I was an object, a receptacle for his lust. He hadn’t even bothered to undress. I fought. I tried to throw him off. I fought Derek Hawke, and then I fought myself, fought the sensations exploding inside me with unbelievable ecstasy. Though he thrust inside me, brutally, as if inflicting a harsh punishment, I flung my arms around him and held him even closer and clutched at the white silk covering his back. Then, there was nothing but need and he cried my name and kissed me once more, holding me tightly, shuddering, and I knew that the conquest, however made, was not his but mine.
VIII
I had drawn back the curtains and opened the windows earlier, and the room was deliciously cool with night air and filled with moonlight that streamed in in wavering rays, intensifying the blue-black shadows that coated the walls. I could see the murky-silver blue of the mirror, and Derek’s white silk shirt rested on top of the chair like a weary ghost, his tall black boots standing on the floor and drooping limply. He was naked beside me, fast asleep, his chest rising and falling. I had removed my petticoat, another ghost spilling out of the half-opened drawer.
The moonlight seemed thinner, silver gradually fading to a pale milky white, and it seemed the shadows stirred, black velvet melting into a softer, lighter shade, more blue now than black. Had we been in the country, the first cock would begin to crow shortly, and in the east faint golden stains would begin to touch the ashy gray horizon as the moon retired and stars twinkled off one by one. I had awakened a few minutes earlier, filled with a marvelous languor that glowed inside and warmed my whole body. Naked, I welcomed the cool breeze that chilled my skin. All the bedcovers had been kicked to the foot of the bed. Afraid I might wake him up, I made no effort to pull them back up over us. It would be time to get up soon enough.
Derek moaned in his sleep, an irritated frown creasing his brow. He turned on his side, facing me, throwing his left leg over both mine and wrapping his arm around my waist. His skin was satin smooth, warm, and he smelled of sweat. I stroked his arm, moving my palm up his hard muscles, sliding it over the curve of his shoulder. He moaned again and pulled me closer, shifting position, resting his head heavily on my shoulder and breast, his half-open mouth moist against my skin. I lifted my right hand and stroked his hair, thick, soft, like coarse silk. He stirred again, neither asleep nor awake, and I could feel him growing taut, pulsating with warmth.
Sleepily, he opened his eyes. I touched his mouth with my fingertips. He caught hold of my shoulders and pulled me over to him. Still half-asleep, he kissed me, a long, lingering kiss wonderfully tender, so unlike that ardent plunder a few hours ago. I smoothed my palms over the curve of his shoulders and down his back, resting them on his flat buttocks as they lifted and he reached down to catch hold of mine.
He had had me before. Brutally, with no thought for my comfort or pleasure, he had taken me and given nothing. He made love to me now. He might never say the words, might, with morning, be as cool and remote as ever he had been, but words were not necessary. His body, his being expressed everything with painstaking tenderness. He gave of himself and sensations swirled and skin seemed to shred slowly like silken webs tearing and his mouth covered mine as the cry rose up in my throat, trapping the cry inside me as love rushed up to meet the outpouring of our passion. I shuddered, as did he, and he fell limp on top of me, asleep soon, eventually rolling over to sprawl beside me in heavy, blissful slumber.
I had washed and dressed in my old clothes by the time the first yellow rays of morning sunlight floated through the window. Derek was still sprawled out on the bed, fast asleep. I left the room quietly and went downstairs to find the lobby deserted. After a brief search, I finally found the kitchen in back of the inn. The cook had just gotten out of bed and shuffled about sleepily, mumbling to herself as she lighted the stove and put a pot of coffee on to brew. Fat and grumpy, her black skin glistening, she grumbled irritably when I told her I needed breakfast for two, looked incredulous and overcome when I said I would help her prepare it.
“Land sakes, chile, ain’t you an angel. Jest let me have my coffee an’ we’ll whip up th’ best breakfast you ever seen.”
She was as good as her word. The breakfast that I carried up on an enormous wooden tray twenty minutes later looked and smelled incredibly delicious. I smiled to myself, filled with a shimmering happiness that seemed to sing inside me. Balancing the tray carefully, I opened the door to find the room ablaze with sunlight. The bed was empty. Derek was gone, as were his clothes he had discarded during the night. I set the tray down on the dressing table just as the connecting door opened. He had already washed and shaved and was dressed in his old clothes.
“Efficient as ever, I see,” he remarked.
“I thought we’d want to get an early start back.”
“Right. I’m starved. I imagine you are, too. We never got around to having dinner last night.”
That was the only reference he made to what had happened. It was something both of us accepted, and we were not going to discuss it. His manner was rather brusque and matter-of-fact. The coldness was gone, but there would be no warmth, no intimacy. Things would be as before. He was not going to allow any sort of familiarity, was not going to admit to himself that our relationship had altered in any significant way. I knew that I would have to settle for that until he was ready to face the truth about his feeling for me.
After breakfast, after both of us had packed, I returned to the kitchen and arranged to have a lunch made up for us. An hour later we were traveling back to Shadow Oaks, Charles Town well behind us. Derek was immersed in thought, but the silence between us was a comfortable one. I felt I could have spoken to him without the least hesitation. I was content to sit close beside him, lost in a daydream. The horses clopped along at a steady, unhurried pace, the wagon creaking and joggling.
“Was your business successful?” I inquired, much later.
“Satisfactory,” he replied.
“It had nothing to do with Shadow Oaks, did it?”
“No, Marietta, it didn’t. I went to see a lawyer.”
“I didn’t mean to pry. It’s just that I know so little about you.”
“The lawyer in Charles Town corresponds with another lawyer, in London. The man in Charles Town keeps me informed on the progress the man in London is making.”
“A London lawyer? You’re involved in a court battle?”
“Very much so. By rights I should be Lord Derek Hawke. I should possess an Elizabethan manor house, several thousand acres in Nottinghamshire and three dozen tenant farms. I was cheated out of it by an uncle who, with his sons, is currently living in the house, drawing all the revenues.”
“I see.”
“Hawkehouse belonged to my father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather, and so on back to the days of Good Queen Bess. Lord Robert Hawke was one of her favorite courtiers. She gave him the house and lands as a token of her esteem. By the law of primogeniture, it should belong to me, the only son of Lord Stephen Hawke.”
“I know all about the law of primogeniture,” I said, remembering my cousin, remembering the way he had turned me out of Stanton Hall. “Do you want to tell me your story, Derek?”
“I see no reason why you shouldn’t know. My father was an avid traveler in his youth and early middle age. He was something of a rakehell, a devil with the ladies. There were a great many ladies and quite a number of illegitimate children but, until he met my mother, no wife. He met her in a small town in Germany. It was famous for its mineral wells. He was into his forties then and already suffering from gout. She was there with a Prussian officer. She was English, blond, bewitching and quite notorious in certain circles. My father was enchanted with her and, shrewdly, she refused to sleep with him unless he married her. He wasn’t at all taken with the idea, but he finally gave in—”
Derek paused, tightening his hold on the reins. When he continued, I detected a certain harsh undercurrent in his voice.
“They were married there in Germany, with only an ecc
entric and rheumatic old English duchess as witness. My mother returned to Hawkehouse with him, his legal wife, but relatives, neighbors, and friends of my father weren’t prepared to accept her as such. They treated her as if she were a flashy mistress he had installed. She was not accepted. She couldn’t have cared less. She had all the luxuries she had always dreamed of, a husband who doted on her. That was enough, at least for a while. I was born a year or so later. For some inexplicable reason, I was never christened, although my birth was duly recorded in the registry office.”
“You grew up in Hawkehouse?” I inquired.
“I lived there until I was seven years old. Then one night my mother came into my room and told me to dress while she packed a few things for me. We stole out of the house in the middle of the night. A carriage was waiting for us at the end of the lane. A very handsome young man was inside. He and my mother laughed as the carriage drove away. We went to France and then to Italy, and the young man deserted her and she found another man in Rome, a bit older, a bit more dissolute. Two years passed, and I had several more ‘stepfathers’ before we finally returned to England. My mother took me to a bleak brown school and left me there. I never saw her again. She drowned in a yacht that overturned during a storm in the Mediterranean a few months later.”
“How dreadful for you. What happened then?”
“I stayed in the school. She had been kind enough to inform my father of my whereabouts. He sent funds, but he never came to visit me. When I left school, he arranged further education at Oxford, where I did quite well. When I left Oxford, he arranged a commission for me in the army. I was sent to the East. Near the end of my Term of service, I learned of his death. But when I was finally able to return to England, I found that I had been declared illegitimate. My uncle and his family were firmly entrenched in Nottinghamshire. He claimed he was the rightful heir, and, as no record could be found of my father’s marriage, the court agreed.”
“You must have been very bitter.”
“Not bitter. Determined. I contacted a very famous lawyer who had once given a speech at Oxford. He was interested in my case and agreed to take it, although he warned me it would be very expensive and might well take years. I had very little money, and I knew I could hope to earn very little in England, being legally declared a bastard. I went to London and visited a few of the gambling halls. I won quite a lot of money, enough to pay my fare to America where, I had heard, a man could make his fortune in cotton. I had enough left over to buy Shadow Oaks. I was foolish enough to marry, but we won’t go into that.”
The wagon bounced as one of the wheels passed over a rock and I caught hold of his arm to steady myself. Trees cast long shadows across the road. The sunlight was even thinner, the sky a darker gray.
“My lawyer finally found proof of the marriage,” Derek continued, “but the documents were declared a forgery. My uncle has a very shrewd set of men working for him. They’ve had the case thrown out of court repeatedly, but my lawyer hasn’t given up, nor have I. I’ll win. It may take another ten years and all I can earn during those years, but I’ll win.”
“It means so much?”
The question was a foolish one. I had been unwise to ask it. Derek fell silent, his mouth tightened, and I could see that he regretted having revealed as much as he had. We continued on down the road, rarely encountering another vehicle either coming or going. Hours had passed since we’d left Charles Town. I was beginning to grow hungry, but I wasn’t going to be the one to suggest we stop for lunch. I sat silently, swaying with the wagon, savoring his nearness, staring at the long brown road that stretched ahead. The road was lined with beautiful oaks dripping with moss. There was a light breeze, and the moss swayed back and forth like shreds of ancient lace.
I understood now where all the money had gone, why Shadow Oaks was so shabby, and why he had so few slaves. The case had been a steady drain on his income, but he was convinced that the eventual rewards would compensate for all that. He was a man with a purpose, and I understood what drove him to work so strenuously alongside his slaves, what had shaped him into the grim, sober, embittered man he was today. His uncle’s treachery and the disastrous marriage that had followed soon after had left deep wounds. I longed to tend them, but the balm I could offer was the very thing Derek feared most. He had been vulnerable once before. He did not intend to let his guard down again. I hoped that with my new knowledge I might eventually sway his resolution, and, for now, that hope would have to sustain me.
Derek eventually pulled the wagon over to the side of the road, and we ate the lunch the cook and I had packed. He was still moody and uncommunicative. After we finished eating, I packed away the things and got up to put the basket back in the wagon. Derek was sitting with his back against the trunk of a tree, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his arms folded across his chest. I could feel him watching me as I moved toward the wagon. A gust of wind caused my skirts to billow. Tree limbs swayed with a groaning noise. Leaves rustled crisply. It was much cooler than usual; the sultry heat and humidity had lifted.
Derek climbed slowly to his feet and brushed bits of twig from the seat of his breeches. After the meal and short rest, he seemed more relaxed, the tension gone.
“I think I struck a good bargain,” he remarked.
“In Charles Town?”
“At the settlement—several months ago. I damn near bankrupted myself in order to buy you, but—I’m beginning to think it was money well invested.”
“Indeed?” My voice was light.
“I felt guilty for a long time, wiping my bank account out like that for a red-haired wench who’d never be able to split wood or work out in the fields. It was an insane thing to do. I regretted it.”
“And now?”
“And now I think maybe I got a good buy.”
He sauntered over to me and rested his forearms on my shoulders, looking into my eyes with a thoughtful expression. I had to tilt my head back to meet his gaze.
“I’ve needed a woman,” he said. “I was a fool to wait so long. A man has needs.”
“I know.”
He looked into my eyes, and his lips parted. He ran the tip of his tongue around them, and then he kissed me, casually, without passion or any real tenderness. He was merely savoring his property, appreciating me as he might appreciate a fine Havana cigar he was rolling between his fingers. He wrapped an arm around my waist and, holding me in a loose grip, glanced over my shoulder at the wagon, as though debating whether or not there was time to savor me more fully.
“We got a late start,” he remarked. “We’d better be on our way.”
“I suppose so.”
“There’ll be plenty of time later.”
We both knew what he meant. I belonged to him, and in the future I would perform more intimate services, whenever he was so inclined. I would cook and mend his clothes and clean his house and, when he was swollen with need, assuage that need, without question, without discussion. He would welcome no show of affection, would harshly rebuff it. I was his wench, to be used at his convenience. Derek Hawke would not admit to himself that I was anything more.
He let go of me and moved toward the wagon, throwing his shoulders back and stretching his arms out, a satisfied man, muscles relaxed after the gratifying release of months of sexual tension. He climbed up on the seat and gathered the reins in his hand. I climbed up beside him, trying to resign myself to his attitude, telling myself I could only wait and hope he would eventually recognize the feelings he had expressed this morning with such tenderness.
The horses swung back onto the road. The wagon rocked. We were soon moving down the road at a steady pace. Derek was still relaxed, very much at ease with himself and the world.
“Yeah,” he said lazily, “I think maybe I got a bargain.”
“Did you really almost bankrupt yourself?”
“Almost. I never intended to spend that much. I’d just transferred a large sum to my lawyer’s account in London. There
wasn’t much left over. No worry, though. The crop will replenish the coffers. If it weren’t for that, I’d be in pretty bad shape.”
I glanced at the sky apprehensively. It was solid gray and there was an ominous stillness. What if it rained? What if something happened to the crop? I couldn’t help feeling a certain apprehension, but Derek knew far more about Carolina weather than I did, and he didn’t seem in the least concerned. Still, I found myself wishing the cotton had already been picked. Adam had been concerned about it, I recalled, and the other planters had already picked theirs. The fields we passed were stripped of the plump white balls, only the stalks remaining.
“Tell me about yourself,” he said.
“What would you have me tell you?”
“Everything. How you came to speak with that educated accent, how you came to end up in shackles on a prison ship.”
“I told you once,” I reminded him. “We were on our way to Shadow Oaks after you’d bought me, and—”
“Tell me again. Start at the beginning.”
So I told him about my life, about my mother, her death, my father and the education he had given me. I told him about being thrown out of Stanton Hall after my father’s death, realizing that my story was quite similar to his own, although in my case there could be no question of my illegitimacy. As the horses cantered along, chestnut coats gleaming, as the wagon rocked and creaked, I told him about my job at Montagu Square, about Lord Mallory and the emeralds he had planted and everything that followed until my arrival in America, omitting nothing from the narrative except the relationship I had had with Jack Reed on board ship. I had enough sense to leave that out.
“An interesting tale,” Derek said when I had finished.
“You don’t believe me, do you?”
“I’m sure much of it is true.”
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