Day Dreamer

by Jill Marie Landis

  The legs of the dining table and sideboard were standing in small dishes of water. When Celine asked Ada why, the woman shrugged and explained quite offhandedly, “A necessary precaution, dear. The centipedes are quite poisonous. The water keeps them from climbing up the table legs. We have them under the bed legs, too.” Celine shivered and tried not to think of climbing into bed and finding a poisonous many-legged creature between the sheets.

  A steady, refreshing, salt-scented breeze blew in off the sea. It lightened Celine’s spirit and renewed her vigor. While she ate in silence, she was able to watch Cord deal with his aunt.

  Although Ada kept up a steady stream of rambling conversation that seemed to have no point to it at all, Cord appeared to relax more and more the longer he lingered at the dining table. His gaze often wandered to the long windows, which opened onto a view of the aquamarine water.

  “Aunt Ada?” Cord interrupted his aunt in the middle of a long, convoluted recitation of a concoction of cornmeal, okra and seasoning.

  Ada blinked as if someone had just shaken her awake. “Why, yes, Cordero. What is it, dear?”

  “Tell me about Dunstain Place.”

  “Where would you like me to start?”

  “What was it like when you arrived? I thought my father’s manager was still in charge of the place.”

  Ada carefully wiped her mouth with her napkin before she answered. “A horrible man, I must say. He and I didn’t agree on anything. In fact, I don’t think I was here three days before I fired him.”

  Ada shifted so that she could address Gunnie, a slender black woman who had come into the room to clear the empty platters from the sideboard. The woman was rail-thin, her hair cropped close to her head. Her clothing was plain, well-worn navy blue Osnaburg that looked able to withstand hard labor.

  “Was it three days, Gunnie? Or did he last a little longer?” Ada asked.

  “Tree days only.” Her head high, her arms full of plates, Gunnie left the room without acknowledging anyone except Ada.

  “That’s what I thought. His name was Philpot, I think, and he was a terrible taskmaster. Very intolerant, Cordero. You would have been appalled at the way he ran things, I’m sure.”

  “What happened after he left?”

  “Why, nothing, dear.”

  Cord cleared his throat and shifted in his chair. “You hired someone to replace him?”

  “No …”

  “With no overseer, who sees to the slaves, who runs the plantation?”

  Ada blinked her wide blue eyes. Her brow puckered in a slight frown. She shook her head, a gesture which set her second chin quivering. “A few of them ran off. It was so long ago, it’s hard to recall how many exactly, but not many. I suppose you would say I am in charge, but Bobo helps.”

  “Bobo?”

  “Yes. He seemed the most capable. Came to me and told me not to worry, that he would help to keep things running smoothly. I never had any reason to doubt him.”

  “And the others?” Cord crossed his arms over his chest, took a long, deep breath and sighed.

  “They still live in the village down below the mill.”

  Celine watched and listened as Cord questioned his aunt. She could see him straining to hold his temper. This innocent, somewhat vague woman seemed to have single-handedly ruined a once thriving sugar plantation.

  “What do you live on, Aunt?”

  “Oh, I have a very small inheritance from the Dunstain estate. Don’t ever think I have spent the sugar money, dear. Your father’s solicitor still handles that, but he is away just now. Gone to England, I think. His wife’s family—”

  “You’re still growing sugar?” Cord effectively cut her off, the only way to get Ada’s attention.

  Ada frowned. “Why, of course we grow sugar. Dunstain Place is a sugar plantation, isn’t it?”

  “But we heard in Baytowne—”

  “Posh.” She waved away the notion. “What do they know? I don’t have anything to do with anyone down there.”

  “Are you saying you’ve been running this place alone and that it’s still producing sugar?” Unable to hide his impatience any longer, Cord shoved away from the table and stalked over to the open windows, where he stood staring out to sea. Celine knew him well enough to know that he was at the end of his rope.

  When Ada glanced over in a silent appeal for help, Celine was forced to come to the gentle woman’s aid.

  “I’m sure your aunt did what she thought best …”

  Cord turned his attention to Celine.

  “My aunt fired the manager. She hasn’t hired another in all these years. You expect me to believe that she arrived from England—a maiden lady—with the capability of running a sugar plantation? Can you honestly tell me you believe that? You’ve seen the state of this house and the grounds.”

  “It’s true that I never married …,” Ada said softly, apologetically, twisting her napkin in her hands.

  Celine stood up and walked around the table until she stood behind Ada’s chair. “Don’t you think a woman is capable of running a plantation as well as a man?”

  “Do you?” he countered.

  Celine crossed her arms and raised her chin a notch. “Of course I do.”

  Ada tried to appeal to Cord. “Please. I don’t want to be the cause of an argument between you two …”

  “We don’t need you to provide cause,” Cord assured her without taking his eyes off Celine. “My wife and I find enough to argue about on our own.”

  Both women were watching him now. Ada’s eyes were filled with unshed tears. Celine’s flared with anger. The two of them were driving him insane, but in vastly different ways. Ada’s vague answers and her admission that she had been running Dunstain Place alone raised his ire, but the last hour in Celine’s constant presence had raised more than that. He was aware of every move she made, every time she looked his way. He was constantly aroused by her. She was driving him mad.

  When he’d walked into the dining room she had already been seated at the table, and he’d caught her licking sweet mango juice off her lips. She had paused to look up at him and had smiled in greeting. He’d tried scowling very hard, which put an end to that.

  She’d taken the time to change into the low-necked coral gown she had worn aboard ship. Her breasts should have paled in comparison to the whore Bonnie’s, but although Celine’s were not overly large, there was something ultimately more seductive about the tantalizing glimpse of the ripe firmness of her silken skin. It would have been difficult not to notice the way her skin glistened or the way her midnight hair clung in curling wisps around her damp hairline.

  Each time Celine shifted in her chair, he was aware of it. Each time she leaned forward to reach for her wineglass and gave him another view of her cleavage, he imagined what it would be like to bury his face in her breasts. He watched her slender hands move, watched her fingers grasp the wine stem. Each time she ran her tongue over her lips or touched her napkin to them, he felt a quickening in his loins and was forced to look away.

  Each and every time he looked at Celine he wanted her. He felt like an idiot. He wanted his own wife so badly that he was hard pressed not to leap over the table and take her amid the mangoes.

  He wanted to take her in his arms, to make her cry out with the same need she so unwittingly compelled him to feel. He wanted her over him, beneath him, around him. He ached for her. He wanted her with the fiercest need he had ever felt for another living soul. His need scared the holy hell out of him.

  “I have to get out of here,” he said to no one in particular as he shoved his hand through his hair and pulled at the collar of his shirt. He was nearly choking with frustration.

  Ada was near tears again. “I’m sorry, Cordero. I fired Philpot so long ago. I truly meant to hire another manager.”

  “I’m sorry too, Aunt. I’m not angry with you.” He felt guilty as hell about the anxious, apologetic look on Ada’s face, but he couldn’t think past escape, even if Celine
would probably see it as another attempt to run from his feelings.

  And this time she’d be right, he realized. But as far as he was concerned, she could think whatever she wanted.

  He stalked out of the room, unaware that Celine had followed him until he was nearly through the huge, open beamed sitting room at the front of the house where a portrait of his mother still hung above the fireplace mantel. She grabbed his arm just as he was about to step out onto the veranda.

  “Cord, how can you upset her like that and simply storm off?”

  He stared pointedly at her hand, where she had gathered a fistful of shirtsleeve and was holding tight. She let go.

  “You hurt that dear lady for no reason,” Celine said.

  “I asked a few questions and stated my opinion. If she chose to be hurt by that, it’s her prerogative.”

  “It’s too bad no one ever taught you that what you give comes back to you, Cordero.”

  “Is it really that simple for you, Celine?”

  “Yes, because I believe it. It could be for you, too, if you would ever let yourself feel anything but anger.”

  He started off again.

  “Where are you going?” she wanted to know.

  “What do you care as long as I’m not pressing you for favors you are not willing to grant?”

  His question had the desired effect. Her anger was immediately replaced with shock.

  She was standing too close. He picked up the floral scent of her hair. He saw every facet of her eyes and became incapable of moving toward her or away. He felt threatened, as if he were hovering on a precipice where one step in either direction would send him to his doom.

  But threats of doom had never set well with him.

  Cord reached out with lightning swiftness. Before he could change his mind he slipped one hand around the back of her neck and his other arm around her waist. He pulled her up against him, hard and fast, and covered her lips with his.

  The feel of her in his arms, the taste of her sweet lips rocked him and stoked his need. He felt shock and surprise reverberate through her, followed by a weak attempt to hold him at bay. He continued to press her, forced her to open up to him. He slipped his tongue between her teeth and heard her moan, whether in stifled protest or pleasurable surprise he could not tell. He delved deep, teasing her with his tongue. She tasted of mango and honey and the promise of a sweetness he had never savored. His hand cupped one of her breasts, his fingers traced the swell of bosom above the low neckline of her gown. He heard her gasp, felt her press her breast against his palm.

  He finally tore his mouth from hers. With his hands on her shoulders, he stood there breathing hard, staring down into deep violet eyes wide with shock. He had to get away before he took her there on the threshold.

  At the hitching rail, his horse whinnied. The sound was just enough to break the spell. He let go of her and walked away without a word.

  Celine watched Cord stride off. His footsteps pounded so heavily over the veranda’s rotted floorboards that she thought it might give way. He cleared the steps and jerked his horse’s reins free of the hitching post. Without pausing to glance back, he mounted the white horse and rode off down the lane.

  Still trembling in the aftermath of the shocking sensual assault, she reached up to trace her lips, then pressed her hands over her frantically beating heart. Her flesh burned where his fingers had touched her. She knew a frightening hunger that pulsed through her, flooding her with longing. He did not love her. If she gave herself to him, if she went to his bed, would he open a Pandora’s box of desire that might never be closed? Would he awaken in her whatever need had driven her mother to ply her trade?

  Cord had not said a word, but there was no mistaking the message behind his kiss—he wanted to do much more than plunder her mouth, he wanted to touch more than just her breast.

  She closed her eyes and tried to pretend she had no knowledge of carnal acts between a man and a woman, tried to forget the tarnished memories of her mother with her lovers.

  She tried to dismiss the abandoned way Cord had just kissed her, but it was as impossible as trying to forget to breathe. His touch, his scent, his taste were still upon her. Not to mention his spell.

  Celine could not move. She could not think beyond the moment. The road that disappeared into the thick foliage was deserted, but in her mind she saw Cordero riding away. She closed her eyes and saw him standing over her, brash and naked in the small cabin aboard the Adelaide. She experienced him as caring enough to hold her throughout the storm, bold enough to take her in his arms and kiss her senseless.

  She was willing to give herself to him as wife. But thinking of him now, all too aware of how easily her body had responded to his touch, she realized for the first time that giving herself to Cord would put her in danger of losing her heart to a man who might never learn how to love in return.

  Twelve

  Cord stood in the shade of a stand of banana trees watching the inhabitants of the slave village go about the business of life. Although none of them paused to stare at him directly, he could feel their eyes watching him—the eyes of those he owned through a mere circumstance of birth.

  Overhead, the tattered leaves of the banana trees whispered on the trades as naked children of dusky hues played in the dirt among the cluster of crude shacks gathered near the sugar mill. The children spoke in a mixed patois of African words long ago corrupted by English and Carib. Cord could not help but call to mind other words that bespoke the origins of the slaves—Ashanti, Fanti, Dahoman—names of languages and tribes intermingled and mistakenly used by slavers to identify people brought to these islands in chains.

  From where he stood, Cord could see women tilling the soil in gardens of corn, sweet potatoes and cassava planted behind their homes. In a lean-to not far away, three women sat on a grass mat weaving baskets while a man beside them fashioned a length of rope.

  His grandfather, Cord knew, would never understand the Caribbean planters’ custom of giving their slaves house plots on which to grow their own cash crops and raise small livestock and poultry. On Sundays the slaves were allowed to move freely about the island, to take their extra produce to the marketplace to sell or barter for clothes, rum or cash. Nor would Henre understand his need to draw up the paperwork to set these people free as soon as his father’s solicitor returned.

  Cord moved out of the shade and crossed the open space before the mill. The main house was visible at the crest of the hill behind him, but out of necessity, he put it and Celine out of his mind for the moment. A few of the children stopped playing and ran over to him, while others stood shyly watching from afar. Within a few seconds, he saw a tall, well-built man in his early thirties duck below the doorjamb of a shack and begin walking toward him.

  The man was dressed in blue, coarse canvas pants cut short at the knee. Although some of the men wore shirts on Sunday, this one was bare-chested. He was thick-necked, with powerful shoulders and arms. There was mild curiosity on his face, but no greeting smile.

  “You are Moreau, owner of Dunstain Place,” he said. It was not a question.

  “I am,” Cord replied.

  “I am Bobo. Chief gang boss and boiler.”

  “My aunt says that since the manager left you have been overseeing things here.” Cord watched Bobo carefully. He wanted to be accepted without upsetting the workings of the place. His success depended upon how he dealt with this man.

  “Miss Ada been runnin’ dis place.”

  Cord could not fathom any such thing, but for the moment he was content to go along with what Bobo said.

  “How many slaves are still here?”

  Bobo looked up at a passing cloud that stood out in white relief against the azure sky.

  “Maybe one twenty. Broke in tree gangs. Some workin’ sugar, some in the tobac and corn, some wid the animals. One work in the house for Miss Ada. Gunnie be her name.” Bobo sized up Cord, his deep-set ebony eyes studying the newcomer intently.

/>   “Tobacco and corn, you say?”

  Bobo nodded. “An’ cattle. Some horses.”

  Cord folded his arms and glanced at his horse, grazing on the hillside. “You mean to tell me my aunt has diversified?”

  “I don’ know ’bout dat. I mean to tell you de truth, is all.”

  “There’s been no outside help?”

  Bobo shook his head without hesitation. “Nobody help.”

  “I heard in Baytowne the slaves had all run off.”

  “A few mebbe. Half dozen. Long time ago now.” Bobo added with a shrug, “Mos’ like to stay on de place where dey born, de place dey kin buried. Dis an island, mon. Where dey go?”

  “I’d like you to show me around the place. I’d like to see what … my aunt … has accomplished.”

  Bobo proceeded to show him the mill where the sugarcane was ground between a set of three huge, cogged rollers. It was exactly as Cord remembered it, down to the deep furrows worn in the earth by the plodding cattle that powered the mill.

  During production, dark brown cane juice flowed into the trough between the rollers. Piped through a cistern to the boiling house, it was clarified and evaporated into crystallized sugar. Bobo’s task as a boiler was to ladle freshly extracted juice from a cistern into the first copper, skim off the impurities that rose to the surface and then ladle the remaining liquid between copper pots graduated in size.

  As the juice passed into progressively smaller, hotter coppers, with constant skimming and evaporation, it became thick and ropy, dark brown in color. A gallon of juice contracted into a pound of muscovado, or crude sugar, which then had to be refined.

  As the complicated and dangerous skimming and pouring continued until the sugar crystallized, the boiler had to be not only an expert but somewhat of an artist. Not only did he endure suffocating heat and the stench of scalded sugar, he had to avoid being scalded himself. The boiling sugar had cost many slaves a limb or a life.

  A planter’s fortune depended not only on his field hands, but on his millers and boilers. Cord knew that Bobo must have earned his way into his position of authority. Cord also knew that ultimately, the sugar had to be warehoused and sold. And he knew that times had not changed so much that the warehouse merchants would welcome conducting business dealings with a slave.