Horsman, Jennifer

by Crimson Rapture

  "I once said that I would never trust to love again; I'm not sure of that anymore."

  She held her breath.

  "I also realized that I've never asked you. I always assumed I knew." He looked at her intently. "Why did you leave me, Christina?"

  He might have thought she hadn't heard the question, except a montage of emotions suddenly played through her eyes, as though she was reliving the event. Then she suddenly stood and turned away from him.

  "I was confused," she finally began. "Terribly confused. Part of me was always afraid of you—of the way you settle matters so forcefully and with... violence." She told of seeing the haunting scene with Diego, of how Cajun had warned her not to pass judgment and then much later how Richard had known of Diego and how he had explained what had happened. "I only knew what I had seen and this coming after what your men did to her and oh, so many other incidents. Justin," she whispered, "I loved you very, very much but I did not think I could live your life with you."

  Justin tried to consider this, the implications and all that it meant but his mind had stopped on the past tense she used with love and so the next question came without thought. "Why didn't you tell me these things?"

  She swung around with a look part incredulous and part something he rarely had a chance to see from her. A brief flash of anger, quickly concealed with lowered lashes. The message was clear, however. She had told him; in a hundred different ways, she had tried to tell him. And he had paid no heed.

  "I'm sorry," and indeed he was, "but, God, Christina, if you had only told me you wanted to leave—"

  "Would you have let me go?"

  Again he was rebuked and in his silence rest the obvious answer.

  She turned back around and said softly, "Only in retrospect did I understand my mistake. A mistake I know you can't forgive."

  He came to stand behind her, turning her around to see a question in her eyes. "We both made mistakes that need forgiving. But you're my wife now, the mother of my son and nothing can change that. We have a lifetime ahead of us and, God, Christina," he said with feeling, "if we gave our love another chance, it could be a good life. I want to start over. And I want to know if it's possible."

  Words that made dreams come true. Christina managed a quick nod, one she felt through every fiber of her being. Had Justin any idea of her desperate struggle not to throw her arms around him and demonstrate just how much she loved him, he would have ended the night in the way he so often imagined. But as it was, he remembered only too well her tears from their wedding night. He would not force her love. He would wait until she came to him.

  "All beginnings are fragile," he said softly. "Ours more than most. We must trespass cautiously."

  She nodded quickly.

  "Are you going to cry again?" He was smiling.

  She lied and shook her head.

  "Then I want you to end the night like you started it. Seal our beginning with a kiss, my lady."

  He watched her reaction carefully. A smile of pure joy lifted through her as her arms reached up and around his neck, and with no temerity whatsoever, their beginning was sealed. Sealed with a kiss so sweet he felt his firm resolve melt. The taste of lavender and sherry, the small weight pressed against him, and a passion he suddenly knew could never die. He broke the kiss and for a long moment studied the joy so plainly apparent and wanted her happiness far more than his own; he kissed her forehead and said good night.

  Three days later she received a large box filled with a dozen silk dancing slippers and a note that read: "To the dances that await us." She laughed and then cried and then laughed some more.

  CHAPTER 13

  Christina looked at her son, playing with a large ball on the lawn nearby. He was the problem. She turned back to Charles Paton, who was packing his things onto his mount in preparation to leave. "But it will take at least a week of work!" she pointed out. "Probably longer!"

  "If you have something against work, you should not harbor pretenses of becoming a painter. Women..." and he muttered something thankfully unintelligible.

  Christina folded her arms across her front and if he could have seen under her skirts, he would have glimpsed her small bare foot furiously tapping the green grass. "I wouldn't mind if I just understood the point of it."

  "You, my dear, do not have to understand anything. You simply have to do it." He mounted his horse with surprising agility. "Until next week," and he kicked his horse forward.

  Watching him leave, she suddenly called out with a last-minute hope, "Are you sure you won't stay for supper?"

  He stopped his mount. "I have more important things to do," he called back. "Things like painting! And if you could rid your mind of its trivial pursuits, you would realize the same!"

  Charles Paton did not hear her uncharacteristic and very unladylike response to this as he urged his mount on. His back was to her and distance was put between them, and she did not see his smile of intense satisfaction. Satisfaction that had never before come from teaching a student.

  Justin was returning home. The sun just began lowering in the clear afternoon sky. Trees rustled softly with a light wind. Long shadows fell over the road. The cool but pleasant air carried the fertile scent of growth and everything seemed to burst into green shades of spring.

  The optimism in his heart found voice in a fine loud whistle. Optimism about everything. The next six months in an illustrious career as a smuggler, or, more politely, a privateer. This excitement on top of discovering love anew.

  He had taken Christina for a long week in town. They had wined and dined, socialized at dinners and danced at parties. They had shared long walks, open air carriage rides, and picnics in the park. They had talked and laughed and for the first time together, they had played, teased, laughed with their son. And while he still waited for her, no matter how difficult this was and it seemed to grow more difficult each passing day—he knew they were progressing down the path of forgiveness.

  Once he dealt with those bothersome French agents and saw his ships off, there would be even more time to spend with Christina and little Justin, time with her that he both needed and wanted.

  Coming up from the opposite direction, Justin met Charles Paton on the road just off his property grounds. The two men reined in their mounts, exchanged greetings, and Justin first asked how the lessons were proceeding.

  "I don't mind telling you, Christina is the best student I've ever had and, God knows," he looked away, stuttered slightly, "I've had too many."

  "Really!" Justin was pleased.

  "She has an astonishing talent, the artist's sense of what is right, as well as a good dose of perfectionism." Feeling unusually expansive, he elaborated. "I give her an assignment that all other students will take a half day to complete, at most a day. She immediately perceives that to do it right, the task will require a week of work."

  Justin smiled in response. His horse wanted more rein, rolled its head and danced and, like all good horsemen, Justin responded without thought to loosen the bit. Then removing his water cask from his saddlebag, he took a long drought and handed it to Charles.

  "To tell the truth," Charles said after his own long drought, "I might even be enjoying myself if she weren't so infuriating."

  "Infuriating? Christina?"

  "Aye. Each of my simplest statements are met with ten of her questions. Ten! She never stops and then too, I like my students to quake in the wake of my voice. A proper dose of fear and intimidation is good for any teacher-student relationship. For some reason, the more angry and insulting I get, the bolder she becomes."

  "Christina?" To say the least, Justin was intrigued by this perspective of Christina. If there were any one set of characteristics that were ill-matched between them, it was her gentleness and timidity. So gentle and in that sense fragile, he had to exercise the utmost care not to frighten and intimidate her.

  How had this man made her overcome it?

  Charles Paton handed the cask back. He understood Ju
stin's incredulity but knew not how to explain. Christina would overcome anything put between herself and painting simply because she had the passion. Had Rembrandt been born in a den of thieves, it is not true—as people often thought—that he would have become a talented pickpocket. No, he would have found his way to an easel sooner or later. So it was with Christina. Not only did she overcome the fact of her sex but she was beginning to overcome the very timidity that had prevented her from recognizing her talent. Talent that did not fit into the picture she had of herself. There was no place for anything as grandiose as talent. Until now.

  "It's truly a shame," Charles said to himself out loud and with a shake of his head.

  "What?"

  "This sad fact of her sex."

  Justin chuckled. "I'll have to disagree with that."

  "Hmmm," he replied with a smile of understanding. Fortunately, he had rarely suffered from the effects of love over his lifetime. While he had a number of mistresses and lovers throughout his life, he regarded them with just slightly more esteem than a good book or a bottle of rum and, in the end, women fell into the category of things that stole from his passion. "Well," he sighed, returning to the subject, "she could possibly reach great heights if she just weren't so... so utterly female!"

  Justin laughed, and after settling the matter of smuggling paints and canvases into the country— things which would not be available with the Embargo Act—the two parted with good-byes. He turned his mount toward home and resumed his whistle. Winter had indeed melted into the bright promise of spring.

  The grand manor stood at the end of the long tree-lined lane and beyond that the lake glistened in the afternoon sun. Off to the side and through the trees stretched acres of expansive lawns. Beau barked and Justin turned to catch sight of Christina and his son in the distance. It was an idyllic scene: Christina stood in front of her easel, his son played on a blanket nearby, and Beau and Beauty romped together over the lawns. He moved to become a part of it.

  "Oh look who's here!" Christina called as she swept her son into her arms to see.

  Justin laughed as the dogs, followed by Christina and his son, all ran up to greet him. He swung off his horse and first took Justin into his arms. He tossed him into the air and swung him round and round until he heard his son's excitement burst forth in peals of uncontrolled laughter.

  Christina felt that tingling excitement all young ladies feel the first time they're courted and in love. She could not suppress the joy in her heart. Ever since the night of the ball, the long week's holiday in town, just seeing him made her feel... well, giddy! As though she had enjoyed one too many glasses of champagne—drunk on her happiness.

  He could see her happiness; it shined through her, and as they exchanged pleasantries, a similar rush of emotions filled him. In the first few moments with her he felt much like a schoolboy—and God knows this was new to him—and today she looked the opposite part of a schoolgirl. Her hair was parted and two long braided ropes fell well past her waist. Splashed with paints, she wore a smock over a pale yellow day dress. She looked like a peasant girl, and mid-sentence she lifted her skirts to see what he knew he'd find. Two very bare feet. He smiled.

  "I couldn't resist. The day was so warm," she explained. Indeed she could not; ever since the barefoot days on the island, she could don neither boots nor even slippers without discomfort. "And neither could your son," she laughed, tickling little Justin's bare feet.

  Justin was trying to reconcile the fact that this young girl was one and the same with the temptress in silk night robes, the beautiful and alluring creature at the ball.

  "I saw Mr. Paton on his way out." He smiled and let Justin down to the ground. "How did it go?"

  Quite suddenly and dramatically her mood changed.

  "Awful! The man's impossible, just impossible! He's insolent, insulting, mean and arrogant— though," she admitted reluctantly, "his arrogance is justified and I cannot fault him that. He never likes anything I do and the worst of it, the very worst of it, is it's been two lessons now and he still has not let me put a brush to the canvas! Imagine!"

  Suppressing a chuckle at the rush of her words, Justin tried to imagine any other time she had become so passionate. And besides some noted exceptions, he could find none.

  "And do you know what he'd have me do?" She returned her gaze from the canvas.

  "What's that?"

  "He instructed me to paint on paper thirty shades of each color! That's black, white, brown, green, yellow, blue, and red! It will take me a week at least and, oh!" She looked at her son on all fours trying to catch the dogs. "It's all your fault!"

  "My fault?" Justin tried to reason this through.

  "Yes!" she cried out and, laughing, she ran to catch little Justin. She lifted him into her arms and the picture of her laughing, holding him in the air, the sun setting behind them to silhouette the whole, would be yet another to stay forever in his mind.

  "You gave me him, didn't you? And you," she talked to the younger of the two, "are such a handful! Never a moment's peace with you, is there?" Little Justin laughed with a whole body grin and she handed him safely back to his father. "Why couldn't you give me a son that at least takes naps like other children?"

  Justin chuckled and shook his head. If she was in any way dissatisfied with their first child, he would be more than willing to give her another and he was about to tell her this when suddenly she was serious.

  "Did you speak with Mr. Paton?" she asked in a pretense of nonchalance.

  "A bit."

  "Did he comment on my progress?"

  "Yes."

  "Oh." She looked away. "I imagine he said he'd not even bother with me if you weren't so very generous."

  Justin saw that she truly expected this and, unbelievably, she was afraid to hear his response. "Christina," he reached a hand to her face, "he said—his exact words—that you were the best student he ever had."

  She looked up. Marked disbelief mixed with marked fear. He might have just told her he had it on good word that the world was going to end on the morrow. Then she turned quickly away and pretended to busy herself with gathering her things. "You're just teasing me," she whispered on a frightened pause.

  Justin put his son back to the ground and moved to Christina. He was about to take a drastic measure to force her to confront the happy fact that she had talent. A lot of it. He reached for her arm, but in the same instant, Beauty drew their attention with a loud yelp of pain.

  Christina took in the sight at a glance and darted forward, only to find Justin's strength suddenly wrapped around her in restraint. Wide eyes watched as Beau mounted, tried to hold Beauty still with his jaws around her neck. This, however, was not Beauty's cause of pain. "What's he doing to her?" she asked in a panic.

  Justin looked at the distress in her eyes and laughed, "Even you're not that innocent. They're just mating, silly. Beauty must be in season."

  Beauty cried out in acute pain and tried desperately to tear away from Beau. This was not possible. Christina tried desperately to tear away from Justin. This was not possible either. "He's hurting her! Make him stop! Oh, please!"

  "Not a chance." One would likely lose a hand trying to interfere. After all dogs were just animals, answering only the call of the wild while mating. He was about to explain the simple facts of life when Beauty, mindless with fear and the pain of it, screamed in a long howl.

  "Oh God! Let me go! Let me—" She squirmed, prying desperately at his arms that would not loosen. Beau was killing her! Something was terribly wrong; a simple mating would not hurt so much. "Please let me—"

  "Stop it. You're not going—" The sentence nearly choked him and he froze in sudden shock. The similarity of this, the very words he uttered, to a scene best forgotten crashed into his consciousness a mere second before the deja vu experience hit her too, hit her like a stone to her head.

  The dogs were forgotten. Breathing hard, she went limp, like a lifeless doll. "Let me go," she said slowly in a v
oice intense with the pain of her memory.

  Justin instinctively released her. With neither pause nor a word, she took flight. Leaving the dogs and little Justin. Leaving him. Running as though from a world turned suddenly into a nightmare.

  Justin did not move to stop her. "All beginnings are fragile," he whispered to no one but himself, hoping against hope that a beginning had not just ended.

  Christina skipped dinner. She had not seen Justin since it happened. After finally seeing her son to bed, she sat in the upstairs sitting room lost to her art work. Aggie and Rosarn sat quietly with her. Aggie knitted a loose blanket for her charge, while Rosarn busied herself darning the socks.

  Christina tried to keep her mind on task but her thoughts kept spinning with unpleasant memories. She kept shoving them out of her mind's eye. Unlike Justin, she refused to even consider that the afternoon's unpleasantness could ruin their new beginning. Something so grand and wonderful could not be shattered like glass. They were bound to have setbacks, and while tonight she struggled to escape the past, tomorrow would be yet another new day. She would wake early, ask Hope to fix a special morning meal, and she would greet Justin at the table and with a smile. A smile that said all was well again. A smile that asked for another chance.

  Aggie and Rosarn had mutually agreed to keep their mistress company for the night. The house had been suddenly filled with happiness ever since the success of the ball. The master and mistress were on terms now and a fine lovely pair they made. Now something was amiss. They were not only curious, hoping Christina would confide in them, but they were caring as well.

  A knock sounded softly at the door and Mary, the downstairs maid, popped her head inside. "The master wants to see you." She was looking at Rosarn.

  Christina set her paints down to rise.

  "No, ma'am. He wants to see you, Rosarn. Right off."