraine a strange feeling to lie there listening to a naked man splashing in the water a few feet from her, a man she had known but a few hours, a man she had broken bread with but once. . . .
She began to think about Raile—it helped take her mind off Philip and the grinding ache that seemed to fill her breast and penetrate into her head. What was he doing here, this Scot? And what would happen to him if he were caught, now that he had chosen to carry off a bondservant?
She heard him come out of the water, heard him shake himself like a big dog in a way that spattered the leaves with shining droplets. It was quiet for a few moments then, and she assumed he had finished dressing.
She turned to speak to him and realized with a gasp that he was standing at the edge of the pond—alertly, as if arrested by some sound—stark naked, with his back to her.
In that moment she took in the vibrant masculinity of the man, the darkly tanned arms, broad bronzed back, and sinewy shoulders. Where did he live and what did he do, she wondered, that he went about stripped to the waist? And although his well muscled thighs and narrow buttocks were pale, his feet and ankles and lower legs were bronzed too.
She was staring at him, fascinated.
As if alerted that she was looking at him, he swung about and smiled at her. Engulfed by embarrassment, Lorraine quickly turned away and said in a smothered voice, “I ... I was just going to ask you what you did for a living.”
“As little as possible,” he answered in a bored voice.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw him begin to dry himself with his shirt.
“I mean”—her voice quivered slightly—“that your feet are tanned as if you go barefoot.”
Raile tossed away his shirt and grinned in her direction. He’d have wagered it was not his feet that had occupied here rapt attention!
“I do go barefoot. On deck,” he explained.
“Oh, so you are a sailor, then?”
“In a manner of speaking,” he said crisply, and began to tug on his breeches.
“Are you . . . dressed?” she ventured, not daring to turn around again and meet the ribald glee on his face.
“Dressed enough,” he told her carelessly.
She turned and saw that he was clad in his trousers, toweling his lightly furred chest dry with his white cambric shirt. “I’ll hang up your shirt to dry on this branch,” she offered hastily. “The sun will make short work of it.”
Raile watched her appreciatively as she reached up to pull down a leafy green branch. The slight movement made her young breasts ripple most attractively beneath the worn homespun and showed to advantage the glorious head of fair hair that cascaded down to a narrow, supple waist.
Having finished her task, Lorraine sat down again on the soft grass facing him.
“I have been thinking only of myself,” she said soberly. “But it has come to me that I have put you into some danger. The law would give you at least a flogging for having helped me. Perhaps . . .” She gave him a troubled took. “Perhaps worse.”
“Ah, but that would be the least of my crimes,” he told her mockingly, although he was pleased that the little wench should evince concern for him. “The law would be delighted to hang me—but for other reasons. You may set your mind at rest, Mistress London. This escapade with you puts me in no worse case.”
Escapade. ... So that was how he viewed it?
She frowned. “You are a highwayman, then?”
“On these roads?” His dark brows shot up. “Faith, ’twould be a devil’s hard ride for poor pickings!”
“For a Scot,” she meditated, “you are a long way from home.”
“We Scots develop wandering feet,” he agreed easily, studying the depth of her blue-gray eyes and marveling how dark were the
long lashes that fringed them—in sharp contrast to her pale hair.
“You have traveled much, then?”
He nodded. “Here and there.” Best for her not to know too much about those travels. If they should be caught, any show of knowledge on her part could tangle her into the plot about the guns and perhaps cost her her life.
Something in his look made Lorraine feel conscience-stricken, for she had not told Raile that she had been seen and recognized.
“When I crossed the road with the strawberries, I ran into two people I knew,” she confessed.
“What?” He looked angry. “But they could spread the word where you are, lass!”
“I don’t think so,” she said in a penitent voice. And told him briefly what had happened, ending with, “So now Lavinia’s out to find Philip and will drag Walter all the way to Philip’s house to get the straight of it. And Philip will try to hush it all up of course and his sisters will probably insist they both stay the night, for the older one is half daft about Walter and near swoons when he comes about. So it will probably be tomorrow before anyone runs to Oddsbud with a tale about where I was seen.”
Raile grinned at the little wench’s spirit in taking on her adversary, but he rose with decision.
“We’ll away, lass—just in case.”
Tossing their wet things over their arms, they walked on through the woods. Lorraine was crestfallen that she should have caused them to trudge along until dark, for Raile would not use the roads until then.
They passed a mud hut, unroofed, its chimney stones scattered. It had been damaged by a hurricane that had stormed in from the sea before Lorraine’s time. The sight of it made her remember something.
“There is a place not far from here where we could rest,” she told Raile eagerly. “A safe place. ’Tis an old ruined mud-walled house. Its roof blew off in a storm long ago and its chimney fell down and the people who lived there said they were tired of the raw life of the colonies and went back to England.”
“Does no one live there now?” She shook her head, and he said, “Lead the way, lass.”
They had not far to go. Nestled in the trees, almost concealed by the rapidly growing underbrush, they found the house—walls crumbling, thatch roof gone. Together they gathered up armloads of rushes and carried them inside. As Lorraine sank down cross-legged upon them, her back against the broken stones of the fireplace, she remembered her mother remarking that she had never slept on anything less than goose feathers in her childhood. Lorraine’s glance flickered over the Scot’s smartly tailored blue coat with its shining silver buttons. He was gentry too. . . .
“You’ll not have slept on rushes before,” she commented, settling her russet skirts around her.
Raile gave her an astonished look. “I’ve slept on rushes, deck planking, bouncing farm carts, soggy earth, tree crotches—and once atop a thatched roof with a hornet’s nest nearby and men with guns prowling below looking for me. Name it, lass—I’ve slept on it!”
“And feather beds?” she murmured, watching him.
“Well, that was mainly with women,” he drawled, and was amused to see her blush.
“You’re . . . married?”
He shook his head. “And usually,” he added humorously, “I spent only part of the night in those delightful feather beds. My leave-taking was often by way of a window just as the rightful owner of the house and the lady came cantering up!”
Lorraine considered this conversation about beds dangerous. Around them the air was heady with the scent of hickory and wildflowers and the perfume of spicebush leaves that they had crushed beneath their feet. She took a deep breath. The air was so soft— more dangerous still! She hitched up her knees beneath her wide skirts and thought to change the subject.
Raile must have divined her fears, for he suddenly began to make an effort to entertain her. He told her about an encounter with an irate husband on the grounds of a country house outside Paris when the ivy beneath the lady’s second-floor bedroom broke and sent him sprawling into the garden below—and how on another occasion he had been stuffed into a closet in Venice by a frantic lady whose husband was even then bursting through the door. He had ended up diving out the window into a canal, and been fortunate enough to be picked up by a passing gondola that contained a lady even more beautiful than the one he had just left!
He had had so many affairs, she thought uneasily, surely it would be dangerous to fall asleep in his company! Remembering how Philip had pressed his advantage the moment he had her alone in the loft, she moved away uncomfortably.
Raile took her sudden movement to mean that she was trying to get out of the sun, which was now knifing down through the branches, hot across the skin.
“I’ll move your pallet over to a shadier place,” he offered, rising lithely to his feet.
“No, no, I can do it!” Lorraine was eager to keep him at a distance, but he insisted, dragging the pile of rushes into deeper shade.
And nearer his own pallet, Lorraine noted in alarm. She sat down as primly as she could, tucking her skirts carefully around her. A fool she might be, but not a harlot, she told herself fiercely. She had let Philip make a fool of her last night, but that was no reason to fall into bed with the first attractive man she met!
Nervously she began to talk. The afternoon dragged on. She talked about everything: about the newly arrived parson who’d been discovered seducing the Meadows’ dairy maid; about the local plans for a new inn; about the fear of Indian unrest. Soon Lorraine’s lids grew heavy as she talked, and her voice slowed down.
“You look tired,” said Raile when she paused. “Go to sleep, for there’ll be little sleep for either of us this night.”
“Oh, I’m not tired!” Lorraine protested, jerking her slumping body upright.
“Then at least keep quiet and close your eyes,” he recommended. “And perhaps sleep will come.” And when she looked rebellious, “Remember,” he added, “if our voices should be heard by someone prowling nearby, they’ll investigate and discover us.”
“I could keep watch while you sleep,” she offered.
“A good suggestion. I’ll make sure the horse is where he can find enough grass, and take you up on it, lass.”
He was gone for a while and when he came back he saw that she was staring at her hands with a woeful expression on her young face. She is remembering last night, he thought. And yearned to lay his hands on the lad who had done this to her. He was careful then to make ample noise to herald his approach. She looked up hastily and passed a hand over her face, dashing something bright from her eyes.
“He’s not worth crying over, lass,” he told her sternly.
“I ... I know. I wasn’t crying.” Her expression was defiant, but her voice held a hint of a quaver.
“Keep watch, lass,” he said cheerfully, for he guessed she did not want him to belabor the point or to pry into her feelings about Philip. “An hour will be enough for me. When the shadows lengthen, wake me up. Then I’ll let you sleep till dark and we’ll be off.”
She nodded. Her own eyelids ware heavy, but she kept her gaze on him, even as he drifted immediately into slumber.
What manner of man was he? she wondered, studying him. He lay relaxed with one hand on the hilt of his sword, the leather scabbard of which had seen better days. His bearing, his manner, his every gesture bespoke gentle birth, yet her inmost heart told her he was an adventurer, one of those men who live off the land, taking their fun—and their women—where they found them.
And leaving them there.
Indeed, had not his entertaining stories about French countesses of doubtful virtue and hot-blooded Venetian ladies told her that?
Oddsbud’s cynical wife would have pointed out that since she had already lost her virtue, she had nothing more to lose. But Lorraine would not have agreed. Shamed she had been, and brought low, but being knocked into the gutter did not force one to remain in it. She would go on as before—no, better than before, for she had sh
aken off her articles of indenture!
On that rising note her heavy eyelids closed at last and she drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER 6
WHEN PHILIP DEDWINTON left the White Horse Tavern, he set out for home at a good speed. Halfway there he slowed his pace and finally stopped altogether, wrestling furiously with himself in the dawn.
Lord, what a revelation last night had been! How different from that hard-faced whore on the Providence waterfront whose favors his swaggering older brother had bought for him as a “gift” on his fourteenth birthday—how different from the giggling unwashed scullery maid he’d got drunk on hard cider last summer and lain with in a dark hallway! Lorraine had fire and freshness and—shame flooded him at the memory—she had said she loved him.
And to his way of thinking, proved it.
His face grew hot at the memory of her soft yielding lips, her pliant body that had trembled beneath him, her fresh young ardor that had returned him passion for passion.
He reined in his horse abruptly. He could not afford to lose all that! And some inner voice warned him that he would lose her, lose her forever, no matter how she felt about him now, when she learned the truth of the shabby lie he had told her.
And she was the woman he wanted. He knew that now, knew it like a knife turning in his heart.
He wheeled his horse about, dug his heels into the animal’s flanks. Lorraine must not find out she had been won on a wager; he would make amends, he would fabricate some likely lie before it was too late!
In panic he sped back the way he had come.
And found Oddsbud alone, standing in the door of the White Horse Tavern, smoking his clay pipe. Lorraine would be out back, no doubt, probably pressed into duty feeding and watering the horses. And wondering why he had not returned. . . .
Philip leapt off his horse and came right to the point. “I’ve come to ask you what you’ll take for Lorraine’s articles.”
Oddsbud considered him benignly. What timing, what perfect timing! He’d been wondering how to let Philip know that Lorraine was for sale before word got around that she was missing, and here was the lad himself!
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