“You choosin’ that over Nicole?” Travis drawled.
“Mind your own business,” Clay said sharply and walked away, Travis’s laugh sounding behind him.
Janie handed Clay a small cup of liquor. He drank it quickly, needing its warmth and strength. He gasped when he finished. The stuff was delicious. “What is this?”
“Bourbon,” Travis answered. “It’s from the new land of Kentucky. Some peddler brought some in last week.”
Clay held out his cup to Janie again.
“Go easy on it. It’s strong stuff.”
“But it’s Christmas!” Clay said with false joviality. “It’s time to eat, drink, and be merry.” He raised his cup in salute to Bianca, who was slowly circling the table, nibbling little bits and pieces of food from all the dishes.
Everyone quieted as Nicole entered the room. She wore a gown of sapphire blue velvet, off the shoulders, with deep décolletage and thin embroidered blue ribbons around the high waist. Her long dark hair was down, perfectly arranged in fat curls, braided and entwined with dark blue ribbons studded with hundreds of seed pearls.
Clay could only stand and gaze at her longingly as her eyes avoided him. Knowing that she had a right to be angry didn’t make the pain any less.
Wes stepped forward and offered his arm to Nicole. “Just seeing a sight like you is enough of a Christmas gift for me. Don’t you agree, Clay?”
Bianca spoke as Clay stared mutely. “Is that some of the fabric that was meant for me?” she asked sweetly. “Some that you and Janie took without permission?”
“Clay!” Travis said, “You’d better do something with that woman before I do it.”
“Be my guest,” Clay said calmly, then poured himself more bourbon.
“Please,” Nicole said, still avoiding Clay’s eyes. “Let’s have some eggnog. I must get the twins. They’re in the mill admiring the new puppies. I won’t be a minute.”
Clay set his empty cup down and walked to the door with her, where he took her cape from the wooden peg by the door.
“I don’t want you near me,” she said under her breath. “Please stay here.”
Clay ignored her as he opened the door and followed her outside. Putting her chin in the air, she walked ahead of him, trying to pretend he wasn’t there.
“It’s a pretty little nose, but if you don’t lower it you’re going to stumble.”
She stopped in her tracks and whirled on him. “It’s a joke to you, isn’t it? Something that is life and death to me is only a cause for amusement to you. This time, you’re not going to talk your way out of my anger. I’ve been hurt and humiliated too many times.”
Her eyes were enormous and blazing in the starlight as she looked up at him, her mouth drawn tightly until her lower lip nearly disappeared. All that was left was her full, sensual upper lip. He ached to kiss it. “I’ve never meant to hurt you,” he said quietly. “And certainly not to humiliate you.”
“Then, out of ignorance, you’ve done a fine job, a superior job! You called me a whore five minutes after I met you. You allowed me to run your home, yet discarded me as soon as your dear Bianca appeared.”
“Stop it!” he commanded, grabbing her shoulders harshly. “I know our relationship hasn’t been an ordinary one, but—”
“Ordinary!” she said sarcastically. “I’m not even sure it’s been a relationship. I think I am a whore. You snap your fingers, and I come running.”
“I wish that were true.” His voice was heavy with amusement.
Uttering what was obviously a French oath, she snarled at him and kicked his shin very hard.
He released her as he bent to rub his shin. Limping, he hurried after her and grabbed her arm. “You’re going to listen to me!”
“Like I did when you told me about Beth? Or like the time you asked me to remarry you? Am I supposed to be naive enough to believe you again? Then, when I’m vulnerable and fall into your arms, will you again tire of me and return to your dear Bianca? There’s only so much a woman will do for the man she loves.”
“Nicole,” Clay said, holding her firmly by one arm and caressing the other one with his hand, “I know you’ve been hurt. I’ve been hurt, too.”
“Poor dear,” she smiled. “You have to make do with only two women in your bed.”
His jaw hardened. “You know what Bianca’s like. I get closer than a foot, and she turns green.”
Nicole’s eyes widened; her voice was high. “You want sympathy from me?”
He fastened his hands on her shoulders. “I want your trust. I want your love. Could you stop hating me for a minute and just consider that there’s a reason why I haven’t seen you? Is that too much to ask after what we’ve been through? Maybe I have done some things to make you distrust me, but I love you. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“Why?” she whispered, blinking back her tears. “You just left me with no word, just dropped me as if you were through with me. On the island, all I thought about was getting home, the two of us together at Arundel Hall.”
He pulled her close to him, felt her tears wetting his shirt. “Didn’t Isaac mention his cousin?”
The time on the island was a blur in her mind.
“I wanted to explain then and there, but I couldn’t. I was so frightened that I couldn’t even speak to you about it.”
She tried to raise her head, but he pushed it back down. “Frightened? But I was safe. Abe was gone. You weren’t afraid of Isaac, were you?”
“Bianca is Isaac’s cousin. They’re one of the reasons she came to America. She guaranteed Abe a bull and some heifers if he’d take you away until she could get the marriage annulled. One of old Elijah’s daughters told Wes about the plan.”
“And Bianca told you where I was?”
He pulled her even closer. “For a price. She told me that if I didn’t marry her, she’d have one of her many relatives return you to France.” He could feel Nicole shiver against him; the thought was as horrible to her as it was to him.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you just leave me so abruptly?”
“Because you would have marched up to the house and defied Bianca. You would have dared her to try to send you back.”
“It’s what should have been done.”
“No, I can’t risk losing you,” he said as he stroked her hair.
She pulled away from him. “Why do you tell me this now? Why aren’t you still cowering behind Bianca’s ample skirts?”
Shaking his head, he chuckled. “I talked to Isaac since he began working for you. He said the reason you went with Abe so quietly was because you thought I was in trouble. Was I supposed to do less, knowing that your life could be in danger?”
“Let’s go back inside and tell Bianca.”
“No!” It was a command. “I will not risk you, do you understand? All she has to do is arrange for your capture again. No! I won’t risk it.”
“So, do you propose that we spend the rest of our lives meeting at Christmas just so Bianca can have what she wants?” Nicole asked angrily.
He ran his finger along her upper lip. “You have a sharp tongue. I prefer it when you use it for something besides lashing me.”
“Maybe you need to be lashed. You certainly seem afraid of Bianca.”
“Damn you! I’ve been very patient, but I’ve had enough of your insults. I’m not afraid of Bianca. It’s taken all my control to keep from killing the bitch. But I knew that if I hurt her, I’d hurt you.”
“Isaac said Abe left Virginia. Are you sure there are any more relatives? Bianca could be lying.”
“Wes went back to the girl who’d helped him before. She said that Bianca was related to her mother, and her mother had hundreds of relatives.”
“But surely not many of them would do what Bianca wanted.”
“People would do anything for money,” he said in disgust. “And Bianca has all of the Armstrong plantation at her disposal.”
Nicole put her arms around his c
hest, clung to him.
“Clay, what are we going to do? We have to risk it. Maybe she’s bluffing.”
“Possibly, but I can’t be certain. It’s taken me months, but I’ve come up with a plan. We’ll go west. We’ll change our names and leave Virginia.”
“Leave Virginia?” she asked, pulling away again. “But your home is here. Who will run the plantation?”
“Bianca, I guess,” he said flatly. “I offered to give her the whole place, but she said she wanted a husband to run it.”
“My husband!” Nicole said fiercely.
“Yes, yours always. Listen, we’ve been out here too long. Can you meet me tomorrow by the cave? Can you find it all right?”
“Yes,” she said hesitantly.
“You don’t trust me, do you?”
“I don’t know, Clay. Every time I believe in you, in us together, something dreadful happens. I can’t stand anything else. You can’t imagine how horrible the last months have been for me. Not knowing, wondering, always confused.”
“I should have told you. I know that now. I just needed time to think.” He paused. “At least you haven’t had to spend time with Bianca. Do you know that woman wants to tear away part of my house and add a wing? If it was left to her, she’d make it into a monstrosity like that place of Horace’s and Ellen’s.”
“If you leave her, she’ll be able to do what she likes to the house.”
It was a while before Clay answered. “I know. Let’s get the twins and go back.” He released her and took her hand in his.
All through the long, uncomfortable dinner, Nicole’s thoughts whirled. It wasn’t just Bianca she was fighting but Arundel Hall also. She knew how much Clay loved his home, how he talked about the place almost with reverence. Even when he’d seemingly neglected the house for the fields, he’d been aware that Nicole had given the house the attention he felt it deserved. She always felt that was what had prompted his first marriage proposal, when he’d said he’d remain married to her if Bianca didn’t arrive.
Nicole picked at her food, vaguely listening to Travis’s plans to visit England in the spring. Clay was right, she didn’t trust him. Too many times, she’d held her heart out to him and he’d rejected it. Even remembering the time he’d gotten her drunk and made her admit she loved him made her blush. Later, he’d invited her to his house, and when Bianca arrived he was no longer aware of Nicole’s presence. He’d made love to her at the Backes’s house but deserted her soon afterward. Of course, he always had marvelous reasons. First, there was the story of Beth, and now Bianca’s treachery. She believed him—the stories were too bizarre to be lies—but now he said he was going to leave Virginia—and Bianca—so they could be together. He said he hated Bianca, yet he’d lived with her for months.
She stabbed at a piece of turkey. She had to believe him! Of course, he hated Bianca and loved her. There were logical reasons why Bianca lived with him and she didn’t. But at the moment, she couldn’t remember a single one of them.
“I think the turkey’s already dead,” Wes said at her side.
“Oh,” she said in puzzlement, then tried to smile. “I’m afraid I’m not very good company.”
Travis grinned at her. “Any woman who looks like you doesn’t need to do or say anything. Someday, I’m going to find a pretty little girl and keep her inside a glass jar. I’ll only let her out when I want her.”
“Probably about three times a night would be my guess,” Wesley said as he helped himself to more candied yams.
“I will not stand for this kind of talk!” Bianca said stiffly. “You Colonials must remember that a lady is present.”
“The way I been raised, ladies don’t live with men they’re not married to,” Travis said flatly.
Bianca’s face turned red with anger as she stood up quickly, knocking over her chair and upsetting the table. “I will not be insulted! I am the one who will own Arundel Hall, and when I do—” She stopped, then let out a scream as Mandy, staring up at the big woman, her plate in her hand, let slide a great wad of cranberry sauce onto Bianca’s skirt.
“You did that on purpose!” Bianca screamed, and drew back her hand to strike the child.
Everyone was on their feet to stop her. But Bianca stopped herself as she gasped, her eyes tearing; then she jumped backward from the table, holding out her foot. There, resting against her thick ankle, was a large, very hot plum pudding.
“Get it off me!” she screamed, kicking her foot.
Nicole was the one who tossed her a towel, but no one bent to help her wipe away the sticky mess. Travis pulled Alex out from under the table. “I think his fingers are burned, Janie.”
“Such a waste,” Wes said sadly, watching Bianca trying to balance herself as she made swipes at her foot with the towel. Her stomach was so large that she could hardly reach her ankle.
“Not a waste at all,” Janie said. “In fact, I don’t believe I’ve ever enjoyed any dessert as much.”
“Clayton Armstrong!” Bianca screeched. “How dare you stand there and let them insult me like this!”
Everyone turned toward Clay. No one had noticed that all through dinner he’d been drinking heavily of the bourbon. Now, his eyes were glazed and he looked with disinterest at Bianca’s gyrations.
“Clay,” Nicole said quietly, “I think you’d better take Bianca…home.”
Clay rose slowly, seeming oblivious to everyone around him as he grabbed Bianca’s arm and pulled her toward the door, ignoring her screams that the pudding was still burning her. He pulled her outside as she grabbed her cape, and he took a jug of the bourbon. The cold, snow-filled air threatened to freeze the wet, sticky mass to Bianca’s ankle.
Bianca followed Clay reluctantly, stumbling in the dark behind him. Her dress was ruined; she could feel the cold cranberry juice against her thighs, and her ankle hurt from the burn and the cold. Tears blurred her eyes so that she could hardly see where she was going. Once again, Clay had humiliated her. He had done nothing else since she’d arrived in America.
At the wharf, Clay grunted as he lifted Bianca and set her inside the rowboat. “You put on any more weight and we’ll sink,” he said, his voice slightly slurred.
She’d had all the insults she was going to take, she thought as she stiffened. “You seemed to like this new drink,” she said sweetly, nodding at the stoneware jug in the bottom of the rowboat.
“It makes me forget for a while. Anything that can do that, I like.”
Bianca smiled into the darkness. When they landed across the river, she took the hand he offered and stepped onto shore, following him quickly back to the house. By the time they reached the garden door, she was trembling because she knew what she must do, even though the idea came close to making her sick to her stomach.
Clay set the jug on the hall table and stepped back outside.
Bianca muttered, “Peasant!” lifting her skirts and running up the stairs to her room, ignoring the pain of her ankle and her wildly beating heart as she flung open a drawer and withdrew a small bottle of laudanum. The bourbon combined with the sleeping drug would make Clay unaware of anything that happened to him. She just had time to add a few drops to the liquor she poured into a glass. The stuff smelled vile!
Clay lifted one eyebrow at her when she offered him the glass. But he was already too drunk to question her actions. He lifted the glass in a mock salute to her, then downed the fiery liquid in one gulp. Setting the glass on the table, he lifted the jug to his lips.
Bianca merely smiled at his crudeness and watched him mount the stairs. When she heard the door to his bedroom open and each of his boots fall to the floor, she knew it was time.
The hall was dark, and Bianca stood alone, listening. The idea repulsed her; she hated a man’s touch as much as her mother had loved it, but as she took one last look around the hall, she knew that if she didn’t climb into bed with Clay, she’d lose all of this. She grabbed the bottle of laudanum and went up the stairs.
Insi
de her own room, her hands were trembling as she undressed and slipped into a pale pink silk nightgown, crying a little as she drank some of the laudanum. At least, the drug would help dull her senses.
Moonlight flooded Clay’s room, and Bianca saw him sprawled across the bed. He wore nothing, and the silver light on his bronze skin made him look as if he were made of gold, but Bianca saw nothing beautiful in the sight of the naked man. The laudanum made her feel as if she were in a dream.
Slowly, she slipped in beside Clay on the bed, dreading the idea of having to make advances toward him. She didn’t know if she could.
Clay needed no encouragement. He’d been dreaming of Nicole, and now the touch of a woman’s silk gown, the smell of perfumed hair, made him react. “Nicole,” he whispered as he pulled Bianca close to him.
But even in his drunken, drugged state, Clay knew this was not the woman he loved. Reaching out to touch her, he encountered a handful of lumpy fat and, with a muffled grunt, turned away to relapse into his dream of Nicole.
Bianca, rigid, breath held, waited for his animal lust to take over. When he merely grunted and turned away, it was some moments before she realized he was not going to touch her. Cursing vilely, she told his sleeping form what she thought of his lack of masculinity. If the plantation weren’t so important to her, she’d give this caricature of a man to Nicole, and she was welcome to him.
But now there had to be something done. In the morning, Clay had to believe he’d deflowered Bianca, or her plan would never work. The laudanum she’d taken was a hindrance to her as she rose and stumbled down the stairs, but she could have been even more drugged and she’d still have been able to find her destination—the kitchen.
On the big table was a roast beef marinating in herbs, and Bianca half filled an earthenware mug with beef blood. Grabbing six leftover rolls from a cabinet to reward herself for her cleverness, she started back to the house.
Upstairs again, the rolls eaten, the laudanum making her eyes too heavy to hold open, she slipped in beside Clay and doused herself with blood, hiding the mug well under the bed. Cursing him again for making her go through this ordeal, she fell asleep beside him.
Counterfeit Lady Page 24
