Lavinia, who apparently had missed seeing Lorraine in her excitement over Philip’s unexpected arrival, now stepped back.
“What is this, Philip?” She frowned. “Why is she here?”
The sight of her old enemy had restored Lorraine’s flagging spirits.
“Behold,” she mocked. “Philip adores me so much that he pursues me to the ends of the earth! And ties me to him with rope lest I get away!”
Lavinia paled and took a step backward. She did not look as well as when Lorraine had last seen her. Her wonderful thick hair had lost some of its luster, her face had a sallow look. Only her bronze eyes burned as brightly as ever.
Philip turned upon Lorraine savagely. “You will keep a civil tongue in your head or you will feel the lash,” he warned her. “Lavinia and I are to be married next month.”
“But what are you doing with her? Why did you bring her here?” demanded Lavinia.
Lorraine answered before Philip could form a reply. “Philip was so enamored of me that he bought my articles of indenture from Oddsbud,” she drawled. “He sailed south to—”
Her words were cut off as Philip gave the rope a violent jerk that flung her full length on the floor at Lavinia’s feet. His foot menaced her. “We’ll have no more lies from you,” he growled.
He turned to Lavinia. “Oddsbud owed me money, Lavinia—a gambling debt.” After all, he reasoned, from the grave Oddsbud could not refute it! “He was short of coin, so he signed over Lorraine’s articles of indenture to me as security until he could raise the money. When the Indians killed him, I was left with the articles. Lorraine had run away, she was my property—I had no choice but to pursue her.”
“But you could have sold her articles once you found her!” protested Lavinia in an anguished voice. “The house is full of people, Philip—neighbors who have lost their homes, as many as it will hold! Everyone is out now, poking among the ashes, trying to see what can best be done, but what will they think when they return and find you here with this . . . this woman? You did not have to bring her here, Philip! Oh, why did you do it?”
Lorraine thought it would be interesting to hear Philip’s explanation and looked up expectantly.
“Lavinia,” he pleaded, seizing her hand, “my family home is in ruins, I have naught left but the bare land. Your dowry will build us a house, true, but what else had I to give you? It was my thought that this would be my wedding gift to you—a serving wench who would be above the bumbling country girls, one who could serve you as a lady’s maid, for ’twas always my wish that we should live in style!”
How glib he is! marveled Lorraine.
Lavinia’s eyes on Philip took on a melting look—but hardened again as they fell on Lorraine.
“I may wish to sell her,” she told him in a dissatisfied voice.
“In time,” was his lazy answer. “Meanwhile you can teach her humility. With a whip, if it pleases you.”
Lorraine closed her eyes.
CHAPTER 26
Todd House, Near Providence, Rhode Island
October
LORRAINE’S FIRST LESSON in humility came just after her arrival. While she was still on the floor, some of Eleazer Todd’s guests could be heard coming toward the house and Lavinia in sudden panic said to Philip: “We’ll have to get rid of Lorraine until we know what to do with her.”
Lorraine was jerked to her feet and summarily dragged to a small dark cubbyhole in the attic. She remained locked in and left there without food or water for hours.
By the time she had gotten her wrists free from the ropes—and in her desperation she had even attacked them with her teeth—Lorraine had decided what to do. She was being foully treated and she would pay them back!
Through the cracks in the floorboard she could hear noises downstairs. They must be having supper, she decided, and pangs of hunger assailed her. But no food was brought to her. Still she bided her time. Eventually the dark hole in the attic assumed a deeper darkness and the house settled down for the night.
Finally, Lorraine made her move. She took a deep breath and began to scream—terrible, bloodcurdling screams that shook the rafters and resounded throughout the house. She punctuated her shrieks with loud wails of “Help me! I’m locked in the attic!”
Downstairs, people who had gone to bed feeling safe from Indian attack, sprang up and stumbled around in the darkness, groping for muskets.
“They’ve got her, someone’s got her!” screamed a voice in the darkness, followed by cries of “Indians! Indians!” Others took up the howl. Pandemonium reigned before candles could be lit and the source of the noise located.
Eleazer Todd himself unlocked the door. Philip, who figured out what was going on, tried to make it to the closet first. Hurrying upstairs, he bumped into stout Mistress Plemmons, who wrapped her big arms about him in terror and refused to let go. As Philip fought to free himself, Lavinia came up carrying a candle and hissed at him, “You’ve let Father reach the attic first?”
“What is this noise? Who are you?” cried Eleazer Todd, bursting in upon Lorraine. “Why . . . why, it’s Mistress London! What are you doing here? And what ails you to scream out in the night like this?”
Lorraine, struggling up from the floor, had stopped in mid-shriek. “Your daughter and Philip Dedwinton dragged me up here, sir, and locked me in. Without food or water or even a blanket.” She shivered. “They left me bound, but I got loose.” She indicated the heavy lengths of rope on the floor.
“Left you bound ... !” Eleazer’s scandalized expression told her he could hardly believe what she was saying.
Behind him Lavinia panted, “I can explain, Father. Philip brought this bound girl to me as a wedding gift. He said I should teach her humility.”
“With a whip,” said Lorraine wryly.
Eleazer Todd was an upright man. He was proud of his stature in the community and all too aware of his goggle-eyed guests who had swarmed into the attic after Lavinia. They were all staring at Lorraine London—whom most of them knew by sight—standing in a closet exhibiting the red weals on her wrists where the ropes had bitten into her soft flesh.
Todd turned to his daughter. “I would not have thought it of you, Lavinia,” he growled. “To leave a young woman to spend the night tied up in a cold attic!”
“It is none too cold.” Lavinia tossed her head.
“Silence!” roared Eleazer, shocked to the core. “Come downstairs, Mistress London. We will find a place for you.”
“There is no room,” objected Lavinia, pouting.
“I can take the girl in with me,” interposed a kindly voice. “There is room in my corner for another pallet.”
“There are six of you in that small room already. Mistress Bowman,” protested Lavinia.
“We can manage.” Through the crowd Lorraine saw a square matronly figure in a voluminous dressing gown beckon to her with her pewter candle holder. “Eleazer, do you think you could find us another pallet?”
“There are no more pallets!” Lavinia was almost crying with rage.
“A blanket would do nicely,” said Lorraine quietly. “Anything is better than being locked in to sleep on bare boards.”
Eleazer winced and shoved his daughter aside. “Take the girl with you, by all means, Mistress Bowman. I cannot believe that such a thing could happen in my house,” he said, shaking his head.
“No matter, Eleazer,” said Mistress Bowman cheerfully. “You have set things to rights. Come along with me,” she told Lorraine, who followed her past a trembling Lavinia and a seething Philip, past numerous curious eyes, to a small back room.
“This is my corner.” She indicated the far side of the small room littered with pallets. “For ’tis farthest from Mistress Laite, who snores loudest,” she confided with a chuckle. “You gave us quite a turn . . . ah, what is your name, dear?”
“Lorraine,” supplied Lorraine. She liked the older woman at once. There was a motherly air about her. “Thank you for befriending me,” s
he said, and added wearily, “But I fear Lavinia will find some way to take a whip to me tomorrow.”
“Oh, I doubt that,” said Mistress Bowman tranquilly. “Eleazer Todd—he’s my second cousin on my mother’s side—is a good person. I can’t always say the same for his daughter.”
A moment later his daughter appeared in the doorway and threw a blanket at Lorraine.
Lorraine caught it and made a mock curtsy.
“You’d do well not to antagonize Lavinia,” advised Mistress Bowman, who had watched that little display. “She is noted for her high temper.”
“I antagonize Lavinia just by living,” said Lorraine bitterly. “She is jealous of me because of Philip.” That night, after the others were asleep, Lorraine told much of her story in whispers to the older woman. She did not mention the extent of her fortune beyond the thousand pounds, however, nor her affair with Raile other than to say that Captain Cameron had transported her to Virginia.
“Eleazer will not make Lavinia free you, for your articles are valuable, but he will see that you are not injured on his premises,” Mistress Bowman told her.
On his premises . . . But what would be her lot when Philip and Lavinia had their own premises?
“Do not give up hope. Perhaps someone will be found to buy your articles.”
Mistress Bowman had meant to cheer her, but in the darkness Lorraine shuddered. “Lavinia would sell me to the devil if she could,” she muttered.
“Pish tush!” said Mistress Bowman comfortably. “Eleazer would never allow it.”
“If only I could get to Barbados,” mourned Lorraine. “Barbados . . .” murmured Mistress Bowman. “I am told it is a land of eternal summer, of flowers and winged fish that fly through the air for great distances. Imagine, no cold Rhode Island winters!” She shivered as if in anticipation of the winter snows to come and then came back in practical fashion to the matter at hand. “You are not to worry.” She patted Lorraine’s hand. “There will be ships leaving for Barbados in a few weeks, and we can send a letter on one of them. Meantime things will work out.”
But the next morning proved that things weren’t working out and probably never would.
After a plain breakfast, which she ate on a wooden table in the kitchen while being stared at by the Todds’ two housemaids, Lorraine was summoned out “to help with the wash.”
There Lavinia confronted her—a confident Lavinia, for there was no one about. The guests—even kindly Mistress Bowman—had poured out of the house early on this clear bright day to see to their own affairs. Lavinia’s mother was in bed with one of her constant migraines, her father had ridden away, and she was in complete control of her world.
“How did you get that dress?” she demanded of Lorraine, scowling at the fashionable pink silk gown that the blonde beauty wore.
“It belonged to a dead girl,” replied Lorraine. “Her father gave it to me in gratitude for helping to deliver his second wife’s baby. In Bermuda.”
Lavinia’s face mirrored her disbelief. “Do not mock me,” she said sharply. “Captain Bridey has told all the world that when he discovered you in Bermuda you were some sea captain’s doxy!”
“Then believe Captain Bridey!” was Lorraine’s short answer.
“Take it off,” ordered Lavinia.
Lorraine cast an outraged glance at a grinning teenage boy who was stirring the boiling washwater with a broomstick.
“I will not!”
“Tess, Marthe, remove her dress,” snapped Lavinia, turning to the two housemaids who were carrying out large stacks of linens to be plopped into the boiling washtubs. “If the wench resists, tear it from her back. And her chemise too, for I am sure it is crawling with vermin and will have to be boiled.”
“It is not!” protested Lorraine, struggling in the hefty Marthe’s strong grip. “You can see it is perfectly fine!” But there was no escaping Marthe’s big hands, and despite the tussle, her dress was already unhooked and half off.
“Hold still or Marthe’ll rip it,” advised Tess, plummeting her load of laundry into the hot water and turning to help Marthe.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter if you rip it,” said Lavinia in a bored voice. “ ’Tis an unsuitable costume for a serving wench. I intend to have it washed and then cut the fabric into trimming for the new draperies in my bedchamber.”
A sob of rage escaped Lorraine as the pink silk gown came away from her body with a loud rip. “My chemise is perfectly clean,” she panted. “For shame that you would strip me naked in public merely because you believe I am your rival for Philip!”
The boy stirring the washwater sniggered. Marthe and Tess rolled their eyes at each other. It was too much for Lavinia.
“Rival for Philip?” She surged forward and would have struck Lorraine across the face but that out of the corner of her eye she had seen Philip come around the corner of the house. “Rival?” she scoffed, shaking her curls. “I have no rivals!”
Lorraine, suddenly conscious of the fact that she was almost naked in her sheer chemise, saw Philip staring at her with hot possessive eyes. Swiftly she turned her side to him, revealing as she did against the blaze of sunshine the silhouette of a perfectly molded bustline and delicately sculptured buttocks.
Philip’s preoccupation with Lorraine’s body did not go unremarked by Lavinia. She turned on him in fury. “How dare you come here when you can see—”
“Why? Is washday sacred?” he demanded, lifting his brows. His intent gaze never left Lorraine’s dainty form, so artfully revealed in the strong light.
“You can see this wench is exposing herself to you!” rasped Lavinia.
“Oh, is that what she’s doing?” Philip grinned at Lorraine.
Enraged, Lavinia ran up to him and slapped his face. He turned and caught her wrists.
“Are we to quarrel over some serving wench?” he growled. “I came to tell you that your father is on his way here. He may take a whip to you if he finds her like this.”
Panic overtook Lavinia. She whirled about and began pawing through the dirty laundry.
“I won’t wear somebody else’s filthy clothes!” shouted Lorraine.
“You’ll wear what you’re told!” Lavinia screamed.
The commotion brought Eleazer Todd striding around the house. He stopped stock-still at what he saw, and his jaw dropped.
“What madness is this?” he demanded.
Lorraine tried to cover her breasts with her hands as he approached.
“I had her change her dress because of the vermin she may have brought from the ship,” cried Lavinia desperately.
“Out there? In the open?” he thundered. “With your betrothed and a half-fledged youth looking on? She will work in the house henceforth—and you will not have charge of her. I will ask my cousin, Mistress Bowman, to supervise her.”
“She should be helping Marthe in the kitchen!” wailed Lavinia.
“Go to your room,” roared her father. “Or I will have you helping Marthe in the kitchen! You are making a scandal of us. What has happened to the girl’s dress?” he asked, looking around him.
“Lavinia plans to cut it up to decorate her room,” said Lorraine in a clear voice.
Eleazer turned to his daughter, appalled. “It will be washed and returned to her!” he thundered. “Meantime, Tess, find the wench something decent to wear. Take her with you and be quick about it!”
Lavinia fled, sobbing. Philip shrugged and turned away. Tess, thinking she had better move fast if she knew what was good for her, grabbed Lorraine’s hand and ran with her to the house; And washday continued as always, with Marthe stolidly carrying out dirty clothes and linens and the “half-fledged lad” energetically stirring the caldron and grinning over the tale he would have to tell his friends later.
Lorraine soon found herself clad in a coarse scratchy gray kirtle and bodice until her dress could be washed and ironed. She hoped Lavinia would not egg on Tess, who did the ironing, to scorch it.
Under the supervi
sion of kindly Mistress Bowman, Lorraine was put to work at the less arduous duties of making beds, setting the table, and mending. She might have found her existence at Todd House bearable had it not been for Philip.
He pursued her relentlessly, whenever Lavinia wasn’t looking. He confronted her in dark hallways to push against her struggling form, he jostled her in doorways and surreptitiously pinched her buttocks or breasts, he caught her on empty stairways and ran an impudent hand up her thighs while she kicked at him helplessly.
“Come spring, my house will be started,” he told her lazily one day as he cornered her in a narrow upstairs passage and blocked her way with his arm. “Come fall, it will be finished.”
“Philip, let me pass,” said Lorraine impatiently. “Mistress Bowman is waiting for me to bring her these pillowcases.”
He made no move to let her through, but instead reached out and tweaked the nipple of her right breast—savoring the feel of it through the thin silk, for, unsuitable though it might be, Lorraine was again wearing her pink silk dress. She jumped back angrily.
“Why are you here at all?” she demanded. “Connecticut is waging counterattacks against the Indians. Your whole family was murdered by them, yet you have made no move to strike back! Why are you content to let others fight your battles? Why don’t you join the Connecticut men instead of staying on here in this overcrowded house and pestering me?”
He seemed not to hear her. His smile was sensuous. “You have a body made for pleasure, Lorraine. . . .”
“I cannot respect you!” she flashed. “And neither would Lavinia if she were not so besotted. At least she has some pride!”
Her words did not move him. It was as if he considered her too far beneath him for her opinions to matter. Oh, how she hated his lordly ways!
His smile had deepened. Lorraine did not like that smile. There was something devouring in it. “Before the winter we will move into my house, the three of us. Lavinia will be pregnant by then—Eleazer is hot for a grandson. And you and I”—he reached out for her again but she eluded him—“will play.” He was breathing harder now. “Think on our nights together, Lorraine. ”
To Love a Rogue Page 32
