The Last Killiney
Page 78
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That night at dinner, James was inconsolable.
He’d bought a small bottle of Bajan rum and now he drank it, arguing vehemently with no one in particular about the avarice of the plantation owners and the injustice in not only slavery as a whole, but in the fact that from the comfort of their English estates these repulsive landlords didn’t even witness the suffering they caused among their slaves.
By the end of the meal, James had downed the entire bottle of rum. He didn’t appear drunk, or at least he wouldn’t have in the company of strangers, but Ravenna and Sarah knew him too well. They all understood what really concerned him. Watching her follow Christian out of the cabin, James looked as if he fully expected never to see Ravenna again.
And had Christian not already shown her the kindness of withholding a kiss that by law was his, Ravenna might have been near madness herself when she was led into Christian’s room. With the door shut, in the darkness she clasped her hands together, looked up toward Paul’s heaven where she hoped he was. Forgive me, she thought, imagining his face. It’s you I love, and I’ll love you forever.
Christian lit the lantern, and as soon as the flame took hold, he turned his back on her and slipped out of the jacket so generously given to him by the plantation owners. “How pathetically old-fashioned.” He threw the coat down. “Should it please God so much to torment me with perpetual misfortune? Even my wedding day is a joke to Him.”
Then he did something remarkable. Glancing down at where he’d thrown his jacket on the hammock, he picked it back up. He turned to Ravenna with blatant displeasure. “I suppose my lot has been relegated to the floor?”
For a few seconds, she merely stood there. She didn’t believe what she’d just heard. When he glared at her impatiently, she managed to put aside her racing thoughts and sputter an answer. “I’ll take the floor.”
“Good, then you can fend off the rats.” He started to unbutton his shirt, but when he saw her stupefied expression, he stopped what he was doing. “Oh, come now, you didn’t seriously think I’d find your corpulence arousing, did you?”
She shook her head. His eyes lowered to her pregnant belly. “Even if I did,” he said, “I wouldn’t subject my manhood to share the company of his spawn. Either one or the other of us would surely shrivel and die from the contact.”
Ignoring his tone, her thoughts lingered instead on his release of her, on the wedding and that look of humility she’d glimpsed in his obsessive stare. “You would’ve let me go today, wouldn’t you?”
Christian resumed with unbuttoning his shirt. “I’ve no intentions of negating your promise.”
“But you thought about it, didn’t you?”
“As soon as you give birth to that Hibernian bastard—,” and he pointed loosely at her stomach, “—you can be certain I mean to collect on our agreement. By then, you’ll appreciate the trouble I’ve taken to be with you. You’ll have forgotten about him.”
Pain flared in his eyes as he spat out the word, turned to the hammock and threw back the blankets. His hand closed on something, a small and shiny object, and Ravenna felt a surge of fear, for roughly, vindictively, he grabbed her wrist. “Here,” he said, shoving the object in her grasp. “Consider it a wedding gift from your precious Paddy.”
When she opened her hand, she found Paul’s watch shimmering in the lamplight.
She gaped at it, feeling the cool silver against her water-swollen fingers. She remembered that last night on Discovery’s deck when Paul had checked the time beneath the tumult of a rainstorm, and she could still see his clumsy, lumbering steps as he approached the taffrail, his burly chest glistening with rain and the wet fabric of his trousers clinging thickly around his hips. How I miss you, do you know how much? Do you know what I’m going through, wherever you are?
Feeling the corners of her eyes fill with tears, she looked up timidly. “Thank you,” she said.
But Christian had already turned away, begun removing his buckled shoes with a scowl. “Take him, then,” he muttered, dropping the first shoe. “He’s ruined everything for me.”