Lovestorm

by Judith E. French

  “You must listen to me,” Elizabeth exclaimed. “I have to tell you what happened.”

  Sommersett’s hooded eyes narrowed. “The matter is ended. There is no need to discuss—″

  “There is a need,” she flung back. “I have a need. For once in my life, I want you to listen to me and to what I want.”

  His shoulders tensed and he drew back an open hand, then he began to chuckle. “You’re not all your mother’s child, are you, Elizabeth? She always said you had my tenacity. All right, have your say. I’ll listen. But I warn you, I have a meeting with Buckingham at noon. I’ll not leave the King’s favorite waiting for a chit’s whim.” He sat down on the settle and motioned to her. “Come, sit beside me. You’re in no danger, despite your sassy tongue. Think you I’d introduce you to your future husband with your face bruised and swollen?″

  Cautiously, Elizabeth obeyed and began to tell her father what had transpired after the Speedwell went down off the Virginia coast. Sommersett gave her his complete attention, saying nothing while she spoke.

  “And so you see, Father,” Elizabeth concluded nearly an hour later, “why Cain cannot remain a prisoner. We must find him and buy his freedom.”

  “This man is the reason why you say you cannot marry Edward Lindsey.”

  She nodded and looked down at her lap. The fingers on her left hand fumbled nervously with the lace decolletage of her lavender satin gown.

  “Let me be absolutely certain I understand you,” he said. “You believe yourself in love with this . . . this Indian, and you wish to wed him instead of Lord Dunmore.”

  “Yes . . . no.” Tears blurred her vision. “It’s not that simple.” She sniffed and tried to gain control of her cracking voice. “I want you to find Cain and send him back to Virginia.” Elizabeth reached for her father’s hand and squeezed it.

  Sommersett allowed the familiarity but did not return the pressure. “You are more disturbed by your ordeal than I believed if you think your family will permit you to marry a savage who eats raw meat and worships trees.”

  “Cain doesn′t—″ she began in protest and then broke off. There was no way she could explain Cain to a man like her father. It wasn’t possible. How could she explain something she didn’t understand herself? ”Father, he—″ She sighed. “You’re right, of course. I didn’t expect to be allowed to marry him. But he does deserve a reward for saving my life. Surely, it would sully the Sommersett honor to let such a debt go unpaid.”

  “You were intimate with this creature?”

  “No!” She felt heat rise in her cheeks. “This creature, as you call him, is a man—a man of great honor. I haven’t shamed you. I retained my maidenhead. I am as pure as when you sent me forth.”

  “Then why do you say you do not wish to marry Dunmore?” He removed his hand from her clasp. “The man to which you have been betrothed since you were nine years old.”

  Elizabeth rose stiffly and walked to the window. This interview was not going as she had hoped. She pressed her cheek against the cool glass and stared unseeing at the garden. Her stomach churned. Cain’s future, his very life, hung in the balance. If she could not convince her father to help, she would be condemning the man she loved to certain death.

  “Well?” Sommersett demanded.

  She turned to face him, her face as pale as milk, and forced herself to say the words that would do most toward soothing her father’s ire without surrendering. “Perhaps I will wed Edward,” she said. “I don’t now. I only know that I am not the same person who sailed to Virginia to wed a stranger. I have changed inside, in ways I cannot . . .”

  Elizabeth paused and drew in a deep breath. “Forgive me, sire. I know that you have my best wishes at heart. I don’t wish to disobey you, but I cannot wed a man I don’t know. I want time to make Edward’s acquaintance—to see if I can have any feeling toward him at all.” Jade fire flickered behind her eyes, and her tone took on a thread of steel. “I want your promise that you will not force me to marry Edward if I decide I can’t abide him.”

  “Has Dunmore offended you in some way?”

  “Damn me, Father! You don’t understand. How could the man have offended me when I haven’t laid eyes on him since I was a child? That’s the point! He is an unknown. I don’t know if I could ever love him, or even come to respect him as a wife should respect and admire her husband.”

  Sommersett scoffed. “Love. What girlish prattle is this about love? Marriage is an alliance between families. You never complained before about the choice I made for you. Why now?”

  She faced his rising rage with unyielding spirit, meeting his glare fearlessly. “Because Cain has taught me something of the love a woman should feel for a man, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life tied to—”

  “Enough.” He stood up. “I will think on it.”

  “Why can’t you give me an answer now? Every hour we wait puts Cain in greater danger. We must locate him before it is too late.”

  Sommersett held up his hand. “No. No more. I told you I would consider your plea. I have ever been lenient with you, Elizabeth. Doubtless I’ve spoiled you and encouraged your headstrong notions. We will speak of this again tonight.”

  “Can you not at least try to find out where Cain is?” she dared. “I know you—”

  “Must I give you a taste of my hand to secure your obedience?” he snapped. “There is no need to search out your savage. ‘Tis common gossip that Dunmore purchased the Indian. He has been bragging about Whitehall for weeks that he’d ordered one of the natives from Virginia.”

  “You let me prattle on when you knew all along that Dunmore had Cain? Damn you for a cold, unfeeling bastard!”

  Elizabeth didn’t flinch when her father’s hand smacked across her face.

  Cain had tried not to look for Elizabeth when he was dragged off the English ship and thrown into a coach. He’d promised himself that he wouldn’t—that he would forget she’d ever existed. But he hadn’t been able to keep that promise. Elizabeth was flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone. The only way to cast her from his heart would be to tear it out and throw it onto the ground.

  He’d had many weeks to mull over, her denial. After she had come to the place where he was chained, his captors treated him better. He was given fresh water and food twice a day. Men with tools had come to build a platform so that he might sleep above the filthy bilge water. They had even left him blankets against the chill. The question was, had she ordered him to be well cared for out of affection or guilt? He wanted to believe in her innocence, but common sense told him that she had indeed betrayed him.

  The inactivity enforced by the chains that bound Cain had tormented him. No torture could have been worse for a man who had known only the freedom of the forests and open sea. His eyes had ached for the sight of green grass and the flash of a bird wing; his ears had strained in vain for the cry of a hunting hawk.

  The fetid odor of the ship’s hold had sickened him, but it was nothing to the stench that enveloped him as the coach rattled and bumped along the city streets. He had been manacled hand and foot when the sailors had dumped him facedown on the floor of the coach, but he was alone inside the vehicle. It had been easy to work himself onto a seat where he could see out, despite the drawn leather curtains.

  When Cain was a child, he had marveled at his grandmother’s wonderful tales of London—of trading places, called shops, where all manner of wonderful goods could be had for the asking; of brightly decked noblemen riding through the streets on magnificent horses; and of houses so tall they blocked out the sun. Of course, he hadn’t believed all her stories; even a little boy knew that men couldn’t build wigwams higher than trees.

  Cocumtha had said that London was only one town, that England had many, and she had said that more people lived in England than there were grains of sand upon the beach. Until today, Cain had believed she was exaggerating—stretching the facts to make a good story. Now, he wondered if she had been telling the truth about how
many Englishmen there actually were. He hadn’t imagined so many people walked the face of the earth.

  Grandmother had never seen the land of her ancestors; all she knew of England was what her own parents had told her. Cain thought that much had been lost in the telling. No wonder the English wanted to come to Lenni-Lenape land. This place was as foul and crowded as a nest of buzzard fledglings.

  From the window of the coach, Cain saw a woman taking water from an open ditch beside the street, and not an arrow’s shot away a man was dumping the carcass of a dog in that same stagnant stream. True, a few people were dressed in garments of fine cloth with weapons of shining steel at their waists, but even those men gave off a scent as strong as week-old fish.

  Eventually, the space between the houses became father apart and the road rougher. Patches of green and an occasional tree were visible from Cain’s window, and he realized they must have reached the end of the city. He tried to fix directions in his mind. He must remember the way back to London if he was ever to make his way home again.

  “It will not be easy,” Cain said to himself. “I am a stranger in this land.” He knew that he must learn English ways if he was to defeat his captors. “I must become as one of my enemies,” he murmured. The thought was bitter, but not as bitter as having his bones lie forever in this far-off land. “I will learn,” he promised himself, “and I will use their own wisdom against them.”

  Night fell over the English countryside, and the coach traveled on. Cain stretched out on the leather seat and closed his eyes. He did not know - if he could sleep, but he would try. Whatever waits ahead, he thought, I will need my strength.

  Unbidden, an image of Elizabeth rose in his mind. “I will find you again,” he promised softly, “and you will learn the price of betraying a warrior of the Lenni-Lenape.”

  Elizabeth had wasted no tears over the slap her father had given her. Instead, she’d retreated to her own chambers, then she’d sent Betty to the kitchen for cool water to bathe her smarting cheek. To her surprise, it was not Betty who returned with the pitcher but Bridget, her Irish maid who’d failed to sail on the Speedwell with her when they’d left for Virginia.

  “Ye wanted water, m’lady.”

  “What are you doing here, you faithless limmer?” Elizabeth demanded. “You’ve nerve enough for two to show your face.”

  Mischief danced in Bridget’s dark eyes, and she giggled shamelessly. “ ‘Tis awful glad I am to see ye, and that’s a fact.” She carried the silver ewer across the room and poured water into a painted china bowl. “Where ever did ye find that bird-boned little baggage? Too timid to say boo to a mouse. Cook put her to work turnin’ the spit.”

  “Bridget.” Elizabeth hid her delight in seeing her old companion behind a sharp tone. “I asked you a question. Why are you here at Sommersett House?”

  The Irish girl’s eyes widened in feigned innocence. “Here, m’lady? Where else would I be? Haven’t I been in yer service since we were children?”

  “Why weren’t you on the Speedwell?”

  “I truly meant to be there,” Bridget avowed. She averted her eyes, and scarlet circles tinted her plump cheeks as she busied herself with the bowl of water. “Me sister Maureen was taken wi’ the fever so sudden like that I had to fetch the priest for her. He gave her last rites, she was so bad. By the time she took a turn for the better, it was too late. I went to the docks, m’lady, I swear on me dear mother’s soul, but the Speedwell was gone.”

  “You lie as well as ever, you shameless slut,” Elizabeth accused. “You were afraid to go to Virginia with me. Admit it.”

  “Fearful I was,” the black-haired girl allowed, “and rightly so—seein’ how so many went to their doom aboard that cursed ship—but I’d never disobey ye. ‘Twas Maureen’s fever that’s at fault. When I found I was too late, I came straight back here to Sommersett House. Mistress Wells let that lazy Maggie go and kept me on in her place. I was that glad when I heard ye’d not drowned in the sea. Ye’ll be needin’ me to do for ye again, won’t ye, m’lady? Nobody else can do yer hair like I can, you’ve said that often enough.”

  “Maureen is as healthy as a pig,” Elizabeth declared. “And you are a bald-faced liar.” She smiled and held out her arms. “But I’m glad to see you anyway, Bridget. I’ve missed you.”

  Bridget flung herself into Elizabeth’s arms and hugged her tightly. “They said ye were dead,” she cried, “but I lit a candle for ye every Saturday, and I prayed to Saint Anne to bring ye safely home.”

  “If Saint Anne is the one who saved me, she took a peculiar form.” Elizabeth stepped back and chuckled. “Wait until I tell you what happened to me. I vow, even you’ve never spun a tale so outlandish.”

  “Do tell, m’lady,” the maid urged. “There are such rumors flying belowstairs, ye’d never suppose.” She tilted her head to one side. “That wench Betty has sense enough to keep a still tongue in her head. She’d admit or deny nothin’, though Cook tried to bribe her wi’ a pork pie.”

  “Betty’s loyal. I promised her she’d be trained as a proper maid. Since you’re back, you can take her in hand yourself.”

  “Me, m’lady?” Bridget grimaced. “That fluttersome jade’s better suited to the scullery. She’s not got the looks for a lady’s maid, nor ever will, I vow.” She grinned at Elizabeth.

  “Betty can’t be blamed for her face, no more than you can take credit for yours. You’ll treat her well, or I’ll turn you out for good and set her in your place,” Elizabeth threatened. “Now, do you wish to hear of Virginia or not? If you do, hush your chattering and listen to me.”

  The two of them talked all afternoon and into the evening. Bridget squealed and laughed and watched with sparkling eyes as Elizabeth related all that had happened to her since she’d left London, omitting only her personal feelings toward Cain. At dusk, Betty came up with a tray of food. Elizabeth inquired whether the girl had eaten, then sent her away with a few kind words. When they were alone, Elizabeth and Bridget shared the repast as they had done when both were children.

  The great clock on the landing had just struck ten when an unfamiliar maid came to summon Elizabeth to her father’s bedchamber.

  “Wait here until I return,” Elizabeth bade Bridget. “No, go and fetch Betty. She slept in my outer chamber last night. God knows where Cook put her tonight. Put her on the pallet, then wait to help me prepare for bed.”

  “Yes, m’lady.” Bridget gave a proper cursty.

  Elizabeth nodded her approval. Bridget was canny enough to know when and where to behave more like friend than servant. For a few hours they had scaled the walls that lay between their stations in life. Now, that time was past. Wordlessly, heart pounding, Elizabeth followed the new serving woman down a long flight of stairs and along the twisting corridors to her father’s rooms in the Tudor section of the house.

  They paused in the shadowy hall outside his lordship’s chamber and the maid knocked, then opened the heavy oak door for Elizabeth when he gave permission to enter.

  Elizabeth greeted him formally. “Sire.”

  Sommersett was reclining on a walnut daybed near the fireplace, wineglass in hand. This wing of the house was always chilly, despite the time of year, and a small fire burned on the hearth.

  Elizabeth noticed that her father had changed from his earlier stylish attire into a comfortable old dressing gown and had removed his wig, covering his close-cropped hair with an embroidered man’s cap. He beckoned her to come closer.

  “I trust your day was satisfactory, Father,” she murmured.

  He frowned. “You care not a damn for my day, Elizabeth. You’ve come to hear my decision on your request.”

  “I have.” She stood before him, hands clasped, hiding her terror behind a calm exterior.

  Sommersett drained the last of the wine and rose to his feet. “I met with Dunmore late this afternoon,” he said sternly. “I find no fault with him. Your wedding will take place on Michaelmas Eve.”

  Elizabeth
blanched and grasped the arm of the daybed to steady herself. “But, Father—”

  “We will hear no more of this romantic fancy of wild men. You will wed Dunmore and—”

  “I will not!”

  Sommersett rose and stood over her. “You will wed where you are bid, and you will never mention that Indian again.”

  “Will you drag me bound and gagged to the altar?” she cried. “I tell you, I ’ll not have him.”

  He seized Elizabeth’s shoulders and shook her. “You’ll obey me, girl, or I’ll have your Indian lover drawn and quartered, and you locked away in Bedlam for a madwoman.”

  Hot tears scalded her cheeks as her hair tumbled loose and fell about her shoulders. “You would take your spite out on Cain for my rebellion?”

  “Stupid bitch,” he roared. “Do you think you can stand against me in this?” His fingers dug into her flesh until she gasped with pain. Swearing, he thrust her away, and she fell back against the daybed.

  “All my life you have prated on of Sommersett honor,” she accused, finding her balance and facing him brazenly. “Where is that honor now—to so abuse a man who has done our family naught but good?”

  His face grew suddenly old. “You were always my favorite, Elizabeth. I coddled you against your stepmother’s good advice. But I will not let you ruin your life on a romantic whim. I swear to you, if you do not yield, you will see what’s left of that savage fed to the hounds.”

  She turned away and let the chill of the room seep into her bones. When she spoke again, it was in a strained whisper. “And if I wed Edward Lindsey, will you send Cain home to Virginia?”

  “Do you dare attempt blackmail?”

  “No, Father—not blackmail but a bargain.” A bargain penned in hell, she thought as she twisted to face him once more. “Compromise, if you will. Surely, compromise is a worthy Sommersett trait.”

  His lips thinned. “So be it.”

  She sank into a deep curtsy. “Then I am once more your obedient daughter, sire.” And a bride, she cried inwardly, whose heart lies not with her intended, but already in the grave.